I thought I’d spend a little time discussing the early history of cancer. When I was in the military, we were taught to always know your enemy. To that end, here are some fact and factoids that you may find interesting.
~ 70 million B.C. Cancer was fairly common in the hadrosaur (dinosaur) population. Mostly fibromas, hemangiomas and osteoblastomas have been discovered. Also, osteosarcoma, a common cancer found in humans among teens and young adults today. These “duck-billed” dinosaurs called hadrosaurs ate mostly plants, though it is uncertain whether they browsed or grazed. Osteochondrosis, a noncancerous developmental disease that pains many people today and often leads to arthritis was also common among these reptiles. At one point hadrosaurs were among the most dominant herbivores in Asia and North America. So, long before we had manufactured chemical waste dumped into the environment, and other synthetic carcinogens, we still had cancer in nature.
Hadrosaurs appear to have survived the K-T entinction by 700,000 years1. One might expect that the ionizing, mutagenic radiation caused by iridium following the impact of the meteor or asteroid might have caused the cancers in the hadrosaurs, but Natarajan, L. C., et al. found no increased incidence of cancer within the last generations of hadrosaurs than found in modern day vertebraes.
Computer generated 3D illustration with the prehistoric mosasaur Tylosaurus. Illustration credit: MR1805 (iStock.)
One final note: There is some evidence of osteomas in the skeletal remains of seaborn mosasaurs.2
Then there were the tank-like ankylosaurian dinosaurs with their armor. This reptile’s name is derived from “…the Greek ἀγκύλος [ankylos] — ‘curved’, ‘bent’ with the anatomical meaning ‘hard’ or ‘fused’ and σαῦρος [sauros] — ‘lizard’.”
Researchers such as Victoria Arbour and Phillip Currie have documented discoveries as follows in an Euoplocephalus bone specimen AMNH 5404. The reptile Euoplocephalus was related to the Ankylosaurus. Arbous and Currie write:
AMNH 5404 shares almost all characteristics with cancer, including expansile, coalescent lesions, no trabecular remodeling, no reactive surrounding bone, and unequal dissolution of cortical and trabecular bone. Intriguingly, only the centrum appears to be affected, which is a characteristic of tuberculosis. Unlike tuberculosis, the subjacent trabecular bone shows no evidence of ‘smoothing’. The most likely diagnosis for the unusual condition in AMNH 5404 appears to be cancer.3“
Other bony fragments in the collection such as 5337 and 5409 suggest the presence of cancer as well.
Euoplocephalus from the Cretaceous era 3D illustration credit: Warpaintcobra (iStock.)
According to Bruce M. Rothschild, DH Tanke, et al.: “The epidemiology of tumors in dinosaurs seems to reflect a familial pattern. A genetic propensity or environmental mutagens are suspected.4“. But what those environmental mutagens might have been is still a mystery.
Egyptian discoveries
~30,000 B.C. In the Smithpapyrus, there appears to be the first note of chest or breast cancer. The reference says that if the mass is cool to the touch, bulging or has spread elsewhere, then it is impossible to cure and the patient will most likely succumb to their illness. The Smith papyrus, itself, seems to be a medical reference or guide to physicians with several dozens cases of wounds, tumors, fractures or dislocations described.
A common way to present papyrus in the ancient world. Photo credit: Weiland Tiexelia (iStock.)
~15,000 B.C. Tumors are found in Egyptian and Peruvian mummies. One Egyptian mummy in particular (of a mature, male) which was subject to a CT scan revealed legions in the mummy’s spine, pelvis and extremities which would seem to suggest that the person suffered originally from prostrate cancer which had metastasized.
Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 B.C.) coins the term “Cancer” which comes from the Greek word for “crab.” He noted advanced breast cancer in a woman which showed swollen blood vessels flowing from the cancer’s central core to be tentacular in nature (like the legs of a crab.) Hippocrates, called the Father of Medicine taught “at the famed medical school in the island of Kos in the Aegean Sea, during the Age of Pericles.”
Roman physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus (25 B.C.- A.D. 50) is the first to use the term carcinoma to define tumors that cannot be healed. Apparently, he could not distinguish benign tumors from malignant tumors by examining them, nor could anyone he claimed no matter how skilled, but over time the difference became clear, and by then it was too late. Celsus also describes cauterization as a possible treatment, but warns that even if one cauterizes a malignancy, it is prone to return.
Archigenes of Apamea, Syria (A.D.75 – A.D. 129). Another Roman physician. Archigenes wrote of the need for early detection of cancer, before surgery is necessary. He knew two things: The first was that the sooner the cancer was discovered and treated, the better the prognosis for the patient. Secondly, very few people requiring cancer surgery survived the procedure.
A detail of the bronze copy of the Roman equestrian statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, located in the center of Piazza del Campidoglio (Capitol Hill Square) in the heart of Rome. Photo credit: Photo beto (iStock.)
Galen (c.A.D. 129 –c.A.D.216): Highly educated as a child and teenager. Galen had hands on experience performing autopsies. He was the Army Surgeon to Emperor Marcus Aurelius (left) and personal physician to Marcus Aurelius and his son, the infamous Commodus. While Galen made countless advances in the understanding and practice of medicine, few dealt with cancer. However, “his greatest contribution to understanding cancer was by classifying lumps and growths into three categories ranging from the most benign to the most malignant”
A.D. 476 – A.D. 590: You may recall that A.D. 476 is an important year because that was the year that Rome fell. During this period, several relatively unknown physicians produced descriptions and observations of cancer including cancers of the face, breast, uterus and genitalia. Breast cancer in women was considered to be the most common form of cancer in the Middle Ages.
Gabriele Fallopius (A.D.1523 – A.D. 1562) Gabriele Fallopius:
Is credited to having described the clinical differences between benign and malignant tumors, which is largely applicable today. He identified malignant tumors by their woody firmness, irregular shape, multi-lobulation, adhesion to neighboring tissues (skin, muscles and bones), and by congested blood vessels often surrounding the lesion. In contrast, softer masses of regular shape, movable, and not adherent to adjacent structures suggested benign tumors. Like his predecessors, he advocated a cautious approach to cancer treatment.
Noted surgeon Henri François Le Dran (A.D.1685 – A.D.1770) broke from the traditional thinking of the ancients and declared that cancer is spread from place to place through the lymphatic system, and not via the heart and liver. Jean-Louis Petit (A.D. 1674 – A.D. 1750) who lived and practiced the same time as Le Dran pronounced that the only sure cure for breast cancer (as if any cure for cancer can be a sure cure) is a total (radical) mastectomy to include the removal of the lymphatic glands in the armpits.
I think this is a good place to pause the timeline. I may come back at a later date.
Footnotes
1Natarajan, L. C., et al. “Bone Cancer Rates in Dinosaurs Compared with Modern Vertebrates.” Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science (1903-), vol. 110, no. 3/4, 2007, pp. 155–58. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20476311.
2Rothschild, Bruce M, Witzke, BJ, et al. “Metastatic Cancer in the Jurassic.” Lancet(July 31, 1999.)https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS01406736(99)010193/fulltext.
3Arbour, Victoria & Currie, Philip. (2011). “Tail and pelvis pathologies of ankylosaurian dinosaurs.” Historical Biology. 23. 375-390. 10.1080/08912963.2011.563849.
4Rothschild, Bruce M., DH Tanke, et al. “Epidemiologic Study of Tumors in Dinosaurs,” (2003) Naturwissenschaffen 90:495-500. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-003-0473-9.
