The Cancer Problem

For all the sophistication and diversity of historical accounts of cancer, most accept that the disease is in some ways a fundamentally modern illness, a disease of civilization, and equally that the history of its cures is one of modern biomedical discoveries. While a handful of accounts have traced its history earlier in time, this assumption has been remarkably enduring. Indeed, many historical accounts assume that fear of cancer as an incurable disease made its widespread discussion generally taboo. This was not the case. In The Cancer Problem, Agnes Arnold-Forster reconstructs the rich discourse surrounding cancer’s cures and causes in nineteenth-century Britain — demonstrating how cancer became modern. Cancer’s incurability confounds a standard narrative of comprehension to cure. Aware of this tension, Arnold-Forster divides her book in two: the first part focuses on the treatment of cancer, while the second part follows the proliferation of speculation regarding cancer’s causes later in the nineteenth century. This structure underlines how the recalcitrance of cancer was not inhibitory but rather catalytic for the medical profession’s development (p. 123-124).

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