We covered alot of ground in our phone conversation last night Beth and I and so I wanted to explore further a theme about cancer I brought up and it's this: just how old is cancer? when did it first appear on the scene? when exactly did people start dying from it? Even as a kid there is something about the cancer problem that has always struck me, something unusual, we act like it's an old disease, ancient in fact but is it? I've read alot in my life, reading lists we had in high school and then just for the pure enjoyment of it later on and I said I don't even remember cancer being a topic of conversation let alone people dying from it during the Middle Ages, in the colonial period, even during the Abe Lincoln era. Did Shakespeare ever remark "the Queen just died from cancer?" So we mulled this over and Beth said maybe cancer existed back then but people didn't know what it was but I lean more towards it didn't really exist until modern times and by modern times I mean at least the framework of the 1900's. I'm now looking at cancer historically, in the context of History. It's the timeline that interests me the most and as we all know that Nazi doctor Dr. Josef Mengele became infamous for conducting medical experiments on human subjects including dwarves but what kind of experiments were they exactly? specifically what was he looking to do and what kind of work was he really doing for the Hitler regime and why? Does cancer disproportionately affect people of certain races? Does cancer have something to do with the explosion of modern technology and were we all better off in the days when we lived a more natural life as Beth seems to feel?
You know one of the most beautiful things about blogging is you get to exercise total creative control over your work, I'm happy with it and if you don't like it just move on and so what I try to do here is to come up with an Original Thought or two every now and then. Just heard on the news this morning that Obama has appointed some type of Cyber Czar to monitor people's online habits so where are all the liberals on this one? Frightening! but at any rate they're more than welcome to read this.
I don't have all the answers, I only pose the questions. BTW my sitemeter crashed the other day, it's apparently broken like some odometer that goes back to zero so pay no attention. I'll be off tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday of course since that's the schedule of most public libraries in my area around this 4th of July weekend. Make it a safe one and enjoy and see you back on Monday.
This link is from the American Cancer Society (sorry, I don't know how to create hyperlinks in comments so you'll have to copy this and paste in your browser):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_6x_the_history_of_cancer_72.asp
I started to read it and will read the rest later, but it confirmed my thought that it has been around for centuries.
Well forget that, the whole web address did not post above, so I will have to e-mail you the link Z.
ReplyDeleteWould guess that cancer was endemic, even among cavemen: being
ReplyDeleteone of those individual immune problems. It is known to occur among many mammals and even some reptiles. Perhaps Beth's link mentions the first records of the Egyptians in 1500 BC, the heiroglyphics describing both benign and malignant tumors as well as the coining of the term by Hippocrates. There is current medical interest in primates, with which we share a high percentage of chromasomes..yet their incidence of cancer is much lower.
Thought to be related to the natural cell progressions known as apoptosis. It is likely that cancer, though extant to some extent throughout our history, is not mentioned much because of the many communicable diseases which plagued humans once they started living in urban settings. For centuries, life expectancy for kids was poor, due mostly to bacterial and viral diseases. Now that those have been reasonably controlled, cancer has become more noticeable.
I've read alot during my young life and honestly don't recall cancer being a hot topic of conversations in the literature of yore so I'm holding my point but let me get back to your comments as it was a LONG weekend w/o computer use, I've had a Palin itch for 3 days.
ReplyDeleteWasn't there any 4th of July sales on laptops so you could ditch the library computers??
ReplyDeleteYou told me they're more expensive and we ARE in the middle of a recession.
ReplyDeleteTo get back to my main point I would submit that while cancer may have always existed in some form in my mind it's more associated with the modern age. There is nothing normal about cancer if you can consider any disease normal but if we still go about saying nonessential things cause cancer (drinking soda, brushing your teeth, two exaggerated examples just to push my point) we really don't understand the disease very much do we?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you had a chance to read the article I sent you about the research on what happens to cells to become cancerous, but I still don't think they know what triggers those cells to have the imbalanced reactors in the first place. That would be helpful to know!
ReplyDeleteEspecially after studying this disease in depth for practically four decades now. Did read the link but for all the people who get cancer there are many who don't. I'm about to say this with crossed fingers now with the utmost caution but cancer doesn't really run in my family at all and I don't just mean my immediate family. OK there's one uncle but it's like it's hardly an issue in my family tree it seems but that's more than replaced by other stuff I guess.
ReplyDeletefor all the people who get cancer there are many who don't.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good thought, an optimistic one, too (glass half full kind of thinking), it's just when watching cancer hurting someone you care about, it's just terrible and makes you wonder why.
& I also wonder WHY after four decades of the War on Cancer we're no closer to a cure.
ReplyDeleteA friend of my parents had a 29 yr old neice die today from cancer. They couldn't find the source of it, so the insurance company refused to pay for treatment, WTF is up with that logic? Apparently she was trying something experimental. Yup, still fighting the same damn War on Cancer, and the SOB cancer seems to be winning.
ReplyDeleteYou see and I think soapie would agree when you're a full-grown adult IT'S YOUR LIFE DAMMIT and you should be able to choose which treatment is right for you even if it is wrong or outside the mainstream. Not a few people have told me the cancer industry should be investigated. I would tend to agree in this sense, after FOUR DECADES we should have more progress to show and as for those damn insurance companies there's alot of health-care rationing going on these days. Oh well they'll have to meet their Maker someday and I wouldn't want to be them but the larger issue is what is the Great One going to do about it?
ReplyDelete