The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (92 page)

26
In the early 1950s, Fanny Rosenow:
Jimmie C. Holland and Sheldon Lewis,
The Human Side of Cancer
(New York: Harper Collins, 2001).

26
In 1946–47, Neely and Senator Claude Pepper:
See House Foreign Affairs Committee, House Report 2565, 79th Cong., 2nd sess. Also see Report 1743 to the 79th Cong., 2nd sess., July 18, 1946; “Could a ‘Manhattan Project’ Conquer Cancer?”
Washington Post
, August 4, 1946.

27
“Leukemia,” as one physician put it:
J. V. Pickstone, “Contested Cumulations: Configurations of Cancer Treatments through the Twentieth Century,”
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
81, no. 1 (2007): 164–96.

27
If leukemia “belonged” anywhere:
Grant Taylor,
Pioneers in Pediatric Oncology
(Houston: University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1990).

28
half a pound of chicken liver:
George Washington Corner,
George Hoyt Whipple and His Friends: The Life-Story of a Nobel Prize Pathologist
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1963), 187.

28
regurgitated gastric juices:
Taylor,
Pioneers in Pediatric Oncology
, 29; George R.
Minot, “Nobel Lecture: The Development of Liver Therapy in Pernicious Anemia,”
Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine, 1922–1941
(Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishing Company, 1965).

28
spiced up with butter, lemon, and parsley:
Francis Minot Rackemann,
The Inquisitive Physician: The Life and Times of George Richards Minot
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), 151.

28
Minot and his team of researchers:
George R. Minot and William P. Murphy, “Treatment of Pernicious Anemia by a Special Diet,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
, 87 (7): 470–76.

28
conclusively demonstrated in 1926:
Minot, “Nobel Lecture.”

28
In 1934, Minot and two of his colleagues:
Ibid.

28
in the cloth mills of Bombay:
Lucy Wills, “A Biographical Sketch,”
Journal of Nutrition
108 (1978), 1379–83.

28
In 1928, a young English physician named Lucy Willis:
H. Bastian, “Lucy Wills (1888–1964): The Life and Research of an Adventurous Independent Woman,”
Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
38:89–91.

28
Wills factor:
Janet Watson and William B. Castle, “Nutritional Macrocytic Anemia, Especially in Pregnancy: Response to a Substance in Liver Other Than That Effective in Pernicious Anemia,”
American Journal of the Medical Sciences
211, no. 5 (1946): 513–30; Lucy Wills, “Treatment of ‘Pernicious Anaemia’ of Pregnancy and ‘Tropical Anaemia,’ with Special Reference to Yeast Extract as a Curative Agent,”
British Medical Journal
1, no. 3676 (1931): 1059–64.

29
He called this phenomenon acceleration:
Sidney Farber et al., “The Action of Pteroylglutamic Conjugates on Man,”
Science
106, no. 2764 (1947): 619–21. Also see Mills et al., “Observations on Acute Leukemia in Children Treated with 4-Aminopteroylglutamic Acid,”
Pediatrics
5, no. 1 (1950): 52–56.

30
In his long walks from his laboratory:
Thomas Farber, interview with author, November 2007.

30
He had arrived in Boston in 1923:
S. P. Gupta, “An Indian Scientist in America: The Story of Dr. Yellapragada Subbarao,”
Bulletin of the Institute of Medicine
(Hyderabad), 6, no. 2 (1976): 128–43.

31
In the 1920s, another drug company:
Corner,
George Hoyt Whipple
, 188.

31
But in 1946, after many failed attempts:
Gupta, “Indian Scientist in America.”

Farber’s Gauntlet

32
Throughout the centuries:
William Seaman Bainbridge,
The Cancer Problem
(New York: Macmillan Company, 1914), 2.

32
The search for a way to eradicate this scourge:
“Cancer Ignored,”
Washington Post
, August 5, 1946.

33
Robert Sandler:
Biographical details were taken from an article in the
Boston Herald
, April 9, 1948, referred to in S. P. Gupta, “An Indian Scientist in America: The Story of Dr. Yellapragada Subbarao,”
Bulletin of the Institute of Medicine
(Hyderabad), 6, no. 2 (1976): 128–43; and S. P. Gupta, interview with author, January 2006. Sandler’s address in Dorchester and his father’s profession are from the Boston directory for 1946, obtained from the Boston Public Library. Sandler’s case (R.S.) is described in detail in Sidney Farber’s paper below.

33
Farber’s treatment of Robert Sandler: Sidney Farber, “Temporary Remissions in Acute Leukemia in Children Produced by Folic Acid Antagonist, 4-Aminopteroyl-Glutamic Acid (Aminopterin),”
New England Journal of Medicine
238 (1948): 787–93.

34
The hospital staff voted:
Robert Cooke,
Dr. Folkman’s War: Angiogenesis and the Struggle to Defeat Cancer
(New York: Random House, 2001), 113.

34
“tucked in the farthest recesses”:
Joseph E. Murray,
Surgery of the Soul: Reflections on a Curious Career
(Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2001), 127.

34
“let them die in peace”:
Robert D. Mercer, “The Team,” in “Chronicle,”
Medical and Pediatric Oncology
33 (1999): 405–10.

34
“By that time, the only chemical”:
Thomas Farber, interview with author.

35
His small staff was housed:
Taylor,
Pioneers in Pediatric Oncology
, 88.

35
Farber’s assistants sharpened their own:
Mercer, “The Team.”

35
Two boys treated with aminopterin:
Farber, “Temporary Remissions in Acute Leukemia,” 787–93.

35
Another child, a two-and-a-half-year-old:
Ibid.

35
By April 1948, there was just enough data:
Ibid

36
“with skepticism, disbelief, and outrage”:
Denis R. Miller, “A Tribute to Sidney Farber—the Father of Modern Chemotherapy,”
British Journal of Haematology
134 (2006): 20–26.

36
“The bone marrow looked so normal”:
Mercer, “The Team.”

A Private Plague

37
We reveal ourselves:
Stephen Jay Gould,
Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996), 7.

37
Thus, for 3,000 years and more:
“Cancer: The Great Darkness,”
Fortune
, May 1937.

37
Now it is cancer’s turn:
Susan Sontag,
Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
(New York: Picador, 1990), 5.

38
John Keats involuting silently:
“John Keats,”
Annals of Medical History
2, no. 5 (1930): 530.

38
“Death and disease are often beautiful”:
Sontag,
Illness as Metaphor
, 20.

38
“in every possible sense, a nonconformist”:
Sherwin Nuland,
How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter
(New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 202.

39
Edwin Smith papyrus: James Henry Breasted,
The Edwin Smith Papyrus:
Some Preliminary Observations (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, Edward Champion, 1922); also available online at http://www.touregypt.net/edwinsmithsurgical.htm (accessed November 8, 2009).

40
Imhotep case forty-five: Breasted,
Edwin Smith Papyrus.
Also see F. S. Boulos. “Oncology in Egyptian Papyri,” in
Paleo-oncology: The Antiquity of Cancer
, 5th ed., ed. Spyros Retsas (London: Farrand Press, 1986), 36; and Edward Lewison,
Breast Cancer and Its Diagnosis and Treatment
(Baltimore: Williams and Walkins, 1955), 3.

41
A furious febrile plague:
Siro I. Trevisanato, “Did an Epidemic of Tularemia in Ancient Egypt Affect the Course of World History?” Medical Hypotheses 63, no. 5 (2004): 905–10.

41
leaving its telltale pockmarks:
Sergio Donadoni, ed.,
The Egyptians
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 292.

41
Tuberculosis rose and ebbed:
Reddy D. V. Subba, “Tuberculosis in Ancient India,”
Bulletin of the Institute of Medicine
(Hyderabad) 2 (1972): 156–61.

41
In his sprawling
Histories: Herodotus,
The Histories
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pt. VIII.

43
At the Chiribaya site:
Arthur Aufderheide,
The Scientific Study of Mummies
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 117; Arthur Aufderheide, interview with author, March 2009. Also see
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Paleopathology
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 300

43
In 1914, a team:
J. L. Miller, “Some Diseases of Ancient Man,”
Annals of Medical History
1 (1929): 394–402.

43
Louis Leakey, the archaeologist:
Mel Greaves,
Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

44
“The early history of cancer”:
Aufderheide, interview with author, 2009.

44
A leprosy-like illness:
Boris S. Ostrer, “Leprosy: Medical Views of Leviticus Rabba,”
Early Science and Medicine
7, no. 2 (2002): 138–54.

44
The risk of breast cancer:
See, for instance, “Risk Factors You Can’t Control,” Breastcancer.org, www.breastcancer.org/risk/everyone/cant_control.jsp (accessed January 4, 2010). Also see Report No. 1743, International Cancer Research Act, 79th Cong., 2nd Sess.; and “U.S. Science Wars against an Unknown Enemy: Cancer,”
Life
, March 1, 1937.

45
“captain of the men of death”:
William Osler and Thomas McCrae,
The Principles and Practice of Medicine: Designed for the Use of Practitioners and Students of Medicine
, 9th ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1921), 156.

45
Cancer still lagged:
Report No. 1743, International Cancer Research Act.

45
By the early 1940s, cancer:
Life
, March 1, 1937, 11.

45
life expectancy among Americans:
Shrestha et al., “Life Expectancy in the United States,” CRS Report for Congress, 2006. Also see Lewison,
Breast Cancer.

Onkos

46
Black bile without boiling:
Jeremiah Reedy, “Galen on Cancer and Related Diseases,”
Clio Medica
10, no. 3 (1975): 227.

46
We have learned nothing:
Francis Carter Wood, “Surgery Is Sole Cure for Bad Varieties of Cancer,”
New York Times
, April 19, 1914.

46
It’s bad bile:
Mel Greaves,
Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 5.

46
In some ways disease:
Charles E. Rosenberg, “Disease in History: Frames and Framers,”
Milbank Quarterly
67 (1989) (suppl. 1,
Framing Disease: The Creation and Negotiation of Explanatory Schemes
): 1–2.

47
Later writers, both doctors and patients:
See, for instance, Henry E. Sigerist, “The Historical Development of the Pathology and Therapy of Cancer,”
Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
8, no. 11 (1932): 642–53; James A. Tobey,
Cancer: What Everyone Should Know about It
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932).

48
“Of blacke cholor”:
Claudius Galen,
Methodus Medendi, with a Brief Declaration of the Worthie Art of Medicine, the Office of a Chirgion, and an Epitome of the Third Booke of Galen, of Naturall Faculties
, trans. T. Gale (London: Thomas East, 1586), 180–82.

49
“best left untreated”:
Emile Littré’s translation of the Hippocratic oath,
Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate
, bk. VI, aphorism 38. Von Boenninghausen,
Homeopathic Recorder
, vol. 58, nos. 10, 11, 12 (1943). Also see http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/aphorisms.6.vi.html and http://julianwinston.com/archives/periodicals/vb_aphorisms6.php.

49
“Do not be led away and offer”:
George Parker,
The Early History of Surgery in Great Britain
:
Its Organization and Development
(London: Black, 1920), 44.

49
“Those who pretend”:
Joseph-François Malgaigne,
Surgery and Ambroise Paré
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 73.

49
Ambroise Paré described charring tumors:
See, for instance, “The History of Hemostasis,”
Annals of Medical History
1 (1): 137; Malgaigne,
Surgery and Ambroise Paré
, 73, 181.

49
“Many females can stand the operation”:
See Lorenz Heister, “Van de Kanker der boorsten,” in H. T. Ulhoorn, ed.,
Heelkundige onderwijzingen
(Amsterdam, 1718), 2: 845–856; also quoted in James S. Olson,
Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer, and History
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 50.

50
The apothecary:
See, for instance, William Seaman Bainbridge,
The Cancer Problem
(New York: Macmillan Company, 1914).

Vanishing Humors

51
Rack’t carcasses:
John Donne, “Love’s Exchange,”
Poems of John Donne
, vol. 1, ed. E. K. Chambers (London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896), 35–36.

51
“Aside from the eight muscles”:
Andreas Vesalius,
The Fabric of the Human Body
[
De Fabrica Humani Corporis
], trans. W. P. Hotchkiss, preface. See
Sourcebook of Medical History
(Mineola, NY: Dover, 1960), 134; and
The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels
(Mineola, NY: Dover, 1950), 11–13.