The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (93 page)

51
He needed his own specimens:
Charles Donald O’Malley,
Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514–1564
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964).

52
“In the course of explaining the opinion”:
“Andreas Vesalius of Brussels Sends Greetings to His Master and Patron, the Most Eminent and Illustrious Doctor Narcissus Parthenopeus, First Physician to His Imperial Majesty,”
The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels
, with annotations and translations by J. B. de C. M. Saunders and Charles D. O’Malley (Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Company, 1950), 233.

53
“as large as an orange”:
Matthew Baillie,
The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body
, 2nd American ed. (Walpole, NH: 1808), 54.

53
“a fungous appearance”:
Ibid., 93.

53
“a foul deep ulcer”:
Ibid., 209.

“Remote sympathy”

55
In treating of cancer:
Samuel Cooper,
A Dictionary of Practical Surgery
vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1836), 49.

55
“If a tumor is not only movable”:
John Hunter,
Lectures on the Principles of Surgery
(Philadelphia: Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell, 1839).

56
“I did not experience pain”:
See a history of ether at http://www.anesthesia-nursing.com/ether.html (accessed January 5, 2010).

56
“It must be some subtle principle”:
M. Percy, “On the Dangers of Dissection,”
New Journal of Medicine and Surgery, and Collateral Branches of Science
8, no. 2 (1819): 192–96.

57
It “occurred to me”:
Joseph Lister, “On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery,”
British Medical Journal
2, no. 351 (1867): 246.

57
In August 1867, a thirteen-year-old:
Ibid., 247.

58
In 1869, Lister removed a breast tumor:
James S. Olson,
Bathsheba’s Breast
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 67.

58
Lister performed an extensive amputation:
Edward Lewison,
Breast Cancer and Its Diagnosis and Treatment
(Baltimore: Williams and Walkins, 1955), 17.

58
“The course so far is already”:
Harold Ellis,
A History of Surgery
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 104.

59
Billroth’s gastrectomy: See Theodor Billroth, Offenes schreiben an Herrn Dr. L. Wittelshöfer, Wien Med Wschr (1881), 31: 161–65; also see Owen Wangensteen and Sarah Wangensteen,
The
Rise of Surgery
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978), 149.

59
Surgeons returned to the operating table:
Owen Pritchard, “Notes and Remarks on Upwards of Forty Operations for Cancer with Escharotics,”
Lancet
136, no. 3504 (1890): 864.

A Radical Idea

60
The professor who blesses the occasion:
Mary Lou McCarthy McDonough,
Poet Physicians: An Anthology of Medical Poetry Written by Physicians
(Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1945).

60
It is over:
John Brown,
Rab and His Friends
(Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1885), 20.

60
William Stewart Halsted:
W. G. MacCallum,
William Stewart Halsted, Surgeon
(Kessinger Publishing, 2008), 106. Also see Michael Osborne, “William Stewart Halsted: His Life and Contributions to Surgery”; and S. J. Crowe,
Halsted of Johns Hopkins: The Man and His Men
(Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas).

61
“I opened a large orifice”:
W. H. Witt, “The Progress of Internal Medicine since 1830,” in
The Centennial History of the Tennessee State Medical Association, 1830–1930
, ed. Philip M. Hammer (Nashville: Tennessee State Medical Association, 1930), 265.

61
“Small bleedings give temporary relief”:
Walter Hayle Walshe,
A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Lungs including the Principles of Physical Diagnosis
, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1860), 416.

61
“pus-pails”:
Lois N. Magner,
A History of Medicine
(New York: Marcel Dekker, 1992), 296.

62
In October 1877, leaving behind:
MacCallum,
William Stewart Halsted
. Also see D. W. Cathell,
The Physician Himself
(1905), 2.

62
merely an “audacious step” away:
Karel B. Absolon,
The Surgeon’s Surgeon: Theodor Billroth: 1829–1894
, (Kansas: Coronado Press, 1979).

62
In 1882, he removed an infected gallbladder:
John L. Cameron, “William Stewart Halsted: Our Surgical Heritage,”
Annals of Surgery
225, no. 5 (1996): 445–58.

63
“clearer and clearer, with no sense of fatigue”:
Donald Fleming,
William H. Welch and the Rise of Modern Medicine
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).

63
“cold as stone and most unlivable
”: Harvey Cushing, letter to his mother, 1898, Harvey Cushing papers at Yale University.

64
“Mammary cancer requires”:
Charles H. Moore, “On the Influence of Inadequate Operations on the Theory of Cancer,”
Medico-Chirurgical Transactions
50, no. 245 (1867): 277.

64
“mistaken kindness”:
Edward Lewison.
Breast Cancer and Its Diagnosis and Treatment
(Baltimore: Williams and Walkins, 1955), 16.

65
“We clean out or strip”:
William S. Halsted, “A Clinical and Histological Study of Certain Adenocarcinomata of the Breast: And a Brief Consideration of the Supraclavicular Operation and of the Results of Operations for Cancer of the Breast from 1889 to 1898 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital,”
Annals of Surgery
28: 557–76.

65
At Hopkins, Halsted’s diligent students:
W. M. Barclay, “Progress of the Medical Sciences: Surgery,”
Bristol Medical-Chirurgical Journal
17, no. 1 (1899): 334–36.

65
“
It is likely
”: Halsted, “Clinical and Histological Study.”

65
In Europe, one surgeon evacuated three ribs:
See Westerman, “Thoraxexcisie bij recidief can carcinoma mammae,”
Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd
(1910): 1686.

65
“surgical elephantiasis,” “Good use of arm,” “Married, Four Children”:
from William Stewart Halsted,
Surgical Papers
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1924), 2:17, 22, 24.

66
“performance of an artist”:
Matas, “William Stewart Halsted, an appreciation,”
Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital
36, no. 2 (1925).

66
“I find myself inclined”:
Halsted, “Clinical and Histological Study of Certain Adenocarcinomata of the Breast,”
Annals of Surgery
28: 560.

67
“cancer storehouse”:
Ibid., 557.

67
On April 19, 1898:
Ibid., 557–76.

68
A surgeon should “operate on the neck”:
Ibid., 572.

68
Halsted’s 1907 report to the American Surgical Association: William Stewart Halsted, “The Results of Radical Operations for the Cure of Carcinoma of the Breast,”
Annals of Surgery
46, no. 1 (1907): 1–19.

68
“If the disease was so advanced”:
“A Vote for Partial Mastectomy: Radical Surgery Is Not the Best Treatment for Breast Cancer, He Says,”
Chicago Tribune
, October 2, 1973.

68
“But even without the proof”:
Halsted, “Results of Radical Operations,” 7. Also see Halsted, “The Results of Radical Operations for the Cure of Cancer of the Breast,”
Transactions of the American Surgical Association
25: 66.

68
“It is especially true of mammary cancer”:
Ibid., 61.

70
“With no protest from any other quarter”:
Ellen Leopold,
A Darker Ribbon: Breast Cancer, Women, and Their Doctors in the Twentieth Century
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), 88.

70
“Undoubtedly, if operated upon properly”:
Transactions of the American Surgical Association
49.

70
“the more radical the better”:
“Breast Cancer, New Choices,”
Washington Post
, December 22, 1974.

70
Alexander Brunschwig devised an operation:
Alexander Brunschwig and Virginia K. Pierce, “Partial and Complete Pelvic Exenteration: A Progress Report Based upon the First 100 Operations,”
Cancer
3 (1950): 927–74; Alexander Brunschwig, “Complete
Excision of Pelvic Viscera for Advanced Carcinoma: A One-Stage Abdominoperineal Operation with End Colostomy and Bilateral Ureteral Implantation into the Colon above the Colostomy,”
Cancer
1 (1948): 177–83.

70
Pack the Knife:
From George T. Pack’s papers, quoted in Barron Lerner,
The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century
America
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 73.

70
“Even in its widest sense”:
Stanford Cade,
Radium Treatment of Cancer
(New York: William Wood, 1929), 1.

70
“There is an old Arabian proverb”:
Urban Maes, “The Tragedy of Gastric Carcinoma: A Study of 200 Surgical Cases,”
Annals of Surgery
98, no. 4 (1933): 629.

71
“I know you didn’t know anything”:
Hugh H. Young,
Hugh Young: A Surgeon’s Autobiography
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940), 76.

71
In 1904, with Halsted as his assistant:
Bertram M. Bernheim,
The Story of the Johns Hopkins
(Surrey: World’s Work, 1949); A. McGehee Harvey et al.,
A Model of Its Kind
, vol. 1,
A Centennial History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989); Leonard Murphy,
The History of Urology
(Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1972), 132.

71
“the slow separation of brain from tumor”:
Harvey Cushing, “Original Memoirs: The Control of Bleeding in Operations for Brain Tumors. With the Description of Silver ‘Clips’ for the Occlusion of Vessels Inaccessible to the Ligature,”
Annals of Surgery
49, no. 1 (1911): 14–15.

72
In 1933, at the Barnes hospital:
Evarts G. Graham, “The First Total Pneumonectomy,”
Texas Cancer Bulletin
2 (1949): 2–4.

72
A surgical procedure:
Alton Ochsner and M. DeBakey, “Primary Pulmonary Malignancy: Treatment by Total Pneumonectomy—Analysis of 79 Collected Cases and Presentation of 7 Personal Cases,”
Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics
68 (1939): 435–51.

The Hard Tube and the Weak Light

73
We have found in [X-rays]:
“X-ray in Cancer Cure,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 6, 1902.

73
By way of illustration:
“Last Judgment,”
Washington Post
, August 26, 1945.

73
Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays: Wilhelm C. Röntgen, “On a New Kind of Rays,”
Nature
53, no. 1369 (1896): 274–76; John Maddox, “The Sensational Discovery of X-rays,”
Nature
375 (1995): 183.

75
One man who gave “magical” demonstrations:
Robert William Reid,
Marie Curie
(New York: Collins, 1974), 122.

75
In 1896, barely a year after Röntgen:
Emil H. Grubbe, “Priority in Therapeutic Use of X-rays,”
Radiology
21 (1933): 156–62; Emil H. Grubbe,
X-ray Treatment: Its Origin, Birth and Early History
(St. Paul: Bruce Publishing, 1949).

76
“I believe this treatment is an absolute cure”:
“X-rays Used as a Remedy for Cancer,”
New York Times
, November 2, 1901.

76
advertised for sale to laypeople:
“Mining: Surplus of Radium,”
Time
, May 24, 1943.

76
“millions of tiny bullets of energy”:
Oscar Carl Simonton, Stephanie Simonton, and James Creighton,
Getting Well Again: A Step-by-Step, Self-Help Guide to Overcoming Cancer for Patients and Their Families
(Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1978), 7.

76
“The patient is put on a stretcher”:
“Medicine: Advancing Radiotherapy,”
Time
, October 6, 1961.

77
One woman with a brain tumor:
“Atomic Medicine: The Great Search for Cures on the New Frontier,”
Time
, April 7, 1952.

77
Undark and the “Radium girls”: Claudia Clark,
Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910–1935
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Ross Mullner,
Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy
(Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 1999).

78
Marie Curie died of leukemia:
Curie’s disease was diagnosed as “aplastic anemia” of rapid, feverish development, but is widely considered to have been a variant of myelodysplasia, a preleukemic syndrome that resembles aplastic anemia and progresses to a fatal leukemia.

78
Grubbe’s fingers had been amputated:
Otha Linton, “Radiation Dangers,”
Academic Radiology
13, no. 3 (2006): 404.

78
Willy Meyer’s posthumous address: Willy Meyer, “Inoperable and Malignant Tumors,”
Annals of Surgery
96, no. 5 (1932): 891–92.

Dyeing and Dying

80
Those who have not been trained in chemistry:
Michael B. Shimkin, “As Memory Serves—an Informal History of the National Cancer Institute, 1937–57,”
Journal of the National Cancer Institute
59 (suppl. 2) (1977): 559–600.