Historical Theories And Misconception Of Cancer

C. If a patient does have cancer and it is detected in the early stages there is a greater chance of recovery.

a unifying narrative. It is not possible to consider the stories of every variant of cancer, but I have attempted to highlight the large themes that run

Hippocrates argued that when these four fluids were out of balance disease occurred. The ideal place for a good balance of humours was (naturally) found in the centre of Greek culture, namely in the Aegean and in and around Athens. The components were each linked to a different season, these physicians believed that some diseases were more common in different seasons e.g. fevers were common in Summer/Fire.

Cancer, Is a disease that has claimed the lives of millions. This disease has no known cure at this time, this disease as many forms, breast cancer, ovarian cancer and even lung cancer. Cancer can be caused from someone’s diets,smoking, or other disease they could have like certain sexual transmitted disease. People’s health habits and how they take care of their self could determine if they would end up with cancer, and the discovering of Henrietta Lacks cancer relating to a disease changed the way cancer was viewed.

From surgery to radium exposure to such extremes as radiation therapy, as doctors’ knowledge of the varying types of cancer, and the expansion of medical research regarding cancer has changed, so has the preferred method of treatment. Doctors and researchers dedicated to studying cancer have led to a greater understanding of cancer development; consequently the development of treatments and cures that are more effective, less harmful, have fewer side effects, and in some cases serve to prevent the spread of cancer.

Medicine in the Early Colonies - Reason for high death rates; relied on physicians and midwives relying on 2nd century Galen's "humoralism theory" (black bile yellow bile phlegm blood) which must be equal; bleeding (done by physicians) expulsion purging; evidence of lack of scientific method

The humoral view of the body and the progress it aided in medicine was greatly owed to Hippocrates and Galen. Although Galen agreed with many aspects of Hippocratic medicine, there were several more aspects that Galen practiced and believed that were different. Being that Galen used Hippocratic works as the foundation of his practice of medicine, there should be some similarities towards Hippocrates and Galen’s approaches towards humoralism. These similarities were, influences on a person’s health, preventative healthcare, and factors affecting diagnosis. Using these concepts provided by Hippocrates, Galen then builds on these with his own concepts and beliefs.

Doctors based most anatomical descriptions on the work of Galen and Hippocrates, as cutting into and exploring a dead body was strictly prohibited by the Catholic church. Doctors estimated that perhaps the health of a person relied on their sleep, exercise, diet, air intake and emotions, as well as the position of the stars. Unfortunately for peasants, doctors were hard to find. Most medical advice for the lower classes came from the elders with folk traditions. Alternatively, the towns people would turn to the local church and pray the illness away. The spread of disease was sped up by the lack of knowledge of germs, meaning going to the church to pray away the disease made the spread of it much more serious.

For this period any understanding of bacteria was astoundingly advanced. The knowledge of Ancient Egyptians began to pave the way to other developing societies and where we stand today. Their achievements of human body and ailments even made the greeks envious and they soon began taking egyptian knowledge into their own hands. The Greeks like the egyptians were very serious about their religious practices. Priest in ancient greece were trained in simple surgery and herbal remedies. Ancient philosopher named Hippocrates discovered an idea that was quite radical at that time. Built on the idea that the egyptians started, he predicted that perhaps illness may not only be caused by the gods but also for natural reasons. Hippocrates titles this the theory of the four humors which focused on the body consisting of four liquids; blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm. If these four humor were in balance you were healthy and if they were out of balance you were sick and needed to be treated accordingly. The idea of the gods not being the reason for everything was revolutionary in the fact that now societies could be examining topics in a more scientific

Anatomy is to physiology, as geography is to history; it describes the theatre of events. Medical culture that emphasized the study of anatomy through human vivisection peaked in Alexandria in the 3rd century BC, with Herophilus and Erasistratus- the two primary anatomists of the 3rd century- spearheading this movement. Alexandria was the ideal place to study anatomy and physiology during the Hellenistic period since the research was not tied down by civil laws, taboos, or moralism that prevailed on the Greek mainland. Although the practice of human vivisection was decreed by the priesthood throughout the rest of Egypt and Athens, it was not so in this well-insulated center of learning.

The word “cancer” first appeared in medical literature in 400BC during the time of Hippocrates as “karkinos”. Cancer was compared to a crab, which was denoted by its hardened back, its painful sting and its mobility. Another Greek word described cancer as “onkos” which represented the load born by cancer patients which is

Regardless, such a difference in culture, is on of the issues with retrospective diagnosis according to K.-H. Leven. As Leven states, “This assumption about primary perception of disease is mere fiction, because all ways of an individual to express his notions are influenced by his cultural setting and his education, including medical knowledge” (Leven 374). Thucydides’ description of symptoms during the Athenian plague, are restricted to his, and the infected individuals medical knowledge. Perhaps the lack of medical knowledge, is why Thucydides choose to focus more on morality towards the end of his account of the plague, as he, along with the infected individuals had limited medical knowledge to further describe, or diagnose the disease. Others have questioned how reliable of a

Yet they performed them in other ways from each other. The specific example is about surgery. In Ancient China, surgery has been a great rarity, although it has been practiced in Western societies for thousands of years. The reluctant of surgery is attributed in the views of harmony and relationship. The balance of forces in the body is what leads someone to be healthy. Also that the bodies internal organs are all related to one another. For example, the surface of the ears and internal organs are related to each other. So the Chinese cured by “Acupuncture”. Which is a system of complementary medicine that involves pricking the skin or tissues with needles in which is to alleviate pain and to treat various medical conditions. It is not understandable for Chinese that to cure a disease one must fix or remove the part that is malfunctioning in the body, to be beneficial. It is too simply for them. Ancient China ultimately thought that in order to be cured from disease you must have a high spiritual complex. Yin and yang for instance. As for the Greeks, they were very experimental. Yes, they had their ideology of imbalance and maintaining the four humors. Except they found a different way to maintain that balance. Surgery. Essentially, if a Greek doctor notice’s a patient’s humor out of balance, meaning not in equal to the other humors they would easily make a puncture on their arm and drain

Hippocrates of Cos, a physician in ancient Greece, is considered to be the father of medicine due to his many contributions to the field in his life. Through research and different experiments he was able to conclude many different principles, including on of the most important: the four humors. By observing reactions to different illnesses, sometimes leading the patient to die, he was able to develop the theory. His theory of the four humors was that the human body was filled with four basic substances, or humors, that when in balance indicate the person is healthy. If there was too little or too much of one of the four, a disease or disability would result. The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. Before the humors were introduced, many people believed that the source of illness was punishment from the Gods. It wasn’t until after Hippocrates’ introduction to medicine that the field stepped away from religion and into science.

(Hippocrates, Hippocratic writings). The central historical figure in Greek medicine is Hippocrates "FATHER OF MEDICINE". He provided an example of the ideal physician after which others centuries after him patterned their existence. He was associated with the Asclepium of Cos, an island off the coast of Asia Minor, near Rhodes and with a group of medical treaties know collectively as the Hippocratic Corpus. The Corpus grounded on the four elements: