• Question: what would people years ago do to cure cancer they didn't have the same thing we have?

    Asked by cupcake94 to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 14 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Leah Fitzsimmons

      Leah Fitzsimmons answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      For as long as people have had cancer people have tried to cure it and the first recorded surgery to remove a tumour dates back to 440BC, when a princess in Persia asked one of her slaves to remove a lump that she had found from her breast. Even more amazingly she made a full recovery from the surgery, although her cancer probably came back eventually as we now know that surgery doesn’t usually cure cancer by itself.

      Drugs first started to be used to treat children with leukaemia in the 1940’s, but they were very toxic and didn’t work on everybody. Radiotherapy has also been used for a long time with scientists first using it to treat cancer patients over 100 years ago!

      The reason people live much longer now is mostly because we understand much more about how to use treatments – what to give, to who and when, as well as developing new drugs that are more specific so that they have fewer and less unpleasant side effects.

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      Xrays came into use to treat cancer from the end of the 1800s, which lead nicely into Marie curies work with radiotherapy. Radiotherapy departments need a massive particle accelerator to give patients treatment! chemotherapy treatments came later in the 1940 (well the first attempts at this treatment). Before chemo and radio therapies there was only surgery! Surgery is alot more advanced now that it was over 100 years ago! blood letting with leeches was also used to treat most disease including cancer.

    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      The others are right, even before we knew it as cancer people were finding tumours and cutting them out.
      In the 70’s people believed in talking therapy. This is because they thought cancer was caused by repressing bad emotions. Talking therapy doesn’t work to cure or prevent cancer but counseling or support groups are available to patients and their families as this can help someone with the disease cope with the stress and anxiety it causes.

Comments