Percivall Pott, chimney sweeps and cancer

Cancer can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians. Some mummies, for instance, show evidence of bone tumours, and the Edwin Smith papyrus of 1600BC describes eight 'ulcers' (cancers) of the breast. The writer recommends cauterisation, with little hope of cure and no understanding of why the ulcers occurred.¹  In general, the ancient Egyptians blamed 'hostile powers' for illnesses they could not readily explain. Later, the Greek physician Galen (131-201) extended Hippocrates' concept of a necessary balance between the four presumptive 'humours' for good health - blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile - suggesting that an excess of black bile at a given site within the body caused cancer. His views were so influential that it was not until the 16th century that the Flemish anatomist Andreas Versalius (1514-64) challenged this view, since he found no black bile in the cancer-ridden corpses he dissected. In 1700 cancer was characterised by Deshaies Gendron as 'accretions of compact uniform substances, capable of destructive growth'. Although this was confirmed, microscopically, some 140 years later, by Johannes Müller, the cause remained elusive. Müller, in fact, overturned his contemporaries' theory that cancer was caused by 'coagulated lymph'.