What Could We Do about Cancer in 1913?

Educating the Public.

By 1910 advances in public health began to bring many deadly communicable diseases under control. But it would be the chronic illnesses such as heart disease and cancer that would pose the most alarming and challenging medical problems of the century. Cancer was a mysterious and feared disease, but as the professional standing of physicians rose, they began to define cancer as a problem solvable by medical management. In May 1913 the Ladies' Home Journal published an article titled "What Can We Do About Cancer? The Most Vital and Insistent Question in the Medical World," by Samuel Hopkins Adams, famous from the preceding decade for his work against medical fraud and patent medicines. This was the first publication about cancer aimed at the general public, and it reflected the level of knowledge about the disease at that time. When Adams asked a group of specialists, "What causes cancer?" everyone made...

[The entire page is 1491 words long]

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