The age of rays

1895 · Understanding · Bladder cancer

Bladder tumours among fuchsine workers: Rehn, 1895

In 1895 the surgeon Ludwig Rehn described three cases of bladder tumour among at most 45 fuchsine workers in Frankfurt, according to a 2012 historical review. Later reports covered many more cases in the paint industry, and from the 1950s beta-naphthylamine, an aromatic amine, was banned in Germany and many other countries.

Historical series, no randomisation. Per a 2012 review, Rehn in 1895 described 3 cases of occupational bladder tumour among at most 45 fuchsine workers in Frankfurt; many more cases among workers in the paint industry were described afterwards. Hueper induced bladder cancer in dogs with beta-naphthylamine in the 1930s. A two-part British report in 1954 (Case and colleagues) dealt with aniline, benzidine and the naphthylamines (titles only).

1895 · Origin · Foundations

Röntgen discovers X-rays (1895)

Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays on 8 November 1895 and described them in a paper dated 28 December 1895. Within months physicians tried the new rays on patients, and a history of cancer says the discoveries of Röntgen and the Curies changed how cancers were diagnosed and treated.

Röntgen discovered X-rays on 8 November 1895 and published 'On a new kind of rays' in the proceedings of the Würzburg physical-medical society on 28 December 1895, the date taken as the discovery. Cosset notes that scientists tried the rays on patients within months. Hajdu's history of cancer counts the discoveries of Röntgen and the Curies among developments that transformed the diagnosis and treatment of cancers.

1896 · Treatment · Breast cancer

Beatson reports ovarian removal for inoperable breast cancer

In 1896 the Glasgow surgeon George Beatson described removing the ovaries of two younger women whose breast cancer could not be operated on, after learning that removing a cow's ovaries keeps up its milk supply. Both improved, and one had no remaining sign of cancer eight months later. He offered it as an experiment, not a new standard.

Case series of three patients read to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh on 20 May 1896. Bilateral oophorectomy in two younger women (aged 33 and 40) with recurrent or inoperable breast carcinoma, with thyroid extract: one had all visible disease gone at eight months; the other improved, then worsened when she did not keep taking treatment. The third, postmenopausal, received thyroid extract alone without marked effect. No controls or survival data; the author called the method experimental.

1896 · Treatment · Foundations

First X-ray treatments of tumours (1896): priority disputed

In 1896, within months of Röntgen's discovery, several physicians tried X-rays on patients, and who first treated a cancer is disputed. A 2016 French review calls Victor Despeignes, who treated an abdominal tumour in July 1896, the most serious candidate; accounts differ on whether it was stomach cancer. Many early radiation workers were harmed.

Cosset (2016) reviews who first used X-rays therapeutically: Freund of Vienna treated a benign skin lesion; Grubbé of Chicago, often named first, seems to have been disqualified; Despeignes, who in 1896 treated what Cosset calls a gastric cancer with marked regression, appears the most serious candidate. Foray dates Despeignes's treatment 4-23 July 1896 and one abstract says the neighbour did not have stomach cancer; El Nachef reports death by the end of July.

1898 · Origin · Foundations

Pierre and Marie Curie announce radium (1898)

On 26 December 1898 Henri Becquerel presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences the discovery of radium by Pierre and Marie Curie. Radium sources became the basis of early brachytherapy, and a French review says radium treated thousands of patients over about eighty years before safety concerns ended its use.

Mazeron and Gerbaulet: Becquerel presented the discovery of radium by Pierre and Marie Curie to the Paris Academie des Sciences on 26 December 1898. They write that modern brachytherapy is likely the successor of techniques designed for radium sources, and that radium treated thousands of patients over about 80 years before being abandoned mainly for radiation-safety reasons. Hajdu counts the Curies' discovery among developments that transformed cancer diagnosis and treatment.

1898 · Understanding · Hodgkin lymphoma

Sternberg and Reed describe the characteristic giant cell

In 1898 Carl Sternberg in Vienna and, in 1902, Dorothy Reed in Baltimore described large cells with strongly stained nuclei, some with several nuclei, in the lymph nodes of people with this disease. They became known as Reed-Sternberg cells. Sternberg read his cases as a peculiar form of tuberculosis; Reed concluded that tuberculosis had no direct relation to the disease.

Sternberg (Z Heilkd, 1898) described large cells with intensely stained single or multiple nuclei in cases clinically labelled pseudoleukaemia (15 detailed cases from 18 available; tuberculosis demonstrated in ten) and read the process as a peculiar tuberculosis of the lymphatic apparatus. Reed (Johns Hopkins Hosp Rep, 1902) described similar giant cells in eight cases, judged them characteristic, and concluded that microscopy suffices for diagnosis and that tuberculosis is not directly related.

1899 · Origin · Neuroblastoma and Wilms tumour

Max Wilms publishes a monograph on mixed kidney tumours (1899)

In 1899 the German surgeon Max Wilms published a monograph on mixed tumours of the kidney. The most common kidney cancer of infants and children now carries his name, although a 2015 history notes that excellent reviews of the lesion existed before his.

Wilms M. Die Mischgeschwülste (Leipzig: Arthur Georgi, 1899; 3 volumes per the Wellcome Collection catalogue). Raffensperger 2015 (abstract) records that Wilms, a second-year surgical assistant aged 32, published it, that excellent reviews of this lesion preceded it, and that the commonest renal cancer of infants and children is named for him. No case numbers or outcomes are reported here, and no priority claim is made.

1905 · Treatment · Prostate cancer

Young's radical perineal prostatectomy for cancer (1904-05)

In 1905 the Johns Hopkins surgeon Hugh Young described a radical operation through the perineum that removed the whole prostate, the seminal vesicles and part of the bladder, and he proposed it as a routine for prostate cancer. He reported four operations done since 1904; two of the four men had died by the time of the report.

Young (1905) described a radical perineal prostatectomy removing prostate, seminal vesicles, parts of the vasa deferentia and a bladder cuff in one piece, with bladder-to-urethra anastomosis, proposed as a routine for prostate cancer, within a study of 40 cases. Four men were operated on in 1904-05. He reported no operative mortality; one man died six weeks after surgery after ureteral excision he called a mistake, and one died after later litholapaxy.

c. 1906 · Understanding · Foundations

Ehrlich and 'chemotherapy': a term and a concept (circa 1906)

The German physician Paul Ehrlich, who worked on dyes, trypanosomes and syphilis, is credited with coining the word chemotherapy for treating disease with chemicals. His own successes were against infections, not cancer. Attempts to treat cancer with chemicals, using transplanted tumours in rodents, began early in the twentieth century.

Williams states that Ehrlich coined the terms chemotherapy and magic bullet while working on arsenical compounds against trypanosomes and syphilis, which led to arsphenamine; no year is given. Kasten lists chemotherapy and cancer research among his accomplishments. DeVita and Chu date the use of chemotherapy against cancer to the start of the 20th century, with screening of chemicals in transplantable rodent tumours, and write that four World War II-related programmes led to the 1955 national drug development effort.

1908 · Treatment · Colorectal cancer

Miles' abdominoperineal excision formalised for rectal cancer

In 1908 the surgeon W. Ernest Miles published a method of abdomino-perineal excision for rectal cancer in The Lancet. A history paper says he first performed the operation in 1907; another says Japanese surgeons developed a similar approach independently from 1904. The operation became a long-standing standard for rectal cancer.

Miles WE, Lancet 1908: a method of abdomino-perineal excision for carcinoma of the rectum and terminal pelvic colon (text not read). Wiley 2003: first performed in 1907, after almost a decade of audit. Sakai 2025: Miles is credited with formalising the procedure in 1908; Ito and Torikata independently developed a similar approach in 1904. Lirici 2016: the operation became a gold standard for many years. No outcome figures extracted.

1909 · Origin · Thyroid cancer

Kocher and thyroid surgery: the 1909 Nobel Prize

In 1909 the Swiss surgeon Theodor Kocher won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the thyroid gland. Histories describe thyroid surgery moving from an operation thought too dangerous to attempt to one of the safest. The prize honoured thyroid surgery in general, not cancer surgery specifically.

Qualitative history. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1909 to Theodor Kocher alone, for work on the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid gland (awarded 28 October 1909). In a lecture on 4 April 1883 Kocher reviewed 102 operated cases; of 34 total excisions, 3 patients died of the operation and 1 had a cancerous goitre. He named the later condition cachexia strumipriva (Tröhler 2011) and afterwards took care to leave part of the gland intact (van Gijn 2012).

1911 · Treatment · Cervical cancer

Wertheim's radical hysterectomy: a report of 500 cases

The Austrian gynaecologist Ernst Wertheim reported a series of 500 operations for cancer of the uterus: a German-language monograph is catalogued as published in 1911, and a 2017 history dates an English-language manuscript to 1912. That history describes it as setting out a standard form of the radical hysterectomy, still the basis of surgery for early-stage cervical cancer.

Historical account, not a trial. Wertheim's German-language monograph 'auf Grund von 500 Fällen' is catalogued as 1911. Swailes et al. (2017) describe his English-language 1912 manuscript on 500 operative cases as detailing his standardisation of the radical hysterectomy, with later modifications by Takayama (maximally extended parametrial resection) and Meigs (Taussig en bloc lymph-node dissection). Piver, Rutledge and Smith (1974): 'Five classes of extended hysterectomy for women with cervical cancer'.

1911 · Understanding · Foundations

Rous: a chicken sarcoma transmitted by a cell-free filtrate

In 1911 Peyton Rous at the Rockefeller Institute reported that a sarcoma of the chicken could be passed to healthy chickens by a filtered, cell-free extract, pointing to a transmissible agent. It became known as the first tumour virus. Many scientists doubted it for decades, and Rous received the Nobel Prize in 1966.

Rous (J Exp Med, 1911) showed that a spontaneous spindle-cell sarcoma from a Plymouth Rock chicken could be transmitted to healthy chickens with filtered cell-free tumour extracts (Javier and Butel). It was later called Rous sarcoma virus, the first known tumour virus and first RNA tumour virus. Critics argued it was an infectious granuloma or that filtrates contained cell fragments; Rous stopped this work after about four years and received the Nobel Prize in 1966, 55 years later.

1914 · Understanding · Foundations

Boveri proposes a chromosomal origin of malignant tumours

In 1914 the German biologist Theodor Boveri proposed that a tumour begins in one cell that has an abnormal combination of chromosomes, perhaps after a faulty cell division. He also reasoned about inherited predisposition. Many of his predictions waited decades for confirmation, and his wife's English translation of 1929 helped bring the theory to wider notice.

Boveri's monograph Zur Frage der Entstehung maligner Tumoren (1914; English translation by Marcella Boveri, 1929) proposed that a tumour originates from a single cell with an incorrect combination of chromosomes, for example after abnormal mitosis. Hansford and Huntsman credit predictions of chromosomal instability, loss of key cellular attributes now called tumour suppressor functions, and heritable predisposition. Hardy and Zacharias note he drew on Hansemann's 1890 observation of asymmetric mitoses; Potter notes that many predictions awaited the 1950s-1960s.

1915 · Understanding · Foundations

Yamagiwa and Ichikawa induce cancer with coal tar (1915)

In 1915 the Japanese pathologists Katsusaburo Yamagiwa and Koichi Ichikawa reported that painting coal tar on rabbit ears for months produced skin tumours, including cancer. It has been called the first artificial production of cancer in experimental animals. It gave experimental support to the idea that chronic irritation can lead to cancer.

Yamagiwa and Ichikawa reported in 1915 that prolonged coal-tar painting of rabbit ears produced folliculoepithelioma (papilloma) and, in some animals, carcinoma; Sekiya calls it the world's first artificial cancer in experimental animals. In Fujiki's English summary, the first three carcinoma cases had no metastasis, and the second report found two lymph node metastases among eight malignant lesions. They attributed the effect to chronic chemical-mechanical irritation. The first English paper appeared in 1918.

1921 · Origin · Sarcoma and GIST

Ewing describes 'diffuse endothelioma of bone'

In 1921 the American pathologist James Ewing reported several cases of a bone tumour under the name 'diffuse endothelioma of bone'. The tumour later took his name. A 2011 history article says he described the first cases of what is now called Ewing sarcoma.

Ewing's report was published in the Proceedings of the New York Pathological Society under the title 'Diffuse endothelioma of bone' and reprinted in 2006 as a 'Classic'. A 2011 history article states that Ewing sarcoma is named after Ewing, who described the first cases in 1921. The reprint was cited by title only here; no clinical data are recorded.

1926 · Understanding · Glioblastoma

Bailey and Cushing classify gliomas by cell of origin

In 1926 Percival Bailey and Harvey Cushing published a book that sorted brain tumours of the glioma group by the developing brain cells they resembled, and linked each type to how long patients lived. It drew on 414 cases indexed as glioma between 1903 and 1924.

Case series from two hospitals (Johns Hopkins, Peter Bent Brigham), January 1903 to January 1924: 414 cases indexed as glioma, of which 254 were re-examined histologically and assigned to 13 categories. Spongioblastoma multiforme, the largest group (77 patients, 'about one-third' of classified cases in the authors' words), had an average survival of 12 months by the authors' table; one of the 77 was alive 29 months after operation. Less differentiated tumours had shorter survival.

1932 · Understanding · Colorectal cancer

Dukes classification of rectal cancer

In 1932 the pathologist Cuthbert Dukes published a classification of rectal cancer in the Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology. A modern summary describes stages A, B and C, from minimal disease to spread into surrounding tissue. It was later modified and has largely been replaced by TNM staging.

Dukes CE, J Pathol Bacteriol 1932, 'The classification of cancer of the rectum' (article text not read). A secondary summary (EBSCO Research Starters, 2024) describes stage A as minimal disease with high five-year survival and stages B and C as spread into surrounding tissue with lower survival; later subdivided (B1, B2, C1, C2), with stage D for distant spread. No case numbers or survival figures are extracted. Jass 1987 proposed a score-based alternative derived from 379 patients.

1933 · Treatment · Lung cancer

One-stage pneumonectomy for lung cancer (Graham and Singer, 1933)

A report dated 28 October 1933, reprinted by JAMA in 1984, describes removing an entire left lung in one operation for a cancer that began in an upper-lobe airway. The reprint's abstract calls it apparently the first case in which a whole lung was removed successfully at one stage.

Case report (Graham and Singer), as described in the abstract of the 1984 JAMA reprint of the article dated 28 October 1933. The left lung and many tracheobronchial and mediastinal nodes were removed in one stage for a carcinoma arising in the upper-lobe bronchus, close to the lower-lobe bronchus, so that complete removal required the entire lung. Described as apparently the first successful one-stage removal of an entire lung. Single case; the abstract gives no outcome.

1935 · Treatment · Pancreatic cancer

Whipple 1935: report on treating ampullary carcinoma

In 1935 the surgeon Allen Whipple and two colleagues published a report on treating cancer of the ampulla of Vater, where the bile and pancreatic ducts reach the bowel. A 2011 history describes it as covering three patients treated in two stages, and names Whipple, Halsted and Kausch as pioneers of pancreaticoduodenectomy.

Whipple, Parsons and Mullins, Ann Surg 1935: "Treatment of carcinoma of the ampulla of Vater". PubMed lists no abstract, and no technique or outcome is taken from the paper itself. Are 2011 (HPB, historical review) describes it as a report of three patients managed with a two-stage radical resection of the duodenum and head of the pancreas, and names Halsted, Kausch and Whipple as pioneers of the operation.

1941 · Detection · Foundations

Papanicolaou and Traut: vaginal smear cytology for uterine cancer

In 1941 George Papanicolaou and Herbert Traut reported that cancer cells shed from the uterus can be recognised in vaginal smears under the microscope. Papanicolaou had first seen cancer cells in a human specimen in 1928. Their work became the basis of the Pap test used for cervical cancer screening.

Papanicolaou and Traut's 'The diagnostic value of vaginal smears in carcinoma of the uterus' (1941; reprinted Arch Pathol Lab Med 1997) described cytological diagnosis of uterine cancer. Papanicolaou had encountered cancer cells in a human specimen in 1928 (van Gijn); his 1928 report made little impact until the collaboration with the gynaecologist Traut (Swailes). Their 1943 book on diagnosis of uterine cancer by the vaginal smear followed (Elgert). The 1941 results were not read.

1941 · Treatment · Prostate cancer

Huggins and Hodges: hormones and prostate cancer (1941)

In 1941 Charles Huggins and Clarence Hodges published studies of men whose prostate cancer had spread, looking at how castration, estrogen and testosterone injections changed blood phosphatase levels. Huggins later shared the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning hormonal treatment of prostatic cancer.

Huggins and Hodges, Cancer Research 1941 (reprinted J Urol 2002): effect of castration, of estrogen and of androgen injection on serum phosphatases in metastatic carcinoma of the prostate. PubMed carries no abstract for the reprint, so no patient numbers or values are recorded. The Nobel Foundation summary states that around 1940 Huggins showed that castration, or added female sex hormone, counteracted the disease.