Rudolf Virchow names the disease leukemia after observing abnormal white blood cell proliferation in patients' blood.

William Halsted develops the radical mastectomy at Johns Hopkins, convinced aggressive surgery can prevent breast cancer from recurring.

Emil Grubbe becomes the first person to use radiation to treat a breast tumor after scientists discover X-rays can destroy cells.

Paul Ehrlich develops the concept of chemotherapy, searching for chemical magic bullets that kill diseased cells while sparing healthy ones.

Sidney Farber injects young Robert Sandler with aminopterin and achieves the first chemotherapy remission in childhood leukemia.

Farber publishes his leukemia chemotherapy results in the New England Journal of Medicine, meeting skepticism but opening a new field.

The Jimmy Fund launches after a radio broadcast from Einar Gustafson's hospital bedside generates an overwhelming public response.

Mary Lasker joins Farber's cancer campaign and transforms it into a national political and fundraising operation.

Frei and Freireich's four-drug VAMP regimen produces complete remissions in leukemia patients despite near-lethal treatment intensity.

Nixon signs the National Cancer Act, dedicating massive federal funding to the war on cancer after a sweeping public campaign.

Bernard Fisher's randomized trial proves that radical mastectomy offers no survival advantage over simpler breast surgeries.

Harold Varmus and J. Michael Bishop discover that the cancer-causing src gene originates from normal cellular genes, not external viruses.

Robert Weinberg's team isolates the ras oncogene from a bladder cancer patient's cells and transfers it into normal cells, causing cancer.

Herceptin clinical trials show women with Her-2 positive breast cancer survive at dramatically higher rates with the targeted drug.

Gleevec produces deep remissions in CML patients, establishing that genetically targeted non-toxic therapy can work against cancer.

This pool traces the defining moments in humanity's war against cancer, from the earliest scientific understanding of the disease to modern targeted therapies. Beginning with Virchow's foundational naming of leukemia, the events follow the development of surgery, radiation, and the birth of chemotherapy through Farber's groundbreaking work at Boston Children's Hospital. The creation of the Jimmy Fund and Mary Lasker's political campaign transformed cancer from a private affliction into a national cause, culminating in the signing of the National Cancer Act. Researchers then challenged long-held surgical dogma, proving that radical mastectomy offered no survival benefit over simpler procedures. Finally, the genetic revolution produced two landmark targeted drugs—Herceptin and Gleevec—that demonstrated cancer's molecular vulnerabilities could be precisely exploited.

The headline milestones in cancer science and treatment.

An Egyptologist discovers the Smith papyrus, revealing Imhotep's ancient description of breast cancer and his conclusion there is no cure.

Hippocrates names visible tumors karkinos and theorizes that excess black bile causes cancer, shaping medical thinking for centuries.

Andreas Vesalius dissects cadavers across Paris and finds no trace of Galen's black bile anywhere in the human body.

Percivall Pott links chimney soot to scrotal cancer in young sweeps, identifying the first environmental carcinogen and suggesting cancer can be prevented.

Farber gives leukemia patients folic acid to boost their blood, accidentally accelerating their disease, and resolves to try the opposite approach.

Gertrude Elion synthesizes 6-mercaptopurine at Burroughs Wellcome, a drug that produces temporary remissions when tested on children with leukemia.

Min Chiu Li cures choriocarcinoma patients with antifolate chemotherapy but is fired for continuing treatment after the cancer appears gone.

Howard Skipper uses mouse leukemia models to show that chemotherapy kills a fixed percentage of cells, supporting combination drug regimens.

Henry Kaplan uses a linear accelerator to treat Hodgkin's lymphoma with extended field radiation, achieving lasting remissions in selected patients.

Vincent DeVita develops the MOPP cocktail for Hodgkin's disease and achieves complete remission in 35 of 43 treated patients.

Donald Pinkel launches total therapy at St. Jude's Hospital, combining multiple drugs, spinal radiation, and years of maintenance chemotherapy for leukemia.

Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill survey thousands of doctors about smoking and find every lung cancer death among them linked to cigarettes.

The US Surgeon General releases a landmark report confirming that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, settling any remaining scientific doubt.

Barry Marshall drinks a solution of Helicobacter pylori to prove it causes gastric inflammation, linking bacterial infection to stomach cancer.

Einar Gustafson, the original Jimmy of the Jimmy Fund, is revealed to be alive and visits Dana-Farber decades after his childhood treatment.

This pool covers the broader cast of discoveries, figures, and campaigns that shaped cancer medicine across thousands of years. It opens with the ancient world's earliest recorded encounters with the disease, from the Smith papyrus to Hippocrates, and traces how the theory of black bile was ultimately dismantled by anatomists who could find no evidence for it. Moving into the modern era, key but lesser-known breakthroughs emerge: Gertrude Elion's synthesis of 6-MP, Min Chiu Li's first adult cancer cure, and Howard Skipper's mouse experiments that unlocked the logic of combination therapy. The prevention side of the story unfolds through the landmark prospective smoking studies and the Surgeon General's consequential report. The pool closes with the unexpected discovery that the original Jimmy had been alive all along, surfacing decades after his childhood treatment launched the cancer fundraising movement.

The supporting discoveries and campaigns that built the foundation of cancer medicine.

Galen declares that excess black bile causes cancer and that cutting out tumors is futile since cancer is a systemic disease.

Anesthesia is publicly demonstrated at Massachusetts General Hospital, making surgical removal of cancerous tumors far safer for patients.

Joseph Lister discovers that carbolic acid prevents post-surgical infections, enabling surgeons to safely remove cancerous tumors from patients.

German warplanes bomb the port of Bari, and autopsies of surviving sailors reveal that mustard gas destroys bone marrow and white blood cells.

Goodman and Gilman convince a surgeon to treat a lymphoma patient with nitrogen mustard at Yale, achieving a dramatic chemotherapy remission.

Albert Lasker receives a colon cancer diagnosis, deepening Mary Lasker's urgency in her national campaign for a cancer cure.

Children who survived the VAMP treatment return with leukemia in their brains, revealing the therapy had missed the central nervous system.

Farber dies of cardiac arrest in his office at Dana-Farber, ending the career of cancer medicine's most prominent early champion.

Cisplatin clears tumors from a young testicular cancer patient's lungs, achieving the first chemotherapy cure of a solid metastatic cancer.

Peyton Rous discovers he can transmit sarcomas between chickens using filtered, cell-free material, suggesting a virus causes cancer.

Howard Temin and David Baltimore independently discover that RNA viruses can copy their genes into DNA, revealing how viruses permanently alter a cell's genome.

Alfred Knudson deduces that retinoblastoma requires two separate genetic mutations to develop, predicting the existence of tumor suppressor genes.

Thad Dryja and Steve Friend isolate the Rb gene by comparing cancerous and normal retinoblastoma cells, identifying the first tumor suppressor gene.

Werner Bezwoda's bone marrow transplant data for breast cancer is found to be fabricated, ending a costly and widely practiced treatment era.

Mukherjee visits Carla Reed at her home and finds her healthy and thriving, a survivor of the treatments Farber's generation pioneered.

This pool focuses on the pivotal moments where cancer medicine changed direction through surprising discoveries, devastating setbacks, and paradigm-shifting revelations. It begins with Galen's ancient but enduring error about black bile, then moves through the twin innovations of anesthesia and antisepsis that finally made surgery viable. The accidental discovery that mustard gas depletes bone marrow ignited the era of chemotherapy, while the personal blow of Albert Lasker's diagnosis intensified the political campaign for a cure. Crushing setbacks—the return of brain leukemia in VAMP survivors and the collapse of the bone marrow transplant era—are balanced by the genetic revelations of Rous's virus work, Knudson's two-hit hypothesis, and the isolation of the Rb tumor suppressor gene. The pool concludes with Mukherjee's visit to a surviving Carla Reed, a living testament to all that four thousand years of effort had achieved.