# How common was cancer in the past? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 31, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860 "2015-12-31T23:59:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/21 "2016-01-03T06:52:15Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > My mother once told me that she remembered when “cancer” was a dirty word. In her book about childhood cancer “I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Go to Boise,” Erma Bombeck remembers in her youth people would say “He’s very, \*very[I/] sic.” The second “very” mean cancer. > > It was considered an unmentionable disease until the 1960’s. Doctors and families also lied to patients, or at least didn’t tell them the whole truth. In the late 1940s, when my mother was in high school, her best friend died from cancer. ☹ She was told that she had “a growth on her kidney”, but they didn’t fool her. She knew. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/22 "2016-01-03T13:09:03Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > . . . people would say “He’s very, \*very[I/] sic.” (sic) ---
**Author:** ![RingsOfPylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3da27b/32.png) [@RingsOfPylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RingsOfPylon)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/23 "2016-01-03T15:40:21Z")
When time permits, I transcribe cemetery records from the 18th and 19th century for genealogy purposes. I’ve been doing that for years. Many cemeteries kept good records, when the records survived, and listed family members and causes of death. I’m always struck by the number of people who died from consumption (tuberculosis) - often several members of a family within months of each. You could almost make that the default cause of death when inputting the data, and change it when you encountered something else. A lot less typing that way. 🙂 Smallpox, particularly in the 18th century, seemed to sweep through families in various pockets at some points in time. In my own family tree, several members of the same family died within a month of each other - grandparents, child, and grandchild, all dead from smallpox in January and February 1779. In the 19th century into the very early 20th century, you still see a good amount of tuberculosis, but also lots of cholera and typhoid. There were pockets of scarlet fever (strep infection). There is the occasional cancer, but it’s rarely the cause of death because people died of acute diseases before cancer had a chance to set in - diseases that are largely treatable today or have been averted by sanitation and water treatment. I expected to see more accidents, but it was not as big a contributor to death as the diseases mentioned above (again, just anecdotal, based on a transcribing several thousand old records from cemeteries). You get the occasional “kicked in the head by a horse” or accidents involving horse-drawn wagons or ox carts, but they are fairly rare - rarer than I expected. I always get a kick out of those unexplained and vague causes of death. They seem curious today, like when a 60 year old person’s cause of death is listed as “old age” and nothing else. As you move into the late 19th century, you get more detailed information. Instead of “old age”, you see more “apoplexy” (stroke) and various coronary-related causes, such as “hardening of the arteries” or more specific diagnoses of heart defects. There were occasional diagnoses of cancer in death records, mostly in people over 50 or 60. When I saw things like “intestinal obstruction”, I assumed it was probably cancer-related. Again, it was mostly in the post-50 and post-60 crowd, because that’s when most problems kick in. Since cancer is most often a disease of age, many people died from common diseases that were not treatable at the time, and they died long before you would see them reach an age where cancer would become a widespread problem. ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/24 "2016-01-03T15:52:11Z")
What about various lung problems, including cancer, from cooking on open fires? Melanomas before the advent of sun block? Although I suppose that’s what all the hats were for. ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/25 "2016-01-03T16:29:55Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Doctors and families also lied to patients, or at least didn’t tell them the whole truth. > > In the late 1940s, when my mother was in high school, her best friend died from cancer. ☹ She was told that she had “a growth on her kidney”, but they didn’t fool her. She knew. I’m afraid there are two components to the explanation here, at the time it was quite common to not tell women in particular about their medical conditions. My grandmother got cancer of the thyroid. The doctor diagnosed it and told her **husband** and **he** and the doctor agreed to remove it. This was effective at curing the cancer, but at the advice of the doctor my grandfather never told his wife what had happened. So she had problems due to a thyroid issue she didn’t even know existed. She didn’t learn until years later, after the divorce, which itself was a scandal at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/26 "2016-01-03T17:09:52Z")
> [@iljitsch](#): > > What about various lung problems, including cancer, from cooking on open fires? Melanomas before the advent of sun block? Although I suppose that’s what all the hats were for. Melanoma wasn’t a big problem before CFCs blew a hole in the ozone layer. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/27 "2016-01-03T18:18:31Z")
> [@iljitsch](#): > > What about various lung problems, including cancer, from cooking on open fires? Melanomas before the advent of sun block? Although I suppose that’s what all the hats were for. Hats and long sleeves and long skirts and pants and tights/leggings under shorter pants…and siestas, which took people indoors during the most dangerous parts of the day. A lot of cancers present with vague symptoms until the patient succumbs to something else - like pneumonia or a stroke - and dies with their cancer intact. It wasn’t until modern imaging that we could find things like pancreatic cancer while the person was still alive. You’d just record the immediate cause of death, “pneumonia,” and not the unknown cancer. Even today, many people with cancer die of other things, and that’s what on their death certificate. Difference now is that their cancer is diagnosed and logged so we know more about how many people have it during their lives, if not the cause of death. ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/28 "2016-01-03T18:45:02Z")
Indeed. For many, many cancers, there would be no way to know without modern diagnostic and imaging techniques. Take my dad, who has terminal esophageal cancer. He began with vague heartburn that gradually got worse and worse until he was having trouble eating any food at all, losing a great deal of weight, and only able to eat very soft or liquid foods. Because this was 2015, endoscopy and PET scans revealed a cancerous tumour. If this was 1415, he would have wasted away in short order and if his death had been recorded anywhere it would have been listed as “wasted away” or “digestive complaint.” Nowhere would it have been recorded that it was cancer, but that wouldn’t have made it any less cancer. ---
**Author:** ![GythaOgg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/49beb7/32.png) [@GythaOgg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GythaOgg)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/29 "2016-01-04T01:39:18Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > Indeed. For many, many cancers, there would be no way to know without modern diagnostic and imaging techniques. > > Take my dad, who has terminal esophageal cancer. He began with vague heartburn that gradually got worse and worse until he was having trouble eating any food at all, losing a great deal of weight, and only able to eat very soft or liquid foods. Because this was 2015, endoscopy and PET scans revealed a cancerous tumour. If this was 1415, he would have wasted away in short order and if his death had been recorded anywhere it would have been listed as “wasted away” or “digestive complaint.” Nowhere would it have been recorded that it was cancer, but that wouldn’t have made it any less cancer. This. I suspect this kind of thing is the case with melanoma - no one thought to tie the black spot on someone’s skin to the fact that they died of the effects of metastasis to the brain, bowel, lung, or elsewhere. Many historians think Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, died of melanoma that had spread to her heart - she did have an autopsy, and a ‘black growth’ on her heart was noted. It’s also thought that another of his wives, Anne of Cleves, died of endometrial cancer. (The Tudors kept very good medical records, apparently.) His daughter, Mary, also likely died of endometrial or ovarian cancer. This stuff was around, but the understanding of causes and relationships between cause of death and other symptoms was often not well understood. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/30 "2016-01-04T10:17:23Z")
Certain professions did have high death rates like fishermen and whalers were as high as [17%](http://www.narwc.org/pdf/kraus1990.pdf) and I read where on Nantucket about 25% of the married women had been widowed at least once. No wonder seamen are so suspicious. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/31 "2016-01-04T13:21:33Z")
> [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](#): > > I’m afraid there are two components to the explanation here, at the time it was quite common to not tell women in particular about their medical conditions. My grandmother got cancer of the thyroid. The doctor diagnosed it and told her **husband** and **he** and the doctor agreed to remove it. This was effective at curing the cancer, but at the advice of the doctor my grandfather never told his wife what had happened. So she had problems due to a thyroid issue she didn’t even know existed. She didn’t learn until years later, after the divorce, which itself was a scandal at the time. In early 1960’s Pakistan,my grandfather went in for routine surgery and they discoeverd a cancerous growth. The surgeon came out and asked my grandmother; they agreed that it should be removed and it was…my grandfather did not find out until much later. Thats would be all sorts of illegal today. Moral of the story; don’t presume that actions taken reprseneted standard behaviour, just that it might have been due to circumstance peculiar to that case. (In my grandfathers case, he was a nuclear scientist, I think my grandmother had an exceptional fear of cancer there). ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/32 "2016-01-04T13:41:21Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > Melanoma wasn’t a big problem before CFCs blew a hole in the ozone layer. The ozone layer “Holes” generally occur in the polar regions and the persistent one is over the Antarctic, where nobody lives. The banning of CFCs has been effective at preventing further ozone depletion and has probably prevented a substantial amount of cancer. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/33 "2016-01-04T14:53:43Z")
> [@Torontonian](#): > > common people didn’t live long enough to get cancer. nobles were obese in old age and died from stroke after banquets and balls Don’t forget food poisoning! > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > …I found out recently that until about 100 or so years ago, cancer was believed to mostly affect women, because of the incidence of uterine, cervical, and breast cancer, which left visible evidence. Men’s symptoms were usually more vague and often attributed to other things, until they dropped dead. The word “cancer” means “crab” in Greek, and the disease was named that for the presentation of untreated breast cancer, which apparently looks like a crab attached to the breast. > [@iljitsch](#): > > What about various lung problems, including cancer, from cooking on open fires? Melanomas before the advent of sun block? Although I suppose that’s what all the hats were for. Melanoma is associated with acute exposure to the sun, and sun burn, not with total lifetime sun exposure. It is still uncommon among farmers, who get a lot of basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers, which are associated with total sun exposure rather than with acute sun exposure. [http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=43077](http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=43077) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/34 "2016-01-04T15:30:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **WhyNot** : > > Even today, many people with cancer die of other things, and that’s what on their death certificate. I’ve seen estimates that as many as 1 in 3 men will develop prostate cancer at some point in our lives. It’s just that, for most of us, it’s so slow-growing that it wouldn’t kill us until age 120 or something like that. Of course, doctors are reluctant to diagnose such cases, because if the cancer really is growing that slowly, the best treatment is none at all… but a patient is likely to panic and demand treatment if they hear the C-word. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/35 "2016-01-04T16:00:50Z")
> [@pidgeon92](#): > > You might be interested in The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer > by Siddhartha Mukherjee. He does an excellent job detailing the history of cancer. PBS did a special on the book that is also quite good, but the book is far more detailed. Seconded; this was a great book. In it he talks about very old historical records of cancer diagnoses, e.g. in BC Egypt and medieval England. Not to say it was more/less common back then (though as noted upthread it was probably very underdiagnosed in the past), but it was around. > [@Rysto](#): > > Melanoma wasn’t a big problem before CFCs blew a hole in the ozone layer. Melanoma wasn’t a big problem because people used to cover up out of modesty. 200+ years ago, you didn’t leave the house without covering pretty much everything except your face and hands. The result? Far less sun exposure than people typically get today. Health officials these days advocate sunblock usage, but they’d probably be less adamant about it if people weren’t spending hours and hours in the sun with large areas of skin exposed. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/36 "2016-01-04T22:10:20Z")
I wonder how many of the people who died from “indigestion” actually had myocardial infarctions. Lots of them, probably. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/37 "2016-01-04T23:45:25Z")
> [@The\_Big\_Poo](#): > > Not the recent past but beyond two or three hundred years. Based on what we’ve seen in isolated populations at the turn of the 20th century, cancer appears to have been exceptionally rare until more recently: > **[Cancer Among the Inuit](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer-among-inuit.html)** > > I remember coming across a table in the book Eat, Drink and Be Healthy (by Dr. Walter Willett) a few years back. Included were data taken ... > [@](#): > > When word reached American and European physicians that the Inuit did not develop cancer, a number of them decided to mount an active search for it. This search began in the 1850s and tapered off in the 1920s, as traditionally-living Inuit became difficult to find. > > One of these physicians was captain **George B. Leavitt**. He actively searched for cancer among the traditionally-living Inuit from 1885 to 1907. Along with his staff, he **claims to have performed tens of thousands of examinations. He did not find a single case of cancer**. At the same time, he was regularly diagnosing cancers among the crews of whaling ships and other Westernized populations. > **[Cancer in Other Non-Industrialized Cultures](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer-in-other-non-industrialized.html)** > > In Cancer, Disease of Civilization (1960), Wilhjalmur Stefansson mentions a few cultures besides the Inuit in which large-scale searches ne... > [@](#): > > **Dr. Albert Schweitzer examined over 10,000 traditionally-living natives in Gabon (West Africa) in 1913 and did not find cancer.** Later, it became common in the same population as they began “living more and more after the manner of the whites.” > > In Cancer, its Nature, Cause and Cure (1957), Dr. Alexander Berglas describes the search for cancer among natives in Brazil and Ecuador by **Dr. Eugene Payne**. **He examined approximately 60,000 people over 25 years and found no evidence of cancer.** Dr. Robert McCarrison, who spent 9 years living in the Himalayas wrote in JAMA in 1922: > **[Therapeutic Gazette](https://books.google.com/books?id=n1Y9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA772&dq=%22I%2Bnever%2Bsaw%2Ba%2Bcase%2Bof%2Basthenic%2Bdyspepsia%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiPnK6d-5DKAhUT4mMKHUpeClIQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%22I%20never%20saw%20a%20case%20of%20asthenic%20dyspepsia%22&f=false)** > [@](#): > > During the nine years of my association with these people I **never saw a case** of asthenic dyspepsia, gastric or duodenal ulcer, appendicitis, mucous colitis, **or cancer** , although my operating list averaged **four hundred operations per year.** Physician Ales Hrdlicka observed Native Americans from 1898-1905 and wrote: > **[The Big Fat Surprise](https://books.google.com/books?id=HtMHBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22that%2Bthey%2Bdo%2Bwould%2Bbe%2Bdifficult%2Bto%2Bdoubt%22&source=bl&ots=Hk3l5infKL&sig=vsjqRgKCn9sk2HOvYjdMj0Htxnw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiL7MS-9JDKAhUG6GMKHQQDBqgQ6AEIHzAB#v=onepage&q=%22that%20they%20do%20would%20be%20difficult%20to%20doubt%22&f=false)** > > A New York Times bestseller Named one of The Economist’s Books of the Year 2014 Named one of The Wall Street Journal’s Top Ten Best Nonfiction Books of 2014 Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2014 Forbes’s Most Memorable Healthcare Book of 2014... > [@](#): > > Malignant diseases, if they exist at all - that they do would be difficult to doubt - must be extremely rare. In 1923, Colonel surgeon F.P. Fouche who had been stationed in Africa wrote: > **[The Hunter-gatherer Within](https://books.google.com/books?id=Ldd8vbqJsZgC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22i%2Bnever%2Bsaw%2Ba%2Bsingle%2Bcase%2Bof%2Bgastric%22&source=bl&ots=ecMDNjLo8x&sig=kLdnIAYSauV18FPbByMuM3ZEXcI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhoOqk85DKAhUKzmMKHcjiD3YQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22i%20never%20saw%20a%20single%20case%20of%20gastric%22&f=false)** > > "The recommendations we list below could be given a variety of different names ... Probably the most common of the names for similar recommendations are paleo or primal ... Rather, what is important is that we are trying to emulate the type of eating... > [@](#): > > “For six and a half years I was District Surgeon in the Orange Free State. The district in which I practised had a native population of 14,000, the large majority of the Basuto race. **During the whole of that period I never saw a single case of** gastric or duodenal ulcer, colitis, appendicitis, or **cancer in any form** , in a native, although these diseases were frequently seen amongst the white or European population.” In 1935 J.A. Urquhart, who lived along side of the Inuit in northern Canada, wrote: > **[The Hunter-gatherer Within](https://books.google.com/books?id=Ldd8vbqJsZgC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22I%2Bhave%2Bnot%2Bin%2Bmy%2Bseven%2Byears%E2%80%99%2Bexperience%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bnorth%2Bseen%2Ba%2Bsingle%2Bcase%2Bof%2Bmalignancy%22&source=bl&ots=ecMDNjNr7x&sig=yWv3xgqVryZwml_TIshP4hoQ_JI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjh4-_o-5DKAhVY1mMKHagrCloQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22I%20have%20not%20in%20my%20seven%20years%E2%80%99%20experience%20in%20the%20north%20seen%20a%20single%20case%20of%20malignancy%22&f=false)** > > "The recommendations we list below could be given a variety of different names ... Probably the most common of the names for similar recommendations are paleo or primal ... Rather, what is important is that we are trying to emulate the type of eating... > [@](#): > > “I have not in my seven years’ experience in the north seen a single case of malignancy in either Eskimo or Indian” More here: > **[Hunter-Gatherers--Examples of Healthy Omnivores](https://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-8b.shtml)** > > Hunter-gatherers following traditional lifestyles are remarkably healthy, with little chronic disease. After adopting Western diets, health decreases. > [@](#): > > **Medical anthropologists have found little cancer in their studies of technologically primitive people, and paleopathologists believe that the prevalence of malignancy was low in the past, even when differences in population age structure are taken into account.** (Rowling, 1961; Hildes and Schaefer, 1984; Micozzi, 1991) [http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v10/n10/full/nrc2914.html](http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v10/n10/full/nrc2914.html) > [@](#): > > In industrialized societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. The history of this disorder has the potential to improve our understanding of disease prevention, aetiology, pathogenesis and treatment. A **striking rarity of malignancies in ancient physical remains might indicate that cancer was rare in antiquity** , and so poses questions about the role of carcinogenic environmental factors in modern societies. Although\*\* the rarity of cancer in antiquity remains undisputed\*\*, the first published histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy demonstrates that new evidence is still forthcoming. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/38 "2016-01-05T00:12:53Z")
[Another updated perspective on the antiquity record](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0090924), FWIW. > [@](#): > > This 25–35 year old man from Amara West, buried around 1200 BC, further evidence, provides another piece of evidence that cancer is in fact not a modern phenomenon [25], [29]. The apparent absence of cancer in archaeological remains may also partly be an illusion created by issues of bone preservation, and due to the fact that methods of analysis are inadequate to detect initial changes within bone. Due to financial, time and logistical reasons, human remains are usually not systematically radiographed, and bone metastases originating in cancellous tissue only penetrate the bone surface in their advanced stages. If the immune system was already compromised by other negative influences in a person’s life, people may not have survived long enough to develop full skeletal metastases. Thus, evidence for a large proportion of tumours could be missed when skeletal remains are analysed [72]. Another challenge in detecting cancer in ancient human remains is the poor preservation of bone which often prevents the clear identification of lytic lesions and precludes the diagnosis of incomplete remains [27]. With increasing numbers of skeletal collections and more detailed analysis, as well as more readily available standard radiographic equipment, the evidence for cancer in antiquity could increase significantly. … FWIW I suspect that industrialization dramatically increased cancer rates. But I’d be hesitant to make any conclusions from the data we have. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/39 "2016-01-05T01:29:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve seen estimates that as many as 1 in 3 men will develop prostate cancer at some point in our lives. It’s just that, for most of us, it’s so slow-growing that it wouldn’t kill us until age 120 or something like that. > > Of course, doctors are reluctant to diagnose such cases, because if the cancer really is growing that slowly, the best treatment is none at all… but a patient is likely to panic and demand treatment if they hear the C-word. [This meta-analysis](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25821151) found that 59% of men aged 80 and over, who died of other causes, had incidental prostate cancer detectable in autopsy. Don’t know how that translates into lifetime prevalence, but you’re right, it’s going to happen to a lot of us and most of us will never know. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860/40 "2016-01-05T01:54:50Z")
> [@botsgotme](#): > > Very true: in Edmund Halley’s classic treatise on the statistics of the human life span, he listed one of the common causes of death as “Rising of the Lights”-what was that? > > > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > > A lung infection of children apparently. Huh. In English-language food recipes, “lights” are animal lungs. Never heard of it used with people. Expected a euphemism only at table. I wonder if the word “light” for lungs is correlated–or originating–in other languages. “Rising of the Lights” is a very evocative/poetic phrase, I think, when its medical meaning is unknown. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-was-cancer-in-the-past/741860.md?page=3)