He waged a war against cancer, soon realizing that treating and preventing cancer would need more than scientists and physicians to come together at a large scale. He made sure they had a colorful and cheery atmosphere in the hospital. While he lost many of his patients to disease and unsuccessful drug trials, he was also the first to change how his patients, most of them children, experienced the disease externally. Farber made important leaps in the field: he was the first person to recognize that cancer could be treated or minimized with a chemical drug. However, the author reminds us that cancer remains ever-changing and requires us to constantly shift tactics in a quest to find a cure.Barring the author’s fascination with imbuing cancer with a human personality (not entirely misguided, cancer cells are motivated by the same force as us - to reproduce themselves and live forever), two human characters stood out to me. Targeted therapies that build on our better understanding of the mechanisms by which cancers develop have improved cures and survival rates. Therefore, cancer is an enemy that lurks in our own genome. It was not until scientists had a better understanding of genetics that they came to know that cancer arises from mutations in our cells. In addition to trying cures, the fight against cancer moved to prevention, proving the link between cigarette smoking and cancer. Political forces trying to raise money for cancer hoped for a unitary cause and cure to galvanize fundraising, but such a cure remained elusive.

Scientists in the early days of treatment broke into rival camps that advocated radiation, chemotherapy, and radical surgery. In the 20th century, cancer became emblematic of an age in which people lived long enough to develop many types of cancer and in which prevention and sanitation felled other types of diseases. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, radical surgeons turned to cutting off large parts of the cancer-ridden body. The currents of treatment changed from no recourse to bloodletting, which was supposed to cure the body of excess black bile, thought to be the cause of the disease.

Mukherjee explains how cancer treatments have evolved over the centuries, from its first recognition in ancient times. He also began to raise money and awareness of the disease through the Jimmy Fund. Farber began to use antifolates in his treatment, and patients experienced brief remissions. In the late 1940s, scientific thought believed nothing could help these types of patients. The author then describes Sidney Farber, an imperious and brilliant pathologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, and his quest to use the first forms of chemotherapy to treat children with leukemia.

Cancer the emperor of all maladies book