AbstractsMedical & Health Science

Cancer is a disease recognized in antiquity. Its name, “Kapkivos”, a crab, was derived from the ancient description of breast cancer. Until the Nineteenth Century, it was entirely within the therapeutic province of the physician and surgeon. According to Bett (1957), Bernard Peyrilhe (1735-1804) was the first to conduct a systemic experimental investigation of the causation of cancer, in which he attempted to identify its toxin, and to trace the spread of the disease in order to devise better methods of treatment. Although more than two hundred years have passed since Peyrilhe's attempt, research into the cause of cancer is still one of the most intricate scientific activities of modern times.