Lauren 's Reviews > The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Mukherjee is a very gifted storyteller. He crafted this book with care, telling the personal history of cancer through his eyes as an oncologist and cancer researcher, and through the lives of some of his patients. He begins the book talking about the earliest mentions of cancer in literature (an Egyptian papyrus that mentions a breast tumor) and a Persian queen who had her slave perform a mastectomy to remove her cancer in 500 BCE. Mukherjee discusses the highlights of cancer research and the general history of medical science through time. Woven throughout the histories, he intersperses stories of patients he has treated - most notably following Carla, the young mother with lymphoma as she goes through treatment for her form of cancer.

From the "black bile" humor theory, the quack treatments, and the extremely damaging and invasive "surgeries" performed in the medieval and early modern period, the true advances in understanding cancer (as much as it can be understood) began in the nineteenth-century. Science in general reached new heights, and the advances of chemistry and physics led to advances in cancer treatment, i.e. chemotherapy and drug development, and radiation treatment. The discovery of carcinogens began the shift towards preventative medicine (fascinating / sad story about the chimney sweep children in Industrial England with their cancers from years of soot and ash inhalation) and the history behind the early screening tests that we so often take for granted (pioneers in mammography and Dr. Paponikolau, the researcher behind the Pap smear, who developed the test with guinea pigs), and the advancements in laboratory and research medicine. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are the social histories around the cancer research. Mukherjee writes a detailed history about the research and the advocacy partnership of Sidney Farber and Mary Lasker, and the founding of the National Cancer Institute and the political push for scientific and cancer-research funding.

Among the most interesting and revelatory sections for me was the research that went into discovering the correlation between tobacco and cigarette-smoking and lung cancer in the 1960s. Mukherjee gives great context for the battle to educate people about lung cancer and prevention. Many of the scientists that were researching did not believe that they would find any correlation - and many of them were chain smokers themselves.

The last section of the book describes the modern cancer research from the late 1970s to today; the discoveries of genetic roles in cancer formation, and the formulation of drugs. This section is the most scientific of the book, and a cursory knowledge of genetics might come in handy.

Mukherjee is a realist, and states it from the outset. Cancer effects us all, and as we age, it will effect everyone in some way - whether personally or with a family member or close friend. As an oncologist, he sees many patients and also sees many deaths. While cancer research has progressed, he is not shy to say that there may never be a way to beat this disease, as it is constantly changing and mutating into something new, something more destructive and invasive. He does say that many treatments now can prolong lives for months and years, and he has also seen long and "successful" remissions, but each case of cancer is different in each individual, and treatments for each case have different results. He encourages us to not think of it as a "War on Cancer" as was the common language in the 1950s-70s, and says that our culture may need to redefine "victory" in this war.

Highly recommend if you are interested in medical/scientific history, and in learning more about the social history, as well as the modern developments in cancer research.