If The History Of Medicine Is Told

Down To Their Innate Molecular Core, Cancer Cells Are Hyperactive, Survival-endowed, Scrappy, Fecund, Inventive Copies Of Ourselves.

I Began Wondering, Can One Really Write A Biography Of An Illness? But I Found Myself Thinking Of Cancer As This Character That Has Lived For 4,000 Years, And I Wanted To Know What Was Its Birth, What Is Its Mind, Its Personality, Its Psyche?

I Had Seen Cancer At A More Cellular Level As A Researcher. The First Time I Entered The Cancer Ward, My First Instinct Was To Withdraw From What Was Going On - The Complexity, The Death. It Was A Very Bleak Time.

I Am A Scientist And I Am A Physician. So I Write Papers.

Cancer's Life Is A Recapitulation Of The Body's Life, Its Existence A Pathological Mirror Of Our Own. Susan Sontag Warned Against Overburdening An Illness With Metaphors. But This Is Not A Metaphor. Down To Their Innate Molecular Core, Cancer Cells Are Hyperactive, Survival-endowed, Scrappy, Fecund, Inventive Copies Of Ourselves.