Ancient man was intrigued by the strange shape of cancer, a tumor with surrounding blood vessels resembling a crab with eight legs stretched out, and the disease was first documented in about 2500 BC. There was only one treatment for these tumors, and that was to repeatedly use a “fire drill” to burn off the tumors protruding from the skin. The ancients did not have microscopes, and they could not understand that cancer was the result of crazy cell growth. Hippocrates created the theory of body fluids, which believed that the human body was composed of four types of fluids: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and mucus, each with its own color and characteristics, and that these fluids were in balance in a normal human body, and that when the fluids were out of balance, people became sick. Around 160 AD, Galen in Rome, suggested that cancer is a systemic disease, black bile is covered all over the body, tumor is just the tip of the iceberg, surgery does not solve the fundamental problem, even if the tumor is removed, black bile will gather in other places. Even if the tumor is removed, the black bile will collect in other places. As long as the excess black bile can be excreted, the cancer can be cured, so bloodletting therapy has been popular for thousands of years. Throughout the long history, there were numerous and unimaginable drugs to cure cancer, such as wild boar’s tusk, fox’s lung, castor with shell, crab’s eye, and so on. It was not until the 16th century that the founder of modern anatomy, the Belgian physician André Vissarie, and the 18th century that the English physician, Dr. Vissarie, came up with the idea of treating cancer. The Belgian physician André Vesakli, the founder of modern anatomy in the 16th century, and the English pathologist Matthew Bailey, the 18th century, did not have the ability to see the eyes of a crab in an autopsy. It was not until the 16th century, when the founder of modern anatomy, Belgian physician André Vesaly, and the 18th century British pathologist Matthew Bailey found no black bile in the autopsy mentioned by Galen, that the theory of body fluids, which had influenced people for thousands of years, finally retired from history. The discovery of cancer cells In 1845, a young German internist, Dr. Rudolf Weil, discovered cancer cells in the body of a 50-year-old man. Three months later, he published his autopsy report, which he later considered to be his first contribution to the scientific community: this unidentifiable disease was caused by a massive increase in white blood cells. This unidentifiable disease was caused by a massive increase in white blood cells, which he later called leukemia. For the next 10 years, he continued to classify the disease, making new discoveries with his microscope, and in 1855, at the age of 34, Weil published his epoch-making article “Cytopathology”. In this article, he proposed that all cells divide from other cells, and that all tissue abnormalities in the body are due to “degeneration, deformation and replication of normal tissues”, which became the basis of modern cancer research. Weil is known as the “father of pathology”. Radical surgery was performed for centuries until two major discoveries made it possible to treat cancer surgically between 1846 and 1867, and then cancer treatment entered a “century of surgery”. The first discovery was anesthesia and the second was sterilization. The treatment increased the 5-year survival rate of patients to 30% at that time. The success of the technique, however, was not an indication of the success of the surgery itself. In the 1970s, the cold excision was met by an American surgeon named Bernard B. Fisher, an American surgeon, questioned it. In his eyes, a small radical resection with chemotherapy or radiation therapy could also reduce the recurrence rate, and modified radical surgery emerged. Scholars of the same period proved that breast-conserving surgery had the same long-term efficacy as radical surgery, and breast cancer surgery then entered the era of breast-conserving surgery. Currently, 70% to 80% of primary breast cancer patients in western developed countries are eligible for breast-conserving treatment, while another 20% to 30% of patients need total breast surgery. Radiation: A Double-Edged Sword On March 29, 1896, Emilie Gruber, a medical student in Chicago, USA, began using X-rays to treat breast cancer. Gruber began using X-rays to treat cancer. Although unsuccessful, this treatment marked the establishment of a new discipline of cancer research, radiation oncology, and the atomic age of cancer treatment. In 1898, Madame Curie and her husband extracted a small amount of radium. Radium rays are millions of times stronger than X-rays and have extraordinary effect on cervical and uterine cancer, but the extraction of radium is very difficult. At that time, radium became famous and became a panacea in the eyes of the world, and although the content of radium in it was minuscule, it was so popular that people had high hopes for radium, and when Madame Curie visited the United States in 1922, the headline of the New York Times was “Madame Curie plans to eradicate cancer completely”. But the good times did not last long, and in the 1920s many young women workers in American watch factories became strangely ill and died of diseases such as anemia and pneumonia. on July 4, 1934, Madame Curie died of pneumonia, the cause of which was radiation-induced leukemia. Chemotherapy: a door opened Like radiotherapy, the beginnings of cancer chemotherapy began by accident. During World War II, German and French chemists were able to chew and swallow food by treating the first patient with advanced X-ray resistance, where the tumor had extensively invaded the neck, face, axilla and mediastinum. After 10 days of treatment with nitrogen mustard, the patient’s tumor shrank significantly and he began to resume eating. From then on, chemotherapy began to take the stage of history. Soon after, Dr. Sidney Farber of the United States proved that a new treatment called aminopterin was used to treat the tumor. Dr. Faber proved that a drug called aminopterin could treat acute leukemia in children. Faber was lucky enough to find an aminopterin that inhibited the metabolism of folic acid. He succeeded, and the treated children’s physical parameters returned to normal. His group treated a total of 16 patients, 10 of whom were in remission and five of whom survived 4 to 6 months after diagnosis. The numbers may seem unremarkable, but for leukemia, it has been epoch-making progress, and since then, Farber’s dream that cancer could be cured by a specific drug has spread from leukemia to all cancer treatments. But progress in finding chemotherapy drugs remained slow, and Farber opened a door that seemed to close again. In his memorial essay following Rhodes’ death, Lasker wrote, “Rhodes was full of enthusiasm to find the only cure for cancer, but never succeeded. This holy war will probably be a failure.” Cancer: a genetic disease In the 1970s, Robert Weinberg, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed the “cancer gene theory. Weinberg proposed the “cancer gene theory” and on Nov. 11, 1982, Weinberg and another research group, Jeffrey Cooper, simultaneously published a paper in Nature. As research progressed, scientists found that different cancers seemed to have something in common, and if cancers of different natures were all caused by a certain gene, then finding a cure should become a possible task. As a result, more and more targeted drugs have emerged, and considerable progress has been made in treating a number of refractory tumors, including melanoma and lung cancer. 2012’s “200 Years of Cancer Research” says, “The battle for cancer has just begun, and there is still a long way to go to achieve ultimate victory, and molecularly targeted therapy is an important turning point in our ability to achieve victory. “ Cancer: Prevention is the key No matter how easy cancer treatment will become, it has become a consensus that prevention is still the most important. Rarely did the ancients recognize this as well. The medieval Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides was the founder of the Cairo School of Medicine. Maimonides, the chief Jewish priest of Cairo, advised that to prevent the disease, one should stay away from the dirty city and air, drink more chicken soup and eat more garlic, and exercise more. In 1942, the German-American physician William Hewper published a book entitled “Occupational Tumors and Cancer”. In 1942, a German-American doctor, William Huyper, published the book “Occupational Tumors and Related Diseases”, which advocated that the cause of the spread of cancer was “the rise of modern artificial environment”. Fuels, preservatives, explosives, plastics, fertilizers, pesticides, solvents, rubber, resins, pigments, paints, artificial fibers, building materials, radioactive substances, food additives, drugs, toiletries, and thousands of other things were all carcinogens in his eyes. The turning point came in 1964 with a 386-page report from the U.S. Department of Health, which concluded that a 70% increase in mortality among men of all ages was linked to smoking. In 1965, cigarette cartons began to carry warning labels, and in 1970, tobacco advertising was banned, and today the number of smokers in the United States is half of what it was in 1950. Beginning in 1990, the incidence of lung cancer in men in the United States began to decline, followed by a decline in lung cancer mortality in 1991. Over the next few decades, more and more cancer-causing factors were discovered; environment, diet, infection, and a host of other factors can lead to cancer over the long years. Being able to grasp the causative factors of a disease means that its emergence can be controlled at the source; early detection means a higher survival rate during the long progression of cancer. Thus, improving basic medical conditions, controlling various infection factors, popularizing early screening of breast cancer and prostate cancer, and promoting cervical cancer vaccine …… have finally shifted part of the “fierce battle” to the rear, “cancer is a preventable disease”. Cancer is a preventable disease” has been agreed upon by everyone. In the coming decades, advances in medicine will revolutionize the way cancer is treated. Carol Sikela, a professor of oncology at Imperial College of Medicine in the United Kingdom, said in a report titled “Cancer: A Preventable Disease. In a report entitled “Cancer 2025: The Future of Cancer Care,” Sikela wrote, “By 2025, cancer will be as chronic as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and asthma, affecting patients’ daily lives but not inevitably leading to death.”