Historical Perspectives of Drug Treatments in Cancer Quackery

The place of quackery is important in the history of medicine. In this context, cancer quackery is in the forefront of it. Therefore, English literature and foreign translations are searched from 1635 to1886 in order to obtain some memorable perspectives of drug treatments in cancer quackery. Historical Perspectives Sir Macfarlane Burnet, [1] who is far famed for his pioneer work on cancer surveillance, recommended clearly in his Brailsford Robertson Memorial Lecture that scientists should acquaint themselves with historical antecedents. Therefore, this paper documents such antecedents in respect of the drug treatment modalities used by cancer quacks. Quacks were presented in the 1725 History of Physic by Friend [2] concerning “how much quacks have prevailed in all ages.” As he put it, “There are so many little Arts used by Mountebanks and Pretenders to Physic, that an extensive treatise, had I a mind to write one, would not contain them all.” Therefore, in the present paper, let me review the historical perspectives of the practice of quackery in the important field of the drug treatment of cancer. In fact, as Ackerknecht [3] exemplified, “The confusion of cancer with other tumours may explain at all times many reports of “cancer cures”, on which in turn at all times quacks have thrived.” Cancer quackery was probably best known through the name of Plunket. In particular, according to Macbride’s 1772 account, [4] the composition of his remedy was kept a secret in Ireland by a family of that name and in England by those who bought it, but it was believed to consist of the things mentioned in the following note: Take of the leaves and stalks of the ranunculus flammeus two pugils; of those of cotula foetida one pugil; white arsenic, two drachms; flowers of sulfur, one drachm. Mix the whole, and rub them into a powder. This powder, made into a paste with the white of an egg, is applied to the cancerous part which it is intended to corrode; and being covered with a piece of thin bladder, smeared also with the white of an egg, is suffered to lie on from twenty-four to forty-eight hours; afterwards the eschar is to be treated with softening digestive, as in ordinary cases. Cases treated in this manner were studied by Young [5] in 1805. Incidentally, he included a penetrating picture of the use of the Plunket remedy by even a contemporary surgeon. As he saw it, the man “having bought the Plunket receipt, appears to have been determined to support it at an price even by the sacrifice of his character as a surgeon, in stooping to the mysterious artifices of a secret remedy...” Cancer remedy often suffered the tragedy of being shrouded in secrecy. In fact, secrecy was a fundamental feature of cancer quackery. Thus, Morgagni [6] mentioned “a person who, by the application of a caustic herb, was said to destroy (cancer) radically” and related how in regard to the herb itself “the person himself conceal’d it as much as he possibly could.” On considering this secrecy aspect of cancer quackery, Sir Spencer Wells [7] in 1888 contrasted it with traditional practice by asserting that “we have no reason to fear a comparison between what we can do by fair and open means, and what really can be done, or ever has been done, by any cancer cure or any secret remedy.” Remedy obtained from quacks was associated with both the impropriety of their methods and the dubiety of the results. In this context, in a case reported by Wiseman [8] in 1676, a woman with breast cancer “sent for the Empirick, who undertook to extirpate it by Escharoticks: and she bled to death in few days”. In another case of this disease recorded by Browne [9] in 1678, the quack, by “applying very attracting Medicine, drew...her out of her troubles by sending her into another world.” “Sometimes,” said Norford [10] of such occurrences in 1753, “the simplest Remedy, in the hands of the ignorant, becomes like a Sword in a Mad-man’s Hand”. Hand in hand did some quacks operate. For instance, John Hunter [11] referred to two quacks, “Roderiguez and Flusius, who obtained considerable fame and fortune” by their artifices. On recalling one of their victims, the fellow “had been a life-guardsman... and had got a never-failing (personal) receipt”. No wonder that, having such an available fortune, he was able to pay their demands. The artful relief of the patient’s money was part and parcel of cancer quackery. Thus, if they can persuade the patient, they put them through to undergo some operation since “they get some money in hand” [12]. For instance, from Browne’s experience [9] , there was the reported case of a woman from whom one quack drew “what she had into his own pocket”. Doubtless, large amounts went with promises of sure cure. For example, in the case discussed by Browne, [9] a “Mountebank coming to this Town promised her... a perfect Cure. Wiseman [8] himself related that, in the case of a man with jaw tumour, “some Empiricks promised him great hopes of Cure by their Specificks”. “Like many other incurable diseases,” Billroth [13] wrote in 1878, that “carcinosis has become a camping ground for charlatanism, and even in the latest Chemotherapy Open Access Wilson, Chemotherapy 2014, 3:3 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2167-7700.1000140