History
In past centuries, the development of breast cancer was most commonly seen as divine punishment or a trial. From ancient Greek medicine until the end of the 17th century, the dominant medical explanation was an imbalance of the four humors. By the start of the 18th century, humoralism had generally been rejected. Many other theories were put forward, often related to sexual activity: In 1713, Bernardino Ramazzini said that nuns developed breast cancer at a higher rate than married women because they did not engage in sexual intercourse, and the "unnatural" lack of sexual activity caused instability of the breasts; others countered that the cause was frequently too much sexual activity. Other theories from the 18th century included various sorts of problems with the movement of body fluids, such as lymphatic blockages, curdled breast milk or the transformation of pus left after an infection.
In modern times, women are more likely to blame themselves, perhaps deciding that their diet, childbearing history, decision not to breastfeed, or level of exercise is the cause.
Read more about this topic: Risk Factors For Breast Cancer
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)