The Dread Disease: Cancer and Modern American Culture

by James T. Patterson

Book Overview

Cancer is that "loathsome beast, which seized upon the breast, drove its long claws into the surrounding tissues, derived its sustenance by sucking out the juices of its victims, and never even relaxed its hold in death," a turn-of-the-century physician recorded. Even today cancer affects the popular imagination with dread. In a subtle and penetrating cultural history, James Patterson examines reactions to the disease through a century of American...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674216261
• ISBN13: 9780674216266
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 374 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

An extraordinary history book, sadly, still valid today

This extraordinary book traces the history of cancer as a disease and cultural phenomenon through the mid-1980s. Perhaps its most horrifying message is how little has changed since then, that is, how cancer prevention rarely prevention and cancer therapy rarely cures but only prolongs the euphemistic "progression-free disease." Worth reading for any one interested in the history of medicine, the totemic nature of our continuing belief in mythic cures, and our slow and far-from-steady progress in health management.