Karkinos

My hairdresser is offering pink highlights this month, the proceeds of which will support breast cancer research. A friend told me today of two women with ovarian cancer. Family members are ill with this disease. Does it seem to anyone else that cancer is everywhere?

Wondering why the name cancer springs from the Greek word for crab, I discovered that Hippocrates coined the term based on the crab-like appearance of tumors. The website About.com provides us with this additional historical information:

"Today, we know so much about the human body; however early Greek physicians weren't so fortunate. Hippocrates believed that the body was composed of four fluids: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. He believed that an excess of black bile in any given site in the body caused cancer."

This statement gives me pause. Do we really know much more about the origins of cancer than Hippocrates did? As one who has suffered this disease, I think he's on to something. Cancer often comes roaring out of nowhere with no discernible cause. It follows its own unpredictable course, having stumped generations of doctors and scientists.

An accumulation of black bile in the body seems as accurate as anything else I've ever heard.