However, he notes that historically cancer was much rarer and only as we have extended our life spans has cancer become the common disease faced today. Paleopathologists have confirmed the ancient nature of cancer, with the oldest cancer case confirmed in a mummy dating back to 400 AD. We learn that cancer is an ancient disease, first documented by an Egyptian physician called Imhotep in ~ 2500 BC. His presentation of cancer feels much more like a person than a disease, with leukemia serving as one of main characters. He knows the biology of the disease, which he describes as “the uncontrolled growth of a single cell,” and he notes that cancer cells, which grow better than other cells, “are more perfect versions of ourselves.”Īs Part One progresses, Mukherjee’s writing feels less like the history of the disease and more like a biography of cancer. The author feels stunned, almost to the point of incoherence, about the decisions he must make about his patients each day.įollowing his experience, the author is motivated to learn more about the history and ongoing war against cancer. He thinks about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel Cancer Ward, in which the protagonist, diagnosed with cancer, experiences the erasure of his identity. Nothing in Mukherjee’s training could have prepared him for this work. Ten months into his two-year fellowship in oncology, the author already feels drained and inured to the death around him. Leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells, is “breathtaking” with regard to its pace and acuity.

His beeper informs him to see a patient with leukemia when he arrives. The author learns about Carla as he is heading into work at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The book begins with the story of Carla Reed, a 31-year-old kindergarten teacher and mother of three who experiences headaches, strange bruising, white gums, and exhaustion.

The emperor of all maladies