Near-Recent Cancer Biology History

In 1879, human chemical exposures were studied during the Industrial Revolution period. It was found that chronic dermal contact with shale oil, coal distillates, petroleum products, or chimney soot could cause skin cancer. An inordinate prevalence of lung cancer was exhibited among coal miners and was the first internal cancer associated with a known occupational exposure. An iatrogenic cancer of the skin, due to long-term ingestion of potassium arsenite from Fowler s solution (used as a tonic in small doses), was recorded by 1887. In 1895, excessive cancer of the urinary bladder was identified in workers from the aniline dye industry. 

Following Lister s phenolic surgical sterilization methods, after 1867, Theodor Bilhoth in Vienna typified the period in formal and documented surgeries for systematic surgical invasion of all body cavities for the removal of internal cancers. 

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