Cancer

I thought cancer is a recent disease and it appeared only because of all the noxes and cancerigenic substances there were released in the air and water after the industrial revolution, so close to present. But unfortunately things proved a lot different from what I used to think and proved me once again that we are learning something new every day. A bit of research or better said Goggle search informed me that breast cancer was documented a lot earlier, around 1600 BC in Ancient Egypt on a papyrus that described the main symptoms and appearance of this disease and also specified that it is not curable.

It was only later, in the seventeenth century that doctors realized the connection between the lymphatic system and the spreading of breast cancer and they realized that by removing the breast completely and also the armpit lymph nodes, together with some extra tissue from the chest could lead to a longer life for the patient. So this disease was well known from the ancient times.Actually if you are a bit curious to study this topic you will find out that some really famous women who played an important part in history died of breast cancer, among them Empress Theodora who was married to Justinian, the Roman emperor, Anne of Austria - who was the Queen of France and married Louis XIII, George Washington's mother and many others.



The really interesting thing is that sometimes some of the breast cancer symptoms appeared in painting, especially the painting belonging to the Rennaissance period. That can be explained by the fact that the painters of that period were inspired by real-life models and painted them exactly as they were in reality. Actually these things were not known back then but they were discovered a lot later, in the modern era, a few years ago, when a doctor that specialized in breast cancer admired one of Rembrandt's paintings, The Portrait of Bathsheba, and noticed the signs and symptoms of breast cancer in painting.

There was obviously a change in the dimension of one breast when compared to the other and also an unusual mass on one of the breasts and even a slight change in the breast skin colour. Then a team of surgeons analyzed other paintings belonging to the same period and found breast lacerations, inverted nipples and other signs of breast cancer.



There was a guy called James S. Olson who actually became rather passionate about this subject and gathered all the information he could find that related breast cancer to some of these famous paintings and wrote a book called "Bathsheba's breast - Women, Cancer and History. Here he documented the topic with lots of painting photos and also followed the path of breast cancer in history , writing about famous women who suffered from breast cancer, but never talked about it, as it was considered innappropriate at the time.

Here are some famous paintings of famous painters and if you are curious about this , try to find a good photo or reproduction and examine it carefully in order to find the eventual signs and breast cancer symptoms  in painting: La Fornarina by Rafael Sanzio, The Three Graces by Peter Paul Rubens, Bathsheba with David's Letter byRembrandt van Rijn.  I bet you already knew these paintings, but you never noticed the symptoms there, right?