A Critique of Pure (Genetic) Information

118 Chapter 4
a probability approaching unity, the time of onset cannot be predicted, and only
a very small fraction of the cells, all of which carry the mutation, become transformed;
to do so, additional mutations are required, but they can be found in
normal tissue as well. To achieve a better understanding of cancer, it will be necessary
to take into account the genome of the transformed cell, the state of the
surrounding tissue, the age of the organism, its diet and the environment in which
it lives.
—Harry Rubin, 1999
From Black Bile to Misguided Developmental Potential
The history of the biology of cancer can be divided into three periods.
The debate between a genetic versus an epigenetic-developmental emphasis
in explaining cancer can only be dated as far back as Boveri’s somatic
mutation hypothesis of the first decade of the twentieth century. The
commencement of the genetic position in cancer thus squares well with
the phylogenetic turn in biology (see chapter 1) and marks the beginning
of the third period. The developmental view first emerged during
the nineteenth century alongside, and in direct relation to, the
rise of modern cell theory, histology, and embryology, all of which had
their origins in the ferment of the 1790s. We will thus identify the
last decade of the eighteenth century as the beginning of the second
period.
The first period of cancer biology begins with the Greeks. Classical
medicine referred to cancer but did not distinguish sharply between
inflammation, ulcers, benign lesions, and neoplasia—all were taken up
in a humoral theory of disease (Rather 1978). Hippocratic writers associated
the properties of the four elements, hot, cold, wet, and dry, with
the four humors, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. In some
manner, the historical details of which are not clear, blood became associated
with hot and moist, phlegm with cold and moist, yellow bile with
hot and dry, and black bile with cold and dry.
This scheme, appropriated by Galen, became canonical for medicine
well into the seventeenth century (Rather 1978). Good health in Galenic
medicine involved maintaining the right balance of the humors. The
source of the humors was understood to be ingested food, which was
broken down through “concoction” and distributed through the body.