From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week, a replay of a show that drew a huge response this spring. Not surprisingly, it's devoted to perceptions of cancer. So quick, what do you see when I say

the word cancer? A bald head, an x-ray, a loved one? What I see is a pulsating cell, fiery red,

with sunken eyes, a sinister grin and radiating spikes that twitch and stretch and

scrabble across my field of vision. Seriously, that's what I see. So we're drilling down deep

into the construction of cancer, as metaphor, entertainment, and crucible for public action,

for it has been, always will be, too much with us, as long as we live, the longer we live.

The way that cancer has insinuated itself in public imagination

has a long history, and that's why I think was exciting to imagine

what the life of cancer is like.

We're launching this hour with Dr. Sid Arthur Mukherjee, author of the Emperor of All Malities, a biography of cancer.

He says our notion of cancer's fierce and adamant nature begins with its name.

It comes to us from ancient times.

The word refers to the word crab.

For a reason, that's very visceral.

The ancient physicians, the legend goes, even Hippocrates, thought that a lump of cancer was like a crab buried under the sand, and all the inflamed blood vessels around it were like the legs of the crab.

And then it just got more and more enriched.

People thought the pincers of the crab or the sideways movement of cancer metastases.

The oldest reference that you know of comes from ancient Egypt.

In fact, the oldest reference is probably the oldest medical documents we possess as humans.

So, in fact, the very, very oldest document, the Edwin Smith papyrus.

It's a surprisingly modern document, even though it was written around 2,500 BC, which has case histories.

And one of those case histories seems like a case of breast cancer.

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