This comprehensive analysis challenges the conventional medical assumption that cancer has always been equally prevalent throughout human history. Drawing on extensive historical records, medical missionary accounts, and anthropological studies from traditional societies worldwide, the evidence strongly suggests that cancer was exceptionally rare or nonexistent among pre-industrial populations. The article presents a compelling case that modern industrialization, with its environmental pollutants and lifestyle changes, has directly contributed to the cancer epidemic we face today, raising critical questions about prevention-focused approaches versus treatment-centered medical models.

Cancer and Civilization: Examining the Historical Evidence Linking Industrialization to Cancer

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Questioning the Cancer Establishment
• Economic Interests in Disease Management
• Historical Evidence from Traditional Societies
• Comprehensive Eskimo Cancer Studies
• Global Patterns of Cancer Emergence
• The Health and Integrity of Traditional Society
• Specific Evidence on Breast Cancer
• Clinical Implications for Modern Patients
• Study Limitations and Considerations
• Recommendations for Cancer Prevention
• Source Information

Introduction: Questioning the Cancer Establishment

A fundamental assumption within mainstream cancer medicine suggests that cancer has always affected humanity at similar rates throughout history, even in pre-industrial societies. This belief supports a medical approach focused primarily on treating cancer rather than preventing it. However, when we examine historical evidence from traditional societies that maintained their ancestral ways of life, a strikingly different picture emerges that challenges this foundational assumption.

The cancer establishment has built a massive industry around treatment and management rather than prevention. This billion-dollar industry includes pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, and countless professionals whose livelihoods depend on cancer's continued prevalence. If independent researchers are correct that man-made chemicals and industrial pollutants primarily drive today's cancer epidemic, this would fundamentally threaten the foundations of modern industrial economies.

Economic Interests in Disease Management

Industrialized economies have developed complex relationships with societal health problems. The business of managing disease—whether conflict in Ireland or cancer globally—creates employment and economic activity. Thousands work in fields that accommodate, avoid, and deal with health problems rather than prevent them.

This pattern extends to cancer treatment, where powerful institutions and multinational pharmaceutical companies have become dependent not on prevention but on the continued existence and growth of the cancer problem. The economic incentives align with treatment rather than prevention, creating systemic barriers to addressing root causes.

Historical Evidence from Traditional Societies

Unfortunately, we've allowed too much time to pass and too many cultures to be transformed by colonization and industrialization to conduct expansive studies of cancer in truly traditional societies. Our conclusions must therefore rely on historical scientific studies and overwhelming anecdotal evidence from medical professionals who worked with intact traditional populations.

Funding for research into the health of traditional people remains scarce because such research undermines the current medical establishment and our concept of "progress" itself. Nevertheless, several significant studies provide compelling evidence about cancer prevalence before widespread industrialization.

In 1960, Vilhjalmur Stefansson published "Cancer: Disease of Civilization?" which compiled extensive research on North American Eskimos and other traditional populations. René Dubos, Professor of Microbiology at Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, noted in the preface that "history shows that each type of civilization has diseases which are peculiar to it... certain diseases such as dental caries, arteriosclerosis, and cancers are so uncommon among certain primitive people as to remain unnoticed—at least as long as nothing is changed in the ancestral ways of life."

Comprehensive Eskimo Cancer Studies

The evidence from Arctic communities proves particularly compelling. Multiple physicians working extensively with Eskimo populations reported extremely rare cancer incidence:

• Dr. Joseph Herman Romig, Alaska's "most famous doctor," reported in his thirty-six years of contact with traditional Eskimos and Indians that he had "never seen a case of malignant disease among the truly primitive" populations, although cancer "frequently occurs when they become modernized"
• Dr. L. A. White, who practiced in Alaska for almost 17 years, reported that "malignant disease was extremely rare—in fact I had only one proven case (Bethel, 1940)" despite extensive work across multiple regions
• Dr. George Leavitt, after years working with Eskimos and questioning frontier doctors, eventually gave up looking for cancer victims "because he was so sure by then that, except among civilized Eskimos, no native cancers would be found in the Arctic"

Global Patterns of Cancer Emergence

The pattern observed in Arctic communities repeats globally wherever researchers examined traditional populations maintaining ancestral lifestyles:

• Dr. Eugene Payne examined approximately 60,000 individuals over a quarter-century in parts of Brazil and Ecuador and found no evidence of cancer
• Dr. Hoffman reported that among Bolivian Indians, "I was unable to trace a single authentic case of malignant disease. All of the physicians whom I interviewed on the subject were emphatically of the opinion that cancer of the breast among Indian women was never met with"
• Sir Robert McCarrison, a surgeon in the Indian Health Service, observed "a total absence of all diseases during the seven years I spent in the Hunza valley... I never saw a case of cancer"
• Dr. Allen E Banik and Renée Taylor described the Hunzas' "freedom from a variety of diseases and physical ailments" as "remarkable... Cancer, heart attacks, vascular complaints and many of the common childhood diseases... are unknown among them"

The Health and Integrity of Traditional Society

The distant Hebridean island of St. Kilda provides a documented case study of health transformation following contact with industrialization. Before external contact increased, St. Kildans enjoyed remarkable health according to multiple observers:

Dr. MacCulloch acknowledged "the good physique of the males," who appeared "well-looking" and "well fed." George Seton wrote in 1877 that "the remarkably healthy look of the children in arms was the subject of universal comment." Rear Admiral Otter believed that "those that survive infancy grow up strong, healthy men and women."

However, as contact with mainland "civilization" increased through missionaries and tourists, the health of the islanders declined dramatically. They became susceptible to diseases previously unknown in St. Kilda, and by the 20th century, "a general debilitating weakness had set in." This pattern of health decline following integration into industrial economies has been documented in diverse locations from Ireland to Portugal to the Himalayas.

Specific Evidence on Breast Cancer

The evidence regarding breast cancer proves particularly striking given its current prevalence. While breast cancer today afflicts one in eight women in the US, historical records show exceptional rarity among traditional populations:

In 1957, Mrs. Griest, head nurse of Farthest North Hospital, reported: "This I know, in all my 17 years of nursing in the hospital, we never found any women with lumps in their breasts." The Canadian Medical Association Journal in 1956 printed an article stating that "for the past ten years we have been aware of the relative freedom of Eskimos of the Canadian eastern Arctic from breast cancer and cystic disease. In spite of strenuous efforts, we have been unable to discover one authenticated case of Eskimo breast malignancy."

Clinical Implications for Modern Patients

This historical evidence carries significant implications for how we approach cancer prevention and treatment today. The near-absence of cancer in traditional societies strongly suggests that environmental and lifestyle factors play a predominant role in cancer development, rather than it being an inevitable disease of aging or genetics.

Industrialization has introduced countless chemical exposures, dietary changes, and lifestyle factors that were absent from traditional societies. These include processed foods, environmental pollutants, reduced physical activity, and chronic stress patterns—all of which may contribute to cancer development.

The evidence suggests that cancer prevention should focus more substantially on reducing exposure to industrial chemicals, returning to traditional whole-food diets, maintaining physical activity patterns similar to traditional lifestyles, and reducing the chronic stress associated with modern industrial life.

Study Limitations and Considerations

While the historical evidence is compelling, several limitations must be acknowledged. Traditional societies had shorter life expectancies, which might partially explain lower cancer rates since cancer risk increases with age. However, this explanation proves insufficient for several reasons:

When life expectancy is calculated from age ten rather than birth, traditional people often displayed similar or better longevity than modern populations. As René Dubos explained, "The increase in life expectancy is almost exclusively the result of the virtual elimination of mortality in the young age groups." The so-called increase in life expectancy often "represents merely prevention of early death rather than extension of natural lifespan."

Additionally, many physicians specifically noted the absence of external cancers that would have been easily detectable regardless of lifespan. Dr. George Plummer Howe believed that "external cancers could not possibly exist in the inspected regions for decades without being recognized or without resulting in deaths."

Recommendations for Cancer Prevention

Based on this historical evidence, patients concerned about cancer risk might consider several prevention-focused approaches:

1. Dietary modifications: Emphasize whole, unprocessed foods similar to traditional diets, reduce consumption of processed and industrialized food products
2. Chemical exposure reduction: Minimize exposure to industrial chemicals in food, water, household products, and personal care items
3. Physical activity: Incorporate regular, moderate physical activity patterns similar to those in traditional societies
4. Stress management: Develop practices to reduce chronic stress, which was likely less prevalent in traditional community structures
5. Community engagement: Foster strong social connections and community support systems, which characterized traditional societies

While modern medicine offers advanced cancer treatments, prevention strategies informed by historical evidence may provide powerful protection against cancer development. Patients should discuss these approaches with healthcare providers while recognizing that complete avoidance of modern environmental exposures remains challenging.

Source Information

Original Article Title: Cancer: A Disease of Industrialization

Author: Zac Goldsmith

Publication: The Ecologist, Vol. 28, No. 2, March/April 1998, pages 93-97

Note: This patient-friendly article is based on peer-reviewed research and historical medical documentation compiled in the original article. It presents historical evidence that challenges conventional assumptions about cancer prevalence throughout human history.