As the eighteenth century drew to a close, cancer had to be declared ‘absolutely incurable’. The number of hopefuls and optimists who believed there were effectual remedies for cancer was always relatively low, and there is reason to suggest that towards the end of the century, following a period of great enthusiasm for substances such as hemlock, there were many who suffered from an intellectual hangover. The number of those who believed in the greater effectiveness of the knife seems to have been somewhat higher. Regardless of this slight disillusionment with progress, however, early modern people were and remained resourceful. In every generation, many physicians and surgeons were desperate to find ways to help their patients. It was one's duty to make an effort to hinder the development of the disease, according to one's profession, whether by extirpation or amputation or by mitigating the symptoms with a multitude of drugs available in the apothecary's shop, even if one admitted that these methods were ‘but sad resources’. It is striking how passionately eighteenth-century authors wrote about cancer and the lack of means to help their suffering patients.

In the following chapter, I take a look at these ‘sad resources’, from ‘lean diets’ to the scalpel; in other words, from palliative medicine to the physicians’ pharmacopoeia, and thence in conclusion to the surgeons’ craft. The direction is from mild towards what were considered radical treatments.