department of history of medicine, school of traditional medicine, tehran university of medical sciences, tehran, iran

Aretaeus of cappadokia, lived in an era when cancer was already a disease,well known for its deadly outcome. inside his momentous treatise,composed of 8 books, he had outlined various types of cancer. hehad understood cancer’s fatality and proposed some curative treatments.our manuscript composes the fragments related to cancer, in an effortto present aretaeus’ views on the matter. he had emphatically ignoredthe breast cancer, maybe due to fact that this was a malignancy typethat could be operated with a strong change of survival according themedical knowledge of the era. on the other hand, various malignanciessuch as colon, hepatic and uterine cancer, attributed to the black bile(humours theory), were thoroughly examined, establishing a valuablemedical source for the future physicians to rely on.