Claire Turner

Plate by Remi Parr showing a cancerous breast and mastectomy, from R. James’ A medicinal dictionary, including physic, surgery, anatomy, chymistry, and botany in all their branches relative to medicine, c.1745. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.

The Contagious Taste of Cancer

Early modern cancer experiments such as that undertaken by English surgeon Samuel Smith privileged the senses, but the effects could be fatal.