The ‘Natural’ History of Cancer in Africa

While it is widely accepted that cancer incidence is on the rise in Africa, and global oncology has burgeoned, the history of cancer and cancer research on the continent is generally not discussed. This thesis reviews data original research and policy statements on cancer in Africa from the 1950s til the early 1980s. The analysis herein seeks to unpack the movations for the etiological and epidemiological cancer surveys that seem to have risen to prominence beginning in the 1950s. It also charts the significance of racial difference as it was factored into the categorization, incidence, and outcomes of various cancers, and considers colonial perspectives on the difference between African and European cancer. This work also reviews issues of treatment and therapeutics as they arose (though rarely) during certain regional conferences. It reveals that certain proposals about developing oncology infrastructure bore striking similarity to those advanced in the 21st century in Rwanda. Overall, Africa was a living laboratory for understanding cancer in its ‘natural’ state—it was observable and describable in contexts where the various conditions of European civilized and industrialized life had not taken hold, so that it was easier to isolate environmental exposures related to local ecology and lifestyle. Thus, despite certain gestures toward the future of treatment, knowledge about cancerogenesis was largely extracted from African contexts for the purposes of advancing cancer epidemiology and geographic pathology.