ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Around the world in a paraffin block: Cancer, classification and circulating human remains

• In Event: Shifting Perspectives on Disease Entities

English Abstract

This presentation focuses on how cancer diagnosis, nomenclature and treatment were negotiated in the early to mid-20th century, in part by tracing the circulation of human tissue samples. The negotiation preceding the creation of a disease category is not easy to trace. Hubs can be identified, but they remain black boxes (unless laboratory notebooks or correspondence record thought processes) until they are distilled in publications or protocols. I focus on the materiality of negotiating diagnosis categories. The exchange and circulation of tissue samples (in the form of histopathology slides and FFPE blocks) on local, national and international scales opens a window into the knowledge production of cancers. Herein, the materiality of the circulation of human tissue samples is revealing of epistemic categories and definitions of cancers. It is also a facet of the circulation of human remains that has received little attention.
From the turn of the 20th century, cancer was increasingly diagnosed by histopathology. That is, from a tissue sample preserved in a paraffin block that was sliced, mounted and stained on a microscope slide. These samples traveled routinely from consulting, operating or autopsy tables to laboratories once histopathology acted as a mediator or a hub, facilitating surgery, radiotherapy, pathology, and general medical practices of knowing and doing. The pathology report became decisive in what to do because histopathology classifications of cancer were articulated around effective treatment schemes.
Histopathology laboratory samples, reports, clinical records and publications related to cases of cancer in the 1920s in Strasbourg, alongside Atlas du Cancer (1924-1930), as well as discussions within the Ligue Contre le Cancer and others, illustrate how knowing and doing were aligned and circular. The role of material samples and therapeutic outcomes in France, Indochina and the United States will be presented to map negotiations of disease entities.

Author

• Tricia Close Koenig, University of Strasbourg