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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. By the time Farber began his work in 1947, what had happened to the public outcry against cancer?

2. Mukherjee met with Carla. They discussed the survival rate of leukemia. At one time, there was almost no chance that Carla could have been able to survive the onset of the leukemia. With the advent of modern medicine and new treatments, Carla had a ______ chance of surviving the disease.

3. Virchow began to notice uncontrolled growth of cells. Virchow referred to this as _____________ or distorted growth.

4. What is MOPP?

5. In 1969, the New York Times published an open letter to ___________________ begging him to support cancer research.

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the significance of using MOPP in the treatment of breast cancer?

2. What were the two major arguments regarding current cancer treatments? Why?

3. What were the problems with VAMP? How might these be corrected?

4. How did Virchow stumble upon cancer?

5. Why did Sidney Farber change professions? How might this have been a somewhat difficult adjustment?

6. What symptoms led to Carla Reed learning she had leukemia?

7. Describe Min Chiu Li's work. Why did others believe further treatment was not necessary?

8. Describe the New York Times letter to Richard Nixon. How could this tactic be useful today?

9. What did Moya Cole think of Halsted's theories? Why?

10. How could this battle regarding surgery be ended?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

John Bennett was a Scottish physician in the 1800s.

Part 1) What discovery did he make? What were his assumptions about this discovery? Why might he have come to this conclusion? How was he wrong?

Part 2) Describe the work of Rudolf Virchow. How did his studies and conclusions compare to Bennett's? How did this affect what is known about cancer and specifically leukemia? How had knowledge of cancer developed up to this point? What important studies and cases led to the naming of leukemia in 1847?

Part 3) How did studies after the 1840s lead to even more understanding of cancer and specifically leukemia? Has this led to a significant amount of success? Why or why not? Has cancer research seen as much success as other areas of medical study? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

The government has at times been involved in the fight against cancer.

Part 1) When did the U.S. government first get involved in the fight against cancer? What led to this involvement? How was cancer research affected by this involvement? When and why did this involvement and public interest wane? How did this affect cancer research?

Part 2) At what other times did the government get involved in cancer research? How did the fight against cancer benefit from this involvement? How are our own lives affected by this involvement?

Part 3) At this point in our history, is the study of cancer as important to the American people as it was at other times in the past? Why or why not? What issues are most important to Americans today? Why? How might this affect the study of cancer?

Essay Topic 3

Mukherjee discusses the history of cancer.

Part 1) When was the finding and study of cancer first seen? How is this surprising? Why might knowledge and/or discussion of cancer stopped after this period of time? Did cancer still exist? Why or why not?

Part 2) What are two other times in history when the study of cancer took place? What did doctors and scientists know about cancer at that time? On what information was this knowledge based? How accurate was this knowledge?

Part 3) What is known about cancer today? How much of our knowledge today is based on previous knowledge? How important is cancer history to the study of cancer today? Why? How is history, in general, important to us today?

(see the answer keys)

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