Traditional historians, physicians, and surgeons often view medical science as progressive, i.e., more facts produce better theories which produce better treatment. While this view is not entirely incorrect, an analysis of the history of breast cancer yields an alternative model: the hypothesis exists first, and researchers attempt to fit the facts to the hypothesis. Breast cancer treatment has been, and still is based on theory rather than on fact. Only when researchers are confronted with repeated anomalies does the existing hypothesis break down. However, a new, unproven theory must be articulated before its corresponding treatment is accepted. Moreover, patients will submit only to that therapy they believe to be beneficial; therapy therefore must correspond to their personal beliefs about the nature of breast cancer. This model of medical science as a series of paradigms helps explain the changes, as well as the controversies, that have occurred in the past and exist today in the management of breast cancer.

ISSN 0823-2105

© 2012 Canadian Society for the History of Medicine/
    Société canadienne d'histoire de la médecine