Primary lung cancer

Cancer of the lung, a rare disease at the turn of the century, is today the most common cause of all cancer deaths in males.1 It has become one of the most devastating neoplasms known to medi cal science. The earliest records of pulmonary carcinoma are found in the writings of Agricola (A.D. 37@93)@2He and subse quent authors described an unusual dis ease of the lungs found in men working in the cobalt mines of Schneeberg and Joachimstal. They variously referred to it as tuberculosis, miner's lung and lymphosarcoma of the bronchial glands, but that it was pulmonary carcinoma was not established until Harting and Hesse did so in 1879. As late as 1881, Fraser had to apologize to the Medico Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh for his inability to present more than a single case in which the disease oc curred as a primary affection.3 The first outstanding American contribution to the subject was a monograph by Adler, 1912, in which he was able to tabulate only 374 cases.4 During the succeeding half-century, cancer of the lung has increased in the