Tracing tradition. The idea of cancerous contagiousness from Renaissance to Enlightenment

This paper is concerned with landmarks in the history of the idea of
cancerous contagiousness from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment.
The origins of the idea of cancerous contagiousness is considered on
the basis of Galen’s distinction between scabiesleprosy, cancer and
elephantiasis. Paul of Aegina (seventh century) established the
association between these latter diseases. In the fourteenth century, a
‘new line of inquiry’ developed concerning the transmission of diseases
like plague, and G. Fracastoro (1546) applied this approach by stating
that putrefaction and inflammation notably produce elephantiasis,
which is obviously contagious, as inflammation and heat, without
putrefaction, produce cancer. J. Fernel (1548) applied the process of
syphilitic contamination to ulcerated cancer, whose vapour ‘is widely
dispersed’ and which ‘quickly kills by its malignancy’. G. Cardano (1564)
reacted against these views, and declared that cancer was could not
be transmitted by contact. But A. Zacuth (1629–1634) and N. Tulp
(1652) provided instances of such transmission. D. Sennert, who is
often said to have accepted Zacuth’s testimony, was doubtful and
suggested, rather than contagion, transmission by heredity. This type of
explanation was privileged during Classical Age, until experiments on
animals or human beings infected by cancerous liquid took place
during the Enlightenment in France and England. Pichler (1786) finally
recommended forbidding marriage between people suffering from
cancer