Jammu, May 7 -- The root of the word 'cancer' stretches back over two millennia

Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases known to humanity. But where does its name come from? To find the answer, we need to travel back in time to ancient Greece and Rome.

Some of the earliest documented cases of cancer date back to the 4th century BC in Greece. Physicians at the time were already quite familiar with the disease and referred to malignant tumors using the Greek word "karkinos" which means crab. When Latin physicians later described similar illnesses, they adopted the Latin word for crab - "cancer". And that is how the term we use today became associated with this family of diseases.

Ancient Greeks and Romans recognized cancer as a seriou...