If you are into astronomy or astrology it will come as no surprise that cancer means “crab” and did also in Greek and Latin.
Today's podictionary word brought to you by GoToMeeting. Try it free for 30 days by following the link www.gotomeeting.com/podcast But in Greek and Latin, as in English cancer also means “a malignant tumor” and has done since before Latin became a “dead language.” The idea (as reported to us by an ancient physician named Galen) is that a tumor is a central mass with enlarged blood vessels running into it and looks vaguely like a crab with its legs & claws sticking out around it. Originally in English the crab was cancer but the tumor was canker . Between 1600 and 1700 the distinction between the minor cankers we get in our mouths and the more life-threatening tumors manifested itself in the re-emergence of cancer as the name for the worse of the two.
In the 1700 and 1800s people used cancer as a verb; “to cancer” meant “to eat into incessantly.” According to Greek mythology cancer the crab pinched the foot of Hercules, who killed cancer. The gods then placed the crab in the heavens—hence the constellation.
I mentioned Galen as our source for the etymology. Even though this is supposed to be a re-podcast of an old episode [originally aired June 15, 2005] I see that although I've come across Galen many times in my researches, I've never actually talked about him. Galen was a superstar scientist of 1800 years ago. He was Greek but Greek in the time of the Roman Empire so he moved to Rome to advance his career.
He was very keen on anatomy so instead of guessing at how the body worked, he sliced into people and animals to actually understand the workings. He was also very keen on publishing his findings and for that he became the dominant thinker in medicine for more than 1000 years and well past medieval times in Europe.
Even in his own time he was seen as a superstar. At one point Jesus Christ was referred to as a “neglected Galen,” that's how important a thinker Galen was.
