ABSTRACT
The institutionalisation of cancerology and the first developments of the policy of the fight against cancer were closely connected to changes in the social field. If the emergence of a new view of an old illness was a preliminary to their inauguration, this contributed in return to the image of the scourge of cancer of modern times, which is today part of our common experience. But this change which saw cancer take on a more and more significant role, to the point where it became the main preoccupation regarding illness, did not happen independently of more global changes: it was the whole system which evolved and, with this, the world vision which changed. The appearance of the very idea of the ‘cancer peril’ was part of this process.
