6. Surgeon investigated if Cancer was contagious by surgically inserting a piece of Cancerous lymph node from a patient with Cancer of the lip under his skin.
You may have heard of Nicholas Senn being the “father” of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, even though the man was Swiss in reality. He was born in Sevelen, Switzerland and emigrated to the United States with his family in 1852 when he was eight years old, settling in Ashford, Wisconsin. Nonetheless, Senn grew up becoming an American patriot who served as the president of the American Medical Association in 1897-98 and as chief surgeon of the Sixth Army Corps in 1898, seeing service in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. His contributions to medicine, however, are those that made him stand out.
He is credited with pioneering work on the pancreas and the intestinal tract and he was among the first to use the then unpredictable x-rays in the treatment of leukemia. His many experiments relating to the reason for infection resulting from surgery led to surgical improvements practiced by all surgeons. In 1901, he examined whether cancer was contagious. He surgically inserted under his skin a piece of cancerous lymph node from a patient with cancer of the lip. After two weeks, the transplant started to fade and Senn concluded that cancer is not contagious.