At the turn of the century gynecology had achieved independence from surgery in most medical schools; although gynecologists were surgeons, their interests were turning toward nonsurgical aspects of their specialty. In 1900, merely two years after the Curies' discovery, radium was first used as a treatment for carcinoma of the cervix. In that day cervical cancer claimed more women's lives than any other malignancy and was described by Wil liam P. Graves, the second professor of gynecology at Harvard as follows: 'Cancer of the cervix may rightly be termed of all tumors one of the most deadly...
At the turn of the century gynecology had achieved independence from surgery in most medical schools; although gynecologists were surgeons, their inte...
