Sir Percival Pott, a London physician in 1775, felt sorry for chimney sweeps. They were child laborers who Pott thought were treated cruelly. They were poorly fed, barely clothed, and forced to ascend into sooty chimneys. Too often, Pott saw they were “bruised, burned, and almost suffocated.”
In his practice at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Pott observed a tragic trend among the young chimney sweeps. Many of them suffered from scrotal cancer by the time they reached puberty. Pott connected the cancer to the chimney soot, which scientists would one day identify as a carcinogen.
Pott’s observation was one of the first instances in which a human-made carcinogen (sooty chimneys) was tied to cancer. Since his time, scientists have come to better understand how human-made carcinogens can contribute to cancer. Problematically, people often don’t know or understand the risks associated with exposure to carcinogens.
Carcinogens Cause Cancer
The National Cancer Institute describes a carcinogen in simple terms — “any substance that causes cancer.”
