This introductory chapter shows that it was in the nineteenth century that cancer acquired the unique symbolic, emotional, and politicized status it maintains today. Not only did it maintain a not-insignificant incidence, cancer also played a culturally significant role in nineteenth-century life. Then, as now, observers tied cancer to environment, diet, and morality; and malignancy was a prominent feature of the social, political, and cultural landscape. This chapter introduces the two main interrelated concerns of the book: one, the lasting formation of cancer’s identity as an uncommonly incurable and therefore uncommonly dreadful disease; and two, how cancer was made into a malady of modern life, a pathology of progress, and a product of civilization.