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Cancer has been around as long as humankind, but only in the second half of the twentieth century did the number of cancer cases explode.
Once thought to have neurofibromatosis, Joseph Merrick (also known as "the elephant man") is now, in retrospect, thought by clinical experts to have had Proteus syndrome. This endocrine disease causes continued and abnormal growth of the bones, muscles, skin, and so on and can become completely debilitating with severe deformities occurring anywhere on the body.
The modern decimal position system was the invention of the Hindus (around 800 AD), involving the placing of numerals to indicate their value (units, tens, hundreds, and so on).
This year, an estimated 1.4 million Americans will have a new or recurrent heart attack.
The first documented use of surgical anesthesia in the United States was in Connecticut in 1844.