Hippocratic physicians (after the fourth century BC) coined the name Karkinos for tumours. They tended to use it for almost any visible tumours whether or not we would call them cancers. Non healing tumours were called Karkinoma. They preferred plasters to surgery as they thought cancer was incurable.

There was a debate over surgery in the second century between followers of Archigenes of Apamea and Galen. The latter blamed cancer on an excess of black bile and thought surgery was needed unless the cancer had just commenced. Both agreed on the uses of mastectomy to treat breast cancer with cauterisation of the wound both to stop infection and to burn out the remaining cancer.

Papavramidou et al argue that while the black bile theory was obviously incorrect, the surgical procedures described quite rational.

N. Papavramidou, T. Papavramidis, T. Demetriou, "Ancient Greek and Greco-Roman Methods in Modern Surgical Treatment of Cancer " in Annals of Surgical Oncology (2010) 17:665-7.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of all Maladies: a Biography of Cancer (2010).