the.com/chemo
Chemo uses powerful drugs to attack and destroy fast-growing cancer cells in the body.
means A short form of 'chemotherapy,' the use of drugs to treat cancer by targeting and killing fast-dividing cells.
from Chemo is simply a clipping of chemotherapy, itself built from Greek 'khemeia' (chemistry, ultimately tangled up with alchemy) plus 'therapeia,' meaning healing or treatment. The term 'chemotherapy' was popularized in the early 1900s by the chemist Paul Ehrlich, who used it broadly for any treatment using chemical compounds to target disease-causing organisms — the cancer-specific meaning narrowed into place as drug treatments for tumors developed later in the 20th century.
- actual meaning
- short for chemotherapy, literally chemical therapy
- origin story
- grew out of WWI mustard gas research
- how it works
- targets fast-dividing cells, hair and gut included
- hair loss
- usually regrows, sometimes curlier or different color