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I've read all books by Jürgen Thorwald and Siddhartha Mukherjee long time ago so yes, I'm familiar with the history of the medicine.
Especially Mukherjee's book on cancer talks a lot about the toxicity of the early anti-cancer treatments and further progress.
What you are missing here is that all of these treatments, even ineffective or toxic, were still the best option for terminal patients, who chose them over certain death.