"Happily ever after" for cancer viruses?

This essay discusses three common issues arising from the special collection "100 Years of Cancer and Viruses." The first is the tension between small-scale and big-scale approaches to cancer research; the second is the difference between how physicians and biologists regarded cancer, and how they assessed the value of investigating viruses as a causative agent; and the third is how the pace and temporality of science have varied over the century of research on cancer viruses. An unpublished piece written by C. H. Andrewes in 1935, "A Christmas Fairy-Story for Oncologists," provides the touchstone for the commentary.