George Herman “Babe” Ruth is remembered today as the greatest baseball
player ever. Fans recall fondly his prodigious home runs and his many titles, records,
and accolades earned on the playing field. In 1946 Ruth developed various symptoms in
the head and neck region. He subsequently sought medical treatment and received a
multitude of misdiagnoses.
Ruth had a relatively rare form of cancer known as nasopharyngeal carcinoma. To the
present day, many misconceptions still persist surrounding his cancer. Today, we can
truly view Ruth as a hero off the athletic fields for his humanitarian efforts in
volunteering for experimental cancer treatments in order to help medical researchers
gather very valuable information while fully knowing that such treatments would never
cure his own cancer.
Keywords: Babe Ruth, baseball, Boston Red Sox, cancer research, cancer
treatment, experimental drugs, Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Horner Syndrome,
nasopharyngeal carcinoma, trismus.
