Origin of the word cancer. The disease was first called cancer by Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 BC). He is considered the “Father of Medicine.” Hippocrates used the terms carcinos and carcinoma to describe non-ulcer forming and ulcer-forming tumors. In Greek this means a crab.ater Roman physician, Celsus (28-50 BC) translated the Greek term into cancer, the Latin word for crab. It was Galen (130-200 AD), another Roman physician, who used the term oncos (Greek for swelling) to describe tumors. Oncos is the root word for oncology or study of cancers.