Dr. Millard named this case "The Gorgon's Head" because natal Sun is conjunct Algol - except, the conjunction is really more than 3° wide. That's way too wide. We could, of course, count the partile Saturn-Algol conjunction, and Sun is conjunct Algol in the foreground - and maybe there is something to do that, although a lot of people had Saturn conjunct Algol. I only give it credence at all because it was the week Sun conjoined the Saturn, and at the time they were angular. (Neither Sun nor Saturn was in partile paran to Algol.)
Regardless of the Algol effect or whatever Millard named the chapter, I'm interested in the medical circumstances. The description of these begins with a clear description of the foreground Sun-Saturn conjunction!
I have quoted this so extensively not so much because of the medical details (though I think everything I quoted in part of documenting medical details) but because it is so extraordinary a profile of the classic Saturn personality (especially reinforced by Mars-Neptune conjunction)! Millard ended by concluding that the real effect of Algol had been to turn this woman to stone. - One can also read the 9th House emphasis as overdone and narrow.She is probably the most selfish person I have ever met and lives only to exploit others. The only thing Flo ever feared was her mother. Iti s certain that she was suppressed in her childhood and could never show her feelings for fear of punishment. The stage was set for cancer, if we can believe those who claim that it is a psychosomatic disease.
Her father shot himself. Her brother died of hemophilia. Her sister outwardly assented to all the rules and regulations of the household but quietly went her own way. The influence of her mother on Flo was to abolish completely all tender feelings [Sun-Saturn conj in Taurus!], and she is quite asexual and sternly religious in the worst possible way.
In 1962, this woman had carcinoma of the ovaries, uterus, and Fallopian tubes. It is interesting and significant that the denial of love and sexuality should have taken revenge in this way. An imbalance in the normal ratio of the female hormones has been thought to be the probable cause of malignant disease of the sex organs, although this is not certain, and indeed there was a serious imbalance in this patient.
...Flo was married at the age of twenty, because she had become pregnant. She had a daughter, whom she refused to bring up, and she even refused to bring her home from the hospital. Her sister looked after the baby, and later, after her sister had married and left home, her mother adopted the child. Between her aunt and her grandmother, the poor child had such an oppressive time that she ran away from home at the age of fifteen, and was self-supporting thereafter. The patient's marriage was dissolved after only a few months. After that, she never had any interest whatsoever in any man, and the great mystery for all who knew her was how she got herself impregnated at all. There were, apparently, homosexual tendencies as she lived with a young woman for several years and became very upset and resentful when this friend moved out and married.
...The hormone imbalance is responsible for her bizarre medical history. She had severe bleeding for about ten years from fibroids and a hysterectomy was performed, but the surgeon saw cancer in the tubes and ovaries as soon as she was opened up. During the freeing of the enlarged tubes, one of them ruptured and seeded cancer cells throughout the pelvic cavity. A course of cobalt treatment was given, and there was been no recurrence in fifteen years.
...Before her serious illness, she used to despite people who were ill. Now she has become quite neurotic about her health. She is always the first in line whenever any free public health services are offered. She thinks that any bruise, any stiffness, any thickening of the skin, any feeling of fatigue, is due to the return of her cancer.
However, she has not learned to live life. She has no interests except her narrow and rigid Christianity, which could not be further from what Jesus taught. She delights in getting something for nothing and is extraordinarily lucky. Her main talent is in getting other people to help her... She... has never known the joy of helping someone less fortunate...
But let's get back to the medical stuff in particular...