What was cancer like 150 years ago? It was bad (GRAPHIC PICTURES)

(CBS) "You have cancer."

Even today, those are some of the scariest words a patient can hear. But things were way worse in the 1800s and early 1900s, when there were no CT scans and when tumor-killing drugs and other advanced treatments were still a far-off dream.

PICTURES: Cancer care in the 1800's

Though he's an eye doctor, Dr. Stanley B. Burns knows a bit about 19th Century cancer care. That's because he possesses one of the world's largest collections of vintage medical photographs, including many images of long-dead cancer patients and doctors.

The Burns Archive offers a glimpse of old-fashioned cancer care that is absolutely fascinating - and, because patients often got treatment only after their tumors were very advanced, quite horrifying.

"Patients back then were fearful of doctors," Dr. Burns tells CBS News. "There was no anesthesia, and doctors still hadn't developed antiseptic surgical procedures," meaning surgery for cancer tended to be painful and apt to result in potentially deadly infections.

"One of the things that makes my pictures so valuable is that they show the phenotype of cancer" - that is, the way it appears when it is advanced to a stage that is rare in today's world of early diagnosis and treatment.

The photographs that make up the Burns Archive reside in Dr. Burns Manhattan offices. But click here to see a sampling. Beware, some of the images are disturbing.