Fluctuating disease rates, innovative treatments and rumors of White House moonshots can make cancer seem like a modern scourge. But a new discovery highlights how humans dealt with disease and sought cures as early as the time of the ancient Egyptians.
Scientists led by Edgard Camarós, a paleopathologist at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, were studying an approximately 4,600-year-old Egyptian skull when they found signs of brain cancer and its treatment.
“There was an uncomfortable silence in the room because we knew what we had just discovered,” Dr. Camarós said.
Using a microscope, he and Tatiana Tondini of the University of Tübingen in Germany and Albert Isidro of the Sagrat Cor University Hospital in Spain, the other authors of the study, found cut marks around the edges of the skull, surrounding dozens of lesions that previous researchers had associated with metastasis. Brain cancer. The shape of the cuts indicated that they had been made with a metal tool. This discovery, reported in a study published Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, suggests that the ancient Egyptians studied brain cancer through surgery. If the cuts were made while the person was alive, they may have even tried to treat them.
The new discovery not only expands the scientific knowledge of Egyptian medicine, it could also set back the timeline of humanity’s documented attempts to treat cancer by up to 1,000 years.
Cancer has plagued humans for as long as we have existed and has afflicted life on Earth long before.
“Cancer is as old as time,” Camarós said. “Even dinosaurs suffered from cancer.”
Paleopathologists like Dr. Camarós study the evolution of a disease as well as trying to understand or treat it. For example, we know that humans in prehistoric times suffered from cancers that no longer exist. He and his colleagues hope that unraveling the changing nature of cancer over the millennia will reveal information that could help design treatments for today.
Although cancer was probably not well understood, medicine in Egypt was advanced compared to much of the ancient world. An Egyptian document called the Edwin Smith Papyrus, written about 3,600 years ago, refers to what some researchers believe to be a case of cancer. This text describes “a serious illness” for which “there was no treatment”.
People in ancient Egypt also operated on skulls in other ways. Dr. Camarós’ team also reports in the study that they found evidence of successful treatment for a traumatic injury in another skull, this one 2,600 years old.
Casey L. Kirkpatrick, a bioarchaeologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said the new paper presents the first physical evidence of a possible cancer treatment by the ancient Egyptians.
And by documenting additional ancient historical evidence of the disease, Dr. Kirkpatrick said the study had another benefit.
“It may also remind us that cancer is not a modern disease,” she said, “which may help alleviate some guilt in those currently affected by cancer who are concerned about the role their lifestyle played in its development.” .
Just as cancer treatment was a frontier for the ancient Egyptians, modern researchers’ exploration of the ancient past is fraught with uncertainty. Researchers say it is impossible to determine whether the surgical markings on the skull were made before death – suggesting treatment – or after. Many types of cancer also arise in soft tissue, leaving bones unaffected. This presents a challenge to modern scientists because bones are all that normally survive in the fossil record.
Despite these obstacles, Dr. Camarós said the new discovery gave scientists a new perspective on what to look for. He next plans to look for similar evidence at ancient sites in Kenya.
“I’m sure this is just one example,” he said.
