Ancient Cancer Therapy: Clues From 4,000-Year-Old Egyptian Skull 24
Ancient Cancer Therapy
Nearly invisible cut marks on a 4,000-year-old Egyptian skull kept at the University of Cambridge have recently been the subject of scientific investigation. According to a recent study that was published in Frontiers in Medicine, these marks may be proof of a historically significant surgical procedure used to cure cancer.
This amazing discovery raises the possibility that Egyptian medicine was significantly more complex and advanced than previously thought. The principal author of the study, Edgard Camarós, is a paleopathologist from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He stressed the importance of the discovery.
According to Camarós, the accuracy of the cut marks suggests a purposeful and expert attempt to treat what may have been a malignant lesion, demonstrating the Egyptians’ proficiency with medicine and surgery.
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The slashes on the skull, which had been hidden for decades, were identified through painstaking examination utilizing cutting-edge imaging technology. The findings of the researchers add to the increasing amount of data suggesting that ancient societies had a fairly sophisticated understanding of illness and medical care. This discovery provides new insights into the development of cancer, ancient cancer therapy, and its treatment throughout human history, in addition to highlighting the Egyptians’ competence in medicine.
The research emphasizes how crucial it is to use contemporary technologies to reexamine historical artifacts in order to find previously undiscovered information about our predecessors’ medical practices.
In that study from 2005, researchers looked at 905 ancient Egyptians who were buried between 3200 and 500 BC in three different necropolises. They discovered five cancers. This shows that cancer was a problem in ancient Egyptian culture, but it’s possible that genetic and environmental factors had a different impact on cancer prevalence than they do now. The research also discovered 13 cancer cases among 2,547 people interred in a southern German ossuary between AD 1400 and 1800.
These results cast doubt on the idea that cancer is primarily a modern illness brought on by elements of a modern lifestyle. Rather, they propose that cancer has always been a part of human health, just a less common one. Our understanding of how diseases like cancer have affected human populations over millennia has been expanded by the study of ancient remains, which continues to yield insightful information about the history of diseases.
Researchers have found the earliest known signs of cancer in the toe bone of an early human species known as Homo ergaster, which dates back 1.7 million years. This discovery suggests that humans have suffered from cancer for a considerable period of our evolutionary history. In addition, a 2005 study found that the incidence of cancer in German and Egyptian populations was not significantly lower than that of modern people.
How did the ancient Egyptians treat cancer?
It’s common to think of cancer as a modern-day illness. The disease was recognized by healers of the day, according to medical books from ancient Egypt. According to recent findings gleaned from a more than 4,000-year-old skull, doctors in ancient Egypt might have attempted to operate on some malignancies.
What evidence is there that the ancient Egyptian mummy had cancer?
A medical book from ancient Egypt called the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, which dates to between 3000 and 2500 BC, contains the first known description of cancer. There is one description of breast cancer among the 48 case studies in this literature that cover a variety of illnesses.
How did Egyptians do brain surgery?
Numerous neurosurgical methods were invented by the ancient Egyptians. For example, trepanning—the technique of drilling a bur hole into the cranium—is still evident in Egyptian skulls from the 12th and 18th dynasties. Hammers, chisels, and a convex scraper with a wide radius were used in this operation.
