Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
Cancer is often considered the disease of the modern age. However, medical texts in ancient Egypt show that healers of the time were aware of this condition. Now, new evidence from a skull more than 4,000 years old has revealed that ancient Egyptian doctors may have tried to treat certain cancers with surgery.
The skull belonged to a man who was approximately 30 to 35 years old when he died and is in the collection of the Duckworth Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Since the mid-19th century, scientists have examined the injured surface of the skull, including numerous lesions thought to represent bone damage from malignant tumors. Archaeologists found the skull, named 236 in the collection, to date back to B.C. Between 2686 BC It is considered one of the oldest examples of malignancy in the ancient world, dating back to 2345 BC.
But when researchers recently examined the tumor scars more closely with a digital microscope and micro-computed tomography (CT) scans, they detected cut marks around the tumors; This suggested that sharp metal tools were used to remove the growths. The scientists reported the findings Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.
Senior study author Dr. D., a professor in the department of history at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Coruña, Spain. “This was the first time humanity was dealing surgically with what we nowadays call cancer,” said Edgard Camarós.
However, it is not known whether the healers attempted to remove the tumors while the patient was alive or whether the tumors were removed for analysis after death, Camarós told CNN.
“If these incisions were made while that person was alive, we are talking about some kind of treatment directly related to cancer,” he said. But if the cut marks were made after his death, “that means this was a medical autopsy investigation related to cancer.”
Either way, Camarós added, “It’s surprising to think they did a surgical intervention.” “But we actually can’t distinguish between treatment and autopsy.”
Medical ‘knowledge and mastery’
He said ancient Egyptian medicine, extensively documented in medical texts such as the Ebers Papyrus and the Kahun Papyrus, was unquestionably advanced, and the new findings provide important and direct evidence of this knowledge. Restoration and conservation of ancient artifacts at Misr University of Science and Technology in Giza, Egypt.
“We can see that ancient Egyptian medicine was not based solely on herbal medicines, like medicines in other ancient civilizations,” said Bedir, who was not involved in the new research. “It was based directly on surgical practices.”
But while this evidence from ancient times was well studied in the 19th and 20th centuries, Badr added that 21st-century technologies like those used in the new study are revealing previously unknown details about the medical arts of ancient Egypt.
“The research provides a solid new direction to re-evaluate the history of medicine and pathology among the ancient Egyptians,” he said. The study authors’ methods “move their results from the realm of uncertainty and archaeological possibility into the realm of scientific and medical certainty.”
Scientists also found cancer lesions on a second skull from the Duckworth collection. Labeled E270 and dated between 664 BC and 343 BC, this artifact belonged to an adult woman at least 50 years old. The team identified three lesions in the sample where malignant tumors had damaged the bone.
Unlike skull 236, E270 showed no signs of disease-related surgery. However, the fact that the woman’s skull contained long-healed fractures showed the success of the medical intervention previously applied to head injuries.
“This person survived this trauma years later,” Camarós said.
Writing the ‘biography’ of cancer
Badr said the analysis of both skulls was “remarkable research that provides new and clear scientific evidence about the field of pathology and the development of medicine among the ancient Egyptians.”
Badr, who collaborated with scientists from Europe and the United States to study atherosclerosis (plaque buildup on arterial walls) in ancient Egyptian mummies, explained that his study follows the same scientific direction as the skull research. By conducting detailed studies of the mummies using 21st-century technologies such as CT scans and DNA sequencing, Badr and his colleagues hope to further elucidate the scope of medical knowledge in Egyptian antiquity.
“There is an urgent need to re-evaluate the history of Egyptian medicine using these scientific methodologies,” Badr said. “By using these modern techniques, we will be able to study and understand medicine in ancient Egypt more comprehensively and precisely.”
Camarós added that the new findings also help complete part of the “mysterious biography” of cancer by adding a chapter written thousands of years ago.
“The more we look at our history, the more we know that cancer is much more common, much more present than we thought,” he said.
A medical milestone
The ancient Egyptians’ perception of cancer centered around the visible tumors produced by the disease. The earliest recorded observation of cancer is in an ancient Egyptian medical text known as the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, dating back to 3000 BC to 2500 BC. This text contains 48 case studies covering a variety of disorders, including a description of breast cancer.
While healers in ancient Egypt were aware of cancer, treating it was another story. Many of the medical cases in the Edwin Smith papyri mentioned medications or healing strategies. But none were available for the breast cancer patient’s tumors, Camarós said.
“It specifically says there is no treatment,” he said. “They realized there was a limit when it came to medical information.”
However, cuts around skull tumors suggest that healers in ancient Egypt tried to change this by either surgically removing the tumors or examining the tumors more closely to heal the patient.
“We have these two possibilities: that they will try to treat it, or that they will try to understand it medically, possibly in terms of treating it in the future,” Camarós said. said. “I think this is a turning point in the history of medicine.”
Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American, and How It Works magazines.
For more CNN news and newsletters, create an account at CNN.com