Analysis of a 4,600-year-old Egyptian skull has revealed signs of brain cancer and its treatment, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine on Wednesday.
Using a microscope, scientists Edgard Camarós, Tatiana Tondini, and Albert Isidro found cut marks around the skull’s edges surrounding dozens of lesions that earlier researchers had linked to metastasized brain cancer.
The discovery provides further insight into Ancient Egyptian medicine, and possibly pushes back the timeline of humanity’s documented attempts to treat cancer by up to a thousand years.
“There was an uncomfortable silence in the room, because we knew what we had just discovered,” Camarós, a palaeopathologist at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, told The New York Times.
Medicine in Ancient Egypt
It has long been known that ancient Egyptians had fairly detailed knowledge of the human body and its afflictions. For instance, “it is clear according to preserved papyri and hieroglyphs that ancient Egyptian medicine was advanced enough to describe, classify and successfully treat specific diseases and traumatic injuries, including bone trauma,” the study said.
According to Dr Khaled Elsayad, “Specialised physicians would take a medical history, perform a manual examination, and assess clinical/vital findings to diagnose a disease. The range of conditions treated and the various conservative and surgical treatments used are astounding” (“What Ancient Egyptian Medicine Can Teach Us”, published in JCO Global Oncology, 2023).
He further wrote: “Ancient Egyptians understood the importance of maintaining good hygiene and eating habits for good health. The emphasis on healthy food, sport, personal hygiene, daily body cleansing, and mouthwash is still relevant today.”
Despite ancient Egypt cultivating one of the most advanced medical knowledge bases known in Antiquity, cancer represented a “clear medical frontier” concerning diagnosis and treatment. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, considered to be the oldest medical surgical treatise in the world dated to around 3,600 years ago, refers to what many researchers believe to be a cancer case. The text describes it as “a grave disease” for which there “was no treatment.”
Attempts to treat cancer
Yet, the latest discovery suggests that ancient Egyptians might have tried to treat the disease, even if unsuccessfully.
“Reliable perimortem [at or near death] cut marks on the bone surface have been identified in clear association with the metastatic lesions [cancer] on the posterior cranial region. The position of the marks, running through two of the lesions with a clear associated start and end at both sides of the lesions, suggest some kind of perimortem anthropic [human] intervention… which might indicate medical surgical exploration or an attempt of care or treatment,” the study said.
However, the authors caution that they cannot, with certainty, tell the exact timing of the cutting. It is possible, the cut marks which were made using metal tools, indicate postmortem exploration of the cancerous tumour and its pathology.
“We have two possibilities: in a way that they tried to treat it, or in a way that they tried to medically understand it, in terms of probably treating it in the future,” Camarós said. “I think that’s a milestone in the history of medicine.”
With inputs from The New York Times
