In direct contradiction to the recent Manchester University article in Nature stating cancer is 'man made' Paula Veiga strongly argues the case for the existence of cancer in Ancient Egyptians.
Citing both her own research during her time at Manchester and Professor Zimmerman she questions Prof Davids conclusions.
"It seems Dr. Zimmerman’s work from 1995, my own research in 2007-08 and reputed scientists’ work (Strouhal, Zink, Nerlich, Capasso and others) were not enough to convince Prof. Rosalie David."
The controversy among researchers, scientists and Egyptologists sprouted like a cabbage planted in the middle of the media field after an article titled ‘Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made’ was published in Nature Reviews Cancer last October 2010.
The article in question, published by two experts on ancient medicine states that ‘Yet again extensive ancient Egyptian data, along with other data from across the millennia, has given modern society a clear message – cancer is man-made and something that we can and should address.’
Having gone through all available data on this subject between 2007 and 2008, I have published my conclusions, which include the data provided by these human remains and studied by prominent scientists from different countries. I know what I am talking about.
The paradox of this published article and its’ shallow affirmations resides in the fact that one of the researchers involved in this study is one of my sources and has worked with human remains showing evidence of tumours for years, and the other was my adviser on the subject.
Professor Zimmerman said: ‘In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases.
The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialization’.
He does not advocate that cancer did not exist, and he could not do it, just because, in 1977, Zimmerman made some experiments trying to mummify cancerous tissues to see if they stay preserved or not for future analysis.
The results showed that ‘malignant tumours were found to be much better preserved after mummification than normal tissues’. Zimmerman also said that, ‘There are only a handful of reports of tumours in ancient remains.’
We can now add some more to the reported cases, thanks to the development of techniques and studies done on material found in excavation sites which were not available before.
The other researcher, giving the odd title to the article (modern man-made disease) was the adviser of my thesis titled ‘Oncology and infectious diseases in ancient Egypt, The Ebers Papyrus’ Treatise on Tumours 857-877 and the cases found in ancient Egyptian human material’, published by VDM Verlag; 14 Jun 2009.
Did she read what she advised? I believe this Nature article is the result of previous work of Dr. Zimmerman as he has found several cases of cancer in ancient Egypt, and some vague considerations made by Prof. David just to make a pretty wrapping, and call the attention of the world media.
The KNH Centre is going through a difficult time as Prof. David is approaching retirement, and excellence in lecturers there belongs to the past.
I had the opportunity to study and learn with Dr. Corthals, who has worked on the Royal Mummies ‘dna in Cairo, and other colleagues who have medical and biology degrees.
These people contributed largely to the success of the KNH in the past recent years (2003-2009) introducing new ideas for research cases, but now they are gone for good. After finishing their PhD’s and Post-Doc research projects, having no funding to continue, they left, as I did; therefore, a new injection of money (from students searching degrees in Biomedical Egyptology) and a new influx of professionals is needed for the KNH. Prof.
David is working on a new marketing tool to call the attention to her Centre. I congratulate her on her eternal efforts over the past 30-40 years and I am grateful for the experience, but, she never researched, wrote, or talked about cancer in ancient Egypt BEFORE my presence there, as it happens to be my idea.
I am not writing this as a ‘vendetta’ tool, on the opposite; I am trying to alert anyone thinking of undergoing research on the KNH that the projects for which it was famous in the last decade are done and delivered. In page 22 of The Daily Mail from October 22nd, 2010, Prof.
David tries to retract from the critics, but the reactions to the Nature article were not due to the article’s positive controversial subject, they were, in fact, a reaction to the poor scientific basis of the same article.
Old data, covered by famous names, powdered with a world major concern, led to the attention. But the bigger issue subsists; they have not uncovered anything. The cases did exist. They have been published.
The majority of institutions working with ancient human remains do not consider an excellent reference to have studied only at the KNH; you have to have credentials from other learning media, like museum work on human collections or other projects involving ancient human remains. This was brought to my attention recently while at the British Museum for a conference, when chatting with someone working with a massive collection from Nubia.
This is why these ‘conclusions’ so drastically put into wrong words, like the ones used in the article, diminish the reputation of both scientists, which I had in good consideration, as well as their respective research centres.
Just to illustrate, there are some cases specifically studied by Zimmerman in the past:
- Zimmerman Rectal carcinoma, 3rd century AD 2004
- Zimmerman Histiocytoma 1981
- Zimmerman Colon cancer in a Ptolemaic mummy from Dakhleh Oasis 1995
- (Aufderheide 2003: 463)
The ‘first ever histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy’ as the Nature article states, was, after all done by Professor Michael Zimmerman in 1995... ‘He diagnosed rectal cancer in an unnamed mummy, an ‘ordinary’ person who had lived in the Dakhleh Oasis during the Ptolemaic period (200-400 CE).’
Rectal or colon cancer is just centimetres away and this might look as a new case, but it is the same. It is published, with pictures on page 373 of Prof. Aufderheide’s famous ‘bible’ for biomedical ‘aficionados’ like me...The scientific study of mummies, Arthur C. Aufderheide, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Put this in the blender, plus some of my conclusions, as I graduated from the same Institute where this ‘study’ was conducted, add some foreign ancient bodies’ cases (Greece, Chile) previously published, and some generic talk about how scarce the evidence are and how lifespan was shorter, and you get this misguiding information...; as cancer did exist in ancient societies.
What man has made with the polluting agents is TO INCREASE the probability of cancerous cells developing in a human or other mammal body.
The production of cancerigenous cells is not a characteristic of modern societies; it is a bio-chemical response of the body, either caused by genetic factors or environmental ones. I have learned this in a special lecture in Lisboa given by world renowned cancer research scientist, Dr. Jorge Pacheco.
It seems Dr. Zimmerman’s work from 1995, my own research in 2007-08 and reputed scientists’ work (Strouhal, Zink, Nerlich, Capasso and others) were not enough to convince Prof. Rosalie David. By the way, Dr. Zimmerman was an invited lecturer in 2009 at the KNH and he must have brought the study with him...
Of course this does not mean that greater excavation activity in Egypt will necessarily reveal more cases of tumours, but it is an indicator that, as well as the fact that this population may have been less exposed to this diseases, there is also a lack of material to study.
This is not only because this type of disease is difficult to detect in ancient tissues (including bone tissue) but also because not everything has been excavated yet.
Also, although the material evidence of tumours found at several sites in Egyptian mummies is not extensive, it is nevertheless considerable, and includes many examples (Brothwell, 1981), (Strouhal, 1999), (Ruffer, 1921), (Cockburn, 1998, 1980), (Spigelman, 1997), (Van Hasselt, 1999), (Estes, 1989), (Capasso, 2005), (Leslie and Levell, 2006), (Halperin, 2004), and (Mark, 2006).
And, there is reason to think, from studies done on the Ebers Papyrus, that oncology was a fact in ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian doctors already had some information that enabled them to diagnose and treat cancers, although the literary sources do not clearly describe how they distinguish an abscess from a pustule or neoplasia.
If the evidence for carcinogenic cases amongst the ancient Egyptians is almost untraceable, then this may explain the apparently low incidence of this disease in the ancient remains.
However, in this case, how can we explain that the EP has so many prescriptions for the treatment of ‘swellings’ that are interpreted as tumours?
A more recent work ‘The Emperor of All Maladies’ published by Scribner (November 16, 2010), by Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist and researcher, embarks on an ambitious effort to write a "biography" of the disease, from the earliest evidence of cancer's existence in ancient Egypt to the modern attempts at deciphering the human cancer genome, as reported online.
Just because it was published on Nature it does not mean it is bullet-proofed; other scientists’ work, past and future, have and will determine the ‘non-sense’ of this title and this vague approach to a huge subject.
Author: Paula Veiga | Source: ArchNews [November 17, 2010]