Ancient Egyptians Used Leg Crutches to Help Rehabilitate Stroke Patients, New Discovery Shows

Sarcophagi found in a cache dating to the Egyptian Late Period
(around the fifth century B.C.) are displayed after their discovery by
a mission headed by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, at the
Bubastian cemetery at the Saqqara necropolis, Cairo, Egypt, May 30,
2022. (AFP Photo)
Sarcophagi found in a cache dating to the Egyptian Late Period (around the fifth century B.C.) are displayed after their discovery by a mission headed by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, at the Bubastian cemetery at the Saqqara necropolis, Cairo, Egypt, May 30, 2022. (AFP Photo)
TT

Ancient Egyptians Used Leg Crutches to Help Rehabilitate Stroke Patients, New Discovery Shows

Sarcophagi found in a cache dating to the Egyptian Late Period
(around the fifth century B.C.) are displayed after their discovery by
a mission headed by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, at the
Bubastian cemetery at the Saqqara necropolis, Cairo, Egypt, May 30,
2022. (AFP Photo)
Sarcophagi found in a cache dating to the Egyptian Late Period (around the fifth century B.C.) are displayed after their discovery by a mission headed by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, at the Bubastian cemetery at the Saqqara necropolis, Cairo, Egypt, May 30, 2022. (AFP Photo)

Doctors usually recommend several measures for stroke survivors, including exercising that require a walker or a cane, in addition to a leg crutch that maintains the body’s balance and stability during the walking retraining.

A team including researchers from Spain’s Universidad de Alcalá (UAH), New Jersey City University, and the American University of Cairo (AUH), discovered that ancient Egyptians had applied similar measures to rehabilitate stroke patients. The discovery involved an ancient Egyptian mummy from the 25th Dynasty, unearthed by the Spanish-Egyptian mission working at the Dra Abu el-Naga necropolis located on the West Bank of the Nile, in Luxor (southern Egypt).

The mummy labeled “Ind-6833” is one of 17 embalmed mummies at the tomb chapel of Hery (TT 12) of the early Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1550-1292 BC).

After X-rays and examinations, archeologists found the mummy marks the oldest leg injury in a stroke patient ever, and unveils unfamiliar measures taken at the time to cope with the injury that caused hemiplegia in the left part of the body.

In the study published in the latest issue of the journal World Neurosurgery, the researchers said their findings show that the measures adopted to treat patients after a stroke are similar to the recommendations that physicians currently recommend in such cases. The archeologists found that canes and crutches were used by the ancient Egyptians to support the affected leg.

According to the team, the body belonged to a woman, between 25 and 40 years of age. The type of mummification was of a high level, with excerebration and evisceration carefully performed. She suffered a stroke late in life and lived with the results for several years.

“Ancient Egyptians were among the first people to apply medical interventions. The new discovery is not surprising, as ancient Egyptians were the first to provide a detailed brain description, according to the Edwin Smith Papyrus,” Bassem al-Shamaa, historian and Egyptologist, said on the new discovery.

“When you examine a man with a wide wound reaching the skull bones and exposing the brain, you could sense the wound with your hand and feel that the surface of the brain in the bottom of the wound is like a slag on the surface of fused copper inside a melting pot. You could also notice pulses that resemble the pulses you feel when you place your hand on the head of a newborn whose skull bones are still not fused,” he explained.

“These findings deny what some claimed about a regression Ancient Egypt witnessed under the rule of the 25th Dynasty during the Nubian occupation. The new discovery should motivate researchers to restudy that period, whose excavations have always been subject to religious and ideological interpretations. The new discovery suggests that period had probably witnessed medical procedures and interventions,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat”.



Santa and Mrs. Claus Use Military Transports to Bring Christmas to Alaska Native Village

Santa Claus arrives at the school in Yakutat, Alaska,, as part of the Alaska National Guard's Operation Santa initiative that brings Christmas to an Indigenous community that has suffered a hardship, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen).
Santa Claus arrives at the school in Yakutat, Alaska,, as part of the Alaska National Guard's Operation Santa initiative that brings Christmas to an Indigenous community that has suffered a hardship, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen).
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Santa and Mrs. Claus Use Military Transports to Bring Christmas to Alaska Native Village

Santa Claus arrives at the school in Yakutat, Alaska,, as part of the Alaska National Guard's Operation Santa initiative that brings Christmas to an Indigenous community that has suffered a hardship, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen).
Santa Claus arrives at the school in Yakutat, Alaska,, as part of the Alaska National Guard's Operation Santa initiative that brings Christmas to an Indigenous community that has suffered a hardship, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen).

Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by flying reindeer.
Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau, The Associated Press reported.
The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat's case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.
“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.
Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit's dress regulations.
The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.
In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.
Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.
Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.
“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.
Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.
Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet (1.8 meters) of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.
Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.
This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.
“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road."
After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village's tiny airport. Later it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.
Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.