Tecumseh and stem cells

One of my all-time favorite books was The Frontiersmen, by Allan Eckert. A historical novel that tells the story of the early settlers as they made their way down the Ohio River exploring and settling what was then the great Northwest Territory—Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The story includes details of the lives of such notables as Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Tecumseh, Chief Logan, and many more. Eckert maintains that all the events described are true and includes dozens of pages of references to substantiate the claim.

A vignette that was told incidental to a larger story was interesting when I first read the book thirty years ago and I have thought about it many times over the years.

There have been several posts here at Dakota Voice over the past few months about stem cell research. One recent piece resulted in a comment from someone who seemed to have more than a lay person’s knowledge of the subject. In that comment reference was made to a recent Lancet article about the use of embryonic stem cells to grow new skin (albeit, on immunodeficient mice). This brought to mind Eckert’s book and the story of how Shawnee Indians treated scalping victims.

Scalping is more than a close haircut. A cut is made through the scalp and extended circumferentially around the victims head. Grasping the hair, the scalp is violently peeled away from the skull leaving a large area of exposed skull. The scalp, being very vascular, bleeds heavily and if not already dead from other injuries the victim would usually die of blood loss in short order. However, if attended to promptly, the Shawnee had a therapy that was life-saving and even allowed the victim to eventually grow a new scalp.

A packing of buzzard-down was immediately applied to the scalping wound and this helped to control bleeding. The downy feathers of a buzzard, besides providing a covering, also were an effective hemostatic agent, meaning that it triggered clotting mechanisms to stop the loss of blood.

After some interval of days the buzzard-down dressing was removed and that’s where this gets really interesting. A stone or metal tool was used to drill into several points on the exposed skull. The Indians knew just how far to drill, until a pink froth oozed from the hole. Following this procedure another dressing was applied and left in place until it fell off many days later. When the second dressing eventually fell away they found a new skin layer had grown over the previously exposed bone. No mention is made as to whether this skin grew normal hair. I rather doubt it; but no matter. With the protection of the new skin the scalping victim was healed from his near-fatal wounds to live and fight another day.

This, I believe, is a very early example of effective adult stem cell therapy. The pink froth that was brought to the surface was marrow containing many different types of pleuripotential cells, or stem cells. A culture of these cells began under the protective dressing until it differentiated into healthy skin. This therapy was successful even under very primitive and unhygienic conditions. Note as well that there were no concerns about tissue rejection or growth of tumors. I suppose a case could be made that there were ethical issues inherent in the lifting a scalp in the first place, but I’ll leave that to the reader.

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