The ancestor of the rhinoceros evolved in India 55 millions years ago, millions of their
kin spread across Africa and Asia.
But today, they're almost all gone, because some think one part of their body is worth
killing for.
Hey DNewsers.
Trace here.
Rhino horn has been valued since antiquity for use as a medium for handles, and carvings
-- it's widely loved for it's beauty.
In 1597, Li Shih-chen wrote a medical paper stating rhino horn was a cure-all for "keeping
away evil spirits and miasmas," for "poisoning," to keep away nightmares and hallucinations,
for typhoid, fevers, colds, convulsions, dysentery, vomiting, arthritis, melancholia, loss of
the voice and so on.
But Li Shih-chen didn't add scientific evidence into this document.
It was used for thousands of years in Traditional Chinese Medicine until in 1993, Rhino horn
was outlawed, and, according to TCM expert Lixin Huang, it "was never used alone," and
always with herbs.
After the ban, they came up with alternatives that allegedly did the same thing.
Today, despite these bans, some in Vietnam believe the horn can assuage hangovers and
headaches and even cure cancer.
Because of this, a single 3 kilo horn can be worth 300,000 dollars there.
That's more than gold!
What is WRONG with people?
Because it's been banned, there's not a lot of data on whether the horn IS any kind of
medicine or not.
Most cite a single human study done with the horn claiming it didn't work any better than
aspirin at curing headaches.
To figure out whether there was any basis to it being a cure-all.
I looked up studies of the construction and composition of rhino horn.
One by the Zoological Society of London analyzed the chemicals in rhino horn, finding its highly
determined by what that rhino eats over its lifetime.
They're all different!
Some eat succulents, others eat grasses, so each horn is unique.
Also, a study out of Ohio State, scanned and broke down the horns, finding exactly what
the structures looked like, noting they were mostly constructed of Keratin, with a calcium
and melanin core so they got harder as it's sharpened from use in battle with other rhinos,
like a big pencil.
Cool!
They called it a "cornified papillary epidermal appendage" and classified it as similar to
bird beaks, hair, fingernails, and skin-based structures; the horns are really similar to
the construction of hooves.
Now, if the horn is made of regular old calcium, nitrogen, carbon and such found in nature…
and is basically keratin, could that keratin have medicinal benefit?
The Journal of Anatomy: analyzed every type of keratin….
Checking out the pH, structure, atomic polarization and handedness, molecular weight, chemical
characteristics, genetic basis, source, evolution and even association with culture… bringing
us full circle.
The closest mention of medicine was in keratin K23, where it could be used to treat pancreatic
cancer, but that's not found in rhino, but in the human pancreas.
In extensive studies of keratin as a biomaterial for medical applications, no one has yet found
anything I could turn up to turn keratin into medicine.
That being said, studies in China found rhino horn had statistically significant pharmacological
effects, on inflammation, pain-relief, and a bunch of other things.
But according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora, their results couldn't be replicated in studies done in the UK or South Africa.
So, maybe it's just a placebo.
Which means it's not the rhino horn at all, but raw human belief that it makes us "better."
We've done plenty of videos on the placebo effect, and it's power.
Perhaps people in Vietnam believe it works, and thus it works for them, but so far the
for-profit biomedical industry has yet to find proof of it.
And if Rhino Horn did have a medical benefit, we'd have found it, synthesized it, and be
selling its effects in Western Medicine too.
Within 10 years, there will be no more of this animal in the wild, ever again on this
planet.
We humans will have made these species extinct.
We did this.
But maybe we can stop its extinction with 3-D printing!
I know it sounds crazy, but my friend Laura Ling visited a company where they want to
try and 3D print replacement horns for the rhino to try and save them.
It's weird, but fascinating.
Check it out.
What do you think?
How can we save this incredible and ancient animal?
Any ideas?