II
PHARMACY IN THE TIME OF THE PHARAOHS
“Go up into Gilead and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt: in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no healing for thee.”
So wrote the prophet Jeremiah (xlvi, 11), and the passage seems to suggest that Egypt in his time was famous for its medicines. Herodotus, who narrated his travels in Egypt some two or three hundred years later, conveys the same impression, and the records of the papyri which have been deciphered within the last century confirm the opinion.
Whatever may have been the case with other arts and sciences, it does not appear that much progress was made in medicine in Egypt during the thousands of years of its history which have been more or less minutely traced. The discovery of remedies by various deities, by Isis especially, or the indication of compounds invented for the relief of the sufferings of the Sun-god Ra, before he retired to his heavenly rest, is the burden of all the documents on which our knowledge of Egyptian pharmacy is founded. It was criminal to add to or vary the perfect prescriptions thus revealed, a provision which made advance impossible to the extent to which it was enforced.
“So wisely was medicine managed in Egypt,” says Herodotus, “that no doctor was permitted to practise any but his own branch.” That is to say, the doctors were all specialists; some treated the eyes, others the teeth, the head, the skin, the stomach, and so forth. The doctors were all priests, and were paid by the Treasury, but they were allowed to take fees besides. Their recipes were often absurd and complicated, but there is reason to suppose that their directions in regard to diet and hygiene were sensible, and there is evidence that they paid some attention to disinfection and cleanliness.
The physicians were always priests, but all the priests were not physicians; Clement of Alexandria says those who actually practised were the lowest grade of priests. They prepared as well as prescribed medicines, but relied perhaps more on magic, amulets, and invocations than on drugs. The secrets of magic were, however, especially the property of the highest grade of priests, the sages and soothsayers. According to Celsus, the medical science of Egypt was founded on the belief that the human body was divided into thirty-six parts, each one being under the control of a separate demon or divinity. The art of medicine consisted largely in knowing the names of these demons so as to invoke the right one when an ailment had to be treated.
Symbolical names were given to many of the herbs used as medicines. The plant of Osiris was the ivy, the vervain was called Tears of Isis, saffron was the blood of Thoth, and the squill was the eye of Typhon.
Until the mystery of the Egyptian writings was unlocked, the key being found about a century ago in the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone, of which Napoleon first took possession, and which was subsequently taken from the French by the British, and is now a familiar object in the British Museum, knowledge of Egyptian science and life was limited to the information which came to us from Greek and Roman authors; and this was often fabulous. Now, however, the daily life of the subjects of the Pharaohs has been revealed in wonderful minuteness by the papyri which have been deciphered.