In Egypt Osiris and Isis, brother and sister, and at the same time husband and wife, were worshipped as the revealers of medical knowledge among most other sciences. Formulas credited to Isis were in existence in the time of Galen, but even that not too critical authority rejected these traditions without hesitation. In ancient Egypt, however, the priests who held in their possession all the secrets of medicine claimed Isis as the founder of their science. Some old legends explained that she acquired her knowledge of medicine from an angel named Amnael, one of the sons of God of whom we read in the book of Genesis. The science thus imparted to her was the price she exacted from him for the surrender of herself to him. The son of Isis, Horus, was identified by the Greeks with their Apollo, and to him also the discovery of medicine is attributed.
Isis.
Osiris.
From the Collection of Medals and other Antiquities of Casalius (17th century).
In Leclerc’s History of Medicine.
The legend which associated “the sons of God” with the daughters of men before the Flood, and the suggestion that they imparted a knowledge of medicine to the inhabitants of the earth, is traceable in the traditions of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Persians, as well as in Jewish literature. In the 6th chapter of Genesis it is said that “they saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.” From these unions came the race of giants, and the wickedness of man so “great in the earth” that the destruction of the race by the Flood resulted. The apocryphal Book of Enoch, composed, it is agreed, about 100 or 150 years before the birth of Christ, is very definite in regard to this legend, showing that it was current among the Jews at that period. We read in that Book, that “They (the angels) dwelt with them and taught them sorcery, enchantments, the properties of roots and trees, magic signs, and the art of observing the stars.” Alluding to one of these angels particularly it is said “he taught them the use of the bracelets and ornaments, the art of painting, of painting the eyelashes, the uses of precious stones, and all sorts of tinctures, so that the world was corrupted.”
Hermes.
With Osiris and Isis is always associated the Egyptian Thoth whom the Greeks called Hermes, and who is also identified with Mercury. He was described as the friend, or the secretary, of Osiris. Eusebius quotes an earlier author who identified Hermes with Moses; but if Moses was the inventor of medicine and all other sciences it would be hardly exact to speak of him as “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Thoth, who is also claimed as a Phoenician, as Canaan the son of Ham, and as an associate of Saturn, attained perhaps the greatest fame as an inventor of medicine. He was the presumed author of the six sacred books which the Egyptian priests were bound to follow in their treatment of the sick. One of these books was specially devoted to pharmacy.