Antiquity of Egyptian Civilization.—Surgical Bandaging.—Gods and Goddesses of Medicine.—Medical Specialists.—Egyptians claimed to have discovered the Healing Art.—Medicine largely Theurgic.—Magic and Sorcery forbidden to the Laity.—The Embalmers.—Anatomy.—Therapeutics.—Plants in use in Ancient Egypt.—Surgery and Chemistry.—Disease-demons.—Medical Papyri.—Great Skill of Egyptian Physicians.
So far as we are able to judge from the records of the past which recent investigations have made familiar to us, the civilization of Egypt is the most ancient of which we have accurate knowledge. The contending claims of India to a higher antiquity for its civilization cannot here be discussed, and for the purposes of this work the oldest place in the civilization of the world must be assigned to Egypt.
It is highly probable that the first kingdom of Egypt existed eight thousand years back. The history of Egypt as we have it in her monuments and records is far more trustworthy than the stories which the Chinese and other ancient peoples tell of their past. Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldæa have histories reaching back to the twilight of the ages; but for practical purposes we must content ourselves with tracing the rise and progress of civilization as we decipher it on the banks of the Nile. So far as medicine and chemistry are concerned, we shall discover abundant matter to interest us. We require no other proof than the mummies in our museums to convince us that the Egyptians from the period at which those interesting objects date must have possessed a very accurate knowledge of anatomy, of pharmacy, and a skill in surgical bandaging very far surpassing that possessed now-a-days by even the most skilful professors of the art. Dr. Granville says: “There is not a single form of bandage known to modern surgery, of which far better and cleverer examples are not seen in the swathings of the Egyptian mummies. The strips of linen are found without one single joint, extending to 1000 yards in length.” It is said that there is not a fracture known to modern surgery which could not have been successfully treated by the priest-physicians of ancient Egypt. The great divinities of Egypt were Isis and Osiris; the former was the goddess of procreation and birth. As it was she who decreed life and death, and decided the fate of men, it is not surprising to find her the chief of the divinities of the healing art; she had proved her claims as the great chief of physicians by recalling to life her son Horus.
The Æsculapius of the Egyptians was Imhotep; he was the god of the sciences, and was the son of Ptah and Pakht. The gods of Egypt were worshipped in triads or trinities, and many of the great temples were devoted to the worship of one or other of these trinities, that of Memphis consisted of Ptah, Pakht, and Imhotep. Thoth or Tauut was similar to Imhotep; he was the god of letters, and, as the deity of wisdom, he aids Horus against Set, the representative of physical evil. By many writers he is considered to be the Egyptian Æsculapius. He has some evident relationship to the Greek Hermes. “Thoth,” says Dr. Baas (Hist. Med., p. 14), “is supposed to have been the author of the oldest Egyptian medical works, whose contents were first engraved upon pillars of stone. Subsequently collected into the book Ambre or Embre (a title based upon the initial words of this book, viz. ‘Ha em re em per em hru,’ i.e. ‘Here begins the book of the preparation of drugs for all parts of the human body’), they formed a part of the so-called ‘Hermetic Books,’ from whose prescriptions no physician might deviate, unless he was willing to expose himself to punishment in case the patient died. This punishment was threatened because the substance of the medical, as well as the religious works of the Egyptians—and the science of the priests united in itself medicine, theology, and philosophy—was given, according to their view, by the gods themselves, and a disregard of their prescriptions would be nothing less than sacrilege.” The Hermetic books, says Clement of Alexandria, were forty-two in number, of which six “of the pastophor” were medical. The famous Book of the Dead is supposed by Bunsen to have been one of the Hermetic books. The papyrus of Ebers, believed by that Egyptologist to date from the year 1500 B.C., is considered to have been of the number of the medical books of Hermes Trismegistus. The Papyrus Ebers is preserved in Leipsic, and, though at present only partially deciphered, abundantly shows the great advance already made at so distant a period as the fourth millennium before the Christian era in the arts of medicine and surgery.
One of the authors mentioned in the papyrus is an oculist of Byblos in Phœnicia. This proves not only that there were specialists in diseases of the eye at that period, but that neighbouring nations contributed of their store of scientific knowledge to enrich that of the Egyptians.
Dr. Baas informs us that this papyrus describes “remedies for diseases of the stomach, the abdomen, and the urinary bladder; for the cure of swellings of the glands in the groin (buboes) and the ‘kehn-mite’; ‘the Book of the Eyes’; remedies for ulcers of the head, for greyness of the hair, and promotion of its growth; ointments to heal and strengthen the nerves; medicines to cure diseases of the tongue, to strengthen the teeth, to remove lice and fleas; remedies for the hearing and for the organs of smell; the preparation of the famous Kyphi; ‘The Secret Book of the Physician’ (the science of the movement of the heart, and the knowledge of the heart, according to the priestly physician Nebsuchet); prescriptions for the eyes according to the views of the priest Chui, a Semite of Byblos; ‘Book of the Banishing of Pains,’ recipes for mouth-pills for women, to render the odour of the mouth agreeable; the various uses of the tequem tree, etc. The papyrus has marginal notes, like nefer (good), etc., which Lauth assigns to the year B.C. 1469—an evidence that its prescriptions had been tested in practice.”[126]
Osiris (who would appear to be the same deity as Apis or Serapis) and the goddess Isis, who was his wife and sister, were held by the Egyptians to have been the inventors of the medical arts. A very ancient inscription on a column says: “My father is Chronos, the youngest of all the gods. I am the king Osiris, who has been through all the earth; even to the habitable lands of the Indies, to those which are under the Bear, even to the sources of the Danube, and besides to the Ocean. I am the eldest son of Chronos, and the scion of a beautiful and noble race; I am the parent of the day, there is no part of the world where I have not been, and I have filled all the world with my benefactions.” Another column has these words: “I am Isis, queen of all this country, who has been instructed by Thoth; no one is able to unbind what I have bound; I am the eldest daughter of Chronos, the youngest of the gods. I am the wife and the sister of King Osiris. It is I who first taught mankind the art of agriculture. I am the mother of King Horus. It is I who shine in the dog-star. It is I who built the city of Bubastis. Farewell, farewell, Egypt, where I have been reared.” It appears from these inscriptions that Isis and Osiris were contemporary with Thoth or Hermes.
Diodorus says that Isis was believed by the Egyptian priests to have invented various medicines and to have been an expert practitioner of the healing art, and that she was on this account raised to the ranks of the gods, where she still takes interest in the health of mankind. She was supposed to indicate appropriate remedies for diseases in dreams, and such remedies were always efficacious, even in cases where physicians had failed to do any good.
The inscription informs us that Osiris had filled the earth with his benefactions. The Egyptian priests believed that Thoth was the inventor of the arts and sciences in general, and the king Osiris and the queen Isis invented those which were necessary to life. Isis therefore invented agriculture, and Osiris is credited with having invented medicine. Apis, who is evidently the same person as Osiris, is said by Clement of Alexandria to have discovered medicine before Io went to Egypt.
Cyril of Alexandria says that Apis was the first to invent the art of medicine, or who exercised it with more success than his predecessors, having been instructed by Æsculapius.[127]