The actual medicaments used in Egyptian medical practice were not considered effectual without combination with magical remedies. The prescription might contain nitre, or cedar chips, or deer horn, or it might be an ointment or application of some herbs; but it would not be efficacious without some charm to deal with the spiritual mischief of the case. In administering an emetic, for example, it was necessary to employ the following appeal to the evil spirit of the disorder: “Oh, demon, who art lodged in the stomach of M., son of N., thou whose father is called Head-Smiter, whose name is Death, whose name is cursed for ever,” etc. It was not the natural remedy which called the supernatural to its aid; but in cultivated Egypt, this combination was due to the theurgic healer availing himself of natural remedies to assist his magic. Science was beginning to work for man’s benefit, but could not yet afford to discard sentimental aids which, by calming the mind of the sufferer, assisted its beneficent work. The different parts of the human body were confided to the protection of a special divinity. A calendar of lucky and unlucky days was devised, by which it could be ascertained what was proper to be medically done, or left undone, at certain times. Barth, in his Travels in Africa, in the border region of the desert, tells of a native doctor who followed such a system. He used to treat his patients according to the days of the week on which they came: one day was a calomel day, another was devoted to magnesia, and a third to tartar emetic; and everybody requiring medicine had to take that appropriate to the day.
The Egyptians distinguished between black and white magic. The learned priests practised the curative acts of magic; but it was held to be a great crime to use black magic whereby to injure men or assist unlawful passions.
Homer sings the praises of the medicinal herbs of prolific Egypt, where Pæon imparts to all the Pharian race his healing arts;[147] and in Jeremiah,[148] the daughter of Egypt is told that “in vain” she shall “use many medicines,” for she shall not be cured.
The ancient Egyptians depended greatly upon clysters in the treatment of many diseases besides those of the intestines. They were composed of a mixture of medicinal herbs, with milk, honey, sweet beer, salt, etc. The use of clysters by the Egyptians was remarked by Pliny and Diodorus Siculus, and the invention was attributed by the former to the ibis, who, with its long bill, performed the necessary operation.[149]
This absurd idea arose from a confusion between the hieroglyph for the ibis, and the god Thoth, the name of each having the same sign.[150]
A comparison of the prescriptions of the medical papyri with those of the ancient Greek physicians, especially Galen and Dioscorides, shows a considerable family likeness of the Greek system of therapeutics to that of the Egyptians. Chabas particularizes the following facts:—Honey was used in place of sugar in many recipes by Egyptians and Greeks. Wine was mixed with honey, and human milk was administered in the form of clysters by Egyptians and by Galen and Dioscorides. The use of barley drink, palm wine, nitre, or sal ammoniac, incense as an external application, blood mixed with wine, urine as a liniment, Lapis memphites, and several other drugs is prescribed for the same disorders and in the same manner in the land of the Pharaohs and in ancient Greece.
The famous “Ebers Papyrus” was purchased in 1874 by Dr. Ebers, at Thebes. “This papyrus contains one hundred and ten pages, each page consisting of about twenty-two lines of bold hieratic writing. It may be described as an Encyclopædia of Medicine, as known and practised by the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty; and it contains prescriptions for all kinds of diseases—some borrowed from Syrian medical lore, and some of such great antiquity that they are ascribed to the mythologic ages, when the gods yet reigned personally upon earth. Among others, we are given the recipe for an application whereby Osiris cured Ra of the headache.”[151] This is the oldest of all the medical papyri hitherto discovered. It comes down to us, says Dr. Ebers,[152] from the eighteenth dynasty. The “Medical Papyrus” of Berlin is second in point of antiquity; and a Hieratic MS. in London, the third.[153]
In the Ebers Medical Papyrus is an example of old Egyptian diagnosis and therapeutics: “When thou findest any one with a hardness in his re-het (pit of the stomach), and when after eating he feels a pressure in his intestines, his stomach (het) is swollen, and he feels bad in walking, like one who suffers from heat in his back; then observe him when he lies stretched out, and if thou findest his intestines hot, and a hardness in his re-het, say to thyself, this is a disease of the liver. Then prepare for thyself a remedy, according to the secrets of the (botanical) science, from the plant pa-che-test and dates; mix them, and give in water” (Ebers).[154]
The famous medical papyrus roll in the Museum of Berlin is described by M. Chabas in the chapter on “The Medicine of the Ancient Egyptians,” in his work entitled Mélanges Égyptologiques. From this papyrus we learn that plaisters, ointments, liniments, and friction were employed as external remedies. Many of the names of the herbs and medicaments employed cannot be translated, but are merely transcribed. We find a number of recipes for tumours of the breast, for pimples, for “dissipating divinely parts injured by bruises,” for destroying the bites of vermin, for cuts (common salt the chief ingredient), etc. The prescriptions seem very simple and brief.
Magical invocations were frequently employed in the treatment of disease. Chabas thinks that one of the maladies so treated was intestinal inflammation, with a feeling of heaviness, and hardness, and a griping pain. He translates the diagnosis of such a malady: “His belly is heavy, the mouth of his heart (os ventriculi) is sick, his heart (his stomach) is burning, ... his clothes are heavy upon him. Many clothes do not warm him; he is thirsty at night; the taste of his heart is perverted, like a man who has eaten sycamore figs; his flesh is deadened as a man who finds himself sick; if he goes to stool, his bowels refuse to act. Pronounce on his case that he has a nest of inflammation in his belly; the taste of his heart is sick, ... if he raises himself, he is as a man who is unable to walk.” The text of the papyrus gives the remedies to be used in such a case. “Apply to him the means of curing inflammation by warmth; also the means of destroying the inflammation in the belly.” The diagnosis and treatment here described apply very well to what we term peritonitis; but Dr. Baas suggests that gastric cancer may be indicated.