FIRST PHYSICIAN
The first physician of whom we have any record was I-em-Hetep, who lived in the reign of King Tcsher of the third dynasty of Egypt, probably before 4000 B. C. Among his titles, besides that of Master of Secrets, was Bringer of Peace. He was looked up to as one who, when not able to cure physical ailments, did succeed in consoling and reassuring patients so as to make their condition much more bearable. Like others of the great early physicians, he was after his death worshiped as a god, a tribute which probably signifies that those who had been benefited by his ministrations felt that he must have been more than mortal.
The extent of the Egyptians' admiration for him will be appreciated from the fact that the step pyramid at Sakkara is said to have been built in his honor, though, as a rule, pyramids were erected only to honor kings or the very highest nobility. The extant statue of I-em-Hetep shows a placid-looking man with an air of beneficent wisdom, seated with a scroll on his knees. It produces the distinct impression, as may be seen from the illustration, that his patients must have trusted him thoroughly, since this is the memory of his personality that was transmitted to posterity. While he came to be looked upon as the medical divinity of the Egyptians, he was never represented with a beard, which is the token of the gods, or of mortals who have been really apotheosized. Evidently his devotees felt that it was the divine in his humanity which was the most prominent feature that they wished to honor. Among the Greeks AEsculapius, who had been merely a successful physician, came to be honored as a deity. When we recall the condition of therapeutics at that [{8}] time, it is evident that man's appreciation of his power to console, even though he might not be able to heal, of his influence over men's minds in the midst of their sufferings, and the confidence that his presence inspired, were the real sources of their grateful recognition.
PSYCHOTHERAPY IN EGYPT
Among the Egyptians the first great development of medicine came among the priests. The two professions, the medical and priesthood, were one, and the temples were the hospitals of the time. We have stories of people traveling long distances to certain temples in the early days of Egypt and also of Greece. Often the sick slept in the temples and dreamed of ways by which they would be cured. The stories make one feel that somehow the sleep which came over them was not entirely natural and spontaneous, but must have been something like hypnotic sleep. As for the dreams, the suggestions of modern time given in the hypnotic condition seem to be the best indication that we have of what happened in those old days. Certain it is that the persuasion of the patient that he would get better, the influence of the diversion of mind consequent upon his journey and the regulation of life under new circumstances in the temple, with the repeated suggestions of the priests and of their various remedial measures, as well as those due to the fact that other patients around him were improving, all plainly show the place of psychotherapy at this time.
Much of the old-time therapy was in association with dreams supposed to have been in some way inspired. This was true at Epidaurus, at Kos, at Rome, at Lebene, at Athens, and at every place we know of where cures were worked in the olden times. To the modern mind it seems impossible that dreams should come so apropos unless they were in some way directed. The only explanation seems to be the use of suggestion, with the probable production of sleep resembling our modern hypnotic trance. Apparently the patient's attention was little directed to the origin of the suggestions received, but he remembered and benefited by them.
The most explicit testimony that we have to the antiquity of psychotherapeutics and to the employment of the influence of the minds of patients over their ailments in the olden time is in Pinel's "Nosographie philosophique" and in his "Traité médico-philosophique sur l'alienation mentale."
Pinel himself will be remembered as the great French psychiatrist who, confident that he could control most of them by mental influence, first dared to strike the chains from the insane in the asylums of Paris, at the end of the eighteenth century, when for more than a century they had been treated more barbarously than ever before in history. The passage makes clear that the writer himself, over a hundred years ago, was persuaded of the significance of the patient's mental attitude and of the value of mental treatment for many nervous and mental diseases:
An intimate acquaintance with human nature and with the character in general of melancholics must always point out the urgent necessity of forcibly agitating the system, of interrupting the chain of their gloomy ideas, and of engaging their interest by powerful and continuous impressions on their external senses. Wise regulations of this nature are considered as having constituted in part the celebrity and utility of the priesthood of ancient Egypt. Efforts of industry and of art, scenes of magnificence and of grandeur, the varied pleasures of sense, and [{9}] the imposing influences of a pompous and mysterious superstition, were perhaps never devoted to a more laudable purpose. At both extremities of ancient Egypt, a country which was at that time exceedingly populous and flourishing, were temples dedicated to Saturn, whither melancholics resorted in crowds in quest of relief. The priests, taking advantage of their credulous confidence, ascribed to miraculous powers the effects of natural means exclusively. Games and recreations of all kinds were instituted in these temples. Beautiful paintings and images were everywhere exposed to public view. The most enchanting songs, and sounds the most melodious "took prisoner the captive sense." Flowery gardens and groves, disposed with taste and art, invited them to refreshment and salubrious exercise. Gaily decorated boats sometimes transported them to breathe, amidst rural concerts, the pure breezes of the Nile. Sometimes they were conveyed to its verdant Isles, where, under the symbols of some guardian deity, new and ingeniously contrived entertainments were prepared for their reception. Every moment was devoted to some pleasurable occupation, or rather a system of diversified amusements, enhanced and sanctioned by superstition. An appropriate and scrupulously observed regimen, repeated excursions to the holy places, preconcerted fêtes at different stages to excite and keep up their interest on the road, with every other advantage of a similar nature that the experienced priesthood could invent or command, were, in no small degree, calculated to suspend the influence of pain, to calm the inquietudes of a morbid mind, and to operate salutary changes in the various functions of the system.