Power of words, images, amulets.
Most of the main features and varieties of magic known to us at other times and places appear somewhere in the course of Egypt’s long history. For one thing we find the ascription of magic power to words and names. The power of words, says Budge, was thought to be practically unlimited, and “the Egyptians invoked their aid in the smallest as well as in the greatest events of their life.”[30] Words might be spoken, in which case they “must be uttered in a proper tone of voice by a duly qualified man,” or they might be written, in which case the material upon which they were written might be of importance.[31] In speaking of mortuary magic we have already noted the employment of pictures, models, mannikins, and other images, figures, and objects. Wax figures were also used in sorcery,[32] and amulets are found from the first, although their particular forms seem to have altered with different periods.[33] Scarabs are of course the most familiar example.
Magic in Egyptian medicine.
Egyptian medicine was full of magic and ritual and its therapeusis consisted mainly of “collections of incantations and weird random mixtures of roots and refuse.”[34] Already we find the recipe and the occult virtue conceptions, the elaborate polypharmacy and the accompanying hocus-pocus which we shall meet in Pliny and the middle ages. The Egyptian doctors used herbs from other countries and preferred compound medicines containing a dozen ingredients to simple medicines.[35] Already we find such magic logic as that the hair of a black calf will keep one from growing gray.[36] Already the parts of animals are a favorite ingredient in medical compounds, especially those connected with the organs of generation, on which account they were presumably looked upon as life-giving, or those which were recommended mainly by their nastiness and were probably thought to expel the demons of disease by their disagreeable properties.
Demons and disease.
In ancient Egypt, however, disease seems not to have been identified with possession by demons to the extent that it was in ancient Assyria and Babylonia. While Breasted asserts that “disease was due to hostile spirits and against these only magic could avail,”[37] Budge contents himself with the more cautious statement that there is “good reason for thinking that some diseases were attributed to ... evil spirits ... entering ... human bodies ... but the texts do not afford much information”[38] on this point. Certainly the beliefs in evil spirits and in magic do not always have to go together, and magic might be employed against disease whether or not it was ascribed to a demon.
Magic and science.
In the case of medicine as in that of religion Breasted takes the view that the amount of magic became greater in the Middle and New Kingdoms than in the Old Kingdom. This is true so far as the amount of space occupied by it in extant records is concerned. But it would be rash to assume that this marks a decline from a more rational and scientific attitude in the Old Kingdom. Yet Breasted rather gives this impression when he writes concerning the Old Kingdom that many of its recipes were useful and rational, that “medicine was already in the possession of much empirical wisdom, displaying close and accurate observation,” and that what “precluded any progress toward real science was the belief in magic, which later began to dominate all the practice of the physician.”[39] Berthelot probably places the emphasis more correctly when he states that the later medical papyri “include traditional recipes, founded on an empiricism which is not always correct, mystic remedies, based upon the most bizarre analogies, and magic practices that date back to the remotest antiquity.”[40] The recent efforts of Sethe and Wilcken, of Elliot Smith, Müller, and Hooten to show that the ancient Egyptians possessed a considerable amount of medical knowledge and of surgical and dental skill, have been held by Todd to rest on slight and dubious evidence. Indeed, some of this evidence seems rather to suggest the ritualistic practices still employed by uncivilized African tribes. Certainly the evidence for any real scientific development in ancient Egypt has been very meager compared with the abundant indications of the prevalence of magic.[41]
Magic and industry.
Early Egypt was the home of many arts and industries, but not in so advanced a stage as has sometimes been suggested. Blown glass, for example, was unknown until late Greek and Roman times, and the supposed glass-blowers depicted on the early monuments are really smiths engaged in stirring their fires by blowing through reeds tipped with clay.[42] On the other hand, Professor Breasted informs me that there is no basis for Berthelot’s statement that “every sort of chemical process as well as medical treatment was executed with an accompaniment of religious formulae, of prayers and incantations, regarded as essential to the success of operations as well as the cure of maladies.”[43]