We learn from Herodotus that the Babylonians used to carry the sick into the public squares; the passers-by were expected to make inquiries as to their illnesses, and if it so happened that they or any of their acquaintances had been similarly afflicted, to come to the aid of the patient by offering their advice and making known the means of treatment that had effected recovery, exhorting him, at the same time, to have recourse to them.
This usage had without doubt its advantages, as it must have led, little by little, to the recognition of such remedies as were most efficacious, among all those recommended, against the various maladies.
Another custom that served to furnish useful elements for the development of the art of medicine was that of the votive tables, hung in the temples by patients after their recovery, in sign of gratitude for having received the invoked blessings. These tables contained a brief description of the malady and of the treatment that had proved useful in dispelling it. If we reflect that dental affections are often of long duration and very tormenting, the thought naturally suggests itself that among the votive tables not a few must have referred to maladies of the teeth.
The numberless cases recorded by votive tables afforded precious clinical material, which without doubt was utilized in a great measure by the priests in compiling the earliest medical writings, and, as we shall see later, Hippocrates himself stored up all the medical records existing in the celebrated temple of Cos.
Introduction of Ebers’ Papyrus, transcribed in Egyptian hieroglyphic characters.
CHAPTER I.
DENTAL ART AMONG THE EGYPTIANS.
Among the people of ancient times, the Egyptian nation was, without doubt, the one in which civilization first took its rise and had its earliest development. From the time of Menes, first King of Egypt (3892 B.C.), the inhabitants of the valley of the Nile were well advanced on the path of civilization, and under the fourth dynasty, dating from 3427 years before the Christian era, they had already attained a high degree of progress.