Episode 1 Ancient Egypt

Homer is quoted saying, "In Egypt, the men are more skilled in Medicine than any of human kind." With a recommendation like this it is hard to be modest. Welcome to the premier medical facility in all of Egypt, the Imhotep at Memphis. My name in Egyptian is Eagle, hand, pointy thing, eagle, but most people just call me "sunu" which is the name for a physician in my day. I work here in Memphis as a scribe in the great medical library and also as a physician. We are known throughout the world as a teaching hospital where many sunus obtain their medical knowledge and training. We have many other great doctors here including the Pharaoh's proctologist who was given the great title of "Shepard of the anus of the Pharaoh." Not only do we have the best doctors in the land, we are held to a very high ethical standard we must vow "To never do evil towards any person." With such a great reputation it is no wonder that people come from all over the world to receive medical treatment. Well now that you have some background information on my art, please come with me as I treat my patients' problems and exercise their spirits.

Our system of medicine is very much rooted in religion and spirituality. As a divine evil is the source of medical problems, we must cleanse the body of the evil before the patient can be treated. Just as one would pull the arrow out before treating the wound, we must get rid of the cause of the malady before it can be treated. We often use exorcism, rituals of purification, and incantation to placate or frighten the spirits from the body. It is also a series of canals that connect to each other just like the Nile and its tributaries. Air, blood, semen, and urine all have their own route throughout the body.

Sekhmet Netjert (Goddess of Healing)
Website: Ancient Egyptian Medicine
Weblink: http://showcase.netins.net/web/ankh/sekhmetnew.html

Our first patient seems to have problems with his eye. The first patient that we will see was injured on the job at the temple where he works. Because he was injured at work the temple will pay for his medical bills as a sort of early medical insurance. Anyway he has a rather deep gash above his eyebrow that goes down to the bone and has a bit of trouble seeing in the darkness of the temple which may have helped cause the accident in the first place. To allow the wound to heal we must first pray to the god Sekhmet, the goddess of healing, curses, and threats that this cure stays with the patient. Now that the spirits have been placated the physical remedy to this wound to use stitches to close the wound. After this we will further seal the wound with two plaster covered strips of linen. To promote the natural healing of the wound the patient should apply honey to feed the body as it heals and grease to keep the wound sealed from any outside objects that might get into the wound. As for the difficulty seeing in the darkness the patient should eat an ox's liver that has been cooked and crushed. It turns out that this treatment is very rich in vitamin A.

Despite the fact that I use prayer as a large part of my practice doesn't mean that we depend on the gods for everything. During the course of my medical education I have read and copied many scrolls that passed down medical knowledge through the ages. You may have heard of a couple of these by the men who later discovered them.

-Edwin Smith Papyrus describes many surgical cases including patient histories, diagnoses, treatments, and even some cases that were considered to be untreatable

-Ebers medical papyrus is a compilation of many earlier texts describing the rituals that must be done to heal the patient, recipes for different prescriptions and
    treatments.

-Kahun gynecological papyrus describes many of the pains unique to women. This text also contains a substantial amount of information about obstetrics particularly
     describing symptoms of when a woman will give birth and when she will not.

-Berlin papyrus- gives the earliest known pregnancy test by using barley and emmer. This test also attempts to predict the sex of the child.

These are just a few of the major texts that compile medical knowledge from my time. The number of papyri in our library is almost as numerous as the number of stars in the heavens. With all of this knowledge in medicine Egypt is able to train the finest doctors in the world. I hope that you know have a good impression of how I practice medicine. The goal has been and still is to help the patient by without causing any further harm to them.

Primary Source Note:
In this episode I used the Ebers papyrus to describe how the Egyptian physicians typically treated a patient. I paraphrased much of the Ebers papyrus to describe how the procedure was done. This text described the much of the physical aspect of healing as well as the religious aspect.

Secondary Source Note:
Dr. Sameh M. Arab is a an associate professor of cardiology at Alexandria University in Egypt. He has written extensively on the subject of the history of ancient Egypt and been published multiple times. Tony High is a writer for the Egyptology Online study course. He has compiled a multitude of articles about life in ancient Egypt.