Pharaonic Medicine Secrets
Medical
papyrus
Homer
notes in his famous book (Odessa) that people in Egypt are more talented in
medicine than others and that their medicine was superior to other sciences,
and Herodotus the father of history said of the Egyptians, “They give medicine
reasonably, so no one is allowed to interfere in anything other than Allocate
to him. ”
Ancient
Egypt’s physicians studied in medical schools that are attached to temples, and
one of the noteworthy things is the emergence of specialties in Pharaonic
Egypt; There were eye doctors, and other dentists, some of whom specialized in
abdominal diseases and their related organs, etc. Not only that, but they were
divided into degrees as is the case today, so there were four degrees as
follows: the general doctor who is not a specialist, followed by the chief
physician, then the inspector of doctors, and the chief physician above them,
and the doctor was trying to rise through this ladder until he reached Above,
he gets a better position among his people.
It is
mentioned that in the book of Dr. Juncker (Medicine in Pharaonic Egypt) 82
doctors were named among them, whose names were mentioned on the antiquities
and some of them came from his name in the stories. As for the most famous of
his doctors, it is (Imohotep), and he was the one who rose in the eyes of the
Egyptians until He reached the status of the gods. I believe that Imhotep
reached this position to achieve his desire in other fields besides medicine,
for example, engineering!
The
heart ... the mind ... the liver!
As for
their dealings with the internal organs of the human body and the extent of
their knowledge of them, the Egyptians learned from the heart that it is a pump
and considered it the main center of emotion and control of the individual's
personality and thinking, and accordingly they kept it in their bodies after
death, while emptying them from the brain, which was considered unimportant. As
for the liver, they could not determine its direct function, but they concluded
that there is a disease that affects him. In fact, some Egyptologists consider
that perhaps their exaggerated belief and interest in the gods and evil forces
as a cause of disease has prevented them from coming to the truth of some
things or obtaining Solutions and practical methods for treating certain
diseases.
Why gynecology?
Of all the medicine
specialties and its many branches, gynecology and obstetrics had the greatest
share of attention, and the Egyptians devised a special way to know whether a
woman was able to get pregnant or not, by putting garlic in her vagina from
night to dawn, and if the smell of garlic was found in her mouth This is based
on her ability to conceive in the future, while the opposite means impotence,
and the interpretation of this method despite its simplicity is something surprising;
It is their knowledge that garlic and onions contain a group of essentially
odorous oils that can penetrate through the tubes and pathways of a woman's
reproductive system
The
matter did not stop there, they also found a way to determine the sex of the
fetus from the early days of pregnancy, by pairing the urine of the pregnant
woman with barley and wheat plants. If the wheat germinated, the fetus was a
girl, while the barley germination meant that the newborn was male, but in the
event that it did not sleep any From the two the pregnancy was false, the method
was transferred to various parts of the world and was used by the Greeks,
Byzantines and others.
After we
talked about the pre-pregnancy stages and the pregnancy stage itself, there is
nothing left for us except childbirth, there were rooms dedicated to the birth
process in which medical devices were set up to facilitate labor and the most
important thing in which was the birth chair, that chair on which the pregnant
woman sits, putting her hands on her thighs and the doctor sewing Her surgeons
and women help her, doctors point out that giving birth in this situation is
easier and less painful than the usual way in which a woman gives birth while
lying on her bed, and after completing the birth the woman is kept in a room
called (mamizi) for a period of two weeks that no one visits in them for fear
of postpartum fears.
How does
early pregnancy and breastfeeding affect breast cancer?
As
documentation of the great genius shown by the Egyptians in medicine, the
medical papyri came as the best evidence and witness to this, talking about the
papyri and its details requires more than one article to cover it, but for
example it was among the most famous papyri (Edwin Smith, Ypres, Kahon, Hurst,
Carlsberg, London Papyrus) And many others), each papyrus of which had a
specific content different from the other and each of them dealt with a
specific medical topic and deepened in its details.
But the
sad thing is that these papyri without exception none of them exist in Egypt,
but were sold abroad and they are located in separate places in the world, some
of them are in universities, others are in museums and the like.
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