ABSTRACT
The men who cut open and prepared the bodies of the dead for mummification by removing the viscera and brains, must have known something of elementary surgery, but it seems clear from the material now available that neither they nor the physicians possessed any real knowledge of Anatomy and Physiology. Yet the Egyptians were renowned in ancient days for their knowledge of plants a;nd herbs, and Hippocrates and others incorporated in their writings many prescriptions which they had taken from the medical papyri of the Egyptians. There may have been, and there probably were, many physicians and herbalists who studied plants and anatomy in a scientific manner, and who tried to understand the working of the organs of the body, and the actual effect of the herbal medicines which they prescribed for their patients. Such men, if they existed, no doubt made experiments and noted the results which they obtained; and it is probable that some physicians endeavoured to discover Nature's operations by means of dissection and even by vivisection. But the majority
of practitioners relied upon the use of spells and magical ceremonies, and made their treatment to suit the views of their patients, who as a whole believed in magic. The progress of herbal science was strangled by the belief in magic. which was general among the people. Men thought that every illness was caused by the operation of one devil, or more than one, who had occupied the limb or member of the body, and had destroyed the protecting influence of the god or good spirit that usually dwelt in it. The first thing to do was to expel the devil, and this could only be effected by a spell or the utterance of the name of some great god; when the devil had been expelled the herbal treatment of the body began. Every member of the body of a living man was protected by a god, and the Book of the Dead (Chap. XLII) shows us that the members of a dead man were believed to be protected in the same way. Thus Pepi I, a king of the VIth Dynasty, says : " My hair is Nu. My face is Aten. My eyes are Hathor. My head is Horus. My nose is Thoth. My mouth is Khens-ur. My backbone is Sma. My breast is Babu. My heart is Bastit. My belly is Nut. My phallus is Hapi. My thighs are Nit and Serqit," etc. And in the Papyrus of Nu in the British Museum (No. 10477, sheet 6) the deceased says : "There is no member of my body which is not the member of some god. The god Thoth shieldeth my whole body and I am Ra (the Sun-god) day by day."
