MAY 5,1998
Page A6
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Is There A Doctor In The House? If Not, Why Not?
C ontinued F rom P ace A2
is a medical textbixik, and it deals
with its subject in a rational fashion.
The subject is the treatment of physi­
cal injuries (and this is doubtless one
reason magic and mumbojumbo play
almost no part in it: there is no mys­
tery about the cause of such ai Iments).
The papyrus takes up 48 cases of
injury-wounds, fractures, disloca-
tions-in a systematic order, starting
from the head and working down­
ward: 10 cases of injury to the brain,
four to the nose, and so on to the
spinal column. In each case the con­
dition is carefully described, and the
descriptions make abundantly clear
that an examination by an Egyptian
doctor was a thorough business. It
included interrogation, inspection
and functional tests such as having
the patient walk or move his limbs to
determine the area o f injury. Then
followed a diagnosis and one of three
conclusions: “an ailment which 1 will
treat,” “an ailment with which I will
contend,” “an ailment not to be
treated"-in other words: favorable,
uncertain, unfavorable.
Treatment recommended in the
papyrus included reducing disloca­
tions, healing fractures by the use ot
splints and casts, and bringing open
wounds together with sutures, clamps
or a kind of adhesive plaster. Mum­
mies reveal numerous examples of
fractures that healed without compli­
cation. what is striking is the level­
headed approach of the handbook; it
reveals a point of view that in some
aspects differs little from that of
modem medicine.
A second medical work, only
slightly less impressive, is the Ebers
medical Papyrus. Unlike the Edwin
Smith Surgical Papyrus, it is not a
monograph on a single subject, but
rather a teaching manual for general
practitioners.
It has a surgical section in the
mannerofthe Edwin Smith Papyrus;
a section on the heart and its vessels,
which is a most interesting essay on
speculative medical philosophy; and
another on pharmacy. One of its
remedies is a prescription for castor
oil as a laxative.
Herodotus declared that Egypt’s
doctors were highly specialized, and
this has sometimes been taken as an
indication of the level Egyptian medi­
cine reached. Quite the contrary-
specialization is a well established
feature of primitive medicine: the
medicine man frequently limited his
practice to certain areas or problems
only. The Egyptian doctor’s fame
rests on what the medical papyri have
revealed-the unquestioned presence
of a rational attitude toward the as­
pects of medicine which an ancient
Egyptian could deal with practically.
In their own day the reputation ot
Egypt's doctors reached far beyond
the Nile Valley, they were the an­
cient w orld’s equivalent o f the
Viennese psychoananlysts. The clay
tablets found at Tell el Amama indi­
cate that Egyptian physicians were
frequently sent to foreign courts in
Syria and Assyria and the kings of
Persia are known to have employed
Egyptian doctors, and the Egyptians’
herbal prescriptions and some of their
treatments were so highly prized that
they spread throughout the whole ot
the Mediterranean area.
Egyptian medicine is not the roots
of modem Western medicine. The
Egyptian calendar is the basis of the
modem Western calendar, for the
latter is but an improved version of
the Julian calendar. It is even pos­
sible that the hieroglyphs inspired
the Phoenician alphabet, which is
indirectly the prototype of the mod­
em Latin alphabet.
It is fascinating to examine cop­
ies o f ancient African papyri ob­
tained from the principal museums
o f the w orld-prescriptions and
medical procedures from the pa­
pyri Ebers, Berlin, Leyden, Edwin
Smith, Ahmose, etc. Some read
with an almost contemporary flair,
“Take two capsules and call me
tomorrow” (wonder if they had golf
courses back then?). Equally in­
teresting is the genius o f the Afri­
can in administrative organization,
demonstrated here in medicine as
fulling as in law, diplomacy, the
military, and in navigation and tax
codes. There were medical asso­
ciations that supervised training,
certified practitioners, and moni­
tored the practice.
There was a great deal o f spe-
cialization, internists, ocular(w ith
emphasis on cataracts), Podiatrists,
brain surgeons, dentists, masseuss,
and others; many o f whom were
women. Atkinson tells us Egyp­
tian medicine became the ground
work and principal basis for Greek
medicine. It is believed that the
Greek, Hippocrates (after whom
the famed oath is named) studied
at the sam e A frican T em p le
Schools which Socrates, Plato,
Pythogoras and other studied; “it
is not known how else he managed
to gain such a vast knowledge of
diagnosis and treatment.” Equally
revealing is the background o f the
Caduceus, that universal medical
symbol. It is not Greek at all,
archaeologists having found it as
early on as 7,000 years ago in Ethio­
pia, Nubia, and across the Red Sea
in Punt (Arabia). “The sign which
precedes our medical prescriptions
is derived from the eye o f Horus,"
the same eye over the truncated
pyramid which is incorporated into
the Great Seal of the United States.
This story will continue next week,
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