Ancient Egyptian remedies

Does modern medicine have anything to learn from the medicine of the ancient Egyptians, asks Mai Samih

The ancient Egyptians, who embalmed their deceased so carefully, must have had a profound knowledge of anatomy. This is shown in tomb reliefs depicting surgeons dealing with patients and in famous medical texts such as those in the ancient Egyptian Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri.

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus who visited Egypt around 440 BCE wrote extensively of his observations of ancient Egyptian medical practices. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder also wrote favourably of them in his historical works. The ancient Greek fathers of medicine, Hippocrates, Herophilos, Erasistratus and later Galen, all studied at the temple of Amenhotep in Egypt and acknowledged the contributions of the ancient Egyptians to Greek medicine.

In his book Life of the Ancient Egyptians, author Eugen Strouhal quotes Herodotus describing Egyptian doctors by saying that “the practice of medicine is so divided among them that each physician treats one disease and no more. There are plenty of physicians everywhere; some are eye doctors, some deal with the heart, others with the teeth or the belly, and some with hidden maladies.”

Belgian Scholar Frans Jonckheere writes that there were 82 kinds of doctors known by name in ancient Egypt. No female nurses existed to help these doctors, but there were male nurses, dressers, masseurs, and lay therapists there for help. Czech physician Vincenc Strouhal wrote that the most advanced branch of medicine in ancient Egypt was surgery.