CHAPTER IIORIENTAL MEDICINE
The researches of the scholar working in combination with the engineer have unearthed—more particularly in Mesopotamia, in Egypt and in Greece—evidences of an ancient medical science far advanced beyond that briefly described in the preceding chapter. These evidences relate to nations that flourished as far back as four thousand years B. C. While they are very fragmentary and cover historical events which are often separated from one another by long periods of time, these data nevertheless suffice to give one a fairly good idea of the then prevailing state of medical knowledge. Both Pagel and Neuburger adopt the plan of discussing these different nationalities separately, and I shall follow their example.
Medicine in Mesopotamia.—As appears from the most recent investigations the Sumerians were the first occupants of the region lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. It was from them that their Semitic conquerors, the Babylonians and the Assyrians, received a civilization which, already about 4000 B. C., had reached a wonderful degree of development. The canalization of the low-lying lands of that region, the organization of a religious and civil government of a most efficient type, the invention first of picture-writing and then of the cuneiform characters, the cultivation of the arts and natural sciences and especially of astronomy and mathematics to a high degree of perfection,—these are among the things which were accomplished by this very clever race of men. In addition, however, to these useful activities the Babylonians developed and cultivated diligently the science of astrology—that is, the science of predicting human events(such as the death of the king, the occurrence of the plague or of war, etc.) from various telluric and cosmic phenomena—an eclipse of the sun, peculiarities of the weather, the condition of vegetation, etc. The deeply rooted love of the human race for the supernatural—a characteristic to which I have already briefly referred—facilitated the development of this harmful practice, and kept it alive through many succeeding centuries. Walter Scott, in his romance entitled Quentin Durward, gives an admirable portrait of a typical astrologer whom Louis XI. of France maintained at his court during a part of the seventeenth century.
While in other parts of the Orient the science of medicine, as already stated at the beginning of this chapter, made a noteworthy advance beyond the conditions observed among the primitive races, in Mesopotamia this science, which was far more important to the welfare of its inhabitants than all the other branches of knowledge combined, received very little attention and consequently made only insignificant advances. The British Museum has in its possession several thousand tablets which were dug up from the ruins of Nineveh and which represent a part of the library of the Assyrian King, Assurbanipal (668–626 B. C.). Translations of the text of only a very few of these tablets have thus far been published, and from these, which embody the greater part of our knowledge of Assyrian medicine, it appears that, for the present at least, the estimate recorded above must stand. A few new facts, however, have been brought to light, and they appear to be of sufficient importance to merit brief consideration here.
In the first place, Herodotus, who visited Babylon about 300 B. C., has this to say in relation to the state of medicine in that city:—
The following custom seems to me the wisest of their institutions next to the one lately praised. They have no physicians, but, when a man is ill, they lay him in the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in theirown case, or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without asking him what his ailment is.[2]
The following custom seems to me the wisest of their institutions next to the one lately praised. They have no physicians, but, when a man is ill, they lay him in the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in theirown case, or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without asking him what his ailment is.[2]
The Babylonians held some rather strange beliefs regarding the construction of the human body and the manner in which its functions are performed. The living being, as they maintained, is composed of soul and body. The intellect has its seat in the heart, the liver serving as the central organ for the blood, which they considered to be the true life principle. They divided this fluid into two kinds—blood of the daytime (bright arterial) and that of the night (dark venous). Although the blood was held by them to be the basis of life, they evidently attached a certain value to respiration, for one of their prayers begins with these words: “God, my creator, lead me by the hand; guide the breath of my mouth.” Disease was always looked upon as something (usually personified as a demon) that entered the body from without and that consequently had to be expelled. There were special demons for the different diseases. Thus, Asakku brought fever to the head, Namtar threatened life with the plague, and Utukku attacked the throat, Alu the breast, Gallu the hand, Rabisu the skin, and so on. The most dreaded demons were the spirits of the dead. Special amulets were employed as protective remedies. Prayer formulae were also used. Here is one among several that I find mentioned in Neuburger’s treatise:—
Wicked Consumption, villainous Consumption, Consumption which never leaves a man, Consumption which cannot be driven away, Consumption which cannot be induced to leave, Bad Consumption, in the name of Heaven be placated, in the name of Earth I conjure thee!
Wicked Consumption, villainous Consumption, Consumption which never leaves a man, Consumption which cannot be driven away, Consumption which cannot be induced to leave, Bad Consumption, in the name of Heaven be placated, in the name of Earth I conjure thee!
The genuine remedial agents employed in Babylonia were of a most varied nature: a mixture of honey and syrup of dates; medicinal herbs of different kinds for internal administration; bloodletting; the use of cups for drawing blood to the surface of the body; warm baths andcold shower baths; rubbing oil over the body; medicated clysters; the use of various salves; the use of secret remedies which were composed of various ingredients and which bore such names as “the Sun God’s remedy,” “the dog’s tongue,” “the skin of the yellow snake,” “the medicine brought from the mountain of the human race,” etc.
Some of the predictions made by the Babylonian astrologers are of sufficient interest to be placed on record. Here are a few examples:—
If the west wind is blowing when the new moon is first seen, there is likely to be an unusual amount of illness during that month.If Venus approaches the constellation of Cancer, there will be respect for law and prosperity in the land; those who are ill will recover, and pregnant women will have easy confinements.If Mercury makes its appearance on the fifteenth day of the month, there will be corpses in the land. And again, if the constellation of Cancer is obscured, a destructive demon will take possession of the land, and there will be corpses.If Jupiter and the other planets stand opposite one another, some calamity will overtake the land. If Mars and Jupiter come into conjunction, there will be deaths among the cattle.If an eclipse of the Sun take place on the twenty-eighth day of the month Ijar, the king will have a long reign; but, if it take place on the twenty-ninth day of the month, there will be corpses on the first day of the following month.If there should be thunder during the month of Tisri, a spirit of enmity will prevail in the land; and if it should rain during that month, both men and cattle will fall ill.
If the west wind is blowing when the new moon is first seen, there is likely to be an unusual amount of illness during that month.
If Venus approaches the constellation of Cancer, there will be respect for law and prosperity in the land; those who are ill will recover, and pregnant women will have easy confinements.
If Mercury makes its appearance on the fifteenth day of the month, there will be corpses in the land. And again, if the constellation of Cancer is obscured, a destructive demon will take possession of the land, and there will be corpses.
If Jupiter and the other planets stand opposite one another, some calamity will overtake the land. If Mars and Jupiter come into conjunction, there will be deaths among the cattle.
If an eclipse of the Sun take place on the twenty-eighth day of the month Ijar, the king will have a long reign; but, if it take place on the twenty-ninth day of the month, there will be corpses on the first day of the following month.
If there should be thunder during the month of Tisri, a spirit of enmity will prevail in the land; and if it should rain during that month, both men and cattle will fall ill.
Besides these predictions, which were based upon phenomena connected with the movements of the stars and the conditions of the weather, there were others which the people themselves were competent to make without the aid of the professional astrologer or the official priest. Such, for example, are the following “omens”:—
If a woman gives birth to a child the right ear of which is lacking, long will be the reign of the prince of that land.If a woman gives birth to a child both of whose ears are lacking,sadness will come upon the land and it will lose some of its importance.If a woman gives birth to a child whose face resembles the beak of a bird, there will surely be peace in the land.If a woman gives birth to a child the right hand of which lacks fingers, the sovereign of that country will be taken prisoner by his enemies.
If a woman gives birth to a child the right ear of which is lacking, long will be the reign of the prince of that land.
If a woman gives birth to a child both of whose ears are lacking,sadness will come upon the land and it will lose some of its importance.
If a woman gives birth to a child whose face resembles the beak of a bird, there will surely be peace in the land.
If a woman gives birth to a child the right hand of which lacks fingers, the sovereign of that country will be taken prisoner by his enemies.
The keen interest taken by the priests in the matter of predicting the outcome of various diseases led in due time to their making records of the nature, symptoms and progress of the latter. Although this practice was inaugurated purely for the purpose of enabling them to foretell with greater accuracy the probable issue of any given malady, it nevertheless served also to establish on a firm basis the custom of keeping records of the case-histories. Only one thing more was now needed to render this practice the first step in a genuine advance of medical knowledge; but this step could not be made in Babylonia, where priestcraft and superstition had struck such deep roots in the public life. It was only in free Greece, and at a time in its history when the spirit of Hippocrates exerted an overpowering influence over the minds of men, that the separation of the functions of the physician from those of the priest became possible and was in due time effected. (Neuburger.)
Before closing this very incomplete account of the state of medical knowledge in Babylonia, it will be well to mention some of the items of the law laid down by Hammurabi (circa 2200 B. C.) for the guidance of the physicians of that land with regard to the remuneration which they should receive. At the same time I shall make no attempt to reconcile the statement of Herodotus (given on page 12) with the wording of this law, which distinctly recognizes the existence of physicians in Mesopotamia. Possibly the conditions in Nineveh in the fourth century B. C. were different from what they had been eighteen centuries earlier.
If a physician makes a deep cut with an operating knife of bronze and effects a cure, or if with such a knife he opens a tumorand thus avoids damaging the patient’s eye, he shall receive as his reward 10 shekels of silver. If the patient is an emancipated slave, the fee shall be reduced to 5 shekels. In the case of a slave the master to whom he belongs shall pay the physician 2 shekels.If a physician makes a deep wound with an operating knife of bronze and the patient dies, or if he opens a tumor with such a knife and the patient’s eye is thereby destroyed, the operator shall be punished by having his hands cut off.If a physician, in operating upon the slave of a freedman, makes a deep wound with an operating knife of bronze and thus kills the patient, he shall give the owner a slave in exchange for the one killed. And if, in opening a tumor with such a knife, the physician destroys the slave’s eye, he shall pay to the latter’s owner one-half the slave’s value.If a physician effects the healing of a broken bone or cures a disease of the intestines, he shall receive from the patient a fee of 5 shekels of silver.[3]
If a physician makes a deep cut with an operating knife of bronze and effects a cure, or if with such a knife he opens a tumorand thus avoids damaging the patient’s eye, he shall receive as his reward 10 shekels of silver. If the patient is an emancipated slave, the fee shall be reduced to 5 shekels. In the case of a slave the master to whom he belongs shall pay the physician 2 shekels.
If a physician makes a deep wound with an operating knife of bronze and the patient dies, or if he opens a tumor with such a knife and the patient’s eye is thereby destroyed, the operator shall be punished by having his hands cut off.
If a physician, in operating upon the slave of a freedman, makes a deep wound with an operating knife of bronze and thus kills the patient, he shall give the owner a slave in exchange for the one killed. And if, in opening a tumor with such a knife, the physician destroys the slave’s eye, he shall pay to the latter’s owner one-half the slave’s value.
If a physician effects the healing of a broken bone or cures a disease of the intestines, he shall receive from the patient a fee of 5 shekels of silver.[3]
It would be difficult to imagine anything better adapted to arrest the development of medical knowledge in a nation than the promulgation of a law like that ascribed to Hammurabi; and one cannot be surprised at the statement made by Herodotus, eighteen centuries later, “that there were no physicians in Babylon.” Foolhardy, indeed, would be the man who, for the sake of earning a possible reward of six shekels of silver, would be willing to risk the danger of having both his hands cut off; and yet every conscientious and faithful practitioner of medicine in Babylon at the time mentioned must necessarily have been obliged to run this risk.
Medicine in Ancient Egypt.—Of the sources of information with regard to the knowledge of medicine possessed by the ancient Egyptians the most important are the following: Homer’s Odyssey; Herodotus; Diodorus; Clemens of Alexandria; Pliny’s Natural History; Dioscorides;the Papyrus Ebers; the Papyrus Brugsch; and the Papyrus Birch, in the British Museum. Then, in addition to these sources, there are the inscriptions found in recent times on the walls of the temples and the pictures painted on the wrappings of mummies, from both of which considerable information with regard to various therapeutic procedures and to the details of the process of embalming has been derived. Some of this information extends back to about 3000 B. C. The healing art was at that time entirely in the hands of the temple priests, who formed an organized body with a sort of physician-in-chief at its head. Two of these—Athotis and Tosorthos—attained such a high standing and possessed such influence that they were chosen Kings of Egypt. The practice of obstetrics was entrusted to the care of women who had been trained to this work and who acknowledged the authority of a skilled head-nurse of their own sex. The patients who had received treatment for their ailments at one or other of the temples presented to these institutions gifts in the form of sculptured or painted representations of the diseased or injured parts of the body. In these and in other ways medicine and pharmacy received contributions which were of no mean value. Botanical gardens were established at various places in Egypt and were cultivated with care. Chemistry—a name which derives its origin from a word in the Egyptian language—also made considerable progress as a science. On the other hand, the knowledge of the structure and functions of the different parts of the human body was very imperfect and remained unchanged for many centuries. This would probably not have been the case if the work of preparing the bodies for the process of embalming had not been entrusted entirely to mere menials, men who had no interest in anything but the mechanical part of their occupation.
According to the statement of Clemens of Alexandria[4]the Egyptian science of medicine is set forth in the last six of the forty-two hermetic books, which were composed, according to the prevailing belief, by the god Thot or Thoüt (= Hermes of the Greeks). The first one of these six books is devoted to the anatomy of the human body, the second one to the diseases to which it is liable, the third to surgery, the fourth to remedial agents, the fifth to the diseases of the eye, and the sixth to diseases of women. As to the remedial agents, Neuburger says that it has not been found practicable to identify more than a very few of the Egyptian drugs enumerated by Dioscorides. Homer, who wrote at least five hundred years B. C., has something to say on this subject in the Odyssey.[5]His words are as follows:—
Such drugs Jove’s daughter owned, with skill prepar’d,And of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone,Aegyptian Polydamna, given her.For Aegypt teems with drugs, yielding no fewWhich, mingled with the drink, are good, and manyOf baneful juice, and enemies to life.There every man in skill medicinalExcels; for they are sons of Pason[6]all.
Such drugs Jove’s daughter owned, with skill prepar’d,And of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone,Aegyptian Polydamna, given her.For Aegypt teems with drugs, yielding no fewWhich, mingled with the drink, are good, and manyOf baneful juice, and enemies to life.There every man in skill medicinalExcels; for they are sons of Pason[6]all.
Such drugs Jove’s daughter owned, with skill prepar’d,And of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone,Aegyptian Polydamna, given her.For Aegypt teems with drugs, yielding no fewWhich, mingled with the drink, are good, and manyOf baneful juice, and enemies to life.There every man in skill medicinalExcels; for they are sons of Pason[6]all.
Such drugs Jove’s daughter owned, with skill prepar’d,
And of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone,
Aegyptian Polydamna, given her.
For Aegypt teems with drugs, yielding no few
Which, mingled with the drink, are good, and many
Of baneful juice, and enemies to life.
There every man in skill medicinal
Excels; for they are sons of Pason[6]all.
A physician of the present age, on reading the histories of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and other oriental nations, finds it almost impossible to realize that many of the characters designated as gods and goddesses, possibly all of them, were not mythological persons, as they would have been termed only a few years ago, but real human beings like ourselves. Such, for example, was the opinion of Cicero who, when asked why these people were spoken of as gods, gave the following reply:[7]“It was a well-established custom among the ancients to deify those who had rendered to their fellow men important services, asHercules, Castor and Pollux, Aesculapius, Bacchus and many others had done.” And I find that those modern authors of the history of medicine whose works I have consulted, are quite ready to accept even the gods called by the Egyptians Osiris (or Serapis), Isis, and Thoüt (or Hermes) as genuine historical personages. Such a belief receives some degree of confirmation from the following inscriptions which, according to the authority of Le Clerc,[8]were found engraved upon two columns discovered in the city of Nyoa, in Arabia:—
(On the first column): My father is Cronos, the youngest of all the gods. I am King Osiris, who have visited with my armies every country on the face of the earth—the remotest inhabitable parts of India, the regions lying beneath the Bear, the neighborhood of the sources of the Danube, and the shores of the Ocean. I am the oldest son of Cronos, the scion of a fine and noble race. I am related to the day. There is no part of the earth which I have not visited, and I have filled the entire universe with my benefits. (On the second column): I am Isis, Queen of all this country, and I have been taught by Thoüt. There is nobody who has the power to loosen what I shall bind. I am the oldest daughter of Cronos, the youngest of the gods. I am the wife and at the same time the sister of King Osiris. To me is due the credit of having been the first to teach men agriculture. I am the mother of King Horus. I shine in the dog-star. It is I who built the city of Bubastis. Farewell, Egypt, my native land.
(On the first column): My father is Cronos, the youngest of all the gods. I am King Osiris, who have visited with my armies every country on the face of the earth—the remotest inhabitable parts of India, the regions lying beneath the Bear, the neighborhood of the sources of the Danube, and the shores of the Ocean. I am the oldest son of Cronos, the scion of a fine and noble race. I am related to the day. There is no part of the earth which I have not visited, and I have filled the entire universe with my benefits. (On the second column): I am Isis, Queen of all this country, and I have been taught by Thoüt. There is nobody who has the power to loosen what I shall bind. I am the oldest daughter of Cronos, the youngest of the gods. I am the wife and at the same time the sister of King Osiris. To me is due the credit of having been the first to teach men agriculture. I am the mother of King Horus. I shine in the dog-star. It is I who built the city of Bubastis. Farewell, Egypt, my native land.
The discovery of the art of medicine, says Le Clerc, was attributed to Osiris and Isis, and they were also credited with having taught it to Aesculapius.
At the cities of On (Heliopolis), Sais, Memphis and Thebes were located the most celebrated of the Egyptian temples, which were dedicated not merely to the worship of their numerous gods, but also to the dissemination of knowledge of various kinds and to the care of the sick and maimed. In a word, they were—like the Aesculapian temples at Trikka, Epidaurus and Cos, of which some account will be given farther on—both hospitals for thetreatment of disease and schools for the training of physicians. The chief priest of the temple bore also the title of the “physician-in-chief,” and exercised the prerogatives of a chief magistrate. Under this system medical knowledge advanced to a certain stage and then made no further progress. The preponderance of the priestly (i.e., the superstitious) influence was too pronounced to permit anything like real progress.
The papyrus Ebers makes mention of a number of diseases, and among them the following may be noted: abdominal affections (probably dysentery), intestinal worms, inflammations in the region of the anus, hemorrhoids, painful disorders at the pit of the stomach, diseases of the heart, pains in the head, urinary affections, dyspepsia, swellings in the region of the neck, angina, a form of disease of the liver, about thirty different affections of the eyes, diseases of the hair, diseases of the skin, diseases of women, diseases of children, affections of the nose, ears and teeth, tumors, abscesses and ulcers.
In the matter of diagnosis the Egyptian physicians not only employed inspection and palpation, but were in the habit of examining the urine. A statement made in the papyrus Ebers is good ground for the belief that they also employed auscultation to some extent.
Therapeutics constituted beyond all question the strongest part of Egyptian medicine. As might be expected from the strange mixture of the priest and the medical man in every physician, the remedial measures commonly employed consisted in part of prayers and incantations, and in part of rational procedures and the use of drugs. Among the latter class of remedies the following deserve to be mentioned: emetics, cathartics and clysters. Bloodletting, sudorifics, diuretics and substances which cause sneezing were also often employed in Egypt. To produce vomiting the favorite agents were the copper salts and oxymel of squills. Castor oil disguised in beer was given as an aperient. Pomegranate was the drug preferred for the expulsion of worms. Mandragora and opium were also employed as remedies. Foreign drugs were largely imported by the Phoenicians,and in their successful campaigns against Asiatic nations the Egyptians learned much about the use of these rarer remedies. The different forms in which the Egyptians administered their remedies included potions, electuaries, gums to be chewed but not swallowed, gargles, snuffs, inhalations, salves, plasters, poultices, injections, suppositories, clysters and fumigations. The physicians, in their practice, were subjected to very strict rules regarding the amount of the doses to be given and the manner of administering the different remedies, and consequently they received no encouragement to indulge in any individuality of action. The prescriptions were written in very much the same manner as are those of to-day; that is, they contained the fundamental or important drugs, certain accessory materials, and something which was intended merely to correct the unpleasant taste of the mixture. In comparison with those commonly written at a somewhat later period these ancient prescriptions were of a very simple character.
Up to the present time the researches of the archaeologists have thrown comparatively little light on the surgery of the ancient Egyptians. The facts already ascertained, however, are sufficient to warrant the statement that they had reached a degree of knowledge and skill in this department of medicine well in advance of that reached by any of their contemporaries. They performed the operations of circumcision and castration, and they removed tumors, and their eye surgeons were especially renowned for the work which they accomplished in their special department. Their skill in manufacturing surgical instruments is amply revealed in the specimens—instruments for cupping, knives, hooks, forceps of different kinds, metal sounds and probes, etc.—which have been dug up at the various sites of ancient ruins. They must also have possessed considerable manual skill, for without it they could not, in embalming a corpse, have removed the entire brain from the skull with a long hook, by way of the nasal passages, and at the same time have left the form of the face undisturbed.
From Joachim’s German translation of the papyrus Ebers,[9]as quoted by Neuburger, I copy the following passages:—
If thou findest, in some part of the surface of a patient’s body, a tumor due to a collection of pus, and dost observe that at one well-defined spot it rises up into a noticeable prominence, of rounded form, thou should’st say to thyself: This is a collection of pus, which is forming among the tissues; I will treat the disease with the knife.... If thou findest, in the throat of a patient, a small tumor containing pus, and dost observe that it presents at one point a well-defined prominence like a wart, thou may’st conclude that pus is collecting at this point.... If thou findest, in a patient’s throat, a fatty growth which resembles an abscess, but which yields a peculiar sensation of softness under the pressure of the finger, say to thyself: this man has a fatty tumor in his throat; I will treat the disease with the knife, but at the same time I will be careful to avoid the blood-vessels.
If thou findest, in some part of the surface of a patient’s body, a tumor due to a collection of pus, and dost observe that at one well-defined spot it rises up into a noticeable prominence, of rounded form, thou should’st say to thyself: This is a collection of pus, which is forming among the tissues; I will treat the disease with the knife.... If thou findest, in the throat of a patient, a small tumor containing pus, and dost observe that it presents at one point a well-defined prominence like a wart, thou may’st conclude that pus is collecting at this point.... If thou findest, in a patient’s throat, a fatty growth which resembles an abscess, but which yields a peculiar sensation of softness under the pressure of the finger, say to thyself: this man has a fatty tumor in his throat; I will treat the disease with the knife, but at the same time I will be careful to avoid the blood-vessels.
These short extracts will suffice to show that the Egyptian physicians of that early period—at least 1550 B. C.—reasoned about pathological lesions in very much the same manner as a physician of to-day would reason. In this same ancient papyrus, however, foolish as well as sensible statements appear. Thus, for example, mention is made on the one hand of the fact that, in order to give a certain remedy to an infant, it is sufficient to administer it to the nurse who suckles the child (a proceeding which is not uncommon in our own day); and then, in another part of the text, it is stated that “if, on the day of its birth, the infant does not cry, it will surely live; but, if it says ‘ba,’ it will die.”
In matters relating to personal hygiene the ancient Egyptians often displayed a remarkable degree of common sense. They maintained, for example, that the majority of diseases are due to the taking of food in excessive quantity; and, in harmony with this belief, they introduced the custom of devoting three days out of every thirty to the taking of emetics and clysters. Perhaps it was to thiscustom that they owed their good health,—a fact to which both Herodotus and Diodorus testify. In principle this practice agrees with that adopted by modern physicians, who omit the emetics and substitute for the clysters the drinking of certain mineral waters during a limited period of the summer season and under the very agreeable surroundings of a comfortable hotel at Carlsbad, Ems, Wiesbaden or Saratoga. While the monthly plan of purging the system of harmful elements must certainly have been the more effective of the two, it cannot for a moment be doubted that exceedingly few moderns would be willing to subject themselves to such a régime.
In still other ways the ancient Egyptians displayed a most intelligent respect for every measure that tended to promote the general health of the community. They took care, for example, to prevent the entrance of decomposing materials into the soil and the ground water; priests skilled in work of this character made careful inspections of all meats that were to be used for food; stress was laid upon the importance of keeping the dwelling houses clean; the people were taught the value of bathing the body frequently, of cultivating gymnastic exercises, of clothing themselves suitably, and of employing the right sort of diet. At a still later period of their history they adopted the custom of drinking only water that had been either boiled or filtered. A particular kind of beer, the gift of their first king, Osiris, was the favorite beverage of the people. It was made from barley and doubtless possessed intoxicating properties, as is suggested by one of the papyrus texts in which the following charge is brought against a student: “Thou hast abandoned thy books and art devoting thyself to idle pleasures, going from one beer-house to another. Thou smellest so strongly of beer that men avoid thee.”
A large proportion of the sources of information regarding the medicine of the ancient Egyptians have been brought to light during recent years, but so many gaps in the series still remain unfilled that it is not possible to furnish more than a disconnected and very imperfect account. Archaeological investigations, however, are beingconducted with vigor and new discoveries are reported almost every month. There are therefore good reasons for hoping that, in the course of the next few years, much additional light will be shed on the mode of life and accomplishments of these pioneers of civilization, who, before they passed out of history, succeeded in attaining the highest degree of cultivation in the science and art of medicine that had up to that time been attained by any other nation. One thing is certain, says Neuburger, they exerted a powerful influence upon the beginning of medicine in Greece and upon the social hygiene of the Jewish people, and therefore upon the human race at large.