As to the actual scientific attainments of the Egyptian physician, it is difficult to speak with precision. Despite the cumbersome formulae and the grotesque incantations, we need not doubt that a certain practical value attended his therapeutics. He practised almost pure empiricism, however, and certainly it must have been almost impossible to determine which ones, if any, of the numerous ingredients of the prescription had real efficacy. The practical anatomical knowledge of the physician, there is every reason to believe, was extremely limited. At first thought it might seem that the practice of embalming would have led to the custom of dissecting human bodies, and that the Egyptians, as a result of this, would have excelled in the knowledge of anatomy. But the actual results were rather the reverse of this. Embalming the dead, it must be recalled, was a purely religious observance. It took place under the superintendence of the priests, but so great was the reverence for the human body that the priests themselves were not permitted to make the abdominal incision which was a necessary preliminary of the process. This incision, as we are informed by both Herodotus(7) and Diodorus(8), was made by a special officer, whose status, if we may believe the explicit statement of Diodorus, was quite comparable to that of the modern hangman. The paraschistas, as he was called, having performed his necessary but obnoxious function, with the aid of a sharp Ethiopian stone, retired hastily, leaving the remaining processes to the priests. These, however, confined their observations to the abdominal viscera; under no consideration did they make other incisions in the body. It follows, therefore, that their opportunity for anatomical observations was most limited.