Medicine, which is almost certain to develop in the early history of a people in response to their urgent needs, has been justly called the foster-mother of many sciences. In the records of Egyptian medical practice can be traced the origin of chemistry, anatomy, physiology, and botany. Our most definite information concerning Egyptian medicine belongs to the same general period as the mathematical document to which we have just referred. It is true something is known of remoter times. The first physician of whom history has preserved the name, I-em-hetep (He-who-cometh-in-peace), lived about 4500 B.C. Recent researches have also brought to light, near Memphis, pictures, not later than 2500 B.C., of surgical operations. They were found sculptured on the doorposts at the entrance to the tomb of a high official of one of the Pharaohs. The patients, as shown in the accompanying illustration, are suffering pain, and, according to the inscription, one cries out, "Do this [and] let me go," and the other, "Don't hurt me so!" Our most satisfactory data in reference to Egyptian medicine are derived, however, from the Ebers papyrus. This document displays some little knowledge of the pulse in different parts of the body, of a relation between the heart and the other organs, and of the passage of the breath to the lungs (and heart). It contains a list of diseases. In the main it is a collection of prescriptions for the eyes, ears, stomach, to reduce tumors, effect purgation, etc. There is no evidence of a tendency to homeopathy, but mental healing seems to have been called into play by the use of numerous spells and incantations. Each prescription, as in medical practice to-day, contains as a rule several ingredients. Among the seven hundred recognized remedies are to be noted poppy, castor-oil, gentian, colchicum, squills, and many other familiar medicinal plants, as well as bicarbonate of soda, antimony, and salts of lead and copper. The fat of the lion, hippopotamus, crocodile, goose, serpent, and wild goat, in equal parts, served as a prescription for baldness. In the interests of his art the medical practitioner ransacked the resources of organic and inorganic nature. The Ebers papyrus shows that the Egyptians knew of the development of the beetle from the egg, of the blow-fly from the larva, and of the frog from the tadpole. Moreover, for precision in the use of medicaments weights of very small denominations were employed. The Egyptian embalmers relied on the preservative properties of common salt, wine, aromatics, myrrh, cassia, etc. By the use of linen smeared with gum they excluded all putrefactive agencies. They understood the virtue of extreme dryness in the exercise of their antiseptic art. Some knowledge of anatomy was involved in the removal of the viscera, and much more in a particular method they followed in removing the brain.