The various papyri from which I quote deal of course with practical medicine and not with physiology; no distinct definition as to structure or function is to be looked for in them; only as associated with diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment do we get statements as to the nature of the heart, the vessels, and the movement of the blood. Importance of the Medicine and Sanitation of Ancient Egypt It is clear from the study of these medical papyri that medicine advanced considerably amongst the Egyptians, and from them medical and sanitary knowledge has descended to us by two channels—namely, by the Greeks and through the Jewish race, while probably much of it was lost irrecoverably. Josephus quotes from Manetho a statement that Osarsiph, who Josephus says was the great Hebrew leader Moses, was a priest at Heliopolis, where medicine was taught.[23] It is highly probable that the sanitary laws of the Jews were derived from the Egyptians. Just as the Jews remembered the diseases of Egypt (Deut. xxviii, 60) so they also remembered the sanitary and remedial measures they had learnt there. Those of us who have seen in the later excavations at Knossos the evidences of sanitary knowledge of a somewhat high type, possessed by the Cretans at a remote period, exemplified among other things by drainage pipes, scarcely excelled by our own to-day, knowing as we do the close connexion between Crete and Egypt, may well believe that here we have an example of sanitation derived from Egyptian sources. In England we have overlooked the importance of Egypt as a primary source of the science and art of medicine. If we regard with reverence the dim traditional form of Asklepios as a founder of our art, and the Asklepieia where throughout Greece and Magna Graecia medicine was practised and taught, in greater degree should we reverence the much more venerable I-em-hotep and view with interest the primaeval medicine temples and hospitals of Egypt. The evidence of this priority from Egyptian sources is absolutely conclusive, but in addition we have corroborative evidence from European authorities. In the ancient writings of the pseudo-Apuleius Hermes is described as speaking to the youthful Asklepios as follows[24]:—‘Thine ancestor, the first discoverer of medicine, hath a temple consecrated to him in the Libyan mountains near the Nile, where his body lies, while his better part, the spiritual essence, hath returned to the heavens, whence he still by his divine power helps feeble men as he formerly on earth succoured them by his art as a physician.’