The references in various papyri to the circulation, though somewhat vague, are not without interest. Where the sense is important I have had the help of one or two learned living Egyptologists, and here I must express my acknowledgments to Dr. Budge, Professor Kurt Sethe, Dr. Brugsch, Dr. Joachim, Dr. Leemans, Dr. Withington, Dr. Grant Bey, Dr. Sandwich, Mr. Garstang, Professor Carrington Bolton, Professor Flinders Petrie, Mr. Percy E. Newberry, and others, for help orally, or from their writings, without which, in my ignorance, I should have done little. I am especially indebted to Professor Kurt Sethe’s work on ‘Imhotep’ and to Dr. H. Joachim’s ‘Papyros Ebers.’ Let me read you one or two extracts from the work of the Pharaoh Usaphais quoted in Ebers’ papyrus[15]: ‘Man hath twelve vessels proceeding from his heart which extend to his body and limbs; two vessels go to the contents of his chest, two vessels go to each leg, two to each arm, two vessels go to the back of the head, two to the front of the head, two branches go to the eyes, two to the nose, two vessels go to the right ear, the breath of life goes through them, two go to the left ear, and through them passes the breath of death; they all proceed from the heart.’ The concluding sentence is the earliest example I know of the ancient superstition that the left side of the body is sinister and evil. This is very early anatomy, professing to be at least six thousand years old; we must not expect it to be quite accurate. Turning to a comparatively recent period, I shall quote from other parts of Ebers’ papyrus; the only existing copy of this papyrus (found in a tomb at Thebes) was written in or before the sixteenth century B.C. No doubt most, if not all, its contents are much older than that date.[16] The extracts which I am about to read commence thus: ‘From the secret book of the physician, a description of the action of the heart and of the heart itself. From the heart arise the vessels which go to the whole body ... if the physician lays his finger on the head, on the neck, on the hand, on the epigastrium, on the arm or the leg, everywhere the motion of the heart touches him, coursing through the vessels to all the members’ [the reference is clearly to the pulse]; ‘thus the heart is known as the centre of all the vessels. Four vessels go to the nasal chambers, of which two convey mucus and two convey blood. There are four vessels within the temples or skull, from these the eyes obtain their blood.... The four vessels divide inside the head and spread towards the hinder part.’ The Berlin papyrus speaks of the division into thirty-two vessels within the skull, and implies that air traverses, at any rate, some of them.