"Those who lived in the corn country," as Herodotus terms it, were particular for their attention to health. "During three successive days, every month, they submitted to a regular course of treatment; from the conviction that illness was wont to proceed from some irregularity in diet;" and if preventives were ineffectual they had recourse to suitable remedies, adopting a mode of treatment very similar to that mentioned by Diodorus. The employment of numerous drugs in Egypt has been mentioned by sacred and profane writers; and the medicinal properties of many herbs which grow in the deserts, particularly between the Nile and Red Sea, are still known to the Arabs; though their application has been but imperfectly recorded and preserved. "O virgin, daughter of Egypt," says Jeremiah, "in vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt not be cured;" and Homer, in the Odyssey, describes the many valuable medicines given by Polydamna, the wife of Thonis, to Helen while in Egypt, "a country whose fertile soil produces an infinity of drugs, some salutary and some pernicious; where each physician possesses knowledge above all other men." Pliny makes frequent mention of the productions of that country, and their use in medicine; he also notices the physicians of Egypt; and as if their number were indicative of the many maladies to which the inhabitants were subject, he observes, that it was a country productive of numerous diseases. In this, however, he does not agree with Herodotus, who affirms that, "after the Libyans, there are no people so healthy as the Egyptians, which may be attributed to the invariable nature of the seasons in their country." Pliny even says that the Egyptians examined the bodies after death, to ascertain the nature of the diseases of which they had died; and we can readily believe that a people so far advanced in civilization and the principles of medicine as to assign to each physician his peculiar branch, would have resorted to this effectual method of acquiring knowledge and experience. It is evident that the medical science of the Egyptians was sought and appreciated even in foreign countries; and we learn from Herodotus, that Cyrus and Darius both sent to Egypt for medical men. In later times, too, they continued to be celebrated for their skill; Ammianus says it was enough for a doctor to say he had studied in Egypt to recommend him; and Pliny mentions medical men going from Egypt to Rome. But though their physicians are often noticed by ancient writers, the only indication of medical attendance appears to be in the paintings of Beni Hassan; and even there it is uncertain whether a doctor, or a barber, be represented. Their doctors probably felt the pulse; as Plutarch shows they did at Rome, from this saying of Tiberius, "a man after he has passed his thirtieth year, who _puts forth his hand_ to a physician, is ridiculous;" whence our proverb of "a fool or a physician after forty."