The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art: A Popular History of Medicine in All Ages and CountriesBerdoe, Edward
History
The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art: A Popular History of Medicine in All Ages and Countries
Berdoe, Edward
Medicine -- History
Dr. Baas informs us that this papyrus describes “remedies for diseases
of the stomach, the abdomen, and the urinary bladder; for the cure of
swellings of the glands in the groin (buboes) and the ‘kehn-mite’; ‘the
Book of the Eyes’; remedies for ulcers of the head, for greyness of the
hair, and promotion of its growth; ointments to heal and strengthen the
nerves; medicines to cure diseases of the tongue, to strengthen the
teeth, to remove lice and fleas; remedies for the hearing and for the
organs of smell; the preparation of the famous Kyphi; ‘The Secret Book
of the Physician’ (the science of the movement of the heart, and the
knowledge of the heart, according to the priestly physician Nebsuchet);
prescriptions for the eyes according to the views of the priest Chui,
a Semite of Byblos; ‘Book of the Banishing of Pains,’ recipes for
mouth-pills for women, to render the odour of the mouth agreeable; the
various uses of the tequem tree, etc. The papyrus has marginal notes,
like _nefer_ (good), etc., which Lauth assigns to the year B.C. 1469—an
evidence that its prescriptions had been tested in practice.”[126]
Osiris (who would appear to be the same deity as Apis or Serapis)
and the goddess Isis, who was his wife and sister, were held by the
Egyptians to have been the inventors of the medical arts. A very
ancient inscription on a column says: “My father is Chronos, the
youngest of all the gods. I am the king Osiris, who has been through
all the earth; even to the habitable lands of the Indies, to those
which are under the Bear, even to the sources of the Danube, and
besides to the Ocean. I am the eldest son of Chronos, and the scion
of a beautiful and noble race; I am the parent of the day, there is
no part of the world where I have not been, and I have filled all the
world with my benefactions.” Another column has these words: “I am
Isis, queen of all this country, who has been instructed by Thoth; no
one is able to unbind what I have bound; I am the eldest daughter of
Chronos, the youngest of the gods. I am the wife and the sister of King
Osiris. It is I who first taught mankind the art of agriculture. I am
the mother of King Horus. It is I who shine in the dog-star. It is I
who built the city of Bubastis. Farewell, farewell, Egypt, where I have
been reared.” It appears from these inscriptions that Isis and Osiris
were contemporary with Thoth or Hermes.
Diodorus says that Isis was believed by the Egyptian priests to have
invented various medicines and to have been an expert practitioner of
the healing art, and that she was on this account raised to the ranks
of the gods, where she still takes interest in the health of mankind.
She was supposed to indicate appropriate remedies for diseases in
dreams, and such remedies were always efficacious, even in cases where
physicians had failed to do any good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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