Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in his _Manners and Customs of the Egyptians_, gives a list of plants (from Pliny) which were known to the Egyptians and used in medicine or the arts. Ladanum (_Cistus ladaniferus_) was introduced into Egypt by the Ptolemies. Myrobalanum (_Moringa aptera?_) produced a fruit from which an ointment was made. Cypros (_Lawsonia spinosa et inermis_) was cooked in oil to make the ointment called cyprus; the leaves were used to dye the hair. Elate (Abies?), palma or spathe was of use in ointments. Oil of bitter almonds. Olives and figs were much esteemed. The castor-oil plant (_Ricinus communis_). A medicinal oil was extracted from what was probably one of the nettle tribe (_Urtica pilulifera_). Tea (_Triticum zea?_), olyra (_Holcus sorghum?_), and tiphe (_Triticum spelta_), were used in decoctions; opium was extracted from _Papaver somniferum_. Cnicus or atractylis (_Carthamum tinctorium?_) was a remedy against the poison of scorpions and other reptiles. Pliny says: “Homer attributes the glory of herbs to Egypt. He mentions many given to Helen by the wife of the Egyptian king, particularly the Nepenthes, which caused oblivion of sorrow.” Opium was well known to the ancients, as well as various preparations of that drug. Sir J. Wilkinson thinks that nepenthe was perhaps the _burt_ or _hasheesh_, a preparation of the _Cannabis sativa_ or Indian hemp. The Egyptians, says Ebers, thought that the kindly healing plants sprung up from the blood and tears of the gods.[158] Upon the ceilings and walls of the temples at Tentyra, Karnac, Luxor, and other places, basso-relievos have been discovered representing limbs that have been amputated with instruments very similar to those which are employed in such operations in our own time. Such instruments are also found in the hieroglyphics, and Larrey says[159] that there are vestiges of other surgical operations which have been discovered in Egyptian ruins which abundantly prove that the art of surgery was practised with great skill in the land of the Pharaohs. Mr. Flinders Petrie, excavating at the Pyramid of Medum, says of the skeletons he discovered there: “The mutilations and diseases that come to light are remarkable. One man had lost his left leg below the knee; another had his hand cut off and put in the tomb; others seem to have had bones excised, and placed separately with the body. In one case acute and chronic inflammation and rheumatism of the back had united most of the vertebræ into a solid mass down the inner side. In another case there had been a rickety curvature of the spine. To find so many peculiarities in only about fifteen skeletons which I collected is strange. These are all in the Royal College of Surgeons now, for study.”[160]