Showing posts with label The oldest Ever Documented. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The oldest Ever Documented. Show all posts

Sunday, January 4, 2015

The Edwin Smith Papyrus about Egyptian medicine The oldest Ever Documented

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 277-365
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an Ancient Egyptian medical text, named after the dealer who bought it in 1862, and the oldest known surgical treatise on trauma
This document, which may have been a manual of military surgery, describes 48 cases of injuries, fractures, wounds, dislocations and tumors. It dates to Dynasties 1617 of the Second Intermediate Period in Ancient Egypt, ca. 1500 BCE.
While other papyri, such as the Ebers Papyrus and London Medical Papyrus, are medical texts based in magic, the Edwin Smith Papyrus presents a rational and scientific approach to medicine in Ancient Egypt,in which medicine and magic do not conflict. Magic would be more prevalent had the cases of illness been mysterious, such as internal disease.







Egyptian medicine is some of the oldest ever documented. From the 33rd century BC until the Persian invasion in 525 BC, Egyptian medical practice remained consistent in its highly advanced methods for the time. Homer even wrote in the Odyssey: “In Egypt, the men are more skilled in medicine than any of human kind,” and “The Egyptians were skilled in medicine more than any other art.”
The Edwin Smith papyrus is still benefiting modern medicine, and is viewed as a learning manual. Treatments consisted of ailments made from animal, vegetable, fruits and minerals. But the Ebers Papyrus is the most voluminous record of ancient Egyptian medicine known. The scroll contains some 700 remedies including empirical practice and observation. The papyrus actually contains a “treatise on the heart,” which recognizes the heart as the center of the blood supply, with vessels attached.
Even mental disorders, depression and dementia were detailed in one of the chapters. The Egyptians were treating intestinal disease and parasites, eye and skin problems, and even abscesses and tumors.
Remedies from the ancient Ebers Papyrus scrolls:
• Aloe vera was used to alleviate burns, ulcers, skin diseases and allergies
• Basil was written up as heart medicine
• Balsam Apple (Apple of Jerusalem) was used as a laxative and as a liver stimulant
• Bayberry was prescribed for diarrhea, ulcers and hemorrhoids
• Caraway soothed digestion and was a breath freshener
• Colchicum (citrullus colocynthus or meadow saffron) soothed rheumatism and reduced swelling
• Dill was recognized for laxative and diuretic properties
• Fenugreek was prescribed for respiratory disorders and to cleanse the stomach and calm the liver and pancreas
• Frankincense was used for throat and larynx infections, and to stop bleeding and vomiting
• Garlic was given to the Hebrew slaves daily to give them vitality and strength for building the pyramids
• Licorice was utilized as a mild laxative, to expel phlegm, and to alleviate chest and respiratory problems
• Onion was taken to prevent colds and to address cardiovascular problems (How did they know?)
• Parsley was prescribed as a diuretic
Thyme was given as a pain reliever and Tumeric for open wounds
• Poppy was used to relieve insomnia, as an anesthetic, and to deaden pain
• Coriander was taken as a tea for urinary complaints, including cystitis
• Pomegranate root was strained with water and drunk to address “snakes of the belly” (tapeworms). The alkaloids contained in pomegranate paralyzed the worms’ nervous system and they relinquished their hold.
• Persian henna was used against hair loss
Disease and natural cures in Ancient Egypt
Disease was not uncommon in Ancient Egypt. There were many skin afflictions and parasites from the Nile river waters. Worms and tuberculosis were common, sometimes transmitted from cattle. Pneumonia struck people who breathed in too much sand into the lungs during sand storms. But the Egyptian physicians took full advantage of the natural resources all around them in order to treat common ailments. Many of their methods are still very viable today and are considered part of the homeopathic world of medicine.
Thanks to diligent record keeping, scholars have been able to translate the scrolls and appreciate what the Egyptians knew back then about anatomy, hygiene, and healing. Those scrolls, without question, paved the way for modern medicine.
More about the papyrus
The Edwin Smith papyrus is a scroll 4.68 m in length. The recto (front side) has 377 lines in 17 columns, while the verso (backside) has 92 lines in five columns. Aside from the fragmentary outer column of the scroll, the remainder of the papyrus is intact, although it was cut into one-column pages some time in the 20th century.
It is written right-to-left in hieratic, the Egyptian cursive form of hieroglyphs, in black ink with explanatory glosses in red ink. The vast majority of the papyrus is concerned with trauma and surgery, with short sections ongynaecology and cosmetics on the verso.
Author
Authorship of the Edwin Smith Papyrus is debated. The majority of the papyrus was written by one scribe, with only small sections copied by a second scribe. The papyrus ends abruptly in the middle of a line, without any inclusion of an author.It is believed that the papyrus is an incomplete copy of an older reference manuscript from the Old Kingdom, evidenced by archaic grammar, terminology, form and commentary. The text is attributed by some to Imhotep, an architect, high priest, and physician of the Old Kingdom, 3000–2500 BCE.
What is inside the papyrus
It contains the first known descriptions of the cranial structures, the meninges, the external surface of the brain, the cerebrospinal fluid, and the intracranial pulsations.
Here, the word ‘brain’ appears for the first time in any language.The procedures of this papyrus demonstrate an Egyptian level of knowledge of medicines that surpassed that of Hippocrates, who lived 1000 years later.
More about  Edwin Smith and the Papyrus
 Edwin Smith, an American Egyptologist, was born in Connecticut in 1822 – the same year Egyptian hieroglyphic was decoded. Smith purchased it in Luxor, Egypt in 1862, from an Egyptian dealer named Mustafa Agha. The papyrus was in the possession of Smith until his death, when his daughter donated the papyrus to New York Historical Society. 
From 1938 through 1948, the papyrus was at the Brooklyn Museum. In 1948, the New York Historical Society and the Brooklyn Museum presented the papyrus to the New York Academy of Medicine, where it remains today. 
The first translation of the papyrus was by James Henry Breasted, with the medical advice of Dr. Arno B Luckhardt, in 1930 Breasted’s translation changed the understanding of the history of medicine. It demonstrates that Egyptian medical care was not limited to the magical modes of healing demonstrated in other Egyptian medical sources. 
Rational, scientific practices were used, constructed through observation and examination.
From 2005 through 2006, the Edwin Smith Papyrus was on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. James P. Allen, curator of Egyptian Art at the museum, published a new translation of the work, coincident with the exhibition

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