Medical papyri of ancient Egypt. Ancient Egypt: medicine and healing Embalming the dead knowledge about the structure of the human body

Even in ancient times, representatives of some civilizations reached such heights in some areas of knowledge that even today it is difficult to believe. And some technological secrets of our predecessors are unknown to modern scientists. One of these amazing civilizations was ancient Egypt. Medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and construction have reached very high levels there. high level. And the topic of this article will be specifically healing.

Ancient Egypt: medicine and religious beliefs

Everything that was done here was inextricably linked with religious ideas. In general, this state of affairs is typical for many. It was believed that Egyptian medicine was the brainchild of the god of wisdom Thoth, who created 32 Hermetic books for people, six of which were devoted to medicine. Unfortunately, news of this storehouse of ancient knowledge has reached us only in indirect mentions. The works themselves were lost.

Ancient Egypt: medicine and biological knowledge

In addition to these books, knowledge about biology and anatomy also existed on papyri. The most famous of them are the Smith and Ebers papyri. They came to us from the middle of the 2nd century. BC. The Ebers Papyrus contains general medical topics, prescriptions and recipes. Smith's legacy describes valuable information about the treatment of bruises and wounds. In addition, archaeologists also found separate works on gynecology and pediatrics. At the same time, the medicine of ancient Egypt

It also had weaknesses. Despite the constant practice of autopsy and embalming of the dead, knowledge of anatomy human body and his physiologies did not receive much development. First of all, this was due to the existence of many prohibitions regarding dead body. They significantly slowed down his study. Actually, embalming was not even carried out by doctors, but by individual specialists for whom the body was of no interest from the point of view of treating diseases.

Ancient Egypt: medicine and treatment of diseases

Texts that have reached modern days contain fairly complete information about various diseases, as well as methods of treating them. At the same time, the development of medicine was hampered by ideas about human ailments, which were based on the idea of ​​​​possessing evil spirits into the patient. Other causes could also include poisoning and weather. Therefore, the most important component of treatment were magical rituals and conspiracies. In surgery, only the simplest procedures were carried out: splinting, reversing dislocations. And yet diagnostics were quite well developed. Thus, the Egyptians learned to determine the pulse in different arteries. They had a fairly complete understanding of blood circulation and realized the importance of the heart. What reached heights in ancient Egypt was pharmacology, which existed in the form various types medicinal potions. Enough was known a large number of drugs. Their required doses for various diseases have been determined. For example, olive oil, castor oil, opium and saffron are still used today.

What do ancient medical treatises on papyri say? How did the ancient Egyptians treat themselves? What effective recipes have survived to this day? Once a month the Egyptians held fasting days. Modern magicians use Egyptian spells to remove the evil eye and damage. The Egyptians made diagnoses based on the pulse.

In contrast to Babylon, the gloomy homeland of despotism, Egypt was for ancient world a true fortress of sacred science, a school for its most glorious prophets, a refuge and at the same time a laboratory for the noblest traditions of mankind. Eduard Shure ("Mysteries of Egypt").

Egypt is a narrow strip of irrigated land stretching among the vast sands in the lower reaches of the Nile, which supplies it with water and fertile silt. Here, over six thousand years ago, one of the ancient civilizations peace.

The traditions of healing in Ancient Egypt developed in close cooperation with the medicine of Ancient Mesopotamia. They had a great influence on the development of medicine Ancient Greece, considered the forerunner of modern scientific medicine.

Sources of information about medicine of Ancient Egypt

The study of ancient Egyptian texts began relatively recently, after the French scientist J. F. Champollion unraveled the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The first message about this was made on September 27, 1822 before a meeting of French scientists. This day is considered to be the birthday of the science of Egyptology.

Champollion's discovery was associated with the study of the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone, found by an officer of the Napoleonic army in 1799 while digging trenches near the city of Rosetta in Egypt. Before the deciphering of the ancient Egyptian letter, the only sources on the history of Ancient Egypt and its medicine were the information of the Greek historian Herodotus.

Also the Egyptian priest Manetho, written in ancient Greek and the works of the Greek writers Diodorus, Polybius, Strabo, Plutarch and others. Numerous ancient Egyptian texts on the walls of pyramids, tombs and papyrus scrolls remained “mute” for researchers.

For the first time, the existence of medical treatises in Ancient Egypt is mentioned in a record on the wall of the tomb of Uash-Ptah, the chief architect of the king of the V dynasty, Neferirka-Ra (XXV century BC). The same inscription provides a clinical picture of the sudden death of the architect, which, according to modern ideas, resembles myocardial infarction or cerebral stroke.

The most ancient medical treatises were written on papyri. They have not survived to this day and we know about them only from the testimony of ancient historians. Thus, the priest Menetho reports that Athotis (the second king of the 1st dynasty) compiled a medical papyrus on the structure of the human body.

Currently, there are 10 main papyri known, wholly or partially devoted to healing. All of them are copies from earlier treatises. The oldest surviving medical papyrus dates back to around 1800 BC. e. One of its sections is devoted to the management of childbirth, and the other to the treatment of animals.

At the same time, papyri IV and V were compiled from the Romesseum, which describe magical healing techniques. The most complete information about the medicine of Ancient Egypt is provided by two papyri dating from about 1550 BC. e., - a large medical papyrus by G. Ebers and a papyrus on surgery by E. Smith.

Both papyri appear to have been written by the same person and are copies of an older treatise. Egyptologists believe that this ancient, unsurvived papyrus was compiled by the legendary physician Imhotep at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. Imhotep was subsequently deified.

The connection between the mythology of Ancient Egypt and healing

Egyptian religion, which existed for almost four millennia, was based on the cult of animals. Each Egyptian nome (city-state) had its own sacred animal or bird: cat, lion, bull, ram, falcon, ibis, etc. Snakes were especially revered. Cobra Wadjet was the patroness of Lower Egypt. Her image was on the pharaoh's headdress.

Along with the falcon, bee and kite, she personified royal power. On amulets, the cobra was placed next to the sacred eye - a symbol of the sky god Horus. The deceased cult animal was embalmed and buried in sacred tombs: cats in the city of Bubastis, ibises in the city of Iunu, dogs in the cities of their death.

Mummies of sacred snakes were buried in the temples of the god Amun-Ra. In Memphis, in a grandiose underground necropolis, discovered big number stone sarcophagi with mummies of sacred bulls. Killing a sacred animal was punishable by death. According to the Egyptians, the soul of a deceased person has been in the bodies of deified animals and birds for 3 thousand years, which helps it avoid dangers the afterlife. With this, Herodotus explains the severity of the punishment for killing a sacred animal.

The main gods of healing were the god of wisdom Thoth and the goddess of motherhood and fertility Isis. He was depicted as a man with the head of an ibis bird or embodied in the form of a baboon. Both the ibis and the baboon represented wisdom in Ancient Egypt. He created writing, mathematics, astronomy, religious rituals, music and, most importantly, a system for treating diseases natural means. The most ancient medical treatises are attributed to him.

Isis was considered the creator of the magical foundations of healing and the patroness of children. Medicines with the name of Isis are even mentioned in the works of the ancient Roman pharmacist Galen.

Ancient Egyptian medicine also had other divine patrons: the mighty lion-headed goddess Sokhmet, protector of women and women in labor; the goddess Tauert, depicted as a female hippopotamus. Every newborn Egyptian, regardless of social status lay next to a small statuette of Towert.

Mortuary cult

The ancient Egyptians considered the afterlife to be a continuation of the earthly life. According to their ideas, the afterlife substance of a person exists in two forms - soul and life force. The soul, depicted as a bird with a human head, can exist with the body of a deceased person or leave it for a while, rising to the gods in heaven. The life force, or “double,” resides in the tomb, but can move into the other world and even pass into the statues of the deceased.

Ideas about the connection between afterlife substances and the burial place led to the desire to preserve the body of the deceased from destruction - to embalm it. This was done by people who were fluent in various methods of embalming. One of these methods is described by the Greek historian Herodotus.

Embalming methods have been lost, but their effectiveness is obvious. The corpses mummified by the ancient Egyptians several thousand years ago have survived to this day and make it possible to conduct research into the state of health and the characteristics of morbidity in such distant times. However, not everyone had the opportunity to embalm the bodies of deceased relatives. Most Egyptians in those distant times were buried without mummification, in pits and without a coffin.

It should be noted right away that the mummification of V.I. Lenin in Russia was carried out using a technology that had nothing in common with the methods of the ancient Egyptians. The originality of the Russian method lay in the possibility of preserving the intravital coloring of fabrics and maximum portrait resemblance to a living object. All Egyptian mummies are brown in color and have a vague portrait resemblance to the deceased. The purpose of Egyptian embalming did not pursue the prospect of reviving the deceased and returning him to earthly life.

The practice of embalming in Ancient Egypt was, apparently, the first and basic knowledge about the structure of the human body. Embalming also required the use of various reagents, which indirectly contributed to the emergence of ideas about the chemical nature of reactions.

Moreover, it is assumed that the name “chemistry” itself comes from ancient name Egypt - "Kemet". The knowledge of the Egyptians in the field of anatomy significantly exceeded the understanding of the structure of the human body in neighboring countries and, in particular, Mesopotamia, where the corpses of the dead were not opened.

Natural and supernatural diseases

The Egyptians knew large organs: the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, intestines, muscles, etc. The first description of the brain belongs to them. In the E. Smith papyrus, the movement of the brain in an open wound of the skull is compared to “boiling copper.”

Egyptian doctors associated brain damage with dysfunction in other parts of the body. They knew the so-called motor paralysis of the limbs due to head wounds.

The Ebers Papyrus has an important theoretical section, which analyzes the role of the heart in human life: “The beginning of the secrets of a doctor is knowledge of the course of the heart, from which vessels go to all members, for every doctor, every priest of the goddess Sokhmet, every spellcaster, touching the head, the back of the head, arms, palms, legs - touches the heart everywhere: vessels are directed from it to each member..." The ancient Egyptians, more than four thousand years ago, knew how to diagnose diseases by the pulse.

The Egyptians are also credited with the invention of the enema. It is interesting that the language used to describe the body’s slagging and methods of removing toxins from many modern traditional healers not much different from the ideas of ancient Egyptian healers.

The Egyptians saw supernatural causes of disease in the infusion of evil spirits of the dead into the body. To expel them they were used as medicines, and various magical techniques. It was believed that bad smells and bitter food scared away evil spirits. Therefore, ritual mixtures for magical procedures included such exotic products as parts of mouse tails, secretions from the ears of pigs, animal feces and urine.

During the expulsion of evil spirits, spells were sounded: “O dead! O dead man, hiding in this flesh of mine, in these parts of my body. Look! I took out feces to eat against you. Hidden, get away! Hidden, come out!” Many healers of our time “remove the evil eye and damage” by reciting texts that are essentially close to the ancient Egyptian ones, although in those days there were many healing techniques that were devoid of any mysticism.

I would really like to know if they knew anything in Ancient Egypt about the development of the human embryo? More precisely...on what day the muscles are formed, the sex of the child is determined and, in general, the full development of the embryo....and if possible, please provide sources.
Sincerely
30.07.03 , [email protected], Gulnara

The study of ancient Egyptian texts began relatively recently, after the French scientist J. F. Champollion unraveled the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The first message about this was made on September 27, 1822 before a meeting of French scientists. This day is considered to be the birthday of the science of Egyptology. Champollion's discovery was associated with the study of the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone, found by an officer of the Napoleonic army in 1799 while digging trenches near the city of Rosetta in Egypt. Before the deciphering of the ancient Egyptian letter, the only sources on the history of Ancient Egypt and its medicine were the information of the Greek historian Herodotus, the Egyptian priest Manetho, presented in ancient Greek, as well as the works of the Greek writers Diodorus, Polybius, Strabo, Plutarch and others. Numerous ancient Egyptian texts on the walls of the pyramids, tombs and papyrus scrolls remained “mute” for researchers. For the first time, the existence of medical treatises in Ancient Egypt is mentioned in a record on the wall of the tomb of Uash-Ptah, the chief architect of the king of the V dynasty, Neferirka-Ra (XXV century BC). The same inscription provides a clinical picture of the sudden death of the architect, which, according to modern ideas, resembles a myocardial infarction or cerebral stroke. The most ancient medical treatises were written on papyri. They have not survived to this day and we know about them only from the testimony of ancient historians. Thus, the priest Menetho reports that Athotis (the second king of the 1st dynasty) compiled a medical papyrus on the structure of the human body. Currently, there are 10 main papyri known, wholly or partially devoted to healing. All of them are copies from earlier treatises. The oldest surviving medical papyrus dates back to around 1800 BC. e. One of its sections is devoted to the management of childbirth, and the other to the treatment of animals. At the same time, papyri IV and V were compiled from the Romesseum, which describe magical healing techniques. The most complete information about the medicine of Ancient Egypt is provided by two papyri dating from about 1550 BC. e., - a large medical papyrus by G. Ebers and a papyrus on surgery by E. Smith. Both papyri appear to have been written by the same person and are copies of an older treatise. Egyptologists believe that this ancient, unsurvived papyrus was compiled by the legendary physician Imhotep at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. Imhotep was subsequently deified.

2. The connection between the mythology of Ancient Egypt and healing. The Egyptian religion, which existed for almost four thousand years, was based on the cult of animals. Each Egyptian nome (city-state) had its own sacred animal or bird: cat, lion, bull, ram, falcon, ibis, etc. Snakes were especially revered. Cobra Wadjet was the patroness of Lower Egypt. Her image was on the pharaoh's headdress. Along with the falcon, bee and kite, she personified royal power. On amulets, the cobra was placed next to the sacred eye - a symbol of the sky god Horus. The deceased cult animal was embalmed and buried in sacred tombs: cats in the city of Bubastis, ibises in the city of Iunu, dogs in the cities of their death. Mummies of sacred snakes were buried in the temples of the god Amun-Ra. In Memphis, in a grandiose underground necropolis, a large number of stone sarcophagi with mummies of sacred bulls were discovered. Killing a sacred animal was punishable by death. According to the Egyptians, the soul of a deceased person resides in the bodies of deified animals and birds for 3 thousand years, which helps it avoid the dangers of the afterlife. With this, Herodotus explains the severity of the punishment for killing a sacred animal. The main gods of healing were the god of wisdom Thoth and the goddess of motherhood and fertility Isis. He was depicted as a man with the head of an ibis bird or embodied in the form of a baboon. Both the ibis and the baboon represented wisdom in Ancient Egypt. He created writing, mathematics, astronomy, religious rituals, music and, most importantly, a system of treating diseases using natural means. The most ancient medical treatises are attributed to him. Isis was considered the creator of the magical foundations of healing and the patroness of children. Medicines with the name of Isis are even mentioned in the works of the ancient Roman pharmacist Galen. Ancient Egyptian medicine also had other divine patrons: the mighty lion-headed goddess Sokhmet, protector of women and women in labor; the goddess Tauert, depicted as a female hippopotamus. Every newborn Egyptian, regardless of social status, lay next to a small figurine of Tauert.

Egypt became the birthplace of the afterlife cult. Religion said that the soul returns to the body after death and will remain restless if the body is not preserved. First, the entrails were removed from the body of the deceased and placed in different vessels, then the body was wrapped in fabrics soaked in special resins. This is how the process of embalming the dead took place.

First described in detail by Herodotus, it seemed to the Greeks a great mystery. The medical art of the Egyptians had amazed their imagination before. Homer wrote about Egypt: “... every one of the people there is a doctor, exceeding the depth of knowledge of other people.” The Egyptians knew a lot medicinal plants.

The aromatic resins of tropical trees—frankincense and myrrh—were highly valued. They were used for both religious and medicinal purposes. The art of healing was denoted by two hieroglyphs - a scalpel and a mortar, combining the symbols of surgery and pharmacology.

As in all ancient cultures, medicine in Egypt was associated with religion. It was believed that the cause of illness could be either natural or supernatural - coming from the gods, spirits or soul of the deceased. Misfortunes happen to a person who falls into their power: his bones are broken, his heart is destroyed, his blood deteriorates, his brain gets sick, his intestines stop working properly.

Death can occur even if with the help of spells evil spirit expelled, but they did it at the wrong time and its destructive effect on the human body had already gone too far.

Therefore, the doctor had to first of all, without wasting time, discover the cause of the disease and, if necessary, remove the evil spirit from the body or even destroy it. The art of medicine included knowledge of many spells and the ability to quickly and deftly prepare amulets. After the “exorcism of the spirit” was completed, medications could be used.

Medical papyri of Ancient Egypt

Currently, about 10 papyrus scrolls with medical texts are known. These texts, as well as the testimony of historians and writers of antiquity, images on the walls of tombs and funerary steles give us an idea of ​​​​the medical knowledge of the ancient Egyptians.

Let's talk in more detail about two medical papyri - the Ebers papyrus and the Smith papyrus.

Ebers Papyrus

The most extensive information is provided by the large medical papyrus of Ebers (16th century BC), found in 1872 in Thebes. Glued together from 108 sheets of papyrus, it reaches a length of 20.5 m and is called “The Book of Preparation of Medicines for All Parts of the Body.” The text contains many references to its divine origin and references to other ancient sources of medical knowledge.

The Ebers Papyrus contains 900 prescriptions for medicines for the treatment of diseases of the digestive system, respiratory tract, ear, throat, nose, eyes, and skin. The title of each recipe is highlighted in red, and its form is usually laconic. At the beginning there is a heading, for example, “A means for expelling blood from a wound,” then the components are listed with an indication of the dose, and at the end an instruction is given, for example: “cook, mix.”

The papyri mention many medicinal plants. Among them are the familiar onions and aloe. Onions were revered as a sacred plant. This was due not only to its valuable medicinal properties, but also to its unusual structure: the concentric layers of the onion symbolized the structure of the universe.

The Egyptians used aloe juice not only for treatment, but also for embalming the dead. In ancient times, wounds, burns and tumors were treated with this juice. This plant is native to the arid regions of Africa and Madagascar. Here aloe reaches 10 m in height. The lower part of its stem gradually becomes woody and frees itself from leaves. This feature explains the origin of the name “tree aloe.”

The medicines included plants (onion, poppy, papyrus, dates, pomegranate, aloe, grapes), animal products (honey, milk), minerals (antimony, sulfur, iron, lead, soda, alabaster, clay, saltpeter).

In the Middle Ages, mandrake juice was the basis of a narcotic composition to alleviate the suffering of patients and especially for surgical operations. Animal body parts and fat were widely used for medicinal purposes.

So, for example, an ointment for hair growth was prepared from the following components: gazelle fat, snake fat, crocodile fat, hippopotamus fat. One of the sections of the Ebers papyrus is devoted to cosmetics. It contains recipes for smoothing wrinkles, removing moles, and coloring hair and eyebrows.

The Egyptian doctor was skilled in cosmetics; he should have known how to change complexion and hair color, and make the body beautiful.

Smith Papyrus

The Egyptians own one of the oldest texts that have reached us about the structure of the human body and surgical treatment (operations), the first description of the brain that has reached us. This information is contained in the Smith papyrus (XVI century BC).

The 4.68 m long tape depicts the anatomy and surgery of the ancient Egyptians, describing 48 cases of traumatic injuries to the skull, brain, cervical vertebrae, chest and spine and methods of their healing.

The treatment of some diseases was clearly hopeless; information about them had only theoretical significance for doctors. Among this kind of information is the oldest description of paralysis of the upper and lower extremities with loss of speech and hearing as a result of traumatic brain injury. A lot of space is occupied by the description of wounds and injuries received in battles, dislocations and fractures.

A piece of raw meat, then its edges were sewn together using needles and threads. The festering wounds were sprinkled with bread or wood mold. Historical parallels: The use of mold to heal festering wounds seems paradoxical at first glance, but Egyptian doctors were aware of its healing effects.

The empirical knowledge of ancient physicians received scientific confirmation thousands of years later. In the 20s XX century English bacteriologist Alexander Fleming isolated penicillin, an antibiotic with broad antimicrobial action, from mold.

In 1929, he published data on this discovery, which did not attract the attention of the scientific community, like his story about penicillin in 1936 on International Congress microbiologists. Only in 1940 did the use of penicillin enter into medical practice, and in 1945 Fleming was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work.

In the Smith papyrus there are recommendations for surgeons that sound surprisingly modern. “When in front of you is a person with a damaged collarbone and you see that it is shorter and stands differently from the other... tell yourself: this is the disease that I will treat.

And then you have to lay him down on his back, put something between his shoulder blades and straighten his shoulders so that the broken bones fall into place. And you must make two ropes of fabric and tie your hands behind them.” It was also in ancient Egypt that one of the first written sources on gynecology, obstetrics and veterinary medicine was created. All this information was contained in the Kahuna papyrus.