AN EGYPTIAN MEDICAL TREATISE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY B. C.

The New York Historical Society’s Quarterly Bulletin, April, 1922, contains a most interesting description by James Henry Breasted of the Edwin Smith Papy­ rus, an Egyptian manuscript written in the seventeenth century b. c. The Papyrus was purchased in Egypt in 1862 by Mr. Edwin Smith, a pioneer American student of Egyptology, and presented to the New York Historical Society by his daughter, Miss Leonora Smith. Professor Breasted describes it minutely and gives a very complete analysis of its contents. The Papyrus is made up of several parts, the most important of which contains, as Pro­ fessor Breasted says, “the most carefully made and most systematically arranged observations on the human body and its ailments which have thus far survived from V. Collar Bone and Shoulders: Clavicle an age so remote.” and Scapula (Cases XXXIV- It describes forty-eight cases which are XXXVIII). grouped in sections according to their VI. Thorax and Mammae (Cases XXXIX- anatomical classification, as follows: XLVII). I. Head: Calvaria (Cases I-X). VII. Spine (Case XLVIII, incomplete).

A Page of The Edwin Smith Papyrus The writing is the rapid cursive Egyptian hand, called hieratic, in which the original heiroglyphic pictures are abbreviated and rounded off until they have lost their picture form. The manuscript dates probably from the latter part of the seventeenth century B. C. (By courtesy of The New York Historical Society.) II. Nose (Cases II-XVII). Each case is methodically described as III. Mandible, Ear and Lips (Cases XVIII- follows: XXVII). IV. Throat and Neck: Cervical Vertebrae (a) Title, always beginning: “Instructions (Cases XXVIII-XXXIII). for ...” (name of ailment). (6) Examination, always beginning: “If control of his arms and legs and excretory you examine a man having ...” organs and the “verdict,” or prognosis, is (symptoms). hopeless. Such a dislocation is called a (c) Diagnosis, always beginning: “You “wenekh of the vertebrae of the neck” should say concerning him ‘A sufferer and is distinguished from a “sebem in with. . .’’’(name of trouble follows). the vertebrae of the neck” which is a frac­ (d) Verdict, always one of three: ture of the vertebrae, causing deafness, loss 1. “An ailment I will treat” of speech, and loss of control of the arms (favorable). and legs. In the section devoted to the 2. “An ailment I will contend collar bone and shoulders the methods for with” (doubtful). reducing dislocations of the clavicle and 3. “An ailment I will not treat” scapula are described. (unfavorable). The Edwin Smith Papyrus contains a (e) Treatment. passage on the circulation very similar to (/) Explanatory glosses (seventy in all). one contained in the Papyrus Ebers: “There is in it (the heart) a canal leading Although part of the Papyrus has been to every member of the body. Concerning lost, nevertheless what remains exceeds in these, if the physician . . . place the bulk all the other leading medical Papyri; fingers on the back of the head, on the Ebers, Hearst, and that at Berlin, and its hands, on the pulse, on the legs, he discovers contents are vastly more interesting because the heart, for the heart leads to every it contains what are evidently the fragments member, and ... it beats (literally of a great book on medicine and surgery, 'speaks’) in the canals of every member.” with case-reports, having the diagnoses A very early reference to a circulatory and prognoses included, whereas the great­ system. est portions of the other Papyri are merely The author points out the fact that these collections of recipes and contain but case records contain many glosses or explan­ scanty information on the nature of the ations of terms used in them, and he conjec­ cases in which they are to be employed. tures that this indicates that the records In the section on injuries of the head there constitute the remains of a very much older are indications that the ancient Egyptians work on medicine and surgery, so ancient had some idea of surgical practices, for the that in this edition of 1600 b. c. it was surgeon is bidden to “probe the wound”; necessary for the scribe to annotate the and in a case of “fracture of the skull text with explanations of obselete terms. under the skin” he is charged to open at the Professor Breasted intimates that this contused point and “to elevate the depres­ most valuable contribution to medical liter­ sion outward.” If, as is probable, some form ature is only a preliminary report. It is of trephining is here implied, it is, as Pro­ sincerely to be hoped that in the near future fessor Breasted points out, the earliest we may be favored with a translation of known reference in literature in this opera­ the entire document as these specimens of tion. In the section on the vertebrae of the its contents serve only to indicate what a neck the physician notes that in dislocation wonderful mine has been opened in a of the cervical vertebrae the patient loses hitherto unknown region of medical history.