Ancient Egyptian medicine was one of the earliest and most advanced systems of medical care in history. Some key points: - Egyptian physicians practiced as early as 3000 BC and made important advances in anatomy, wound dressing, bone-setting, and using medical plants. - Major medical papyri like the Edwin Smith and Ebers Papyri show Egyptians had extensive knowledge of medicine and anatomy, diagnosing and treating many illnesses. - Egyptian doctors were specialists in areas like eyes, teeth, and internal medicine. Hospitals called Houses of Life trained new physicians. - While magic and religion played some role, Egyptians also developed rational theories on anatomy and disease transmission through blocked channels like the N

3. • Facts from history
• Imhotep :the founder of Egyptian medicine
• Medical knowledge..the medical papyri
• Doctors and other healers
• Herbal medicine ,the prescription
• Diseases,Surgery,Dentistry,and Deformities
• Magic,Priests ,and Religion
• Message…

4. Ancient Egypt (3300BC to 525BC) is where we
first saw the dawn of what today, we call
"medical care".
•The Egyptian civilization was the first great
civilization on this planet.
•The ancient Egyptians were very clean people
who loved life and wanted to live their lives free of
disease and pain.
•This idea, coupled with their extensive knowledge
of the human anatomy, fueled their continual
enlightenment in the field of medicine.
•Egyptians thought gods, demons and spirits
played a key role in causing diseases.

5. •Until the 19th century, the main sources of
information about ancient Egyptian medicine
were writings from later in antiquity.
•Homer c. 800 BC reported 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".

6. •Ancient Egypt’s 4th Dynasty brought about the
world’s first female physician.
•Her name was Peseshet and her title was, “Lady
Overseer of the Lady Physicians”.
•From the beginnings of the civilization in the
c.33rd century BC until the Persian invasion of
525 BC, Egyptian medical practice went largely
unchanged and was highly advanced for its time,
including simple noninvasive surgery, setting of
bones and an extensive set of pharmacopoeia.
•Egyptian medical thoughts influenced later
traditions, including the Greeks.

7. •The Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt
around 440 BC and wrote extensively of his
observations of their medicinal practices.
•Hippocrates (the "father of medicine"), Herophilos,
Erasistratus and later Galen studied at the temple of
Amenhotep, and acknowledged the contribution of
ancient Egyptian medicine to Greek medicine.+

8. •Bathrooms were right in their homes.
•They used to dispose of their garbage to the
communal dump.
•Drainage and disposal of waste was essential to
keep their places clean.
•Gathering water used to be workable and viable
sanitation system
•Mostly, the physicians' advice for staying healthy
was to wash and shave the body, and this may have
prevented infections.
•They also advised patients to look after their diet,
and avoid foods such as raw fish or other animals
considered to be unclean.

11. •The earliest physician whose name has been
recorded, Imhotep," was the wazir of Zoser, founder
of the Third Dynasty.
•In the thirtieth century he was a personal doctor to
the Pharaoh c. 2600 BC.
•Imhotep was a learned man, astronomer,
physician, architect (he may have been the builder
of the first pyramid, the step pyramid of Saqqara).

12. •Imhotep is considered by many to be the true
father of medicine.
•He is believed to have diagnosed and treated well
over 200 diseases that dealt with the abdomen,
eyes, rectum, bladder and more.
•He is known to have practiced some surgery as
well as dentistry.
•In 525 A.D., he was elevated to full God status,
the only regular person ever to reach the position
of God in ancient Egypt.

13. •In later times he was worshiped as a hero, as a
blameless physician, and later still as the god of
medicine, the prototype of Asclepios (even as the
learned God Thoth was the prototype of Hermes
and Mercury).
•People believed that leaving gifts before his
statue in temples would ensure a cure for their
illness.

15. •In 1822, the translation of the Rosetta stone finally
allowed the translation of ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri, including
many related to medical matters (Egyptian medical
papyri).
•The resultant interest in Egyptology in the 19th
century led to the discovery of several sets of
extensive ancient medical documents, including the
Ebers papyrus, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, the Kahun
papyrus , the Hearst Papyrus, the London Medical
Papyrus and others dating back as far as 3000 BC.

16. • The Kahun (1825 B.C)
 gynecology
• The Ebers (1534 B.C)
 internal medicine
• The Edwin Smith Papyrus (1600 B.C)
 surgical wounds and fractures

19. • Marks the birth of “Analytical Thinking” in
medicine.
-It instructs doctors to examine the patient
and look for revealing physical signs.
• Presents medical data in the
“case scenario format”
Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus
1st Textbook in Surgery

20. •The Edwin Smith papyrus is 4.68 m in length,
divided into 17 pages.
•It is written in hieratic, the Egyptian cursive
form of hieroglyphs, in black and red ink. The
vast majority of the papyrus is concerned with
trauma and surgery.
•On the recto side, there are 48 cases of injury.
Each case details the type of the injury,
examination of the patient, diagnosis and
prognosis, and treatment.The verso side
consists of eight magic spells and five
prescriptions.

21. Each case starts with a clinical examination, then
comes diagnosis and prognosis:
“Thou should say concerning him…
“…an ailment I will treat”,
“…an ailment I should contend with”
or
“..an ailment not to be treated”

22. •Authorship of the Edwin Smith Papyrus is
debated.
•The text is attributed by some to Imhotep, an
architect, high priest, and physician of the Old
Kingdom, 3000- 2500 BC.
•The rational and practical nature of the papyrus
is illustrated in the 48 cases.
•The papyrus begins by addressing injuries to the
head, and continues with treatments for injuries
to neck, arms and torso.

23. •Next, the examination provides further details of
the trauma.
•The diagnosis and prognosis follow the
examination.
•Last, treatment options are offered. In many of the
cases, explanations of trauma are included to
provide further clarity.

24. Simple bed-test diagnosis
“say to the patient : look at the shoulder, then
breast, then look upward and downwards, if he is
not able to do this: he is suffering from the
dislocation of the vertebra of the neck.”

25. •Among the treatments are closing wounds with
sutures (for wounds of the lip, throat, and
shoulder), preventing and curing infection with
honey, and stopping bleeding with raw meat.
Immobilization is advised for head and spinal cord
injuries, as well as other lower body fractures.
•The papyrus also describes anatomical
observations.
•It contains the first known descriptions of the
cranial sutures, the meninges, the external surface
of the brain, the cerebrospinal fluid, and the
intracranial pulsations.

26. •The procedures of this papyrus demonstrate an
Egyptian level of knowledge of medicines that
surpassed that of Hippocrates, who lived 1000
years later.
•Due to its practical nature and the types of
trauma investigated, it is believed that the papyrus
served as a textbook for the trauma that resulted
from military battles.

27. Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus
Stayed in print for at least 1500 years

30. • The Ebers Papyrus is among the oldest and most
important medical papyri of ancient Egypt, it was
purchased at Luxor, (Thebes) in the winter of
1873-74 by George Ebers.
•It is currently kept at the library of the University
of Leipzig, in Germany.
•The papyrus was written in about 1500 BC, but
it is believed to have been copied from earlier
texts, perhaps dating as far back as 3400 BC.
Ebers Papyrus is a 110 page scroll, which is about
20 meters long.

31. •The Ebers Papyrus is written in hieratic Egyptian
writing and preserves for us the most voluminous
record of ancient Egyptian medicine known. The
scroll contains some 700 magical formulas and
remedies.
•It contains many incantations meant to turn
away disease causing demons and there is also
evidence of a long tradition of emperical practice
and observation.
•The Egyptians seem to have known little about
the kidneys and made the heart the meeting point
of a number of vessels which carried all the fluids
of the body : blood, tears, urine and semen.

32. •The ancient Egyptians were advanced in
realizing that mental disorders were real, just
like the physical disorders.
•Mental disorders are detailed in a chapter of the
papyrus called the Book of Hearts.
•Disorders such as depression and dementia are
covered.
•The descriptions of these disorders suggest that
Egyptians were convinced of mental and
physical diseases in much the same way.

33. •The papyrus contains chapters on contraception,
diagnosis of pregnancy and other gynecological
matters, intestinal disease and parasites, eye and
skin problems, dentistry and the surgical
treatment of abscesses and tumors, bone setting
and burns.
•The papyrus includes a “treatise on the heart”.
•This treatise documents the heart as the focal
point of blood supply, with vessels attached.
•The ancient Egyptians did make some mistakes :
they believed the heart was the center for every
fluid carried within the body including urine and
tears.

36. •The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus (also Kahun
Papyrus, Kahun Medical Papyrus, or is the oldest
known medical text of any kind. Dated to about
1800 BC, it deals with women's health and
gynaecological diseases, fertility, pregnancy,
contraception, etc.
•It was found at El-Lahun by Flinders Petrie in
1889 and first translated by F. Ll. Griffith in 1893
and published in The Petrie Papyri: Hieratic
Papyri from Kahun and Gurob.

37. •The text is divided into thirty four sections, each
section dealing with a specific problem and
containing diagnosis and treatment; no prognosis
is suggested.
• Treatments are non -surgical, comprising
applying medicines to the affected body part or
swallowing them.
•The womb is at times seen as the source of
complaints manifesting themselves in other body
parts.

38. •The first seventeen parts have a common
format starting with a title and are followed by
a brief description of the symptoms, usually,
though not always, having to do with the
reproductive organs.
•Paragraph 19 is concerned with the
recognition of who will give birth; paragraph
20 is concerned with the fumigation procedure
which causes conception to occur; and
paragraphs 21-22 are concerned with
contraception.

39. •The third section (paragraphs 26-32) is
concerned with the testing for pregnancy.
•The fourth and final section contains two
paragraphs which do not fall into any of the
previous categories.
•The first prescribes treatment for toothaches
during pregnancy. The second describes what
appears to be a fistula between bladder and
vagina with incontinence of urine .

40. Fertility diagnosis test
•Fertility was diagnosed by placing a garlic in the
vagina for one night.
•The next day if the woman can feel or taste the
garlic in her mouth then she is fertile.
•This is based on the connection between the
genital part and interior part of the body.
•Such connection would be lost in case of
obstructed Fallopian tube.
•In modern medicine, phenolphthalein injected in
the uterus would appear in urine based upon the
same principle. A test known to gynecologists as
“Speck’s Test”

41. Pregnancy test
•Diagnosis of pregnancy and sex determination of
future child was based on the fact that pregnant
urine germinates cereals more rapidly then non-
pregnant one.
•If the child was a male, the urine will germinate
wheat, and if a female, it would germinate barely.
•The same tests have been used in Europe up till
the middle age

42. • In 1963 Ghalioungui found that, whilst urine
from non-pregnant women prevented the
growth of (modern) barley and wheat, it proved
impossible to detect the sex of an unborn child
from the rate of growth of either grain.
• Nevertheless, the fact that the Egyptians
recognized that urine carried the pregnancy
factor was remarkable.
• The standardization of reliable urine tests for
pregnancy did not occur until 1929.

43. Delivery
•Delivery was performed in the squatting position,
with the woman supporting her arms on knees
and sitting on the brick.
•Difficult labors:
Were aided by burning resin, or
Massaging the abdomen by saffron powder
and beer.
Abortion was done by introducing Oil and fat
in the vagina.
They described 11 methods to assist difficult
deliveries .

44. The hieroglyphs meaning (to give birth) depict
a squatting position and the use of a birthing
stool or birthing bricks.

45. Contraception
•It was performed by the insertion of crocodile oil,
gum acacia or honey and natron into the vagina.
•Gum acacia when dissolved produces lactic acid,
very effective known spermicidal.
•The Ebers papyrus say:
“To cause a woman to stop being pregnant, be it
one, two or three years: part of acacia, colocynth,
dates, finely ground in a hin of honey, fibers are
moistened therewith, introduced into her vagina”

47. •Physicians studied at schools that were called
The House of Life, established since the 1st
Dynasty .being at times associated with
inscriptions and physicians .
•Individuals who studied to be physicians were
dedicated to one disease or one part of the body,
so in ancient Egypt, doctors were everywhere.
•Some were physicians of eyes, other for the
head, others for the teeth. Others for the
intestines and others for internal disorders.
•This clearly shows that today’s era of
specialization and super-specialization has come
en route from Egyptian medicine.

48. The hieroglyphs for sinw were usually written showing the man, the
pot of medicine and the lancet.

49. • Within the hierarchy of physicians there were
regular doctors, senior doctors, those who
inspected and overseers who acted as ministers
of health.
• At the top was the chief medical officer of
Egypt
• Egyptian doctors were very advanced in their
knowledge of herbal remedies and surgical
techniques.

50. • Also part of Egyptian medicine were magic,
charms, and spells, which had only
psychological effects, if any, on a patient.
• The earliest recorded physician in the world,
HesyRa, practiced in ancient Egypt.
• He was Chief of Dentists and Physicians to
King Djoser, who ruled in the 27th century
BC.
• Royalty employed their own swnw, even their
own specialists.

55. The Metu
•Heart as key to concepts of anatomy and
physiology
•The metu is essential to life and health.
•Imbalances within metu will cause pain and
illness

56. • Attempt to Explain how the Body works and
why people get sick
Related to their Natural Environment and
their understanding of how the world works
• River Nile
- Channels (River)
Mixture of Blood and Air
Flows from the centre to extremeties
- Disease
Caused by blockages of the channels
Caused by rotting food
Letting off gases
Prevents normal flow
A Rational Explanation

57. The Channel Theory -The Nile theory :
•this came by observing farmers who dug out
irrigations channels for their crops. They believed
that as in irrigation, channels provided the body
with routes for good health. If the channels became
blocked, they would use laxatives to unblock them.
•They thought the heart was the center of 46
channels - types of tubes(rivers). To a certain
extent, they were right, our veins, arteries, and even
our intestines are types of tubes. However, they
never came to realize that these channels had
different functions.

58. “46 vessels go from the heart to every limb, if a
doctor places his hand or fingers on the back of
the head, hands, stomach, arms or feet then he
hears the heart. The heart speaks out of every
limb.”The papyrus continues:“There are 4 vessels
to his nostrils, 2 give mucus and 2 give blood;
there are 4 vessels in his forehead; there are 6
vessels that lead to the arms; there are 6 vessels
that lead to the feet; there are 2 vessels to his
testicles (and) it is they which give semen; there
are 2 vessels to the buttocks.”

59. •The channel theory allowed medicine to move
from entirely spiritual cures for diseases and
disorders, towards practical ones. Many medical
historians say this change was a major turning
point, a breakthrough in the history of medicine.
•They could not discriminate between blood
vessels, nerves and tendon

60. •Blockages in the human "channels" were thought
to be the result of the evil doings of Wehedu, an
evil spirit.
•Many of the medical papyri found include spells
and magic alongside practical treatment.
•The ancient Egyptians believed that the spoken
word had power over the physical world.
•Priests and doctors also used amulets with spells
written on them and sacred jewelry to help in
their quest to drive away disease.
•They also prayed to Sekhmet, the Goddess of
Healing and Medicine.

62. The various disease found during those
periods are:
• Bilharzias
• Malaria
• Trachoma
• Bubonic plague
• Tuberculosis
• Elephantiasis
• Trichinae (worms)
• Small pox
• Eye disease
• Polio
• Measles
• Cholera
• Pneumonia
• Arthritis etc.

63. •It is believed that there were occasional outbreaks
of the bubonic plague.
•Silicosis of the lungs, caused by breathing in sand
particles was a common cause of pneumonia for
the ancient Egyptians.
•Eye diseases due to injuries from sandy wind
from desert.
•The ancient Egyptians also suffered from diet-
related ailments such as malnutrition, vitamin and
mineral deficiencies.

65. •Surgery was a common practice among
physicians as treatment for physical injuries.
•At Saqqara there is the tomb of Ankh-Mahor,
known as The Tomb of the Physician. In one of
the wall pictures two men are having their
extremities treated variously explained as
manicure, massage or surgery.
•In the accompanying text the patient implores
the physician: Do not let it be painful. The
answer was ironical: I do (it) so you will praise it,
(O) king! perhaps not in the best Egyptian
bedside manner.

67. •At any rate, people at least occasionally survived
surgery.
•Bodies of amputees from as early as the Old and
Middle Kingdoms have been found which display
signs of healing.
•Prostheses which show signs of wear, have also
been discovered.
•The reasons for these amputations are unknown
and none of the surviving medical texts mention
the possibility of, let alone reasons for amputation
as a therapeutic treatment.
•They were skilled in performing eye surgery

68. •The Egyptian physicians recognized three
categories of injuries; treatable, contestable, and
untreatable ailments.
Treatable ailments : the surgeons would
quickly set to right. (handled immediately)
Contestable ailments : were those where the
victim could presumably survive without
treatment, so patients assumed to be in this
category were observed and if they survived
then surgical attempts could be made to fix
them. (considered not to be life threatening).
Untreatable Ailments : In these cases,
doctors would not intervene

69. •Surgical tools uncovered in archaeological sites
have included knives, hooks, drills, forceps and
pinchers, scales, spoons, saws and a vase with
burning incense.
•The medicine and surgical tools available to
ancient Egyptian doctors might astound people
today.
•Both the Ebers Papyrus and Edwin Smith
Papyrus include references to “knife treatments”
including several different names “knife” had for
different surgical procedures.

70. 1) knives; (2) drill;
(3) saw; (4) forceps or
pincers; (5) censer;
(6) hooks; (7) bags tied
with string; (8, 10) beaked
vessel; (11) vase with
burning incense;
(12) Horus eyes;
(13) scales; (14) pot with
flowers of Upper and
Lower Egypt; (15) pot on
pedestal; (16) graduated
cubit or papyrus scroll
without side knot (or a
case holding reed
scalpels); (17) shears;
(18) spoons.

71. •The extensive use of surgery, mummification
practices, and autopsy as a religious exercise gave
Egyptians a vast knowledge of the body's
morphology, and even a considerable
understanding of organ functions.
•The function of most major organs were
correctly presumed for example, blood was
correctly guessed to be a transpiration medium
for vitality and waste which is not to far from its
actual role in carrying oxygen and removing
carbon dioxide with the exception of the heart
and brain whose functions were switched.

72. Suturing
•The Edwin Smith Papyus shows the suturing of
non-infected wounds with a needle and thread.
Raw meat was applied on the first day,
subsequently replaced by dressing of astringent
herbs, honey and butter or bread.
•Raw meat is known to be an efficient way to stop
bleeding.
•Honey is a potent hygroscopic material (absorbs
water) and stimulates the secretion of white blood
cells, the natural first body defense mechanism.
•The application of sour or moldy bread was
practiced in European medicine until the
Renaissance.

74. •Dentistry was an important field, as an
independent profession it dated from the early
third millennium BC, although it may not have
never been prominent.
•The Egyptian diet was high on abrasives such as
sand left over from grinding grain and so the
condition of their teeth was quite poor.
•All Egyptian remains have sets of teeth in quite
poor states.
•Dental treatment was infective and the best
sufferers could hope for was the quick loss of an
infected tooth.

75. •Egyptian doctors called “Waboni”
•“Hesy-Ra” = earliest recorded physician who was
chief of dentists and physician to a king named
Djoser.

76. •The Edwin Smith Papyrus offers directions on
healing wounds within the mouth.
•Due to their coarse diet, one of the most common
ailments was attrition, the wearing away of tooth
tissue.
•Attrition led to inflammation, tooth loss and
abscesses.
•To fight attrition, the ancient Egyptians
developed mouthwashes to provide pain relief as
well as to promote gum and tooth health.
•The ingredients in the mouthwashes included
bran, celery and sweet beer.
•Replacement teeth have been found to exist.

77. •Dental surgeries were performed as well,
including treating a dislocated jaw, cutting away
of diseased gums and draining abscesses.
•Dental bridges have also been identified on
mummies, though it remains unclear if the
bridge work was done prior to death or for the
sake of being thorough in the mummification
process.

80. • As well as acquired diseases, undoubtedly a number of
Egyptians suffered from inherited and congenital deformities.

81. •They suffered from the injuries and deformities
caused by hard labor

82. Dwarfism
•Dasen (1993) lists 207 known representations
of dwarfism.
•Of the types described, the majority are
achondroplastic, a form resulting in a head and
trunk of normal size with shortened limbs.
•The statue of Seneb is perhaps the most classic
example.
•Dwarfs were accepted members in Egyptian
society.

83. • The dwarfism known as
achondroplasia is probably
the most frequently
depicted of these and is a
short-limbed disorder due
to a dominant genetic
mutation.

85. •Magic and religion were an integral part of
everyday life in ancient Egypt.
•Evil gods and demons were thought to be
responsible for many ailments, so often the
treatments involved a supernatural element, such
as beginning treatment with an appeal to a deity.
•The Gods were the creators and controllers of
life, the Egyptians thought. They believed
conception was done by the god Thoth, while Bes,
another god, decided whether childbirth went
smoothly.

86. •The widespread belief in magic and religion
may have resulted in a powerful placebo effect;
that is, the perceived validity of the cure may
have contributed to its effectiveness.
•The impact of the emphasis on magic is seen in
the selection of remedies or ingredients for them.
Ingredients were sometimes selected seemingly
because they were derived from a substance,
plant or animal that had characteristics which in
some way corresponded to the symptoms of the
patient.

87. •This is known as the principle of simila similibus
("similar with similar") and is found throughout
the history of medicine up to the modern practice
of homeopathy.
•Thus an ostrich egg is included in the treatment
of a broken skull, an amulet portraying a
hedgehog might be used against baldness ,and the
electric catfish was used for treatment of
migraine .
•Amulets in general were very popular, being
worn for many magical purposes.

88. “These words are to be spoken over the sick
person. ‘O Spirit, male of female, who lurks hidden
in my flesh and in my limbs, get out of my flesh.
Get out of my limbs!” This was a remedy for a
mother and child.“Come! You who drives out evil
things from my stomach and my limbs. He who
drinks this shall be cured just as the gods above
were cured.”This was added at the end of this cure:
‘This spell is really excellent – successful many
times.’ It was meant to be said when drinking a
remedy.
This was a remedy for people going bald:
“Fat of lion, fat of hippo, fat of cat, fat of crocodile,
fat of ibex, fat of serpent, are mixed together and
the head of the bald person is anointed with them.

90. •The medicinal skills of ancient Egyptians were far
beyond their time.
•With the writing of the first medical texts,
performance of the first surgical techniques, use of
the first splints and bandages, the first drug
therapies, and the first medical dictionary, the
ancient Egyptians revolutionized the world of
medicine and laid a path and framework for the
advances in medicine that exist in our world
today.