Ancient Egypt was a society that thrived for many years. This civilization ended up devolping techniques that would be passed down many generations and even be used today. In the book, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries, Kenneth Feder states, “Technological skills that should have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to evolve were brought into use almost overnight and with no apparent antecedents whatever” (2014, 249). This means that Egyptians were very smart in their own right. One of things they tried was medicine and healing.
For the longest time they believed in healing with herbs and with the help of the Gods. Egyptians did not have a long expectancy life span. The most they really lived was around 30 years old. Many of them had diseases that were not uncommon. In an article, Ancient Egyptian Medicine, it states, “Degenerative disease was probably similar to that today, and fractures were common, but cancer was rare, as were gallstones”(Paton 1996, 1167). Therefore, diseases were very common to catch as well as die from them fairly easily. While working, they would acquire fractures and broken bones.
With all these aches and pains, physicians were look at to help relieve their pain. The Egyptian word for doctor is “swnw”. Physicians were highly looked upon and even royalty hired their own physicians and paid them very well. They achieved many ranks and it was mainly men who were in the field of medicine. There was one recorded female doctor named Peseshet who may have been the mother of Akhethotep. She left a stela that had recorded who she was and it said she was the Overseer of Funerrary Priestesses and of Female Physicians. There are many jobs to being a physician.
You could have been a gastroenterologist, proctologist, dentist, ophthalmologist, inspector of liquids and supervises over butchers. This means there are countless of individuals that specialize in one thing or field. Religion and herbs were a big part of what physicians believed in while healing. Rarely did they ever do surgery on a person because they did not believe in messing with internal organs. They believed in the Goddess of healing who was Sekhmet. The goddess overlooked healing, curses, threats, and smells. Egyptians believe that if someone was sick, it was because there was a particular bad entity that had possessed them.
It was the physician’s job to drive it out and destroy it if they could. The way they did this was through herbs, magic, or some sort of specific ritual. Some talismans and amulets were used to help with the ritual acts sometimes. They were believed to hold some magical purpose. In an article, Innovation and Adaptations in Ancient Egyptian Medicine, states, “For it is frequently asserted that later Egyptian medicine is actually “regressive,” with ever inscreasing reliance on magic” (Ritner 2000, 107). There were three different amulets that represented things.
One was called a phylactic amulet which protected you from harmful demons or gods. Second was called a homeopoetic amulet which had some animal which helps with the speed of the healing. Third was a theophoric amulet which presented a god. Sometimes animals were sacrificed in order to help with the healing process. Herbs were only used mainly for those who were in pain. For example, honey was a common property that was applied to open wounds to prevent infection. Grease was also another treatment used on wounds. Fresh meat was laid on wounds to also help aid in healing.
Fresh meat had to be applied frequently on wounds. It is like replacing pads and gauze on a wound today. Another one to relieve headaches and pains was Coriander. It is used for stiffness and some muscle pains, sometimes with arthritis. Garlic and onions were thought to give Egyptians endurance and energy. Mother’s milk with given to those with common cold. Lastly, for stomach aches, caraway seeds were useful to relieve intestinal gases and help the stomach function better. Surgery was fairly uncommon back in Ancient Egypt, though this does not mean that it was not done.
There were three categories that physicians would place their patients in. One was those who were treatable, contestable and not treatable. Contestable patients who survived their illnesses were attempted on to doing surgical procedures. There were many tools like drills, scales, spoons, knives and hooks. In another article, The Old Egyptian Medical Papyri, it states, “This needle is mounted on a handle containing a spool of thread, so that the needle can be used repeatedly without rethreading or leaving the operator’s hands” (Singer 1952, 1201).
In some cases, circumcision was done on males. Anthropologists do not know yet, if female circumcision was practiced back then. Since the Egyptians mummified their dead, they still did not have that much knowledge of the internal organs. They had some knowledge about how some of the organs themselves worked. For example, they knew that the body had a pulse and that the blood ran through the body with each pulse. Yet, mummifiers were low ranking members in the Egyptian community while physicians were highly ranked. They did not work with each other or worked in the same circle as mummifiers.
Therefore, their knowledge did not mix with each other’s profession. Teeth were also a very poor quality that the Egyptians had. Teeth were usually worn down because of the sand and rocks in their food. Mouth infections were high even though cavities were low because of the worn down state of the teeth. Even still, some infections in the mouth could have been fatal or caused extreme pain. There has not been any record of how they pulled teeth out back then, but mummies are shown to have evidence of teeth being forced or pulled out.
Therefore, dentistry was another type of profession. There are a few papyri that have survived so we can see how some wounds were treated. One papyrus called Edwin Smith Papyrus is describing some surgical treatments and another papyrus tells of spells for treatment. These papyri are carefully and precisely grouped in order. Some physicians knew how to stich a wound close and treat the injuries of the head without many deaths. Despite their knowledge of what the brain does. Egyptians thought that thinking came from the heart and not the brain.
In spite of all these different techniques, disease was still a fighting challenge. There were many diseases that anyone could die of. There was the common cold, anemia, infertility, malaria, trachoma, bubonic plague and many more. Diseases were fairly common in areas where there was a densely populated area like near the Nile River. Mosquitoes were a big factor as well for spreading diseases in these populated areas. With each season, people would die of a specific disease. For example, smallpox, typhoid and fevers were common in the spring and summer.
Other factors like bad water, bad food and even not bathing made a lot of Egyptians sick. In the book, Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilizations, it states, “One of the striking characteristics of ancient Egyptian civilization is its lack of technological innovation, no other civilization in world history has shown the same degree of continuity in its traditions of art, religion and rulership for such a long span of time” (Haywood 2005, 56). The theory is that we get a lot of our techniques from the Egyptians and how they used some of their remedies.
I believe this to be true because when we go to the Dentist, they use similar tools to work with our teeth. Even when a tooth is no good, they are pulled out of our mouth to prevent infection. When we are feeling sick we still use honey to sooth our throats and make us feel better. The Egyptians really helped start the art of medicine and developed ways of healing. They did experimentations of what herbs to use and passing down the knowledge through papyri. In conclusion, Ancient Egyptian medicine was highly valued and physicians ere highly ranked for their profession. It was mainly men in the profession because they had more rights than women, but some women still had the opportunity to be physicians. They believed in the Goddess Sekhmet who was a Goddess of war, love and protection, but also a healer. She was depicted as having a lioness head and a female body. They used faith and religion as a major part of the healing process. They looked to her to help pull out any illnesses or demons that infected someone’s body.
Physicians would use herbs to relieve pain and amulets to help the process of healing. Lastly, surgery was used for emergencies and for patients who would have a chance of living. Because of their high ranking status and many diseases in Egypt, they had time to perfect some techniques like stitching, what herbs to use, and what to feed patients. I believe that Egyptians were smart for their time and lead the way for medicine in modern time and we still use some of the same methods today.