Medicine in ancient Egypt

"If you examine a man with cardiac disease, with pain in his arms, chest and heart ... threatens death"

This quote could be said by any doctor today as a threat of heart attack, but it belongs to a papyrus written in the time of Amenonfis I, in Ancient Egypt.

The medical knowledge of the Egyptians was amazing, numerous literary, sculptural and pictographic sources, in addition to the papyri, are physical vestiges that the Egyptians have left us on their vast medical knowledge.

They describe recipes and magic formulas about Gynecology and Obstetrics, The heart book on heart diseases and eye diseases, among others ... keep in mind that we are talking about 1550 BC.

About this time the Ebers papyrus is written, one of the most important medical treatises of antiquity, from which the Greeks would also "drink". This treatise speaks of numerous treatments in different medical areas and remedies for some ailments are even mentioned: onion, garlic, honey, beer, fennel, myrrh, lettuce, coffee and cocoa and certain preparations of lead, copper and antimony. . Laxatives were frequently used for gastric ailments.

Even Herodotus came to call the Egyptians the people of the most sanísimos since they had a remarkable public health system and because it is in this town where specialization in the different medical fields occurs for the first time.

The papyrus to which we have alluded previously, distinguishes three types of specialists:

• the priests of Sekhmet (goddess of wisdom) mediators with the divinity and connoisseurs of a wide assortment of drugs.
• The civil doctors (sunnu)
• Magicians, capable of magical healings
• The assistants (ut), who are not considered healers, but those who attended the medical class ... a preview of the current nursing corps.

Egyptian physicians determined and learned the specialties, Suno general practitioner; Suno Custode, caretaker of the Pharaoh's anus; doctor for hidden diseases or of unknown origin; dentist or the occupational physician Generet.

Health care was free, the state paid the doctors, who had to use and comply with a protocol, noting the appearance of the patient, state of consciousness, hearing power, body odor, aspects of secretions, urine, phlegm, specifying its appearance, edema, temperature and pulse alterations, that is to say practically a clinical history of the patient.

In ancient Egypt, sanitary laws were strict, there were medical ordinances to monitor the waters, not only for the cleaning of the living but also for mortuary hygiene. It is surprising to find in the papyri such a refined specialization that it indicates a high degree of evolution of Egyptian Medicine.

We know the name of more than seven hundred products used, some of which have survived to our time. A group of medicines of great importance in the Egyptian Empire, because it was a frequent disease, are laxatives, castor oil or senna. Against parasites, the pomegranate bark is mainly recommended, which has a useful action: it eliminates intestinal parasites.

We also find the use of some plants that act on the nervous system, with an effect that is considered narcotic, such as poppy -the opium plant- and hemp. Among the substances that are efficient in heart disease, the squill was known.

In the well-known "Book of Wounds" up to fifty clinical cases of trauma injuries are described. It highlights the importance of the use of fresh meat to inhibit bleeding, moldy bread to cure the infection, some herbs to facilitate healing, the use of the knife, and also the cautery, to remove some tumors. They also studied childbirth, where the woman gave birth squatting or kneeling.

In the next installment, we will see the medical remedies used by both Greeks and Romans and the specialization and medical treatises that are made in the classical stage of Western civilization….