SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Modern Ring of Truth in Ancient Healing Practices : Medicine: Egyptian doctors combined magic spells and practical methods in treating their patients.
On a sultry morning in the Nile delta in 1500 BC, an Egyptian worker building a stone tomb falls off a scaffold and plummets to the ground. He lies unconscious and bleeding profusely from a deep gash on his scalp.
If such an accident occurred at a modern construction site, an ambulance would be summoned to whisk the man to the emergency room. But in ancient Egypt, a professional healer called a swnw (pronounced su-nu) would have been on hand. He probably would have bathed the man’s cut, felt his pulse and treated his head injury with two forms of therapy: a magic spell and a genuinely effective antibacterial ointment made from honey and copper salts.
Ancient Egyptian medicine was not always as ineffective or unscientific as modern Americans might think, according to J. Worth Estes, a professor of pharmacology at Boston University School of Medicine who has studied the ancient civilization.
The Egyptians believed many diseases arose from a buildup of toxic bodily wastes produced by overeating or by an ill wind. Their doctors were adept at many medical and surgical skills that remain useful today. And their repertoire contained a surprising number of potentially active drugs and effective surgical procedures.
They lanced boils, removed skin tumors, splinted fractures and circumcised young men with stone scalpels. They made contraceptives containing sour milk or acacia gum, ingredients that when placed in the vagina have been found to kill sperm. They prescribed laxatives and diarrhea treatments.
Perhaps most important, according to a famous papyrus whose medical advice is believed to date from about 2500 BC, they knew when to “moor the patient at his mooring stakes” and leave him alone, because he was either certain to recover or certain to die.
Their approach to their art was eminently practical rather than inquisitive, said Estes, whose book, “The Medical Skills of Ancient Egypt,” was published last fall by Science History Publications-U.S.A. of Canton, Mass.
“They didn’t much care” about investigating human anatomy or discovering the true function of the heart, brain and other organs, he said. “If you could heal your patient with an armamentarium of drugs and simple surgical techniques, why bother about that?”
Estes said the Egyptian doctors’ reputation among their patients was probably abetted by the fact that the vast majority of patients recover spontaneously from illnesses.
Estes said that if the Egyptians hit upon effective drugs, it was not because they understood how the body worked. They believed the heart not only kept a person alive but held his thoughts, emotions and conscience.
Air, blood and water were thought to travel from the heart to other organs by a system of ducts called metu , and similar ducts carried waste to the body’s surface.
Overeating, drunkenness, evil spirits or emotional disorders could lead to the buildup of toxic wastes called whdw (pronounced ukhedu), believed to cause most sickness. Healers often tried to purge the whdw by inducing vomiting or prescribing various remedies as laxatives, including frankincense, salt, dates, cumin seeds or juniper.
The theory provided the basis for centuries of Egyptian medicine, and led to a prescription for healthy living not too different from the one offered by today’s experts. One ancient text, for example, advises:
“He who eats too much bread will suffer illness. He who drinks too much wine lies down in a stupor. All kinds of ailments are in the limbs because of overeating. He who is moderate in his manner of life, his flesh is not disturbed. Illness does not burn him who is moderate in food.”
