The Evolution of Modern Medicine

record among the Egyptians is the use secretions and parts of the animal body as medicine. The practice was one of great antiquity with primitive man, but the papyri already mentioned contain the earliest known records. Saliva, urine, bile, faeces, various parts of the body, dried and powdered, worms, insects, snakes were important ingredients in the pharmacopoeia. The practice became very widespread throughout the ancient world. Its extent and importance may be best gathered from chapters VII and VIII in the 28th book of Pliny's "Natural History." Several remedies are mentioned as derived from man; others from the elephant, lion, camel, crocodile, and some seventy-nine are prepared from the hyaena. The practice was widely prevalent throughout the Middle Ages, and the pharmacopoeia of the seventeenth and even of the eighteenth century contains many extraordinary ingredients. "The Royal Pharmacopoeia" of Moses Charras (London ed., 1678), the most scientific work of the day, is full of organotherapy and directions for the preparation of medicines from the most loathsome excretions. A curious thing is that with the discoveries of the mummies a belief arose as to the great efficacy of powdered mummy in various maladies. As Sir Thomas Browne remarks in his "Urn Burial": "Mummy has become merchandize. Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." One formula in everyday use has come to us in a curious way from the Egyptians. In the Osiris myth, the youthful Horus loses an eye in his battle with Set. This eye, the symbol of sacrifice, became, next to the sacred beetle, the most common talisman of the country, and all museums are rich in models of the Horus eye in glass or stone. "When alchemy or chemistry, which had its cradle in Egypt, and derived its name from Khami, an old title for this country, passed to the hands of the Greeks, and later of the Arabs, this sign passed with it. It was also adopted to some extent by the Gnostics of the early Christian church in Egypt. In a cursive form it is found in mediaeval translations of the works of Ptolemy the astrologer, as the sign of the planet Jupiter. As such it was placed upon horoscopes and upon formula containing drugs made for administration to the body, so that the harmful properties of these drugs might be removed under the influence of the lucky planet. At present, in a slightly modified form, it still figures at the top of prescriptions written daily in Great Britain (Rx)."(11) (11) John D. Comrie: Medicine among the Assyrians and Egyptians in 1500 B.C., Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1909, n. s., II, 119. For centuries Egyptian physicians had a great reputation, and in the Odyssey (Bk. IV), Polydamna, the wife of Thonis, gives medicinal plants to Helen in Egypt—"a country producing an infinite number of drugs . . . where each physician possesses knowledge above all other men." Jeremiah (xlvi, 11) refers to the virgin daughter of Egypt, who should in vain use many medicines. Herodotus tells that Darius had at his court certain Egyptians, whom he reckoned the best skilled physicians in all the world, and he makes the interesting statement that: "Medicine is practiced among them on a plan of separation; each physician treats a single disorder, and no more: thus the country swarms with medical practitioners, some under taking to cure diseases of the eye, others of the head, others again of the teeth, others of the intestines, and some those which are not local."(12) (12) The History of Herodotus, Blakesley's ed., Bk. II, 84. A remarkable statement is made by Pliny, in the discussion upon the use of radishes, which are said to cure a "Phthisicke," or ulcer of the lungs—"proofe whereof was found and seen in AEgypt by occasion that the KK. there, caused dead bodies to be cut up, and anatomies to be made, for to search out the maladies whereof men died."(13) (13) Pliny, Holland's translation, Bk. XIX, Chap. V, Sect. 26. The study of the anatomy of mummies has thrown a very interesting light upon the diseases of the ancient Egyptians, one of the most prevalent of which appears to have been osteo-arthritis. This has been studied by Elliot Smith, Wood Jones, Ruffer and Rietti. The majority of the lesions appear to have been the common osteo-arthritis, which involved not only the men, but many of the pet animals kept in the temples. In a much higher proportion apparently than in modern days, the spinal column was involved. It is interesting to note that the "determinative" of old age in hieroglyphic writing is the picture of a man afflicted with arthritis deformans. Evidences of tuberculosis, rickets and syphilis, according to these authors, have not been found. A study of the internal organs has been made by Ruffer, who has shown that arterio-sclerosis with calcification was a common disease 8500 years ago; and he holds that it could not have been associated with hard work or alcohol, for the ancient Egyptians did not drink spirits, and they had practically the same hours of work as modern Egyptians, with every seventh day free.