Free Lecture on ancient Egyptian medicine this Friday, April 17 2009
The SSEA
Egyptian Combat Medic
Speaker: Alwyn Burridge, University of Toronto
Friday, April 17, 2009 | 7:00 pm
Room 142, 5 Bancroft Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The well-preserved Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus contains four
different hieratic texts extending both sides of its 4.68 m. length.
These include a hodge-podge of incantations, anti-aging remedies and a
hemorrhoid cure. However, the most important section occupies 17
columns on the recto: a First Aid Reference Manual For Combat Medics.
While this medical treatise is a 'hands-on' manual written by and for
a novice medic for use on the battlefield, it is founded on a
remarkably sophisticated and efficacious medical tradition. The text
urges the practitioner to look for many of the same hallmark symptoms
that modern medicine relies on for diagnoses and treatment of trauma
injuries. For example, Case 7 includes an astutely comprehensive
description of tetanus (lockjaw) as one possible outcome of a facial
stab wound face that penetrated the air sinus. The development of this
life threatening complication is traced through progressively dire
symptoms from a local to systemic infection.
The format of this text is artfully simple. The 48 'cases' describe
injuries starting at the head and progressing downward. It generally
presents moderate injuries first, developing through cumulative
symptoms to more severe conditions. Treatment recommendations and
remarkably accurate prognoses follow. The red ink used to introduce
new 'cases' and highlight significant symptoms made it particularly
'user friendly'.
The wounds discussed are clearly combat related. The clarity of the
injury descriptions and practical and efficient treatments indicate
actual experience treating wounded soldiers. Those complicated and
marginally useful remedies of the Ebers Papyrus have no place in this
medic's kit. Instead, treatments of proven efficacy: honey and oil
salves, bandages, needles, thread, and occasionally fresh meat to
staunch bleeding wounds are recommended.
This part of the papyrus is not a copy of a more aged text as proposed
by Breasted, but a set of lecture notes. The writer is obviously a
medic 'in training' who compared the appearance of specific injuries
and symptoms with everyday objects and circumstances. The language
throughout is simplistic, relying on the bare minimum of those
specific anatomical terms that would have been integral to manuals of
professional physicians. Injuries are introduced by the word
'instructions', a revealing term reflective of the 'instructive
nature' of the text. The oft-used phrase 'he says ...' is also
significant, wherein pronouncements are quoted from a master medical
professional.
There are also 49 explanatory notes or 'glosses' that appear
derivative of a question and answer period. The scribe recorded the
essence of these discussions in sections that begin, "As for ...
(point requiring clarification)...it means that... (explanation)".
These elucidations often involve common symptoms, i.e. facial flushing
and physical signs that would be familiar to an experienced physician,
but new to a trainee. Clearly, this text, as a set of lecture notes is
a mere echo of the vast medical knowledge practiced by ancient
Egyptian medical practitioners.
This text also has important historical significance. The column
widths and hieratic style point to a late 17th Dynasty date, that
period of intense warfare that characterized the Second Intermediate
Period.
About The Speaker: Alwyn is an advanced doctoral student at the
University of Toronto. She has recently finished a re-translation of
the entire Edwin Smith papyrus with Dr. Gonzalo Sanchez. She has
excavated in Egypt with Prof. Gregory Mumford's excavations, and
presented widely in media.