GRADE LEVEL SECTION SUB-SECTION DURATION
6 AFRICAN HISTORY HISTORY OF MEDICINE 10 LESSONS

The History of Medicine
Egypt

 BACK TO LESSON MENU


Map A: A map of Africa.
Source:http://www.worldatlas.com

Ancient Egyptians practised medicine long before the birth of Christ. This is evident in the bodies that have been exhumed from graves from as early as 4 000 BC (before Christ). Some of the paintings and sculptures on the walls of tombs from about 2 500 BC even have pictures of circumcisions.

Egypt had very skilled doctors. Homer, a Greek poet and traveller, born around 1 200 BC, said in his book, The Odyssey, “In Egypt, the men are more skilled in Medicine than any of human kind.”

The Pharaohs had dentists, eye doctors and physicians who treated their stomachs and digestive systems. The Egyptian doctors were so well trained and efficient that kings from other countries borrowed them from the rulers of Egypt. One of the Pharaohs even gave his physician to a Syrian prince as a gift, and the King or Persia begged another Pharaoh for his best eye doctor.


Picture A: A mural of Imhotep, the first Egyptian doctor to be documented.
Source: www.museodeldiabete.org

Picture B: A sculpture of Imhotep.
Source:www.cwo.com


The first Egyptian doctor to be written about was Imhotep. He was a very educated man and had studied astronomy, architecture and medicine. He was admired so much for his skills that he was regarded as the father of medicine and later even worshipped as the god of medicine. Egyptians embalmed and mummified their dead and had to remove all the internal organs to do this. This means that they had to cut open the corpses and had the opportunity to study human anatomy. They even used techniques that are used in surgery today, like removing the brain of the dead person through their nose.

Picture C: The Ebers Papyrus
Source: www.nlm.nih.gov/.../MindBodySpirit/ IIBa18.html

Picture D: The Edwin Smith Papyrus
Source: http://www.arabworldbooks.com/articles8.htm

Picture E: The part of the Edwin Smith papyrus that deals with the head and brain.
Source: pdbio.byu.edu/.../images/shared%20images/ papyrus1.gif

The Egyptians believed that every person was born healthy. In cases of visible wounds or diseases treatment was easy Because they had no knowledge of microbiology, internal diseases were blamed on evil gods or magic. The two most important Egyptian documents or papyri that speak about injuries, disease and treatments of humans are called the Edwin Smith and Ebers papyri after the men who discovered them. The documents describe certain types of injuries; especially head injuries that happened while people were building the pyramids.

Outcomes: The learner is able to use information from sources to answer questions about ancient Egyptian medicine.

Activity

  1. Indicate Egypt on Map A.
  2. From when did the Egyptians practise medicine?
  3. How can we prove that they practised medicine?
  4. How do we know that Egyptian doctors were sought after all over the world?
  5. Who is the man in Pictures A and B?
  6. What role did he play in Egyptian medicine?
  7. How did the Egyptians know what the inside of the human body looks like?
  8. What surgical technique do we use today that the Egyptians used during embalming?
  9. What are the documents in Pictures C, D and E?

 

<NEXT>

 

BACK TO LESSON MENU