These documents included royal decrees and religious texts in addition to administrative documents. These institutions housed the standard documents, which constituted the intellectual basis of the Egyptian state itself. The Egyptian countryside was covered by a more or less tight net of temples (and adjoining administrative buildings). The relevant location was a building called the “House of Life”. Most of the administrative archives were located in respective centers connected to temples. In general, this form of governmental organization (redistributive economy ) represents the concept of the division of and specialization in labor and the redistribution of “surplus food,” which constitutes one hallmark of all ancient civilizations. Therefore, nearly every transaction related to the distribution of goods, food, and the work force was managed by the state and registered in archives to keep things running well. Specialization, which had started many centuries before, necessitated a good working administration, as a carpenter had to be supplied with food that he could not generate for himself. This facilitated the great building projects and enterprises of the state such as temples and pyramids. One finds carpenters, fishermen, peasants, and various craftsmen, just to name a few. The ancient Egyptian society included professional specializations. Īround 1600 BCE, the approximate time the ESP was writen, although it quite obviously is a copy of a much older papyrus, ancient Egypt was a highly organized society. When mentioned, the magic interludes in this papyrus were often defined as unnecessary slips of the otherwise scientific approach and were mostly discarded as a “fall back” to more pagan times, which allegedly happened to ancient Egyptian medicine in the course of its later development. These, of course, do not fit the pure scientific approach. This holds true for cases 8 and 9 in the surgical part and several magical spells on the verso of the last page, which are not directly related to the surgical treatise. Unfortunately, often it is not mentioned or missed that the ESP also contains prescriptions with magical spells or allusions. Many of these students praised the ESP as the first scientific work of medicine because of its clearly structured layout and the lack of magical practice. Consequently, since its publication the ESP has attracted modern physicians, who have explained the injuries based on their knowledge of modern medicine and tried to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed treatments from a modern medical point of view. Most of these publications were more or less philogically oriented. 1) by Breasted in 1930 and the standard edition of the hieroglyphic text in 1959, three more recent major editions of this papyrus in translation with commentary have been published, in addition to some articles that studied single cases. Depending on this, treatment options are given.Īfter the editio princeps (Fig. A verdict follows that comprises three treatment possibilities: either the disease can be treated, or it is a disease “the physician will fight with,” or nothing can be done for the patient. When deemed necessary, differential diagnostics are mentioned as well as an additional explanation of some of the clinical symptoms and specific medical terms. After the title, the diagnostic procedure and relevant clinical signs are enumerated. Again, each case is presented in a clearly structured manner. It describes injuries and wounds from head to toe (a capite ad calcem), separated into 48 cases. The Edwin Smith papyrus (ESP) holds a very special position in the canon of the ten surviving major medical papyri from ancient Egypt.
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