History of Herbs :: Egypt
"The Stinking Ones"
In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus of Halicarnassus began work on his historical narrative. In these stories, the oldest
surviving chronology yet discovered, he refers to the natives of the Nile River valley as “the stinking ones” due to their
extensive use of garlic and onion. These herbs, which were thought to be foul smelling by much of the rest of the world,
were used in Egyptian medicine to strengthen the body and prevent disease.
The first medicinal reference to garlic survives on a Sumerian tablet dated to 3,000 BCE, but it is in the Ebers Papyrus of the Egyptians that the herb rises to prominence. The Ebers Papyrus was discovered by German Egyptologist Georg Ebers near Luxor in 1874. The papyrus measures 65 feet long and listed 876 formulas drawn from more than 500 plants. The papyrus survives from 1500 BCE, which is most likely when the long-used oral recipes of these herbs were committed to paper.
Two hundred years older than the Eber Papyrus is the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, which describes surgical procedures including a technique to relieve pressure on the brain by opening the skull. Female concerns are directly addressed in the gynecological papyri from Kahun and Garob and in the Ebers Papyrus. Incantations and ritual accompany many prescriptions, illustrating that the intervention of the gods was sought to help cure patients.
The scrolls were copied and studied by hopeful medical students who attended Egypt’s medical school in Memphis. Nearby stood a school for midwives who were directly concerned with the rituals and procedures of pregnancy and childbirth. In 700 BCE, both schools at Memphis were dedicated to Imhotep, the mortal advisor to Pharaoh Djoser who had designed the stepped pyramid at Saqqara and was a powerful healer and magician.
For the Egyptians, magic and medicine were inextricably linked. In their healing, they used the leaves, flowers, fruits, roots, resins, oils, wood, sawdust, ash and smoke for the plants accompanied by prayers and invocations to the gods. Bes, an unattractive, dwarf-like god was called to the birthing chamber to protect mother and child. Thoth, the ibis-headed god, was the god of knowledge, writing and the arts and sciences. He was also the patron deity of medicine and often invoked prior to a procedure.
By 500 BCE, Egyptian physicians were considered the finest in the Mediterranean world. Egyptian trained physicians were much sought after by the rulers of Rome and Babylon, who often sent their own doctors to Alexandria to study. From the spoils of war, the Egyptians gathered hundreds of more plants and began to employ their medicinal properties. Herb gardens grew around temples and schools and produced fragrant incenses for use in ritual and body oils to anoint statues of the gods. Egyptian peasants also employed aromatic herbal oils as perfumes to entice the opposite sex. These gardens yielded the material that allowed them to heal, but they also looked to the animal and mineral world for ingredients.
In a first group of medicines, we find references to blood, mean, ground horns, eggs, milk and excrement. Minerals used included baked clay, alabaster, alum, kaolin, lapis lazuli and sea salt. Preparations were typically administered as solids, in the forms of pills, powders, suppositories and cakes. External topical remedies were provided by ointments, pastes and dough.
As occurred with the medicines of other ancient cultures, modern science has added validity to seemingly odd therapies that were common in Ancient Egypt. The practice of applying moldy bread to wounds became logical after the discovery of penicillin, which is derived from mold spores. Honey was used to prevent bleeding and seal wounds; this is also still valid 5,000 years later.
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