MEDICAL BOOK

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6630, 8 June 1928, Page 5

MEDICAL BOOK

WRITTEN 1700 B.C. Skilled surgeons in the Valley of the Nile knew more about human anatomy than their descendants of the Middle Ages, thousands of years later. This is one of the surprising facts revealed by the translation of the Edwin Smith papyrus, the oldest scientific book in the world, which has been completed by Professor James Henry Breasted, the well-known Egyptologist of the .University of Chicago. Tnc manuscript is now being printed for the New York History Society, the owner of the document, by the ‘Oxford University Press,’ which is the only place at the present time that has the facilities for setting up the ancient hieroglyphics in type. The papyrus is regarded as the most important document in the history of all science that has come down to us from the time before tljc ancient Greeks. It is remarkable in that it shows an amazing approach to the attitude of the present-day scientist, in striking contrast to the long lists of mingled charms and recipes that constitute a largo share of the medical papyri of ancient Egypt. Some of the diagnoses and treatments of injuries set down by the author-surgeon of 1700 B.C. in his orderly arrangements of cases are surprisingly modern. He made the first observation that has survived that the brain k the centre of nervous control; ho felt that the heart and brain played an important role in our physical make-up, and he knew something of xmlsc or pulsation and of the circulatory system. He divided his diagnoses into three groups, according to the seriousness of the injuries: one, “an ailment, which I will treat’’; two: “an ailment I will contend with ’’; three: “an ailment not to be treated,’’ meaning, probably, those beyond the reach of his skill.

I Among the mechanical appliances which appear for tho first time in medical literature iu this papyri include a kind of vegetable lint used to absorb blood, linen bandages manuj factored for surgical use, adhesive I plaster of linen, and surgical stitching |of wounds. The most remarkable observation in tho ancient manuscript, which was probably intended as a text book, is iu connection with a caso of compound fracture of the skull, with no visible external contusions The old Egyptian surgeon noted that both the eye and gait of his patient were altered on tho samo side of the body as that on which tho head injury had occurred, one of tho earliest known observations that injury of the brain 'may result in disturbance of normal control of various parts of the body. ' W.W.