by Simon Willis
Got any hog's teeth handy? You might need them to cure your
indigestion. According to an ancient Egyptian medical text, you need to
grind one hog's tooth and add it to a sugar cake mixture. Bye-bye,
dyspepsia. You don't have any sugar? Sorry to have troubled you. I'll try
the other neighbour.
The ancient Egyptians knew a thing or two about medicine. For instance, if
you have a touch of diarrhoea, mix figs, grapes, bread dough, corn,
elderberries and some fresh earth (!). At least you know where the
ingredients have been. Do you know the constituents of those pills from your
local friendly pharmacist? Even if you read the list of ingredients, do you
know what benzodr-whatever-it-is-polyphosphate is? But a lump of earth is a
lump of earth, and that is sure to bung you up for a while.
If you burnt yourself in ancient times and were in agony, your physician
would have followed the following procedure:
"Create a mixture of milk of a woman who has borne a male child, gum, and,
ram's hair. While administering this mixture say: 'Thy son Horus is burnt in
the desert. Is there any water there? There is no water. I have water in my
mouth and a Nile between my thighs. I have come to extinguish the fire.'"
Lesions of the skin? No problem.
"After the scab has fallen off put on it, take a scribe's excrement (sic),
mix in fresh milk and apply as a poultice."
The Greek historian Herodotus remarked on how healthy the Egyptian people
were.
Diodorus of Sicily wrote that doctors prescribed treatments according to
rigid, time-honoured written precepts.
If a patient died, Diodorus wrote, the physician would not be blamed if he
had followed the rules to the letter.
If he deviated from the text, he would join the patient in the next life, he
said.
One papyrus text consists of two chapters on how the physician can protect
himself from his patients' ailments, otherwise it's 'Physician, heal
thyself'. A diseased doctor is no use to anyone, except to another
doctor.
The third chapter is devoted to the demons that may afflict the
patient.
The gods come to the rescue. Horus is the physician's protector. It is said
that the 'R' at the top of doctor's prescription forms is a shorthand form
of the eye of Horus, and not the abbreviation of the Latin Recipe
(take).
The ibis-headed god Thoth helped the physician with the medical texts. He
would come in pretty handy now for deciphering the prescriptions issued by
today's doctors. Isis, an expert at recovering body parts and putting them
back together, is also on hand. Sekhmet was the one to watch out for. She
had to be appeased because she is the harbinger of death. But when she was
not leading spirits off to the Afterlife, she was a dab-hand at gynaecology.
Trouble having a child? The doctor could commune with Min for fertility
purposes. When the little one is ready to come out, an appropriate libation
for Thueris was the ticket to ease the pangs of childbirth and to ensure the
survival of mother and baby. In the event of an epidemic, Seth would need an
offering or two. The incantation by the physician was essential for the
success of the cure.
We may feel smug about cures in packets and a pill for every ailment and
discomfort. We may dismiss the recitations by the doc as mumbo-jumbo.
However, imagine what our descendants in, say, 200 years' time might think
of our cures and patent medicines. 'How primitive!' hey might gasp, 'but how
quaint.'
In Mediaeval Europe, methods had changed little. Instead of incantations,
doctors had to keep an eye on the planets.
If you look at some of the glossy and expensive publications on astrology
— the publications that tell you how to construct your own birth chart
and get it wrong, such that you find that you should have had a fatal
accident three years ago, or founded a business empire by the time you were
six years old — you will find that each sign is associated with a
particular part of the anatomy.
For example, the first sign, Aries, governs the head. Therefore, people born
between March 21 and April 21 are susceptible to headaches. The chest and
lungs are the domain of Cancer. If you were born within the first 20 days of
July, you should brace yourself for bronchitis and pneumonia. Scorpio rules
the — ahem — genitals and Pisces, the feet.
If you had a terrible headache in 13th century Europe, the doctor would have
given you a potion to take when Jupiter is in Aries and Saturn is left-hand
down a bit or something — slightly more complicated than take one
three times a day after meals. The physician could well have boiled the bark
of a willow tree for ten minutes and told you to drink it at the appropriate
time.
By the way, willow bark contains salicylic acid, which is the primary
ingredient of aspirin.
While Herodotus noticed how healthy our ancestors were, what went wrong?
Blood pressure that fluctuates more wildly that share prices, diabetes,
kidney failure, breathing complaints during the rice straw burning season,
urinary tract infections are among the most common ailments in Egypt.
In an interview with Le Progres Magazine (2 April), dermatologist Dr. Henri
Amin, who is also an expert in parapharmacology was asked what is happening
to the nation's health?
"There is no secret," Dr. Amin replied, "What with pollution, contaminated
water, badly used pesticides, overpopulation, scant respect for hygiene,
poor eating habits and fast food."
"The Egyptian people must double their efforts to maintain their health," he
warned.
But how much will it cost?
In the bad old days, doctors' remuneration was often in kind.
"That potion worked wonders, doc. The headache's gone. Here you are an
overcoat, seeing as you might catch your death of cold in that damp cellar
of yours."
Judging by the cost of private health care, some doctors and surgeons could
buy the factory that produces overcoats.
Without the incantations and weird ingredients for medicines, the romance
has gone out of medicine. It's all pills and holding patients hostage if the
family cannot pay the hospital bill.
