Part 9

Here are the words to speak when preparing the remedies for all parts of the body: “As it shall be a thousand times. This is the book of the healing of all sicknesses. That Isis may make free, make free. May Isis heal me as she healed Horus of all pains which his brother Set had done to him who killed his father Osiris. Oh, Isis, thou great magician, heal me and save me from all wicked, frightful, and red things, from demoniac and deadly diseases and illnesses of every kind. Oh, Ra. Oh, Osiris.”

The form of words to be said when taking a remedy:--“Come remedy, come drive it out of this my heart, out of these my limbs; Oh strong magic power with the remedy.” On giving an emetic the conjuration to be spoken was as follows:--“Oh, Demon, who dwellest in the body of ... son of ...; Oh, thou, whose father is called the bringer down of heads, whose name is Death, whose name is accursed for all eternity, come forth.”

The following shows how the Egyptian physicians diagnosed a liver complaint: “When thou findest one with hardening of his re-het; when eating he feels a pressure in the bowels, and the stomach is swollen; feels ill while walking; look at him when lying outstretched, and if thou findest his bowels hot, and a hardening in his stomach, say to thyself, This is a liver complaint. Then make a remedy according to the secrets of botanical knowledge from the plant pa-chestat and from dates cut up. Mix it and put in water. The patient may drink it on four mornings to purge his body. If after that thou findest both sides of the bowels, namely, the right one hot and the left one cold, then say, That is bile. Look at him again, and if thou findest his bowels entirely cold then say to thyself, His liver is cleaned and purified; he has taken the medicine, the medicine has taken effect.”

Superstitious notions in connection with medicine are not more apparent in the Ebers Papyrus than they are in any English herbal of three or four hundred years ago. The majority of the drugs prescribed are of vegetable origin, but there is a fair proportion of animal products, and as in comparatively modern pharmacopœias these seem to have been valued as remedies in the ratio of their nastiness. Lizards’ blood, teeth of swine, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pigs’ ears, milk from a lying-in woman; the excreta of adults, of children, of donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats, and other animals, and the dirt left by flies on the walls, are among the remedies met with in the papyrus.

Among the drugs named in the papyrus and identified are oil, wine, beer (sweet and bitter), beer froth, yeast, vinegar, turpentine, various gums and resins, figs, sebestens, myrrh, mastic, frankincense, opium, wormwood, aloes, cummin, peppermint, cassia, carraway, coriander, anise, fennel, saffron, sycamore and cyprus woods, lotus flowers, linseed, juniper berries, henbane, and mandragora.

There are certain substances, evidently metals by the suffixes, but they have not been exactly identified. Neither gold, silver, nor tin is included. One is supposed to be sulphur, another, electrum (a combination of gold and silver), and another alluded to as “excrement divine,” remains mysterious. Iron, lead, magnesia, lime, soda, nitre and vermilion are among the mineral products which were then used in medicine.

It need hardly be said that scores of drugs named have only been guessed at, and in regard to a number of them, it has not been possible to get as far as this.

Most of the prescriptions are fairly simple, but there are exceptions. There is a poultice with thirty-five ingredients. Here is a specimen of rather complicated pharmacy. It is ordered for what seems to have been a common complaint of the stomach called setyt. Seeds of the sweet woodruff, seeds of mene, and the plant called A’am, were to be reduced to powder and mixed. Then seven stones had to be heated at a fire. On these, one by one, some of the powder was to be sprinkled while the stone was hot; it was then covered with a new pot in the bottom of which a hole had been made. A reed was fitted to the hole and the vapour inhaled. “Afterwards eat some fat,” says the writer.

The Papyrus Ebers has been reproduced by photography in facsimile, and published in two magnificent volumes by Mr. Wilhelm Engelmann, of Leipzig. Mr. Engelmann has kindly permitted me to copy one of the pages from his work for this book. The above is a reduced reproduction of page 47 of the Papyrus. The photograph was taken at the British Museum.

The first line of this page is the end of the instructions for applying a mixture of powders rubbed down with date wine to wounds and skin diseases to heal them. That compound was made by the god Seb, the god of the earth, for the god Ra. Then follows a complicated prescription devised by the goddess Nut, the goddess of heaven, also for the god Ra, and like the last to apply to wounds. It prescribes brickdust, pebble, soda, and sea-salt, to be boiled in oils with some groats and other vegetable matter. Isis next supplies a formula to relieve Ra of pains in the head. It contains opium, coriander, absinth, juniper berries, and honey. This was to be applied to the head. Three other formulas for pains in the head, the last for a pain on one side of the head (migraine), are given, and then there is a break in the manuscript, and afterwards some interesting instructions are given for the medicinal employment of the ricinus (degm) tree. The stems infused in water will make a lotion which will cure headache; the berries chewed with beer will relieve constipation; the berries crushed in oil will make a woman’s hair grow; and pressed into a salve will cure abscesses if applied every morning for ten days. The paragraph ends (but on the next page), as many of them do, with the curious idiom, “As it shall be a thousand times.” The translation is given in full (in German) in Dr. Joachim’s Papyros Ebers. Das älteste Buch über Heilkunde (Berlin, Georg. Reimer. 1890). ]

To draw the blood from a wound:--Foment it four times with a mixture made from wax, fat, date wine, honey, and boiled horn; these ingredients boiled with a certain quantity of water.

To prevent the immoderate crying of children a mixture of the seeds of the plant Sheben with some fly-dirt is recommended. It is supposed that Sheben may have been the poppy. Incidentally it is remarked that if a new-born baby cries “ny” that is a good sign; but it is a bad sign if it cries “mbe.”

To prevent the hair turning grey anoint it with the blood of a black calf which has been boiled in oil; or with the fat of a rattlesnake. When it falls out one remedy is to apply a mixture of six fats, namely those of the horse, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the cat, the snake, and the ibex. To strengthen it anoint with the tooth of a donkey crushed in honey.

A few other prescriptions are appended.

As Purges:--Mix milk, one part, yeast and honey, two parts each. Boil and strain. A draught of this to be taken every morning for four days. Pills compounded of equal parts of honey, absinth powder, and onion. In another formula “kesebt” fruits are ordered with other ingredients. Ebers conjectures that kesebt may have been the castor oil tree.

For Headache:--Equal parts of frankincense, cummin, berries of u’an tree and goosegrease are to be boiled together; the head to be anointed with the mixture.

For Worms:--Resin of acanthus, peppermint flowers, lettuce, and “as” plant. Equal parts to make a plaster.

For too much urine (diabetes):--Twigs of kadet plant ¼, grapes ⅛, honey ¼, berries of u’an tree ¹⁄₃₂, sweet beer 1⅙.

As a Tonic:--Figs, sebestens, grapes, yeast, frankincense, cummin, berries of u’an tree, wine, goosegrease, and sweet beer are recommended.

An Application for Sore Eyes. Dried excrement of a child 1, honey 1, in fresh milk.

To make the hair grow:--Oil of the Nile horse 1, powder of mentha montana 1, myrrh 1, mespen corn 1, vitriol of lead 1. Anoint. Another formula prescribed for the same purpose was prepared for Schesch (a queen of the 3rd dynasty) and consisted of equal parts of the heel of the greyhound (from Abyssinia), of date blossoms, and of asses’ hoofs boiled in oil.

A long formula for an ointment “which the god Ra made for himself” contains honey, wax, frankincense, onions, and a number of unidentified plants. The dust of alabaster and powdered statues are prescribed as applications for wounds.

To stop Diarrhœa:--Green bulbs (? onions) ⅛, freshly cooked groats ⅛, oil and honey ¼, wax ¹⁄₁₆, water ⅓ dena (a dena is about a pint). Take four days.

A plaster to remove pains from one side of the stomach:--Boil equal parts of lettuce and dates in oil, and apply.

Medicines against worms are numerous. Heftworms, believed to be thread worms, are treated with pomegranate bark, sea-salt, ricinus, absinth, and other unidentified drugs. For tape worms, mandrake fruits, castor oil, peppermint, a preparation of lead, and other drugs are prescribed.

Remedies which the God Su (god of the air), the God Seb (god of the earth), the Goddess Nut (goddess of the sky), and other divinities had devised are comprised in this collection. This is an application which Isis prescribed for Ra’s headache:--Coriander, opium, absinth, juniper, (another fruit), and honey.

Remedies are also prescribed in this papyrus for diseases of the stomach, the abdomen, and the urinary bladder; for the cure of swellings of the glands in the groin; for the treatment of the eye, for ulcers of the head, for greyness of the hair, and for promoting its growth; to heal and strengthen the nerves; to cure diseases of the tongue, to strengthen the teeth, to remove lice and fleas; to banish pain; to sweeten the breath; and to strengthen the organs of hearing and of smell.

Quantities are indicated on the prescriptions by perpendicular lines thus: | one, || two, ||| three. Each of these lines represents a unit. Ebers calls the unit a drachm and supposes it to be equivalent to the Arabic dirhem, about forty-eight English grains. The Egyptian system of numeration was decimal. Up to nine lines were used; [symbol=bridge] was ten, and two, three or more of these figures followed each other up to ninety. Then came [symbol=C] a hundred, [symbol=lotus] a thousand, and so on. Fractions were shown by the figure [symbol=oval], and this with three dots under it meant one-third, with four dots one-fourth, or with the 10 sign under it, [symbol=oval with bridge under] one-tenth. Half was represented by [symbol=double horizontal bar]. The unit of liquid measure is believed to have been the tenat, equal to three-fifths of a litre, or rather more than an English pint.