There has been debate over which civilization produced the earliest practice of medicine. With the advance of accurately deciphering Hieroglyphics in 1928, Egyptian medical documents could finally be translated showing the importance of medical sciences in Ancient Egypt.
Is Egyptian Medicine the most ancient? As far as scientific methods are concerned, most of us were taught that Greek medicine came first. But once established that many Greek historical figures studied medicine in Egypt, in fact Hippocrates himself, we come to understand the influence the Egyptians had in the field of the history of medicine.
In earlier Antiquity, Egyptian physicians were reputed as highly reliable. In 900 BC, Homer, in his Odyssey, speaks of Egyptian doctors as follows: "In medical knowledge the Egyptian leaves the rest of the world behind." The Egyptian architect Imhotep, the Minister of the Pharaoh Jeser (3rd dynasty, 28th c. BC) is the earliest medical practitioner known.
Up until the nineteenth century, our knowledge of Ancient Egyptian Medicine mainly depended on reports from the period c.58 BC-25 AD. Then from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, translations of medical texts in 1853 and others in 1930 demonstrated the unique contributions the ancient Egyptians made to early medicine.
The Egyptians first believed that disease and death were caused by a god, a spirit, or some other supernatural force. From there, it seemed logical to drive it out with magic rituals or talismans, as well as medicines. The duties of Egyptian physicians included creating medications, providing magic spells and prayers to provide healing, mending broken bones, dentistry, embalming, surgery, and autopsy.
A great deal of the knowledge of ancient Egyptian medicine comes from the Edwin Smith Papyrus, the Ebers Papyrus and the Kahun Papyrus. The Edwin Smith Papyrus and the Ebers Papyrus date from the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries BCE. These manuscripts are believed to be derived from earlier sources. They contain recipes and spells for the treatment of a great variety of diseases or symptoms. They discuss the diagnosis of diseases and provide information on anatomy. They detail the ancient Egyptian concept of medicine, anatomy, and physiology.
The Egyptians were advanced medical practitioners for their time. They were masters of human anatomy and healing mostly due to their mummification ceremonies. This involved removing most of the internal organs including the brain, lungs, pancreas, liver, spleen, heart and intestine. The Egyptians had a good understanding of organ functions within the human body. This knowledge of anatomy, as well as the later crossover of knowledge from the Greeks, led to an extensive knowledge of the functioning of the organs, and branched into many other medical practices.
In Egypt, the prescription for a healthy life involved following stringent and regular purification rituals; this included bathing, and often times shaving one's head and body hair. It also included, for example, dietary restrictions against raw fish and other animals considered unclean to eat.
Among the curatives used by the Egyptians were all types of plant (herbs and other plants), animal and mineral compounds. The use of these compounds led to an extensive compendium of curative recipes, some still available today. Yeast was recognized for its healing qualities and was applied to leg ulcers and swellings. Yeasts were also taken internally for digestive disorders and were an effective cure for ulcers.
Though the Egyptians were effective healers, they did not have a clear knowledge of cellular biology or of germ theory.
The ingenuity of these early Egyptians must be admired, granting them their place within the compendium of human medical history. The largest of these medicinal compendiums was compiled by Hermes (a healer of Greek origin who studied in Egypt), and consisted of six books. The first of these six books was directly related to anatomy, the rest served as a book of physic, and as apothecaries. Though Hermes was not the first to compile much of the information about Egyptian medical practices, beginning early on with the pharaoh Athothes (the second king of Egypt), the Egyptians are credited with being the first to use and record advanced medical practices.