Ancient Egyptian Medicine: [A Bibliographical Demonstration in the Library of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow, January 12th, 1893.]
Authors: J. Finlayson
Journal: BMJ (1893)

THE Berlin Medical Papyrus-called also the Papyrus Brugsch-stands next in importance to the Ebers Papyrus.It was indeed the first, and for a long time the chief, source of our knowledge of Egyptian medicine.It has been fully published in facsimile, by Brugsech ; there are twenty-one pages, with two additional pages on the reverse side.Page 12 of the facsimile is printed with the headings or rubrics in red ink, as in the original.In the other pages the red ink is in- dicated by the fainter character of the black writing as shown in Fig. 3, where Page 15 is reduced by photography so as to be about two-thirds the size of the original; this page has been selected for reproduction here, as Brugsch gives a trans- lation of the first four lines, and these have a special interest in connection with similar passages in other medical papyri.This papyrus, like the other medical papyri, is in hieratic writing, and the lines, as usual, read from right to left.Brugsch gives the translation of the first four lines of page 15, and his version may be rendered into English as follows:Beginning of the treatise concerning the cure of Ouchet (Uh'tu).It was discovered in ancient writing in the form of a roll in a coffer under the feet [of the statue] of Anubis in the town of Sechem (Ldptopolis) at the time of his Holiness the deceased King ZAZATI (or perhaps DED).After his death it passed to his Holiness the deceased King SEND, on account of its importance.So it was replaced at the feet [of the statue].where it was enclosed by the sacred scribe and the learned cbief of the physicians NETERHOTPOU.This book being joined to ...... the physician consecrated offerings to it of bread, liquors, and perfumes, to be burned in the name of the Goddess Isis, of the God Horus, of the city of Cherej, and of the gods Chonsou and Thot [surnamed] Am-Chrod.Before this Papyrus was published in facsimile Brugsch had communicated a paper on medicine as known to the ancient Egyptians, which he says was founded on an examination of this Papyrus.2M. Chabas, also, in his 1M1lange8 1yyptologiques, Paris, 1862, had a chapter on this papyrus: " La medecine des anciens Egvptiens-Antiquite des Clystcres-Signes de la Grossesse."There is, more recently, a short but im- portant "Note on the Medical Papyrus of Berlin, by P. le Page Renouf," in the Zeitschrift fuir -Agy ti8che Sprache und Alterthum,skunde, 1873, pp. 123-125.Brugsch says the Papyrus is thus described by Mr. Passalacqua in his Catalogue raizonnh et hiqtorique, Paris, 1826, No. 1,558, p. 207: "It was carefully covered up in a vase of baked clay, along with the small manuscript 1,559, in similar hieratic writing, and bearing a date and cartouche8; this vase was discovered alone amongst the ruins, at a depth of about 10 feet, near the pyramids of Sakarah at Memphis."It is supposed to have formed part of the medical library at Memphis referred to by Galen.3According to Brugsch, the Papyrus, as judged by the writing, goes back to the 19th or 20th Dynasty, or, as he also puts it, to the fourteenth century before Christ.Parts of the treatise indicate their origin at a much earlier period.Thus the beginning of the second division of the papyrus at page 15 (see Fig. 3) indicates the existence of this portion in the most remote periods (2nd or 3rd Dynasty).There is no complete translation of this Papyrus, but Brugsch gives an indication of the contents of each page, and M. Chabas like- wise gives a brief summary.Both of them translate some special portions of the text.M. Chabas says there are in this papyrus not less than 170 medical receipts applicable to a large number of different diseases; of these, 28 are for ene- mata.M. Chabas gives many prescriptions in illustration of the form of treatment pursued.