The library of health
Erodoto says that the Egyptian medicine was highly specialized. Our documentation tells about the Smith Papyrus (so-called by its first owner’s name) that unfortunately has not reached us complete, it’s the copy of a text from the Ancient Reign, made in the Hyksos Epoch, that includes a gloss to explain the no longer understandable words.
Another source is the so-called Ebers Papyrus (it too, from the Hyksos Epoch), 20 meters long, a systematic collection of all the medical cases taken from different treaties, that has reached us complete and with a gloss. To these papyruses other eight fragmentary texts are added, some contemporary, others of a later time, that a re simple notes written by apprentices or rushed copies of the last original ones.
Under the profile of the material, it results from these documents that science cared about, on the whole, surgery, general medicine and many specializations among which ophthalmology, gynaecology, paedriatics, gerontology and diseases of the anus.
The systhematic procedure appears exemplary: as their modern colleagues, the Egyptian doctors examined the sick, they identified the disease according to the symptoms (diagnosis) and they foresaw the course and the result (prognosis), and they prescribed a therapy.

Sleep, diet, and in the administration of remedies among which the most frequent are purges.
The prescriptions that have reached us indicate mostly vegetal ingredients (almost the whole Egyptian flora is used) and rarely minerals (allume, copper, iron oxide, limestone, carbonate and sodium bicarbonate, sulphur, arsenic compounds, coal); there are also some ingredients that act as a vehicle (beer, wine, honey, animal fats, bone-marrow, clay). The remedy was administrated as a drink, a mush, pills and cataplasms. All the ingredients appear almost always fit for the prefixed therapeutic purpose, and anyway chosen with a natural science criterion, and never obeying to religious or philosophical premises. The magic formulas addressed to a healing divinity were included in the treatment only for precaution (as saying:” you never know!”), to give the patient more hope and for the diseases to extra-physique causes. Many remedies included at least one rare and expensive ingredient, often imported from abroad (particularly from Byblo) and this tells us that the sick person’s psychology in Ancient Egypt was the same as today. The doctors prepared the prescriptions themselves but they got the raw material from a pharmaceutical organization in hierarchies. When they gave the medicine they always gave a lot of advice on hygiene, that was mostly about healthy habits.

The heart, motor of life.
“If the doctor lays his hands on the head, on the nape, on the hands, on the stomach, on the arms or on the feet, everywhere he falls back to the heart, because its vessels led to all the limbs”.
One of the doctrines appear on the Ebers Papyrus, from which it’s deducted that the Egyptian doctors thought the heart the center of life and it seems that they connected its beat to the pulse in the wrist. The literary texts describe besides the heart as the place of the will and of the emotions, besides being the place for the sins. The center of the human organism both physical and spiritual is the heart, while the importance of the brain wasn’t considered.
In the Ebers Papyrus it’s mentioned even the number and the place of the vessels that begin from the heart. They bring air to the limbs, water to the lungs, to the liver, to the spleen and to the anus, blood to the temples, sperm to the testicles, urine to the bladder and, finally, excrements to the anus. The doctrine is the result of observations, at least partly, on corpses, of which the arteries are empty and so can seem water ducts. Concerning the blood vessels, while the water, the lymphatic vessels. It’s anyway with no doubt that the practice of the mummification made the Egyptians rather great experts on human anatomy, a knowledge that will be precious for surgery.
 

The sanitary structure
The group of doctors depended on a ministry of Health, bipartite as every other one, presided by “a great doctor of Upper Egypt” and one from “Lower Egypt”, from whom depended “the inspectors for the doctors” and “the supervisors for the doctors”.
There were also titles as, “supervisor of the house of health” (which was certainly a hospital organization), and doctors assigned to the priests, agricultural colonies, military colonies, workers’ villages and military units.
The general practitioner (semu) had to know everything even about veterinary science, included in the same medical books, but many added to the title one or more specializations: semu of the eyes, of the head, of the teeth and so on. The scientific leadership of the category was represented by the “doctors in the Palace” who were associated to the House of Life, the superior school of all the sciences. Even the pharmaceutical organization had hierarchies, with a “head pharmacist”, who directed and controlled the “keepers of the medicines” helped by technicians. The doctors’ treatments, when he wasn’t assigned to the priests or to a colony, were paid in kind.

The great surgery operations: a legend to discredit?
Because of the mummification, that made the Egyptians rather expert about human anatomy, surgery was certainly not unknown. But since every treatment was based upon the principle “primum non nocere” the surgical cases foresaw the use of scalpels only for external tumors and for the cautery of mild cases. The medical vocabulary has different names of scalpels, but we don’t know to what kind of tools they correspond to: anyway it’s probable that they used blades similar to razors and common knives. The military surgeons must have had a more rough hand, they were little more than bone-cutters, who closed the wounds both burning the tissues with red-hot irons or with caustic substances, and also with stitches. It’s probable that in these cases they didn’t even use anaesthetic, obtained, at least from the New Reign, from the sleeping-drought poppy, which was opium.
At this point, reaching three legends that are often repeated about Egyptian medicine, that tell about great surgical operations, of odontist operations and prothesis and therapeutic drilling on the brain, it’s good to consider that the Papyruses don’t mention them and their silence is confirmed from the fact that, thousands of Egyptian skulls were found in the excavations and on tens and tens of the mummies examined up to now, no traces of such operations have been found.

Hygienic notions
The Papyruses give scattered hygienic notions. It’s advised, for example, to insistently wash the body, and particularly the face, the mouth and the teeth in the morning, the hands before and after meals. It’s good to wear linen clothes, and about clothing, besides the skirt or the tunic, to use a triangular cloth around hips to protect genitals. It’s important, moreover, to have a complete and rational diet, divided in breakfast, a light lunch and an abundant dinner. To sleep, it is better to use a bed with an elastic spring, with a vegetal mattress and linen blankets.
It’s not allowed to use alcoholics excessively, limiting anyway to beer and wine (the latter more harmful than the former); in advanced age some mild aphrodisiac is permitted, mainly the lettuce, a plant sacred to the god of fecundity Min.
The person’s cleanliness, of the clothes and of the house, is obtained with a lot of water, incense and saltpeter.
The generally good climate and a simple life, very active and almost always in the open air, did the rest.
Relief of Ancient Egypt show that massages were practiced and that circumcision was in use.