A Course of Treatment by Egyptian Doctors in 1300 BC

Medical practice in Egypt was based on specialization, so that there were different doctors for the eye, teeth or head. Egyptian doctors also were well aware of their limitations, however, and were told not to inflict unnecessary suffering on their patients, so there were many case where they had to say at least – ‘An ailment not to be treated’. They were recommended to take note of the treatments and medicines they used and of their effects, so that they had a record for similar cases in the future.

There were medicines to be taken internally, other to be applied to the outside of the body, and others still to be inhaled. Egyptian ingredients that can be identified today appear to be sound herbal remedies. However, some medicines had ingredients such as mice, beetles and dung, which aimed to drive out the demons causing the illness.

The Egyptians had a remarkable knowledge of the way the body worked, and knew about its internal arrangements through mummifying the dead. For them, the heart was the most important organ; they knew that it pumped blood round the body, and that the pulse ‘spoke the messages of the heart’. They also knew that injuries to one side of the brain affected the opposite side of the body.

In ancient Egypt, head wounds were treated buy application of a piece of meat on the first day, followed by a linen cloth soaked in honey or fat. With skull fractures, the patient was advised to maintain a sitting position, supported by bricks on either side.

Unlike the Mesopotamian medical traditions, Egyptians were surgically oriented and reset fractured, treated wounds and trephined the skull.

Doctors sometimes used surgery as well as medicine to treat patients, and opened injured skulls to relieve pressure in the brain. Before an operation the surgeon gave his patient a drink, presumably a painkiller, ‘to render it agreeable’. In the New Kingdom the painkiller might have been opium, imported from Cyprus.

There is evidence of opium use by ancient Egyptians in 1300 BC for the treatment of ‘excessive crying in chidlren’, and opium-soaked sponges were used to facilities surgery.

Because of the importance the Egyptians attached to ritual purity the surgeon and his assistants washed themselves and purified the instruments in fire before the operation. Both of these would cut down the risk of infection.

There is not much evidence of formal hospitals per se; Egyptians physicians, however, made house calls, had officially assigned duty stations at temples, and formally assigned to military units.

The Egyptians were a deeply religious people and prayers would always be used as well as medicines, even for the simplest ailments. In difficult cases, magic might be employed. It was also possible to visit temple of a deity associated with medicine, such as Imhotep, which had priests trained as a doctors.

At some temples the sick could spend a night close to the god’s sanctuary. During such stay, called ‘incubation’, the patient might be cured by the deity, or dream of the god and receive instructions for treatment. Even if no help was forth coming, the sufferer was spiritually comforted.
A Course of Treatment by Egyptian Doctors in 1300 BC

Cod liver oil in history of medicine

Cod-liver oil has been used since very early times by the Greenlanders, Laplanders and Eskimos.

In the 15th century the English physician Howel, in his formulary, recommended ‘cod oil’ in the preparation of a ‘cere cloth’ a kind of cerate to be used on wounds.

About 1730, Norwegian fishermen and farmers found that cod-liver oil cured rickets. In 1766 it was recorded that the oil was been used for treatment of rickets in Manchester, England.

Cod liver oil seems to have been used in Germany from a remote period as a domestic remedy in various forms of disease. It was first introduced into the Materia Medica by Dr. Thomas Percival, of London, in 1771 as a remedy for chronic rheumatism.

In 1841, Dr J. H Bennet of London published a treatise on Oleum Fecoris Aselli, in which he set forth its great value as a remedy in tubercular disease. From 1820 until 1920, there are numerous reports of clinical improvements in pulmonary and lymphatic tuberculosis with cod-liver oil therapy.

In 1854 the pharmacist Peter Moller introduced the new method of heating up the cod liver with steam resulting in golden tran that ‘tasted fresh’.

During 1860s the oil was largely viewed as a dietetic aid, and it is significant that the oil’s principal reputation in Newfoundland became as a general tonic, strengthener and preventive.

In 1918, Mellanby reported that he could produce rickets in dogs by feeding them oatmeal and could cure the disease by adding cod-liver oil to the diet.
Cod liver oil in history of medicine 

History of common cold

3000 years ago, the Chinese treated olds with a tea brewed from the ma huang plant. This plant produces a chemical called ephedrine.

The common cold was known among the ancient American Indian, Aztec and Maya civilization.

The famous early Greek physician Hippocrates – who lived around 460 BC to 377 BC – believed colds occurred when ‘waste matter’ built in the brain.

When the waste matter overflowed, it caused runny noses. That is why the Greeks called the common cold catarrh, meaning ‘flow’.

During the first century Pliny the Elder suggested ‘kissing the hairy muzzle of a mule’ as therapy for colds.

At the same time in Rome, Celsus wrote about the common cold and prescribed a more popular remedy – flagons of good Italian wine.

The cold is discussed in Arabic works dedicated primarily to pharmacy and dietetics. A cold was thought to be caused by the cold in winter, but can be offset with appropriate clothing.

A summer cold, however, described by Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), was caused by the seasonal heat, that ‘melted the hard excretions that are found in the brain and then they run down’.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, hot drinks that raised a sweat were thought to be perfect antidote for the cold.

Ben Franklin declared that fresh air prevented colds, since he observed that colds were contracted by close contact with other cold sufferers.

It was not until first Walter Kruse and then Alphonse Donchez in the early part of the 20th century demonstrated that viruses caused the common cold.

The first isolation of human rhinovirus was reported by two laboratories in the late 1950s: Price in 1956 and Pelon and co-workers in 1957.
History of common cold  

A Course of Treatment by Egyptian Doctors in 1300 BC

A Course of Treatment by Egyptian Doctors in 1300 BC
Egyptian doctors were well aware of their limitations, however, and were told not to inflict unnecessary suffering on their patients, so there were many case where they had to say at least – ‘An ailment not to be treated’. They were recommended to take note of the treatments and medicines they used and of their effects, so that they had a record for similar cases in the future.

There were medicines to be taken internally, other to be applied to the outside of the body, and others still to be inhaled. Egyptian ingredients that can be identified today appear to be sound herbal remedies. However, some medicines had ingredients such as mice, beetles and dung, which aimed to drive out the demons causing the illness.

The Egyptians had a remarkable knowledge of the way the body worked, and knew about its internal arrangements through mummifying the dead. For them, the heart was the most important organ; they new that it pumped blood round the body, and that the pulse ‘spoke the messages of the heart’. They also knew that injuries to one side of the brain affected the opposite side of the body.

Doctors sometimes used surgery as well as medicine to treat patients, and opened injured skulls to relieve pressure in the brain. Before an operation the surgeon gave his patient a drink, presumably a painkiller, ‘to render it agreeable’. In the New Kingdom the painkiller might have been opium, imported from Cyprus. Because of the importance the Egyptians attached to ritual purity the surgeon and his assistants washed themselves and purified the instruments in fire before the operation. Both of these would cut down the risk of infection.

The Egyptians were a deeply religious people and prayers would always be used as well as medicines, even for the simplest ailments. In difficult cases, magic might be employed. It was also possible to visit temple of a deity associated with medicine, such as Imhotep, which had priests trained as a doctors. At some temples the sick could spend a night close to the god’s sanctuary. During such stay, called ‘incubation’, the patient might be cured by the deity, or dream of the god and receive instructions for treatment. Even if no help was forth coming, the sufferer was spiritually comforted.
A Course of Treatment by Egyptian Doctors in 1300 BC