Edwin Smith (1822–1906), Georg Ebers (1837–1889)
JEWELS OF THE NILE. Edwin Smith, an American collector of antiquities residing in Egypt during the second half of the nineteenth century, was responsible for bringing to the modern world the two most important ancient Egyptian medical manuscripts: the Ebers Papyrus and the eponymous Edwin Smith Papyrus.
The practice of medicine was highly advanced in ancient Egypt, thanks to physician, engineer, and architect Imhotep (2650–2600 BCE). A small fragment of Imhotep’s writings survives in the 17-page, 377-line Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE), a manuscript rich in anatomical figures and treatments of battlefield injuries. A far more comprehensive and significant medical record is contained in the Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE). This 110-page medical jewel consists of 877 section entries (rubrics) and some 700 prescriptions and remedies, as well as magic spells to combat demons and descriptions of such medical problems as diabetes, intestinal disorders, depression, asthma, arthritis, and crocodile bites. Among the many medicinal plants described are myrrh, frankincense, cardamom, dill, fennel, and thyme.
Smith purchased both papyri in Egypt in 1862. The Edwin Smith Papyrus remained in his hands until his death in 1906 and is now housed at the New York Academy of Medicine. The Ebers Papyrus was supposedly found wrapped in mummy cloth, in an excellent state of preservation between a mummy’s legs in the Theban necropolis. Smith sold the manuscript in 1869, and in 1872 it was purchased by Georg Ebers, a German Professor of Egyptology at the University of Leipzig, where the manuscript now resides. Written in hieratic script, a cursive hieroglyphics, the manuscript was translated into German in 1890 and into English in the 1900s.
Ebers was a man of letters. In addition to his scholarly works, he authored several Egyptian guidebooks and historical romantic novels (e.g., The Bride of the Nile: A Romance, 1887), the most successful of which popularized Egyptian customs.
SEE ALSO Colchicine (c. 70).
The world’s oldest surviving surgical document describes in extensive detail the examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of forty-eight medical conditions. Among the entries is the curing of infection with moldy bread, pre-dating Fleming’s discovery of penicillin by some 3,500 years.