Ancient Egyptian Medicine: The Papyrus Ebers

by Cyril P. Bryan (Translator)

English, German (translation)

Genres: Nonfiction, Medicine

167 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 1998

Reviews

[Godiva · Rating 3 out of 5]

While an excellent work in terms of making the pharmaceutical recipes and incantations of the Ebers Papyrus available to the larger public, Bryan, like Breasted, has the unfortunate tendency to claim superstition and uselessness bordering on idiocy for most if not all ancient Egyptian medicinal practices. His continued and rather condescending insistence that certain recipes are "...almost as ingenious as they were useless" perhaps doesn't detract from the scholarly value of this work, but it certainly detracts from any claim to objectivity this book may've had. Bryan first published his efforts in 1930, so I suppose he could be cut some slack in that respect - Egyptology as a field and the study of ancient Egyptian medicine in particular has evolved quite a bit since.

[Vicky P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating monograph about the translation of the Papyrus Ebers - I read the 1934 reprint of the 1930 edition, and the Introduction by G Elliot Smith was great because it almost felt as if it was chastising Bryan for his tendency to mock the ancients for their medical knowledge (or lack thereof). I hadn't heard of the Papyrus Ebers before, but now I'm very invested in reading more.

[Emily]

Read for a piece I'm working on about skin. I am always amused by the fact that the first account of eczema is written on paper, and that skin became paper later on.