Medicine in the Days of the Pharaohs

by Bruno Halioua

At the temple of Kom Ombo near Aswan, an enigmatic frieze depicts the deified pharaoh Imhotep receiving a set of elaborate implements, some of which strikingly resemble modern surgical side by side with eye-of-Horus amulets one finds what surely must be forceps. Evidence of the medical practice of ancient Egypt has come down to us not only in pictorial art but also in papyrus scrolls, in funerary inscriptions, and in the mummified bodies of ancient Egyptians themselves. Bruno Halioua and Bernard Ziskind provide a comprehensive account of pharaonic medicine that is illuminated by what modern science has discovered about the lives (and deaths) of people from all walks of life--farmers, fishermen, miners, soldiers, scribes and priests, embalmers, construction workers, bakers, prostitutes. From mummies and medical papyri we are able to recognize the aches of osteoarthritis, imagine the occupational hazards faced by press-ganged stonemasons, and learn of the gynecological complaints of courtesans. In presenting these stories Halioua and Ziskind throw light on some of the most enduring questions about life and death in about physicians whose skills predate Hippocrates by twenty-five centuries and were first made famous by Homer; about the remedies and techniques they employed, at once strange and strangely familiar; about the men, women, and children they treated; and about the diseases and injuries they were called upon to heal.

Genres: Egypt, Medicine

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2005

Reviews

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of hopeful measures, and almost no hope for successful treatment of serious diseases. The book is a testament to the longings of imagination, longings for health and protection that demanded tradition be put aside enough to permit a continual search for real cures... and how good it is to live in a world that has learned how to use a microscope. The demons are invisible no longer! And they arrive as bacteria, gene glitch, virus, and online trolls.

[James F · Rating 2 out of 5]

A work on ancient Egyptian medicine, more recent than Nunn but not nearly as good. The authors are quite uncritical and take far too many writings and representations which are probably mythical or symbolic literally and at face value -- they even include an appendix explaining the ten plagues of Moses!

[Ari · Rating 1 out of 5]

Contains basic factual inaccuracies, heavily relies on Greek accounts, and liberally presents assertions from modern secondary sources as facts. Also it conflates thousands of years of Egyptian medical advancement as though it was all true at the same time. Cannot recommend.