The days in which sacred information was passed down into the hands of a select few are over, as medical knowledge is available to anyone with a handheld device. First, the physician has been dethroned from the godlike status they once held.

Medicine today is quickly evolving, and there are lessons to be learned from the ancient Egyptians. Finally, there was the verdict of a hopeless prognosis, where curative treatment was not offered. The next and more serious verdict determined that the injury or disease can be treated but may not be cured. James Henry Breasted, the first translator of the document, called this prognosis the “verdict.” There were three possible verdicts rendered by the Egyptian physician, the most favorable was a lesion or disease that can be treated and most likely cured. What surprised me was a system where the physician determined which patients to treat and which were hopelessly ill and did not merit curative treatment.Įach case in the Smith Papyrus contains physical observations of the disease or injury followed by a diagnosis, and a prognosis which determined the level of treatment offered. Physicians also realized the importance of examining the heart and pulse when determining the extent and nature of a disease and injury. For example, they recognized that the brain controlled bodily movement, with injury to one side of the brain leading to weakness of extremities of the opposite side. Others include tumors or ulcers, and injuries to bones and joints.Īncient Egyptian physicians were surprisingly sophisticated. The cases are organized anatomically according to location, and many of the cases are devoted to wounds of the skin. The Papyrus contains 48 clinical case presentations, each reflecting traumatic injury or other pathologic lesion. Throughout ancient Egyptian civilization, Imhotep was viewed as a god who obtained his knowledge of medicine directly from the heavens. The original author might have been Imhotep, high priest to the sun god Ra and medical advisor to the pharaohs, and the earliest physician in human history whose name we know. Tradition holds that information in the Smith Papyrus was passed down from the time of the Pyramids, nearly 5000 years ago. Documents reflecting daily mundane affairs were recorded in hieratic script, whereas temples, monuments, and official documents were written in the more readily recognizable hieroglyphics. The script differs from formal hieroglyphics which were more complex and painstaking to write. Written with a reed pen, the text is a simplified form of Egyptian writing known as hieratics.

The scroll is made of papyrus, an ancient form of paper made from fibers of a plant native to the Nile region.

The document is roughly fifteen feet long and three feet wide, and has writing on both the front and back. I found it in the library of the New York Academy of Medicine in Manhattan, in a translation of an ancient Egyptian medical scroll, the Smith Papyrus, pictured above.ĭuring the American Civil War, an Egyptologist named Edwin Smith acquired the scroll and brought it to the United States where it subsequently found a home at the Academy on Fifth Avenue. When researching the history of wound care I came across an interesting historical antecedent to today’s palliative care practices. The art of medicine is as old as human civilization, and what we think is new has often been done before.

Edwin smith papyrus imhotep