 | Ebers Papyrus
The Ebers Papyrus was purchased in Luxor by Edwin Smith in 1862. It is unclear from whom the papyrus was purchased, but it was said to have been found between the legs of a mummy in the Assassif district of the Theben Necropolis. Edwin Smith placed the papyrus up for sale and it was purchased in 1872 by the Egyptologist George Ebers (shown here), for who it is named. In 1875, Ebers published a facsimile. The papyrus consists of 110 pages, and is by far the most lengthy of the medical papyri. It is popularly dated back to 1543 B.C., but some contend that it is much older, perhaps dating back to 3000 B.C. The text consists of a collection of different medical texts in a rather unorganized fashion. It contains 877 recipes concerning a great variety of diseases or symptoms. The structure of the papyrus is organized into paragraphs, each of which are arranged into blocks addressing specific medical ailments. The arrangement is as follows:
1) Recitals before medical treatment, to increase the virtue of the remedy,
2) Internal medical diseases/Diseases of the eye,
3) Diseases of the skin,
4) Diseases of the extremities,
5) Diseases of women,
6) Information of an anatomic, physiologic, and pathologic nature, and explanation of words, and
7) Surgical diseases. |
