![]() Herodotus (The father of History), about 450BCE, wrote about Egyptians: 'The practice of medicine is so divided among them, that each physician is a healer of one disease and no more. Some pictures carved on the door-posts of a tomb in Memphis may be considered as the earliest known pictures of surgical operations (2500B. Additionally, he was known as the engineer of the step pyramid at Sakkara ( Cormack, 1965). ![]() ![]() Imhotep (2780BCE) was the most famous of early Egyptian physicians, Imhotep was the chief vizier to the pharaoh Zoser, who was the first king of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Documentation of the use of malachite in ancient Egypt as an eye paint and treatment around 4000BCE has been found ( Žuškin et al., 2008). The first mention of a physician in history is back to 3533BCE, at that time it was documented that Sekhet'enanch, chief physician healed the Pharaoh Sahura of the fifth dynasty from a disease in his nostrils ( Withington, 1894). Ancient Egypt (3300BCE to 525BCE) is where the first dawn of modern medical care has been found, including bone setting, dentistry, simple surgery, and the use of different sets of medicinal pharmacopeias ( Nunn, 2002). The Egyptian civilization extended for centuries along the sides of the Nile River in the place which is now the country Egypt as one of the greatest and oldest civilizations in the history of humankind, it was renowned for its remarkable achievements in several fields including arts, science, and medicine ( Kemp, 2007). It is the rational, logical, and advanced thinking exhibited in the Edwin Smith Papyrus that mandates its respect from modern otolaryngologists and all physicians alike.According to WHO traditional medicine can be defined to be the sum of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether used in health maintenance as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement, or treatment of physical and mental illness ( WHO, 2018). The authors attempt to uncover some of these fundamental ideas and trace them through time until their incorporation in our modern medical knowledge base. Many of the concepts physicians and patients today take as common knowledge originated in the Edwin Smith Papyrus. Hippocratic teachings were used to form the basis of modern medicine, and medical pioneers in the 17 century studied the ancient Greek texts as the origin for their ideas. With the dawn of the Renaissance, medicine would finally purge itself of its past supernatural foundation. ![]() Although Hippocrates teachings were recognized by some scholars during the Middle Ages, they did not make up the basis for mainstream medical knowledge. As Europe entered the Dark Ages, so did medicine yet again, reverting to spells and prayers instead of judgment and reason. It is believed that the ancient Greeks had knowledge of the contents of the Edwin Smith Papyrus and its teachings and used them as the basis for their writings. when Hippocrates and his disciples in ancient Greece would once again revive logic in medical thinking and teaching. As Egyptian civilization declined during the next millennium, the teachings of the Papyrus would be lost. The Edwin Smith Papyrus cast aside the prevailing magic and mysticism of that time in favor of logic and deductive reasoning. Although in modern medicine we take for granted that the use of physical examination and rational thinking lead to an accurate conclusion, 5,000 years ago, this was extraordinary. The text instructs the physician to examine the patient and look for revealing physical signs that may indicate the outcome of the injury. The Papyrus is divided into 48 cases, most of which describe traumatic injuries. The surviving scroll, a copy of an earlier text from around 3,000 B.C., gives us remarkable insight into the medical practice of ancient Egyptians in the Nile River bed during the dawn of civilization. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, discovered in 1862 outside of Luxor, Egypt, is the oldest known surgical text in the history of civilization.
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