Ancient Egypt had a sophisticated medical system for its time, with specialists in different fields of medicine. Egyptian doctors made many early advances, including keeping detailed medical records on papyrus, practicing circumcision and primitive forms of surgery, and recognizing cancer and other diseases. Ancient Egyptian medicine was also tied closely to religious beliefs, with priests sometimes serving as doctors and illnesses seen as punishments from the gods. Overall, Egyptian medicine laid the foundation for later medical traditions and set a high standard in the ancient world.

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Medicine and Surgery in
ancient Egypt
Sameh Shehata
Egypt

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Sameh Shehata
• Prof. Of Pediatric surgery . Alexandria
Egypt
• WOFAPS Vice President .
• EPSA past president.
• IPEG ME Co Chair

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CONTENTS:
• How did we find out?
• Basic concepts .
• Egyptian doctors.
• Ranks and specialization.
• Tools.
• Techniques.
• Diseases.

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Homer c. 800 BC
• "In Egypt, the men
are more skilled in
medicine than any of
human kind”
Odyssey

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HOW DID WE FIND OUT ?

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ANCIENT MEDICAL RECORDS
Egyptian Papyrus

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 Egyptologists have found documents, written on
a type of paper called papyrus, that describe
medical techniques similar to those used today.

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Papyrus Plant

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Processing

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Rolls ready for writing

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Finished product after writing

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KEY MEDICAL PAPYRI
• The Kahun (1825 B.C)
gynecology
• The Ebers (1534 B.C)
internal medicine
• The Edwin Smith Papyrus (1600 B.C)
surgical wounds and fractures
Edwin Smith Papyrus
Ebers papyrus

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BASIC CONCEPTS

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• Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex
system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals
which were an integral part of ancient
Egyptian society.

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Ancient Egyptian Gods

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Health and God
 Religious beliefs dominated the ancient
Egyptians' view of healing.
 Doctors were often priests who were able to
communicate with the gods
 Illness was due to the presence of evil spirits or
poisons.
 Doctors were often priests.

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Sekhmet The goddess of
medicine
• Ancient Egypt.
Sekhmet, goddess of
fire, war, vengeance,
menstruation, and
medicine in ancient
Egyptian religion.

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THE METU
 Heart as key to concepts
of anatomy and
physiology
• 22 channels.
• Carry blood or air.

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MUMMIES 1500 BC
Learning human anatomy

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What is Mummy?
• A mummy, in terms of Ancient Egypt, is body
that has been well preserved for thousands of
years.

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Anubis , the god of
mummification

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70 days process

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Canopic jars
LiverLungsIntestine Stomach

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Sarcophagus (coffin)

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How king Tut looked like

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SIGNIFICANCE OF MUMMY
• Idea about conserving a dead body.
• Idea about Surgery and Dressing.

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Egyptian Doctors

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Imhotep 2600 BC
• Polymath : architect,
engineer, physician.
• Build 1st step pyramid.
• Wrote Edwin Smith
Papyrus
• after his death, was
worshipped as a god
of healing.

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Merit Ptah
The chief physician
• first woman known by
name in the history of
the field of medicine,
• possibly the first
named woman in all
of science as well.
Wikipedia

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Ranks
• inspector of doctors,
• overseers
• chief doctors

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the first medical specialists,
• Egypt even had Homer wrote, “The
practice of medicine they [the Egyptians]
split into separate parts, each doctor being
responsible for the treatment of only one
disease.” (Michael and Mary B. Woods 18)

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Specialization
• ophthalmologist,
• gastroenterologist ,
• proctologist, dentists
• “doctors who supervise butcher”
• “inspection of liquid”

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The chief dentist
• In Ancient Egypt
physician Hesy-Re
from the Third
Dynasty recognized
dentistry as a surgical
specialty
• 1Repin

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Ancient Dentistry – the Root of all Dental
Techniques

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DENTISTR
Y
• Independent profession dated from early 3rd millennium
B.C.
• Poor teeth due to diet with sand leftovers due to grinding
rain
• Improvement of grinding madrine
• Evidence of forced teeth removal
• Presumption of extreme dental pain might be medicated
with opium.

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Dental drill. Same type for drilling holes in
stone beads.
The next time you visit a dentist be
thankful for high powered drills.

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Ancient gynecology

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Kahun Gynaecological
Papyrus
• is the oldest known medical text of any
kind. Dated to c. 1800 BCE, it deals with
women's health—
gynaecological diseases, fertility,
pregnancy, contraception, etc.
• The text is divided into thirty-four sections,
each section dealing with a specific
problem and containing diagnosis and
treatment.

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Hieroglyphic for child birth

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Birthing scene from the Temple of Dendera

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Birth stools

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Proctologists

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The royal Guardian of the anus
• The first mention of the enema in medical
literature comes from Ancient Egypt.
• was considered such an essential
component of good health that every
pharaoh had his own so-called "Guardian
of the anus.

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First pharmacists
Ancient Egyptians would be familiar with
the idea of a modern chemist.
Their pharmacists prepared prescriptions
of ointments, potions, inhalers and pills
by processing plant materials that were
used to treat specific illnesses.

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• Egyptian Pottery with
hieroglyphics-The wines
infused with medicines.
• The bottles were labeled
according to contents,
year, manufacturer.

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Social media ?

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TOOLS

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Surgical tools:- knives, hooks, drills,
• forceps, pinchers, scales, spoons, saw
• and vase with burning incense

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Tomb carvings of physician
depicting medical tools.

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Scalpels
SURGERY TOOLS
Medical kit

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Wound suturing
• Physicians have used suture to close
wounds for at least 4,000 years.
Archaeological records from ancient Egypt
show that Egyptians used linen and animal
sinew to close wounds

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Wound dressing
• 1st day :Raw meat is known to be an efficient
way to prevent bleeding.
• Honey is a potent hygroscopic material and
stimulates the secretion of white blood cells, the
natural first body defense mechanism.

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TECHNIQUES

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CIRCUMCISION

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2345 BC

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Why did they circumcise ?
• Religious sacrifice.
• Clean.
• Sign of adulthood and strength.
• Marking higher class
• Humiliating enemies.

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Herodotus 500 BC
• the Egyptians “practice circumcision for
the sake of cleanliness, considering it
better to be cleanly than comely.

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Trepanning

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Indications
• Trepanation is one of the oldest surgical
interventions carried out as treatment for
cranial trauma and neurological diseases,
• magical and religious purpose of expelling
the evil spirits which caused the mental
illness, epilepsy, or migraine symptoms.

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Urethral stricture
• Urethral strictures were dilated
using reeds. This was the earliest non-
surgical intervention ever applied in
history. In modern medicine, the first
intervention was reported in the AD 1880’s
by catgut balloons.

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Pus
• The surgical treatment of abscesses or
cysts was described in the Ebers Papyrus.
• “Instructions for a swelling of pus …. A
disease that I treat with knife-treatment. If
anything remains in pocket, it recurs”.

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the world's first prosthetic toe

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Tracheostomy
• Two sculptured slabs from the 1st dynasty
(3150 – 2925 BC) dating to kings Aha and
Djer (2nd and 3rd kings) show
a seated person directing a pointed
instrument to the throat of another who
was kneeling. Some Egyptologists believe
it was a tracheotomy (opening the airways
to maintain breathing) procedure.

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DISEASES

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Angina Pectoris
• A good description of angina pectoris
(Ebers Papyrus)
• “shouldst though examine a patient with
stomach disease suffering from pain in the
arms, in the breast, and on one side of the
stomach, say: “Death threatens’”

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Cancer
• At least 39 mummies with cancer have
been identified. Cancer of the uterus has
been described in the Ebers papyrus
•
• “Another for one in whom there is eating
on her uterus in whose vagina ulcers have
appeared”.

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Breast Ca
• Breast cancer was also described, but was non-curable.
•
• “If thou examinst a man having bulging tumors on his
breast, and if thou puttst thy hand upon his breast upon
these tumors, and thou findst them very cool, there being
no fever at all when thy hand touches him, they have no
granulation, they form no fluid, they do not generate
secretions of fluid, and they are bulging to thy hand.
Thou shouldst say concerning him: One having bulging
tumors. An ailment with which I will not contend”.

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The brain
• The Edwin Smith Papyrus contains a description
of the brain and its pulsation. Physicians were
able to correlate it with paralysis. That was
affirmed 1200 years before Hippocrates, the
father of medicine, who thought the brain was
nothing but a gland.

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• Poliomyelitis:
suspected in few
mummies

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CONCLUSION
• The medicinal skills of ancient Egyptians were
far beyond their time. With the writing of the
first medical texts, performance of the first
surgical techniques, use of the first splints and
bandages, the first drug therapies, and the first
medical dictionary,.

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• the ancient Egyptians revolutionized the world
of medicine and laid a path and framework for
the advances in medicine that exist in our
world today

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• In conclusion, Ancient Egypt was the
leading civilization when it came to
medicine and surgery. Whether it be
having the first doctor, having great detail
of medicine on papyrus, minor topical
surgeries, or their knowledge of human
anatomy, all of this set Egypt ahead of the
rest of the world.

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Thank you !