The article from the Ancient History Encyclopedia mentions three Papyri in particular which discuss specific diseases and treatments in detail. Other papyri will likely serve as documentation of the linkage between religion, magic, and medicine. The Brooklyn Papyrus describes a group of priests who would treat venomous snake bites and scorpion stings. That contributed to mysticism surrounding medicine which probably explains why it was linked with magic. That being said, without dissection, much of the internal workings of the human body were unknown. On the other hand, however, mummification was an extremely precise procedure when it came to the removal of certain organs and the chemistry of drying the body. The role of physicians socially and even politically will then help me transition into the role of physicians in a religious context.īecause death was so central to the Egyptians, medical research was inhibited by respect for a person’s postmortem body. The archaeological record should be helpful in that regard by looking at trends in lifespan over the course of the Egyptian State. Another aspect to consider is what the education system was with regard to the process of becoming a doctor. On the other side of the coin though, I want to know if regular people had access to Health Care. This sheds some light on where medical professionals may have fallen on the social ladder. He served Djoser, demonstrating that health was important to Pharoahs as early as the Old Kingdom. In my preliminary research I found that the first recorded King’s Physician was named Hesyre. Ideally, I would be able to look at each of these categories individually and break them down into subcategories by time period (probably Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms) I’m sure I’ll have to do my best not to get hung up on the biology side, but I’m interested to see what there is with regard to archaeological evidence. I will break this question down into other categories such as: how doctors fit into the socioeconomic spectrum, how medicine intertwined with religion (and even magic), and treatments they developed for both chronic illnesses and injuries/infection. In my research paper, I would like to answer the broad question, “what were medical practices like in Ancient Egypt?” As a STEM major, I think it would be cool to be working at an intersection between the archaeology of Ancient Egypt and my own life.
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