SELECTED STUDIES

The Unveiled Ebers Papyrus

By Prof. Talaat I. Farag

 

Today, there is revival of interest in the study of ancient Chinese, Egyptian and Indian medicines. Some of the earliest accounts are the medical papyri--written by Ancient Egyptian doctors in the Pharaonic era--represent a treasure to those who seek this information. Among these key historical texts are three key papyri: Kahum Papyrus, the Edwin Smith Papyrus and the Ebers Papyrus. These were copied on 1820 B.C., 1550 B.C. and 1500 B.C. respectively. 

The Ebers Papyrus, the most recent of the three texts, was purchased in Luxor by Edwin Smith in 1862 under the pretext that the papyrus was said to have been found between the legs of a mummy in the Assassif area of the necropolis of Thebes on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. Some have claimed that it came from the tomb of a doctor perhaps even from the same tomb as the Edwin Smith Papyrus. Ebers is dated by a passage on the verso to the 9th year of Amenhotep I's reign circa 1534 B.C. 

Ebers remained in the possession of Edwin Smith until it was purchased by George Ebers, a German Egyptologist in 1872 and in his publication of 1873, he referred to it for the first time as Ebers Papyrus. It is now on display at the University Library of Leinzij. In 1875, Ebers published a superb facsimile edition of the papyrus with an Egyptian-Latin vocabulary and introduction. Joachim produced a German translation as early as 1890 and Bryan an English translation in 1930. Bryan's was a rendition into English of German and other translations of the Egyptian original. Elliot Smith, in the introduction of Bryan's book stated, "Dr. Cyril Bryan is to be commended for giving us in English, an interpretation based upon Dr. Joachim's translation though not slavishly following it." The next major development was a translation into English by Dr. Ebbell in 1937. Unfortunately, Ebbell made many interpretations of obscure Egyptian words for which there is no firm linguistic basis or confirmation. The current definitive translation is by von Deines, Jarpow and Westendorf which was produced in 1958 as part of a four-volume collection entitled "Grundriss" and is only available in German. 

In 1987, Prof. Paul Ghaliounghui MD (Cairo), MRCP (London)--the head of the medical department at Ain Shams University in Egypt--provided a new English translation, based largely on the Grundriss along with  the support and encouragement of Wolfhart Westendorf, who contributed a Foreword to this book. Unfortunately, the book, although printed and bound, was not on sale until 2004, 17 years following Ghaliounghui's death.

Ghaliounghui was acquainted with both pharaonic medicine and modern medicine. A man of much influence, he was the founder and member of a large number of  medical societies in Egypt, the Swiss and American societies of endocrinology, the Royal Society of medicine and the International Society of History of Medicine. Throughout his illustrious career, he spent prolonged periods in Austria, England, France, Kuwait, Switzerland and the United States and lived by the following phrase: "Life is short. Art is long. Experience is fallible. Opportunity is fleeting. Judgment is difficult" which appears frequently and consistently in much of his lectures and books.

Judging from the descriptors in the Edwin Smith Papyrus, the artifact appears to belong to a surgeon. Alternately, it seems the Ebers Papyrus belongs to a physician as it deals with internal medicine and its specialties. Ebers, which is comprised of 110-pages (or over 20-metres long) is by far the longest of the medical papyri. It is a collection of different medical texts, which have been run together in a rather haphazard manner. Many paragraphs are out of order; this suggests that more than one source had been copied onto the same roll. Ebers discusses treatment of skin diseases, intestinal worms, migraine, diseases of the eye, and unspecified diseases of the liver, etc. It contains paragraphs concerned with various injuries including burns, beating, flesh wounds and bites--both by man and by crocodile. The final paragraphs of the Ebers are of more surgical nature, concerned with ulcers and with tumors and swellings. The papyrus also contains a short section on psychiatry. It describes a condition of severe despondency that is equivalent to our modern definition of depression. It is an early compendium of many different original sources assembled in an order which often appears random.

Thanks to the Egyptian National Research Centre and the international bio-anthropologist Prof. Fawzia Hussien for unveiling Prof. Ghaliounghui's English translation of the Ebers Papyrus, and making it available for sale. Its title is "The Ebers Papyrus: A New English Translation, Commentaries and Glossaries", published by the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (Cairo, 1987). The book is available at the the Department of Scientific Culure, 101 Kasr EL Eini Street, Cairo, Egypt at the cost of $80.

Interestingly, Prof. Fawzia Hussien is organizing with the University of Manchester (UK) a 10-day training course on "The Evaluation of Ancient Egyptian Human Remains" which will be held at the National Research Centre (NRC) starting in 8 January 2005.

 

Bibliography


Prof. Talaat I. Farag, MD,FRCP,FACP,FACMG is a former adjunct professor at Dalhousie University in Canada. He is the founder of The Ambassadors Research Foundation in 1998. Email: tfarag@dal.ca.


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