摘要
Objective:Demonstrate that some ancient Egyptian medical treatments are still used today while Greeks appropriated many concepts that have partially disappeared.Methods:Through the study of classical authors,Egyptian papyri,ancient medical sources and historical and recent research,this article examines some neglected aspects in the traditional picture of ancient Egyptian medicine,now considered the cradle of scientific inquiry.Results:A framework of important health conditions must be highlighted in Egypt:accurate diagnosis similar to the present,training of highly skilled specialists,a health care system,greatly advanced for its time,although including magical practices and spells,because all types of healers coexisted peacefully.Hippocratic medicine also adopted Egyptian incubation,the same scientific and rational systems in patient therapy and older Egyptian ideas and remedies.The brilliant Egyptian hypothesis about gastrointestinal residuals or wxdw,a methodical approach to interpreting internal diseases,opened the road to a coherent and scientific therapy.Based on the Egyptian idea of self-intoxication through dangerous materials and of pathogenic decay that survives in the modern use of the Greek word sepsis,different Greek medical schools have been influenced and are even well developed in modern times.When they realized that putrefaction began in the intestine,they applied mummification and embalming for corpses and employed emetics,purges and enemas in patients.Greeks,by contrast,to avoid contamination,adopted dead cremation and their false humoral theory remained until the 17th century AC,as well as the false benign pus.Conclusions:Egyptian physicians,still ignoring the concept of infection or inflammation,clearly recognized local purulence and identified the presence and growth of pathogenic agents in infections.Thus,they were pioneers in solving pyogenic lesion debridement and diagnose the feverish profile of a noxious laceration,starting the prevention and control of infection used today.
