Egyptians Medicine

Egyptians Medicine

1. The river Nile

   • Every year Nile would flood and fertilize the fields
   • Provided water for irrigation
   • Doctors got ideas from Nile (channels)
   • Barges on Nile enabled fairly swift transportation of herbs and plants (for medicine) from India, China and parts of Africa

2. Improved writing

   • Ideas could be recorded and communicated better
   • Papyrus= paper made from reeds
   • Had a lot of time to read and write
   • Priests kept 'Books of Thoth': contained treatments and spells

3. How did they think disease was caused?

   • Channels in body which carried blood, air and water- these could get blocked
   • Rotting (undigested) food in bowels would give off gases which would seep around body

4. Who treated the sick?

   • Master physicians
   • Priests (magicians)

5. Why did they know about the body?

   • Heart, pulse, liver, brain, lungs and blood
     • Did not understand proper roles of these parts

6. How did religion limit medicine?

   • Believed destroying someone's body meant they wouldn't go into afterlife