Page:Papyrus Ebers - the earliest medical work extant (IA 101705945.nlm.nih.gov).pdf/8

6 Thoth and Taaut, is the famous Hermes Trismegistus of the Greeks, the same who was regarded by the alchemists of the Middle Ages, with superstitious reverence, as the father of alchemy.

However this may be, all historians accord in representing Hermes as the inventor of arts and sciences. He first taught the Egyptians writing, invented arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music; gave laws to the people, and regulated their religious ceremonies. At the time of Jamblichus, who lived A. D. 363, the priests of Egypt showed forty-two books, which they attributed to Hermes (Thuti). Of these, according to that author thirty-six contained the history of all human knowledge; the last six of which treated of anatomy of disease, of affections of the eye, instruments of surgery, and medicines. The papyrus Ebers is indisputably one of these ancient Hermetic works; a study of the synopsis of the contents, given further on, will justify this belief.

The receipts and prescriptions contained in this treatise are evidently collected from various sources, some of them being quoted in still more ancient writings. It bears internal evidence of having been used in the healing art, for the word “good” occurs in the margin in several places, written in handwriting from the body of the lighter colored ink. Ebers thinks the compilation was made by the College of Priests at Thebes, basing his conjectures partly on the locality in which it was discovered. The other great Egyptian Universities were located at Memphis, Heliopolis, Sais, and Chennu.

Ebers gives a synopsis of the contents of the entire work, and a literal translation of the first two pages of the roll, reserving a commentary and fuller translation for a future publication. A hieroglyphic translation of a portion of the Hieratic manuscript also accompanies the plates; the latter, 107 in number, are faithful and beautiful productions of the original papyrus, in the same yellow-brown color. The second volume contains a Hieroglyphic-Latin Glossary by Stern.