Page:The Harveian oration 1904.djvu/44

THE HARVEIAN ORATION, 1904 21 of, the Pharaoh and having its own staff of physicians. And it is manifest that our calling held a distinguished position at the time when art and learning in Egypt were at their zenith.

Few of the temples of I-em-hotep remain. When viewing the ruins of Heliopolis, the 'On' of the Bible, the visitor naturally wonders in what part of the wide area the great halls were situated in which Horus was healed after being wounded by Typhon, those halls which, as Ebers tells us, had from mythical times been used for clinical purposes by the celebrated faculty of medicine of Heliopolis. A small temple of I-em-hotep still exists at Philae, with certain adjacent court-yards, which were probably employed for medical purposes. I subjoin a ground plan and three photographs of these remains at Philae.

This temple is contemporary with the earlier Ptolomies; the hieroglyphics are of the date of Ptolomy IV, but the inscription in Greek on the cornice of the southern door (see Plate VI) is later, dating from the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes, two centuries before the Christian era.' The colonnade (Plate V) and also the courtyard in front of the temple appear to be still later additions. Since the Coptic houses and much accumulated rubbish have been cleared away, and certain necessary restorations made by Captain Lyons, on behalf of the Public Works Department of Egypt, all details of the temple can be examined with ease. 1. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, p. 523