Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/45

 custom that they owed their good health,—a fact to which both Herodotus and Diodorus testify. In principle this practice agrees with that adopted by modern physicians, who omit the emetics and substitute for the clysters the drinking of certain mineral waters during a limited period of the summer season and under the very agreeable surroundings of a comfortable hotel at Carlsbad, Ems, Wiesbaden or Saratoga. While the monthly plan of purging the system of harmful elements must certainly have been the more effective of the two, it cannot for a moment be doubted that exceedingly few moderns would be willing to subject themselves to such a régime.

In still other ways the ancient Egyptians displayed a most intelligent respect for every measure that tended to promote the general health of the community. They took care, for example, to prevent the entrance of decomposing materials into the soil and the ground water; priests skilled in work of this character made careful inspections of all meats that were to be used for food; stress was laid upon the importance of keeping the dwelling houses clean; the people were taught the value of bathing the body frequently, of cultivating gymnastic exercises, of clothing themselves suitably, and of employing the right sort of diet. At a still later period of their history they adopted the custom of drinking only water that had been either boiled or filtered. A particular kind of beer, the gift of their first king, Osiris, was the favorite beverage of the people. It was made from barley and doubtless possessed intoxicating properties, as is suggested by one of the papyrus texts in which the following charge is brought against a student: "Thou hast abandoned thy books and art devoting thyself to idle pleasures, going from one beer-house to another. Thou smellest so strongly of beer that men avoid thee."

A large proportion of the sources of information regarding the medicine of the ancient Egyptians have been brought to light during recent years, but so many gaps in the series still remain unfilled that it is not possible to furnish more than a disconnected and very imperfect account. Archaeological investigations, however, are being