ch enter the
breaths of life, and two for the left ear which in like manner admit the
breaths of death."

[Illustration: 310.jpg A DEAD MAN RECEIVING THE BREATH OF LIFE. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Naville, in the
_AEgyptische Todtenbuch_, vol. i. pl. lxix. The deceased
carries in this hand a sail inflated by the wind,
symbolizing the air, and holds it to his nostrils that he
may inhale the breaths which will fill anew his arteries,
and bring life to his limbs.

The "breaths" entering by the right ear, are "the good airs, the
delicious airs of the north;" the sea-breeze which tempers the burning
of summer and renews the strength of man, continually weakened by the
heat and threatened with exhaustion. These vital spirits, entering the
veins and arteries by the ear or nose, mingled with the blood, which
carried them to all parts of the body; they sustained the animal, and
were, so to speak, the cause of its movement. The heart, the perpetual
mover--_haiti_--collected them and redistributed them throughout
the body: it was regarded as "the beginning of all the members," and
whatever part of the living body the physician touched, "whether the
head, the nape of the neck, the hands, the breast, the arms, the legs,
his hand lit upon the heart," and he felt it beating under his fingers.
Under the influence of the good breaths, the vessels were inflated and
worked regularly; under that of the evil, they became inflamed, were
obstructed, were hardened, or gave way, and the physician had to remove
the obstruction, allay the inflammation, and re-establish their vigour
and elasticity. At the moment of death, the vital spirits "withdrew with
the soul; the blood," deprived of air, "became coagulated, the veins
and arteries emptied themselves, and the creature perished" for want of
breaths.

The majority of the diseases from which the ancient Egyptians suffered,
are those which still attack their successors; ophthalmia, affections
of the stomach, abdomen, and bladder, intestinal worms, varicose veins,
ulcers in the leg, the Nile pimple, and finally the "divine mortal
malady," the _divinus morbus_ of the Latins, epilepsy. Anaemia, from
which at least one-fourth of the present population suffers, was not
less prevalent than at present, if we may judge from the number of
remedies which were used against hematuria, the principal cause of it.
The fertility of the women entailed a number