of infirmities or local
affections which the doctors attempted to relieve, not always with
success.[*]

* With regard to the diseases of women, cf. _Ebers Papyrus_,
pis. xciii., xcviii., etc. Several of the recipes are
devoted to the solution of a problem which appears to have
greatly exercised the mind of the ancients, viz. the
determination of the sex of a child before its birth.

The science of those days treated externals only, and occupied itself
merely with symptoms easily determined by sight or touch; it never
suspected that troubles which showed themselves in two widely remote
parts of the body might only be different effects of the same illness,
and they classed as distinct maladies those indications which we now
know to be the symptoms of one disease. They were able, however,
to determine fairly well the specific characteristics of ordinary
affections, and sometimes described them in a precise and graphic
fashion. "The abdomen is heavy, the pit of the stomach painful, the
heart burns and palpitates violently. The clothing oppresses the sick
man and he can barely support it. Nocturnal thirsts. His heart is sick,
as that of a man who has eaten of the sycamore gum. The flesh loses
its sensitiveness as that of a man seized with illness. If he seek to
satisfy a want of nature he finds no relief. Say to this, 'There is an
accumulation of humours in the abdomen, which makes the heart sick. I
will act.'" This is the beginning of gastric fever so common in Egypt,
and a modern physician could not better diagnose such a case; the
phraseology would be less flowery, but the analysis of the symptoms
would not differ from that given us by the ancient practitioner. The
medicaments recommended comprise nearly everything which can in some way
or other be swallowed, whether in solid, mucilaginous, or liquid form.
Vegetable remedies are reckoned by the score, from the most modest herb
to the largest tree, such as the sycamore, palm, acacia, and cedar, of
which the sawdust and shavings were supposed to possess both antiseptic
and emollient properties. Among the mineral substances are to be noted
sea-salt, alum, nitre, sulphate of copper, and a score of different
kinds of stones--among the latter the "memphite stone" was distinguished
for its virtues; if applied to parts of the body which were lacerated
or unhealthy, it acted as an anaesthetic and facilitated the success of
surgical operations. Flesh take