the examination of mummies and skeletons is
yielding good results. There is little sign of the existence of gout or
of syphilitic diseases until late times (see MUMMY). A number of papyri
have been discovered containing medical prescriptions. The earliest are
of the XIIth Dynasty from Kahun, one being veterinary, the other
gynaecological. The finest non-religious papyrus known, the Ebers
Papyrus, is a vast collection of receipts. One section, giving us some
of "the mysteries of the physician," shows how lamentably crude were his
notions of the constitution of the body. It teaches little more than
that the pulse is felt in every part of the body, that there are vessels
leading from the heart to the eyes, ears, nose and all the other
members, and that "the breath entering the nose goes to the heart and
the lungs." The prescriptions are for a great variety of ailments and
afflictions--diseases of the eye and the stomach, sores and broken
bones, to make the hair grow, to keep away snakes, fleas, &c. Purgatives
and diuretics are particularly numerous, and the medicines take the form
of pillules, draughts, liniments, fumigations, &c. The prescriptions are
often fanciful and may thus bear some absurd relation to the disease to
be cured, but generally they would be to some extent effective. Their
action was assisted by spells, for general use in the preparation or
application, or for special diseases. In most cases several ingredients
are prescribed together: when the amounts are indicated it is by measure
not by weight, and evidently no very potent drugs were employed, for the
smallest measure specified is equal to about half of a cubic inch.
Little has yet been accomplished in identifying the diseases and the
substances named in the medical papyri.

See G. A. Reisner, _The Hearst Medical Papyrus_ (Leipzig, 1905),
(XVIIIth Dynasty), and for a great magical text of the Roman period
(3rd century A.D.) with some prescriptions, F. Ll. Griffith and H.
Thompson, _The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden_ (London,
1904).

_Literature_.--The vast mass of writing which has come down to us from
the ancient Egyptians comprises documents of almost every conceivable
kind, business documents and correspondence, legal documents, memorial
inscriptions, historical, scientific, didactic, magical and religious
literature; also tales and lyrics and other compositions in poetical
language. Most of these classes are dealt with in