Ancient Egyptian Medicine
BMJ 1996; 312 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.312.7039.1166a (Published 04 May 1996) Cite this as: BMJ 1996;312:1166- Alex Paton
John F Nunn British Museum Press, £25, pp 240 ISBN 0 71410981 9
Pharoanic Egypt was surely one of the most sophisticated of civilisations. A plentiful supply of food from around the Nile, freedom from foreign domination because of its isolation, and a remarkable combination of skills (from hieroglyphs to pyramids) ensured the country's continuity throughout the three millennia before the Christian era. The price was an intensely conservative society: medical practice, for example, scarcely changed until the Persians conquered the country in 525 BC.
The medical evidence, as John Nunn recounts in Ancient Egyptian Medicine, comes from a dozen papyri, thousands of …
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