Egyptian Medicine

3000BC - 1300BC

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Egyptian Medicine

How did life in Egypt affect medicine?

- Religion 
[helped increase medical knowledge, they believed in life after death  so bodies were embalmed for afterlife, some internal organs were taken out and preserved]

- Trade
[they had widespread trade links, ships and merchants arrived from India, China and parts of Africa bringing new herbs with them. They built a wide knowledge of herbal medicine because of this.]

- The Nile and Farming
[the doctors thought more about illnesses, got their ideas from the River Nile, River Nile was important to the health of their farmland. Doctors started thinking about different channels in the body that could become blocked because of the River Nile]

- Improved Writing
[developed 'Paryrus' quicker way of writing, doctors benifited as treatments and remedies could be written down and passed on]

- Wealth 
[River Nile was the start of Egypts wealth, river flooded each year covering the surrounding land with fertile soil which helped with growing crops, successful so the landowners became rich, wealthy people created a demand for skilled doctors and then hired them and payed them therefore doctors were motivated to learn more things]  

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Egyptian Medicine

Who treated the sick?

- priest magicians 

- women doctors 

- healing priest 

- specialist doctors 

- women 

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Egyptian Medicine

What did they know about the body? 

- Channels from the heart carried blood around 

- the heart, pulse, liver , brain, lungs 

- the channels carried air and water  

did not explore further into the body 

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Egyptian Medicine

What did they think caused disease? 

- blocked channels around the body

- rotting foods in the channels

- God

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Egyptian Medicine

How did they prevent or treat illnesses? 

- herbal remedies (honey, malachite) 

- simple surgery

- use of charms (scarab beetles) 

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Egyptian Medicine

Summary : What was new? 

- There were doctors as well as medicine men 

- Doctors looked for logical causes of disease

- Doctors could identify some parts of the body

- New herbs were used as medicines

- Metal instruments were used for surgery  

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Egyptian Medicine

Summary: What stayed the same?

- People still belived in gods and spirits 

- Herbs were still used as medicines

- People still did not understand how the body worked 

- People still did not understand what caused diseases 

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