The Egyptians believed well-being was endangered by earthly and supernatural forces alike, in particular evil spirits stealing into the body through the orifices and consuming the victim’s vital substance. Health was associated with correct living, being at peace with the gods, spirits and the dead; illness was a matter of imbalance which could be restored to equilibrium by supplication, spells and rituals. Thus, someone struck blind might invoke a god: “Ptah, the lord of Truth, has turned his justice against me; he has rightly chastised me. Have pity on me, deign to regard me with merciful countenance.’ Handling burns, a magician would swab the wound with the milk of a mother of a baby boy, while appealing to Isis by repeating the words the goddess had supposedly used to rescue her son Horus from being burned: ‘There is water in my mouth and a Nile between my legs; I come to quench the fire.’\u00a0 [Ooooh, I say! – DeSpair<\/em>]
Surgery was limited to repairing injuries and bone fractures; sutures and cautery were used, and wound dressings to promote healing, which combined honey with grease or resin; but no surgical instruments survive. Anatomical knowledge remained limited to bones and major organs. As mummification suggests, the Egyptians did not share the taboos that have so widely forbidden tampering with corpses, but embalmers formed a separate guild and were of low caste; moreover, since mummification aimed to preserve the body intact, embalmers did not open cadavers up; they eviscerated and extracted the organs through small incisions. The brain was removed through the nose by hooks, though the heart was left in place, being the seat of the soul.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/674815e0-19ab-4a86-9479-ea95629458fe.jpg\")
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Removing the Brain the Egyptian Way!<\/em>
According to Egyptian medical theory, humans were born healthy but were susceptible to disorders caused not only by demons but by intestinal putrefaction. Life lay in breath, and a speculative heart-centered physiology pictures a mesh of vessels carrying blood, urine, air, semen, tears and solid wastes to all bodily parts. This vascular network was likened to the Nile and its canals and, as with that water-system, the point was to keep it free of obstruction. Rotting food and faeces clogging the system were considered perilous, hence the need to prevent pus formulation and to cleanse the innards with laxatives. Herodotus noted that three days each month were set aside for evacuating the body with emetics and enemas.
Culled from:\u00a0The Greatest Benefit\u00a0to Mankind<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nArcane Excerpts: Extrauterine Edition<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n