Ancient Egyptian Medicinal Practices Part 5: Illnesses in Ancient Egypt
Illnesses in Ancient Egypt
Illnesses were often recorded only by the very rare tomb paintings and by the medical papyri that have been found that describe what was being treated. These rare pieces of painted and written evidence hail mostly from the Nile Valley, but many of the common diseases in these representations are known to have existed in the Oases. The only hard evidence Egyptologists have are the physical remains of the ancient populace to attempt to diagnose the diseases from which the ancients suffered. Documentation of illnesses within the Egyptian Oases is rare. To date, there is no ancient literature detailing the illnesses within the Oases, nor are there any tomb paintings to show the abnormalities associated with some common ancient diseases. The only information that has survived regarding diseases that plagued the Oases is the physical remains of the ancient Oasis dwellers. An example would be the four bodies found in the Dakhleh Oasis that show evidence of leprosy. While this probably is not an isolated case within the entirety of ancient Egypt, the skeletons found in Dakhleh with leprosy represent the largest skeletal sample of lepers in archaeological context (Molto: 2002, 46). The diseases the ancients may have suffered can be hypothesized by taking into account the ecosystems of the Oases and the Nile Valley, which have changed little from ancient times (Giddy: 1987, 3). Often, these diseases were misunderstood, thus misdiagnosed and mistreated. Although often misunderstood, a general idea of how the patient acquired these diseases was known and steps were taken by the physicians to cure the patient and to prevent future infections of the same disease. The physicians took the knowledge they possessed of the diseases to treat the ailments as best they could, often taking into account the ecosystem in which the disease originated. (Dollinger: 2000)
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