378 ^rof. Alexander Macalister [March 6, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, Marcli 5, 1886. 



Sir Frederick Bramwell, F.E.S. Honorary Secretary and Vice- 

 President, in the Chair. 



Professor Alexander Macalister, M.D. F.E.S. 



Anatomical and Medical Knowledge of Ancient Egypt (^Abstract'). 



The surviving fragments of the early literature of Egyj^t are mainly 

 of a religious character ; but this is not to be wondered at, for the 

 genius of the peoj^le wds essentially religious, and their doctrine of 

 the future state leavened their national life in almost every particular ; 

 to them the body was an integral part of the immortal humanity, 

 therefore it must not be permitted to turn to decay, but it must be 

 preserved from corrujDtion that it may be a fit receptacle for the soul 

 to dwell in through eternity. 



Their treatment of the body is thus dependent on their belief of 

 its relation to the soul, and this, we learn from their religious writings, 

 was a relationship of eternal interdependence. 



To secure perpetual preservation the body must be proj)erly em- 

 balmed. The cavities must be opened and subjected to the action of 

 antiseptics. Even though the body is sacred, under the special pro- 

 tection of the god Thoth, though each part is under the guardianship) 

 of a special divinity, yet this sacredness does not preclude careful 

 inspection and the processes necessary for preservation, for all parts 

 have to be perpetuated. 



Embalming is a religious rite, to be performed by the priests of 

 the cultus, and the historian Herodotus has preserved for us what is 

 doubtless a substantially accurate account of the different methods 

 whereby it was done, in the later times in which he lived. 



There is, in Diodorus Siculus, an account of an episode in the 

 operation of embalming, which has long passed current as authentic. 

 He says that when the sacred scribe inspected the body, he marked on 

 its left side how much it was lawful to cut. Then the paraschistes, 

 holding in his hand a knife of Ethioj^ian stone, dissected the flesh as 

 far as the law permitted; then, turning suddenly, he fled away as fast 

 as he was able to run, pursued by the execrations of the bystanders, 

 often pelted with stones and otherwise maltreated. Then the tari- 

 clieuta3 enter, and passing their hands through the incisions into the 

 body, remove therefrom the digestive organs, the heart, the kidneys, 

 and other viscera. 'Jlien they wash out the cavities with palm wine 

 and aromatics, and finally replace the j>arts which have been anointed 

 with antiseptics. 



While some portions of this description agree both with the earlier 



