1886.] on Anatomical and Medical Knowledge of Ancient Egypt. 379 



account given by Herodotus, and with the national literature, yet the 

 first part I believe to be purely fictitious. There is no confirmation 

 in Egyptian literature of that portion which relates to the ill-treat- 

 ment of the outcast j^araschistes. There is no trace of any such 

 popular commotion in any of the pictures representing the stages of 

 the process. Nay, we have direct testimony on the subject, for it is 

 written in the Rhind papyrus, concerning the embalming of. the Lady 

 Ta-ani, " they made the incisions by the hand of a ;^ar-heb in the place 

 of opening, at the eighth hour." It was this grade of priests who 

 began and who carried out the work of embalming. M. Eevillout 

 has proved conclusively that the paraschistes and taricheutde are two 

 Greek names for the same functionaries, whose native name is ;)(ar-heb. 

 In the Rhind papyrus before quoted, it is written, " preserved is the 

 body by the ;)(ar-heb, who is thoroughly acquainted with the science 

 of embalming." From other passages in Egyj)tian writing we learn 

 that these ;)(ar-hebs were priests, sacred scribes, men of high character, 

 physicians, to whom even magical powers are ascribed, for the breath 

 from the mouth of a ^'^^r-heb has power to dissipate disease of the 

 heart. Further, we learn from several records that the incisions were 

 not all made at once, but in at least two series ; for the perfect pre- 

 servation of a mummy was accomplished gradually, the process 

 spreading over seventy days. . 



The _)(ar-hebs were men with no civil disabilities ; they bought 

 and sold land, they made contracts, they drew up formal marriage 

 settlements for their wives, and received payment in money, vegetables, 

 wine, and other articles. 



The organs removed from the bodies of persons of the better classes 

 were not returned into the body, but were i^reserved in vases of 

 alabaster or stone, surmounted by the heads of the four divinities of 

 Hades, the sons of Horus and Isis. The vessel which contained the 

 stomach and colon bore the human head of Amset ; that which held 

 the lungs and heart was under the protection of the jackal-head of 

 Tuaut-mutef; that which contains the small intestine was beneath 

 the baboon-head of Hapi ; while the liver was guarded by the hawk- 

 head of Kabhsenuf. 



During the ascendancy of Greek influence in Egypt, Alexandria 

 earned the reputation of being the chief school of anatomy and 

 medicine in the world. Erasistratus, who lived in the days of Ptolemy 

 Soter, B.C. 285, was an anatomist of such enthusiasm, that he and his 

 disciples receiving from the king criminals condemned to death, 

 " vivos inciderint considerarintciue etiam, sjnrita remanente, ea qiise natura 

 ante clqusisset, eorumque posituram, colorem, figuram, magnitiidinem, 

 ordinem, duritiem, inollitiem, Isevorem, contactum, processus deinde singu- 

 loriim et recessus et sive quid inseritur cdteri sive quid partem alterius in 

 se recipit.^' It is recorded of Herophilus, the successor of Erasi- 

 stratus, by Tertullian, that he dissected 600 bodies. 



But this Alexandrian school, although upon Egyptian soil, was 

 essentially Greek in spirit ; even Herophilus had learned some of his 



