28 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



It was Thot, too, who had invented music and drawing, 

 and revealed their laws to mankind. It was Thot 

 who had established a service of observers, the 

 " watchers of the night " or the " great of sight," 

 who followed and noted down from the temples the 

 principal astronomical changes and sequences. But, 

 while it may have rivalled the Chaldean astronomy 

 in age, the corresponding Egyptian science never 

 reached such an advanced stage of development. 

 Doubtless, the importance attached by the Chaldeans 

 to astrology gave a more powerful motive for astro- 

 nomical research, while the wealth and power at the 

 disposal of a successful astrologer gave to his pure 

 science the pecuniary resources and extended impulse 

 which in our own times have been found greatly to 

 aid those branches of knowledge capable of bearing 

 practical application to the arts of life. 



If Egypt lagged behind Babylon in astronomy, and 

 possessed no astrologers with the reputation of those 

 from Chaldea, in medicine the relative positions were 

 reversed. Babylon possessed no school of rational 

 medicine, but relied on sorcery and exorcism for 

 the treatment of disease, which was referred ex- 

 clusively to the action of malignant powers. But 

 in Egypt medical knowledge was highly specialized 

 at an early date. There were physicians trained in 

 the priestly schools, bone-setters for the treatment of 

 fractures, while mental diseases alone seem systemati- 

 cally to have been left to exorcists, who, by means 

 of amulets and magic, drove out the evil spirits re- 

 sponsible for these infirmities. The art of dispensing 

 drugs and essences had been brought to a high state 

 of excellence, and many of the Egyptian remedies 



