A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



tice of embalming would have led to the custom of dis- 

 secting human bodies, and that the Egyptians, as a 

 result of this, would have excelled in the knowledge 

 of anatomy. But the actual results were rather the 

 reverse of this. Embalming the dead, it must be re- 

 called, was a purely religious observance. It took 

 place under the superintendence of the priests, but so 

 great was the reverence for the human body that the 

 priests themselves were not permitted to make the 

 abdominal incision which was a necessary preliminary 

 of the process. This incision, as we are informed by 

 both Herodotus 7 and Diodorus 8 ,was made by a special 

 officer, whose status, if we may believe the explicit 

 statement of Diodorus, was quite comparable to that 

 of the modern hangman. The paraschistas, as he was 

 called, having performed his necessary but obnoxious 

 function, with the aid of a sharp Ethiopian stone, re- 

 tired hastily, leaving the remaining processes to the 

 priests. These, however, confined their observations 

 to the abdominal viscera; under no consideration did 

 they make other incisions in the body. It follows, 

 therefore, that their opportunity for anatomical ob- 

 servations was most limited. 



Since even the necessary mutilation inflicted on the 

 corpse was regarded with such horror, it follows that 

 anything in the way of dissection for a less sacred pur- 

 pose was absolutely prohibited. Probably the same 

 prohibition extended to a large number of animals, 

 since most of these were held sacred in one part of 

 Egypt or another. Moreover, there is nothing in what 

 we know of the Egyptian mind to suggest the proba- 

 bility that any Egyptian physician would make exten- 



