HISTOLOGICAL STUDIES 
ON 
EGYPTIAN MUMMIES 
BY 
MARC ARMAND RUFFER 
INTRODUCTION 
The diseases of ancient Egyptians have been studied by several different methods. 
Philologists have translated a few Egyptian papyri relating to medical subjects, 
and the chief interest of their studies lies in the demonstration of the existence of a 
medical literature and of a fairly extensive pharmacopœa at an early period. These 
documents, however, are not adequate for the identification of diseases which were 
fatal in olden times. 
Even in the «Papyrus Ebers», the most famous of Egyptian medical documents, 
the description of symptoms is crude and, although the papyrus contains some 
information regarding the occurrence of intestinal worms and diseases of various 
organs, yet an indisputable diagnosis of any one disease in this work, is, in my opinion, 
impracticable. 
The same is partly true of the BerUn medical papyrus ' lately edited and trans- 
lated by Wreszinsky. The veterinary papyri discovered by Prof. Flinders Petrie 
demonstrate that the old Egyptians cultivated veterinary as well as human medicine. 
Another source of information regarding ancient Egyptian pathology is found in 
the pictures and statues representing malformed persons, which have been discovered 
in many places. Egyptian temples and tombs contain likenesses of people with club 
foot (tombs of Beni Hassan), rickets (Kasr-el-Nil Museum), steatopygia ( Ashmolean 
Museum). Pictures and statuettes of malformed persons, e. g. dwarfs, are common in 
some of the oldest tombs of Egypt, in those dating from the Greek period and the 
Roman occupation. I have seen figures of typical hunchbacks and several of men with 
cutaneous cysts. (Private collection). 
Evidence from 
Papyri. 
Evidetice from 
works of Art. 
' The description of facial paralysis in lliis papyrus is excellent. 
