98 Papyrus Ebers. [January, 
as the inventor of arts and sciences, and that he first taught 
the Egyptians writing, invented arithmetic, geometry, 
astronomy, and music ; gave laws to the people, and regu- 
lated their religious ceremonies. At the time of Jamblichus, 
a.d. 363, the priests of Egypt showed 42 books which they 
attributed to Hermes (Thuti). Of these, according to that 
author, 36 contained the history of all human knowledge ; 
the last six treated of anatomy, of disease, of affections of 
the eye, instruments of surgery, and of medicines. The 
Papyrus Ebers is indisputably one of these ancient Hermetic 
works. A study of the synopsis of the contents given in 
part below will justify this belief. 
The recipes and prescriptions contained in this treatise 
are evidently collected from various sources, some of them 
being quoted from still more ancient writings. It bears 
internal evidence of having been used in the healing art, for 
the word “ good” occurs in the margin in several places, 
written in a different handwriting from the body of the work 
and with lighter coloured ink. Ebers thinks the compilation 
was made by the College of Priests at Thebes, basing his 
conjecture partly on the locality in which it was dis- 
covered. 
Ebers gives a synopsis of the contents of the entire work 
and a literal translation of the first two pages of the roll, 
reserving a fuller translation with commentary for a future 
publication. A hieroglyphic translation of a portion of the 
Hieratic manuscript also accompanies the plates ; the latter, 
107 in number, are faithful and beautiful reproductions of 
the original papyrus in the same yellow-brown colour. The 
second volume contains a hieroglyphic-Latin glossary by 
Stern and the remainder of the plates. Before proceeding 
to give details of its contents, one more peculiarity is worth 
mentioning. Though the pages are carefully numbered, the 
figures 28 and 29 are omitted, while the text is continuous. 
Ebers conjectures that the writer either accidentally forgot 
his count or abstained from using these numbers for super- 
stitious reasons. 
As already remarked, the work is divided into chapters 
or sections. A fair insight into the character of the treatise 
may be obtained from the selected headings of sections and 
extracts here following 
Headings of selected chapters. The numbers refer to the 
pages of the papyrus : 
1. Of the preparation of medicines. 
25. Of salves for removing the ahan. 
47. Catalogue of the various uses of the Tequem tree. 
