very unwholefome. There reign annually in Egypt from the vernal equinox to the animer-folftice deadly malignant fevers. In autumn, their thighs and knees are furrounded with carbuncles, which kill the patients in two or three days. At the time of the increase of the Nile, the greatest part of the inhabitants are attacked with obftinate dyfenteries caufed by the waters of that river, which at that time are greatly loaded with falts ".

The ferene weather is above all the most dangerous in Egypt. As the fun is very hot in thefe climates, it raises a great quantity of exhalations and malignant vapours, which caufe great defluxions on the eyes; from hence it comes that we fee fo many blind people there *.

This country is also subject to a very fingular and very frequent inconveniency. When they are attacked with it, they think all their bones are broke. Thefe accidents are produced by the winds which blow in Egypt. As they are loaded with many falts, they occafion frightful pains in all parts of the body, often even palfies, which they cure with great difficulty. Thus we fee very few robuft people, and fcarce any old ones in Egypt. It was apparently the fame when Jacob paffed through it with his whole family. We fhall be tempted to imagine, that the Egyptians had not been accustomed to have feen perfons of a very advanced age, by Pharaoh's question to Jacob about the age of that patriarch *.

Egypt having been expofed at all times to fo great a number of general and habitual diftempers, they must

Gemelli, t. 1. p. 33. & 113.

"Granger, p. 21. &c.; Relat. d'Eg. par le Vansleb. p. 36.

Maillet, p. 15.; Granger, p. 22.; Voyage au Levant par Corneille Ic Brun, c. 40. init, edit. in fol.

z Granger, p. 24. & 27.

y Maillet, p. 15. *It is true, Herodotus fays, that after the Lybians there were no men on the earth more healthy than the Egyptians. He attributes this good health to the temperature of the air which is always equal, 1. 2. n. 77.

But it must be observed, that Herodotus only speaks of a particular diftrict. Travellers agree generally enough, that Egypt is a very unwholefome country. We might join to the teftimonies that we have already cited, that of Pietro della Valle, t. 1. p. 325. and of Gemelli, t. 1. p. 33. We may likewife fee what Pliny fays of the maladies peculiar to Egypt, I. 26.

have tried very early to find out the proper means to remedy them. From hence came physicians.

We may conclude from what we find in hiftory, about the practice of the Egyptians, that these people had been the first who had perceived the neceffity of dividing among many perfons the different objects of medicine.

The ancients tell us, there has been no country where physicians were in fuch great numbers as in Egypt. They inform us at the fame time, that thofe who exercised that profeffion, did not undertake to treat indifferently all forts of diftempers. They had for diftempers of the eyes, for those of the head, for those of the teeth. The diftempers of the bowels, and the other internal maladies, had likewife their particular physicians. The Egyptians were not a long time in comprehending that the life and study of one man was not fufficient to be inftructed perfectly in all the parts of a science fo extenfive as phyfic. It was for this reafon they obliged thofe who embraced that profeffion, only to apply themselves to one fort of diftemper, and to make that the only object of their study. The ancient authors, by inftructing us in this practice, have tranfinitted nothing to us of the nature of the remedies which the Egyptians ufed. They have only given us general notions on this fubject. We know only that these people made a vast use of regimen and purging drinks *. Perfuaded that all diftempers came from the aliments, they looked upon the remedies which tended to evacuate the humours as the moft proper to preferve health. We fee farther, by the exposure which an ancient author has made of their fyftem of phyfic, that they excluded every remedy whofe application might become dangerous. They only employed thofe which they might ufe as fafely as their daily food .

It appears further, that thefe people were as much bufied

a Herod. 1. 2. n. 84.

* They believe the purge of the Egyptians was a fort of horse-radish, or an herb which refembles celery. There are even fome who will have it that it was a compofition not unlike beer. Le Clerc hift. de la medic. 1. 1. c. 18. P. 58.

Herod. 1. 2. n. 77.; Diod. I. 1. p. 73.

with the care of preventing diftempers as with that of curing them. What gives room to think thus, is, that it is faid, that the Egyptians ufed to purge every month, for three days fucceffively, with vomits and clyfters .

The Egyptians are faid to have first made known and ufed the oil of fweet almonds. We may alfo rank in the number of medicines invented by these people, Nepenthe, to which Homer gives fuch high encomiums. Helen, as he fays, had learned the compofition from Polydamna, wife of Thonis king of Egypt. This medicine was fo admirable that it made one forget all ills, and diffipated all weariness.

The qualities of the Nepenthe of Homer have, as appears to me, a great relation to thofe of opium. We know that the virtue of that medicine is not only to provoke sleep; it has that of making us gay, and of producing even a fort of drunkenness. Thus we fee that the Egyptian women who ufed a great deal of Nepenthe, were looked upon formerly folely to poffefs the fecret of diffipating anger and chagrin. Opium is at this time very much ufed in the east *; a custom which we ought to regard as a confequence of the attachment which thefe people have always had for original practices: therefore I am very much inclined to believe, that it is of this fort of medicine that Homer would speak under the name of Nepenthe, and that in his time the Egyptians were perhaps the only people who knew the preparation of it †.

The manner of treating diftempers in Egypt did not depend upon the will and choice of the phyfician. All the precepts concerning medicine were contained in certain facred books. The phyficians were obliged to con

& Herod. Diod. ubi fupra.

P. Æginet de re med. 1. 7. c. 20.

& Diod. 1. 1. p. 109.

f Odysf. 1. 4. v. 220. & feq.

The Turks take about a drachm of it when they prepare to march to battle.

+Yet it must be agreed, that the opinions of the critics are pretty much divided about what Homer would defign by the Nepenthe. We may confult on this fubject the differtation of Father Petit, intitled, Homeri Nepenthes, Traject, 1689.

form

form to them exactly. It was not permitted them to change any thing. If they could not fave the diseased by following that method, they were not anfwerable for the event; but if they rejected it, and the fick perfon happened to die, they were punished with death. This fubjection of the phyficians of Egypt to the cuftom of the country is farther confirmed to us by Aristotle: he speaks of an ancient law of the Egyptians, by which it was forbid the physicians to ftir the humours, that is to fay, to purge the fick before the fourth day of the diftemper, unless they would do it at their own risk. We may judge after this exposure, if medicine could ever make any progress in Egypt, or be enriched with useful difcoveries. The state of the difeafed, the fymptoms and the daily accidents, were not what determined the phyficians to apply the principles of their art. The theory and even the practice being fix ed, they had lefs need of judgment than of memory. The Egyptians apparently imagined, that all bodies were conftituted in the fame manner; and, against daily experience, they prefumed the distempers were not combined differently, Some authors pretend, that, with a view to make their remedies more efficacious, the Egyptian phyficians added to the study of their profeffion that of astrology, and of certain mysterious rites 1. They fay, that phyfic in thefe countries was mixed with many fuperftitious practices". This opinion appears probable enough. We know that these people gave themselves a good deal up to judicial aftrology. Herodotus affures us that there had not been a nation more fuperftitious than the Egyptians". It fhould not

h Diod. 1. 1. p. 74.

This was a confequence of the fame spirit of attachment that the Egyptians had for every thing that was established anciently. See Plato de leg. 1. 2. p. 789.

i Diod. 1. 1. p. 74.

* De repub. I. 3. c. 15. p. 358. or rather, according to Victorius, p. 265. on this paffage of Ariftotle, to alter nothing of the laws eftablished which forbid them to do any thing before the fourth day had paffed, this is conformable to the doctrine of Hippocrates.

1 Scholiaft. in Ptolom. Tetrabibl. 1. 1.

m Conringius de Hermetica medic. 1. 1. c. 12. &c.; Borrichius de ortu & progreffu chemiae, p. 59.; Le Clerc, hift. de la medic. 1. 1. c. 5. p. 13. PL. 2. n. 37. 65. 82.

then

then be furprifing, that they had believed that the influence of certain planets, and the protection of fome tutelary genii contributed much to the curing of distempers. Yet we must agree, that neither in Herodotus, nor in the authors of great antiquity, do we find any thing which authorifes us to believe that the Egyptians employed fuperftitious practices in the manner of treating the fick.

We shall finish what concerns phyfic in Egypt, by remarking the attention the government paid to every thing that could concern the prefervation of the citizens. It cost the Egyptians nothing to be attended when they were at war, or when they travelled in the kingdom. They had physicians paid with the public money, to take care of those who fell fick on thefe occafions. This fact farther proves to us, that phyfic was not practifed for nothing. It was the fame with the Hebrews. Mofes ordered, that if two men happened to fight, and one of them was wounded, the aggreffor thould render to him whom he had struck, what it fhould coft him for being cured. This precept was founded, without doubt, on the practice already established, of paying the phyficians for the care they took of the fick.

I

Could only give very vague and very fuccinct notions of the state of aftronomy among the Egyptians in the first ages. We have there feen, that, before Mofes, these people had a folar year compofed of 360 days. It was very probably from the obfervation of the difference, and the inequality of the meridian shadows, that the Egyptians came to perceive that the revolution of the fun in the course of a year, greatly furpaffed the duration of twelve lunations.

• Diod. I. 1. p. 74

P Exod. c. 21. v. 19. Mercedem medici solvet, fays the Chaldaic paraphrafe on this verse.

• See part 1, book 3. chap. 2. art, 2.

There