Written medical and surgical treatise
Tratado médico y quirúrgico escrito (papiros Edwin Smith y Ebers)
- Date
- c. 1600 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Thebes (Luxor), Egypt
- Credited to
- Egyptian physicians; tradition attributes the original to Imhotep (c. 2650 BCE)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE, a copy of an Old Kingdom original) describes 48 trauma cases with examination, diagnosis, prognosis and rational treatment, including sutures, bandages and the first description of the brain. The Ebers Papyrus collects 700 remedies.
Mesopotamia has parallel diagnostic treatises (Sakikku, c. 1050 BCE) and the Code of Hammurabi already regulates surgeons' fees (c. 1750 BCE).
What it led to
- Medicine as a profession with written training and specialities (oculists, dentists)
- The clinical case method: observation, prognosis ('an ailment I will treat / will not treat') and treatment
- Written pharmacopoeia that passed to Greece (Hippocrates) and the Arab world
- The first descriptive anatomy and neurology
Built on
Made possible
- Systematic pharmacopoeia (Dioscorides' De materia medica)c. 65 CE
- Hippocratic Corpus
- Bronze surgical instruments