Volume 2 contains collotype facsimiles of the Papyrus, which originally was in a continuous roll but for the sake of convenience has now been cut into columns of text. Volume 1 contains a historical introduction to the document, followed by translation and commentary. The surviving scroll, a copy of an earlier text from around 3,000 B.C., gives us remarkable insight into the medical practice of ancient Egyptians in the Nile River bed during the dawn of civilization. Repeatedly the surgeon, because of his scientific interest in the observable facts, discusses cases of injured men whom he has no hope of saving. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, discovered in 1862 outside of Luxor, Egypt, is the oldest known surgical text in the history of civilization. It contains, for example, for the first time in human speech a word for "brain." Disclosing an inductive method and an attitude surprisingly scientific in an age so remote from modern times, it forms a new chapter in the history of science. Breasted's attention, and finally under his close scrutiny has revealed itself as the oldest known scientific treatise surviving from the ancient world, is described in the Introduction to one of the most illuminating glimpses we have ever had into the astonishingly developed medical knowledge of ancient Egypt.īoth to the medical profession and to the lay reader the Surgical Papyrus will be of intense interest. How it came into the possession of the New York Historical Society, lay many years virtually unnoticed, was at length "rediscovered" and brought to Dr. Edwin Smith, a man of great intellectual gifts, purchased what is now known as the Edwin Smith Surgical papyrus. Early in 1862, during his residence in Thebes, Mr. Behind the scientifically accurate study and publication of The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, the most important document in the history of science surviving from the pre-Greek age of mankind (seventeenth century b.c.), lies a story as remarkable as the papyrus itself.
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