Egypt or another. Moreover, there is nothing in what we know of
the Egyptian mind to suggest the probability that any Egyptian
physician would make extensive anatomical observations for the
love of pure knowledge. All Egyptian science is eminently
practical. If we think of the Egyptian as mysterious, it is
because of the superstitious observances that we everywhere
associate with his daily acts; but these, as we have already
tried to make clear, were really based on scientific observations
of a kind, and the attempt at true inferences from these
observations. But whether or not the Egyptian physician desired
anatomical knowledge, the results of his inquiries were certainly
most meagre. The essentials of his system had to do with a series
of vessels, alleged to be twenty-two or twenty-four in number,
which penetrated the head and were distributed in pairs to the
various members of the body, and which were vaguely thought of as
carriers of water, air, excretory fluids, etc. Yet back of this
vagueness, as must not be overlooked, there was an all-essential
recognition of the heart as the central vascular organ. The heart
is called the beginning of all the members. Its vessels, we are
told, "lead to all the members; whether the doctor lays his
finger on the forehead, on the back of the head, on the hands, on
the place of the stomach (?), on the arms, or on the feet,
everywhere he meets with the heart, because its vessels lead to
all the members."[9] This recognition of the pulse must be
credited to the Egyptian physician as a piece of practical
knowledge, in some measure off-setting the vagueness of his
anatomical theories.


ABSTRACT SCIENCE