dynasty, was completed by Senet or Sethenes of the second line.

“The third, that of the British Museum, contains a receipt said to have
been mysteriously discovered in the reign of Cheops of the fourth
dynasty.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“The curatives employed were ointments, drinks, plasters, fumigations
and clysters, and the drugs employed were taken from vegetables,
minerals, and animals.

“Those for each draught were mixed together, pounded, boiled, and
strained through linen.

“The doctors belonged to the sacred class, and were only permitted to
practice their own particular branch.

“These were oculists, dentists, those who confined their practice to
diseases of the head, and those again who only attended to internal
diseases; they were paid from the public treasury, and were compelled,
before being permitted to practice, to study the precepts laid down by
their predecessors.”

Homer, in the Odyssey, describes Egypt “as a country whose fertile soil
produces an infinity of drugs, some salutary and some pernicious, where
each physician possesses knowledge above all other men.”

The mixing of various drugs and minerals must have produced effects
which could not be lost on such observant men as the doctors must, from