of the laity, and the share which was given them of the state-revenues;
they expected no honorarium from their patients, but the restored sick
seldom neglected making a present to the sanctuary whence a physician had
come to them, and it was not unusual for the priestly leech to make the
recovery of the sufferer conditional on certain gifts to be offered to
the temple.

The medical knowledge of the Egyptians was, according to every
indication, very considerable; but it was natural that physicians, who
stood by the bed of sickness as "ordained servants of the Divinity,"
should not be satisfied with a rational treatment of the sufferer, and
should rather think that they could not dispense with the mystical
effects of prayers and vows.

Among the professors of medicine in the House of Seti there were men of
the most different gifts and bent of mind; but Pentaur was not for a
moment in doubt as to which should be entrusted with the treatment of the
girl who had been run over, and for whom he felt the greatest sympathy.

The one he chose was the grandson of a celebrated leech, long since dead,
whose name of Nebsecht he had inherited, and a beloved school-friend and
old comrade of Pentaur.

This young man had from his earliest years shown high and hereditary
talent for the profession to which he had devoted himself; he had
selected surgery

[Among the six hermetic books of medicine mentioned by Clement of
Alexandria, was one devoted to surgical instruments: otherwise the
very badly-set fractures found in some of the mummies do little