obliterating old landmarks and divisions. The science thus forced upon
their attention was cultivated with zeal and success. A single papyrus has
been discovered that holds twelve geometrical theorems.

Arithmetic was necessarily brought into requisition in solving
astronomical and geometrical problems. We ourselves are debtors to the
ancient Egyptians for much of our mathematical knowledge, which has come
to us from the banks of the Nile, through the Greeks and the Saracens.

MEDICINE AND THE ART OF EMBALMING.--The custom of embalming the dead,
affording opportunities for the examination of the body, without doubt had
a great influence upon the development of the sciences of anatomy and
medicine among the Egyptians. That the embalmers were physicians, we know
from various testimonies. Thus we are told in the Bible that Joseph
"commanded the _physicians_ to embalm his father." The Egyptian doctors
had a very great reputation among the ancients.

Every doctor was a specialist, and was not allowed to take charge of cases
outside of his own branch. As the artist was forbidden to change the lines
of the sacred statues, so the physician was not permitted to treat cases
save in the manner prescribed by the customs of the past; and if he were
so presumptuous as to depart from the established mode of treatment, and
the patient died, he was adjudged guilty of murder. Many drugs and
medicines were used; the ciphers, or characters, employed by modern
apothecaries to designate grains and drams are of Egyptian invention.

The Egyptians believed that after a long lapse of time, several thousand
years, the departed soul would return to earth and reanimate its former
body; hence their custom of preserving the body by means of embalmment. In
the processes of embalming, the physicians made use of oils, resin,