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Studies in the History of Science
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
BICENTENNIAL CONFERENCE
Studies in the History

of Science
By
E. A. SPEISER
O T T O E. NEUGEBAUER
HERMANN RANKE
HENRY E. SIGERIST
RICHARD H. SHRYOCK
EVARTS A. GRAHAM
EDGAR A. SINGER
HERMANN WEYL
U N I V E R S I T Y OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
Philadelphia
1941
Copyright 1941
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
Manufactured in the United States of America

by The Haddon Craftsmen, Inc., Camden, N. J.
Contents
Ancient Mesopotamia and the Beginnings of Science
E. A. Speiser
Some Fundamental Concepts in Ancient Astronomy
Otto E. Neugebauer
Medicine and Surgery in Ancient Egypt
Hermann Ranke
Medieval Medicine
Henry E. Sigerist
T h e Rise of Modern Scientific Medicine
Richard H. Shryock
Two Centuries of Surgery
Evarts A. Graham
Logico-Historical Study of Mechanism, Vitalism, Naturalism
Edgar A. Singer
T h e Mathematical Way of Thinking
Hermann Weyl
U N I V E R S I T Y OF P E N N S Y L V A N I A
Ancient Mesopotamia and the Beginnings

of Science
By
E. A. SPEISER, PH.D.*
THE thesis which this paper aims to outline embodies the fol-
lowing propositions: (1) Available evidence points to Mesopo-
tamia as the oldest known center of scientific observation
permanently recorded. (2) Whatever its immediate objectives,
this activity comes to include such widely separated fields as
education and language study, jurisprudence, and the mathe-
matical and natural sciences. (3) T h e numerous elements in
this broad advance are interrelated basically. T h e common
underlying factor to which the initial impetus can be traced
is a concept of society whereby the powers of the state are
restricted and the rights of the individual receive a correspond-
ing emphasis. (4) It is significant that under the opposite
social system of totalitarian Egypt early scientific development
differed in scope as well as in degree; while notable in certain
special fields, such as medicine and engineering, it lacks the
breadth and balance manifested in contemporary Mesopo-
tamia.
A t this point it is in order to insert a remark of explanation.
Although the present paper is listed under Natural Sciences,
its specifically scientific content is negligible; furthermore, it
is but incidental and wholly derivative. Moreover, you are to
hear soon from the man who is best qualified to discuss vari-
ous phases of ancient science, 011 the basis of his own pioneer-
ing researches; I am not competing with Professor Neugebauer.
T h e sole excuse for the inclusion of the present paper in your
group is this: T h e r e were certain features in proto-historic
Mesopotamia which tended to encourage scientific progress.
• Professor of Semitics, University of Pennsylvania; Director, American School

of Oriental Research in Baghdad.
1
s HISTORY OF SCIENCE
T h e results happen to constitute the first recorded evidence
of scientific performance known to us today. T o this extent we
are justified in touching here upon the beginnings of science,
including the natural sciences. B u t it should be made clear
at the outset that this paper is concerned not so much with
the results as with the background; a combination of circum-
stances conducive to concerted scientific activity rather than
the subjects affected by that activity. T h e background gives
us in this instance the essential starting point; it is thus more
significant than the immediate achievement.
O u r interest, then, will center on a particular cultural stage
at which there were at work forces that led to extensive sci-
entific developments; forces which provided the predisposition,
so to speak, to these developments. Accordingly, we shall
ignore such sporadic achievements of a still more remote age
as the invention of the wheel, the introduction of the brick-
mold, and perhaps the use of instruments in effecting accurate
geometric designs on very early forms of painted pottery. W e
may have here Mesopotamian inventions which were to play
important parts in the eventual progress of engineering, archi-
tecture, and perhaps geometry. But these inventions represent
isolated contributions of discontinuous cultures which scarcely
had any immediate bearing on scientific progress. T h i s paper
will confine itself to subjects which had a common origin in
a well-defined period and area; which involve from the start
habits of observation, classification, and analysis; and which
enter then and there upon a continuous course of develop-
ment.
T h e region to which our inquiry will take us is Lower
Mesopotamia, the land of Ancient Sumer. More specifically, it
is an area extending s o u t h ^ s t from the environs of Babylon,
past U r u k — t h e biblical Erech—and on along the Euphrates
to the metropolis of Ur. T h e time is the middle of the fourth
millennium B.C. T h i s is not just a convenient round figure.
It will allow a margin of scarcely more than a century, and
in a total of well over five thousand years this is not a dis-
proportionate margin of error. W e are in a position to estab-
lish the time with such accuracy because it falls within a well-
stratified cultural period marked off sharply by distinctive
material remains. Soon thereafter there begin to appear in-
ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA 3
scribed records which tie u p before long with concrete regnal
years and provide thus a basis for absolute chronology.
We get our first inscribed documents f r o m a level dated to
shortly after 3500 B.C., one of a long series of strata recovered
from the remains of ancient U r u k . It is among these docu-
ments, written on clay, that we find a few which represent
the earliest known scientific records. T h a t similar records of
still greater antiquity will ever turn u p outside Mesopotamia
is highly improbable. All available evidence points to the
conclusion that the scientific notations with which we are con-
cerned were compiled in close association with the introduc-
tion of writing itself. T o be sure, this evidence applies only
to the script of Mesopotamia. B u t writing in all the other
ancient centers of civilization is demonstrably later. In Egypt
it was introduced some centuries after it had been evolved in
Mesopotamia, and its first appearance in India was later still.
As for the script of China, there is nothing to indicate that it
was earlier than the second m i l l e n n i u m B . C . It follows, there-
fore, that the scientific notations on our earliest Mesopotamian
tablets constitute not only the first evidence of scientific ac-
tivity in Sumer, but represent also the oldest recorded effort
of this kind known from anywhere in the world. W i t h this
significant fact in mind we shall now turn briefly to the records
themselves.
What is it that w o u l d justify the use of the term "scientific"
as applied to a few of the oldest inscribed documents from
Mesopotamia? T h e answer is bound up with the character and
purpose of these special texts. Each of them contains lists of
related entries. B u t these lists have nothing in common with
the customary inventories of a strictly economic nature. T h e y
serve an intellectual rather than a material purpose. A n d yet,
they are to enjoy a continuity and distribution which will set
them off sharply f r o m the usual r u n of business documents
whose significance is at once temporary and local. T h e lists
in question are destined to be copied and recopied for many
centuries and in more than one city and country. Actual ex-
amples of such copies, often modified and expanded, but still
in a clear line of descent f r o m the oldest prototypes, have been
discovered in Mesopotamian sites of much later age, and even
in foreign capitals like Elamite Susa. W e have thus before us
the beginning of a family of documents of a scholarly char-
4 HISTORY OF SCIENCE
acter w h i c h are notable for their c o n t i n u i t y , distribution, a n d
p u r p o s e f u l adherence to an established tradition. 1
In this recording of a c c u m u l a t i n g e x p e r i e n c e and the mani-
fest applicability of such records to the needs of c u l t u r a l
centers separated by political, linguistic, a n d c h r o n o l o g i c a l bar-
riers, w e have the essential ingredients of scientific perform-
ance. N o w what science or sciences did this activity embrace?
W e shall see presently that the primary purpose of the lists
u n d e r discussion was to aid in the preservation of the knowl-
edge of writing. Before long, philological studies b e c o m e an
added objective, o w i n g largely to the composite ethnic and
linguistic b a c k g r o u n d of early historic M e s o p o t a m i a . B u t
natural sciences, too, soon come in for their share of attention.
For regardless of the primary purpose of o u r lists, they hap-
pen to i n c l u d e q u i t e early in their history g r o u p i n g s of birds,
fish, domestic animals, plants, and the like. It is worth stress-
i n g that these compilations presuppose c a r e f u l observation
a n d imply organization and analysis of the a c c u m u l a t e d data.-
A s an e l e m e n t in the c u m u l a t i v e tradition of the land the
lists are subject to steady expansion and i m p r o v e m e n t . W h a t
is more, a l t h o u g h these texts were calculated originally to serve
purposes unrelated to their subject matter, they lead in course
of time to the i n d e p e n d e n t study of the s u b j e c t matter in-
volved. T h e fields affected are zoology and botany, and later on
geology and chemistry. T h e first r e c o g n i t i o n of all these sub-
jects as so many separate fields of study may be traced back,
therefore, to the earliest inscribed d o c u m e n t s f r o m Meso-
potamia. Interestingly e n o u g h , that r e c o g n i t i o n was d u e ulti-
mately to the fact that m a n had just discovered in w r i t i n g a
way to arrest time and was a p p l y i n g all his i n g e n u i t y to the
task of k e e p i n g this discovery alive.
T h e subsequent progress of the i n d i v i d u a l sciences just
m e n t i o n e d has to be traced by specialists. W e are concerned
at present w i t h the initial impetus alone and the time a n d cir-
cumstances in w h i c h that impetus was first received. A few
details, however, may be b r o u g h t o u t in passing. In the light
1 These facts are b r o u g h t o u t clearly by A . Falkcnstein, whose Archatsche
Texte aus Uruk ( B e r l i n , 1936) is the basic w o r k o n t h e earliest d o c u m e n t s f r o m
M e s o p o t a m i a ; cf. especially p p . 43 ff.
2 C a r e f u l observation is e v i d e n c e d also by t h e a c c u r a t e d r a w i n g s of t h e early
p i c t o g r a p h s , particularly w h e r e e x o t i c a n i m a l s a n d specific plants w e r e con-
cerned.
of the foregoing remarks botanists will not be surprised to
learn that many of the terms which they use today are found
in Mesopotamian sources. These terms include "cassia" (cune-
iform kasu), "chicory" (kukru), "cumin" (kamunu), "crocus"
(kurkanu), "hyssop" (zupu), "myrrh" (murru), "nard" (lardu),
"saffron" (azupiranitu), and probably many others. T h e zoolog-
ical compilations which are accessible in cuneiform records
contain hundreds of names systematically arranged and pre-
sented in two columns, the first giving the Sumerian term
and the other its Akkadian equivalent. 3 T h e scholastic tradi-
tion in chemistry 4 results in such texts as the one which has
come down to us from the second millennium B.C., wherein
a formula for glazing pottery is preserved in the guise of a
cryptogram so as to remain hidden from the uninitiated. 3 T h e
importance of the natural sciences for the study of medicine
is self-evident; it was not lost on Babylonian and Assyrian
medicine.
So much for the indirect benefits derived from the lists
under discussion. But the primary objective of these compila-
tions was not allowed to suffer in the meantime. On the con-
trary, the direct results which were achieved with their aid led
to an immensely fruitful advance in another field of intellec-
tual progress.
It was stated above that our lists were intended as a means
to preserve the newly attained knowledge of script. By the
very nature of its origin in concrete pictographs early writing
was an elaborate medium consisting of thousands of items.
T o each new prospective user it represented a code which
could not be deciphered without a proper key. T h e lists were
calculated to supply that key. They were analytical catalogues
of signs arranged according to form. Inasmuch as each sign
was at first a reflection of something specific in the material
world, these catalogues were at the same time systematic
groupings of related objects; hence their incidental value to
the natural sciences, as we have just seen. T h e immediate
purpose, however, of these arrangements was pedagogical; they
3
See Bcnno Landsberger (in cooperation with I. Krumbiegel), Die Fauna des
alien Mesopotamien (Leipzig, 1931).
* On this subject cf. R . Campbell Thompson, A Dictionary of Assyrian Chem-
istry and Geology (Oxford, 1936).
5
R . Campbell Thompson and C. J . Gadd, in Iraq, III (1936), pp. 87 if.
a r e o u r oldest manuals for the discipline of education. As pic-
tographs and ideograms gradually took on abstract p h o n e t i c
values, the study of the script b e c a m e l i n k e d perforce with the
study of language. A f t e r the Semitic-speaking Akkadians had
j o i n e d the S u m e r i a n s in b u i l d i n g u p the civilization of Meso-
potamia, linguistic studies rose to e x c e p t i o n a l heights against
this bilingual b a c k g r o u n d .
T h e deep-rooted respect for scholarly tradition which comes
with a sense of dependence on the c o n t r i b u t i o n s of the past,
i m p l i c i t in the developments here o u t l i n e d , had m u c h to do
with the unparalleled achievements of a n c i e n t Mesopotamia
in the field of linguistics. F o r it m e a n t that the Akkadians,
Babylonians, a n d Assyrians must fall back upon records in
t h e unrelated tongue of S u m e r . T h e knowledge of that
language had to be m a i n t a i n e d for c u l t u r a l purposes long
after its speakers had lost all political power, even after they
had disappeared from the scene altogether. F o r the first t i m e
in history translators are at work to c o m m i t their renderings
to writing. T h i s activity called for the production of various
auxiliary manuals: syllabaries giving the p h o n e t i c value, form,
a n d n a m e of each given sign; vocabularies c o n t a i n i n g the
S u m e r i a n p r o n u n c i a t i o n , ideogram, and Akkadian equivalent
of each word or group of words; lists of synonyms, commen-
taries on selected ideograms, i n t e r l i n e a r transliterations with
given S u m e r i a n texts, a n d the like. N o r was this all. T h e sci-
entific analysis of S u m e r i a n took the form of grammatical
works arranged in paradigms a c c o r d i n g to the parts of speech
and explicit down to such m i n u t i a e as the place of the accent.
Differences in the dialects of S u m e r i a n were carefully noted.
A n d most of the f o r m i d a b l e apparatus was available and in use
f o u r thousand years ago! It is to this apparatus that we owe o u r
present knowledge not only of the various dialects of S u m e r i a n
a n d Akkadian, b u t also of such languages as E l a m i t e , H i t t i t e ,
H u r r i a n , and U r a r t i a n . As linguistic m a t e r i a l these languages
may be of interest only to a small g r o u p of specialists. B u t as the
m e d i a for expressing the thought of a large portion of the an-
c i e n t world over a period of three m i l l e n n i a — a period one and
a half times as long as the whole of the present e r a — t h e y have
a deep significance for the e n t i r e civilized world.
T h e foregoing o u t l i n e has had as its m a i n t h e m e the demon-

stration that many forms of scientific progress in Mesopotamia
were influenced and l i n k e d t o g e t h e r by a scholarly t r a d i t i o n
which was i n turn the by-product o f the invention of writing.
O u r survey has failed, however, thus far to include mathematics
a n d astronomy, two fields for which M e s o p o t a m i a has long b e e n
celebrated, and is so now m o r e than ever owing to the re-
searches of Professor N e u g e b a u e r . It goes without saying that
these subjects were affected no less than the o t h e r disciplines
by the same forces which made for a broad cultural advance in
general. B u t the primary cause o f the extraordinary develop-
m e n t of mathematical a n d related studies in Mesopotamia is to
b e sought, I believe, in c o n d i t i o n s which antedate the introduc-
t i o n of writing. I n fact, I would add, the origin of writing as
well as the interest in m a t h e m a t i c s are to be traced back, in this
case, to a c o m m o n source. T h i s source will be found i n h e r e n t
i n the society and e c o n o m y of the prehistoric Sumerians.
W e know today that the S u m e r i a n s got their idea of w r i t i n g
f r o m the cylinder seals which they engraved with various de-
signs to serve as personal symbols. T h e s e symbols came to be
employed as marks of identification for religious and e c o n o m i c
purposes, for e x a m p l e , with t e m p l e offerings. In this repre-
sentational function the old designs develop into c o n c r e t e
graphs for humans, animals, plants, and so forth, and t h e n c e
for temples, gods, and cities. T h e graphs are then associated in
each instance with specific words. T h e gap between picture a n d
word is bridged. G r a d u a l l y means are devised to express n o t
o n l y c o m p l e t e words b u t also c o m p o n e n t syllables, the advance
leading thus from the c o n c r e t e to the abstract. At length writ-
i n g is perfected to f u n c t i o n as a flexible m e d i u m for the record-
i n g of speech and thought.
W h e n we look back now on the successive interlocking stages
i n this complicated process, which has been sketched here in its
barest outlines, an i n t e r e s t i n g fact will emerge. T h e early Su-
m e r i a n s had not set o u t at all to i n v e n t writing. T h e y were car-
r i e d to this result by a c o m b i n a t i o n of peculiar circumstances.
T h e o u t c o m e had scarcely b e e n p l a n n e d or foreseen. T h e
a c h i e v e m e n t of the discoverers lay chiefly in their ability to
recognize and seize t h e i r o p p o r t u n i t y . T h i s they did with truly
r e m a r k a b l e ingenuity and perseverance. T h a t they had the op-
p o r t u n i t y to begin with was due, however, to the way in which
t h e i r society functioned. T h i s system can now be reconstructed
from a wealth of diversified evidence. O n l y a rough summary

can be attempted at present.
W e have seen that the immediate ancestor of Mesopotamian
writing was the cylinder seal, which was first and foremost the
Sumerian's mark of ownership. Impressed on clay or cloth, it
served to safeguard in the eyes of G o d and man one's title to
possessions or merchandise. W e have here a clear indication of
a strongly developed sense of private property and thereby of
individual rights and individual initiative. 0 T h e curious shape
of the cylinder seal, original with the Sumerians, is explained
by its use as a mark of individual ownership. For such cylin-
drical objects are well suited to cover uneven surfaces with their
distinctive design. 7
W h o l l y consistent with this economic origin of w r i t i n g is the
fact that the earliest written documents are given over to temple
economy. Later texts branch out into the field of private busi-
ness. Both these uses testify independently to the importance
attaching to property rights. Records of a non-economic char-
acter are the last to appear, except for the lists discussed above
which served as direct aids to writing. T h e first inscribed docu-
ments were used, accordingly, for economic ends, precisely as
the cylinder seals themselves. It is easy to understand why the
oldest pictographs were so often identical with the designs on
the seals.
It follows that Mesopotamian writing, and hence the first
script known to man, was the unforeseen outgrowth of a social
order which was founded on a recognition of personal rights.
T h i s basic feature of Sumerian society is attested overwhelm-
ingly in cuneiform law, perhaps the most characteristic and the
most abundant expression of ancient Mesopotamian civiliza-
tion. In the last analysis this law rests on individual rights. It
is not surprising, therefore, that proof of ownership becomes a
vital necessity under this system. Incidentally, the rigid require-
ment of such proof is the main reason for the hundreds of thou-
sands of legal documents recovered from the buried sites of
Mesopotamia; the forces responsible for the introduction of
writing continued thus as the primary factor in the subsequent
6 Cf. E. A . Speiser, " T h e B e g i n n i n g s of Civilization in M e s o p o t a m i a , " Supple-

ment to t h e Journal of the American Oriental Society, N o . 4 (Vol. 59, 1939), p p .
17 ff. (csp. p p . 25-28).
7 See H. F r a n k f o r d . Cylinder Seals ( L o n d o n . 1939). p. 2.
popularity of script. T h e law applies to ruler and subjects
alike. T h e king is at first no more than a "great man," as is
shown by the Sumerian etymology of the term as well as the
form of the corresponding pictograph. H e may become the ad-
ministrator of a vast empire, but even then he is still the serv-
ant, not the source of the law, and is responsible to the gods
for its enactment. T h e r e is here no encouragement of absolute
power. Law codes are the constitution which guides the ruler
and safeguards the subjects. We have seen that this system is
capable of promoting cultural progress on an extensive scale.
Its inherent vitality is evidenced by the ease with which this
order maintains itself for thousands of years in spite of a suc-
cession of political changes under the Sumerians, Akkadians,
Gutians, Babylonians, Kassites, and Assyrians. Nor is f u r t h e r
expansion hindered by ethnic or linguistic obstacles in its path;
for distant and heterogeneous outsiders are attracted not infre-
quently to the orbit of the Mesopotamian civilization. Among
the newcomers we find the Elamites, the Hurrians, and the
Hittites, the last-named a people of European ancestry and
Indo-European speech. Incidentally, it is to the influence of
Mesopotamia upon the Hittites that we owe today our oldest
available records of any Indo-European language. T h e new-
comers proceed to copy the laws, use the script, and enjoy the
other benefits of the adopted civilization.
Enough has been said to imply that mathematics and time-
reckoning were bound to prosper against this social and eco-
nomic background. An obvious corollary is preoccupation with
metrology, with the result that Mesopotamian weights and
measures spread eventually beyond the domain of the parent
culture. But the technical features of these disciplines do not
lie within the scope of the present paper; 8 neither do they fall
within the competence of this reader.
T o sum up, there existed an intimate relation between scien-
tific progress in Mesopotamia and the source of historic Meso-
potamian civilization. Underlying all was a social order resting
on the rights of the individual, embodied in a competitive
economy, and protected by the supreme authority of the law.
This system brought about the evolution of writing, hencefor-
ward a decisive factor in the advance of civilization and its
8
Note the article by V. Gordon Childe, on " T h e Oriental Background of
European Science," The Modern Quarterly, I, N u m b e r 2 (1938), pp. 105 ff.
io HISTORY OF SCIENCE
diffusion past the changing ethnic and political boundariees.
We have here the essentials of a truly cosmopolitan civilizatioon
notable for its assimilatory power and a science broad in scoppe
and balanced through the inner unity of its many branches. .
Would this story of scientific development have differed aap-
preciably under another type of civilization? T h e answer is
hinted in one of history's most magnificent experiments. T1 he
one center possessing a culture of comparable antiquity buut
dissimilar social and economic background was Egypt. Here thhe
king was a god and as such the absolute ruler and titular ownaer
of all that his realm contained. Under this concept of goverrn-
ment there was no room for the recognition of private owneer-
ship of property and the all-embracing power of the law. T l h e
pharaoh was dictator of a state genuinely and thoroughly totali-
tarian. T h e pyramids bear lasting and eloquent testimony i to
his enormous authority.
We are not concerned here with the respective merits of twvo
contrasting forms of government. Our interest is confined fcor
the present to the effect of coexistent civilizations upon tlhe
progress of science in the two centers under comparison. T l h e
perspective of more than five thousand years cannot but deepeen
our appreciation of the debt which modern life owes to botth
Egypt and Mesopotamia. By the same token, however, we aire
able now to view objectively some of the differences betweeen
their respective achievements.
T h e established superiority of Mesopotamian mathematiics
may be attributed, in part at least, to the stimulus of the loc:al
economy, so different from the Egyptian. Opposed concepts <of
property ownership and the fundamental rights of the indii-
vidual were responsible for the intensive pursuit of legal studiies
in the one instance and their subsidiary role in the other. Tlhe
astounding accomplishment of Mesopotamia in the field of liin-
guistics had no adequate counterpart in Egypt. We have juist
seen that in Mesopotamia progress in linguistic studies, not ito
cite now other branches of science, was linked intimately witth
the development of writing. But was not Egyptian writing a
correspondingly potent factor?
If this question cannot be answered with complete conifi-
dence it is largely because the origin of the Egyptian form >of
script is still open to conjecture. Some details, however, aire
certain and beyond dispute. The earliest inscribed records of
ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA
Egypt are some centuries later than the first written d o c u m e n t s
of Mesopotamia. I n S u m e r we can follow the successive paleo-
graphic stages step by step, whereas in Egypt the f o r m a t i v e
period of writing seems to have been very short indeed, to
j u d g e from the available material. Moreover, w r i t i n g left in
S u m e r a clearly m a r k e d trail which leads back to a specific
social and economic set-up; in Egypt there is n o such d e m o n -
strable relationship. Because of all these facts, a n d in view also
of c o m m e r c i a l and c u l t u r a l links known to have c o n n e c t e d
Egypt and M e s o p o t a m i a at the very period u n d e r discussion,
it is logical to assume that Egypt i m p o r t e d the idea of w r i t i n g
f r o m Mesopotamia. Differences in the form and use of the signs
would correspond, t h e n , to the existing differences in the art
and languages of the two cultural centers. O n present evidence,
any o t h e r assumption would leave far too m u c h t o c o i n c i d e n c e . 9
I n the final analysis it is n o t so m u c h a q u e s t i o n of the m e r e
use of script as of the conditions responsible for the o r i g i n a l
e m e r g e n c e of writing.
At all events, Egyptian writing, regardless of its o r i g i n , in-
evitably played its part in the n o t a b l e progress of Egyptian
science. W h a t we miss here, however, is the scope and i n n e r
unity of scientific advance which we found to be so character-
istic of Mesopotamia. T h a t unity was the product of a t r a d i t i o n
which is traceable u l t i m a t e l y to a particular c o n c e p t of life. I n
totalitarian Egypt a different set of values a t t a c h e d to life a n d
g o v e r n m e n t and tradition. Is this the reason for an effort that
seems m o r e sporadic, greater perhaps in its power of concentra-
tion o n specific objectives, b u t also more conspicuous for its
omissions? Over a period of m i l l e n n i a this appears to b e a
justifiable comparative appraisal of the results achieved in the
field of science by the two oldest historic civilizations.
9
Cf. Speiser, op. cit., 22, note 12, and Siegfried Schott, in K u r t Sethe's Vom
Bilde zum Buchstaben (1939), pp. 81 ff.
U N I V E R S I T Y OF PENNSYLVANIA
Some Fundamental Concepts in

Ancient Astronomy
By
O T T O E. NEUGEBAUER, PH.D., LL.D.»
I. THE aim of this lecture is not to give any kind of complete

survey of the fundamental ideas or methods of ancient astron-
omy but, on the contrary, to show how one single fact, the
variability of the length of the days, influenced the structure of
ancient astronomy. I choose this kind of approach because I
am convinced that real progress in the study of the history of
science requires the highest specialization. In contrast to the
usual lamentation, I believe that only the most intimate knowl-
edge of details reveals some traces of the overwhelming rich-
ness of the processes of intellectual life.
T h e variability of the length of the days connects two funda-
mental groups of problems: the variability during the year leads
to the problem of the determination of the orbit of the sun;
the variability with respect to the geographical latitude in-
volves the question of the shape of the earth. Both problems
are not only very intimately connected, but both require for
adequate treatment the creation of a new mathematical disci-
pline—spherical trigonometry. No one of these three groups of
problems—ancient theory of the movement of the sun, deter-
mination of the shape of the earth, and history of trigonom-
etry—could be adequately discussed in a single lecture. I will
therefore confine myself to a short report about some of the
questions involved, which are, I believe, in a certain sense typ-
ical for the situation faced by the ancient mathematician, and
I will discuss only those methods which are of essentially linear
character. T h i s means that I shall disregard the mathematical
part of the problem, the history of spherical trigonometry, 1
•Professor of Mathematics, Brown University.

1 T h e branch of the development where trigonometric methods are involved
will be discussed in a forthcoming paper by Olaf Schmidt, Brown University. I n
the following the treatment of these problems by stereographic projection as
>3
>4 HISTORY OF SCIENCE
and, instead, emphasize an earlier stage of our problem, whose
importance for different problems in ancient astronomy has not
been f u l l y acknowledged. 2
2. W h e n we talk about the "length of the days" we must
briefly discuss concepts and methods of measuring time. W e
all have some feeling of homogeneous time as a kind of equi-
distant scale, well adapted to measure the events in the ob-
served world. I will not discuss the fact that this a priori concept
of homogeneous time is doubtless due to the fortunate fact
that we are living on a celestial body which moves under almost
the simplest possible conditions (the so-called two-body prob-
lem) and that celestial mechanics shows that only with very
little change in the original distribution of masses and veloci-
ties our aspect of the sky w o u l d be about the same as the
aspect of the lights of a large city from a roller-coaster, 3 where
nobody w o u l d create such nice concepts as our day and night
and their smaller parts. B u t even under the ideal conditions
given on our planet, it took more than two of the four millen-
nia of known history to develop such a simple concept as an
" h o u r " of constant length.
It is well known that " h o u r " meant in ancient and me-
dieval times one-twelfth of the actual daylight from sunrise to
sunset, so that " o n e h o u r " in J a n u a r y and August, and in Alex-
andria and R o m e , had very different lengths. From our point
of view the first question may be: H o w is it possible to arrive
at such an obviously inconvenient definition of time? However,
given by Ptolemy in his " P l a n i s p h a e r i u m " (opera, vol. II, pp. 225-259) is com-
pletely disregarded.
- It must be emphasized that H o n i g m a n n in his book Die sieben Klimata
und die jróX«s iiria-qnoi (Heidelberg, Winter, 1929) recognized for the first
time the relationship between the problem of the "rising-times" treated here
and ancient geography. Independently Olaf Schmidt discovered the importance
of these questions for the ancient geometry of the sphere, especially in Theo-
dosius. T h e s e two sources, together with my own investigations on Hypsicles,
directed my attention to the " l i n e a r methods" in Greek and Babylonian as-
tronomy and their relationship.
3
C f . e.g., the results of Hill (Coll. Works, I, p. 334 f.) and Poincaré (Méth.
h'ouv. Méc. Cel., I, p. log) which show that only a slightly different initial
situation w o u l d cause o u r moon to move in a curve of oval shape in the main
part, but with a loop at each end of the longer axis, such that the moon would
appear half six times d u r i n g one revolution. In the neighborhood of full- and
new-moon, the moon's velocity w o u l d be about the same as now, b u t around
the loops the movement would be almost zero. I wonder what kind of time
concept would be proved to be a priori by the philosophers of the dwellers on
such a moon.
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY 15
f o r m u l a t i n g the question in this way prevents access to the solu-
tion. W e must not ask w h o invented the hours of u n e q u a l
length (the so-called "seasonal hours"), but w e must find the
causes which finally enforced the creation of such a highly artifi-
cial concept as an hour of constant length ("equinoctial h o u r " ) .
Actually n o simple observable p h e n o m e n o n exists which may
give a time-scale with equidistant intervals: vessels of a very
special shape only give constant quanta of water-outflow, the
shadow changes according to complicated trigonometrical func-
tions, the length of the day changes in rates which are f a r f r o m
being linear, and the stars shift f r o m night to night, and there
do not exist ancient clocks exact enough to show the regularity
of their movement. H o w e v e r , all those irregularities were just
small enough to make linear a p p r o x i m a t i o n s not entirely im-
possible. T h e brief discussion of their character and relation-
ship is the topic of this lecture.
3. A p p a r e n t l y the most natural division of day a n d night is
the division into two, three, or f o u r parts. T h e bisection gives
noun and midnight, the thirds are the " w a t c h c s " in Babylonia, 4
the quarters the " w a t c h e s " in Egypt. 5 T h e variation in the
lengths of the nights in those southern latitudes is so small that
no one needed to worry about the constancy of these watches.
H o w uninterested the Egyptians were in the change of the
astronomical seasons is emphasized by the fact that they sub-
divided their year not in f o u r but in three agricultural seasons:
the period of inundation, the reappearance of the fields f r o m
the inundation, and the harvest. 6 Obviously p r i m a r i l y agricul-
tural societies do not need any k i n d of precise definition of
homogeneous time; and even in periods w h e r e a finer subdi-
vision is required, the older custom of treating day and night
separately has been kept in use. T h e r e f o r e the E g y p t i a n
" h o u r s , " which can be shown to exist since about 2000 B.C., 7
are typically seasonal hours of one-twelfth of the day and one-
twelfth of the night each. In G r e e k literature these " h o u r s "
do not appear earlier than in Hellenistic times. 8
* Cf. e.g., B . Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, II, p. 391 (Heidelberg, Winter,
'9=5)-
s
K. Sethe, Die Zeitrechnung der alten Aegypter (Nachr. Ges. d. Wiss. Göt-
tingen Phil-hist. Kl. 1919, p. 287 ff. u. 1920, p. 97 If., p. 127).
" S e t h e , Zeitrechnung, p. 294.
7
Sethe, Zeitrechnung, p. 1 1 1 .
8
I he oldest occurrence of " h o u r s " as a well-determined time measure seems
i6 HISTORY OF SCIENCE
A very different but also very primitive method of counting
time has been developed in Mesopotamia. We know that as
early as in Sumerian times 9 there existed a distance-unit named
danna, which may be translated as " m i l e , " corresponding to
about seven of our miles. T h i s unit was used for measuring
longer distances and became in this way quite naturally also a
time-interval: the traveling time for such a distance. If we
suppose this slight change in the meaning of the word " m i l e , "
it is immediately intelligible how a day or a night could be
expressed in "miles." B u t the origin of these "time-miles" f r o m
measuring distance has never been forgotten, and therefore
time measurement in " m i l e s " became a homogeneous one,
independent of the changing length of the day during the sea-
sons. When later, I may say some time in the first part of the
first millennium B.C., 1 0 Babylonian astronomy made its first
steps to a more systematic recording of celestial phenomena,
this length-measure " m i l e " was transferred to celestial distances
too, in the simple way that the number of miles contained in
one day was made equivalent to one revolution of the sky.
Because one day contained twelve of these itinerary miles, the
circumference of the sky also became twelve miles. A n d because
the mile (danna) has been subdivided in thirty U S (the mean-
ing of US is very significant, simply "length"), the length of the
main circle of the sky was divided into 12 . 30 = 360 parts.
T h i s is the origin of our "degrees" and the custom of modern
astronomy of measuring time in degrees. 1 1
to be in the writings of Pytheas (time of Alexander the Great), quoted by Ge-
minus V I , 9 (ed. Manilius p. 70, 23 ff.); hours are frequently used by Geminus
(ca 100 B.C.), Vitruvius and Manilius (time of Augustus). For f u r t h e r literature,
see Kubitschek, Grundriss der antiken Zeitrechnung (Handb. d. Altertumswiss.
I, 7) p. 179. Herodotus (400 B.C.) is often quoted for mentioning the Baby-
lonian " h o u r s " (II, 109) but this sentence has been considered to be an inter-
polation [recently by J . E. Powell, Classical R e v i e w 5 4 , 1940, p. 69 (without
knowing an older attempt in the same direction, mentioned by Kubitschek p
178, note 1)] but, I think, without sufficient reason.
9
Oldest example from T e l l o , period of Agade (about 2400 B.C.) published
by Fr. T h u r e a u - D a n g i n , Inventaire des Tablettes de Tello conseruees au Musee
Imper. Ottoman, Paris, 1 9 1 0 ff., 1 1 , 1 1 7 5 .
10
Cf. A. Schott, Das Werden der babylonischen Positionsastronomie, Zeitschr.
d. Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 88 (>934), 302 tf. and his review
of Gundel, Hermes Trismcgistos, in Quellen u. Studien z. Geschichte d. Math.,
Abt. B „ vol. 4 (1937). p. 167 ff.
11
Cf. O. Neugebauer, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der antiken Astronomie
III, Quellen 11. Studien 7. Geschiclitc d. Maih.. Abt. B., vol. 4 (1938), 193 ff.
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY »7
In modern literature those " m i l e s " are very misleadingly

named " d o u b l e hours" because they correspond actually to two
of our time units. 1 2 But the ancients were well aware of their
origin; e.g., Manilius (time of Augustus) speaks correctly about
stadia, i.e., miles, in his famous astronomical poem. 1 3 T h e s e
Babylonian time-distances appear frequently in Greek astron-
omy and give clear evidence of the important influence which
Bablyonian astronomy exercised in the ancient world. 1 4
4. It may seem that with this (certainly unconscious) crea-

tion of a homogeneous time all trouble was over, but the real
difficulties begin with the introduction of the concept of homo-
geneous time: we have to express the natural time intervals, as
day and night, by the lengths of some constant time intervals.
T h i s problem has two different aspects: first, the practical one
12
G. Bilfinger, Die babylonische Doppelslunde, Stuttgart, Wiklt, 1888.
13
Manilius, Astronomica III, 275 tf. (ed. Breiter, p. 74 and p. 88; ed. Hous-
man p. 24 and p. X I I I if.).
14
They appear e. g., in Herodot II, 109 (ca 450 B.C.), in the "Eudoxos-
papyrus" (al)out 3rd cent. B.C.; cf. I'auly-Wissowa, Real-Enzyklopadie 6 col.
949), in the Pap. Michigan 151 (Michigan Papyri, vol. I l l , p. 118 ff., a text which
I intend to discuss in a forthcoming paper) and implicitly, of course, in the
countless places where degrees are used to express time (first instance in Greek
is in Hypsicles, about 200 B.C.).
i8 HISTORY OF SCIENCE
of constructing clocks showing real constant time intervals;
secondly, the theoretical problem of finding the rule by which
the length of the days, expressed in this constant time interval,
changes. In the following we shall be mainly concerned with
this second question.
I n order to understand fully the problems involved, it may
be remembered how "one h o u r " is defined today. T h e simple
definition, " O n e hour is the twenty-fourth part of the time
f r o m noon to noon," i.e., from one meridian-passage of the sun
to the next, is not sufficient to obtain hours of constant length
for two reasons. First, the velocity of the sun is not constant.
Secondly, even under the assumption that the sun travels the
same part of its orbit every day, the fact that this orbit (the
"ecliptic" E in fig. 1) has an inclination of more than twenty-
three degrees to the plane of our daily rotation (the " e q u a t o r "
A) implies that equal parts on the ecliptic do not cross the
meridian (M) in equal lengths of time. 1 3 I n order to avoid both
these irregularities (which combined give a rather complicated
effect) modern astronomy introduced an artificial body called
" m e a n s u n " which moves with the constant average velocity of
the "true s u n " and which has the equator as orbit, and not the
ecliptic. T h e twenty-fourth part of these artificial days lasting
f r o m meridian passage to meridian passage of the mean sun is
our familiar " h o u r . " 1 6
5. Both sources of this complication in the definition of
" t i m e " were well known to ancient astronomy. T h e direct ob-
servation of the variability in the sun's daily path is of course
f a r beyond the capacity of any kind of instrument available to
the ancients. However, they realized that the n u m b e r of days
elapsing between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice
is not the same as the number of days between summer solstice
and autumn equinox, between autumn e q u i n o x and winter
solstice, and winter solstice and vernal e q u i n o x , and that these
four points divide the year into unequal parts. T h e method of
taking this observation into consideration is very characteristic
of the ancient astronomical systems.
15
As an e x a m p l e , in fig. 1, are shown two e q u a l parts S,S, a n d S'IS'. of the
ecliptic which the sun may travel in a day, one at s u m m e r solstice (E prac-
tically parallel to A) and the other at the vernal point (E m a x i m a l inclination
to A).
18
T h e difference between true and mean solar time (the so-called " t i m e
e q u a t i o n " ) reaches a m a x i m u m of about ± 1 5 minutes.
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY »9
T h e oldest B a b l y o n i a n system, w h i c h must have been created

earlier t h a n a b o u t 200 B . C . , i n t r o d u c e d an artificial sun, mov-
i n g in two parts of the year with a d i f f e r e n t velocity, s u d d e n l y
j u m p i n g at two well-defined points of its path f r o m o n e velocity
to the o t h e r (fig. 2a). T h e s e velocities a n d j u m p i n g - p o i n t s w e r e
chosen in such a way that the time intervals b e t w e e n the f o u r

points in the year, m e n t i o n e d a b o v e , are just the times r e q u i r e d
by observations. I think that this p u r e l y m a t h e m a t i c a l con-
struction shows the surprisingly high level of this late-Baby-
lonian a s t r o n o m y .
P r o b a b l y very s o o n 1 7 a f t e r this first a t t e m p t to describe
m a t h e m a t i c a l l y the m o v e m e n t of the sun, a second theory was
d e v e l o p e d in B a b y l o n i a , w h e r e the r e q u i r e d change in the sun's
velocity was represented by an a p p a r e n t l y m o r e n a t u r a l con-
17
An attempt of P. Schnabel to date the origin of the two Babylonian systems
exactly (Berossos und die babylonisch-hellenislische Litteratur, Leipzig, T e u b n e r ,
1923, p. 223 ff.) is often quoted in the literature, but it is based on assumptions
which can easily be proved to be wrong.
struction, namely by the assumption of linearly changing veloc-
ity (fig. 2b). The reason why this model is later than the first
mentioned is a purely mathematical one, because the further
consequences of this second assumption become much more
complicated than the first case.18
T h e third solution of the problem, again perhaps only one

hundred or fifty years later than the Babylonian method, was
given by Hipparchus (about 150 B.C.). He interpreted the ob-
served irregularity of the sun's movement as an apparent one
by assuming that the sun moves on a circle with constant
velocity but is observed from an eccentric point. This is the
type of astronomical theory which determined the astronomy
of the following 1,500 years, in a certain sense doubtless a re-
gression from a pure mathematical method to assumptions
about the physical nature of our planetary system (fig. 2c).
6. Let us now consider the second part of the questions in-
13
Expressed in modern terms: T h e summation processes which are required
in the theory of syzygies become one degree higher in the second theory.
volved in the determination of the length of the days, namely

the inclination of the ecliptic. A c c o r d i n g to ancient custom the
" d a y " began with sunrise or sunset; the second definition was
adopted in Babylonia obviously because every new month
began with the first visibility of the new moon, which comes
just after sunset. T h e ancient problem is therefore the deter-
FIG. 2C
mination of the time elapsed between two consecutive crossings

of the horizon by the sun. Here the same difficulty occurs as
in the above-mentioned case of the crossing of the meridian line
by the real sun, moving on the ecliptic and not on the equator;
whereas (for a given place) the inclination of the equator to
the horizon is constant, the sun's orbit cuts the horizon at con-
tinuously shifting angles. T h e problem is the famous problem
of the determination of the "rising-times" (iva<j>opai) in Greek
astronomy: to calculate the equatorial arcs which cross the
horizon in the same time as a given arc of the ecliptic.
T h i s problem is obviously a problem of spherical trigo-
nometry. Its complete solution can be found in Ptolemy's

Almagest (ca 150 A.D.) 1 9 and has profoundly influenced the
earlier treatises on the geometry of the sphere from Autolycos
(little before 300 B.C.), Euclid (ca 300 B.C.), and others to
Theodosius (ca 100 B.C.) and Menelaos (ca 100 A.D.). 20 Ac-
cording to the limitations of this lecture I shall not discuss the
history of this part of the theory. However, I must mention
one theorem which shows the direct connection between the
problem of the rising-times and the question of the variability
of the lengths of the days. T h i s theorem is the following one.
Let us consider, for the sake of simplicity, only the twelfths of
the ecliptic, the so-called zodiacal signs. Let a t , st2, , ai 2 be
the rising times of the first, second, . , twelfth sign, respec-
tively. T h e n , if the sun is at the beginning of the i-th sign, the
length of the day at this time of the year is equal to the sum of
the six consecutive rising times beginning with 3i, i.e., a i + a t + i +
+ a i + 3 . T h e correctness of this theorem is evident when you
remark that after sunrise the i-th sign crosses the east-horizon
first, then the following and so on, until the sun comes to the
west-horizon, at which moment just one half of the ecliptic has
crossed the east-horizon.-Ua During the time from sunrise to sun-
set just six zodiacal signs cross the east horizon, and this is the
proposition of our theorem. This relation explains the high
interest of the ancients in the determination of the rising-
times: if you know the a's, you know the corresponding length
of the day by simple addition.
T h i s relationship is fundamental for the understanding of
all ancient discussion of rising-times and day-lengths. It is
of course treated in Ptolemy's Almagest, where a table of the
rising-times for ten different latitudes is given, 21 with intervals
of ten degrees. As I mentioned before, this table is calculated
by using spherical trigonometry and therefore represents cor-
rectly the rather complicated relation between the sun's posi-
tion in the zodiac and the corresponding rising-times of the
ten-degree arc. T h i s relationship is shown in the case of the
19
Ptolemy, Almagest I I , 7 and 8. An excellent treatment of the problem
corresponding to o u r time-cciuation is given by A. R o m e in Ann. Soc. Sci. de
Bruxelles, ser. t, 5g (1939), 2 1 1 ff.
20
Cf. notes 1 and 2.
20
» Here, as everywhere else in this paper, the difference between sidereal
time and solar time is neglected for the sake of simplicity.
21 Almagest, I I , 8.
latitude of Alexandria in fig. 3. The characteristic property of
this curve is the secondary minimum between the two maxima,
a kind of asymmetry which gets worse with increasing geo-
graphical latitude.
This exact shape of the curve was obtained only by using
trigonometry. However, we know very interesting older at-
tempts to describe the rising-times as functions of the sun's
positions. There exist two different types, one (A) represented

by Hypsicles 22 (ca 200 B.C.) for the latitude of Alexandria, the
second one (B) by Cleomedes (time of the Roman empire) for
the latitude of the Hellespont. 23 Both curves are linear ap-
proximations of the true curve, with the exception that B
inserts in the middle of the slanting lines twice the difference
(fig. 4). The corresponding theory about the influence of geo-
graphical latitude is given for system A by Vettius Valens (about
150 A.D.), 24 for system B by Pap. Michigan 149, 25 who both
-- New edition in preparation by M. Krause, V. De Falco, and myself.
23
Concerning this location see my paper "Cleomedes and the meridian of
Lysimachia," accepted for publication in the Am. J. of Philology.
24
1. 7 (ed. Kroll, p. 23).
25
Michigan Papyri, vol. I l l , p. 63 ff. espec. p. 103 and p. 301 ff. (about 2nd
cent. A.D.).
agree on the general method of defining seven "climata" by
the assumption that the rising-times increase linearly from
clima to clima, Vettius Valens starting from Alexandria, the
Michigan papyrus with Babylon as main clima. 26
It is now a very natural question to ask about the correspond-

ing theory in Babylonian astronomy. 27 Here, however, nothing
about rising-times was known, but only rules by which the
length of the days was calculated during the seasons. 278 Each of
the two systems mentioned above has a scheme of its own. T h e
older one gives (expressed here in degrees) as lengths the fol-
lowing list A , the younger one B : 2 8
26
This follows from a slightly different interpretation of the text, as given
by the editors, which requires a much smaller emendation and will be discussed
in a forthcoming paper.
27
Honigmann has already tried to restore the Babylonian rising-times and
has discovered that Vettius Valens and Manilius refer to this latitude (Mich.
Pap., I l l , p. 313). He was apparently much disturbed by not quite correct in-
formation of Schnabel (p. 314) and a wrong hypothesis of Kugler about a Baby-
lonian scheme of day-lengths (p. 317).
27
* These rules were discovered by Kugler, Babylonische Mondrechnung, Frei-
burg, 1900, p. 77, p. 99.
28
Unfortunately Kugler reversed the order of the two systems by calling the
older one II, the younger I.
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY *5
A B
IO° of length of the day 10° of 8° of length of the day 8° of
180 180 T 180 180
T 200 160 m W 198 162 m
212 i48 M 210 150
H
© 216 144 •5 ® 216 144
Q 212 148 210 i50
Iff 200 160 X nr 198 162 X
W e must only remember the fundamental relation between the
lengths of the day and rising-times in order to find a system of
numbers with constant difference from which, by the addition
of six of them, the day lengths A and B, respectively, can be
derived, namely
B: ai = £»12 = 21
a2 = an = 24 at = an = 24
as = aio = 28 aj = aio = 27
ai = at - 32 aA = a, = 33
at = ag = 36 as = a8 = 36
a« = 07 = 40 a, = a7 = 39
Both lists are linear, except the double difference in the middle
of B, or, in other words, exactly the same, which we knew f r o m
the Greek rising-times, mentioned before. T h e Babylonian list
A of rising-times appears explicitly in Vettius Valens 2 9 and in
Manilius. 3 0
7. W e can summarize our discussion in the statement that
the G r e e k theory of rising-times and variability of day and
night is identical with the Babylonian scheme as far as the
latitude of Babylon is concerned, and that the Greeks modified
these rules in the simplest possible way, namely, linearly, in
order to adapt them to geographical latitudes different from
Babylon.
It should be mentioned that these linear approximations of
the complicated actual curve shown in fig. 3 (p. 23) give very
satisfactory results for the lengths of the days, at least as far
as this can be controlled by the very inaccurate ancient clocks.
T h e proportion 3:2 between the longest and shortest day,
adopted in both Babylonian systems, agrees very well with the
actual duration of light at Babylon in the summertime, 3 1 b u t
this custom of characterizing the latitude of Babylon by the
29 I. 7 and 14 (ed. Kroll, p. 23 and 28).
30 Cf. note 13.
3 1 Kugler, Sternkunde u. Sterndienst in Babel, I, p. 174, II, p. 588; Schaum-
berger in Ergänzungen, p. 377.
proportion 3:2 is the reason for a strange deformation of the
ancient world-map, namely, that of placing Babylon at 35 0 n.l.
(instead of about 331/0, a misplacement which affected the
map of the eastern part of the o i k u m e n e very much. For this
latitude of 35 0 is the immediate result of the theory given by
Ptolemy, based on the proportion 3:2, which is trigonomet-
rically correct, but neglects all atmospheric influences in the
duration of the light-day, which are unconsciously included in
the Babylonian values.
8. T h e theory of the rising-times has one more very im-
portant application in ancient astronomy, as far as I know en-
tirely overlooked by modern scholars. T h i s is the question of
determination of the length of invisibility of the m o o n around
new-moon. T h i s question is of highest importance for the ori-
ental civilizations in which the calendar was regulated by the
actual reappearance of the moon in the evening one or two
days after astronomical new-moon. In order to understand these
relations between rising-times (or here better, setting-times)
and the visibility of the moon, we need only remark that this
visibility not only depends on the distance between sun and
moon in the ecliptic but also on the inclination of the ecliptic
with respect to the horizon. If the ecliptic crosses the horizon
almost vertically, obviously a much smaller distance between
sun and moon is required in order to make the moon's crescent
visible in the dusk than if the ecliptic lies more horizontally and
the sun and moon set almost simultaneously.
W e know from investigations by Kugler, Weidner, 3 2 and
others that Babylonian astronomers were concerned with the
problem of the dependence of the invisibility of the moon on
the seasons at a very early date, 33 w h e n even the variability of
the length of the days was assumed to be linear. Correspond-
ingly, the first attempt to estimate the time between setting of
sun and moon was very unsatisfactory too, namely the assump-
tion of simple proportionality with the duration of the night.
W e know very little about the further development of this
question in Babylonia, but I think that a chapter in Vettius
Valens may give some information. A t any place where we are
able to check his reports he seems to be very wrell informed
3 2 Kugler, Sternkunde u. Sterndienst in Babel, Ergänzungen, p. 88 (f.; E. F.
Weidner, Alter u. Bedeutung d. babyl. Astron., Leipzig 1914, p. 82 fl.
3 3 Schott I.e. note 10, p. 310.
A N C I E N T ASTRONOMY 27
34
about Babylonian sources, which he quotes explicitly. I think,
therefore, we may assume his chapter 1,14 as essentially Baby-
lonian; here he states that for the latitude of Babylon 3 5 the
elongation of the moon from the sun at the moment when the
moon becomes invisible is one-half of the rising-time of the
corresponding zodiacal sign. 36 T h i s rule is still a strong simplifi-
cation of the actual facts, but reveals on the other hand the
full understanding of the fact that the problem of the moon's
invisibility around new-moon requires the consideration of the
change of the ecliptic position with respect to the horizon. 37
T h e last step in the development of this theory before the
complete solution by spherical trigonometry can also be found
in cuniform texts, but only in the most elaborate system.
Here we find an almost perfect solution of the problem, perfect
at least as far as observations with very inaccurate instruments
are able to control. Here, first of all, the inequalities in the
movement of sun and moon are taken into consideration, fur-
thermore the deviation of the moon from the ecliptic (its "lati-
tude"), including an estimate of the influence of the twilight.
Finally the rising-times are used in order to transform the
ecliptic coordinates of the moon into equatorial coordinates or
into "time." 3 8 We have here a very impressive example of how,
by an ingenious combination of linear approximations and
their iteration, a very accurate solution of a problem which
seems to belong entirely to the realm of spherical trigonometry
34
I X , 1 1 (cd. Kroll, p. 354).
35
T h i s is proved by the fact that the values he gives as examples arc exactly
the Babylonian values for the rising-times.
I, 14 (ed. Kroll, p. 28). Details will be discussed in a forthcoming paper.
37
Vettius Valens discusses in chapter I, 13 (ed. Kroll p. 28) the closely re-
lated problem of the daily retardation of the moon's rising and setting with
respect to sunrise and sunset. T h e method is purely linear and based on very
rough approximations, but mentioned earlier in Pliny H . N. (first cent. A.D.)
and later in the Geoponica (6th cent. A.D.). T h e s e texts have recently been dis-
cussed by A. R o m e in vol. I f , p. 176 of the work of Bidez and Cumont, Les
Mages hellénisés (Paris 1938), because the Geoponica refers the method to Zoro-
aster. In the light of the discussion in the work of Bidez and Cumont, a Baby-
lonian origin would be very possible. T h e method of expressing fractions,
however, is the E g y p t i a n one, which speaks strongly for Egyptian origin in
spite of the fact that it is more difficult to understand how Egyptian methods
could be connected with the doctrines of the mages.
38
T h i s fact was first discovered by Schaumberger (Ergänzungen zu Kugler,
cf. note 3 1 , p. 389 ff.) but only by using modern calculations. T h e relation to
the Babylonian rising-times will be discussed in a forthcoming paper.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE
can be obtained. However, only careful historical investiga-
tion of many scattered facts shows that the high building of
ancient spherical astronomy and geography is erected on the
ground of age-long older attempts and experiences.
9. O u r sources are not sufficient, or at least not sufficiently
well investigated, to answer the question about the historical
origin of the problem of the rising times of ecliptic arcs. It is
possible that independent attempts have been made to deter-
mine the variability of the lengths of the days directly. One
interesting suggestion has been made by Pogo in his investiga-
tions on Egyptian water clocks. 39 W e have examples of such
clocks since the eighteenth dynasty (ca 1 5 0 0 B.C.) containing
inside different scales in order to subdivide the day in twelve
parts at the different seasons of the year. Pogo could explain
the arrangement of the scales by the following assumptions:
let a denote the difference between the longest and shortest
day, then the increase of the length of a day in the first month
after the winter solstice has been assumed to be A / 1 2 , in the
second 2 A / 1 2 , in the third and fourth 3 A / 1 2 ; 2 A / 1 2 in the
fifth, A / 1 2 in the sixth and correspondingly in the decrease. 40
It can easily be shown that this rule is equivalent to the newer
Babylonian scheme, mentioned above as B, whereas the older
one (A) would correspond to the coefficients A / 1 8 , 3 A / 1 8 ,
5 A / 1 8 , respectively.
Pogo's remarks would speak in favor of the assumption that
the attempt to characterize directly the rule of the variability
of the length of the day was the first step in our group of
problems—an assumption which sounds in itself natural
enough. B u t it must not be forgotten, on the other hand, that
in the Babylonian astronomy the connection between the
length of the days and the visibility of the moon, which in-
volves the rising-times, was established very early, as we have
seen above. A n d finally, one large group of questions has been
neglected almost entirely, namely, the methods of determining
time and geographical latitude by sun dials. 41 It seems to me
39
A. Pogo, "Egyptian water clocks," Isis 25 (>936), p. 403 ff.
40
Isis 25, p- 407 ff.
41
This method is well known from Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sources.
Their existence in Babylon has been proved by E. F. Weidner (Am. J. of Semitic
Languages and Lit., vol. 40 (1924), p. 198 ff.). I did not realize until recently
that texts which I published as "generalized reciprocal tables" are actually
"gnomon texts" of a type a little more developed than Weidner's texts
therefore better not to propose any definite solution of the
earlier history of our problem but to emphasize the fact that
here is a large field open for and deserving our investigation,
if we are interested in understanding the creation of our time
scale.
(Mathematische Keilschrift-Texte, Quellen u. Studien z. Gesch. d. Math. Abt.
A vo1 - 3. P- 3° ff-)-
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Medicine and Surgery in Ancient Egypt

By
H E R M A N N R A N RE, PH.D.*
O F ALL E g y p t i a n medical l i t e r a t u r e — w h i c h must have b e e n

very e x t e n s i v e i n d e e d — w e have only five long and well-pre-
served texts, and all of these were written w i t h i n a period of
a b o u t five h u n d r e d years. T h u s we are entirely u n a b l e to even
sketch a history of t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of Egyptian m e d i c i n e .
W h a t I can give you w i t h i n the thirty m i n u t e s allotted to m e
is o n l y a b r i e f o u t l i n e of what seem to me the most essential
f e a t u r e s of this l i t e r a t u r e .
I have to pass o v e r the references in t o m b inscriptions of
t h e O l d K i n g d o m , from which we learn that medical texts,
w r i t t e n o n papyrus, were in use d u r i n g the m i d d l e of the t h i r d
m i l l e n n i u m B . C . , a n d that, at the same time, the medical pro-
fession was classified as to rank and also as to specialized fields
(such as " c o u r t eye p h y s i c i a n , " " b o d y p h y s i c i a n , " " d e n t i s t , "
a n d others).
I have to pass over also the earliest preserved fragments o f
m e d i c a l texts of t h e M i d d l e K i n g d o m — t h a t is, of the early
part of t h e second m i l l e n n i u m — o n e of which deals with w o m e n ' s
diseases, while a n o t h e r c o n t a i n s t h e only known Egyptian t e x t
of a veterinary n a t u r e a n d deals with different diseases of bulls.
E v e n of those five well-preserved texts which I m e n t i o n e d ,
I shall choose only the two largest ones for a closer e x a m i n a -
t i o n ; t h e so-called Papyrus Ebers, now at the University L i b r a r y
at Leipzig, G e r m a n y , and the Papyrus E d w i n S m i t h , now in
t h e possession of t h e H i s t o r i c a l Society of N e w Y o r k and o n
loan in the Egyptian c o l l e c t i o n of the B r o o k l y n M u s e u m . B o t h
these papyri were written in the period following the M i d d l e
K i n g d o m , when t h e so-called Hyksos ruled over Egypt, i.e., in
t h e seventeenth c e n t u r y B . C .
I have chosen t h e m n o t only because they are the largest
a n d best preserved of all the Egyptian medical papyri we know,
•Visiting Professor of Egyptology, University of Pennsylvania.
31
but because they represent the t w o m a i n g r o u p s of E g y p t i a n
medical literature. T h e E b e r s P a p y r u s is chiefly a collection
of recipes, i n t e n d e d f o r the use of the physician. T h e E d w i n
Smith P a p y r u s contains a collection of "cases," i n t e n d e d f o r the
use of the surgeon.
T h e E b e r s P a p y r u s , a c o m p l e t e roll of o v e r twenty meters
in length, was b o u g h t in 1 8 7 3 a n d edited in 1 8 7 5 , b u t until
recently n o r e l i a b l e translation of it had been p u b l i s h e d . T h i s
g a p has n o w been filled by the masterly E n g l i s h translation
of the N o r w e g i a n medico-historian B . E b b e l l , which a p p e a r e d
in 1 9 3 7 , a n d which has e n h a n c e d o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of this
i m p o r t a n t text considerably.
T h e E b e r s contains a collection of n o less than 877 recipes
w h i c h are r e c o m m e n d e d f o r a great n u m b e r of diseases a n d
ailments. T h i s large collection itself is a c o m p i l a t i o n of a great
n u m b e r of smaller ones which f o r m e r l y m a y h a v e h a d an
isolated existence. T h e r e are m o r e than thirty such sub-col-
lections, each of w h i c h is preceded by the h e a d i n g " T h e be-
g i n n i n g of . . ." T h e first g r o u p , w h i c h is o n e of the largest,
has the r a t h e r v a g u e h e a d i n g , " T h e b e g i n n i n g of a compila-
tion of r e m e d i e s , " b u t it deals e x c l u s i v e l y w i t h diseases of the
belly. O t h e r , very brief ones, contain, e.g., r e m e d i e s to treat
the liver (as D r . E b b e l l shows, they p r o b a b l y r e f e r to j a u n d i c e ) ,
or " r e m e d i e s f o r a finger or a toe that is i l l , " o r " r e m e d i e s f o r
an ear that does not hear w e l l " — w h i l e a n o t h e r very l o n g o n e
contains a " c o m p i l a t i o n on the eyes," eye diseases p l a y i n g as
great a role in a n t i q u i t y as they d o in m o d e r n E g y p t . T h e
smaller g r o u p s h a v e been a r r a n g e d a c c o r d i n g to s i m i l a r i t y of
content, so that five m a i n g r o u p s of recipes f o l l o w i n g o n e
another can b e d i s t i n g u i s h e d : i n t e r n a l m e d i c a l diseases (these
take u p m o r e than half of the w h o l e ) , diseases of the eye, of
the skin, of the extremities, and diseases of w o m e n . B e t w e e n
the last two a g r o u p of miscellanea is inserted, partly contain-
ing recipes against evils w h i c h , a c c o r d i n g to o u r f e e l i n g , d o
not r e q u i r e m e d i c a l treatment. A b o u t these I shall say a f e w
w o r d s later.
O n l y in twenty-five cases out of the 877 is a l o n g e r diagnosis
g i v e n , against w h i c h a certain r e c i p e is prescribed. O t h e r w i s e ,
the illness or disease is only n a m e d — t h e physician using the
p a p y r u s is supposed to k n o w them w e l l — a n d then the r e c i p e
MEDICINE IN ANCIENT EGYPT 33
or recipes are given often a number of different ones against the
same illness, to choose from ad libitum.
T h e physician evidently was, at the same time, what we
should call the druggist, and had to prepare the remedies which
he used for healing. T h e main role is played by vegetable
drugs, of which the majority—partly by the efforts of Dr.
Ebbell—are known to us, while some still remain unidentified.
I can give only a few examples. Of fruits, we find dates, grapes,
figs, raisins, sycamore fruit, fruit of juniperus, watermelons,
etc. Of vegetables: cucumbers, beans, onions, celery, castor oil,
coriander, cinnamon. Of cereals: powder of wheat or barley.
Besides, such things as flax seed, leaves of lotus, of cucumber,
pine tar, wax, dregs of wine. Of mineral drugs, different salts
are used, yellow and red ochre, natron, malachite. Of animal
drugs, we have especially milk and the fat of various animals or
birds, among others of cats, ibexes, serpents—and also of croco-
diles, hippopotami, and even of lions!
T h e recipes themselves call for pills, potions, onitments,
and bandages. T h e potions consist of water, milk, beer, wine,
date wine, juice of acacia or pistacia. We find often the pre-
scription to let them stand in the dew during the night before
they are taken, or to serve them "at an agreeable warmth,"
or "in the morning" or "before going to bed." With the oint-
ments, a rubbing for four days is often recommended, more
rarely for ten days, sometimes a rubbing "very early in the
morning." Once it is said that the body is to be rubbed and
then "placed in the sun."
As you see, these prescriptions are of a very sober and matter-
of-fact character, and doubtless served their purpose well. Of
some other good, practical prescriptions, I may mention the
rinsing of the mouth against an illness of the tongue; the in-
haling, through a reed, against coughs; the use of a reed as a
drainage tube applied to a bubo or the use of injections against
gonorrhea. Suppositories—once with the reassuring statement
that they are "cooling"—are recommended against "burning
in the anus" and consist either of salt, watermelon, honey, plus
a fourth unidentified ingredient, or of fruit of juniperus, frank-
incense, yellow ochre, cuttle bone, cumin, honey, myrrh, and
cinnamon, again plus an unknown x. From the number of
drugs you would suppose that the second was the more ex-
pensive one.
For a suffering tooth, a filling is prescribed consisting of a
mixture of frankincense, yellow ochre, and malachite.
It has often been emphasized that the recipes of the Ebers
Papyrus are teeming with medicaments of the most repulsive
kind. In fact, we find the dung of various animals—such as
ass, sheep, pig, cat, gazelle, lizard, crocodile, pelican, and also
fly's dirt (once with the cunning addition "that is on the w a l l " )
or dirt of the nail of a man and even urine and excrement of
men sometimes among the ingredients of a salve, but here
two facts must not be overlooked. First, that out of 877 recipes,
only thirty-three (that is, not quite 4 % ) contain such repulsive
ingredients. Secondly, that they usually appear at the end of
a group of recipes prescribed for the same ailment, the ma-
jority of which are free from such ingredients. T h i s seems to
show that they belonged to a kind of folk medicine which was
not in great esteem with the physicians themselves, but of
which it was good to have some examples at hand in case a
patient insisted upon their special value.
I do not know whether ingredients consisting of animal
blood: blood of a calf, or an ox, of asses, pigs, hounds, and
goats, and also of a bat or of various birds; or of the gall of
animals (as ox, goat, tortoise) or birds or fish belong only in the
sphere of folk medicine.
As to the gall of a special kind of fish, we are reminded of
the pathetic story of T o b i a s , who cured his blind father with
the gall of a fish.
As to the blood, we have a very clear indication of folk
medicine, if we read that the blood of a black calf or the blood
of the horn of a black o x is recommended for a salve against
grizzling hair (other recipes prefer the backbone of a raven, a
raven's egg, or fat of a black snake).
With these recipes against the grizzling of hair, and their
sympathetic magic, we have come to a group of recipes in the
Ebers Papyrus which, according to our conceptions, are not
of a medical kind. Let me mention a few others: T h e r e are
recipes to preserve the hair or to make it grow or to expel
d a n d r u f f — b u t also to cause hair to fall out! T h e last one gives
us an interesting insight into the life of an Egyptian harem.
It was to be applied to the hair of a "hated woman"—this
being the technical term for a fellow wife, who shared the
master's favor with another! T h e r e are recipes to remove a
thorn from the body, to improve the skin or to expel wrinkles
of the face, and even recipes to prevent flies or gnats from
biting, to expel fleas from the house or to prevent mice from
approaching things. In the last case, the prescription is to cover
these things with the fat of a cat.
T h e recipes of the Ebers Papyrus also have been discredited
as being drenched with superstition and presupposing a situa-
tion in which, as Dr. Breasted expressed it, "magicians were
contending with a demon-infested world." Dr. Ebbell has
rightly emphasized in a brief preface to his translation that this
conception is not correct.
W e do not know how the ancient Egyptian physicians ex-
plained the origin of the numerous diseases which they treated.
If anything is certain, however, it is the fact that they did not
assume that all, or even a considerable n u m b e r of them, were
d u e to witchcraft of an enemy or to the influence of extra-
h u m a n powers. In the whole Ebers Papyrus, the words "magic"
and "bewitchment" occur just three times. "Magic in the belly"
is mentioned twice, and four different potions are recom-
mended against it. And a "remedy to expel bewitchment,"
which prescribes the swallowing of a big burned beetle, soaked
in oil, is entirely u n i q u e and looks quite foreign within its
surroundings. Magic and medicine always have existed—and
do exist today—beside one another, and here evidently a text
belonging to a book of magic has gone astray and got into a
medical context.
Besides this, we find not more than eleven passages in which
an ailment is said to have been caused by a deity or by a de-
ceased person. It is interesting to see what kind of cases they
are. Seven of them are cases of purulency and haematuria—
one of them contained in one of the rare incantations of the
Ebers, which I shall mention presently. One more occurs in
a recipe against "afflictions" of a general nature which al-
legedly had been made by a goddess for the sungod Re. T h e
three remaining ones—one against white spots in the eyes, the
other against an ailment of the mamma, the third against
cataracts in the eye—all occur within incantations!
These magical spells, however, are much rarer than Breasted's
words would cause us to surmise. Besides the three that I have
just mentioned, the whole Ebers Papyrus contains only ten
more. They are prescribed against different ailments and
diseases: one each against purulency and against blindness, one
each in recipes to stop diarrhea, to kill the roundworm, against
a fetid nose and against spotted baldness, two against a burn
that putrifies, and one against a "swelling of vessels" in an evi-
dently hopeless case, of which the physician is told, "Thou
shalt not put thy hand to such a thing."
Taking them all into consideration, we receive the follow-
ing impression: In some cases in which human help seemed to
be impossible, a last attempt was made to get help from a
supernatural source. In others, the remedy with incantations
is added to a number of recipes without incantation—again for
the physician to choose in case his patient absolutely wanted an
incantation to go with the remedy!
If, finally, the text of the Ebers Papyrus is preceded by three
incantations, which were supposed to be recited when apply-
ing a medicament, when drinking a potion, or when taking
off a medical bandage, this can hardly be taken as anything
but an expression in the belief of the assistance of the gods.
We must not forget that even in the enlightened times of the
Greeks, in the writings of Hippocrates, we find in a prominent
place the invocation of Apollo and the oath to this patron
of the physician.
T h e Edwin Smith Papyrus was bought in 1862 by an Ameri-

can of this name and has been published in 1930 in a masterly
publication, including translation and extensive commentary,
by the American Egyptologist James Henry Breasted, formerly
of the University of Chicago.
In contrast to the Ebers Papyrus with its collection of the
recipes for the physician, this Edwin Smith Papyrus represents
—and is almost the only representative of—the second group
of Egyptian medical texts, which were intended for the use of
the surgeon.
It consists of a collection of forty-eight surgical cases, all built
up according to the same realistically matter-of-fact scheme.
First comes a superscription, which briefly gives the name of
the illness. This is followed by a careful description of the
case in hand, which always begins with the words, "If you
examine a man who" has this or that illness. Then comes a
diagnosis which always begins with the words, "You should
say" he suffers from this or that ailment. Here the same words
reoccur in the main which were used in the first description

of the case, though now, to be sure, as the responsible utter-
ance of the attending surgeon. T h i s diagnosis always ends with
the words: " A n ailment w h i c h " and then one of three possi-
bilities follows. T h e surgeon may say: " A n ailment which I am
going to treat," or " A n ailment which I shall combat," or " A n
ailment which cannot be treated." T h u s , at the end of his de-
tailed diagnosis, the surgeon must always give a kind of
prognostic explanation. T h i s prognosis is either favorable or
doubtful or unfavorable. It is f i n a l l y — e x c e p t in entirely hope-
less cases—followed by a method of treatment, which begins
with the words, " Y o u must d o " this or that. T h e n the healing
substances are given, of which I shall have more to say presently.
T h e cases of the Edwin Smith Papyrus are not only systemat-
ically constructed, each within itself, but their arrangement is
throughout a systematic one.
T h e text begins with a group of injuries of the head or
skull. T h e s e are followed by an injury of the forehead and
the eyebrow, by nose injuries, injuries in the region of the
cheek, of the temple or temple-bone, an ear injury, a fracture
and a dislocation of the lower jaw, injuries to the upper lip,
the chin and the neck, several collarbone injuries, some in-
juries to the upper arm, two wounds and a tumor on the chest,
several injuries to chest and ribs, two cases of tumors on the
chest, a shoulder injury, and finally, an i n j u r y to the lower
spinal column.
T h e fact that here the text comes to an end w o u l d in itself
make it probable that only a fragment of the original text has
come d o w n to us. T h e scribe who copied the E d w i n Smith
Papyrus from an older text actually has stopped in the middle
of a sentence. W e have every reason to assume that the com-
plete text had once included injuries of the stomach, the pelvis,
the leg and foot—perhaps also of the lower arm.
Even within these groups of cases, a systematic arrangement
is noticeable, so that the author proceeds from simple head-
wounds to more and more complicated fractures. Similar is
the arrangement of the various injuries to the forehead and
to the cervical vertebrae.
O n one occasion, the cause of these injuries is indicated. It
is said of the cervical vertebrae of a man, " H i s falling d o w n
headlong has caused the compression of one into the other."
3» HISTORY OF SCIENCE
We must think, here as well as in several other cases, of falls
from scaffolding, which may have been frequent among the
masons working on the Egyptian monuments with their often
very considerable height. On the other hand, some of the in-
juries may have been inflicted by weapons, mainly by spears,
clubs, and daggers.
T h e directions which are given for examining a patient refer,
for example, to putting the hand on the wound and palpat-
ing it. Or the surgeon has to make certain observations, such
as whether his patient can move his head sideways or down,
whether he can open his mouth, move his neck, lift his arm,
whether he is shivering, whether he bleeds (from nose and
ears for example), whether the wound is deep, whether he has
fever, whether the ends of a broken bone "crepitate," whether
the patient can hear, etc. On one occasion, it is to be de-
termined whether the pulse-beat is weak (the Egyptian says,
whether "his heart is too tired to speak"). Several times it is
prescribed that the physician demand certain motions from the
patient, by saying, for instance, " L o o k at your shoulders,"
"Stretch out your legs, and put them together again," or that
the surgeon makes the patient speak by asking him a question.
In therapeutics, the bandage is most commonly used. Of in-
terest is the direction f o u n d in twenty-two, that is almost 5 0 % ,
of the cases, that the patient be bandaged with fresh flesh. T h e
idea seems to have been that the fresh flesh would stop the
bleeding—just as today we treat haemophils with blood serum
or even with fresh flesh. T h i s flesh bandage is to be taken off
after the first day, whereupon follows, in less serious cases, a
treatment with fat and honey and often with a third unde-
termined, ingredient of a vegetable character. T h i s obviously
was a salve applied with or without bandage, the constituents
of which answer each its particular purpose. T h e fat remains
moist and affords a protection against the outside. T h e honey
—which generally takes the place of sugar in ancient E g y p t —
draws off the water and acts as an antiseptic. Whether the plant
ingredient served the function of contracting the wound must
as yet remain a conjecture.
Besides these more general prescriptions, there are a n u m b e r
of others for special cases. Several times it is prescribed that
the patient be treated in a sitting posture: so in the case of skull
fractures, fractures of the upper jaw, a temple fracture, a frac-
ture of a cervical vertebra, and also in the case of an injured
and swollen cheek. In particularly difficult cases in which the
healing process would cover a long time, the exertion of sitting
is to be lessened for the patient. "Make him two supports of
bricks"—evidently for putting his arms on—is the direction
we find in two cases of severe skull fractures.
In two cases of nose fractures, we find that tampons were
employed, only they were soaked in fat instead of antiseptic,
as with us. T h r e e times it is demanded that the patient be
treated in a reclining posture. First, in treating a collarbone
injury; second, in the case of a fractured upper arm; and third,
in a case dealing with a fracture of a thoracic vertebra without
dislocation. T h e directions for treatment in this last case begin
with the words: "You are to lay him on his back, and you are
to prepare for him . . . " but what was to be prepared, we
are not told. In the middle of the sentence, the scribe to whom
we owe our text has interrupted his copying. It seems that he
had intended to continue the text, for he left an empty space
of sufficient length for four more columns, and after this gap,
he began to copy a series of quite different texts. But he never
fulfilled his intention.
O n e remarkable thing you will have noticed: that no sur-
gical operation as yet has been mentioned. And, in fact, these
ancient Egyptian surgeons do not seem to have employed the
knife even once. But we do have one case in the Edwin Smith
Papyrus where the surgeon operates, though not with a knife.
It is the first of three cases which describe not injuries and
fractures proper, b u t infected wounds and tumors. Concerning
a tumor-like abscess, filled with pus, on the breast of the pa-
tient, the surgeon says toward the end of his diagnosis: "An
ailment which I shall treat with the fire drill." And the author
of the text goes on: "You should b u r n for him over his breast,
i.e., over those tumors which are on his breast." T h e prescrip-
tion here is, as we see, the b u r n i n g out of a tumor—as is still
done today under certain conditions with carbuncles, although
with an instrument rather different from the primitive Egyptian
fire drill!
In general, the atmosphere of sober observation and matter-

of-fact practical prescriptions and treatments found in both of
these outstanding medical texts of the Egyptians may be called
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AUTHORITIES OR REFERENCES IN NOTES
Æschylus, 53.
Aldis, Prof. W. S., 202.
Anderson, Dr. Elizabeth Garrett, 113.
Aspasia, 45, 46, 47.
Athena, 52.
Ballot, Jules, 168.

Balzac, H. de, 198, 211.
Bastian, Dr. H. C., 87, 125, 204, 208.
Bebel, August, 38, 46, 115, 124, 130, 165, 167, 183, 199.
Bell, Sir C., 192.
Berdoe, Ed., 191.
Bernard, Dr. Claude, 185.
Bernheim, Dr., 109.
Bidwell, E., 93.
Bithell, Richard, 110.
Blackstone, 98 to 100, 131, 143, 148.
Blake, William, 159, 210, 214.
Blowitz, M. de, 202.
Bonavia, Dr. E., 121, 153, 162, 164, 194, 198.
Bowyer, Lady, 156.
Bracton, 98.
Browning, Eliz. Barrett, 63, 67, 119.
Browning, Robert, 67.
Brown-Séquard, Dr., 184.
Brücke, Prof., 184.
Büchner, Dr. L., 121.
Buckle, H. T., 50, 65, 72, 103, 107, 118, 131, 140, 142, 171, 206, 211.
Buddha, 138.
Byron, Commodore, 61.
Byron, Lord, 125.
Caird, Mona, 48, 174.

Carlyle, Thomas, 193.
Cerise, Dr., 103.
Chambers, Robert, 40.
Chauveau, Dr., 183.
Chauvin, Mdlle., 202.
Christian, Edwd., 98, 131, 143, 149.
Cobbe, Frances Power, 88, 112, 152, 189, 190.
Coke, Chief Justice, 98, 130.
Collins, Mabel, 181, 209.
Comte, Auguste, 138 (see Ethics, in Index).
Condorcet, 197.
Confucius, 69, 138.
Cromwell, 126.
Cuvier, 124, 126.
Dante, 53, 125, 126, 221.

Darwin, C., 42, 59, 61, 64, 128, 161, 185.
Darwin, F., 107.
Davy, Sir Humphrey, 196.
Dawkins, Prof. Boyd, 93.
De Boismont, Brierre, 116.
Delbœuf, Prof., 119.
Descartes, 205.
Dixie, Lady Florence, 49, 174.
Dodel-Port, Dr., 124.
Dufferin, Lady, 206.
Duffey, Mrs. E. B., 120.
Dumas, A. fils, 36, 49, 54, 124, 132, 137, 175, 197.
Dunckley, Dr. Henry, 187.
Dupanloup, Mons., 197.
Du Prel, Dr., 109.
Edger, Lilian, 202.

Eliot, George, 35, 79, 93.
Elmy, Ben, 38, 66, 178.
Elmy, Eliz. C. Wolstenholme, 62, 144, 155.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 161.
Esher, Lord, 145.
Faber, Dr., 67.

Fairchild, Prof., 164.
Farnham, Eliza W., 59, 104, 111, 130, 139, 157, 179, 186, 200, 206,
207, 214.
Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, 113, 114, 117.
Fawcett, Philippa, 164.
Fergusson, Robert, 72, 140.
Flaxman, John, 170.
Fonblanque, Dr., see Paris.
Forel, Dr., 120.
Fuller, see Ossoli.
Galton, F., 181.

Gambetta, Léon, 126.
Gardener, Helen H., 125, 126, 127.
Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, Jr., 172.
Geddes and Thomson, 40, 41, 74, 78, 173, 175 to 177, 178, 182.
Geikie, James, 40.
Gnathæna, 46.
Gregory, Dr., 73.
Greville, Lady Violet, 130.
Grey, Sir George, 59.
Grote, George, 44.
Goltz, Prof., 191.
Goethe, 195, 220.
Guizot, 142.
Halsbury, Lord Chancellor, 144.

Harrison, Frederic, 112.
Harvard, John, 171.
Hoche, Frau, 77.
Homer, 53.
Horsley, Prof., 189, 205.
Huxley, Prof., 64, 109, 166, 197.
Ingersoll, Robert, 208.
Inman, Dr. T., 58.
Jefferies, R., 36, 41, 103, 108, 183, 187, 213, 216, 218.
Jex-Blake, Dr. Sophia, 113, 172.
Jones, Prof. T. R., 36.
Journals, &c.
“Arena,” 181.
Bible, 100, 102, 116, 140.
“Bombay Guardian,” 71.
Brit Assoc. Reports, 35, 36, 93, 101, 107, 116, 117.
“British Med. Journal,” 78.
Chinese Classics, 67.
“Christian Commonwealth,” 196.
“Daily News,” 156.
“Dublin Review,” 73.
“Fortnightly Review,” 115.
Fox’s Journal, 140.
“Home-Maker,” N.Y., 86.
Ohel Jakob (Jewish Liturgy), 139.
“Journal of Education,” 160.
“Lancet,” 114.
Mahomedan Lit. Society, 94.
“Manchester Courier,” 169.
“Manchester Evening Mail,” 169.
“Manchester Examiner,” 60.
“Manchester Guardian,” 76, 77, 140, 187.
“Morning Post,” 54.
“National Review,” 130.
“New Zealand Herald,” 203.
“Nineteenth Century,” 47, 61, 71, 114.
“Pall Mall Gazette,” 78.
“Provincial Med. Journal,” see Bonavia, Dr.
Report of International Council of Women, Washington, 1888, 126
to 128.
“Review of Reviews,” 69, 80, 86, 118, 180.
“Standard,” 76, 192.
“Times,” 86, 97, 119, 146, 150, 189, 191, 192, 205, 207.
“Times of India,” 82, 97.
“Westminster Review,” 142, 168.
“Woman,” 169.
“Woman’s Journal,” Boston, U.S., 72, 106, 172, 201.
“Woman’s Herald,” 57.
Kant, Immanuel, 183, 195, (see Ethics, in Index).

Karl, Lieutenant, 77.
Kenny, Courtney, 149.
Kingsley, Charles, 57, 119.
Kipling, J. Lockwood, 39.
Kipling, Rudyard, 54.
Laboulaye, E., 130.

Laïs, 46, 47.
Lang, Andrew, 179.
Lecky, W. E. H., 48.
Lee, Chief Justice, 151.
Leland, C. G., 38, 217.
Lepstuk, Marie, 77.
Letourneau, Ch., 37, 38, 39, 46, 55, 58, 61, 67, 88, 132, 133, 138, 159.
Le Vassor, 131.
Linton, Eliza Lynn, 47.
Lodge, Prof., 35.
Lombroso, Prof., 101.
Luteef, Abdool, 97.
Lycurgus, 209.
Lylie, “Euphues,” 171.
Machill, Prof., 164.

Magee, Archbishop, 80.
Manning, Cardinal, 73, 118.
Mansell, Dr. Monelle, 84.
Manu, 67, 133 (see England, in Index).
Maxwell, David, 210.
McCarthy, Justin, (see “Military service,” in Index).
McIlquham, Harriett, 151, 152.
M’Lennan, John F., 37, 59.
Mencius, 69.
Michelet, J., 77.
Mill, Harriet, 56, 142.
Mill, John Stuart, 38, 43, 73, 79, 107, 134, 137, 154, 156, 162, 175, 193,
197, 222 (see Ethics, in Index).
Milton, 67, 135.
Mitchell, Hon. J. W., 123, 200.
Mitchell, Dr. Julia, 77.
Moir, David M., 63.
Molière, 196.
Moll, Dr. A., 109, 119, 121.
Montesquieu, 99.
Morgan-Browne, Laura E., 56, 57.
Morselli, Dr., 126.
Müller, Max, 42.
Nichols, Dr., 101.
Ninon de Lenclos, 48.
Norman, —, 70.
Orr, Mrs. Sutherland, 67.

Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, 180.
Page, Lord Justice, 151.

Paley, (see Ethics, in Index).
Paris and Fonblanque, 108.
Park, Mungo, 59.
Parvin, Dr., 90.
Pericles, 45.
Peile, Dr., 202, 203.
Pertz, Dorothea, 107.
Pfeiffer, Edward, 160.
Phipson, Dr. Edith Pechey, 42, 43, 80, 81, 91, 94, 136, 159, 194.
Phryne, 46, 47.
Plato, 44, 118.
Pliny, 102.
Ponsan, Dr. Menville de, i.
Pope, 66.
Raciborski, Dr., 88, 102, 120.

Rawn, Dr., 116.
Reade, Winwood, 44.
Reichardt, Mrs., 61, 71.
Renan, Ernest, 166, 220.
Richardson, Dr. B. W., 215.
Roland, Madame, 129.
Rousseau, 197.
Roussel, Dr., 88, 103, 104.
Rowe, Nicholas, 133.
Ruskin, John, 51, 54, 108, 128, 156.
Ryder, Dr. Emma B., 84.
Sachs, Dr., 107.

Sakyamouni, 138.
Sand, Georges, 67, 79.
Schiller, 80.
Schreiner, Olive, 111.
Scott, 52.
Selborne, Lord, 146.
Shakespeare, 52, 53, 150, 195.
Shelley, 156, 219.
Sidgwick, Prof. H., (see Neo-Malthusianism, in Index).
Smith, R., 61.
Smith, Sydney, 51, 163, 195.
Socrates, 45, 48.
Somerville, Mary, 163.
Sorel, Agnes, 47.
Spencer, Herbert, 64, 88, (see Ethics, in Index).
Spenser, 119.
Spier, Mrs., 138.
Spitzka, Dr., 126, 127.
Spurzheim, Dr., 127.
Stead, W. T., 180.
Stern, Daniel, 197.
Tait, Lawson, F.R.C.S., 188, 192.

Tennyson, 43, 53, 66, 156, 162, 173, 182, 218, 220.
Tertullian, 142.
Theodota, 48.
Thompson, Wm., (see Equality, in Index).
Thomson (see Geddes).
Thorburn, Dr. John, 91.
Tilt, Dr. E. J., 116, 118.
Tinseau, —, 69.
Troll-Borostyani, Irma von, 183.
Tyndall, Prof., 88.
Vambéry, Prof., 207.
Wakeman, Edgar L., 75.

Walker, Dr. A., 46, 129, 163.
Wallace, Prof. A. R., 180, 208.
Webb, Sidney, 101.
Weill, Dr. Alexander, 111, 112.
Westermarck, Edwd., 42, 45, 46, 171, 209.
White, Prof., 164.
Whitehead, Dr., 105.
Whitman, Walt, 154, 209, 216, 220.
Whittier, John G., 178.
Winslow, Dr. Caroline, 106.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 129, 135, 159, 170.
Wordsworth, 36, 213, 217, 219.
INDEX TO NOTES.
Abnormality, 91 to 93, 121.

Affection, 42;
indispensable to true marriage, 194.
Age of nubility and consent, see England, India.
American Indians, education of, 60.
Anatomy, feminine teaching of in India, 207.
Arrogance, masculine, 64, 67, see Sex-bias.
Art, 40, 41, 216.
Asceticism, 41 167, 208.
Athletics, 74, 167, 215, see Strength, Training, Military service.
Australian girl, 42.
Barbarism, 37, 54, 57.

“Baron and feme,” 149.
Bayadères, 46.
Beauty, 41, 49, 75, 213, 216.
Brain, 121 to 128, 203, 205;
developed by exercise, 121, 122, 161;
relative size, weight, and specific gravity of, 125, 126;
of celebrated men, 125;
no hard and fast distinction known, 127;
of ant, 128.
Brahminism, 71, 80, 82, 138.
Buddhism, 72, 138.
Capability, 49 to 53, 162, 164, 169, see Jealousy.

Catholicism, status of wife, 73.
Cattle, wild; lactation, 93.
Chastity, 47, 138, 177, 209.
Childbearing, 78, 208;
excessive, 64, 66, 105, 176, 177;
future painless, 216.
Child-marriage, 81;
see Marriage.
China, 58;
ethics of woman in, 67;
a Mandarin’s foreboding, 130;
a girl’s duty in, 140, see Confucianism.
Christianity, 73, 140, 142.
Civism, 74, 154, 155.
“Clitheroe case,” 144.
Clothing; see Dress.
Coal-pit women, 75.
Co-education; see Education.
Community of effort, 155, 173, 182, 183, 194, 207, 209, 212, 218, 220.
Comtism, 138, see Ethics.
Confucianism; 67, 71, 138.
Conjugal “rights,” in England, 98, 143 to 146;
in India, 85, 86, 95, 147.
Consent, age of, see England, India.
Contagious Diseases Acts, 193.
Courtesanship, 45, 54;
see Hetairai, Prostitution.
Cruelty, to woman, 37, 38, 58, 79, 83, 85, 102, 105;
to children, 61, 62, 83, 85, 86.
Curare (or “ourali”), 185.
Custody of Infants, 62.
Cycling, 170.
Demi-monde, 54.
Development, 36, 37, 41, 87, 88, 120, see Evolution.
Disabilities, legal, 150 to 153.
Distortion of feet, 58.
Diseases, feminine, so-called, 100, 101.
Divorce, 73, 135, 148.
Dogma, 35, 67, see Ethics, Religion.
Dower, old English, 98, 99.
Dress, 58, 75, 76, 169.
Duty, so-called, 67 to 74, 136 to 141;
true, 66, 155, see Religion, “Sphere,” Community of effort.
Education, 50, 51;

political, 74, 160;
liberty of, 128, 142, 162, 164, 166, 197;
co-education, 164, 165, 171;
a liberal, 166.
Egypt, 44, 52.
Enfranchisement, 180, see Franchise.
England, modern guardianship in, 62;
ancient, 99;
age of nubility and consent, 98, 99.
[By the law of England a girl is still marriageable at twelve and a boy at fourteen
years of age; though the “age of consent” to intercourse not thus sanctioned has
been recently raised to sixteen years in the case of girls. In the above matters, and
notably in that of the marriageable age, England remains barbarously below most
modern legislatures, and is indeed in the disgraceful condition of being not even on
a level with China, in which country—as Mr. Byrant Barrett points out, in his
Introductory Discourse to the “Code Napoléon,” p. 66—“In females, it would
appear, consummation is not allowable before twelve,” while “the age for marriage
in males is twenty complete.” China and England are but slightly in advance of
ancient India, where, according to the precepts of Manu, as Mr. Barrett further
shows, (p. 30), “The male of 24 years should marry the girl of 8 years of age; the
male of 30 the female of 12” (Ordinances of Manu, ch. 9, sec. 94). Is not such
conduct as this sufficient to involve as inevitable consequences “unripe maternity
and untimely birth,” together with all their dire inherited miseries?]
Epicenity, 181, 182.

Equality of sexes, 43, 45, 49, 57, 79, 133, 134, 153, 154, 156, 162, 163,
194.
See also the following:—
“But I hear you indignantly reject the boon of equality with such creatures as
men now are. With you I would equally elevate both sexes. Really enlightened
women, disdaining equally the submissive tricks of the slave and the caprices of
the despot, breathing freely only in the air of the esteem of equals, and of mutual,
unbought, uncommanded, affection, would find it difficult to meet with associates
worthy of them in men as now formed, full of ignorance and vanity, priding
themselves on a sexual superiority, entirely independent of any merit, any superior
qualities, or pretentions to them, claiming respect from the strength of their arm,
and the lordly faculty of producing beards attached by nature to their chins! No:
unworthy of, as incapable of appreciating, the delight of the society of such women,
are the great majority of the existing race of men. The pleasures of mere animal
appetite, the pleasures of commanding (the prettier and more helpless the slave,
the greater these pleasures of the brute), are the only pleasures which the majority
of men seek from women, are the only pleasures which their education and the
hypocritical system of morals, with which they have been necessarily imbued,
permit them to expect.... To wish for the enjoyment of the higher pleasures of
sympathy and communication of knowledge between the sexes, heightened by that
mutual grace and glow, that decorum and mutual respect, to which the feeling of
perfect, unrestrained equality in the intercourse gives birth, a man must have
heard of such pleasures, must be able to conceive them, and must have an
organisation from nature or education, or both, capable of receiving delight from
them when presented to him. To enjoy these pleasures, to which their other
pleasures, a few excepted, are but the play of children or brutes, the bulk of men
want a sixth sense; they want the capacity of feeling them, and of believing that
such things are in nature to be found. A mole cannot enjoy the “beauties and
glories” of the visible world; nor can brute men enjoy the intellectual and
sympathetic pleasures of equal intercourse with women, such as some are, such as
all might be. Real and comprehensive knowledge, physical and moral, equally and
impartially given by education, and by all other means to both sexes, is the key to
such higher enjoyments....
“Demand with mild but unshrinking firmness, perfect equality with men:
demand equal civil and criminal laws, an equal system of morals, and, as
indispensable to these, equal political laws, to afford you an equal chance of
happiness with men, from the development and exercise of your faculties.”
—William Thompson (“Appeal of One Half the Human Race,” 1825, pp. xii, 195).
Ethics, 74, 147, 173, 177, 186.

[The impotent and contradictory schemes of ethics which philosophers or
schoolmen, ancient and modern, have successively evolved, have been but
resultants of “unisexual wit.” With brilliant exceptions in Plato, Kant, and Mill,
vainly may the various codes be searched for any suggestion of the identity,
individuality, and equality, of woman. For though the philosophy of latter-day
ethicists rightly disdains to reiterate or to countenance the factitious scriptural
dogmas and imprecations declaratory or explanatory of woman’s unequal and
subjugated condition, yet a parallel subjection and inferiority in her nature is still
tacitly assumed, and on occasion traded upon, by these same ethicists; no counsel
or consent of her own intelligence being asked, or disavowal recked of, in such
propositions as, e.g., the “utilitarian” theses concerning her enounced by
Archdeacon Paley or Mr. Jeremy Bentham;—the nominally “goddess,” but virtually
“slave,” status assigned to her by M. Auguste Comte;—or the “due” amount of
child-bearing postulated as prior to all “normally feminine mental energy” in her,
by Mr. Herbert Spencer. As the bane of all theologies has been the implicated
degradation and subserviency of womanhood to the unjustly favoured male sex, so
the vital defect in the plans of ethics is this irrational disregard for the personality
and interests of “one half the human race,”—this ignoring or negation of woman’s
equal claim with man to consideration, position, and action, in all that relates to
humanity, ethics included. At present the general masculine sex-bias, or
selfishness, refuses to women the wisest and noblest a faculty in legislation
conceded to even the meanest men; and justice and injustice, pessimism and
optimism, struggle together blindly and helplessly in the dark. The true Ethic still
awaits for its formulation the assistance and the inspiration of the intellect of
woman equal and free: no other way can it be arrived at.]
Evolution, 39, 40, 41, 78, 87, 88, 107, 122, 173, 180, 208, 210, 211,
218, 220, 222;
see Development.
Excess, 82, 100, 101, 105.
Father, legal “rights” and duties of, 62.

Feme; see Baron.
Feudality, 131;
female wards, 98, 99.
Fictility, 86 to 89, 109, 119, 120;
see Evolution.
Franchise, woman’s, 150 to 155.
French law, 197;
women students of, 201, 202.
Future of woman and humanity; forecasts or counsels concerning, by
—
Balzac, 210.
Bastian, 208.
Bithell, 110.
Blake, 159, 210, 214.
Bonavia, 162.
Buckle, 103, 211, 212.
Cobbe, 112.
Dixie, 174.
Dodel-Port, 124.
Farnham, 104, 111, 206, 207, 214.
Garrison, 171.
Geddes and Thomson, 74, 78, 173.
Huxley, 110, 166, 167, 197.
Jefferies, 103, 108, 182, 213, 216.
Kant, 194.
Lang, 179.
Leland, 216.
Maxwell, 210.
Mill, 43, 79, 162.
Moll, 119.
Pfeiffer, 160.
Richardson, 216.
Ruskin, 108, 128.
Schreiner, 111.
Spencer, 87.
Tennyson, 173, 220.
Tyndall, 89.
Wallace, 180, 208.
Weill, 112.
Whitman, 154, 216, 220.
Winslow, 106.
Wolstenholme Elmy, 155.
Wordsworth, 217, 219.
Girlhood, 81, 128, 163, 197.

Graduates, women, see University.
Greece, 44 to 47;
culture, 216.
Guardianship, 62;
ancient, 99.
Heredity, 87 to 89, 161, 178;

in man, 92, see Development, Evolution.
Heroines of drama, 52, 78.
Hetairai, 45, 46, 48, 53;
see Courtesanship, Prostitution.
Human selection, 174, 180.
Humanity, see Future.
Husband and wife, see Baron and feme, Clitheroe Case, Married
Women’s property;
inequality of right, see Father, Wife, Conjugal “rights”;
different standard of morality between, see Divorce.
Hypnotism, 109, 119;
suggestion, 109.
Ignorance, 89, 90.

Imagination, cultivation of, 206, 218;
future of, 210, 212.
Immaturity, 81, 82;
see Maturity.
Improvidence, 177.
India, 71;
early marriage in, 80, 81, 93 to 98;
effects of, 82, 194;
age of consent in, 94;
courtesanship, 46, 53, 138;
female teaching, 46, 71, 207;
women’s medical education, 207;
code of Manu, 67, 133;
see England.
Individuality, see Selfdom.
Infant, custody of, 62;
feudal wardship, 99.
Infanticide, 60, 61.
Intellect, woman’s quickness of, 50, 51, 65, 104, see Brain, Capability,
Jealousy.
Intemperance, 105, 106, 176, 177.
Intuition, 65, 103, 104, 186.
Japan, woman in, 69, 138.

Jealousy, masculine, 113, 195 to 203;
rebuked, 198, see Sex-bias.
Judaism, 100, 102, 139.
Justice, 43, 108, 179.
Knowledge, 53, 56, 90, 211, 212;

is love, 218.
Language, 42.
Law, old, 99, 143;
study of by women, 200;
French, 201;
civil, see Franchise, Husband, Wife;
divine, see Religion.
Legal practitioners, female, see Law.
Legalised abortion, 105.
Lieutenant “Karl,” 77.
Limitation of offspring, see Neo-Malthusianism.
Love, 41, 42, 43, 70, 71, 78, 177, 193, 218, 219, 221;
Woman’s, 208;
“creation’s final law,” 173, 221;
origin of all worthy thought, 193.
Lust, 41.
Magna Charta, 130.

Mahomedanism, 61, 71, 94.
Malthusianism, 173 to 178.
Manhood, 167, 179.
Marriage, 37, 43, 44, 45, 78, 90, 134, 180, 209;
early, in England, 98;
in Turkey, 61, see India.
Married Women’s Property, 62, 149.
[The Married Women’s Property Act, 1882, in the event of no specific marriage
contract to the contrary between the parties, retains to any woman married since
Dec. 31st, 1882, the possession, control, and disposal of her own property and
earnings, precisely as if she still remained a single woman (feme sole); it further
secures to every wife (whether married before that date or afterwards), the right to
her own earnings, and various other property rights, entirely independent of her
husband’s control.]
Maternity, 59, 64, 91, 106, 183, 208, 209;

artistic or purposed, 214;
painless future, 216.

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Studies in the History of Science E. A.

Knowledge And Power Science In World History 2nd

Knowledge And Power Science In World History 1st

Decision Making A Psychophysics Application of Network

Gentlefolk in the Making Studies in the History of

A History of the Roman People 7th Edition Celia E.

A Life in Cognition Studies in Cognitive Science in

Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies Essays in Honor

Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Ancient Mesopotamia and the Beginnings

• Professor of Semitics, University of Pennsylvania; Director, American School

T h e foregoing o u t l i n e has had as its m a i n t h e m e the demon-

from a wealth of diversified evidence. O n l y a rough summary

6 Cf. E. A . Speiser, " T h e B e g i n n i n g s of Civilization in M e s o p o t a m i a , " Supple-

Some Fundamental Concepts in

O T T O E. NEUGEBAUER, PH.D., LL.D.»

I. THE aim of this lecture is not to give any kind of complete

•Professor of Mathematics, Brown University.

In modern literature those " m i l e s " are very misleadingly

4. It may seem that with this (certainly unconscious) crea-

T h e oldest B a b l y o n i a n system, w h i c h must have been created

chosen in such a way that the time intervals b e t w e e n the f o u r

T h e third solution of the problem, again perhaps only one

volved in the determination of the length of the days, namely

mination of the time elapsed between two consecutive crossings

nometry. Its complete solution can be found in Ptolemy's

positions. There exist two different types, one (A) represented

It is now a very natural question to ask about the correspond-

Medicine and Surgery in Ancient Egypt

O F ALL E g y p t i a n medical l i t e r a t u r e — w h i c h must have b e e n

T h e Edwin Smith Papyrus was bought in 1862 by an Ameri-

reoccur in the main which were used in the first description

In general, the atmosphere of sober observation and matter-

Ballot, Jules, 168.

Caird, Mona, 48, 174.

Dante, 53, 125, 126, 221.

Edger, Lilian, 202.

Faber, Dr., 67.

Galton, F., 181.

Halsbury, Lord Chancellor, 144.

Kant, Immanuel, 183, 195, (see Ethics, in Index).

Laboulaye, E., 130.

Machill, Prof., 164.

Orr, Mrs. Sutherland, 67.

Page, Lord Justice, 151.

Raciborski, Dr., 88, 102, 120.

Sachs, Dr., 107.

Tait, Lawson, F.R.C.S., 188, 192.

Vambéry, Prof., 207.

Wakeman, Edgar L., 75.

Abnormality, 91 to 93, 121.

Barbarism, 37, 54, 57.

Capability, 49 to 53, 162, 164, 169, see Jealousy.

Education, 50, 51;

Epicenity, 181, 182.

Ethics, 74, 147, 173, 177, 186.