The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus

Download or read book The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus written by James Henry Breasted and published by . This book was released on 1930 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Smith Papyrus was written in Egyptian hieratic script around the 17th century BCE, but probably based on material from a thousand years earlier. The text is a treatise on trauma surgery and consists of 48 cases dealing with wounds and trauma. Each case is laid out using a carefully prescribed formula: a description of the injury; diagnosis; prognosis; treatment; and further explanations of the case, which resemble footnotes. This papyrus is unlike most other medical papyri in that it is chiefly rational and does not usually bring the supernatural into the explanations or treatments for injuries-for instance; there is only one incantation. A digital facsimile created by the National Library of Medicine in 2010 reconstructs the scroll from 17 panels into which it was cut in the 19th century, and represents the red and black calligraphy on a simulated scroll, with zoom feature and pop-up commentary within the text.