The Egyptian

4

In the House of Life, which was part of the great temple of Ammon, the teaching was supervised nominally by the royal physicians, each in his own branch. We saw them but seldom, however, for their practices were large, they received costly presents from the wealthy, and they lived in spacious houses outside the city. But, when any patient came to the House of Life whose sickness puzzled the ordinary doctors, or if these would not venture to undertake the cure, a royal physician would come to treat him and to demonstrate his proficiency before those who were specializing in his branch. Thus even the poorest sufferer might have the benefit of a royal physician’s care, to the glory of Ammon.

The training period was a long one even for those with talent. We had to take a course on drugs and potions, learn the names and properties of herbs and the seasons and hours at which they must be gathered, and also dry them and make extracts from them; for a physician must be able to prepare his own remedies at need. Many of us grumbled at this, not seeing the use of it, since by merely writing a prescription one could obtain from the House of Life all the known remedies correctly mixed and measured. Later, however, this knowledge was to stand me in good stead, as I shall show.

We had to learn the names of the different parts of the body, also the functions and purpose of every human organ. We learned to handle scalpel and forceps, but above all we had to accustom our hands to recognize disease both through the natural orifices of the body and through the skin; from the eyes also we had to detect the nature of a disorder. We must be able to deliver a woman in childbirth when the midwife’s help was of no avail. We must stimulate and alleviate pain as occasion required and learn to distinguish between trifling complaints and severe ones, between ailments of mental and physical origin. We had to know truth from falsehood in the patients’ talk and what questions to ask in order to gain a clear picture of the complaint.

The long period of probation was followed by the day when-after ceremonial purification-I was clothed in a white gown and started work in the reception hall, where I learned to draw teeth from the jaws of strong men, to bandage wounds, lance boils, and set broken limbs. None of this was new to me; thanks to my father’s teaching I made good progress and was promoted to the charge and instruction of my companions. Sometimes I received gifts such as are given to doctors, and I had my name engraved on the green stone that Nefer- nefernefer had given me so that I could set my seal below my prescriptions.

I was put to ever more exacting tasks. I went on duty in the rooms where the incurably sick lay and attended renowned physicians at their treatments and at the operations, in which for every one that was cured ten died. I learned that death holds no terrors for a doctor and for the sick comes often as a merciful friend so that their faces after release are apt to be more serene than at any time during their life of drudgery.

Yet I was blind and deaf until the day of awakening came as it had come in my childhood, when pictures, words, and letters sprang to life. Once more my eyes were opened, and I woke as from a dream; my spirit welled up in its joy because I asked myself “why?” The dread key to all true knowledge is “why?” It is mightier than the reed of Thoth, more potent than inscriptions in stone.

It happened thus: A wife came to me who had had no children and who believed herself to be barren, for she was already forty years of age. But her monthly flow had ceased, and she was uneasy; she came to the House of Life because she feared that an evil spirit had taken possession of her and poisoned her body. As was prescribed in such cases, I planted grains of corn in some earth, watering half of them with Nile water and the rest with the woman’s urine. I then exposed the soil to the warmth of the sun and bade the woman return in two days. When she came again, the seeds had sprouted, those which had been watered with Nile water being small and the other shoots green and strong.

What had been written of old was true, and I said to the astonished woman, “Rejoice, for holy Ammon in his grace has blessed your womb, and you shall bring forth a child like other favored women.”

The poor soul wept for joy and gave me a silver bangle from her wrist weighing two deben,* for she had long ago given up hope. And as soon as she could believe me, she asked, “Is it a son?” thinking me omniscient. I plucked up courage, looked her in the eye, and said, “It is a son.” For the chances were even and at that time my gambling luck was good. The woman rejoiced still more and gave me a bracelet from her other wrist, of two deben weight.

But when she had gone, I asked myself how it was possible for a grain of corn to know what no doctor could discover and know it before the eye could detect the signs of pregnancy? Summoning up my resolution, I asked my teacher. He merely looked at me as if I were half-witted and said, “It is so written.” But this was no answer.

I took courage again and asked the royal obstetrician in the maternity house. He said, “Ammon is chief of all the gods. His eye sees the womb that receives the seed; if he permits germination, why should he not also allow corn to grow when moistened with water from the pregnant woman’s body?”

He, too, stared at me as if I were half-witted, but his was no answer.

Then my eyes were opened, and I saw that the doctors in the House of Life knew the writings and the traditions but no more. If I asked why a festering wound must be burned while an ordinary one is merely dressed and bandaged and why boils are healed with mildew and cobwebs, they said only, “So it has always been.” In the same way a surgeon might perform the hundred and eighty-two operations and incisions prescribed, and perform them according to his experience and skill, well or badly, quickly or slowly, more or less painfully; but more he cannot do because only these are described and illustrated in the books, and nothing else has ever been done.

There were some cases in which the sufferer grew thin and pale, though the doctor could find in him no disease or injury; he could be revived and cured by a diet of raw liver from the sacrificial beasts, bought at a high price, but one must on no account ask why. There were some who had pains in their bellies and whose hands and feet burned. They were given purges and narcotics; some recovered, others perished, but no doctor could say beforehand who would live and whose belly would swell so that he died. No one knew why this was; no one might seek to know.

I soon noticed that I was asking too many questions, for people began to look at me askance, and those who had come after me were set in authority over me. Then I took off my white robe, cleaned myself. * A deben weighs approximately 314 ounces. and left the House of Life, taking with me two silver rings that together weighed four deben.