Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt — Complete

by Georg Ebers

  CHAPTER III.

  Pentauer hastened to execute the commands of the high-priest. He senta servant to escort Paaker, who was waiting in the forecourt, into thepresence of Ameni while he himself repaired to the physicians to impresson them the most watchful care of the unfortunate girl.

  Many proficients in the healing arts were brought up in the house ofSeti, but few used to remain after passing the examination for thedegree of Scribe.

  [What is here stated with regard to the medical schools is principally derived from the medical writings of the Egyptians themselves, among which the "Ebers Papyrus" holds the first place, "Medical Papyrus I." of Berlin the second, and a hieratic MS. in London which, like the first mentioned, has come down to us from the 18th dynasty, takes the third. Also see Herodotus II. 84. Diodorus I. 82.]

  The most gifted were sent to Heliopolis, where flourished, in the great"Hall of the Ancients," the most celebrated medical faculty of the wholecountry, whence they returned to Thebes, endowed with the highesthonors in surgery, in ocular treatment, or in any other branch oftheir profession, and became physicians to the king or made a living byimparting their learning and by being called in to consult on seriouscases.

  Naturally most of the doctors lived on the east bank of the Nile, inThebes proper, and even in private houses with their families; but eachwas attached to a priestly college.

  Whoever required a physician sent for him, not to his own house, but toa temple. There a statement was required of the complaint from which thesick was suffering, and it was left to the principal medical staff ofthe sanctuary to select that of the healing art whose special knowledgeappeared to him to be suited for the treatment of the case.

  Like all priests, the physicians lived on the income which came tothem from their landed property, from the gifts of the king, thecontributions of the laity, and the share which was given them of thestate-revenues; they expected no honorarium from their patients, but therestored sick seldom neglected making a present to the sanctuary whencea physician had come to them, and it was not unusual for the priestlyleech to make the recovery of the sufferer conditional on certain giftsto be offered to the temple.

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

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

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

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

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

  for his special province at Heliopolis, and would certainly haveattained the dignity of teacher there if an impediment in his speech hadnot debarred him from the viva voce recitation of formulas and prayers.

  This circumstance, which was deeply lamented by his parents and tutors,was in fact, in the best opinions, an advantage to him; for it oftenhappens that apparent superiority does us damage, and that from apparentdefect springs the saving of our life.

  Thus, while the companions of Nebsecht were employed in declaiming or insinging, he, thanks to his fettered tongue, could give himself up to hisinherited and almost passionate love of observing organic life; andhis teachers indulged up to a certain point his innate spirit ofinvestigation, and derived benefit from his knowledge of the human andanimal structures, and from the dexterity of his handling.

  His deep aversion for the magical part of his profession would havebrought him heavy punishment, nay very likely would have cost himexpulsion from the craft, if he had ever given it expression in anyform. But Nebsecht's was the silent and reserved nature of the learnedman, who free from all desire of external recognition, finds a richsatisfaction in the delights of investigation; and he regarded everydemand on him to give proof of his capacity, as a vexatious butunavoidable intrusion on his unassuming but laborious and fruitfulinvestigations.

  Nebsecht was dearer and nearer to Pentaur than any other of hisassociates.

  He admired his learning and skill; and when the slightly-built surgeon,who was indefatigable in his wanderings, roved through the thicketsby the Nile, the desert, or the mountain range, the young poet-priestaccompanied him with pleasure and with great benefit to himself, for hiscompanion observed a thousand things to which without him he would haveremained for ever blind; and the objects around him, which were known tohim only by their shapes, derived connection and significance from theexplanations of the naturalist, whose intractable tongue moved freelywhen it was required to expound to his friend the peculiarities oforganic beings whose development he had been the first to detect.

  The poet was dear in the sight of Nebsecht, and he loved Pentaur, whopossessed all the gifts he lacked; manly beauty, childlike lightness ofheart, the frankest openness, artistic power, and the gift of expressingin word and song every emotion that stirred his soul. The poet was as anovice in the order in which Nebsecht was master, but quite capable ofunderstanding its most difficult points; so it happened that Nebsechtattached greater value to his judgment than to that of his owncolleagues, who showed themselves fettered by prejudice, while Pentaur'sdecision always was free and unbiassed.

  The naturalist's room lay on the ground floor, and had no living-roomsabove it, being under one of the granaries attached to the temple. Itwas as large as a public hall, and yet Pentaur, making his way towardsthe silent owner of the room, found it everywhere strewed with thickbundles of every variety of plant, with cages of palm-twigs piledfour or five high, and a number of jars, large and small, coveredwith perforated paper. Within these prisons moved all sorts of livingcreatures, from the jerboa, the lizard of the Nile, and a light-coloredspecies of owl, to numerous specimens of frogs, snakes, scorpions andbeetles.

  On the solitary table in the middle of the room, near to awriting-stand, lay bones of animals, with various sharp flints andbronze knives.

  In a corner of this room lay a mat, on which stood a wooden head-prop,indicating that the naturalist was in the habit of sleeping on it.

  When Pentaur's step was heard on the threshold of this strange abode,its owner pushed a rather large object under the table, threw a coverover it, and hid a sharp flint scalpel

  [The Egyptians seem to have preferred to use flint instruments for surgical purposes, at any rate for the opening of bodies and for circumcision. Many flint instruments have been found and preserved in museums.]

  fixed into a wooden handle, which he had just been using, in the foldsof his robe-as a school-boy might hide some forbidden game from hismaster. Then he crossed his arms, to give himself the aspect of a manwho is dreaming in harmless idleness.

  The solitary lamp, which was fixed on a high stand near his chair, sheda scanty light, which, however, sufficed to show him his trusted friendPentaur, who had disturbed Nebsecht in his prohibited occupations.Nebsecht nodded to him as he entered, and, when he had seen who it was,said:

  "You need not have frightened me so!" Then he drew out from under thetable the object he had hidden--a living rabbit fastened down to aboard-and continued his interrupted observations on the body, which hehad opened and fastened back with wooden pins while the heart continuedto beat.

  He took no further notice of Pentaur, who for some time sile
ntly watchedthe investigator; then he laid his hand on his shoulder and said:

  "Lock your door more carefully, when you are busy with forbiddenthings."

  "They took--they took away the bar of the door lately," stammered thenaturalist, "when they caught me dissecting the hand of the forgerPtahmes."--[The law sentenced forgers to lose a hand.]

  "The mummy of the poor man will find its right hand wanting," answeredthe poet.

  "He will not want it out there."

  "Did you bury the least bit of an image in his grave?"

  [Small statuettes, placed in graves to help the dead in the work performed in the under-world. They have axes and ploughs in their hands, and seed-bags on their backs. The sixth chapter of the Book of the Dead is inscribed on nearly all.]

  "Nonsense."

  "You go very far, Nebsecht, and are not foreseeing, 'He who needlesslyhurts an innocent animal shall be served in the same way by the spiritsof the netherworld,' says the law; but I see what you will say. You holdit lawful to put a beast to pain, when you can thereby increase thatknowledge by which you alleviate the sufferings of man, and enrich--"

  "And do not you?"

  A gentle smile passed over Pentaur's face; leaned over the animal andsaid:

  "How curious! the little beast still lives and breathes; a man wouldhave long been dead under such treatment. His organism is perhaps of amore precious, subtle, and so more fragile nature?"

  Nebsecht shrugged his shoulders.

  "Perhaps!" he said.

  "I thought you must know."

  "I--how should I?" asked the leech. "I have told you--they would noteven let me try to find out how the hand of a forger moves."

  "Consider, the scripture tells us the passage of the soul depends on thepreservation of the body."

  Nebsecht looked up with his cunning little eyes and shrugging hisshoulders, said:

  "Then no doubt it is so: however these things do not concern me. Dowhat you like with the souls of men; I seek to know something of theirbodies, and patch them when they are damaged as well as may be."

  "Nay-Toth be praised, at least you need not deny that you are master inthat art."

  [Toth is the god of the learned and of physicians. The Ibis was sacred to him, and he was usually represented as Ibis-headed. Ra created him "a beautiful light to show the name of his evil enemy." Originally the Dfoon-god, he became the lord of time and measure. He is the weigher, the philosopher among the gods, the lord of writing, of art and of learning. The Greeks called him Hermes Trismegistus, i.e. threefold or "very great" which was, in fact, in imitation of the Egyptians, whose name Toth or Techud signified twofold, in the same way "very great"]

  "Who is master," asked Nebsecht, "excepting God? I can do nothing,nothing at all, and guide my instruments with hardly more certainty thana sculptor condemned to work in the dark."

  "Something like the blind Resu then," said Pentaur smiling, "whounderstood painting better than all the painters who could see."

  "In my operations there is a 'better' and a 'worse;'" said Nebsecht,"but there is nothing 'good.'"

  "Then we must be satisfied with the 'better,' and I have come to claimit," said Pentaur.

  "Are you ill?"

  "Isis be praised, I feel so well that I could uproot a palm-tree, but Iwould ask you to visit a sick girl. The princess Bent-Anat--"

  "The royal family has its own physicians."

  "Let me speak! the princess Bent-Anat has run over a young girl, and thepoor child is seriously hurt."

  "Indeed," said the student reflectively. "Is she over there in the city,or here in the Necropolis?"

  "Here. She is in fact the daughter of a paraschites."

  "Of a paraschites?" exclaimed Nebsecht, once more slipping the rabbitunder the table, "then I will go."

  "You curious fellow. I believe you expect to find something strangeamong the unclean folk."

  "That is my affair; but I will go. What is the man's name?"

  "Pinem."

  "There will be nothing to be done with him," muttered the student,"however--who knows?"

  With these words he rose, and opening a tightly closed flask he droppedsome strychnine on the nose and in the mouth of the rabbit, whichimmediately ceased to breathe. Then he laid it in a box and said, "I amready."

  "But you cannot go out of doors in this stained dress."

  The physician nodded assent, and took from a chest a clean robe, whichhe was about to throw on over the other! but Pentaur hindered him."First take off your working dress," he said laughing. "I will help you.But, by Besa, you have as many coats as an onion."

  [Besa, the god of the toilet of the Egyptians. He was represented as a deformed pigmy. He led the women to conquest in love, and the men in war. He was probably of Arab origin.]

  Pentaur was known as a mighty laugher among his companions, and his loudvoice rung in the quiet room, when he discovered that his friend wasabout to put a third clean robe over two dirty ones, and wear no lessthan three dresses at once.

  Nebsecht laughed too, and said, "Now I know why my clothes were soheavy, and felt so intolerably hot at noon. While I get rid of mysuperfluous clothing, will you go and ask the high-priest if I haveleave to quit the temple."

  "He commissioned me to send a leech to the paraschites, and added thatthe girl was to be treated like a queen."

  "Ameni? and did he know that we have to do with a paraschites?"

  "Certainly."

  "Then I shall begin to believe that broken limbs may be set withvows-aye, vows! You know I cannot go alone to the sick, because myleather tongue is unable to recite the sentences or to wring richofferings for the temple from the dying. Go, while I undress, to theprophet Gagabu and beg him to send the pastophorus Teta, who usuallyaccompanies me."

  "I would seek a young assistant rather than that blind old man."

  "Not at all. I should be glad if he would stay at home, and only let histongue creep after me like an eel or a slug. Head and heart have nothingto do with his wordy operations, and they go on like an ox treading outcorn."

  [In Egypt, as in Palestine, beasts trod out the corn, as we learn from many pictures in the catacombs, even in the remotest ages; often with the addition of a weighted sledge, to the runners of which rollers are attached. It is now called noreg.]

  "It is true," said Pentaur; "just lately I saw the old man singing outhis litanies by a sick-bed, and all the time quietly counting the dates,of which they had given him a whole sack-full."

  "He will be unwilling to go to the paraschites, who is poor, and hewould sooner seize the whole brood of scorpions yonder than take a pieceof bread from the hand of the unclean. Tell him to come and fetch me,and drink some wine. There stands three days' allowance; in this hotweather it dims my sight.

  "Does the paraschites live to the north or south of the Necropolis?"

  "I think to the north. Paaker, the king's pioneer, will show you theway."

  "He!" exclaimed the student, laughing. "What day in the calendar isthis, then?

  [Calendars have been preserved, the completest is the papyrus Sallier IV., which has been admirably treated by F. Chabas. Many days are noted as lucky, unlucky, etc. In the temples many Calendars of feasts have been found, the most perfect at Medinet Abu, deciphered by Dumich.]

  The child of a paraschites is to be tended like a princess, and a leechhave a noble to guide him, like the Pharaoh himself! I ought to havekept on my three robes!"

  "The night is warm," said Pentaur.

  "But Paaker has strange ways with him. Only the day before yesterday Iwas called to a poor boy whose collar bone he had simply smashed withhis stick. If I had been the princess's horse I would rather havetrodden him down than a poor little girl."

  "So would I," said Pentaur laughing, and left the room to request Thesecond prophet Gagabu, who was also the head of the medical staff of theHouse of Seti, to send the blind pastophorus

  [The Pastophori were an order
of priests to which the physicians belonged.]

  Teta, with his friend as singer of the litany.