AePVII_Ferencz

Andrea, Ferencz 1 – Alica, Petrovics 1 – Daniella, Fehér 1 – Domokos, Csukás 1 – Krisztina, Juhos 1 – Györgyi, Szabó 1 – József, Sándor 1 – Anna, Blázovics 1 – Hedvig, Győry 2,
1 Department of Surgical Research and Techniques, Heart and Vascular Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweis University,
Budapest ● 2 HEFS AEC and Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest 

Armamentarium Chirurgicum et Plantis. Surgical instruments and plants in ancient Egypt   
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71067/AePVII-2022-175-230 
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Aegyptus et Pannonia VII, Acta Symposii anno 2021, Plants and Health from Ancient Egypt. to the Present Day.
Proceedings of the Conference held between 14th and 16th October 2021, Budapest; ed. by Hedvig Győry.
Published by The Ancient Egyptian Committee of the Hungarian-Egyptian Friendship Society, Budapest 2022, ISBN: 978-615-6571-01-4; DOI: https://doi.org/10.71067/AePVII-2022  
Soft cover. No Jacket. 1.st Edition. 6+338 pages (24x17), with colour pictures.

Abstract: 
Throughout the 3000 years of the ancient Egyptian history, medicine itself, its treatments, and options changed slowly in each era. From the period of the New Kingdom the Edwin Smith papyrus written down latest around 1600-1550 BC, describes the surgical interventions of the time in a highly rational way. Doctors practised this type of medicine on a scientific basis, while
magical spells were also recommended for some ailments. The Ebers papyrus,written nearly at the same time is one of the earliest records of drug therapy as conservative treatment with sketchy prescriptions, but also contains some surgical protocols. They are fundamental in medical history. Even after the decline of the pharaonic culture, the knowledge and tools of ancient Egyptian surgeons lived on in Greek and Roman medicine.
Surgery is a manual activity. However, a skilled hand needs good tools to be effective. From the Neolithic onwards and up until the 19 th century, healing persons were forced to make their own surgical instruments, similar to household utensils, partly from materials found in nature and partly from materials that they have transformed. The oldest extant Egyptian instrument- depiction is the relief on the wall of the double temple of Haroeris and Sobek at Kom Ombo, built in the Ptolemaic period. In the Roman reliefs, we can see that ancient Egyptian doctors used knives, scalpels, forceps, scissors, saws, probes, trepan as direct instruments for surgical interventions, while cupping vessels, incense burners, beaked cups and vessels, bags, amulets, scales,
herbal vessels, or sponges are represented as accessory tools in the patients’ perioperative actions. Their shape has remained essentially unchanged for hundreds of years 
In this article we investigate the ancient Egyptian roots by collecting and investigating the few occurrences of pharaonic surgical instruments as objects or mentioned in texts, considering the functions used nowadays. Based on practical viewpoint we are also working on the identification of the possible ways extant tools could be used, looking among them especially for those, which were made of vegetable material, or for those, which may have originated from plants. We thus describe “target tools” and operating instruments that were among the first to be developed and used for various surgical tasks and movements.