| dc.description.abstract | Literature Review: There are many writings about ancient Egyptian medical papyri, but none examine whether doctors now can effectively treat more injuries than doctors learning from those papyri. There have been some analyses looking at the pharmaceuticals mentioned in the papyri, which determined what substances are still in use today, and this project takes a similar approach to surgical treatments for injuries. This analysis uses translations of the medical papyri and books written on pharaonic medicine based on papyri, tomb paintings, and bioarcheological evidence to determine how many injuries ancient doctors could effectively treat and then compares that to current practices to see whether modern surgeons can treat a higher proportion of the injuries they encounter. Thesis Statement: Existing medical papyri pertaining to injuries supply information on how surgeons in pharaonic Egypt would have treated patients. Judging by the ratio of effective to ineffective treatments known from the papyri, were those surgeons able to treat as large a proportion of injuries encountered as modern doctors? Theoretical Framework: This will be written through a historical framework, looking holistically at the two societies and acknowledging that they are at different stages of technological advancement and have differing levels of scientific knowledge. It will use statistics to try to answer the question of whether ancient surgeons could effectively treat as many injuries as modern surgeons by establishing ratios of effective to ineffective treatments from both times and comparing the ratios. Project Description: Little evidence exists regarding medical treatments from the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms of pharaonic Egypt (c. 2686 – c. 1070 BC), but there are some existing papyri written during that time period that contain instructions for ancient surgeons on how to treat injuries. One of the best known of these is the Edwin Smith papyrus, which documents 48 different types of injuries and how the surgeon should respond to each one. This papyrus is also unique in taking a scientific approach to the injuries and describing methods of treatment that do not involve magic. Using a translation of the Edwin Smith papyrus and articles describing the efficacy of individual treatments written in it, this project will build on existing research declaring the treatments’ usefulness to instead determine the doctors’ ability to treat a large proportion of the injuries they encountered. This project will look at the Edwin Smith papyrus to determine whether the treatments listed would have helped the patient or not, either by being neutral or being actively harmful. Then that ratio of effective to ineffective treatments will be compared to a corresponding ratio of modern practices for treating the injuries described. Using a Fisher’s Exact Test to analyze these ratios will determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the ratio of helpful to unhelpful treatments known to be taught to ancient Egyptian physicians and treatments performed by modern surgeons. If there is no such difference, then it must be concluded that ancient surgeons were effective at treating injuries they encountered in a similar proportion to doctors today based on what we know about ancient treatments and the Egyptians should be acknowledged for that fact. | en |
