Question

What areas of science and medicine did the ancient Egyptians study?

Provide a brief response to the question

Answer 1

Bearing in mind the information and evidence that has been collected from Egyptian inscriptions, manuscripts, wall paintings/murals, tomb inscriptions, and artifacts; we can state that ancient Egyptians had a great command of science and were pretty interested in fields such as:

Engineering & construction, agriculture & architecture, mathematics & astronomy, and medicine & dentistry.

Engineering & Construction: we can see nowadays that ancient Egyptians masters these fields pretty well due to the great temples and pyramids they built many years ago and they remain still.

Agriculture & Architecture: Egyptians were mainly an agricultural culture, and due to their dependence on their crops and livestock, they were naturally interested in developing inventions for making it easier for them to cultivate their land. And example of this is the ox-drawn plow.

Mathematics & Astronomy: Astronomy was important for this culture because of two main reasons. The first one was spiritual and the second one practical. From Egyptians' perspective, the stars told the gods' stories about their accomplishments but also they show the passage of time and the seasons.   And in terms of mathematics it has been found that philosophers such as Plato and Pythagoras studied this field in Egypt, due to the importance and quality of the knowledge that was offered there.

Medicine & Dentistry: Nowadays there are 3 well known Egyptian works related with these fields which evidence this culture had a significant degree of medical knowledge. The names of these works are Ebers papyrus, Edwin Smith Papyrus, and the London medical papyrus. Within the pages of these works, it has been found ancient Egyptians treated ailments such as cancer, traumas, depression, heart diseases, dermatology among many others.

Answer 2

Science and medicine got to a great point of development and sophistication in Ancient Egyptian civilization.

In medicine, the main areas they studied the most were surgery, anatomy, pharmacology, and dentistry. In surgery, the Egyptian doctors used different tools like knives, scalpels, forceps, among others. In this field, clambering was a normal treatment for different head and mental diseases. The practice of male circumcision was very extended and they mastered the invention of prosthetic body parts, like artificial eyeballs and toes.

Anatomy was very well understood as well as most of the organ functions, since doctors used to study different body parts and organs during mummification practices and autopsies, with ritualistic purposes.

Pharmacology was also very advanced for the time. They used honey and different fruit juices as astringents and invented more than 800 remedies from different herbs. Opium was also used as medicine for extreme pain conditions.

Dentistry was very important and an independent field, since many Egyptians suffered from dental diseases due to their diet.

In the rest of the sciences, Egyptians got important achievements in the field of mathematics and astronomy. They developed advanced mathematics in order to register economical transactions and taxes, and also for the construction of big temples and maritime technology. Astronomy was relevant since many of their temples were located according to the position of several celestial bodies.