later destiny would doubtless prevail, and the moment would
come when the fated serpent, eluding all precautions, would succeed in
carrying out the sentence of death. At all events the man would have
lived, perhaps to the verge of old age, perhaps to the years of a
hundred and ten, to which the wisest of the Egyptians hoped to attain,
and which period no man born of mortal mother might exceed. If the
arts of magic could thus suspend the law of destiny, how much more
efficacious were they when combating the influences of secondary
deities, the evil eye, and the spells of man? Thot, who was the patron
of sortilege, presided also over exorcisms, and the criminal acts which
some committed in his name could have reparation made for them by others
in his name. To malicious genii, genii still stronger were opposed; to
harmful amulets, those which were protective; to destructive measures,
vitalizing remedies; and this was not even the most troublesome part
of the magicians' task. Nobody, in fact, among those delivered by
their intervention escaped unhurt from the trials to which, he had
been subjected. The possessing spirits when they quitted their victim
generally left behind them traces of their occupation, in the brain,
heart, lungs, intestines--in fact, in the whole body. The illnesses
to which the human race is prone, were not indeed all brought about by
enchanters relentlessly persecuting their enemies, but they were all
attributed to the presence of an invisible being, whether spectre
or demon, who by some supernatural means had been made to enter the
patient, or who, unbidden, had by malice or necessity taken up his
abode within him. It was needful, after expelling the intruder, to
re-establish the health of the sufferer by means of fresh remedies. The
study of simples and other _materiae medicae_ would furnish these; Thot
had revealed himself to man as the first magician, he became in like
manner for them the first physician and the first surgeon.

Egypt is naturally a very salubrious country, and the Egyptians boasted
that they were "the healthiest of all mortals;" but they did not neglect
any precautions to maintain their health. "Every month, for three
successive days, they purged the system by means of emetics or clysters.
The study of medicine with them was divided between specialists; each
physician attending to one kind of illness only. Every place possessed
several doctors; some for diseases of the eyes, others