issecting human bodies, and that the Egyptians, as a result of this,
would have excelled in the knowledge of anatomy. But the actual
results were rather the reverse of this. Embalming the dead, it must
be recalled, was a purely religious observance. It took place under the
superintendence of the priests, but so great was the reverence for the
human body that the priests themselves were not permitted to make the
abdominal incision which was a necessary preliminary of the process.
This incision, as we are informed by both Herodotus(7) and Diodorus(8),
was made by a special officer, whose status, if we may believe the
explicit statement of Diodorus, was quite comparable to that of the
modern hangman. The paraschistas, as he was called, having performed
his necessary but obnoxious function, with the aid of a sharp Ethiopian
stone, retired hastily, leaving the remaining processes to the priests.
These, however, confined their observations to the abdominal viscera;
under no consideration did they make other incisions in the body. It
follows, therefore, that their opportunity for anatomical observations
was most limited.

Since even the necessary mutilation inflicted on the corpse was regarded
with such horror, it follows that anything in the way of dissection
for a less sacred purpose was absolutely prohibited. Probably the same
prohibition extended to a large number of animals, since most of these
were held sacred in one part of Egypt or another. Moreover, there is
nothing in what we know of the Egyptian mind to suggest the probability
that any Egyptian physician would make extensive anatomical observations
for the love of pure knowledge. All Egyptian science is eminently
practical. If we think of the Egyptian as mysterious, it is because
of the superstitious observances that we everywhere associate with his
daily acts; but these, as we have already tried to make clear, were
really based on scientific observations of a kind, and the attempt at
true inferences from these observations. But whether or not the Egyptian
physician desired anatomical knowledge, the results of his inquiries
were certainly most meagre. The essentials of his system had to do with
a series of vessels, alleged to be twenty-two or twenty-four in number,
which penetrated the head and were distributed in pairs to the various
members of the body, and which were vaguely thought of as carriers of
water, air, excretory fluids, etc. Yet back of this vagueness, a