second, and a hieratic MS. in
London which, like the first mentioned, has come down to us from the
18th dynasty, takes the third. Also see Herodotus II. 84. Diodorus
I. 82.]

The most gifted were sent to Heliopolis, where flourished, in the great
"Hall of the Ancients," the most celebrated medical faculty of the whole
country, whence they returned to Thebes, endowed with the highest
honors in surgery, in ocular treatment, or in any other branch of
their profession, and became physicians to the king or made a living by
imparting their learning and by being called in to consult on serious
cases.

Naturally most of the doctors lived on the east bank of the Nile, in
Thebes proper, and even in private houses with their families; but each
was attached to a priestly college.

Whoever required a physician sent for him, not to his own house, but to
a temple. There a statement was required of the complaint from which the
sick was suffering, and it was left to the principal medical staff of
the sanctuary to select that of the healing art whose special knowledge
appeared to him to be suited for the treatment of the case.

Like all priests, the physicians lived on the income which came to
them from their landed property, from the gifts of the king, the
contributions of the laity, and the share which was given them of the
state-revenues; they expected no honorarium from their patients, but the
restored sick seldom neglected making a present to the sanctuary whence
a physician had come to them, and it was not unusual for the priestly
leech to make the recovery of the sufferer conditional on certain gifts
to be offered to the temple.

The medical knowledge of the Egyptians was, according to every
indication, very considerable; but it was natural that physicians, who
stood by the bed of sickness as "ordained servants of the Divinity,"
should not be satisfied with a rational treatment of the sufferer,
and should rather think that they could not dispense with the mystical
effects of prayers and vows.

Among the professors of medicine in the House of Seti there were men
of the most different gifts and bent of mind; but Pentaur was not for
a moment in doubt as to which should be entrusted with the treatment
of the girl who had been run over, and for whom he felt the greatest
sympathy.

The one he chose was the grandson of a celebrated leech, long
since dead, whose name of Nebsecht he had inherited, and a beloved
school-f