ry month, they submitted to a regular course of treatment;
from the conviction that illness was wont to proceed from some
irregularity in diet;" and if preventives were ineffectual they had
recourse to suitable remedies, adopting a mode of treatment very
similar to that mentioned by Diodorus.

The employment of numerous drugs in Egypt has been mentioned by sacred
and profane writers; and the medicinal properties of many herbs which
grow in the deserts, particularly between the Nile and Red Sea, are
still known to the Arabs; though their application has been but
imperfectly recorded and preserved.

"O virgin, daughter of Egypt," says Jeremiah, "in vain shalt thou use
many medicines, for thou shalt not be cured;" and Homer, in the
Odyssey, describes the many valuable medicines given by Polydamna, the
wife of Thonis, to Helen while in Egypt, "a country whose fertile soil
produces an infinity of drugs, some salutary and some pernicious;
where each physician possesses knowledge above all other men."

Pliny makes frequent mention of the productions of that country, and
their use in medicine; he also notices the physicians of Egypt; and as
if their number were indicative of the many maladies to which the
inhabitants were subject, he observes, that it was a country
productive of numerous diseases. In this, however, he does not agree
with Herodotus, who affirms that, "after the Libyans, there are no
people so healthy as the Egyptians, which may be attributed to the
invariable nature of the seasons in their country."

Pliny even says that the Egyptians examined the bodies after death, to
ascertain the nature of the diseases of which they had died; and we
can readily believe that a people so far advanced in civilization and
the principles of medicine as to assign to each physician his peculiar
branch, would have resorted to this effectual method of acquiring
knowledge and experience.

It is evident that the medical science of the Egyptians was sought and
appreciated even in foreign countries; and we learn from Herodotus,
that Cyrus and Darius both sent to Egypt for medical men. In later
times, too, they continued to be celebrated for their skill; Ammianus
says it was enough for a doctor to say he had studied in Egypt to
recommend him; and Pliny mentions medical men going from Egypt to
Rome. But though their physicians are often noticed by ancient
writers, the only indication of medical attendance appears to be in
the paintin