OUT of the ocean of oblivion, man emerges in history in a highly
civilized state on the banks of the Nile, some sixty centuries ago.
After millenniums of a gradual upward progress, which can be traced in
the records of the stone age, civilization springs forth Minerva-like,
complete, and highly developed, in the Nile Valley. In this sheltered,
fertile spot, neolithic man first raised himself above his kindred races
of the Mediterranean basin, and it is suggested that by the accidental
discovery of copper Egypt "forged the instruments that raised
civilization out of the slough of the Stone Age" (Elliot Smith). Of
special interest to us is the fact that one of the best-known names
of this earliest period is that of a physician--guide, philosopher and
friend of the king--a man in a position of wide trust and importance.
On leaving Cairo, to go up the Nile, one sees on the right in the desert
behind Memphis a terraced pyramid 190 feet in height, "the first large
structure of stone known in history." It is the royal tomb of Zoser, the
first of a long series with which the Egyptian monarchy sought "to adorn
the coming bulk of death." The design of this is attributed to Imhotep,
the first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from the mists of
antiquity. "In priestly wisdom, in magic, in the formulation of wise
proverbs, in medicine and architecture, this remarkable figure of
Zoser's reign left so notable a reputation that his name was never
forgotten, and 2500 years after his death he had become a God of
Medicine, in whom the Greeks, who called him Imouthes, recognized their
own AEsculapius."(3) He became a popular god, not only healing men when
alive, but taking good care of them in the journeys after death. The
facts about this medicinae primus inventor, as he has been called, may
be gathered from Kurt Sethe's study.(4) He seems to have corresponded
very much to the Greek Asklepios. As a god he is met with comparatively
late, between 700 and 332 B.C. Numerous bronze figures of him remain.