PHYSIC ; PHYSICIANS. There can be no question that the Israelites brought some know ledge of medicine with them from Egypt, whose physicians were celebrated in all antiquity. To the state of medical knowledge in that country there are indeed some allusions in Scripture, as contained in the notice of the corps of physicians in the service of Joseph (Gen. 1. 2) ; of the use of artificial help and practised midwives in child birth (Exod. i. 16) ; and of the copious materia medical., the `many medicines,' which their medi cal practice had brought into use (Jer. xlvi. t r). On the strength of these notices, and in the ab sence of equally detailed information respecting the state of medicine among the Hebrews, it has become usual to bring under the present head all that Wilkinson and others tell us respecting the medical service of the Egyptians ; but in truth all this has little connection with the Hebrews, and tends nothing to the illustration of Scripture, ex cept in the particular instances to which we have referred ; for nothing can be more manifest than that the state of medicine was very different among the Egyptians from what it was among the He brews. It is, therefore, better to bring together the few facts which are really available, than to occupy our space with irrelevant matter. This will embrace so much of the Egyptian matter as is properly applicable to the subject.
In Gen. 1. 2, it is said that Joseph ' commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father ; and the physicians embalmed Israel.' By this we are not to understand that all the physicians of Joseph took part in the operation. The command must be considered as addressed to those among them to whom this business belonged. It seems rather remarkable to find in the household of Joseph a considerable number of physicians. War burton (Divine Le,..Tation, b. iv. 3-83) compares with this account what Herodotus (ii. 84) says of the Egyptian physicians—' The medicine practice is divided among them as follows : each physician is for one kind of sickness, and no more ; and all places are crowded with physicians : for there are physicians for the eyes, physicians for the head, physicians for the teeth, physicians for the stomach, and for internal diseases.' Therefore, remarks Warburton, it ought not to appear strange that Joseph had a considerable number of family phy sicians. Every great family, as well as every city, must needs, as Herodotus expresses it, swarm with the faculty. A multitude of these domestics would now appear an extravagant piece of state even in a first minister, but we see it could not be otherwise, when each distemper had its proper physician.' The renown of the Egyptian phy sicians, in ancient times, may be sufficiently illus trated by the fact that Cyrus had a physician sent him from Egypt, and Darius always had Egyptian physicians at his court (Herodot. iii, t. 29t). On this subject see Plin. Hist. Nat., vii. 57, xxvi. 3,
xxix. 30 ; Wilkinson, Anc. Egyptians, iii. 390-394 ; Hengstenberg, D. Blither Moses u. Aegypten, pp. 70, 71 ; Sprengel, Gescht. d. Atte TVA, i. 6z.
In the early stage of medical practice attention was confined among all nations to surgical aid and external applications even down to a compara tively late period outward maladies appear to have been the chief subjects of medical treatment among the Hebrews (Is. i. 6 ; Ezek. xxx. 21 ; z Kings viii. 29 ; ix. 15) ; and although they were not altogether without remedies for internal or even mental disorders (2 Chron. xvi. 12 ; t Sam. xvi. 16), they seem to have made but little progress in this branch of the healing art. The employment of the physician was, however, very general both before and after the exile (z Chron. xvi. 12 ; Jer. viii. 22 ; Sirach xxxviii. t ; Mark v. 26 ; comp. Luke iv. 23 ; v. 31 ; viii. 43)• The medicines most in use were salves, particu larly balms (Jer. viii. 21 ; xlvi. it ; comp. Prosper Alpinus, Med. ...Epypt., p. 118), plasters or poul tices (z Kings xx. 7 ; comp. Plin. xxiii. 63), oil baths (Joseph. De Bell. Yud. i. 33. 5 ; ii. 21. 6 ; T. Bab. tit. Berachoth,i. 2), mineral baths (Joseph. Antiq. xvii. 6. 5 ; Vita, 16; De Bell. 7td. i. 33. 5 ; ii. 21. 6 ; comp. John v. 2, seq.), river bathing (2 Kings v. to). Of remedies for internal com plaints, some notion may be formed from the Tal mudical intimations of things lawful and unlawful to be done on the Sabbath day. They were mostly very simple, such as our old herbalists would have been disposed to recommend. For instance :--` It is unlawful to eat Greek hyssop on the Sabbath, be cause it is not food fit for healthy people ; hut man may eat wild rosemary, and drink nvn ?inx (` bloom of the herbs ;' some plant regarded as an antidote against pernicious liquids) ; a man may eat of any kind of food as medicine, and drink any kind of herbage, except water of dekalim (i e., ' water of trees,' that is, from a spring between two trees, the first draught of which was believed to promote digestion, the second to be laxative, and the third an emetic), and of '173) DID, cos ikkarim (a mucilage or ointment of pulverised herbs and gum in wine), as these are only remedies for the jaundice ; but a man may drink the water of dekalim for thirst, and may anoint himself with the oil of ikkarim, but not as a remedy. He who has the toothache must not rinse his teeth with vinegar, but he may wash them as usual (i. e., dip something in vinegar, and rub them), and if he gets cured, he does get cured. He who has pains in his loins must not rub them with wine or vine gar ; he may, however, anoint them with any kind of oil, except rose-oil. Princes may anoint (dress) their wounds with rose-oil, as they are in the habit of anointing themselves on other days' (T. Bab. tit. Sabbath., fol. to; comp. Lightfoot, Hor. Hebr. in Matt. v. 26).