Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Aesculapius, Bacchus and many others had done." And I find that those modern authors of the history of medicine whose works I have consulted, are quite ready to accept even the gods called by the Egyptians Osiris (or Serapis), Isis, and Thoüt (or Hermes) as genuine historical personages. Such a belief receives some degree of confirmation from the following inscriptions which, according to the authority of Le Clerc,[1] were found engraved upon two columns discovered in the city of Nyoa, in Arabia:—
(On the first column): My father is Cronos, the youngest of
all the gods. I am King Osiris, who have visited with my armies
every country on the face of the earth—the remotest inhabitable
parts of India, the regions lying beneath the Bear, the neighborhood
of the sources of the Danube, and the shores of the Ocean.
I am the oldest son of Cronos, the scion of a fine and noble race.
I am related to the day. There is no part of the earth which I
have not visited, and I have filled the entire universe with my
benefits. (On the second column): I am Isis, Queen of all this
country, and I have been taught by Thoüt. There is nobody who
has the power to loosen what I shall bind. I am the oldest daughter
of Cronos, the youngest of the gods. I am the wife and at the same
time the sister of King Osiris. To me is due the credit of having
been the first to teach men agriculture. I am the mother of King
Horus. I shine in the dog-star. It is I who built the city of
Bubastis. Farewell, Egypt, my native land.
The discovery of the art of medicine, says Le Clerc, was
attributed to Osiris and Isis, and they were also credited
with having taught it to Aesculapius.
At the cities of On (Heliopolis), Sais, Memphis and Thebes were located the most celebrated of the Egyptian temples, which were dedicated not merely to the worship of their numerous gods, but also to the dissemination of knowledge of various kinds and to the care of the sick and maimed. In a word, they were—like the Aesculapian temples at Trikka, Epidaurus and Cos, of which some account will he given farther on—both hospitals for the
- ↑ At bottom of p. 15 of his Histoire de la Médecine.
