Mummies as medicinal tools
https://doi.org/10.4081/jbr.2005.10213
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
The term “mummy” is thought to be derived from the Persian or Arab word “moumiya”, meaning pitch or bitumen. It likely referred to the black, hard, and resinous substance probably used by the Egyptians in their embalming procedures during the late period and Ptolemaic Roman period. During medieval times and later, Arab and European physicians thought that mummies had medicinal properties. Egyptian mummies dug out of their tombs were sometimes grinded into powder and shipped across the Mediterranean to be sold as medicine for the cure of different diseases; for example epilepsy, abscesses, rashes, migraine, nausea etc. From the 12th to the 17th centuries, mummy remains could be found in apothecaries’ shops, and as late as 1908 they could be ordered from the catalogue of the Merck pharmaceutical company.
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
Downloads
Citations
