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I 8 ANCIENT TIMES.
The relations, which the inhabitants of India maintained
with the Greeks from the time of the expedition of
ALEXANDER OF MACEDON, their active intercourse-with
the neighbouring Persians which later on extended itself
over the domains of knowledge, and their subjection by
the Arabs, exercised a great influence upon the development
of Indian medicine, while in recent times European
medicine, and particularly the professional theories and
practice of the English have there become paramount.
EGYPT.
BY far more ancient than the medical records of the
Indians are those which disclose to us the^ condition of
medical science amongst the Egyptians of old. They
arise out of that early period of civilization of which the
Pyramids—those mighty witnesses of a legendary pastspeak
to us; they stand forth in pictorial representation
on the walls of temples and tombs, in implements—such
as surgical instruments—which have been preserved by
chance, and in papyrus-rolls of which the more important
have only been discovered and deciphered during the last
half-century. In Egypt, as in Babylon, the custom prevailed
of laying the sick out before the houses in the
streets and passages so that the passers-by might tender
advice as to the treatment of their infirmities. Interest in
medical subjects was taken by the whole people, and " in
that land where the fruitful soil bore abundance of herbs
potent for good or evil, nearly everyone was, so to speak, a
doctor, a descendant of P^ON and learned among men."*
But there were also persons who practised medicine professionally
and to this end underwent systematic teaching.
The Egyptian physicians, on account of the happy results
obtained by their treatment earned great reputation and
were even summoned to the courts of foreign princes.
The Persian King CYRUS entrusted his sick mother to the
* HOMER : Odyssey iv, 229-232.