Women Doctors in Egypt

Medicine was an established profession in Egypt prior to 3000 BC and educated women worked as doctors and surgeons. The medical schools at Sais and Heliopolis attracted women students and teachers from throughout the ancient world. At the Temple of Sais north of Memphis an inscription reads: 'I have come from the school of medicine at Heliopolis, and have studied at the woman's school at Sais where the divine mothers have taught me how to cure disease.'' Moses and his wife Zipporah probably studied medicine at Heliopolis about 1500 BC and Zipporah may also have attended the school at Sais. During this era, the physician-queen Hatshepsut of the eighteenth dynasty despatched a botanical expedition to search for new medicinal plants.

The medical papyri discuss gynaecology, the speciality of women physicians. The Kahun medical papyrus (c. 2500 BC) may have been written for the Sais students. It indicates that women specialists diagnosed pregnancy, guessed at the sex of the unborn child (if the mother's face was green it would be a boy), tested for sterility and treated dysmenorrhoea (irregular menstruation). Women surgeons performed caesarian sections, removed cancerous breasts and set bones with splints. 'Physician' was often synonymous with 'priestess', for in the earliest records it was the goddess Isis who prescribed the cure.

Notes:

Story of women doctors in 3,000 BC.

Folksonomies: science feminism ancient history

Keywords:
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Entities:
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Concepts:
Physician (0.943575): dbpedia | freebase
Ancient Egypt (0.805930): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Medicine (0.713371): dbpedia | freebase
Pediatrics (0.507725): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Medical school (0.501361): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Education (0.474791): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Teacher (0.470119): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Anatomy (0.450071): dbpedia | freebase

 Hypatia's Heritage (Beacon Paperback, 720)
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Alic , Margaret (1986-11-15), Hypatia's Heritage (Beacon Paperback, 720), Beacon Press, Retrieved on 2011-04-12
Folksonomies: history science feminism science history