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James Henry Breasted

James Henry Breasted Biography

Archaeologist

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“Very often conditions are recorded as observable "under thy fingers" [...] Among such observations it is important to notice that the pulsations of the human heart are observed.”

BiologyHuman HeartPulseAnatomyAncient EgyptMedical HistoryPhilologyHieroglyphicAncient Medicine
Book:The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Vol 1: Hieroglyphic Transliteration, Translation and Commentary
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“Speechlessness, however, affirmed in the diagnosis, is carefully based on the facts of the examination, as we see by rendering the statements concerned, just as they stand in examination and diagnosis: "If thou examinest a man having a wound in the temple, ...; if thou ask of him concerning his malady and he speak not to thee; ...; thou shouldst say concerning him, 'One having a wound in his temple, ... (and) he is speechless'.”

BrainSpeechNeuroscienceAnatomyAncient EgyptMedical HistoryDisordersHieroglyphicAncient MedicineSpeech PathologyFrontal Lobe
Book:The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Vol 1: Hieroglyphic Transliteration, Translation and Commentary
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“The attention given to the side of the head which has received the injury, in connection with a specific reference to the side of the body nervously affected, is in itself evidence that in this case the ancient surgeon was already beginning observations on the localization of functions in the brain.”

BrainBiologyNeuroscienceAnatomyAncient EgyptMedical HistoryInjuriesHieroglyphicAncient Medicine
Book:The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Vol 1: Hieroglyphic Transliteration, Translation and Commentary
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“[...] we have in our treatise a series of fifty-seven examinations, almost exclusively of injuries of the human body forming a group of observations furnishing us with the earliest known nucleus of fact regarding the anatomy, physiology and pathology of the human body. Crude and elementary as they are, the method by which they were collected was scientific, and these observations, together with the diagnoses and the explanatory commentary in the ancient glosses, form the oldest body of science now extant.”

BiologyAnatomyAncient EgyptMedical HistoryHieroglyphicAncient Medicine
Book:The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Vol 1: Hieroglyphic Transliteration, Translation and Commentary
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“In the field of Egyptian mathematics Professor Karpinski of the University of Michigan has long insisted that surviving mathematical papyri clearly demonstrate the Egyptians' scientific interest in pure mathematics for its own sake. I have now no doubt that Professor Karpinski is right, for the evidence of interest in pure science, as such, is perfectly conclusive in the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus.”

LongInterestDoubtFieldsPureEvidenceMathematicsUniversitySakeMathematicalNo DoubtProfessorsSurvivingMichiganEgyptianUniversity Of MichiganPapyrus
Author:James Henry Breasted
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