Innovative Imhotep
Who is Imhotep
Often seen in statues and art holding unfolded papyrus, Imhotep was a mortal architect in ancient Egypt who was deified after death into the God of Medicine. He is most famous for his innovation in constructing the step pyramid out of stone. He was an Egyptian polymath and an adviser to the Pharaoh Djoser. He was also worshiped in Greece, where he was identified with the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius. Although he was born in the 27th century BCE, he was not deified until the Persian conquest of Egypt in 525 BCE. He had a cult-like following that peaked during Greco-Roman times, when sufferers would crowd in his temples in Memphis and Philae. Sufferers would pray and sleep in these temples, hoping Imhotep would reveal remedies to them in their dreams. In Siddahartha Mukherjee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “biography” of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies, Imhotep is cited as the oldest written diagnosis of cancer. What was his cure? Imhotep laconically prescribed, “There is none.” Imhotep wrote the first treatise on surgery, the “Edwin Smith Papyrus.”, a fundamental medical research paper written in 1700–1550 BCE. It was 5 meters long, including 48 trauma surgery histories, how to repair a broken nose, sutures to close wounds, and how to treat infections with honey. Another important medical treatise was “Ebers Papurys,” which was 20 meters in length. Although Imhotep is esteemed as the god of medicine, he was not the first physician in Egypt. We know this because the first mention of medicine was in 3533 BCE, when Sekhet’enanch healed a Pharaoh’s nostril disease. The Egyptians had detailed knowledge of the osseous, alimentary, respiratory, circulatory, genital, muscular, nervous, ocular, auditory, and olfactory systems.
I love studying ancient civilizations as they provide insight into what it means to be human. Human innovation could only be measured with an altimeter, making our constancy so much more important. Rethinking ancient paradigms and wisdom has incredible benefits for modern day medicine. For example, under modern biological investigation, the antibacterial properties of honey was proven; derived from the osmotic effect of its low moisture content and high sugar content, along with H2O2s antiseptic properties and the acidity of gluonic acid.
Something else that I find interesting are ancient attitudes towards the heart. In Mesopotamian creation stories, Anzu “formed an idea in the depths of his being; Ea formed intelligence in his heart.” Similarly, the aboriginals in Canada held the heart at the center of the medicine wheel. Perhaps it is not the direct intelligence of the heart I am searching for but instead a shifting paradigm of what intelligence is. I am interested in the somatic intelligence of our organs, contrasting the heavily focused brain focus in the age of intelligence.
