The Religious Effect on Development the Knowledge of Medicine & Drugs of the Ancient Egyptian

Egyptian civilization played a major role in the development of human knowledge, especially medical one. The medical community was characterized by academic discipline and professional organization. Physicians were not permitted to practice this profession except after studying in medical academies, which were called the House of Life, in addition to establishing a hierarchy of the profession according to each physicians experience and skills. The Egyptian based his sciences in general and medical sciences in particular on a perception of God, the universe, man and the relationship among them. This perception was informed by the philosophy of Egyptian religion, which coined all the activities of the ancient Egyptian, from the ordinary farmer to the Pharaoh himself. Therefore, it was very important to know the religious influence on the development of Egyptian knowledge in the field of medicine and medical drugs.
This vision originated from the cosmic unity between man, nature, and metaphysics. The ancient Egyptian concept of health is that it is the balance between a person, soul and body, with the universe and the gods. This balance was governed by laws of Maat, which are the physical, moral and social laws that governed the universe and gods. On the other hand, they saw illness as an imbalance in these relations. As a result, their medical conceptions combined physical and metaphysical explanations. The imbalance may be caused by demons, spirits of the dead, or the anger of the gods. Therefore, their treatments combined the use of drugs with a direct medicinal effect and the recitation of spells that aimed to overcoming evil spirits and pleasing gods.