CIVILISED LIFE

Evening Star, Issue 19659, 12 September 1927, Page 6

CIVILISED LIFE

WILL IT SEAL OUR DOOM ? WARNING FROM THE CENTURIES VERDICT OF THE MUMMIES. is civilised life, its pleasures and luxuries, Mating the doom of the human race? A warning against the perils of civilisation, of soft Jiving and rich eating lias just been handed down across the centuries as the result of an X-ray examination of 30,000 Egyptian mummies. Their silent verdict against civilisation is that luxury and wealth, idleness and pleasure are the greatest enemies of mankind.

The ancient Egyptians, who had a civilisation in many respects superior to our own, and who were specialists in the arts of pleasure, suffered from practically all the ilia and diseases that the human race is subject to to-day. With very few exceptions, all_ the mummies examined under the X-ray showed that civilisation had made them soft and unable to resist the ravages of disease.

Among the rich, who lived luxuriously and ate daintily, bad teeth were found in nearly every ease. Teeth decayed as prosperity increased and food became richer. Others were found to have suffered from gout, arthritis, cancer, ulcer of the bone, and tuberculosis. This X-ray research, the results of which have just been summarised by Dr A. Sack, of the University of Heidelberg, proves that the very civilisation and culture that once made the Egyptians lenders of the world ultimately brought about their undoing and decline. Savage races which knew neither luxury nor soft living prospered and conquered. Ancient E&ypt, the greatest civilisation the world had then known, tottered and collapsed. Its people had become too soft. BAD TEETH.

The poor folk who sweated beneath the broiling sun along the banks of the Nile, the X-ray showed, died with their teeth intact and their constitutions unimpaired by disease. But the ruling classes—the Kings and Queens, the rich merchants, and the nobles—died with teeth as had as llioso of many modern Europeans, and (heir bochr-s racked and tortured by various ailments.

In one way only did the X-ray show the ancient Egyptians to have a cleaner health chart than civilised mankind loday. They had no so-called social diseases.

While the X-ray examination of Urn mummies yielded no definite results as far ns the fleshy pan's of the body are concerned, the conditions of the hones which were observed gave very definite and useful results. r.ANTEU, TOO.

The curse of undent, times, very much as it. is to-day, seems to liuro been arthritis. Changes in the bones and joints, due to this complaint, were tumid through all the dynastic periods, and appeared to have been the prevalent illness suffered by the old Egyptians and Nubians. There was scarcely a mummy of this period among tho.so examined which did nut show traces of this complaint.

Ulcer of the bone was first seen in a mummy of the Twenty-first Dynasty (1090 n.c. to 915 a.d.). together with pronounced curvature of the spine and a pelvic abccss. Tuberculosis was found in the Fifty Dynasty (2750-2625 n.c.), when the spine of a mommy was observed to have been aflcctcd by this disease.

The great scourge of to-day, cancer, was observed much later, m the Byzantine period, when mummies were found with the nose, am! throat, a fleeted.

Slid formation of the gums, with the accompanying hare-lip, was only noticed in one mummy. The remains of Pharaoh Riptah, of the Nineteenth Dynasty (1350-1205 n.c .) revealed the only case of clubfoot found in any of those examined. Gout and related ills claim their millions of victims to-day. The ancient Egyptians knew their curse, and in the mummy of an old man - ' irom Phylac. the feet, and especially the big toe, wore strongly attacked ami greatly swollen. Similar swellings wore also seen at the ends of the big log and arm bones, and chalk-liko deposits were found in the hand and arm joints. To round off the sad picture of this ancient, an advanced state of gout was seen in the vertebrae, ami the shoulders ami left jaw had been strongly attacked. DOOR-KNOB DENTI.RTRV. In the pro and post-dynastic times of Egypt and Nubia tooth, decay was seldom observed among the mummies examined, and, in particular, was not seen lor a long time among the remains of tho poor population. Denial trouble, when observed, usually lonk thc form of abscesses. In tho.ease of 500 mummies of rich Egyptians of the time of the. Pyramids, found in the cemetery of Gizeli, tooth decay was seen to an extent comparable with'that existing in Europe to-day. A similar prevalence of decayed teeth was found in tho mummies of later times. The mummies rcvcaldU no sign ol an attempt at. filling decayed teeth or any other form of dental surgery. Apparently, in tho case of an aching or loose tooth in those times, the simple operation of extraction by a string tied to the door knob was tho principle followed.

Mastoiditis, as in the present age, was frequently found among the mummies of both Egypt and Nubia. Among those from the latter country were skulls showing the in various stages of development. Different other bone lesions were also repeatedly observed. Hardening of the arteries—another modern malady—was found m numerous cases, showing that the process of growing old was the same in those times as in onrs.

The mummy of an old female Nubian slave of the Byzantine times revealed a had case of appendicitis—another of the dreaded diseases of the twentieth century.

The groat Baineses V. contributed bis share to the clinical record of his people and his age His mummy allowed a skin affection of the face, which can probably bo diagnosed as smallpox, though' a definite verdict is, of course, impossible.