ANCIENT HEALING

Hokitika Guardian, 30 May 1931, Page 6

ANCIENT HEALING

SURGEON’S OBSERVATIONS. A lecture on “Ancient Medicine and Surgery”, was given by. .Lord Moynilian under the auspices of the London Society in the hall of the Royal Society of Arts. Lord Moynilian said that the sources from which they derived their knowledge of ancient medicine and surgery were the hones of individuals who had, died as long ago as 500,000 years, the mummies

from ancient Egypt, the drawings of prehistoric and early historic times in caves and tombs, and the

writings of poets playwrights, and physicians, some of them of the highest value. The study of material from all these sources showed that disorders very similar to those now attacking .mankind were very ancient enemies, and that until comparatively modern times almost identical views ns to their nature, origin and method of control were held in countries far apait.

He showed how P i theca ntropus was already the victim of a certain muscular disorder; how the Heidelberg man revealed a condition or surg.caJ tubercu losifs (neanderthal nia'n, lie suggested, like so many people to-day, was compelled to drink milk infected with tuberculosis)! b«iw chronic ostco-nrthriti.s occurred in the Nile Valiev thousands of years ago. and was so characteristic that the determinant of old age was tile figure of a bent, crippled old man. The band of the aunt of Tutankhamen showed .signs of a healed fracture. It ’was a liig, Lstrong.' muscular hand for a woman, commented Lord Moynihaii. and this particular hone was very rarely fractured unless the hand was conveying a blow with a good deal of force. These facts gave rise to interesting conjectures as to the domestic life led hv the hulv!

No orthopaedic surgeon in the world could get a better result from a fractured forearm than was achieved 3000 years ago when a young girl who hau broken both forearms and had presumably died of other injuries. for the hones were only just uniting and the splines and bandages wen* ,still iu position. As the bandages were unwrapped. they showed the exact methods by which splints made from Nile reeds acre applied and the accuracy of tile resulting alignment. The Pharaoh of the Oppression suffered and probably died from acute appendicitis. Examination of his heart gave- an oscular demonstration of the Old' Testament, statement: “And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.” The aorta was found in such a wellpreserved state that Air R. G. Shattalk of the Koval College of Surgeons, was able to make sections of it and compare them with those made from a man recently dead. No pathologist could tell which was the ancient and which was the modern vessel. Both were attacked hv the disease atheroma, a condition in which Calcium salts were deposited in the cells of the vessel, making it rigid ami inelastic. It did. not expand adequately to the stream of blood coining from the heart. .Rental changes went with this rigid arterial system. There was a narrowness and rigidity of outlook, a lack of enterprise and initiative.