Imhotep - the demigod and architect of pyramids

Imhotep - The World's first Physician who designed the first pyramid!

IMHOTEP - the First Physician

The time-honoured message is etched on the sole
Like a metaphor— an understatement of a rare gem’s soul
Just half of his story which reflects our very own lives
That from adversity, a patient phoenix soars and thrives. Samira Edi

William Osler, the Canadian physician, regarded as the father of modern medicine described him as

"..first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from the mists of antiquity." Imhotep diagnosed and treated over 200 diseases, 15 diseases of the abdomen, 11 of the bladder, 10 of the rectum, 29 of the eyes, and 18 of the skin, hair, nails and tongue. Imhotep treated tuberculosis, gallstones, appendicitis, gout and arthritis. He also performed surgery and practiced some dentistry. Imhotep extracted medicine from plants. He also knew the position and function of the vital organs and circulation of the blood system. The Encyclopedia Britannica says, "The evidence afforded by Egyptian and Greek texts support the view that Imhotep's reputation was very respected in early times. His prestige increased with the lapse of centuries and his temples in Greek times were the centers of medical teachings."

Imhotep is often recognized as the world’s first physician. But he donned many hats – which were of a highly skilled architect who built Egypt's first pyramid, was a priest, a writer, a sage, a poet, an astrologer, and a vizier. Some inscriptions even label him as a chief minister. He served Djoser (2630–2611 BC), the second king of Egypt's third dynasty. But he may have lived under as many as four kings.

An inscription on one of that kings statues describes Imhotep as "chancellor of the king of lower Egypt", the "first one under the king", the "administrator of the great mansion", the "hereditary Noble", the "high priest of Heliopolis", the "chief sculptor", and finally the "chief carpenter”.

Not hailing from a regal lineage, scant details are available about his early life. But once he adorned the court of Djoser, his genius shone all around. His multifaceted talents, his in-depth knowledge, his astute analysis, his clear understanding of stars and constellation with natural laws made him an versatile genius, who could never fail at any thing. Born in a suburb of Memphis, the cradle of the earliest civilization, he was a commoner by birth and there is no concrete history about his parentage or his family. It was during his time at Heliopolis, where he served as a chief priest, the city was regarded as the religious capital.

Saqqara’s step pyramid, for Djoser, was the first pyramid to be ever built, of which the doctor was the architect. This was the first stone monument and though in later years more pyramids were credited to his designs, Saqquara still remains the milestone.

With Imhotep probably started a personality cult, where a non-royal entity was levitated to a divine strata, and temples were constructed after him, much as the saints of Roman Catholicism. About 100 years after his death, he was elevated as a medical demigod. In about 525, around 2,000 years after his death, he was elevated to a full god, and replaced Nefertum in the great triad at Memphis. In the Turin Canon, he was known as the "son of Ptah". Imhotep was, together with Amenhote, the only mortal Egyptians that ever reached the position of full gods. He was also associated with Thoth, the god of wisdom, writing and learning, and with the Ibises which was also associated with Thoth.
Imhotep's best known writings were medical; which were the forerunner to the western and Arabic medical practice. It is quite probable that Imhotep authored the Edwin Smith Papyrus in which more than 90 anatomical terms and 48 injuries were described. He might have also founded a school of medicine in Memphis, a part of his cult center known as "Asklepion, which remained famous for two thousand years, some 2,200 years before the Western Father of Medicine Hippocrates was born.

Was Imhotep actually Joseph??

Dr. Moeller, a medical doctor at Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, is also an archaeologist, explorer, marine biologist, scuba diver, and a scholar of both Egyptian history and the Bible. It was Dr. Mueller who directed the diving expedition which discovered coral-covered clumps of chariot wreckage from Egypt's 18th dynasty in the Gulf of Aqaba (see listed Ezine articles).
Moeller refers to an inscription on the island of Sihiel, near the first cataract of the Nile, which actually links Imhotep to the key biblical element of the Joseph story - telling of Pharaoh Djoser in the 18th year of his reign. The inscription states "seven meagre years and seven rich years". Commenting on the inscription, Moeller writes, "Pharaoh Djoser asks Imhotep to help him with the coming seven years of famine. All the biblical components of the story are there, and there is a similar inscription on the island of Philae in the Nile." (This is exactly as in the Bible with Joseph, except for listing the "meagre" years before the years of plenty. Note: The famine years were, of course, the event of significance, saving everyone from starvation and bringing in much wealth to Egypt - it is noted that the manuscript was written a thousand years after the occurrences.) A carving in Sakkara shows starving people (ribs prominently outlined), also shows sacks of grain being carried up steps (as in the "silo" vaults at Sakkara), also food being distributed. In summary, Moeller says, "It should be noted that there is no other period of famine of seven plus seven years in the history of Egypt - except for the one for which Imhotep was responsible." In Egyptian records, only one person is described as having the administrative authority to organize Egypt's survival during the long famine - Imhotep. The parallel to biblical Joseph is precise and compelling. Moeller cites the large number of similarities in the lives, the accomplishments, responsibilities and characteristics of Imhotep of Egypt and Joseph of the Bible. Noting the dove-tailing of their individual stories from separate Egyptian and biblical accounts, Moeller's conclusion is that the two - most probably - were the same person, the two stories told from different viewpoints.

• (Imhotep is appointed Administrator by Pharaoh Djoser during the periods of seven years famine and seven years of bountiful harvests); {Joseph is appointed Administrator to Pharaoh for the seven years of plenty then of famine};
• (Minister to the King of Lower Egypt); {Pharaoh .. made him ruler over all the land of Egypt};
• (Administrator of the GreatPalace); {Thou shalt be over my house};
• (Not of royal blood; attained position by ability); {From another nation and religion, not of royal blood, attained position by ability};
• (Not appointed by Pharaoh Djoser until he had reigned for some time); {Appointed well after Pharaoh ruled Egypt};
• (Given the status of "son" to Pharaoh); {Granted the status of "son" to Pharaoh};
• (High Priest in Heliopolis); {Married to Asenath, daughter of Poti-Pherah, High Priest in Heliopolis - by custom, would succeed father-in-law};
• (Builder and architect); {Builder of grain storehouses such as at Sakkara step-pyramid};
• (Exalted by Pharaoh Djoser as of godly character.); {"And Pharaoh said, 'a man in whom the spirit of God is!'"} ;
• ("I need advice from God."); {Noted as saying, "It is not in me; God shall give Pharaoh an answer."};
• (Had great medical skill - was compared to the Greek God of Healing);
• {Had doctors under his authority - worked by miracles, dreams and signs from God};
• (Decided the tax rate during the seven years of famine; also not to apply to priests); {Decided the tax rate during the seven years of famine; also not to apply to priests};
• (Realizes when he is dying - dies at age 110.); {Realizes when he is dying - dies at age 110.}.
Extremely noteworthy regarding Imhotep-Joseph is that the mummified bodies of neither have ever been found. The known facts regarding the burials of Imhotep and Joseph also strongly support the thesis that they were the same person:
- Both died at age 108.
- Imhotep's coffin in Sakkara - with innumeral Ibis birds mummified in the adjoining galleries (Imhotep was called "Ibis" because of his reputation for healing - a large number of Ibis birds were sacrificed to him at his funeral in Sakkara); many clay vessels bearing the seal of Pharaoh Djoser were near the coffin; and the coffin is oriented to the North, not East, and is empty.
- Joseph would have been buried at Sakkara, his coffin orientated to the North - indicating he did not believe in the gods of the Egyptians (who were buried facing East, the rising sun); the coffin would also be empty as Joseph's bones would have been taken by Moses with the Hebrews during the Exodus.

his main centers of worship were in the Ptolemaic temple to Hathor atf Dier el-Medina and at Karnak in Thebes, where he was worshipped in conjunction with Amenhotep-Son-of-Hapu, a sanctuary on the upper terrace of the temple at Deir el-Bahari, at Philae where a chapel of Imhotep stands immediately in front of the eastern pylon of the temple of Isis and of course, at Memphis in Lower (northern) Egypt, where a temple was erected to him near the Serapeum. At saqqara, we are told that people bought offerings to his cult center, including mummified Ibises and sometimes, clay models of diseased limbs and organs in the hope of being healed.

He was later even worshipped by the early Christians as one with Christ. The early Christians, it will be recalled, adapted to their use those pagan forms and persons whose influence through the ages had woven itself so powerfully into tradition that they could not omit them.

He was worshiped even in Greece where he was identified with their god of medicine, Aslepius. . He was honored by the Romans and the emperors Claudius and Tiberius had inscriptions praising Imhotep placed on the walls of their Egyptian temples. He even managed to find a place in Arab traditions, especially at Saqqara where his tomb is thought to be located.

Cardano - a physician, engineer and astrologer who made the horoscope of Jesus

Cardano - the Greatest Genius ever?

Girolamo Cardano was possibly one of the greatest geniuses ever whose versatility had no limits. Cardano was a man of his times, with every fault that a man could have, unprepossessing, flippant, arrogant, unscrupulous  and dishonest. But at the same time, he could be tirelessly kind, forgiving and extremely generous and dedicated.

Cardano was born in Pavia on 24^thSept. 1501, the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano a mathematically gifted lawyer who was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci. In his autobiography, Cardano claimed that his mother had attempted to abort him but failed. Shortly before his birth, his mother had to move from Milan to Pavia to escape the plague; having lost her other three children to the endemic.

In 1520, Cardano entered the University of Pavia. When war broke out, the university was forced to close and Cardano moved to the University of Padua to complete his studies in medicine.  He squandered the small bequest from his father and turned to gambling to finance his medical studies. Card games, dice and chess were the methods he used to make a living.  His understanding of probability meant he had an advantage over his opponents and, in general, he won more than he lost. He had to keep dubious company for his gambling. Once, when he thought he was being cheated at cards, Cardano, who always carried a knife, slashed the face of his opponent. Gambling became an addiction that was to last many years and rob Cardano of valuable time, money and reputation.

Cardano was awarded his doctorate in medicine in 1525 and applied to join the College of Physicians in Milan, where his mother still lived. The College did not wish to admit him for, despite the respect he had gained as an exceptional student, he had a reputation as a difficult man, whose unconventional, uncompromising opinions were aggressively put forward with little tact or thought for the consequences. The discovery of Cardano's illegitimate birth gave the College a reason to reject his application. But twelve years later, in 1539, the rules for fellowship were changed to induct him as a fellow; as his stature grew as a physician and many of his cures were even considered miraculous that time. He was the first to describe typhoid fever.

He became rector of the College of Physicians and gained the reputation of being the greatest physician in the world. Cardano received many offers from the heads of state in Europe, anxious to receive the best medical attention, but only once was the incentive great enough to tempt him from Italy.

John Hamilton, Archbishop of St Andrews, had suffered from asthma for ten years but gradually the frequency and severity of the attacks had grown worse. The court physicians of both the French king and German emperor did their best but ultimately failed and the Archbishop of St Andrews was near death. He turned in desperation to Cardano, promising him a huge sum and a position in the court if he would come to Scotland and treat him. Cardano was not lecturing when he received the plea and so treated him to health for which he was paid over two thousand gold crowns.

Cardano was not just a just one of the finest physicians of his time;  he was also a prolific writer,  mathematician, physicist, astrologer and engineer! While practicing medicine, he continued his research in other subjects and published his works in physics, mathematics, astrology and natural sciences.

Today, he is best known for his achievements in algebra. He published the solutions to the cubic and quartic equations in his book Ars Magna in 1545. He acknowledged the existence of what are now called imaginary numbers, although he did not understand their properties (Mathematical field theory was developed centuries later).  In Opus Novum de Proportionibus, he introduced the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem.

Cardano was notoriously short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player. His book about games of chance, Liber de ludo aleae, written in the 1560s, but not published until 1663, contains the first systematic treatment of probability, as well as a section on effective cheating methods in gambling!!

Cardano invented several mechanical devices including the combination lock, the gimbal consisting of three concentric rings allowing a supported compass or gyroscope to rotate freely, and the Cardano shaft with universal joints, which allows the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and is used in vehicles to this day. He studied hypocycloids, published in de proportionibus 1570. The generating circles of these hypocycloids were later named Cardano circles or cardanic circles and were used for the construction of the first high-speed printing presses. He made several contributions to hydrodynamics and held that perpetual motion is impossible, except in celestial bodies. He published two encyclopaedias of natural science which contain a wide variety of inventions, facts, and occult superstitions. He also introduced the Cardano grille, a cryptographic tool, in 1550.

Significantly, in the history of deaf education, he was one of the first to state that deaf people could learn without learning how to speak first.

His principal misfortunes arose from the crimes and calamities of his sons, one of whom was an utter reprobate, while the tragic fate of the other overwhelmed the father with anguish. Cardano's eldest and favorite son was executed in 1560 after he confessed to having poisoned his  wife. His other son was a gambler, who stole money from him. Cardano was accused of heresy in 1570 because he had computed and published the horoscope of Jesus in 1554. He was arrested, had to spend several months in prison and was forced to abjure his professorship. But the support from the patients he had treated forced the court to view it leniently, and few months later he was released. Cardano went to Rome, where he received an unexpectedly warm reception. He was granted immediate membership of the College of Physicians and the Pope, who had now apparently forgiven Cardano, and granted him a pension. It was in this period that his autobiography De Vita Propriia was written, although it was published much later in Paris and subsequently translated into all European languages.

Cardano is reported to have correctly predicted the exact date of his own death, 21^st Sept 1576 in his autobiography, but it has been claimed that he achieved this by committing suicide!

They were doctors too - 1

This is a modest attempt to glean interesting events from the lives of doctors, who became famous in fields other than medicine too. The list is endless.

In my earlier blogs, I did write in brief about Imhotep, probably the first acclaimed medical pracitioner who attained a deni-god status. I also had a small note on one of the most controversial genius, a physician, Cardano.

For almost three years, I had lot of time, but did not write any thing substantial, not even something which appealed to me. I guess, when I was busy, in a very demanding job, I could write and write!!!

My third character in this series is William Chester Minor.

William Chester Minor was born in Sri Lanka, to a Church monasteries family from New England in 1880. Scared that his attractive caucasian looks would be a matter of distraction and he may fall into bad company, his father decided to send him to the US for studies. He was a brilliant student and soon founf himself in the hallowed School of Medicine at Yale. He completed his medical training at 20, and was posted in Union Army as a surgeon at the Battle of Wilderness in May 1984. The war was known for massive casualties, and solders were deserting the army. Minor was given the task of branding deserter by using a heated iron rod with D written on it, on the face of the soldier. This was a turning point of Minor's life.

He began hallucinating these soldiers who were mostly Irish would be hidden in his room and show up themselves late at night and force him to indulge in abnormal sexual activities. He even would hallucinate them coming from beneath the floor, and assaulting him sexually.

After the end of the Civil war, he went to New York. Probably due to the dementia and hallucination combined, he became promiscuous. He would regularly visit red light areas and his demeanour as well as behaviour became abnormal. When this came to the notice of his superior, he was transferred to a fairly insignificant position in Florida Panhandle. But his psychoatric condition gradually declines with hallucinations, compulsive obsessive disorders, etc raising their ugly heads and he was sent to a mental asylum in Washington DC. But a year and half treatment did show no improvement.

In 1871, he moved to the UK, settling down in a small town and a slum area in Lambeth. He was reticent, dissolute and lived a nondescrpt life. He almost everyday visited sex workers every day. But the paranoia od Irish people coming after him was really severe. Early on the 17th February 1872 after returning home late at night he woke up believing that someone was trying to get into his room. He chased after the intruder and shot at a man in the street. George Merritt, a 34 year old stoker at the Lion Brewery, was working an early shift starting at 2am and was walking down Belvedere Road when Minor fired four shots two of which entered his neck. Merritt was declared dead on arrival at St Thomas' hospital.

He was caught and sent to Horsemonger Lane jail but was found not guilty because of his insanity. He was incarcerated and sent to Broadmoor Asylum, in Cawthorne, Berkshire. As he was branded not dangerous to public and was a qualified doctor himself, he was provided with comfortable living in the asylum. His pension from the Army helped him to indulge in his favorite hobby - buying books and reading them. He also was remorseful for killing George Merret and apologozed profusely to his wife E;iza and parted with a substantial part of his earnings to support the bereaved family. A ty[ical example of Jekyll and Hyde!!! Eliza forgave him and used to visit him once a while with books. 

Merritt's wife Eliza was left with seven children ranging from 18 years to 12 months to bring up with another on the way. Times were very hard for her and her children but wealthy Minor helped out financially and Eliza even asked to visit Minor in Broadmoor. This highly unusual request was granted and following an experimental visit she started visiting him monthly and even undertook to collect books from various London bookshops for him.

These visits did not last very long as Eliza took to drink but seemed to have greatly helped Minor as it gave him a new occupation. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) editor Dr James Murray had an eight page flyer (a letter) inserted into several new books appealing for new readers to find words and quotations for the dictionary. One of these flyers found its way to Dr Minor in Broadmoor, perhaps in one of the books that Eliza brought him. He began reading and collecting books and turned one of his rooms into his library. This he put to good use, as he became a principal contributor of sixteenth and seventeenth century quotations to the first edition of the OED for over thirty years. Minor always signed his letters in the same way: Dr W.C. Minor, Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire and initially the OED editor, Dr James Murray, was unaware that Minor was insane but after many years he started regular visits to Minor in Broadmoor.

Minor saw his calling in this. He applied.

James Murray was a genius in his own right. Thomas Murray. A precocious child with a voracious appetite for learning, he left school at the age of fourteen because his parents were not able to afford to send him to local fee-paying schools. At the age of seventeen he became a teacher at Hawick Grammar School and three years later was headmaster of the Subscription Academy there. In 1856 he was one of the founders of the Hawick Archaeological Society.^[1]

In 1861, Murray met a music teacher, Maggie Scott, whom he married the following year. Two years later, they had a daughter Anna, who shortly after died of tuberculosis. Maggie, too, fell ill with tuberculosis, and on the advice of doctors, the couple moved toLondon to escape the Scottish winters. Once there, Murray took an administrative job with the Chartered Bank of India, while continuing in his spare time to pursue his many and varied academic interests. Maggie died within a year of arrival in London. A year later Murray was engaged to Ada Agnes Ruthven, and the following year married her.

By this time Murray was primarily interested in languages and etymology. Some idea of the depth and range of his linguistic erudition may be gained from a letter of application he wrote to Thomas Watts, Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum, in which he claimed an ‘intimate acquaintance’ with Italian,French, Catalan, Spanish and Latin, and 'to a lesser degree' Portuguese, Vaudois, Provençal & various dialects’. In addition, he was ‘tolerably familiar’ with Dutch, German andDanish. His studies of Anglo-Saxon and Mœso-Gothic had been ‘much closer’, he knew ‘a little of the Celtic’ and was at the time ‘engaged with the Slavonic, having obtained a useful knowledge of the Russian’. He had ‘sufficient knowledge of Hebrew & Syriac to read at sight the Old Testament and Peshito’ and to a lesser degree he knew Aramaic,Arabic, Coptic and Phoenician. However, he did not get the job.

By 1869, Murray was on the Council of the Philological Society, and by 1873 had given up his job at the bank and returned to teaching at Mill Hill School in London. He then published The Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, which served to enhance his reputation in philological circles.

On 1 March 1879, a formal agreement was put in place to the effect that Murray was to edit a new English Dictionary. It was expected to take ten years to complete and be some 7,000 pages long, in four volumes. In fact, when the final results were published in 1928, it ran to twelve volumes, with 414,825 words defined and 1,827,306 citations employed to illustrate their meanings.

James Augustus Henry Murray was born in 1837 in Denholm, Scotland, the first-born son of a tailor. Murray and his siblings who followed were brought up in a strict religious household. Little is known of Murrays early childhood other than he had a passion for learning.