CAIRO: THE OLD IN THE NEW. II. THE HE scientific life of Alexandria was not dead in the seventh century, and many a Greek book may have been sent from there to Fostat. But who opened the understanding of the untutored sons of the desert to this finest bloom of a highly cultured intellectual life? It was not the Greeks, for the Greeks regarded the intruders. with implacable hostility, and their art and religion very soon disappeared from the Nile altogether; it was the Greek-trained Copts who performed the task; and it is plain from a deeper investigation into the various branches of knowledge studied by the Arabs and into the scientific lore of the Egyptians, that the teachers must have communicated to the pupils not only Greek science but many other things besides, which had survived among them from the venerable learning of their own nation. The scholar Jahja ben Bitrik, who translated Greek works into Arabic for Mamun, expressly asserts that he searched every temple in order to bring the mysteries of the philosophers to the light. At 'Ain Schems (this cannot be Ba’albek, but must be the Egyptian Heliopolis) he took into his counsels a dervish of great insight and learning. At Memphis stood the temple of Imhotep, to which the Greeks gave the name of their own Asklepios (Esculapius). Here was found the medical papyrus preserved in the Berlin Museum, and it is stated in the great handbook of Egyptian medicine, the Ebers papyrus of 110 large pages, now in Leipzig, that the collection of prescriptions which it contains came from Sais and Heliopolis. It was this last town that contained the "great halls" which had from mythical times been used for clinical purposes by a celebrated faculty of medicine. The Egyptians were the most famous of all physicians in antiquity, and the Greeks and Romans under the Ptolemies availed themselves of their skill. It is well known how highly the younger Pliny esteemed his Egyptian doctor, and how he tried to procure for him the rights of Roman citizenship. In the pseudo-Hippocratic writings there are many prescriptions of such a singular character (as, for example, how to know whether a pregnant woman will bear a son or a daughter, &c.) that they must all have been invented in one place, and they were known in exactly the same form to the ancient Egyptians of the thirteenth century B.C. The Ebers papyrus contains a particularly interesting section devoted to the functions of the heart, and from this papyrus, which was written, at latest, in the sixteenth century B.C., it appears that the priestly physicians of the time of the Pharaohs recognized the heart as the centre of the circulatory system, and referred the beating of the pulse to its motions. Now no one who knows that Hippocrates was ignorant of these things, and that it was at Alexandria that Herophilus of Chalkedon noted the rhythm of the pulse in the various diseases, and first brought out its connection with the heart, can resist the conclusion that Herophilus really learnt the fact from the priestly physicians of the Nile, who had occupied themselves long before his time with the physiology of the human body. So, too, Erasistratus of Kios followed in the steps of Egyptian masters in his investigations into the ramification of the nerves. An entire section of the Ebers papyrus is dedicated to this matter, and a comparison of it with the writings of Galen and Dioskorides shows that both these men borrowed much from Egyptian medicine. Surgery certainly owes to Egyptian physicians its doctrine of ligaments, and its art of putting them on. Our greatest operators make no secret of the admiration with which they are filled at the skilful methods practised under the Pharaohs in the wrapping of mummies. I have seen embalmed bodies that were wrapped in linen bandages more than 400 metres long. The medical works of the Alexandrians did not remain unknown to the Arabs, but they studied at the same time the writings of the Egyptian physicians. The proof of this is found in an anonymous Arabic MS. discovered by L. Stern in the Library of Cairo. This MS., and especially the last thirty chapters of it, which were written by a certain Abn Sahl Isa ibn Jahja, contain some receipts which may be regarded as translations of certain prescriptions that appear in the Ebers papyrus, and, moreover, the author refers constantly to a book of Hermes-i.e. Tot, the ancient Egyptian god of science, whom the Ebers papyrus describes as the "leader of the physicians." The origin of the word Chemistry has been the subject of much disputation. It used to be derived from the Greek chymos (fluidity), but great difficulties beset this etymology; and it has certainly nothing to do with the Arabic word of similar sound, chema (secret), for it was already in use in the fourth century (Zosimos). The only remain ing view is that chemistry means simply Egyptian science, for Egypt was by its own inhabitants in the remotest times, and among the Copts down till after the foundation of Fostat, called in the Memphite dialect, Chemi, Chame, and Chamē (pronounced chamí). This word chame means in Coptic black, and that explains why chemistry was at a later period called the "black art." If we look over ancient Egypt, we find in all the heathen temples laboratories on whose walls receipt after receipt was chiselled, and papyri in which drugs are mentioned in various combinations in order to be made up as specifics for the cure of disease. The weights and measures of the substances to be mixed are indicated, and these seem often so minute that their discrimination must have been impossible without the help of fine instruments. One of the hieroglyphics referring to the metals has a representation of a crucible. The Egyptians were early acquainted with the art of gilding, and they made metallic dyes and other colouring materials which still survive after thousands of years. Theophrastus mentions their blue, of which many evidences have come down to us. Costly paste diamonds were made on the Nile, and various metals-copper and tin (bronze), gold and silver (the hieroglyphic asem)-were skilfully alloyed. Great chemical knowledge is presupposed in the following process, which, according to Pliny, the Egyptian dyers practised. They first treated the web with certain liquids, and then dipped it in a pot of boiling dye. When they drew it out the stuff was variously coloured, though only one colour had been put into the pot. The earliest indications of this science, nay, even the legends that treat of its origin, point to Egypt. : Firmicus Maternus uses the word chemistry in his astrological works (336 A.D.), and expresses the wish to impart what the divine ancients had learnt from the sanctuaries of Egypt. It is said, though the statement is certainly disputable, that after an insurrection of the Egyptians in 296 A.D., Diocletian caused this book to be destroyed, because it described the art of producing silver and gold by chemical processes, and so gave them the means of raising new rebellions. Among the Copts the chemical science of their forefathers continued to be actively prosecuted. Proofs of this are not wanting, for there is preserved at Leyden a papyrus which contains a long series of chemical receipts in the Greek language, but in a style corresponding so much to that of the ancient Egyptian MSS., that this MS. must necessarily be considered as a translation of receipts dating from the age of the Pharaohs. Among them are found receipts for assaying, hardening and colouring gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, &c. The Arabs learnt what was known to the Copts about these things, and when they developed it further they produced that science which is known among us still as "Chemistry"-i.e., the Egyptian science. Alchemy is nothing else than chemy, with the Arabic article al. a Algebra is also an Arabic word, denoting the science of combining the separated. The Moslems in Cairo zealously cultivated it, and after they came to know Euclid they became great mathematicians on the basis of the writings of Claudius Ptolemæus, and also great astronomers and geographers. In this province, too, they owe to the ancient Egyptians more than has hitherto been acknowledged. It is by no means accidental that the greatest mathematicians of Hellenic antiquity were styled pupils of the Egyptians, or that it was said of them that they had lived on the Nile. Thales (600 B.C.) is reported to have measured the height of the Pyramids by their shadow. Pythagoras lived long in Egypt, and studied particularly at Heliopolis. He is said to have been master of the Egyptian language, and Onuphis and Sonchis are mentioned as his principal teachers. In the same city of scholars was trained, under Nektaulbos I., Eudemos of Knidos († 357), who discovered, among other things, that a Pyramid was the third part of a prism whose base and height were equal. It is well known that Euclid wrote his "Elements" in Alexandria, under the first Ptolemy (Soter). The great Eratosthenes, who was the first to measure a meridian of the earth, owed his success in doing so to the previous investigations made in that department by the Egyptians, who were already able to give with tolerable accuracy the distance in a straight line from Alexandria to Tyana. In all this there is nothing that is new to mathematicians, but few of them have any acquaintance with the records that make known to us the state of mathematical science among the Egyptians in the beginning of the second millennium B.C. The Rhind papyrus, preserved in the British Museum, may be termed a handbook of ancient Egyptian mathematics. It was written by a certain Aahmesu, under one of the last Hykso kings, and shows that the science of ancient times continued to exist even under the hated conquerors. The Heidelberg Egyptologist Eisenlohr has published this remarkable codex and a translation of it, with the assistance of Kantor, the well-known authority on the history of mathematics. Some of the mistaken renderings of these scholars-easily excusable on account of the great difficulty of the matter-have been pointed out in a most acute and stimulating paper by L. Rhodet,* which we recommend to the attention of all mathematicians. The Rhind papyrus establishes the remarkable fact, that certain processes of reckoning used by the writer of that very ancient document are identical with processes found among the Greeks, and, through them, among the Arabs and the Western mathematicians of the Middle Ages, to whom the writings of the Arabs were made known, for the most part, by Jewish scholars. When we find, for example, the arithmetical process of the "false stating" to have been practised from the time of Aahmesu * Journal Asiatique, septième serie, tome xviii. 1881, p. 154 sqq. (about 1700 B.C.) down to the sixteenth century A.D., that seems remarkable enough; but it is more astonishing still to find that certain examples of progression which extort a smile from us on account of the heterogeneous character of their arrangement, are contained in the writings of Fibonacci (Leonardo von Pisa), about the year 1200 A.D., in exactly the same form in which they are given by Aahmesu. This fact, discovered by Rhodet, is so remarkable, so easily understood, and so striking to the eye, that it will interest even the lay mind. The Egyptian example is stated thus: 19,607 That is, there are 7 scribes, and every scribe has 7 cats (49); and every cat catches 7 mice (343); and every mouse in a given time eats 7 measures of corn (2,401); and every measure when sown produces 7 bushels (16,807). How much is the whole? 19,607. This example, or a similar one, appears to have been the basis of that of Fibonacci. Nay, as far as concerns the figures, it would be identical with it, had not the Italian carried the progression a step further than the Egyptian has done. According to Fibonacci, it runs thus:-7 old wives go to Rome, and every wife has 7 mules (49); and every mule carries 7 sacks (343), and in every sack are 7 loaves (2,401). For every loaf there are 7 knives (16,807), and every knife has 7 sheaths. How much is the whole ? 137,258. Without the last step, the result in both cases would have been the * same. We cannot go further into these things here, but we must mention that the great geographer, astronomer, and mathematician, Claudius Ptolemæus, who was not born, as was formerly believed, in Pelusium, but in Ptolemais, a town situated on the Upper Nile, and consequently in the heart of Egypt, was well acquainted with the science of the priestly scholars of the Nile. He seems to have made his * Before writing these lines I met with a remarkable example of the same sort which has all the appearance of being a case of progression like the one mentioned above, but applied to real circumstances. The following legend is associated with the ancient Berseba (Well of the Seven) where Abraham dug the well and gave Abimelech 7 trces as a pledge of the alliance concluded with him: "Here the Beni Murr dwelt at 7 wells, and every well had 7 mouths, and every mouth 7 troughs, and out of every trough drank 7 horses." Shylock says:-j "If every ducat in six thousand ducats |