Zucconi Medicine And Religion Summary

Zucconi, L. (2007). Medicine and Religion in Ancient Egypt. Religion compass 1/1, p 26-37
The paper under review, medicine and religion in ancient Egypt is by Laura Zucconi, a history professor at Richard Stockton college of New Jersey. The analysis provided on ancients Egypt’s concept of medicine and religion, are derived from studies in the fields of medical anthropology, history of medicine and biblical studies. This article directs its attention into why Egyptian medicine was treated as distinct from Religion by scholars, even though medical practices integrated the religious beliefs of Maat (balance) and heka (power) where one could not function without the other. Zucconi argues that medicine and religion as intertwined entities such that they coexist with one another..
Zucconi points to the following medical payri to further understand the concept of medicine and religion. She uses the eleven medical papyri: Kahun, Ramesseum, Edwin Smith, Ebers, Berlin, Hearst, London, Chester Beatty, Carlsberg, Brooklyn, and the London-Leiden as a comparison to show a relationship between medicine and religion. Of the ones given, the Edwin smith papyrus describes surgical diagnosis and treatments while the Ebers papyrus describes the physiology of the body. They highlight the
Medicine and religion to the ancient Egyptians have a significance in the treatment of illnesses. They held their gods in high esteem and when it was time for them to heal they believed in calling upon the gods to heal them from the supernatural cause of their illness. The doctors made use of the notion that the drugs they made would get rid of the demons who would be in battle with a divinity if they did not come out of the patient. The gods did not solve the problem, the medication did but instead the notion of the gods battling the illness for them gave them strength to believe that the gods were interceding on their