SCHOFIELD MEMORIAL LECTURE

Bull Semen and Muscle ATP: Some Evidence of the Dawn

of Medical Science in Ancient Egypt
C.W. Schwabe*

ABFTRACT
The importance of animal experi-
mentation to human and animal
health is not well understood by an
increasingly articulate segment of the
public. This could have very unfortu-
nate consequences for man and his
domestic animals. Even veterinarians
and physicians are not as conversant
as they need be about the great extent
to which advances in human health
have depended upon animal observa-
tions and experiments. Some believe
that resort to "animal models" of
biomedical phenomena, including
diseases - a comparative or analogi-
cal approach to medical studies is a - une partie de plus en plus organisee du
relatively recent event. Even medical
historians often treat these subjects as
occasionally recurring aberrations
which began with the Greeks, thus
largely overlooking the historical
meaning and continuing importance
of "one medicine" irrespective of
species. In fact, comparative medicine
has probably been basic to medical
progress ever since the dawn of a
medical science. Recent research
indicates that this approach to
biomedical mysteries began to evolve
in the minds of Egypt's healer-priests
long before Aristotle and the later
Alexandrian Greeks made the whole
process explicit. Here we examine the
origins of what were possibly the first
two biomedical theories propounded
from inferences based upon dissec-
tions, confirmed in at least one
instance by experiment, and then
applied to medical practice.
Key words: Veterinary history, medi-
cal history, comparative medicine,
history of science, history of medicine,
animal models in research, research
uses of animals, Egyptian medicine,
reproductive physiology, muscle
physiology.
RESUME
L'importance de l'experimentation
animale pour la sante humaine et
animale n'est pas bien comprise par
public. Ce phenomene pourrait
entralner des consequences tres
regrettables pour l'homme et ses
animaux domestiques. Meme les
ve'trinaires et les medecins ne savent
pas tous comme ils le devraient,
jusqu'a quel point les progres de la
sante humaine ont toujours dependu
des observations et des experimenta-
tions animales. Certains voient
comme un phenomene relativement
recent, le recours aux "mod'eles
animaux" pour comprendre les
ph enomenes biomedicaux, y compris
les maladies, fason de proceder qui
constitue une approche comparative
ou analogique des etudes medicales.
Meme les historiens de la medecine
traitent souvent de ces sujets comme
d'aberrations occasionnellement
recurrentes qui commencerent avec les
Grecs; ils oublient ainsi, dans une large
mesure, le sens historique et l'impor-
tance coutinue d'une seule medecine,
independamment de l'espece. En fait,
la medecine comparee a probablement
servi de base au progres medical,
depuis le tout debut d'une science
medicale. La recherche recente
indique que cette approche des
mysteres biomedicaux commenpa a
evoluer dans l'esprit des pretresv
guerisseurs de I'Egypte, bien avant
qu'Aristote et les Grecs alexandrins
ulterieurs en aient explicite tout le
processus. Ici, nous examinons les
origines de ce que furent probable-
ment les deux premiieres theories
biomedicales formulees 'a partir de
deductions basees sur des dissections
et confirmees au moins une fois par
l'experimentation, avant d'etre
appliquees a la pratique medicale.
Mots cles: histoire veterinaire, histoire
medicale, medecine comparee, his-
toire de la science, histoire de la
medecine, modeles animaux dans la
recherche, utilisation des animaux en
recherche, medecine egyptienne,
physiologie de la reproduction,
physiologie musculaire.
Some might wonder why I, a
veterinarian trained in physiology,
parasitology and epidemiology and
who has enjoyed immensely the
creative opportunities and sheer

*School of Veterinary Medicine and the Agricultural History Center, University of California, Davis, California 95616.
1985 Schofield Memorial Lecture delivered at the University of Guelph, October 3, 1985.

Can J Vet Res 1986; 50: 145-153. 145

excitement scientific research pro-
vides, have chosen to devote a large
portion of my time to exploring such a
seemingly esoteric subject as how and
why the uses of animals for medical
research first began thousands of years
ago. The answer is a simple one.
Because I care about both people and
animals, I don't believe this subject is
in any sense esoteric. It is a question of
better understanding a long tradition
of medical progress about which a
large segment of the population
remains ignorant and is becoming
increasingly confused. The conse-
quences of this confusion could be
very unfortunate.
A real understanding of medical
research (especially of how it might be
better pursued in the future) requires
knowing how it got to where it is now,
and why. Such understanding applies
especially to researchers themselves,
and other members of the health
professions. For example, it is no
longer enough for veterinarians to
simply accept as an unexamined
axiom that the comparative approach
has always been basic to veterinary
research. When I was a veterinary
student we were told that the veteri-
nary approach to new knowledge
depends upon observing, and attempt-
ing to explain, similarities and
differences in structure and function
among different species of animals.
Such statements were never subjected
to question. Now, however, it appears
that, if veterinary educators and
researchers are to continue to have
available this approach to understand-
ing and influencing health and disease,
veterinary students must acquire a
fuller understanding of comparative
medical research as a process, espe-
cially its uniquely valuable and
irreplacable aspects, than most
acquired in the past. That means that
not only must they learn the mechan-
ics of its methods, but much more
about their past records of success and
failure in application, their future
limitations and their still unrealized
potential. Surely, the "practitioners"
of no significant profession know as
little of its history as do veterinarians.
Unless corrected by additions to
veterinary curricula, this ignorance
could soon have tragic implications
not only for the profession but the
public as well. That is because
146
comparative medicine is being con-
demned out-of-hand today by a large
and articulate segment of the public.
Unfortunately, many of these well-
intentioned antagonists of animal
research do not understand this
subject very well nor the logical
consequences of their often emotion-
ridden advocacy.
Of profound immediate concern to
animal health itself should be multiple
indications that the education of
today's veterinarians is inadequately
conveying, in Jacob Bronowski's
words, that real understanding of their
science that "disputes the petty view
which many scientists take of their
own work." I have elaborated that
theme at some length elsewhere (1),
but suffice it to mention here only that
some of today's veterinary students in
the University of California have
refused, ostensibly on moral grounds,
to inoculate embryonated chicken
eggs as part of their instruction in the
biology of viruses. While the veteri-
nary profession may be in an ideal
position to witness against unneces-
sary taking of life as a key prerequisite
to evolution of a truly humane society,
as many of us would maintain, it will
realize this social role only if it
proceeds rationally, which means
informedly.
Far beyond the obviously forebod-
ing implications to animal health of
such inadequate understanding of
comparative medicine as prevails
today is the much less understood fact
that to an almost identical extent
comparative medicine, though foreign
to human medical practice, also has
provided the key to advances in
knowledge upon which progress in
human medical practice also rests.
Very few major biomedical discoveries
have resulted from observations first
noted and confirmed in people. Yet
much of the public does not under-
stand that fact. This is reflective,
perhaps, of their general overestimate
of the knowledge or methods of
"doctors" - and the ignorance on this
score of many physicians themselves.
Consequently, physicians and other
medical scientists have equally impor-
tant reasons to learn more about the
full extent of past dependence of
human medical progress upon animal
research. For all indications are that,
not only does the education of
physicians prepare them much more
poorly than that of veterinarians for
research which would use animals to
elicit new medical information, but
few physicians seem to realize that,
and see future medical research as a far
more consciously cultivated joint
medical-veterinary endeavor. Espe-
cially do many physicians need to
better understand the limitations of
comparative medical research res-
tricted largely to artificially inducing
diseases in a limited range of more or
less arbitrarily chosen animal species.
In that sense the antagonists of animal
research are sometimes correct that
more apt research methods exist. But
these will seldom be, as some members
of the public naively profess, compu-
ters or other generally unsatisfactory
substitutes for living higher orga-
nisms.
Instead of simply inducing diseases
in animals that may sometimes poorly
imitate their natural analogs, much
greater medical research emphasis
than at present must be upon naturally
occurring analogs of human disease.
Unfortunately, that was a need much
better understood by physician
researchers in the last century than it is
today.
The potential value to human health
of greater resort to the natural
laboratory, which spontaneously
occurring diseases of animals provide,
is a medical imperative. But its full
value will be realized only through
more mutually informed, extensive
and relaxed medical-veterinary inter-
action and cooperation. The accomp-
lishments of Francis Schofield, and
the profound consequences of his
research, provide eloquent testimony
to the possibilities this still largely
untapped approach has to offer. To
help bring this socially valuable goal
about, both medical professions must
better understand how and why the
comparative method first developed in
medical research, and why it has
remained such an indispensable
avenue to progress.
Not only are many people who
oppose animal experiments confused
and misinformed about the subject
itself, but they often seem oblivious to
critical global needs and priorities.
The fact, however, that some among
them resort to wanton violence and
appear to reside on some mythological
planet where human rights have been things and events were used by the
achieved (or do not matter) and Greeks to argue explanations
human suffering conquered is advanced for them.
insufficient cause for continuing the Comparative medicine has been
belligerently patronizing or confron- based completely upon an elaboration
tational response so often elicited of this approach of "opposites" and
from yesterday's researchers one "sames". And already, in his own
that has denied that either humane works (History of Animals, Parts of
considerations or research methods Animals, and Generation of Animals),
can be improved, because they always Aristotle not only recorded much first-
can be. What is required for the future and second-hand information about
is a calm and objective appraisal of normal and abnormal structure and
this whole relationship, in all of its function in a variety of animal species,
manifestations, in order to meet as but, more importantly and largely
effectively as possible some of the in terms of opposites and sames he
public's truly basic needs a speculated or theorized upon some of
satisfactory level of health, enough their underlying mechanisms.
food, adequate environmental quality While Lloyd's search for pre-
and a society in which humane values Aristotelian sources was prefaced by a
prevail. cautious "It is arguable that natural
These are the reasons for my own science, cosmology and formal logic
long-standing interests in comparative all originate (so far as the West is
medicine itself and, especially in recent concerned) in Greek philosophy",
years, its historical development and "assumed" describes better than
the importance of better documenting "arguable" the sources he chose to
its record of human service. But where examine. For, parenthetical disclai-
to start? Let us try the beginning. mer notwithstanding, either that or his
The eminent British historian of definition of "West", excluded from
ancient science, G.E.R. Lloyd (2), his exploration all but the vaguest
concluded that, though it was Aristo- hints that Aristotle (or his Greek
tle who put forth (in his Posterior predecessors of the 6th to 4th centuries
Analytics) in the 4th century (B.C.) B.C.) were anticipated in these regards
"the first fairly complete theory of (much less influenced) by advances
what may be called 'scientific not Greek. Lloyd alludes only in
method"', earlier Greeks had used his passing to contacts with Egypt by the
two principal modes of explanation, reputed father of Greek philosophy,
"opposites" and "sames", to make Thales, or the other Milesians.a
interpretive inferences from observa- These qualifications aside, Lloyd's
tions, or otherwise to lay ground-rules examination of pre-Aristotelian
of evidence upon which scientific Greek experience provides a frame-
method eventually evolved. Much of work upon which we can also begin to
Aristotle's own scientific work was in display and examine the much earlier
biology. yet sketchier and much less directly
A sizable part of Lloyd's discourse put Egyptian record. My personal
on these Greek contributions prior to interest in this subject has concen-
Aristotle concerns examples of "infor- trated mostly upon a search for
mal logic" before the "rules of logic" evidence for the beginnings in Egypt of
were formulated by him, that is, the a biomedical science of comparative
extent to which Aristotle merely medicine prior to these Greek expe-
"rendered explicit" processes of riences. My discussion here will be
thought already being "implicitly concerned with evidence for the
observed" in Greece. Lloyd considered Egyptians' derivation, by these com-
especially evidence for frequent appeal parative means of analogies and
in earlier Greek speculative thought to opposites, of biomedical theories. If
analogies and to pairs of opposites this activity can be demonstrated, and
(e.g. hot and cold, wet and dry, red and shown to reflect a process of observa-
white) as ideas germinal to their tion, inference, experiment and
evolution of a "scientific" approach to application, we have a much earlier
explaining things or events observed. beginning for a science of medicine
Lloyd's inquiry was also concerned than those well-known Greek efforts.
with how these two ways of looking at Therefore, it is evidence for an
implicit reliance of the early Egyptians
upon "informal logic" that has most
attracted my attention, for I have seen
no evidence at all that the Egyptians
ever "argued in print" explanations for
any biomedical events or phenomena.
Moreover, in a search limited only to
the extant Egyptian medical papyri,
one can see no more evidence for the
processes of theory derivation than for
their confirmation or argument.
As is the case for the Greek's so-
called Hippocratic texts, individual
authors of information expressed in
the Egyptian medical papyri are not
known. Moreover, these few surviving
texts exist more as manuals for
practice than works of inquiry or
discovery. Thus, there are few per-
sonal observations or opinions, and
their frugal and formal style gives
virtually no insight into the mentality
of Egyptian healers, or the means by
which they derived the recommenda-
tions their medical papyri contain.
Nor do the papyri inform us about the
means by which even the purely
empirical knowledge they reflect was
acquired. All the more interesting,
therefore, is that it is solely in the very
old Kahun Veterinary Papyrus (c.
1800 B.C.) that we have available a
medical work written in the words of
the observer himself, one actually
engaged in medical practice (3). The
religious form of that text indicates
too that its author, like Hippocrates,
was a priest. Add to those unusual
characteristics of this veterinary
papyrus the secretiveness of Egyptian
priestsb, the tracing back, largely from
purely religious documents and other
nonmedical inscriptions or texts, of
clear statements, even of allusions,
which bear upon the mode of acquisi-
tion of information the very early
Egyptian medical texts state or
presume becomes very difficult.
Fortunately, therefore, these texts are
not our only sources of information
for the rational beginnings of a
medical science in Egypt, for the
Egyptians left a wealth of paintings
and reliefs which portray details of
many events about which little they
may also have written survives.
In contrast, abundant Greek texts
available to Lloyd (see Note a) enabled
him to explore such details of
intellectual process (in evolution from
the classifying extremes of sames and
147
opposites), as recognition by Greek
philosophers of the "excluded middle"
or derivation of the evidential "princi-
ple of contradiction". Fraser (4) and
many other classical historians have
concluded, therefore, that Greek
medicine (especially as it more fully
evolved its theoretical basis after
Aristotle, a process which took place
largely in Alexandria, Egypt) derived
little if anything from ancient Egyp-
tian medicine itself, because Greeks
contributed "in regions unexplored by
Egyptian doctors or scientists: the
region of inference rather than
observation". The temptation to
Fraser and other classical scholars to
assume that difference, while under-
standable, is to give up on a difficult
task too enthusiastically (5).
Part of this problem of finding
evidence for an independence of
healing from pure magic in ancient
Egypt has not been unknown to
students of early Greek biomedicine
too, for as Guthrie (6) indicates for the
Greek world up until shortly before
Aristotle's time, tno line is yet drawn
between philosophy, theology, ...
cosmology, astronomy, mathematics,
biology and natural science in
general".
The ancient Egyptians surely did
not separate "cosmology" from
"physiology" and, even more so for
Egypt than for Greece, is it impossible
to separate religion from healing. In
drawing a useful analogy from optics,
the social scientist Riggs (7) has
defined such "undifferentiated" socie-
ties as the very ancient Egyptian and
Greek like some African pastoralist
societies today as fused. (In
contrast, he designates "highly differ-
entiated" societies, i.e. today's so-
called "developed" or industrialized
societies, as diffracted, and interme-
diate societies, such as the purely
smallholder-agrarian, as prismatic).
Consistent with dynastic Egypt's
remaining for millennia a highly
"fused" society was the Egyptian
priests' overriding attention to those
particular aspects of nature that had to
do with the attributes of animals and
the complexities of man-animal
relationships, and especially in their
preoccupation with the differences
between life and death. Originally this
was solely in connection with efforts to
assure the revivification or afterlife of
148
their pharaoh. Some of the practical
implications of the Egyptians' exceed-
ingly close relationships to other
animals, especially cattle, have
escaped or have been misunderstood
by a number of Egyptologists.
In fact, their use of analogy between
man and cattle generally is so evident
that I advanced an hypothesis several
years ago that the Egyptian priesthood
must have derived from their several
important religio-veterinary duties
particularly the religious dissection of
sacrificial bulls most of the normal
and abnormal anatomical and physio-
logical information stated, or implied,
in their medical documents which
survive, and which make these ancient
documents so interesting to us today
(8). In addition, we see some evidence
in the organization of certain of these
medical papyri, as well as in the organ
system basis for specialization they at
some point evolved in medical prac-
tice, for taxonomies according to
similarities and differences more
subtle than simply sames or opposites.
We have such long-available evi-
dence to support my overall hypothe-
sis as 1) the survival of an anatomical
list for the bull (one assumed initially
by the Egyptologist Gardiner (9) to
have been for man), 2) the animal,
especially ungulate, origins for the
internal and even some of the external
anatomical hieroglyphs (10), 3) the
Egyptian priest Manetho's interesting,
but seldom commented upon, state-
ment that their second pharaoh (thus,
head of priests), Athothis (who lived
while their written hieroglyphic
language was still evolving) was not
only a healer, but wrote an anatomy
book (11), 4) the fact that only the
multispecies Kahun Veterinary Papy-
rus among the medical papyri is
clearly a religious text (3) and 5) that
priests specifically identified as healers
are shown overseeing the sacrificial
dissections of bulls, even certifying the
purity of their blood (i.e. their health)
(12). Evidence from the Kahun
Veterinary Papyrus alone caused the
eminent historian of Egyptian medi-
cine Grapow (3) to suggest some years
ago, then quickly reject as unthinka-
ble, that "the forms of the [Egyptian]
physician's language were developed
in veterinary medicine and only from
it transferred to human medicine."
But beyond what may eventually
come from fuller examination of these
insufficiently explored leads, of
special importance to the history of
medical science is that Egyptian
priests appear to have propounded at
least two physiological theories to
explain observations derived from
bull dissections, to have tested one of
them by experiment and then to
have at least begun to apply this
information to medical practice (as
well as to religious ritual). Evidence
for such processes and accomplish-
ments would enliven the early history
of medicine (and science generally)
because, as Lloyd (2) indic-ated,
"failure to experiment has often been
pointed to as the chief shortcoming of
ancient science". In fact, Aristotle
(Generation ofAnimals 765a 21 ff) (13)
especially decried earlier Greek
observers whom he implied failed to
carry out simple tests because "start-
ing from what is likely, they guess
what will happen, and they presume
that it is so, before they see that it is in
fact so."
While the complexities and subtle-
ties of arguments among modern
philosophers of science about the
relationships between "analogy" and
"induction", and both to "scientific
method", extend in many respects
beyond the intent of this discussion,
one or two points are pertinent. In
indicating that analogy is also resorted
to in "magic" for providing explana-
tions, and in controlling reality (e.g.
healing), as in present-day fused
societies in Africa, Lloyd (2) consi-
dered that the "most important
difference between science and magic
may be simply their relative effective-
ness. Magic fails in practice. Yet its
general aim is similar to that of applied
science, to control events, and one of
the means whereby it hopes to achieve
this is using the links which it believes
may be formed between things by their
similarities." He adds that "the
difference between commonsense and
science here seems to be that the one
tends to assume, without further
scrutiny, that the analogies and
connections which it apprehends are
significant, while the other is able to
demonstrate the connections between
events." It is my intent here to indicate
how far the Egyptians' experiences
may have paralleled - and preceded
- the Greeks' with respect to evolving
some of these methods of science from
commonsense and magic, especially in
the process of making inferences to
explain or control biomedical pheno-
mena/ events.
With my colleagues, I first showed
that Egyptian priests, in explaining the
male's role in reproduction, used
observations on the anatomy and
behavior of the bull to elaborate a
physiologic cycle, a theory: namely,
the body's white bones yield its
gelatinous white bone marrow, which
yields its white semen which produces
the fetus' white bones (and other white
parts)c (14,15). For some reason these
priests regarded the bull's spine,
particularly its thoracic vertebrae, as
especially important sources, or
concentrating places, for its semen.
(Thus the bull's thoracic vertebra
became their ankh symbol and
hieroglyph for "life" and "living".) The
bull's vertebral canal was regarded as
the channeling conduit for semen to
the penis (i.e. they believed the spinal
"marrow", the spinal cord, was
congealed semen). Connection of the
bull's upper spine to its penis was
observed to be via its lumbar
vertebrae-plus-sacrum (origin of djed,
another important Egyptian religious
symbol for "stability"), thence
through its white, unstriated retractor
penis muscles (which originate on the
bull's first two coccygeal vertebrae and
insert on its penis). Together these
organs comprised the male reproduc-
tive system as Egyptian priests came to
understand it. While the earlier of
these priests did not write for public
consumption, nor spell out this theory
in so many words, it is clear that the
series of analogies and inferences their
earliest surviving statements implied
could only have resulted from such
observations made during religious
dissections of bulls.
That is, despite their well-known
secretiveness, resulting in this "semen-
from-bone marrow theory" not being
explicitly stated in extant Egyptian
texts until the 6th through 4th
centuries B.C., priestly rituals and
beliefs explicable only by such
conclusions can be traced back to
some of their very earliest writings,
namely the funerary inscriptions
within the burial pyramids of the Old
Kingdom's pharaohs. These implicit
statements are over a millennium and
a half older than the Greek texts to
which Lloyd resorts for his inquiry
into the accomplishments of Aristo-
tle's predecessors. And among them,
too, we have Lloyd's statement that
"by far the most important technique
of research in natural science, at any
rate, was dissection, a method which
[among the Greeks] can be traced back
[only] as far as Alcmaeon [who lived in
Crotona in southern Italy in the 6th
century B.C.], and which included not
only the dissection of dead animals,
but also, as time went on, the
dissection of embryos and vivisec-
tion." It is clear that Egyptian priests
had learned from bull vivisection long
before that.
Despite the inherent importance of
this earliest instance of physiological
theory-building to our knowledge of
the beginnings of a scientific approach
to healing, we find no evidence that
this explanation, ingeniously derived
though it was from a series of
observations and analogies, was ever
subjected by Egyptian priests to
experimental or other confirming
scrutiny. Rather, it appears to have
been simply assumed (for example,
because bone marrow, the spinal cord
and semen were similar in some
respects, they were the same). Conse-
quently, the pharaoh was able to
acquire the "magic of life" associated
with (bull's) semen by drinking
extracts (broth) brewed from the
bones and marrow of sacrificed bulls
(16). And here we clearly have this
physiologic theory being applied
comparatively to preventive medical
practice. (Just as in the purely
religious sphere, the pharaoh's revivi-
fication after death could be realized
by his symbolic passage through the
spine of a bull).
By a further interacting, or equated,
series of analogies and polarities,
acquisition of life's magic, and
revivification, could be alternatively
realized by his consuming the verte-
brae of a snake (16) and passage
through the spine of the snake,
respectively (14). The reasoning
process involved here illustrates nicely
Aristotle's other concern (2) about
earlier Greeks'violations of the Law of
Contradiction of Evidence. For it is
clear that some, at least, among
instances of apparent disregard of
contradictions by Egyptians in areas
related to healing have interesting
alternative explanations. For exam-
ple, the apparent contradiction of
their adopting the same word mtwt
(written with the hieroglyph for penis)
for semen and for (snake) poison (14),
is readily explainable by the Egyptian
priests' concluding that the two halves
of this life-and-death cycle were
somehow analogous. That is, by a
simple application of comparative
anatomy, they noted striking similari-
ties between the skeleton of the snake
and the bull's spine. Thus, the "magic"
of life, semen, was inferred to have
some important properties in common
with the "magic" of death, snake
poison, a common cause of death in
ancient Egypt. The analogical reason-
ing reflected in this case derived from
Egyptian priests' identification of the
bull's spine as the main source of its
semen, with the structurally similar
skeleton of snakes being regarded also
as functionally similar, hence the
source of its poison.
The only independent evidence I
have found so far for any "demonstra-
tion" of the validity of these exquisite,
albeit incorrect, explanations of a
biomedical phenomenon/ event (and a
method for controlling it, i.e. revivifi-
cation) is the statement in the Smith
Surgical Papyrus associating priapism
(the permanent condition of their god
Mind) with dislocation of a cervical
vertebra (17). We have no knowledge,
however, that this clinical observation
was ever confirmed experimentally by
the Egyptians (e.g. through deliberate
luxation of cervical vertebrae of a
sacrificial beast or slave). Rather we
do see here a very interesting early
example of how an incorrect medical
theory might gain further credence
through plausible inferences from
correct clinical observations.
We need but juxtapose here Aristo-
tle's own rejection (Generation of
Animals, p. 25f) (13) of this "semen-
from-bone marrow theory" which had
been given later currency in Greece by
Plato, while at the same time also
failing to recognize semen's true origin
so many centuries later. Rather he
compared the testicles to loom weights
whose function in reproductive physi-
ology was simply to stretch out (i.e.
help keep open) the male's seminal
"channels", the origins of which he
failed to identify!
149
 The Egyptian priests' other very
early physiologic theory (the detailed
explication of which by Egyptologist
Andrew Gordon, muscle physiologist
Robert Ashmore and myself will be
forthcoming elsewhere) was that
something directly responsible for
bodily movement, hence life, was
present even in the excised flesh of a
sacrificed bull. However, in this case,
repeated experimental confirmation
appears to have been part of the use of
this explanation for animal movement
to control a biological event (i.e. to
pass this "something" to the deceased
in the revivification ceremony of
"opening-of-the-mouth"). That is, the
mouth of the deceased was rubbed
with the quickly severed bull's fore-
limb as an essential early part of the
revivification ritual.
To demonstrate the probability of
the Egyptians' experimental confirma-
tion by this ritual of this other very
ancient theory, I duplicated from
numerous extant portrayals and texts
their bull sacrificee which showed that
for about twenty minutes after its
removal from the bull severed
muscle units of the excised forelimb
fibrillated, and could be mechanically
restimulated to fibrillate again and
again for the next two hours. Little
wonder that this phenomenon
appeared to those priests who oversaw
this ritual of bull sacrifice as prima-
facie evidence that flesh (i.e. muscle
tissue) itself possessed the mysterious
(animating) property of life.
My further hypothesis that the
Egyptian priests actually did carry out
such percussive stimulation of the
bull's excised forelimb during this
important revivification ritual was
suggested by the very strange fact that,
at some point (currently being
explored by Egyptologist Andrew
Gordon and myself), their priests are
shown sometimes substituting for the
bull's forelimb in this "opening-of-the-
mouth" ceremony, a short hoe-shaped
cutting instrument, or adze. (Sim-
ilarly, the Ursa major constellation
was regarded by them as both bull's
forelimb and adze). The only apparent
explanation for why an inanimate
adze could be believed able to
substitute sometimes for the fibrillat-
ing leg muscle as vehicle for life's force
was that an adze must have been the
object the priests used to strike
150
(mechanically stimulate) these excised
muscles. In the Old Kingdom Pyramid
Texts this adze is already used as a
hieroglyph in the expression "to cut
off the limb of an ox".
This hypothesis was readily con-
firmed in the restaged sacrifice. For
not only did the individual muscle
fibers struck by a simulated adze go
into up-to-ten-minute fibrillations
with each such stimulus, but the entire
muscle so stimulated contracted
markedly. In this way the Egyptian
priest would have demonstrated much
more dramatically - through a single
strong contraction of the "dead" bull's
shoulder or elbow joint the
animating power of life its tissues still
possessed. Presumably, when the limb
no longer responded to such repeated
stimuli (up to two hours under our
simulated conditions), the priests
would have assumed that its "magic"
power had passed completely into the
mouth of the deceased pharaoh.
Today, we can more precisely identify
that mysterious and powerful "some-
thing" the ancient Egyptians noted in
bull's muscle as the fuel of life, ATP.
And here, in apparent contrast to
the Egyptian's other "semen-from-
bone marrow theory", we have
evidence going back a thousand or
more years before Aristotle for the use
of experimental proof of a biological
theory derived from observations,
analogy and inference hence
science.
Moreover, related investigations
now in progress indicate the further
very important extrapolation of this
particularly dramatic explanation for,
and- demonstration of, a property of
life to healing the ill. For in passages in
several Egyptian medical papyri are
references to prescriptions of "living
flesh" from the bull to treat illnesses.
Interestingly, the Egyptians also
performed their "opening-of-the-
mouth" rite on the dead Apis bull-
gods. That is merely illustrative of the
general pertinence of the bull to a
better understanding of the dawn of
the comparative or analogical that
is, the scientific - approach to
healing, of why Egyptian priests first
considered making this whole series of
analogies from bull to man in the first
place.
Early Greek beliefs about Nature,
especially of the relationships between
man and other animals, surely were
not devoid of similar magical and
theological aspects, and Lloyd (p. 184)
(2) directs attention especially to the
Greeks' conceptions of different
species of animals as particularly
exemplifying certain desirable charac-
teristics men then emulated. Thus, for
the Greeks, as for the Egyptians and
other ancients, the bull had especially
important early associations with both
power/ leadership and fertility. Far
too extensive to review here, I can but
cite a few major works on this subject
(18,19). Some of the same, and other,
evidence for this analogy among the
Greeks specifically is provided too by
Cook (I: 437ff, 457ff, 467f, 716ff) (20).
The propensity of some modern
Western scholars to particularize,
otherwise trivialize by viewing soley in
modern Western perspective, or to
simply dismiss as only metaphorical or
poetical, concepts or experiences
completely foreign to their own ken or
perceptions is nowhere more apparent
or historically consequential as with
respect to the early religious impor-
tance of animals and man-animal
relationships, especially with cattle,
over broad areas of the earth. Thus
Lloyd (2) (p. 192) experienced no
apparent pause in suggesting that "we
may have little difficulty in distin-
guishing between the two uses of the
word 'shepherd', for example, one for
someone who herds sheep, and the
other for a king or a priest who is
called shepherd of his people". Yet
there is no real distinction at all
because both "shepherds" are leaders
with the same primitive attributes as
their original analog, the wild sheep
flock's "alpha" ram. Neither modern
nor ancient pastoral peoples would
conceive any difference in these three
analogical situations. (For example,
today's Nilotic Dinka call any power-
ful leader or other admired individual
thon, "bull with testicles", just as the
Egyptian pharaoh through the milen-
nia was called "Mighty Bull".)
One page later Lloyd expresses a
complete awareness otherwise that
one of the "three ideas which are of
great importance in the history of
Greek cosmological theories are ...
the conception of the world [itself, or
also society] as (or as like) a living
being." The argument will probably
never end as to how much the Greeks,
Thales and the Milesians especially,
were directly influenced by the
Egyptian priests (6,21,22). Little
doubt, however, that these Greeks, in
Lloyd's words (p. 233) (2), "held that
the primary substance of things is alive
and divine". In the Egyptian's case,
too, analogies between sky and cow,
sun and bull or adze and bull's
forelimb as a constellation, all reflect
similar thinking. In this connection,
however, it is interesting, as Lloyd
points out (p. 240), that, while "Thales'
category of what is alive was evidently
wider than ours, . . . in the case of the
[presocratic] Pythagoreans, at least,
there is [finally] some evidence to the
contrary, in the distinction we can
observe between the objects to which
the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls applied, and those to which it did
not apply."
The relevance of this to medical
history is that, in Egypt, as in
Mesopotamia and probably elsewhere
in the ancient world, men were fully
conscious that they were integral parts
of Nature's scheme, of the natural
order. Pharaohs or priests could
conceive nothing strange about seeing
in other animal species superior
evidence of admired attributes like
strength, bravery and libido and for
the pharaohs to emulate these species
- as they did the bull. Similarly,
nothing prevented individuals among
such animals actually becoming living
gods incarnate, as did the Apis bulls.
"There was simply no conscious
distinction drawn between the realm
of Nature on the one hand and the
realm of Society on the other" (Lloyd
(2), p. 211). Not peculiar, therefore,
were gods sometimes portrayed and
conceived, even concurrently, as
animal, as part-man part-animal or as
man. For millennia pharaohs sought
rebirth as the sun god Re (regarded in
many texts as a bull), referred to their
people as "cattle of Re", etc.
Furthermore, Lloyd (p. 202) (2)
makes the very important additional
point that the presocratic Greeks did
not conceive that there was one and
only one correct explanation for any
phenomenon/event. They had no
difficulty, therefore, in reconciling
multiple analogies. Citing Wilson (in
Frankfort (23)) for the Egyptians,
Lloyd notes this parallel in the Greeks'
and Egyptians' descriptions (and
explanations) of natural phenomena:
"ancient Egyptians could view the sky
equally well as supported by posts or
as held up by a god or as resting on
walls or as a cow or a goddess whose
arms and feet touch the earth. 'Any
one of these pictures would be
satisfactory to him, according to his
approach, and in a single picture he
might show two different supports for
the sky: the goddess whose arms and
feet reach the earth, and the god who
holds up the sky-goddess."' Rather
than seeing the need, therefore, for a
single "necessary and sufficient"
explanation or cause for a natural
phenomenon, presocratic Greek phi-
losophers and healers recognized, and
accepted, like the Egyptian priests
before them, complementary rather
than alternative conceptions of the
same phenomenon.
Of special relevance to derivation of
their early physiologic theories, was
recognition that these Egyptians were
merely reflecting the perceptions of a
"fused" society when they analogized
complementary revivification mecha-
nisms, e.g. the deceased's passage
through the spine of a bull or snake, or
his celestial journey in a boat. The fact
that they like the Greeks (see Lloyd
(2), p. 232 ff), held such vitalist notions
as cosmos-as-living-organism, also
explains why this celestial boat's
mooring peg was called "Leg of Apis
[the bull god]", its mooring rope "tail
of the Great Wild Bull", the boat's
prow was sometimes portrayed as the
head of a bull (or snake), etc.
It would appear that, though the
Egyptians 1) derived explanations for
natural phenomena like life and death
through inferences based on observa-
tion, 2) occasionally confirmed them
by experiment and 3) apparently even
used at least one of them in a
"rational" approach to healing, they
never abandoned, as did eventually
Aristotle and his successors, this
notion of parallel, equally valid and
often interacting - explanations for
happenings in nature.
To return to my original question of
why we must more adequately docu-
ment, and air professionally and
publicly, such details of development
of scientific method throughout all
past periods of medical progress, I
would draw attention, with Lloyd (p.
433ff) (2), to the fact that it was only
with Plato that notice was taken of
differences between "similarity" (e.g.
semen and bone marrow) and "iden-
tity", distinctions elaborated more
fully by Aristotle.
Yet the strength and unique value of
analogy as a principal mode of
inference in biomedical research still
rests, in Lloyd's words, upon realiza-
tion that "while 'like' (in certain
respects) clearly does not imply 'the
same as' or 'like in other respects',
experience teaches us that we may
reasonably expect that things that are
known to be similar at some points
may well be similar at others".
Expedient medical progress
depends at every turn upon the
abilities of medical scientists to assess
and weigh these two considerations
realistically. In looking back upon the
pioneering initiation of medical
research in a hospital setting by the
Mayo Clinic in 1915, physician Frank
C. Mann noted astutely that "it soon
became evident [to physician
researchers there] that our veterinar-
ian colleagues . . . possessed a type of
training which included knowledge of
special differences [among species] in
both function and disease, and the all-
important necessity of observa-
tion. . . ."I That is, veterinarians alone
have always had the unique opportun-
ity to confirm everyday from practice
the continuing truth of Aristotle's
dictum that analogical evidence
(arguments), while "persuasive", need
not be "demonstrative". Attuned by
training, and the nature of their field,
to thinking of differences as much as
similarities, veterinarians instinctively
avoid a common error among medical
scientists not trained comparatively of
statements like "brucellosis manifests
itself such and such a way in animals".
For all veterinarians need to know in
order to practice veterinary medicine
the ways "brucellosis", or any other
disease, manifests itself among a range
of animal species, including man.
Such fine aspects of process have
always underlain the validity of the
comparative approach to biomedical
unknowns and are overlooked at great
risk.
Without resort to experience of a
sufficient range of species, such a
,
specific analogical conclusion as that
of the ancient Egyptians (witness the
hieroglyph, Gardiner Sign List F45)
151
(24), and post-Aristotelian Greeks like
Galen, that the human uterus, like the
cow's, is bicornate could remain
uncorrected by medical "science" for
over three thousand years after these
ancients first accepted it!
But one might say, medical science
is not so limited today, is not still
peopled partially by individuals,
otherwise qualified, who have inade-
quate understanding of the uses and
true limitations in research of so-
called animal models. I need refer no
further than the profoundly negative
consequences to science of the testim-
onies of "scientists" before the U.S.
Congress which resulted in adoption
of the so-called Delaney Clause (on
cancer risks). For nothing more than
that well-intentioned regulation has so
undermined the American public's
confidence in the objectivity and value
of science overall. By uncritically
lumping together such very hazardous
cancer-inducing agents as aflatoxins
which in very low doses and short
exposures cause cancers of multiple
tissues in a high proportion of animals
of a number of species -with other
substances in common use like
saccharine which with enormous
doses over long periods of time may be
responsible for some added risk of
cancer of a particular tissue, like the
urinary tract, in only one or two
rodent species -directives like the
Delaney Clause reflect an abdication
of scientific method by persons who
purport to be scientists. The approach
of a scientist trained to carry out
comparative medical research would
be to develop, as has Robert A. Squire
of Johns Hopkins University, objec-
tive, scalar systems to biologically
assess and classify such risks, in order
to confront them individually,
informedly and rationally.
Such possibilities for error or
misinterpretation today notwith-
standing, if, as Lloyd (p. 439) (2)
concluded from his detailed analysis
of these 5th and 4th century B.C.
efforts in Greece, that "in raising the
question of the nature of things, [the
Greeks] initiated . . . scientific
inquiry" and (p. 436), in the Greek
"history of these two basic modes of
explanation [analogy and resort to
opposites], the work of Aristotle
himself does not mark a distinct
watershed", these far earlier Egyptian
152
priests must also begin to receive their
due for initiating scientific method in
medicine.'. And such recognition
should prompt closer future attention
in probing medicine's very beginnings
to the more fully understood religious
roles of bulls (and to a lesser extent,
other animals) in theirs and several
other ancient cultures. For, we can do
no better in this regard than keep in
mind the full implications of Sigerist's
(26) sage observations that while "the
primitive does not distinguish between
medicine, magic and religion", (p. 142)
"he is perfectly logical within his own
sphere, and we realize it as soon as we
accept his premises". It is in that
context primarily, and with that new
mindset, that more about the begin-
nings of medical science and the use
of animal surrogates in research
should be sought.
And if progress in human and
veterinary aspects of medical science
can be shown to have been so closely
linked ever since civilization's very
dawn, can the public or the two
medical professions, afford today not
to support fully, and reap the
commensurately greater rewards, a
consciously cultivated "one medicine"
holds in store?
Notes
aSarton (27): Thales (c. 624-548?), "the founder
of Greek science [. .] traveled many years in
Egypt. [... .] On the basis of Egyptian empirical
knowledge he founded abstract geometry." Also
to be considered in comparing ancient evidence
about magic and science from Greece and Egypt
is the fact, stressed by Thorndike (25), that the
"great part played by magic in the ancient
oriental civilizations comes directly from them
to us without intervening tampering or
alteration except in the case of the early periods.
But classical literature and philosophy comes to
us edited by Alexandrian librarians and
philologers, as censored and selected by
Christian and Byzantine readers, as copied or
translated by medieval monks and Italian
humanists. And the question is not merely, what
have they added? but, also, what have they
altered? whay have they rejected?" He points
out, for example, that the oldest extant
manscript of Artistotle's History of Animals
"dates only from the twelfth or thirteenth
centuries and lacks the tenth book. Editors of
the text have also rejected books seven and nine,
the latter part of book eight, and have
questioned various other passages."
bExamples of such secrecy given by Grapow and
Westendorf (28) include, from the Beatty
Papyrus (Vlllm Rs 7,7) "Guard this scroll! Do
not permit another to unroll it"; "It is a genuine
secret; the profane mob dare not know it"; "Do
not pronounce it to anyone; take care at all
times".
cThey concluded similarly that the female's red
menses contributed the fetus' red parts.
dlnterestingly,
at least in New Kingdom times,
Min was closely identified with a special white
bull which was fed only on lettuce, believed to
have been an aphrodiasic.
eThe cooperation (in recreating the ancient bull
sacrifice) of Dr. Robert Ashmore and Mr.
Daniel Sehnert, Muscle Physiology Labora-
tory, University of California, Davis, is
gratefully acknowledged. The bull was stunned
with a captive bolt pistol and its carotid arteries
quickly severed as in standard abattoir
proced ures.
fThe Mayo Clinic, one of whose three co-
founders was veterinarian Christopher Graham,
pioneered in initiating the veterinary clinical
speciality of laboratory animal medicine (1).
9t is not difficult sometimes to identify origins
of seeming reluctance of scholars to seriously
explore the obvious yet strange. Thus Fraser (p.
337) (4), in indicating why, in considering
Alexandrian science, he failed to pursue some
most obvious leads by restricting his discussion
of Alexandrian medicine solely to its - from
today's perspective - human aspects, wrote:
"some branches [of science] must be omitted.
The criterion of omission is, however, not
immediately apparent. Can we fairly claim that
some branches of science are less 'important'
than others? Perhaps human medicine is more
'important' than veterinary medicine, but for
long centuries the progress of human anatomy
depended upon advances in animal anatomy.
Thus the criterion of 'importance' is not easily
applied". Similar failure of many medical
historians to understand fully, hence accept, the
age-old and persistent importance of "one
medicine" to progress in its human aspect, made
it too easy for the classicist Fraser to conclude,
with a number of other Greekophiles that
Herodotus, Plato, Hecataeus and other
ancients, for some unstated reasons, exagger-
ated Greece's debt to Egypt overall. Thus,
Fraser could readily conclude (p. 345) that "this
age-old [Egyptian medical] practice, even at its
best, does not seem to have advanced beyond
observation and treatment, and Egyptian
civilization showed in this, as in many other
aspects, its chronic inability to draw inferences
and establish general principles from practical
knowledge. This is very marked in the field of
anatomy.... Thus it seems that the debt of the
professional Alexandrian anatomists of the
third century, with their lively Greek tradition of
medical science, to the native Egyptian tradition
may be discounted as negligible, and this is at
present as far as we need probe the matter."
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