XVI International Botanical Congess

Reed (1942) stated, Since the art of medicine in Egypt has reached a fairly advanced stage when the oldest medical papyrus was written about 1900 B.C., it necessarily implies a long development, probably from 3000 B.C. Professor Schweinfurth recorded facts about the tomb-pictures and the plant remains in the tombs and the mummy-wrappings." The physician Imhotep who lived in the year 2700 B.C. practiced his profession during the earliest global civilization. The annual and perennial species utilized in medicine by physicians in pharaonic Egypt were numerous according to the Ebers and Hearts papyri. The hieroglyphic names of 29 perennial plants were recorded and their common names are: acacia, aloe, asafoetida, carob, castor-oil, date-palm, dom-palm, fig, fir, fleabane, grape-vine, henna, juniper, lotus, madder, mandrake, moringa, myrtle, olive, papyrus, persea, pomegranate, scilla, sycamore, tamarisk, tiger-nut, willow, wormwood and zizyphus-nabk. The sacred plants were lotus, papyrus, sycamore, and tamarisk. God Nefertum and goddess Hathor were associated with lotus and sycamore, respectively.