A 2,000 - year - old Egyptian paper rush cover in cryptical mirrored text has at long last been deciphered – more than 500 years after it was first get to the University of Basel ’s prestigious library for survey by Renaissance scholars .
Asannounced by the institutionlast workweek , a team of researchers discovered that the excellently inscrutable sheet of paper plant was really several layers of plant fiber paper glued together after they lead ultraviolet and infrared paradigm . The unrestrained authoritative study stave then called in a manuscript specialist , who fastidiously separated each page .
With the Greek school text legible for the first sentence , the university was able to interpret the Cyperus papyrus and determine its origin .
“ This is a sensational discovery , ” project loss leader and ancient account professor Sabine Huebner submit . “ The majority of papyri are documents such as missive , contracts and reception . This is a literary text , however , and they are vastly more valuable . ”
“ We can now say that it ’s a medical text from late antiquity that describes the phenomenon of ‘ hysterical apnea ’ . We therefore presume that it is either a textbook from the Roman Catholic Dr. Galen , or an unnamed comment on his workplace , ” Huebner cover .
Galen is one of the most famous figures in the history of medicinal drug . Born in modern - daylight Turkey in 129 CE , the Grecian physician apace made a name for himself within the academic circles of the Roman Empire and the Middle East thanks to his prolific writings on medication and philosophy . He is perhaps most famous , however , for his notes and illustrations of " human human body " .
Due to far-flung bans on dissect human cadavers throughout the second century and long before , Galen – and his peer – were forced to make inferences about human anatomyby dissect animals . Though these textbook were sometimes label as animal studies , many others comprise deceptive diagram and descriptions of the human body . And despite the origination of manuscripts on unfeigned human dissections by Hellenic physicians working out of Alexandria during the 3rd century , Galen ’s writings remained the go - to cite formany doctors until the Renaissance .
On top of unwittingly make centuries of mental confusion about organic structure structure , Galen had some interesting ideas about women ’s wellness , as the current manuscript show . First identify in ancient Egypt ( 1900 BCE ) , and officially nominate by Hippocrates in the 4th century BCE , hysteria was the blanket diagnosisgiven by patriarchal practitioners for any number of depressive or erratic behaviors or poorly understood shape . The theorized movement ? Spontaneous motion of the womb within the female body .
Galen advanced this theory further , paint a picture that the womb drift occur when the harmonium was choke ( where the terminal figure " apnea " add up from ) byaccumulated menstrual bloodand distaff " cum " .
In his workIn Hippocratis librum de humoribus , Galen wrote : “ I have examined many hysteric women , some groggy , others with anxiety approach [ … ] : the disease certify itself with unlike symptoms , but always refers to the womb . ” For treatment he advocate various types of fluid purge , herbs , and either repress sexually exciting stimulation or , if she was a untried woman , hasten her marriage so she has sexual touch .
The full translate text of the Basel Egyptian paper rush , plus Huebner ’s analysis , will be publish in 2019 .
