In This Week’s Show, episode 271, we walk like Egyptians… right into a nearby hospital-temple because even the Early Dynastic Period had better healthcare than America does today.

Now, grab a beer and help us test the god hypothesis — because, while Buddha hasn’t struck us down yet, we are trying his most infinite patience!

Shea’s Life Lesson

This week I learned that the only part of your reflection you can lick is your tongue.

Jenn’s Actual Lesson

Did you know that Buddha never visited the Grand Canyon? Nor did any Egyptian pharaohs. More groundbreaking information to come.

But before we get to all that, let’s have a beer!

This Week’s Beer

Screamin’ Reels - Saltwater Brewing - Try again later!

Donated by Travis

* BA Link: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33611/109306/

* BA Rating: 3.6

* Style: American IPA

* ABV: 7%

* Aaron: N/A

* Jenn: N/A

* Shea: N/A

Something was wrong with the can…

This Week’s Show

Round Table

Plug for Accused Season 3, if you didn’t get enough ‘big business pretending that having their employees work with highly radioactive materials is FINE’, then good news!

From their website:

“In 1984, a father of three disappeared while working at a mysterious Cincinnati plant. It turned out he’d met a gruesome fate: Pieces of bone, his eyeglasses and walkie-talkie were uncovered inside a vat that reached 1350 degrees Fahrenheit. Two months later, the Fernald Feed Materials Production Center was revealed to have been processing uranium – and polluting the region. The dead man’s children believe their father was murdered because he intended to expose how the plant had been releasing millions of pounds of uranium dust into the atmosphere. We’re hoping to figure out: Did 39-year-old David Bocks kill himself, as Fernald officials alleged, or was he more likely killed?”

Check it out at: https://wondery.com/shows/accused/

Patreon Story

It’s time for another yee-oldie medical qwest!

And to celebrate Jenn’s return to the show and good health, it’s vagoo based.

Generally, these stories are us laughing at the ridiculousness of long-dead quacks — and this will certainly be that — but it’s also worth noting that like ancient China, the early Egyptians were actually well ahead of the medical curve. Sure, they had their fair share of witchcraft mixed in for good measure but they had an official, state-run healthcare system (yeah, let that since in - we’re actually worse off from a medical administration standpoint that 4000-year-old Egyptians.) They had official institutions of medical education called Per-Ankh, the House of Life, a kind of library/school attached to a temple. Students were scribes for years, transcribing and duplicating medical texts until they graduated and became swnw (swu-nu), or doctors.

The earliest recorded physician in the world, Hesy-Ra, practiced in ancient Egypt. He was "Chief of Dentists and Physicians" to King Djoser, who ruled in the 27th century BC. There are some ideas about older Sumerian medical practitioners but they were decentralized and unregulated, so we’re going with Hesy-Ra.

The lady Peseshet (2400 BC) may be the first recorded female doctor: she was possibly the mother of Akhethotep, and on a stela dedicated to her in his tomb she is referred to as imy-r swnwt, which has been translated as "Lady Overseer of the Lady Physicians" (swnwt is the feminine of swnw).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rvLEJrQm7g

A day in the life of an Egyptian doctor - Ted-Ed