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“The Papyrus Ebers is humanity’s first medical encyclopedia; it also contains the first reference to the taking of the pulse. In the contemporary medical annals of ancient Mesopotamia, there was nothing of this quality, absolutely nothing. Mesopotamian medical practice at the time emphasized magic, divination, astrology, the interpretation of animal entrails. It was therefore dominated by exorcists, diviners, haruspices and cantors (ashipu). It contained many more rituals, magical incantations, references to gods and demons than authentic, professional medical documents: a few medical formulae, a treatise on diagnosis and prognosis, detailed texts on therapeutic practices in which medical documents and magical texts were intermixed. In sum, ancient Mesopotamian medicine (Chaldean, Akkadian, Assyrio-Babylonian) was far below the level of ancient Egyptian pharaonic medicine. And before the advent of Hippocrates, it was ancient Egyptian medicine that influenced the medical schools of Asia Minor.”

“Hippocrates himself drew some of his expertise from the Egyptian tradition of medical science: ‘The scattered borrowings from Egyptian medicine found in the work of Hippocrates in no way detract from his glory. Neither do they substantially diminish the originality of his work. What they do help to demonstrate, however, is the great intellectual influence exerted by writings dating back to the era of the pyramids.’”

“It is exactly this historical linkage that is of decisive importance. The point is not to belittle the genius of Hippocrates. But it would be no less absurd to suppose that this doctor from Cos, born around 460 BC, was a wise man sprung suddenly out of nowhere. The fact is that Hippocrates was a great initiate of the temples of the Egyptian Thoth. The historical issue here is one of real importance for the cultural consciousness of humanity: how to understand and keep in mind the fact that along millennia before Hippocrates, the medical science of ancient Egypt already included the seeds of knowledge that were to grow into the medical traditions of Greece and Rome; and that in the specific case of Rome, those seeds continued to grow right until the birth of the modern West, that is to say, all the way into the 17th century of this era.”

Theophile Obenga
“African Philosophy: The Pharaonic Period: 2780-330BC”
Page 376