In all the time I had been in the House of Life, I had not once seen Ptahor, for trepanning was rare, and during my training period I had not been allowed to attend the specialists at their treatments and operations. Now, Ptahor was carried in haste from his villa to the House of Life. He cleansed himself in the purifying room, and I was careful to be at hand. He was as bald as ever, his face had grown wrinkled, and his cheeks hung lugubriously on either side of his discontented old mouth. He recognised me, smiled and said, “Is it you, Sinuhe? Have you come this far, son of Senmut?” He handed me a black wooden box in which he kept his instruments and bade me follow him. This was an unmerited honour that even a royal physician might have envied me, and I bore myself accordingly.
“I must test the steadiness of my hand, said Ptahor. “We will open a skull or two here, to see how it goes.” His eyes were watery, and his hands trembled slightly. We went into a room in which lay incurables, paralytics and those with head injuries. Ptahor examined a few and chose an old man for whom death would come as a release, also a strong slave who had lost his speech and the use of his limbs from a blow to the head during a street brawl. They were given narcotics to drink and were then taken to the operating theatre and cleansed. Ptahor washed his instruments and purified them in fire by himself.
My task was to shave the heads of both patients with the keenest of razors. Then the heads were cleaned and washed once more, the scalps massaged with a numbing salve, and Ptahor was ready for his work. First, he made an incision in the scalp of the old man and pushed the edges back regardless of the copious flow of blood. Then with swift movements, he bored a hole in the bared skull with a large tubular bore and lifted out the circle of bone. The old man began to groan, and his face turned blue.
“I see nothing the matter with his head,” said Ptahor, as he replaced the bit of bone, stitched the edges of the scalp together and bandaged the head whereupon the old man gave up the ghost.
65
“My hands appear to tremble somewhat,” remarked Ptahor. “Perhaps one of the young men would bring me a cup of wine.” The onlookers, besides the teachers in the House of Life, consisted of students who were specialising in skulls. When Ptahor had had his wine, he turned his attention to the slave, who had been bound and drugged, yet still sat savagely glowering at us. Ptahor asked that he might be bound yet more firmly and that his head might be gripped in a vice that not even a giant could have shifted. Ptahor then opened up the scalp and this time was careful to stanch the flow of blood. The veins at the edges of the incision were cauterised and the blood stopped by special medicaments. Ptahor let other doctors do this, to spare his own hands. In the House of Life, there was as a rule a blood stauncher, a man of no education whose mere presence would stop a flow of blood in a short time, but Ptahor wished this to be a lecture and desired also to save his strength for Pharaoh.
When Ptahor had cleansed the outside of the skull, he pointed out to us the place where the bone had been crushed in. By means of bore, saw and forceps, he removed a piece of skull as large as the palm of one’s hand and then showed us how clotted blood had gathered around the white convolutions of the brain. With infinite care, he removed the blood bit by bit and freed a bone splinter that had been forced into the brain substance. This operation took some time, so each pupil could follow his movements and impress the look of a brain upon his own memory. Next, Ptahor closed the opening with a plate of silver that had been prepared meanwhile to correspond in shape to the piece of bone that had been removed and fixed it firmly in position with tiny clips. Then he stitched the edges of the wound together, bandaged it and said, “Wake the man”. For the patient had lost consciousness long ago.
The slave was freed from his bonds, wine was poured down his throat, and he was given strong drugs to inhale. Presently, he sat up and let forth a stream of curses. It was a miracle no one who had not witnessed it could have believed, for the fellow had previously been dumb and unable to move his limbs. This time, I had no need to ask why, for Ptahor explained that the bone splinter and the blood on the surface of the brain had been the cause of the symptoms.
“If he is not dead within three days, he is cured,” said Ptahor. “In two weeks, he will be able to thrash the man who stoned him. I do not think he will die.”
66
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384