Mummies and Medical Cannibalism
Richard Sugg is a research fellow in literature and medicine at Durham University. He begins his monograph “Good Physic but Bad Food: Early Modern Attitudes to Medicinal Cannibalism and its Suppliers” with an observation: “The subject of medicinal cannibalism in mainstream western medicine has received surprisingly little historical attention.”
He tells us that mummy, generally in powdered form, “having originally been a natural mixture of pitch and asphalt, came in the 12th century to be associated with preserved Egyptian corpses”. It then “emerged as a mainstream western medicine” and remained a standard-issue drug until “opinion began to turn against it in the 18th century”.
Physicians prescribed powdered mummy for diverse ailments. An English pharmacopeia published in 1721 specifies two ounces of mummy as the proper amount to make a “plaster against ruptures”. Ambroise Paré, royal surgeon to 16th-century French kings, proclaimed mummy to be “the very first and last medicine of almost all our practitioners” against bruising.
The Sugg study explains that “mummy was an important commodity. It is often seen in long lists of merchants’ wares and prices”. The marketplace attracted counterfeiters. The best suppliers maintained high standards. The presumably admirable recipe used by 17th-century German pharmacologist Johann Schroeder included “the cadaver of a reddish man (because in such a man the blood is believed lighter and so the flesh is better), whole, fresh without blemish, of around 24 years of age, dead of a violent death (not of illness), exposed to the moon’s rays for one day and night, but with a clear sky. Cut the muscular flesh of this man and sprinkle it with powder of myrrh and at least a little bit of aloe, then soak it.” And so forth.
Excerpted from an article by Marc Abrahams for guardian.co.uk
mummies
Cairo international Film Festival kicks off
Fifty-nine world nations represented by 150 movies, including 22 movies from nine Arab countries, will take part in the event. Egypt is participating with nine movies. The Spanish cinema is the guest of honor of this year’s CIFF. The nine Arab countries participating in the event are Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Bahrain in addition to host Egypt.
The festival honors four Egyptians; veterans actor Mahmoud Yassin, actress Boussy, Director of Photography Tarek el-Telemessany and set designer Nihad Bahgat. It also honors a number of Hollywood stars, including Kurt Russell, Denzel Washington, Charlize Theron, and Alicia Silverstone. US movie celebrities attending the festival include Director Stuwart Townsend, US actor Martin Henderson and British actress Julia Armond. Add to the star-studded list Susan Sarandon who won an Oscar for best actress in Dead Man Walking (1995), Goldie Hawn who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Cactus Flower (1969) and Mira Sorvino who won Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Mighty Aphrodite (1995).
Egypt State Information Service
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Egypt awarded Outsourcing Destination of the Year at the 2008 National Outsourcing Association Awards
Egypt was awarded the prestigious title of Outsourcing Destination of the Year at the National Outsourcing Association’s 2008 Awards held in London, beating rivals Philippines and Romania to the accolade. The CEO of Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency, (ITIDA) Dr. Hazem Abdelazim, received the award on behalf of his government during a glamorous ceremony at the Park Plaza Riverbank.
According to the judges, Egypt won the award due to its language skills, young population and growing list of global sourcing investments. It has soared in the popularity stakes in the last few years as an offshore destination for Europe. The awards, which are in their fifth year, aim to reward organizations for success in outsourcing projects, as well as raising awareness of the importance of best practice in outsourcing. The awards acknowledge achievements in IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing, as well as sector specific achievements in telecommunications, finance and utilities.
