Physician's Box

ca. 1938-1700 B.C.E. or later

The ancient Egyptians, like their modern counterparts, suffered from eye diseases called ophthalmias that could lead to blindness. Because ophthalmias are transmitted by flies, they occur primarily in the summer when the insects are most abundant in Egypt.

This box belonged to a physician who treated seasonal eye diseases. Each of the three compartments contained a powder for one of the seasons of the Egyptian year—winter, “inundation” (flood), and summer. The hieroglyphs on the exterior state that the summer powder remedied “running ophthalmia.”