Hidden Gems in Black History: The First Medical Journal Was Discovered in Africa

The first medical journal was really discovered in Africa; nevertheless, it was titled after its founder, a white guy, giving the impression that it was authored by a white man even though it was actually found in Africa. Edwin Smith & The Egyptian Dealer An Egyptian merchant sold an old papyrus scroll to American Egyptologist Edwin Smith in 1862. Despite Smith’s inability to decipher it, he sensed its significance and valued it. After he passed away in 1906, his daughter sent the scroll to the New York Historical Society, but he held on to it. The significance of the Edwin Smith Papyrus, as it is now called, was first recognized. Edwin Smith Papyrus The world’s oldest surviving surgical textbook, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, is a medical manuscript. Although it was written in 1600 BCE, a close reading of the text shows that it is really a copy of a much earlier medical treatise that was probably written between 3000 and 2500 BCE. The 17th century BC scribe who transcribed the previous text into the Edwin Smith Papyrus made several mistakes, some of which he rectified in the margins.  For reasons we will never understand, he eventually set aside the manuscript...