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The Ebers Papyrus of about 1550 BC is among the most important medical papyri of ancient Egypt. It is also commonly called Papyrus Ebers[2] (from its original German name). It is one of the two oldest preserved medical documents anywhere, the other main source being the Edwin Smith papyrus (around 1600 BC). Another important medical papyrus is the Brugsch Papyrus (around 1300 BC). The Ebers Papyrus was purchased at Luxor (Thebes) in the winter of 1873–74 by Georg Ebers and is now in the library of the University of Leipzig, Germany. The Ebers Papyrus is written in hieratic Egyptian writing and preserves for us the most voluminous record of ancient Egyptian medicine known. The 110-page scroll, which is about 20 meters long, contains some 700 magical formulas and remedies. It contains many incantations meant to turn away disease-causing demons and there is also evidence of a long tradition of empirical practice and observation. The papyrus contains a "treatise on the heart". It notes that the heart is the center of the blood supply, with vessels attached for every member of the body. The Egyptians seem to have known little about the kidneys and made the heart the meeting point of a number of vessels which carried all the fluids of the body — blood, tears, urine and sperm.
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