<P> Among the treatments are closing wounds with sutures (for wounds of the lip, throat, and shoulder), bandaging, splints, poultices, preventing and curing infection with honey, and stopping bleeding with raw meat . Immobilization is advised for head and spinal cord injuries, as well as other lower body fractures . The papyrus also describes realistic anatomical, physiological and pathological observations . It contains the first known descriptions of the cranial structures, the meninges, the external surface of the brain, the cerebrospinal fluid, and the intracranial pulsations . Here, the word' brain' appears for the first time in any language . The procedures of this papyrus demonstrate an Egyptian level of knowledge of medicines that surpassed that of Hippocrates, who lived 1000 years later . The influence of brain injuries on parts of the body is recognized, such as paralysis . The relationship between the location of a cranial injury and the side of the body affected is also recorded, while crushing injuries of vertebrae were noted to impair motor and sensory functions . Due to its practical nature and the types of trauma investigated, it is believed that the papyrus served as a textbook for the trauma that resulted from military battles . </P> <P> The Edwin Smith Papyrus dates to Dynasties 16--17 of the Second Intermediate Period . Egypt was ruled from Thebes during this time and the papyrus is likely to have originated from there . Edwin Smith, an American Egyptologist, was born in Connecticut in 1822--the same year Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was decoded. Smith purchased it in Luxor, Egypt in 1862, from an Egyptian dealer named Mustafa Agha . </P> <P> The papyrus was in the possession of Smith until his death, when his daughter donated the papyrus to New York Historical Society . There its importance was recognized by Caroline Ransom Williams, who wrote to James Henry Breasted in 1920 about "the medical papyrus of the Smith collection" in hopes that he could work on it . He completed the first translation of the papyrus in 1930, with the medical advice of Dr. Arno B Luckhardt . Breasted's translation changed the understanding of the history of medicine . It demonstrates that Egyptian medical care was not limited to the magical modes of healing demonstrated in other Egyptian medical sources . Rational, scientific practices were used, constructed through observation and examination . </P> <P> From 1938 through 1948, the papyrus was at the Brooklyn Museum . In 1948, the New York Historical Society and the Brooklyn Museum presented the papyrus to the New York Academy of Medicine, where it remains today . </P>

​the egyptian author of the edwin smith surgical papyrus understood that