[Our surgical heritage. Surgery in ancient Egypt].

In its 3,000 years History the surgery of the Old Egypt came on to an important development. Some of the antique instruments used in traumatology, the general surgery and in cosmetic-plastic operations, are in a scarcely modified manner employed for the same purposes in modern surgical interventions nowadays. The surgical diagnostics and therapy of that time is demonstrated by the surgical instruments stock being in the possession of the "Agyptisches Museum" of the "Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin". The surgery of Egypt transferred its leading part to the prosperous medical schools of Greece at the late period of the Old Egyptian empire (1085-332 B.C.). Its surgical diagnostics and therapy depending on an empirical rationalism, the applied instruments but also its ethical attitude towards the patients have been one of the dedisive bases influencing the development of the surgery in the antiquity.