As Sir Thomas
Browne remarks in his "Urn Burial": "Mummy has become merchandize.
Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams."
One formula in everyday use has come to us in a curious way from the
Egyptians. In the Osiris myth, the youthful Horus loses an eye in his
battle with Set. This eye, the symbol of sacrifice, became, next to the
sacred beetle, the most common talisman of the country, and all museums
are rich in models of the Horus eye in glass or stone.
"When alchemy or chemistry, which had its cradle in Egypt, and derived
its name from Khami, an old title for this country, passed to the hands
of the Greeks, and later of the Arabs, this sign passed with it. It
was also adopted to some extent by the Gnostics of the early Christian
church in Egypt. In a cursive form it is found in mediaeval translations
of the works of Ptolemy the astrologer, as the sign of the planet
Jupiter. As such it was placed upon horoscopes and upon formula
containing drugs made for administration to the body, so that the
harmful properties of these drugs might be removed under the influence
of the lucky planet. At present, in a slightly modified form, it still
figures at the top of prescriptions written daily in Great Britain
(Rx).
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