Mummies and “mumia vera aegyptiaca” in medicine
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The lecturer talks about the history of using dust called “mumia” and an alteration in the meaning of mummies in medicine – from functioning as a medicine to an object of scientific interests. During the period between the 15th and the 19th centuries, the Egyptian mummies were often used for medical purposes in Central Europe. Numerous medical books, popular in that time, recommended grinding the mummified bodies to dust called mumia. This was a component of several medications; some pharmacies in Central Europe actually had the dust in stock. Only in the middle of the 19th century, the use of mumia died out.