Raw meat was applied to wounds. This is not dissimilar to the modern practice of applying steak to a black eye. The meat treatment was often followed by the use of honey and oil. Bacteria cannot grow in honey, so this was probably an effective treatment.
The ricinus communis plant, from which we make castor oil, was well known in Ancient Egypt. It was said that a woman could make her hair grow by grinding the beans, adding some oil, and rubbing the resulting mixture on her head.
Natron, best known as the agent which removed moisture in the mummification process, was recommended as a means of drawing pus out of a boil. The exact composition of natron varied from region to region but it was a sea salt containing sodium chloride, sodium sulphate, sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate.
Ground malachite was used as a cosmetic (it has an attractive green color) but it was also used to treat various eye diseases and for a wound "that had gone foul". While the Ancient Egyptians knew nothing about bacteria, they did recognize that malachite could cure the symptoms we today know were caused by bacteria.
A mixture of equal parts of the fat of a lion, hippopotamus, crocodile, cat, snake and ibex, was said to be a cure for baldness if rubbed in the scalp.
A mouse cooked in oil could be used to prevent hair turning gray.
A mouse roasted to a cinder and ground into a basin of milk was said to be a cure for whooping cough. The mouse was a prime ingredient in a number of remedies, but the reasoning behind this remains a mystery.
Pain Killers: The Ancient Egyptians certainly knew of the water lily and lotus, cannabis, the poppy, and the mandrake. There are hints, but no unequivocal evidence that they knew of the narcotics in each and the use to which they could be put to control pain.
Gynecology:
A Test for Fertility:
Place an onion in a woman's vagina. If the odor is present in her mouth the next day, then she is able to become pregnant.
A Test for Pregnancy:
Emmer wheat and barley seeds are moistened every day with a woman's urine. If the seeds sprout she is pregnant. If the barley sprouts first, the child will be male; if the emmer grows first the child will be female. (Modern science has shown a fair degree of accuracy in the pregnancy aspect of the test but none in the sex-determination aspect.)
New oil is smeared on the breasts and shoulders of a woman as she lies down. If in the following morning, her blood vessels are "fresh and good, none being collapsed" then she will bear children satisfactorily.
Birth Control:
Put crocodile excrement in the vagina. It is likely that this prescription refers to a hardened plug of dried crocodile dun inserted at the mouth of the uterus to block the entrance of sperm, but the papyri are unclear.
lint, moistened with a mixture of acacia, carob, and dates ground into honey, "should be placed at the mouth of the uterus."
To Prevent Breasts Sagging
Smear the breasts, belly and thighs with the blood of a woman whose menstruation has just begun.
Obstetrics:
The medical papyri are silent on the subject of a normal delivery. Presumably Egyptian physicians and pregnant women would have felt that giving birth was too normal a process to need a doctor. There is no word in Egyptian for midwife, suggesting that deliveries were assisted by whatever women happened to be in the area at the time and not by women specially trained for the task. Egyptian women gave birth while squatting on two birthing bricks. The only text we have that describes a delivery refers to the birth of a future king who had been fathered by a god. Four goddesses attended the event: one knelt at the front of the mother, while another knelt at the rear. Presumably their role was to catch the newborn infant.
To Induce Labor
The Medical Papyri contain many remedies intended to induce labor. Unfortunately it is not yet possible to identify all of the ingredients, but none that have so far been translated would have any effect on the uterus. Depending on the prescribed remedy, it could be placed in the vagina, sat upon, taken by mouth, or applied to the abdomen.
Treatment For Birth Injury
New oil should be soaked into her vagina.
Migraine
Anoint the head with the skull of a cat-fish fried in oil.
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