Edwin Smith Papyrus: The 3,600-Year-Old Textbook of Surgery

(via Amusing Planet) In 1862, an American Egyptologist named Edwin Smith bought an ancient scroll of papyrus from an Egyptian dealer. Smith didn’t know how to read it, but he figured it was something important and precious. He kept the papyrus scroll with him until his death in 1906, whereupon his daughter donated the papyrus to the New York Historical Society. It was there the importance of document, now known as the Edwin Smith Papyrus, was first understood.