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![Plates vi & vii of the Edwin Smith Papyrus at the Rare Book Room, New York Academy of Medicine.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Edwin_Smith_Papyrus_v2.jpg/250px-Edwin_Smith_Papyrus_v2.jpg)
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The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an Ancient Egyptian textbook on trauma surgery, written in hieratic around the 19th century BC, but thought to be based on material from a thousand years earlier. It is the world's earliest known example of medical literature.