Asian Cardiovasc Thorac Ann 2002;10:1-2
© 2002 Asia Publishing EXchange Pte Ltd
The Rosetta Stone and Cardiac Surgery
Antonio F Corno, MD,
Ludwig K von Segesser, MD
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Department of Cardiovascular Surgery Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois Lausanne, Switzerland
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Cardiac surgery is in a certain way very similar to the Rosetta Stone. Like the Rosetta Stone, there are 3 main components, all interconnected, in the progress of cardiac surgery: clinical practice, research, and scientific communication.
In July 1799 in the small village of Rosetta (Rashid) in the western delta of the Nile, French soldiers of the Napoleon troops, who were demolishing ancient structures to build a fort, found a compact slab of black basalt with inscriptions in 2 languages (Egyptian and Greek) written in 3 scripts: hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. When the Rosetta Stone was carved, in 196 BC, these 3 scripts were being used in Egypt: hieroglyphic was used in official and religious documents, demotic was the everyday script of Egypt, and Greek was the language of the Egyptian rulers at that time. A group of priests in Egypt wrote the text of the Rosetta Stone to honor the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemaios V in all 3 scripts so that priests, government officials, and the rulers of Egypt could read what it said: a list of good deeds that the pharaoh had done for the priests and the people of Egypt.
Despite hundreds of years spent deciphering hieroglyphs, the ability to read hieroglyphic inscriptions on monuments and tombs . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Copyright © 2002 by SAGE Publications
