Medical literature is the scientific literature of medicine: articles in journals and texts in books devoted to the field of medicine. Many references to the medical literature include the health care literature generally, including that of dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and the allied health professions.
Plates vi & vii of the Edwin Smith Papyrus at the Rare Book Room, New York Academy of Medicine
Statuette of Imhotep in the Louvre
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian medical text, named after Edwin Smith who bought it in 1862, and the oldest known surgical treatise on trauma. From a cited quotation in another text, it may have been known to ancient surgeons as the "Secret Book of the Physician".
Plates vi & vii of the Edwin Smith Papyrus at the Rare Book Room, New York Academy of Medicine
The Breasted edition (1930): left page photograph of the original papyrus, right page transcription of hieroglyphics. This is Plate XIII (column 13, case 38-41)