His servants the physicians— The profession of physic appears to have been carried on in ancient times by domestics; and Joseph, as viceroy of AEgypt, may well be supposed to have kept some of these in his retinue. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus assure us, that it was the custom of the AEgyptians to embalm their dead by the hands of the physicians, or embalmers. Indeed, if we may believe Herodotus, every particular disease in AEgypt had its physician; and Homer describes AEgypt as a land of physicians, every individual pretending to some skill in the medical art. See Odyss. 4: The AEgyptians, says Calmet, ascribe to Isis the invention of medicine, particularly the medicine of immortality; whereby she rendered her son Orus immortal, which seems to be nothing else but the art of embalming, or preserving bodies from putrefaction. Be that as it may, this custom was of great antiquity in AEgypt. The overflowing of the Nile, it is said, put them upon the invention; for, during the time that the country was laid under water (which was for two months annually) they had not access to deposit the dead in their respective burying-places. That which was at first the effect of necessity, became afterwards a subject of pomp and ostentation: for so great is the inclination of man to vain-glory, that things the most proper in the world to humble and mortify him, are turned by him into subjects of vanity. See Saurin's Dissert. 42: We see great use, says Bishop Warburton, in the AEgyptians having a different physician to every distemper, it having been the best, nay, perhaps the only expedient [in those times] for improving medicine into an art. The physicians, who embalmed, were enabled, by inspecting the bodies, to instruct themselves in the causes of the occult diseases, which was the district of each class; and to improve their knowledge in anatomy, which was the business of them all. Pliny expressly says, that it was the custom of their kings to cause dead bodies to be dissected, to find out the origin and nature of diseases. See Jeremiah 46:11.
The AEgyptians excelled all other people in the art of embalming. Bodies remain to the present day preserved by this means, under the name of mummies. The practice was common to both rich and poor; though it was more or less costly according to the rank of the person. Diodorus tells us, that the method of embalming was, first to cure the whole body with a wash, or oil of cedar, and some other ingredients, for the space of more than thirty days: afterwards to mix myrrh and cinnamon, not only to preserve the body, but to make it send forth an agreeable smell. We are told in the third verse, that forty days was the time allotted for embalming, which agrees with Diodorus, who says, more than thirty; hence it appears, that Joseph had his father's body embalmed in the noblest manner.