THEY had antiseptics, bandages and even laxatives a good 3,000 years before the first Hippocratic oath was sworn.

But the ancient Egyptians have been ignored by historians, who instead credit the Greeks with creating the foundations of modern medicine.

Now researchers at Manchester University have uncovered new evidence that Egyptians were practising scientifically-valid medicine 1,000 years before the earliest Greek doctor.

Scientists studied 3,500-year-old papyrus scrolls which give detailed accounts of plants and herbs used to treat illness at the time of the Pharaohs. Greek medic Hippocrates, who lived in 500BC and gave his name to the pledge taken by doctors to this day, was thought to be the first modern medical practitioner.

Experts say the Egyptians, better known for mummification and elaborate burials, had a detailed understanding of how the body worked. The scrolls, dating back to 1500BC and written in hieroglyphics, were discovered in the 19th century in the Valley of the Kings, decades before the discovery King Tutankhamun's tomb.

Though their contents have been known for some time, it is only in the last few years that Manchester experts have been able to test their validity.

As many of the plants described no longer exist, the team travelled to Egypt and museums worldwide in search of preserved samples of the ancient herbs or modern equivalents.

Researchers from the KNH centre at the university, set up to investigate ancient mummies, say they were astounded that so many of the remedies had a scientific foundation.

They are now trying to test the full benefits of some remedies listed and identify plants most closely resembling those described.