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[Music]
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being a continuous civilization
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so ancient that it began in the
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neolithic era and ended in the classical
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you would probably guess that the
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egyptians
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innovated a lot of things and it's true
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that egypt scoops up a lot of earliest
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attested innovations but that isn't
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exactly the same as inventing something
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the egyptians innovated pyramid building
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but their neighbors didn't take up the
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craze
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and the other pyramid building
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civilizations certainly didn't learn
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from the egyptians
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so even if it was done first in egypt
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i'm not happy saying the egyptians
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invented it
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for the purposes of this video then i'm
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defining invention as something the
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egyptians innovated
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and that other cultures learned via
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contact with egypt
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you'll find that a common theme across
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all of these examples
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is that contact with the greeks was how
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a lot of these ideas reach the wider
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world particularly
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europe the greeks held egypt in high
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regard
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similar to how the victorians viewed
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ancient rome or how oxbridge classicists
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view ancient rome or how fascists view
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ancient rome
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believing the egyptians to be very
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clever and also possibly wizards
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the greeks learned quite a bit from them
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even things which today
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most people would credit to one greek or
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another the most obvious example is
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probably geometry
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so many geometric terms are greek we
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learn of pythagoras and his hypotenuse
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of isosceles triangles and famously
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of the most may as well just be three
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number ever
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known to us all as half tau but while
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the greeks did innovate much about
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modern mathematics they learned the
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beginnings of geometry from egypt where
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it was used famously
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in the construction of large stable
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monuments with some less stable ones
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but also in agriculture it was vital to
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be able to measure the area of a plot of
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arable land
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so that with knowledge of the expected
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yields of each type of seed planted
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a harvest could be accurately predicted
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the egyptians had long ago mastered the
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area formulae of rectangular
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triangular and circular plots of land
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they hadn't worked out the value of pi
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but they came close enough that it made
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little difference
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again might as well be three medieval
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european medicine wasn't up to much
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honestly it's a miracle our ancestors
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survived the industrial revolution
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however many discoveries made in the
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late 15th and throughout the 16th
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century were in part due to rediscovered
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ancient greek medical texts
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the greeks in turn began their foray
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into medicine after learning from the
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egyptians
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egypt had specialized physicians
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including dentists proctologists
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pharmacists
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and opticians there's plenty of evidence
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of invasive surgery too
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the benefit of the practice of
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mummification being that there was some
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knowledge of where everything in the
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body was supposed to go
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even if not quite what it was all doing
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the egyptians were excising tumors
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cysts and cataracts with precision
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implements i'm not saying you'd want
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an ancient egyptian surgeon operating on
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you but the option was there
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and i'd probably take it over a medieval
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doctor
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throwing leeches at me although the
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modern latin alphabet which has been
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used advisedly or not to write languages
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all over the world
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can trace its roots to the egyptian
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hieroglyphs it's not fair to say that
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the egyptians invented our alphabet
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even so the egyptians were such prolific
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writers that the greeks in turn
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developed
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a fascination with the practice egypt
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didn't invent paper as we use it now
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that has its roots in ancient china
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but certainly egypt's invention of
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papyrus can be credited with the
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expansion of literacy in europe
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and papyrus was used extensively until
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alternatives
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paper and parchment for instance became
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easier to acquire
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combining the two previous inventions we
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take for granted now that physicians
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learn from written texts
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but in an era where much of medicine was
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inaccessibly mysterious a healer would
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learn through apprenticeship
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which could be shaky ancient medicine
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was a combination of herbal remedies
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casting spells and occasionally doing
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things that might look like actual
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medical practice if seen from a distance
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what the healers of one town did might
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differ vastly from the methods of the
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town on the other side of the hill
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moreover we all know that transmitting
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information by word of mouth results in
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deviations with each new generation
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sometimes to the point where the
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original information is no longer
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recognizable
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the egyptians from very early in their
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civilization
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wrote medical texts detailing ailments
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attempted and successful remedies
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and medical experiments a famous medical
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text
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the edwin smith papyrus is believed to
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be a copy of a much older medical
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papyrus dating to the old kingdom
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it details abstract cases and includes
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procedures for suturing
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poultices bandages and all sorts of
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techniques commonplace today
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having a text survive for so long meant
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it was very likely that the techniques
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had a decent success rate
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and it meant that each generation of
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apprentice physicians had a reference
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more solid than the deviant reckonings
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of that one
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bloke you know along with their love of
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writing several techniques were
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innovated by the egyptians were adopted
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by the greeks and spread throughout
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europe
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some surviving to this day rubric has
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long been a form of emphasis performed
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by writing a section of text in red ink
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this has fallen away as a practice since
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printed type gave us the ability to use
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italic or bold text or even switch
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typefaces but
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the egyptians used red ink to highlight
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important phrases
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this practice was picked up by the
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greeks and was used well into the middle
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ages for a few different purposes
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the last entry of this video is my
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favorite and you might already know this
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if you've seen my history of the
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egyptian military the egyptians drafted
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and co-signed the world's first
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true peace treaty called the silver
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treaty with the hittite kingdom in 1259
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bce
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wars had come to an end before then of
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course often with capitulation or an
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informal agreement involving territorial
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exchange and marriage but with the
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silver treaty
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many things were done formally that are
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recognizable today the treaty included
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extradition clauses
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promises to uphold each other's
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sovereignty and mutual defense pacts
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it was upheld not only by all future
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generations of the kings of both nations
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but by the gods of both lands who were
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called upon to do harm to whichever
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party broke the treaty
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well there's my list now the list of
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things the egyptians have done
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first is even longer than this so look
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out for that pretty soon
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let me know in the comments if you know
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any other inventions other parts of the
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world o2 ancient egypt
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or to ask me any questions or offer me
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any corrections you might think of
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and as always life prosperity and health
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to you
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all thanks for watching head over to my
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channel for more or click here to see
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what the youtube demons think you should
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watch next
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