Medicine and Magic in Mesopotamia

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Thread Orientation: On this thread we may discuss the asû, a type of ancient medical practitioner who is generally related to the modern physician in some studies, and also the various methods and materials this profession brought to bear on the sick patient

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Medicine and Magic in Mesopotamia

Although the concepts of magic and medicine were undoubtedly linked in the Mesopotamian mind, it seems entirely possible to focus on the study of cuneiform magic without giving due consideration to medicine or its practitioner - possible but perhaps not advisable. So with the arrival of a new member here at enenuru, I think the time is about right to finally do some good reading on medicine and magic.



The professions āšipu and asû/


To start with I'll try for some introductory reading and basic notes to get a feel for the subject matter - afterwords some great materials Shupu has shared and some longer articles should get the subject on its way ;]


First, if anyone has not obtained the small paper by Erica Couto-Ferrira entitled Aetiology of Illness in Ancient Mesopotamia: On Supernatural Causes , I believe this paper is a nice primer on illness and the two types of Mesopotamian response: Magical and/or Medicinal. The paper is easily downloadable here.

āšipu/

In this paper, Couto-Ferrira gives a general description of the magic practitioner, the āšipu, being one who task it is to diagnose what afflicts a sufferer, and by magical means, to exorcise the problem and cure the disease. "As illness implied a kind of "crisis" or alienation process that separated the ill from the resort of the community members, the āšipu acts as a purifier, the one who brings the patient back to a perfect balance and reinstates him in society."

asû/

The author then gives a general description of the asû or medicinal practitioner: "The other practitioner represents the therapist, who deals with plants, herbs and mineral and other substances in order to provide remedies for different diseases. Although the asû could resort to incantations looking for reinforcing the benefic effects of the drug, the sources depict this practitioner more like a herbalist, a druggist."


interaction between the two/

Couto-Ferrira: "Both of them seem to have been complimentary professions in the treatment of diseases, although it is obvious that their technical approaches were rather different in quality. They sometimes appear together combining efforts to heal a patient."



Black and Green's entry for Diseases and Medicine/

In their 2003 work, Black and Green offer a very general description of disease and medicine, in which the authors specify a slightly different application of the two different professions. In the case of the exorcist, they see this specialist as focusing on illness specifically caused by demons or angry gods - this is obvious enough. Their perception of the role of the asû is interesting though, espcially for its note of 'naturally' occuring conditions!:

"In some cases a distinction seems to have been made between such divine or demonically illness and more 'naturally' occurring conditions (although the causes were not known.) For the treatment of the latter type of disease a different priest was usually involved who practiced a primitive form of medicine. However, the functions of this 'general practitioner' and the exorcist overlapped and were to some extent interchangeable. If the type of disease was unclear, both priests would be called in, and a common complaint was that neither had been able to effect a cure."



Still to come..

- Couto-Ferrira's list of primary source types
- I.L. Finkel's huge article from 2000 on Babylonian medical tradition
- lots of other stuff

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Crouto-Ferrira's list of sources/ (see above post for link to this authors paper. While focused on illness, many of the same sources will inevitably be valuable for a study of magic and medicine in Mesopotamia.)



Crouto-Ferrira explains: "For a better understanding of the theme, we can divide sources into two main groups: those which are related directly with medical practice and healing magic, and those which treat illness from a tangential point of view. Texts will reveal a strong belief in supernatural causes underlying the apparition of pathological states.
Among the primary sources, there are:

[I have made textual corrections in the below]

- Diagnostic and prognostic texts. ¹ These are lists of symptoms (diagnosis), disposed from head to toe, plus considerations of the course that the patient's disease will follow in time (that is, the prognosis, mainly expressed as "he will live" or "he will die"). Usually, we find here references to the agent hat arouses disease, so they become very useful to determine aetiological categories according to Mesopotamian culture.

- Incantations and ritual series. As diseases were often linked to supernatural beings, parallel supernatural and magic means of treating with disease required. There is a notable variety in these sources, both in time and form, although we have focused our attention in those that point directly to the exorcism of agents producing disease: the udug hul, the Lamashtu, the Maqlu series, etc.


- Prescriptions and medical recipes. They describe the preparation of different kinds of healing remedies, where plants, minerals and organic substances, beer, wine, milk... - were often used. They also specify how they had to be administered to a full-effective result.


- [there are other kinds of medical texts..which are illustrative for the history of medicine in Ancient Mesopotamia.] We are referring to lexical texts relating to the names of diseases, medicinal plants and stones, or anatomical terminology; the physiognomic omens and other examples of divinatory texts that can, occasionally, deal with illness and its aetiology.



Other sources prove to be illuminating to picture the ideological patterns where illness and healing concepts match. These are:


- Wisdom texts, compositions that treat theological or even "metaphysical" questions around human nature, as well as philosophical points about the theodicy, the existence of evil, suffering and disease. ²


- Religious compositions, specifically prayers to the gods and goddesses which seek to reconcile the supplicant; and also myths of origins. ³

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1. The two main works in this field are Rene Labat 1951 and Nil Heesel 2000..
2. See Lambert 2000, who has analyzed extensively compositions such as "Dialogue of Pessimism", and the "Babylonian Theodicy" and "The poem of the Righteous Sufferer". For the Sumerian, see "A Man and His God" in W.W. Hallo "The context of Scripture Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World."
3. There is a long tradition of prayers to appease the anger of the gods: see for example Maul S. 1988 "Herbruhigunsklagen die sumerisch-akkadischer Er$ahunga-Gebete; Reiner E, 1955, "Lipshur Litanies, in JNES 15/3; 129-149; Lamber W.G. 1974 "Dingir A2.DIB.BA Incantations" in JNES 33, 277-322

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Reviewing:

On Late Babylonian Medical Training

by: Irving L. Finkel

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My reviewing this article and summing some of its essentials has three parts:

I - In this post, a sum of Finkel's introductory comments

II - to follow, the categorized list of texts treated in the article

III - to follow, selected medico-magical prescription translations from this article

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I - Sum of Finkel's Introductory Comments

Finkel's huge 90 page report on the progress of interpretation and translation of the medical texts from the 81-7-1 collection of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities in the British Museum, is featured in the volume entitled Wisdom, Gods and Literature: Assyriological Studies in Honour of W.G. Lambert.



About the nature of the texts/

In his introductory remarks, Finkel states that the tablets he is considering were written in a variety of Late Babylonian scripts ("good and bad") and he explains the collection under examination differs from other medical tablets in that many contain just a single prescription: all other such tablets tend to contain 2 or 3 prescriptions.

Finkel believes these texts were written in a school or scribal training program, and there are indicators that the text was copied down during dictation which "results in many interesting full spellings, in contrast to the highly terse orthography characteristic of most medical literature." As for date and provenance, Finkel concludes that these medical tablets "come from Sippar and date to the Archaemenid period, up to the first year of Xerxes." They are therefore quite late, and he also notes that there are several Aramaic loanwords among the plant names and other vocabulary; therefore this implies that "at least some of the recipe's stem from the first millennium B.C. and that they are not to be viewed as stemming from the medical practice of the second millennium."


More about the Medical Practitioner/

Finkel: "Mesopotamian doctors, even the itinerant, needed to be literate, at least in their later periods. Very little is known about the training such personnel had to undergo, but obviously the first step for candidates would have been the painful acquisition of literacy. No doubt a given proportion of trainee scribes who were led to undertake the great work would emerge possessing mixed ability, and it seems a reasonable assumption that mediocre students would be discouraged from pursuing a career of esoteric scribal learning. Such scribes would thus be prone to find their professional niveau in the world of commerce in small-time contract or letter writing, and it would be only a minority of literate graduates who went into the complex world of priesthood, divination guilds, or magic and medicine...
It is surely far from fanciful to assume that the candidates who were to become āšipus or asûs (whether through family influence or individual inclination), and who were to receive the secret medical lore that was always jealously guarded, would be obliged to take an oath that they would function responsibly within their craft-to-be."

Finkel is sure that these texts represent a stage in the apprentice doctors scribal training, and adds that in the school, the prescriptions being written down were accompanied by explanations and discussions by the instructor who doubtlessly referred to other texts, and to bedside experience: in one set of recipes Finkel treats, there is indication of where the instructor derived a 'lesson plan' of sorts from a larger compilation he had dictated.
After the scribal phase, the author suggests a lengthy course of training would ensue with a focus on tried recipes against common complaints; following this, later work would involve the study and exposition of the central medical omen composition SA.GIG . The author continues "Once he had undergone this aspect of his training the apprentice doctor would inevitably possess a mass of small tablets inscribed with one or two recipes. It might be a simple matter of convenience that would prompt him to write them up afterwords on larger tablets, collecting together related recipes, and reducing them to the traditional DIŠ KI.MEN format that is widely characteristic of Mesopotamian medical literature. This would explain why small medical tablets of this kind are relatively uncommon."



Important distinction between the prescriptions of the āšipu and the Prescriptions of the asû/


Finkel next makes a fascinating comment in regards the textual records of the two different professions - here the terms "landscape" refer to a shape of cuneiform tablet like a landscape photograph, and "portrait" a cuneiform tablet with a portrait type layout:

"As has often been discussed, the Mesopotamian medical literature reveals that treatment of the sick was in the hands of two types of personnel, the asû "physician", and the āšipu "conjurer". Interpretations of what constitutes the difference between the two have varied, but that the distinction is essentially that between "physician" and "conjurer" seems clear. With this point in mind it is curious to note that the manuscripts from this medical archive do fall quite clearly into two basic typological categories, the purely therapeutic and the magico-medical. The conclusion seems inescapable that this distinction represents that between asûtu and āšiputu.
What is perhaps even more intriguing is that these text categories tend to overlap with the formal division into two types of tablet mentioned above, that is:

(a) tablets of "portrait" or vertical orientation = asûtu
(b) tablets of "landscape" or horizontal orientation = āšiputu

As is indicated below, there are exceptions to this principal, but in the main it is borne out when applied to the manuscripts collected here. This is not without serious implications for Mesopotamian medical history, in that it gainsays the conclusion sometimes drawn, on the basis of conventional large medical compilations where recipes of both kinds are juxtaposed, that the distinction between asûtu and āšiputu had become blurred."

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Still to come....
II - the categorized list of texts treated in the article and
III - to follow, selected medico-magical prescription translations from this article

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II - The Categorized List of Texts Treated in the Article

What follow is the list of prescriptions which appear in this article, in a follow up post I will select the most relevent or most interesting to post. (Remember that while asû is the Medical pratictioner and āšipu is the magical, asûtu is the lore of the medical practitioner and āšipūtu is the lore or the magical practioner. Of the former there are 33 recipes given, of the latter there are 22.)

1. Asûtu: Therapeutic Prescriptions

A. External Skin Infections
(1) To Improve rašānu and sūmu
(2) To Improve sūmu and Seeping rišûtu
(3) A Similar Recipe Treating the Shin
(4) A Salve and a Lotion for rašānu
(5) A Relatied Recipe for Back-Pain(?) in a Woman

B. General Internal
(6) A Lotion for Anal Irritation, a Pessary, and a Second Recipe
(7) Prescriptions for Sick "Interior"
(8) Recipes to Deal with širpu
(9) "Salts" for the Epigastrium
(10) A Lotion for ḫiniqtu, "Strangury"
(11) A "Tested" Lotion for Fever

C. Head Problems
(12) A Salve for Affected Eyes
(13) Treatment for Nosebleeds
(14) Fragment of a Related Text

D. Women's Diseases
(15) Treatment of Haemorrhage
(16) To Ease a Pregnancy
(17) Against Spontaneous Abortion and Barrenness
(18) Recipes for Women

E. Uncertain Prescriptions
(19) A Fragmentary Prescription
(20) Another Fragmentary Prescription
(21) A Prescription for Medicinal Potions
(22) A Mystery Prescription

F. Larger Related Compendia
(23) A More Advanced Excercise in Asûtu
(24) A Fragment of a Similar Compendium

G. Amulet Stones and Materia Medica
(25) Stone List 1
(26) Stone List 2
(27) Stone List 3
(28) Plant List 1
(29) Plant List 2
(30) Plant List 3
(31) A Recipe Fragment
(32) A Fragment with Aromatic Recipes

H. Rival Medical Scholars?
(33) A Prescription with Drugs

2. āšipūtu: Magical Prescriptions

I. Qutāru: Healing by Fumigation
(34) Drugs for Fumigation
(35) Incantation Short Catalogue
(36) A Fumigation Spell against ḫip libbi
(37) A Fumigation Incantation against Šulak

J. Lamaštu
(38) Lamaštu Short Catalogue
(39) Incantation and Ritual

K. Assorted Incantations
(40) Anti-Demon Incantation 1
(41) Anti-Demon Incantation 2
(42) A Bilingual Ritual from an Incantation
(43) Magical Defence on All Sides
(44) Protection by Nabû
(45) Incantation to Gula, Goddess of Healing
(46) An Exorcistic Incantation
(47) A Fragmentary Exorcistic Incantation

L. Against Sorcery
(48) Incantation against Ušburruda

M. Against Ominous Snakes
(49) Namburbi Preparations

N. Spells and Rituals
(50) Problems in Kidney and Epigastrium
(51) Fever Incantation

O. Figurines
(52) Pain in the Chest

P. Prophylactic Amulet Stones
(53) Stones for Right and Left
(54) Fragment of a Related Text

Q. Astrological Medicine
(55) Safety Devices for Every Month
(56) Safety Devices for Every Day

R. Fragments
(57-88)

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III - Selected Medico-Magical Prescription Translations from this Article

Im proceeding to the section of the article which presents the actual transliterations, I was somewhat disappointed to note that not all of the texts Finkel deals with are given an accompanying translation:

Of the 33 Asûtu prescriptions catalogued, 12 are given translations. They are Text #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 16, 17, and 21. (For exlantation of text numbers, see about II.)

Of the 22 āšipūtu prescriptions catalogued, just 3 are translated. They are 37, 43, 45

Examples from the given Babylonian Asûtu

(in the below I have typed translation only, though Transliteration can be obtained on request.)

Text (1): To Improve rašānu and sūmu

Finkel explains this text treat sūmu which here apparently means "red spot" - the solution is to apply a salve in olive oil twice a day.

Translation

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1. 1/2 shekel of "white plant;
2. 1/2 shekel of buqumattu plant;
3. 1/2 shekel of asḫar;
4. a "fourth" of antimony;
5. 2 shekels of ox fat;
6. 2 shekels of wax;
7. 1 shekel of bat-
8. semen(?);
9. 1/2 shekel of inzarû
10. 1/2 shekel of silver...
11. you cook
12. in olive oil;
13. you wash
14. the red rose
15. in hot water;
16. after washing
17. the red sore
18. you apply the salve;
19. to improve a red sore
20. and rašānu
21. you apply the salve twice a day.
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22. Written according to dictation.

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Text (5) A Relatied Recipe for Back-Pain(?) in a Woman

This text treat back pain apparently for a pregnant woman again by means of a special salve:

Translation:

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1. 2 shekels of nuḫurtu [...];
2. 2 shekels of cumin [...];
3. 1 shekel of aktam; 1+ [...] shekel of reeds;
4. 1 shekel of ballukku soap;
5. 1 GAR of milled simdu cereal; 1 GAR of bar[irātu];
6. you mix it up, and cook it
7. in 5 litres of old barley beer [and 2 litres of] water until
8. it is reduced to 2 litres. You add summunu, .... plant,
9. 1/2 of a GAR of honey, (and) 1 shekel of inzarû
10. three times for each half (?).
11. You pour it over her...
12. you apply (?) it to the dividing line of her back (?).
13. [You...] ninātu or atartu plant,
14. you...her infusion of azallu plant.
15. It is effective (lit.good) for a woman for bypassing child-bearing(?)
16. and regarding whom "Agony"
17. hurts her.

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Text (13) Treatment for Nosebleeds

So even the most hardened ANE enthusiast must admit this text is just plain gross 0_0 Not to mention one has to wonder if plugging the nostril that IS NOT bleeding was ever to effective a technique.. None the less I choose this one as another example as I think it gives alot of the "texture" so to speak, of ancient medical practice:


Translation:

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1. If blood flows from a man's nose [you... ] .... plant
2. taramuš and kasû, and [...] them in the morning,
3. ... and wash throughly. If as long as the nostril
4. is heated profuse(?) blood flows from his nostril,
5. wash, and put pressed oil into the nostril.
6. The blood from his nose will be restrained.
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7. if ditto, you wrap dung from a ... wall and dung from an old donkey
8. in fleece; if it is his right nostril, (you place it) in his left nostril
10. in his left nostril (sic);
11. if it is his left nostril,
12. you place it in his right nostril.
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13. if ditto, you shave his head.
14. By morning, midday and evening
15. you sprinkle the top of his head
16. with cold water.
17. You place ..., fox-grape and dates
18. ...and tie it on.

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Examples from the Babylonian āšipūtu:

(in the below I have typed translation only, though Transliteration can be obtained on request.)

Text (37) A Fumigation Incantation against Šulak

Let it be known that this is an incantation again mišitu which is caused by Šulak, the Mesopotamian Bathroom Demon 0_0


Translation:

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EN2. Šulak, who struck the young man and stole his life,
angry gallû-demon, who spilled the blood of the young man,
evil god or evil goddess wandering about the square,
who struck down that young man, consigning him to bed,
who laid out for him his death bed...his corpse:
acccept his appeal! [...] behind him [...]
you touched him, and his health has no more.
The one you struck with you right, may Išum cure!
The on you touched with your left, mau Kusu cure!
May the healing spell of Ningirimma be cast over him!
May the....of Ea and Asalluḫi , which provides well-being, be cast over him!
May Gula drive out his sickness with her pure spell!
The incantation is not mine;
the incantation is of Ea and Asalluḫi;
the incantation is of Damu and Gula;
the incantation is of Ningirimma, mistress of incantation. te EN2.

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Text (43) Magical Defence on All Sides

This incantation seeks protection from all the major gods on all sides

Translation:

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1. [..........................] ....
2. ............Of Ištar he did;
3. .....I enter, and at dawn [I...]
4. I offer water into that hands of the gods,
5. To him who directs my mouth, to
6. Him who directs my words;
7. Let Šamaš the shepherd walk
8. Before me, let Lugalira and
9. Meslamtaea walk
10. Behind me, let powerful Nergal stand
11. [On] my

, let Ninurta, who overthrows
12. [the evil,] stand on my left!
13. [......] let him protext my words
14. [......] ... begone, and ...
(Remainder missing)

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(45) Incantation to Gula, Goddess of Healing

Finkel describes this one as an "appeal to Gula and Marduk to help in the dispelling of disease and attack by ghosts, the cause of many diseases attributed ŠU.GIDIM.MA [hand of the ghost], and is a simple statement of āšipūtu.


Translation:

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1. EN2. O Gula, doctor to the people,
2. you incantation is a cure, your touch healing,
3. whereever I place my hands do you grant well-being!
4. O Asalluḫi, who revives the dying,
5. who soothes the sick and drives out evil,
6. who averts fate,
7. let ḫa'aṭu and ḫa'iṭu, sickness,
8. stroke, rapadu disease,
9. or the ghost that is within the body of the man, son of his god,
10. before the incantation of Tutu,
11. be distant, be far,
12. let it be off, let it retreat!
13. ḪUL.DUB2! Be adjured by Heaven!
14. Be adjured by Underworld!
15. Let the evil tongue stand aside.

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[ummia-inim-gina]

Great posts here Ushegal I'm going to have to make use of this material.

[madness]

> With this point in mind it is curious to note that the manuscripts from this medical archive do fall quite clearly into two basic typological categories, the purely therapeutic and the magico-medical. The conclusion seems inescapable that this distinction represents that between asûtu and āšiputu. <


This distinction is ultimately based on the work of E. K. Ritter, you'll see in Finkel's notes that he refers to her.

JoAnn Scurlock ('Physician, Exorcist, Conjurer, Magician: A Tale of Two Healing Professionals' in Tzvi Abusch, Karel van der Toorn (eds.) Mesopotamian Magic) completely dismisses this distinction as wrong. I won't go through all the detail right now, just a few remarks.

It seems that Ritter simply ignored anything that did not fit her theory, notably the colophons of medical texts that state the owner is an āšipu, which Ritter ignores and instead passes off as belonging to an asû. One runs into frustration anyway when attempting to sort out the texts with this distinction in mind, and it is hardly as clear as Finkel tells us. Scurlock quips:

It is high time that the consistent 'failure' of the texts to show a clear separation between specialties which ought, according to our theory, to be trenchantly separated indeed, be taken, not as 'proof' of the inherent irrationality of ancient Mesopotamians, whose records we must 'distort' if we wish to render them 'intelligible'(!) but of the incorrectness of our theory. If we cannot separate asû from āšipu, it is because we are looking for binary opposites where there are not any.

Scurlock instead gives us a more accurate description of these two professions: the asû and āšipu as being analogous to the European pharmacist and physician, respectively.

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Madness: Excellent reporting! Indeed, it seems problematic still for experts to define these professions and this is absolutely something that should be borne in mind while approaching the subject. We should study the problem as we go, and for that we may want to review page. 35 of the work I mention below - the author has titled this section: Medical Incantations as asutu?

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Considering the Dissertation:

Natural Illness in Babylonian Medical Incantations

by Timothy Joseph Collins (1999)

This dissertation which has been kindly made available to the enenuru community, is a specialized look at (yes) the Babylonian Medical Incantations. While reiterating all of content of this 359 dissertation would be unpractical, summing some of the authors chief points and observations may be helpful here. One can get a sense of his findings even from the introductory comments.




The Cause of Illness in Babylonian Medical Incantations?/



Collins tells us that with these texts, some indicate attribute illness to a suprahuman being or a natural force, others however do not attribute it to any cause; scholars have nevertheless "generally assumed that the Babylonians thought every illness had a definite cause - usually a suprahuman being - even if none is indicated." However, Collins analyization of these medical incantations indicates that in fact in some cases no specific cause was assigned an illness. He offers the following explanation:


"Medical incantations are similar to other kinds of Babylonian incantations, but differ significantly in one respect: where other incantations identify a problem`s cause literally, medical incantations represent an illness`s cause with a figure or speech (i.e. a metaphor or personification). These figures of speech merely imply a cause for the illness, by means of an analogy with its symptoms or name; they do not represent any conception of what caused the illness that could be related in literal terms."


So, at least in this text corpus, the author argue`s that by failing to identify an illness`s cause where we would expect them to, "medical incantations imply that the illness had no definite cause." He further suggests that Babylonians assumed an illness had a suprahuman cause only if it seemed abnormal - if it seemed normal "he might assume it just happened "naturally" without having any explicit conception of how or why it did so."
The reason why the Medical incantations do not assign a specific origin point of the illness is not however, that the Babylonians did not believe that illness ultimately did not derive from supranatural forces - Collins focuses a moment on which profession precisely these text corresponds to, and identifies them as belonging to the asû and not the āšipu (two professions we have defined above.) He mentions the definitions of H. Avalos which are important here; Avalos states that while


"both the āšipu and the asû work within a conceptual framework that clearly supposes and assigns supernatural causes," they primarily treat illness on different levels: "the āšipu is the healing consultant who primarily labors to identify the sender of an illness, provide a prognosis, and effect a reconciliation with, or expulsion of, the sender...the asû is the healing consultant who primarily labors to collect, prepare and apply directly the materia medica intended to magically expel discomfort..."


The author therefore deduces: "These interpretations imply that most medical prescriptions say nothing about an illness`s cause only because it was irrelevant to the asû`s treatment- not because the illness lacked a suprahuman cause."

Yet Collins is still not content with this path of logic.. he points out again that numerous Babylonian medical incantations DO in fact give a supranatural cause of illness despite being the domain of the asû; and conversely, numerous texts that are the concern of the āšipus (such as omen literature) DO NOT specify a supernatural cause. Collins believes that despite common scholarly opinion that all Mesopotamian illness is supranaturally originating (a consensus owing more to what is easily observable than anything), there is evidence for illness with no cause; his examination proceeds then with the figures of speech which Babylonian medical incantations use to represent illness, "this study adduces circumstantial evidence that the Babylonians did think an illness could occur without any cause."




Corpus examined by Collins/


Collins examines only texts written in Babylonian that treat illness of unspecified origin. His texts include:


- 18 incantations from the Old Babylonian period
- 5 from the Middle Babylonian/Middle Assyrian period and
- 79 from the Neo- and Late Babylonian/Neo-Assyrian period





Chapter 5: Examining the Medical incantations which give no cause/



At length, Collins gets to examining those Medical incantations which represent an illness`s cause with a figure of speech (a metaphor or personification) as oppose to a problems literal cause (i.e suprahuman being) which he finds so indicative. That this is particularly characteristic of the medical incantations he finds significant and he adds "by failing to identify an illness`s cause where one can reasonably expect them to, medical incantation imply that illness had no definite cause."


Examples of Figures of Speech (metaphor) in Medical Incantation lore:

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- Vaginal Bleeding as river flowing off course

Her blood is a carnelian rive, a carnelian^? canal,
The water is carrying away the carnelian meadow^? -

- A sty as grain in a person`s eye

A kernal got into the eye of a young man

- urbartu (a swelling disease) as a red river

The red flood rose up and swelled the red river

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The Babylonians in these medical texts used Analogical reasoning - the illness is identified with a figure of analogy like the the river is analogous to bleeding. This identification was made on the grounds of similar appearance or sensation, the author explains, and represent what he terms a "dynamic analogy" in that they are figurative explanations that account for the change in the individual. Collins terms these further "figures of illness" (as oppose to "agents of illness" i.e demons) . After an extended bout of labeling and analyzing, he comes to the following statement (which must be at least most of the way toward his conclusion:)


"The figures of illness found in medical incantations are in effect "conceptual metaphors," in the sense that they represent an illness as something else that is more concrete or familiar in order to provide a conceptual model for understanding it. The figures extrapolate from what is known about the illness (i.e., its symptoms or name) to what is obscure (i.e., its cause) by establishing an analogical relation between its symptoms or name and an analogue on the grounds of a fortuitous similarity. It does not matter that the analogical reasoning by which the illness`s cause is represented is fallacious, because the figures are meant merely to express a cause for the illness, not its cause by means of logic." (p. 73)

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Still to come.... summations of some Wonderful observations of Magic in General from Collins 1999!

[us4-he2-gal2]

Sampled Texts from Collins 1999

In the dissertation considered above there are also many Babylonian Medical incantations given in translation which address problems such as bleeding, or problems of the belly, eyes, mouth and so on. In some cases Assyrian duplicates are also referred to. Below I have determined to share some interesting ones or some particularly interesting lines from given incantations.

Bleeding 1

This first text deals with bleeding - what makes it particularly interesting is that it contains some reflection that relates back to the Creation of man story as it features in Atrahasis. I have quoted the relevent lines below:

All the gods made mankind,
(But) [Bēlet-i]lī made their blood;
Ea [sa]w them (mankind) and began to cry,
Tears came [to] Mami's c[heeks],
[..they ca]lled^? all of the gods,
[...], Ištar, Bēlet-ilī, Šamaš, and Gula, (saying):
"[...] the young man from his nows, and the young womens from her vagina" ....

bu`šānu 4

This incantation is against bu`šānu, an afflication that seems to produce something like a cold of some sort. The text contains lines with cosmological signficance:

It was Anu, Anu,
Anu (made) all of heaven,
Anu (made) all of earth,
The earth made the w[orm],
The earth made Bu`šānu;
The grasp of Bu`šānu is strong,
It seiz[ed] the throat like a lion,
It seized the gullet like a wolf,
It seized the nose, the moist part of the nos[e, (and) the l]ung,
Its chair has been set up among the teeth-
The fool forgot [his] w[ay^?],
[The bl]ind man forgot the square of his city,
The dead man did not return f[rom the netherworld],
[The still-born child did not s]uckle at the breast of his mother,
(So too) Bu`šānu should n[ot return to the one ] it [has se]ized!
The palace^? [....]
Like [....]
The incantation is not [mine,...],
It is the incantation of [....]

Eyes 1

This incantation is interesting for its last three lines which I`ve typed below. It is common for an incantation to contain a line which states the incantation is divinely originating (it is not mine - it is so and so`s), this is sometimes called divine legitmation. The next line below is interesting though as it gives us a hint about the arrangement by which a incantation specialist (in this case it may have been asipu or asu) worked for the patient - here, if this incantation is successful, evidently the specialist will recieve at least "a gift".

The incantation is not mine, it is the incantation of Damu and Ninkarrak!
Ninkarrak, heal so that the specialist may recieve a gift!
It should not go up above! May it go out below!

Eyes 15

Another medical incantation features interesting cosmological information. In this text it is suggested that a kernal of grain is responcible for the eye ache of eye infection the patient suffers from - in order to properly address this issue of the kernal of grain, the specialist recites an incantation which demonstrates his knowloedge of the origins and heritage of the kernal of grain:

The earth, the earth bore the mud,
The mud bore the stalk,
The stalk bore the ear,
The ear bore the kerne of grain;
In the square field of Enil,
Sīn harvests a 70 ikū field, and has Šamaš gather (it),
(When) a kernel of grain got into the eye of a young man-
Whom shall I send under orders to the seven (and) seven daughters of Anu,
(So that) they may take an egubbu^? vessel of carnelian (and) a pot of ḫulālu stone,
Draw pure sea water,
(And so) cause the kernel to go up from the eye of the yound man?

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Still to come.... summations of some Wonderful observations of Magic in General from Collins 1999!

[madness]

On defining the asû and āšipu:

Alan Lenzi (Secrecy and the Gods. SAAS 19) gives a brief overview of recent studies that deal with these two professions, page 70 note 16:

Many have seen an overlap between the work of the asû and the āšipu, as Parpola suggests in his fuller description of these scholars' activities (LAS 2A, p. 14-15). Both experts used incantations in their work and both used various drugs, salves, poultices, etc. For the classic statement about this relationship, see Ritter 1965, 299-322. Recent studies have tried to refine the distinctions between the two crafts. See, e.g., Stol 1991, 58-62, who argues that the asû should be considered more as a man of science who is free to experiment; Scurlock 1999, 69-79, who has argued that the two worked together as do modern doctors (āšipu) and pharmacists (asû) (but see Abusch 2004, 456 for reasons against this view); van Binsbergen and Wiggermann, 1999, 29-32, for whom asûtu has "a more popular Sitz im Leben" (29) than āšiputu's official position and was an object of scholarly attention relatively late; and Finkel 2000, 146, who treats tablets that divide themselves between the two crafts by a physical characteristic: the orientation of the tablets (portrait vs. landscape).

Parpola LAS 2A = Letters from Assyrian Scholars, Part II: Commentary and Appendices.
Ritter 1965 = Magical-Expert (= āšipu) and Physician (= asû): Notes on Two Complementary Professions in Babylonian Medicine. Pages 299-322 in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on His Seventy-fifth Birthday, edited by Hans Gustav Guterbock and Thorkild Jacobsen. AS 16. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Stol 1991 = Diagnosis and Therapy in Babylonian Medicine. JEOL 32, 58-62.
Scurlock 1999 = Physician, Exorcist, Conjurer, Magician: A Tale of Two Healing Professionals. Pages 69-79 in Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives, edited by Tzvi Abusch and Karel van der Toorn. AMD 1. Groningen: Styx.
Abusch 2004 = Illness and Other Curses: Mesopotamia. Pages 456-459 in Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, edited by S. I. Johnston. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
van Binsbergen and Wiggermann 1999 = Magic in History: A Theoretical Perspective, and Its Application to Ancient Mesopotamia. Pages 3-34 in Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives, edited by Tzvi Abusch and Karel van der Toorn. AMD 1. Groningen: Styx.
Finkel 2000 = On Late Babylonian Medical Training. Pages 137-223 in Wisdom, Gods and Literature: Studies in Assyriology in Honour of W. G. Lambert, edited by A. R. George and I. L. Finkel. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.


Lenzi retains the definitions āšipu=exorcist/magician and asû=physician in his book.