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Utilizing a great variety of previously unknown cuneiform tablets, Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice examines the way medicine was practiced by various Babylonian professionals of the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C.
* Represents the first overview of Babylonian medicine utilizing cuneiform sources, including archives of court letters, medical recipes, and commentaries written by ancient scholars
* Attempts to reconcile the ways in which medicine and magic were related
* Assigns authorship to various types of medical literature that were previously considered anonymous
* Rejects the approach of other scholars that have attempted to apply modern diagnostic methods to ancient illnesses
List of contents
List of Illustrations viii
List of Abbreviations x
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction to Babylonian Medicine and Magic 1
1 Medicine as Science 11
2 Who Did What to Whom? 43
3 The Politics of Medicine 56
4 Medicine as Literature 89
5 Medicine and Philosophy 118
6 Medical Training: MD or PhD? 130
7 Uruk Medical Commentaries 141
8 Medicine and Magic as Independent Approaches to Healing 161
Appendix: An Edition of a Medical Commentary 168
Notes 177
References 202
Subject Index 211
Selective Index of Akkadian and Greek Words 217
Index of Akkadian Personal Names 220
About the author
Markham J. Geller is Professor of Semitic Languages at University College London and Professor for the History of Science at the Free University Berlin. He is the author
of Evil Demons: Canonical Utukk¿ Lemn¿tu Incantations (2007) and
Melothesia in Babylonia (2014), editor of
Melammu, the Ancient World in an Age of Globalization (2014), and co-editor of
Disease in Babylonia(2007) and
Imagining Creation (2008).
Summary
Utilizing a great variety of previously unknown cuneiform tablets, Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice examines the way medicine was practiced by various Babylonian professionals of the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C.
