Main description:

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

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