A Middle Assyrian Medical Text

Abstract

The tablet presented here in honour of C. J. Gadd is the property of Signor Giancarlo Ligabue of Venice. The writer wishes to thank this gentleman for permission to publish it, and also to express his gratitude to Signora Ligabue-Mazza for making necessary arrangements so that the original could be studied at leisure. Thanks are also due to Dr. Franz Köcher, who read through the first draft of the purely medical portion of the Middle Assyrian tablet and from his unique knowledge of this kind of text made valuable suggestions and supplied references to similar passages. He is not, however, responsible for the opinions expressed.This tablet, of baked clay, is one of the small number of Middle Assyrian library tablets, and contains 62 lines of script, most of them perfectly preserved. The writing begins on the obverse, is continued on the reverse and top edge, and the four last lines are put on the left edge (Plates V–VI). The first thirty-one lines prescribe treatment for a pregnant woman suffering from colic. Rulings divide this section into four subsections. The first two prescribe treatment for two consecutive days. The third offers further treatment in case that of the first two days was ineffective. The last offers still another treatment for the same trouble, not specifically related to the previous ones. Line 32 is a kind of colophon, which may have been composed for the first time by the scribe of this tablet, or he may have copied it from his original. In either case it proves that these treatments were part of a larger whole, but for some reason (the third word of the line is unintelligible) the rest was not known or was disregarded. Lines 33–62 contain two incantations for use with women in childbirth, taken from a source different from that of the prescriptions.

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