Main description:

Utilizing a great variety of previously unknown cuneiform tablets, Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice examinesthe way medicine was practiced by various Babylonian professionalsof the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C. * Represents the first overview of Babylonian medicine utilizingcuneiform sources, including archives of court letters, medicalrecipes, and commentaries written by ancient scholars * Attempts to reconcile the ways in which medicine and magic wererelated * Assigns authorship to various types of medical literature thatwere previously considered anonymous * Rejects the approach of other scholars that have attempted toapply modern diagnostic methods to ancient illnesses

Contents:

List of Illustrations. List of Abbreviations. Acknowledgments. Introduction to Babylonian Medicine and Magic. 1 Medicine as Science. 2 Who Did What to Whom? 3 The Politics of Medicine. 4 Medicine as Literature. 5 Medicine and Philosophy. 6 Medical Training: MD or PhD? 7 Uruk Medical Commentaries. 8 Medicine and Magic as Independent Approaches toHealing. Appendix: An Edition of a Medical Commentary. Notes. References. Subject Index. Selective Index of Akkadian and Greek Words. Index of Akkadian Personal Names.