Oxford Handbooks Online: Mesopotamian Beginnings For Greek Science?

Mesopotamian Beginnings for Greek Science?
Oxford Handbooks Online

JoAnn Scurlock
Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World
Edited by Paul T. Keyser and John Scarborough
Print Publication Date: Aug 2018 Subject: Classical Studies, Ancient Science and Medicine
Online Publication Date: Jul 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199734146.013.2
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter studies the influential tradition of Mesopotamian medicine. Two distinct
kinds of medical experts collaborated to diagnose and to treat illness, the āšipu and the
asû, who are respectively analogous to the Greek iatros and pharmakopōlēs. Assyrian
herbals are organized by medical effect, much like Dioscorides’ herbal. The Diagnostic
and Predictive Series, standardized by ca 1050 bce, provides evaluations of illnesses from
head to toe, plus evaluations by category such as fever, neurology, obstetrics and
gynecology, and pediatrics. Mesopotamian medicine was very familiar with contagion.
The attribution of diseases to gods, ghosts, or demons was simply the āšipu’s way of
subdividing broad categories of disease, much as we aggregate symptoms.
Keywords: contagion, diagnosis, Diagnostic and Predictive Series, diseases, epilepsy, herbals, prognosis
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THE great flourishing of Greek science did not take place in a vacuum. Long before the
conquests of Alexander, there was a significant Greek presence in the Near East,
beginning with the planting of colonies in the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor in
the 8th century BCE. Descendants of these colonists apparently encountered Assyrian
expansion at least once, when the Yaunaya (Ionians, i.e. Greeks) sent tribute to Sargon II
(721–705) from Cyprus. Eusebius also quotes Abydenos to the effect that Sennacherib
(704–681) battled and defeated an Ionian Greek fleet (FGrH 685 F 5, §6; see also:
Scurlock 2004a, 10; especially Röllig 1971, 643–647; and Braun 1982b, 1–31).
Cultural contacts expanded dramatically with the founding of Naukratis to house Greek
mercenaries. Greek armor was found at Carchemish (Braun 1982a, 49; Wiseman 1991,
230) where the final battle of the fall of Assyria (614–605 BCE) was fought. Contacts
between Greeks and non-Greeks in the ancient Near East, particularly Egypt, intensified
further as Athenians supported Egyptian revolts against the Persian Empire. A
Babylonian named Berossos wrote a history of his land in Greek for the edification of his
patron, Antiochus I (FGrH 680; Burstein 1978). From later periods, we have the so-called
Greco-Babyloniaca, that is, texts in Akkadian (i.e. Assyro-Babylonian) language but
written using the Greek alphabet with a view to giving Greek scholars who wanted to
learn Akkadian access to the rich literary and scientific tradition of ancient Mesopotamia
(Geller 1997).
That Egyptian sciences reached Greece is well established, and it is beginning to be

realized just how much of ancient Greek mathematical astronomy has an ancient
Mesopotamian foundation (see Rochberg, in this volume). Beginning already in the
Persian period, the mix of cultures in the ancient Near East produced the Hellenistic
science par excellence, and that was astrology, with its sister science of astrological
medicine (Scurlock and al-Rawi 2006), which allowed illness associated with conjunctions
of the planets to be averted by using the right wood as a fumigant, the right plants and
(p. 36) other ingredients as a salve, and wearing the right stone as a charm (Finkel 2000,
212–217; Heeßel 2005).
1. Āšipu and Asû: Iatros and Pharmakopōlēs

In ancient Mesopotamia, there were two separate medical experts who worked together
to diagnose and treat illness; so, too, in Greece, the division of labor was quite similar
(Scurlock 1999; 2005, 304–306). The āšipu was, roughly speaking, the equivalent of the
modern physician and the Greek iatros, whereas the asû corresponds to the modern
pharmacist and the Greek pharmakopōlēs. These correspondences are not, however,
exact. The modern physician does not think of himself as a philosopher, whereas the
ancient Greek iatros did. The āšipu fell into the middle ground between these two poles,
practicing medicine rather than philosophy but on occasion, as in the passage cited
below, waxing philosophical about his craft.
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All physicians are frustrated that babies are hard to diagnose and that the impending
death of elderly patients is all too clear. This inspired one ancient Mesopotamian
physician to write this meditation on “evil death”:
When a human being is born/comes out of the womb, nobody can recognize its
signs. [Only later] do they become apparent. It is as if they grow fat with him and
grow tall with him. . . . The illness of that illness is a thing that can never be
removed, the evils of that illness, of that false sleep.
(Böck 2007, 223, lines 3–7 with Scurlock 2011, 98–99).
Like his modern colleague, the āšipu was the one expected to diagnose illnesses and,
again like the modern physician, he prescribed medicines to be delivered to the patient
by the pharmacist. However, modern physicians do not make a regular practice of
directly providing patients with needed medicines, whereas the āšipu apparently
frequently made up and administered medicinal preparations to his patients himself. Like
modern physicians, he also gave a prognosis and, in hopeless cases, forbade his colleague
the pharmacist from offering quack cures to desperate patients or their friends and
relatives.
For those who had simple problems not requiring diagnosis, or who knew from sad
experience what was wrong, or who had gotten the ancient equivalent of a prescription
from a physician, there was a second healing specialist known as the asû, the equivalent
of the pharmakopōlēs and the European pharmacist. There were a thousand or so
medicines known to ancient Mesopotamians, mostly plants or plant parts, but also animal
and mineral substances; the asû needed information about supply, the right time to collect
them, and how to store and process them for maximum efficiency. Like the physician, the
pharmacist also had a stock of recitations to use to ensure the efficacy of (p. 37) the
treatments he sold customers. Like the physician, he experimented with his plants to
determine the most efficacious for specific medical conditions. There were, of course,
midwives and unofficial experts, many of them probably also women. It is unfortunate
that we shall probably never know to what extent the temple of the goddess Gula at Isin
(modern Išān al-Baḥrīyāt in Iraq) provided an alternative locus of treatment. The site was
under excavation but has now been completely destroyed (due to illicit excavations and
looting in the wake of the 2003 American invasion). In ancient Greece, there was
definitely an alternative to the Hippocratic iatros in the form of the asklepieion where
patients came to spend the night and hopefully to receive the treatment of their dreams.
Young boys from priestly families being groomed as physicians studied long hours in their
own or relatives’ houses, passing through several grades of apprenticeship before being
allowed to practice (Maul 2010). Along the way, much time was spent copying (Finkel
2000) and making commentaries on texts relevant to the discipline. So, too, Hippocratic
physicians (Scurlock 2004b, 5–7).
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It has been argued that Dioscorides was the “inventor” of the schema of organization of
plants by medical use (Riddle 1985, 22–24). In fact, the tradition goes back to the third
millennium BCE in the ancient Near East (Neumann 2010, 4). Neo-Assyrian exemplars
indicate that the pharmacist’s stock in trade included vademecum texts, that is, listings of
plants with instructions for preparation. A typical entry from a vademecum text reads:
pirʾi eqli is a plant to remove opaque spots in the eye. It is to be ground and [put]
on the opaque spot. (BAM 423 i 9')
There are also two fragmentary works known to us by their ancient names, Šammu
šikinšu (literally, the plant, its nature), which gave descriptions of plants, and
URU.AN.NA, which was essentially an ancient plant glossary providing information on
synonyms and substitutions.
Šammu šikinšu prefixes to the medical use a description of the plant using the rudiments
of a system of plant taxonomy (similar to Dioscorides, whose manuscripts add drawings).
This allows an unknown plant to be described in terms of known plants with distinctive
heads, leaves or seed pods. So, for example:
The plant which resembles supālu and whose seed is red is called ellibu. It is good
for removing limpness and numbness. You grind it and rub him gently with it
(mixed) with oil.
The plant which resembles duḫnu-millet is called anunūtu. It is good for ears that
produce pus. You grind it and pour it into his [ears] (mixed) with oil. (SpTU 3.106 i
1'-4')
Some entries also give specific reference to habitat:
The plant which resembles laptu-vegetable but which continually seeks out the
front side (i.e., the plant turns to face the sunlight), and which comes up in
irrigated fields and which when you pull it up, its root bends [is called] liddanānu.
(SpTU 3.106 i 19'-21')
It is clear that these ancient Mesopotamian texts were written and read as
(p. 38)
practical manuals. In contrast to the Hippocratic iatros and more in line with the modern
physician, the āšipu had a philosophy of “use whatever works”. A long tradition of
experimentation revealed that many plants and other natural products have medicinal
properties. Ancient Mesopotamians did not know that plants developed these properties
to defend themselves against insects as, for example, by targeting their predators’ central
nervous systems. What they did know was that plants could effectively be used to treat
patients for quite a wide variety of diseases and conditions. Where plants are well
attested, and we have some idea of what they were, we are in a position to understand
just how sophisticated herbal medicine can be. For kamantu, which has some 97
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references in ancient Mesopotamian therapeutic texts and which is probably henna, we

can account for every medical use by the āšipu (Scurlock 2007).
For example, in gynecological use, the āšipu ground the seed of kamantu, mixed it with
first quality beer and used it in a potion “to have seed.” Hellenistic Greek physicians were
in agreement with the āšipu that women and men had “seed” (Stol 2000, 8). Indeed, given
Greek “folk” tradition which held that the woman was the oven where the man baked his
loaves (as in the tale in Herodotus 5.92.η2–3), it is not unlikely that the idea of women’s
“seed” reached the Greeks from Mesopotamia (Scurlock 2006a, 175). What “having seed”
meant in practical terms is that the woman had regular periods and was able to bear live
children. Modern studies of henna have shown (Scurlock 2007, 517–518) that it is an
oxytocic drug. Oxytocic drugs stimulate uterine contractions and the ejection of milk,
slightly lower blood pressure, and slightly dilate coronary arteries. In women who are not
pregnant, they increase the tone, amplitude, and frequency of uterine contraction, thus
bringing on menstruation. However, the uterus is resistant to oxytocic drugs during the
first and second trimesters of pregnancy, which allows a fertilized egg to develop. As the
pregnancy progresses, the susceptibility of the uterus also increases. What this means is
that administering an oxytocic drug like kamantu in the third trimester of pregnancy will
amplify uterine contractions, thus allowing the baby to be born (Scurlock 2007, 517–520).
Thus the āšipu’s use of herbal medicines to regulate female fertility was well-founded.
Similarly, ancient Mesopotamian physicians were quite right to prescribe date kernels,
which contain plant estrogens, for irregular menstruation (BAM 237 i 25’); and to use
šūmu-garlic (Allium sativum L.), which is a vasodilator, in combination with zibû-black
cumin (Nigella sativa L.), which is antihistaminic, to treat ghost-induced tinnitus (roaring
in the ears; for more details on the diagnosis and treatment of tinnitus see Scurlock and
Stevens 2007).
2. Diagnostic and Prognostic Series

In division of specialties, uses of commentaries, and the practice of generating herbal
handbooks, ancient Mesopotamia is in line with the Greek world. Numerous parallels
(p. 39) down to the level of language between ancient Mesopotamian therapeutic texts
and the Hippocratic Corpus (Scurlock 2004a, 14–15) strongly suggest some sort of
meeting of the minds. The same may be said for the ancient Mesopotamian Diagnostic
and Prognostic Series, a set of 2 tablets containing medical omens and a further 38
tablets explaining how to diagnose and prognosticate diseases and conditions on the
basis of signs observed by the āšipu or symptoms described to him by his patients
(Scurlock 2014, 13–271). Tablet 36 of this series offers many predictions of the sex of a
fetus, based on difficulties experienced by the expectant mother, that appear in later
classical authors almost verbatim, albeit with the sexes reversed (Mesopotamian:
Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 277–279; classical: Hanson 2004, 298).
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The Diagnostic and Predictive Series had been systematized by the reign of the
Babylonian king Adad-apla-idina (1068–1047 BCE). We know the name of the editor,
Esagil-kīn-apli (Finkel 1988). Ancient Mesopotamian diagnosis was based on face-to-face
examination of the patient, soliciting symptoms by asking pertinent questions and noting
signs by looking carefully at the patient’s color, general appearance and movement;
examining his feces, urine and vomitus; listening to his breathing and bowel sounds;
feeling his temperature and body configuration; and noting the odor of his breath and of
infected wounds. (For more details and myriad examples, see Scurlock and Andersen
2005.)
Ancient Mesopotamian āšipus generated a special vocabulary to describe medically

significant signs (e.g., different types of pain, paralysis, spontaneous movement, and skin
lesions). They knew how to tell whether a woman was pregnant by looking for what we
understand to be chemical changes in the womb (Reiner 1982; Scurlock and Andersen
2005, 262) compared with inserting a garlic clove into the vagina and then checking to
see whether her breath smelled of garlic—a method favored by Hippocratic and Egyptian
physicians (Hanson 2004, 296–297). Ancient Mesopotamian physicians also devised a
number of diagnostic maneuvers, for instance, what modern physicians call the Moro
test, which is used to this day to evaluate the neurologic system of infants: “If you
suspend an infant by his neck and he does not jerk and does not stretch out his arms, he
was ‘gotten’ by the dust” (i.e. he will die) (Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 341).
The Diagnostic and Prognostic Series contained information on the development of

symptoms over the course of a disease, in some cases, day by day and in others five-day
period by five-day period. There were also sections that helped the āšipu to distinguish
one disease or condition from another similar disease or condition, what we call
differential diagnosis (Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 575–576). Of the 38 purely medical
tablets in this series, 12 went systematically down the body in head to toe order, that is,
signs and symptoms relating to the head were listed first, beginning with the patient who
had been sick for one day and the top of whose head felt hot but whose temporal blood
vessels were not pulsating. The listings continue with signs and symptoms of the neck
and so on down the body to the toes ending with signs relating to the blood vessels of the
feet. These listings were followed by tablets on fever, neurology, obstetrics and
gynecology, and pediatrics (Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 575–677, charts).
On the neurology tablets, it is possible to recognize descriptions of what we call

(p. 40)
grand mal seizures, petit mal seizures, simple partial seizures, and complex partial
seizures, in addition to sensory seizures, gelastic seizures, status epilepticus, and phases
of seizures including the post-ictal state, not to mention narcolepsy, cataplexy, stroke, and
coma. Pseudo-seizures were differentiated from the real thing. For example, complex
partial seizures:
If what afflicts him does so in close sequence and when it comes over him, he
wrings his hands like one whom cold afflicts, he stretches out his feet, he jerks a
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lot and then is quiet, (and) he gazes at the one who afflicts him, “hand” of the
binder.
(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 320–322)
Then, gelastic seizures:
[I]f when (a falling spell) falls upon him, he turns pale and laughs a lot and his
hands and his feet are continually contorted, “hand” of lilû-demon.
(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 322)
Third, pseudo-seizures:
If it afflicts him in his sleep and he gazes at the one who afflicts him, it flows over
him and he forgets himself, he shudders like one whom they have awakened and
he can still get up; alternatively, when they try to wake him, he is groggy, false
“hand” of lilû. For a woman, a lilû; he can get up afterwards.
There is also a clinical description of what is now called Parkinson’s disease (similarly
described by Parkinson in 1817):
If his head trembles, his neck and his spine are bent, he cannot raise his mouth to
the words, his saliva continually flows from his mouth, his hands, his legs and his
feet all tremble at once, and when he walks, he falls forward, if . . . he will not get
well.
(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 336–337; with Scurlock 2010, 57)
Likewise, what appears to be Lesch-Nyhan (described again in 1964): “If he chews his
fingers and eats his own lips” (Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 163).
A similar systematization of the therapeutic texts, with a matching series, also in head-to-
toe order, seems to have taken place in the neo-Assyrian period (943–612 BCE) (Scurlock
2014, 295–336). Included in these therapeutic texts are everything from bandages for
headaches, salves for fever, drops for sore eyes, fumigants for otitis media, distillate
daubs for the lungs, enemas for intestinal gas, urethral irrigations for urinary tract
problems, and tampons for irregular menstruation (Scurlock 2005, 310–312; Heeßel et al.
2010, 45–162; (Scurlock 2014, 361–645). Making a distillate was devilishly simple. The
plant mixture to be distilled went into a crescent-shaped diqāru bowl, and a second,
burzigallu, bowl with a hole bored into it was inverted over the top and sealed (p. 41)
round the rim with dough made from emmer flour. When the bottom bowl was put over a
fire, the mixture boiled and distillate condensed onto the cool upper bowl where it was
harvested by means of a straw inserted through the hole (Scurlock 2014, 465–469, 480–
483).
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3. The Role of the Gods

The problem, from our point of view, is that much of ancient Mesopotamian diagnosis was
in terms of gods, ghosts, and demons and that the treatments included recitations,
prayers, amulets, and even full-fledged rituals alongside more conventional medical
treatments. The āšipu also performed a variety of purification rituals for the community in
connection with calendric rites or for individuals desiring success in business, an end to
domestic quarrels, and other personal matters.
We should not assume that the presence of supernatural causes is a sign of a pseudo-
scientific approach and the dictation of inappropriate, even ridiculous, treatments as, for
example, having the patient avoid food tabooed by Poseidon if you imagine him to have
neighed like a horse during his seizure. This was, allegedly, the practice of ancient Greek
sacred disease specialists (Scurlock 2004a, 12–13). By contrast, the āšipu began by
making a full assessment of his patient to determine whether or not he/she had a case
that he could treat. Having decided that he could treat it, he prescribed herbal medicines.
The diagnosis ensured that the right medicines were going to the right patients and that
whatever was causing the problem was forced or persuaded by the administration of the
medicine to go away and leave her/him alone. The parallel with modern germ theory is
striking and, indeed, modern germ theory was greeted in some quarters as a revival of
Babylonian demonology. For example, Jastrow states:
This primitive germ theory has, in fact, a great advantage over the modern
successor, for to the imagination of primitive man the germ is obliging enough to
take on tangible shape. It does not hide itself, as the modern germ insists upon
doing, so as to be discernible only when isolated and under the gaze of a powerful
microscope, nor must its existence be hypothetically assumed. The ancient germ
was not ashamed of itself; it showed its teeth and even its tail and its horns. The
germ was a demon, an evil spirit that was sufficiently accommodating to sit for its
portrait. (1917, 232)
The attribution of diseases to gods, ghosts, or demons was simply the āšipu’s way of
subdividing broad categories of disease such as mental illness, neurological conditions,
arthritis, skin diseases, heart and circulatory problems, illness due to trauma, and fevers.
The result of the āšipu’s efforts was a system in which only a little over half of the
syndromes could be assigned to already-known spirits. Of the remainder, some were
attributed to a malfunctioning body part, for instance “sick liver,” by which they meant
what we call hepatitis. The rest were given a name based on some characteristic, for
instance “stinking” for syndromes involving foul smell and grayish lesions in the
(p. 42)
mouth. (For more on this type of diagnosis, see Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 503–506).
As is the general rule in polytheistic religions, gods, ghosts, demons, malfunctioning body
parts, or anything else that was causing trouble was believed to interact with humans in
the hopes of being bought off. It is also generally the case, what we call omens (including
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the so-called astrological omens) were not understood as causal factors triggering cosmic
sympathies but as a language, or rather series of languages, whereby the spirits
communicated with mankind (Farber 1995, 1899–1900).
It followed from this that the apparent omens represented by what we still call medical
signs and symptoms were a code whereby a particular spirit could identify her- or himself
and his or her specific desires for offerings—what we call medicines. In other words, if a
particular spirit had a particular craving, he or she made someone ill through a particular
set of symptoms known to the āšipu. Translated into our own “natural causes” idiom,
what is happening in either case is that by producing symptoms, the body is telling you,
as it were, in sign language, what is wrong so that you (or your doctor) can take
appropriate action.
The use of what we call “magic” was also of medical use to patients in that it treated the
illness and the disease. In addition to diagnosing diseases and applying medicines,
ancient Mesopotamian physicians also performed healing in a way that allowed the
patient to see the doctor and his medicines in action and to personally participate in the
healing process. Since it is the human body aided by the mind that is the single most
important factor in medicine, this approach is not to be frowned upon.
Magic is a self-consistent system. The magical elements of Mesopotamian medicine were

demonic magic (for details see Scurlock 2004a, 16–20). Demonic magic is predicated on
the notion that what makes rituals work is the more or less willing participation of
sentient beings who operate by human logic and whose ways may be discerned by
observation and experiment. Demonic magic is, then, a system of thought that, like
polytheistic religion and modern “hard” science, is empirically rational, and a human
universal in its general outlines. Mesopotamian physicians thus saw no contradiction (nor
indeed was there any) in enlisting in the healing process, alongside more obviously
medical pills, potions, bandages and enemas, also demonic “magic” and “religion.” The
former (magic) included items such as historiolae (magic origin stories), threats and
forced oaths, addresses in archaic or invented languages, and the employment of magical
analogies. The latter (religion) involved sacrifices and respectful addresses in prayer
asking for assistance to gods including patrons of magical and medical healing, such as
the goddess Gula and the triad of gods Ea (god of freshwater and wisdom), Asalluḫi (god
of medicine, equated with Marduk of Babylon) and Šamaš (sun god and god of justice).
Indeed, preserved recitations are a mix of what to us is scientific knowledge and a no-
nonsense approach to treatment, with silly nonsense—addressing the indwelling spirits in
what we consider inanimate objects as if they were people, and appealing to gods in
whose existence we do not believe. Witness the following charming recitations that
describe (1) the process of digestion in ruminants, (2) human intestinal movement (p. 43)
(peristalsis) in a patient with intestinal bloating with gas, and (3) the necessity for
applying medicine and not just “magic” to medical problems.
Page 9 of 14

The sheep, when it vomits up [the grass], the mouth gives it to the karšu-stomach,
the karšu-stomach to the riqitu-stomach, the riqitu-stomach to the rear; it falls as
mere dung and the grass receives it. Grass which receives every evil receive mine
from me and, grass, carry off my evil!
Human intestinal movements:
The [. . . are continually] loosened; the stomach is twisted; intestines are

knotted . . . the darkness. Its face is like ditch water covered with algae. [Wind]
from the steppe blows in, is put down, and roams the steppe. Its eyes (i.e., the
greater and lesser omentum) are full; its “lips” continually dry out. It wriggles like
a fish and makes itself bigger like a snake. When Gula, giver of life, brought
mankind to the temple of Asalluḫi, merciful Marduk looked upon the young man
and he belched and the young man got well. Either let the wind come out of the
anus, or let it send out a belch from the throat.
(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 117–118)
The need for medicine:
The she-goat is yellow; her kid is yellow; her shepherd is yellow; her chief
herdsman is yellow; she eats yellow grass on the yellow ditch-bank; she drinks
yellow water from the yellow ditch. He threw a stick at her but it does not turn her
back; he threw a clod at her but it did not raise her head. He threw at her a
mixture of thyme and salt and the bile began to dissolve like the mist. The
recitation is not mine; it is the recitation of Ea and Asalluḫi, the recitation of Damu
and Gula. Recitation for pašittu.
(Scurlock 2005, 313)
In short, the way to cure pašittu was not to throw sticks and clods at imaginary goats but
to apply medicine reinforced by an appropriate recitation.
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4. Conclusion
In sum, ancient Greeks were familiar with ancient Mesopotamian medicine, and borrowed
much from it. Unfortunately, it is also true that there would have been a lot less suffering
over the course of the history of the Western world if the ancient Greeks had borrowed
more than they did. All too often, Hippocratic physicians allowed their theories to dictate
inappropriate and sometimes dangerous remedies, for example, using an anticoagulant to
“stop” bleeding, cauterizing the armpits of athletes with dislocated shoulders after using
a device similar to the torture rack to get the bones back into place, deliberately giving a
patient acute pneumothorax to “treat” a pleural infection, or using a (p. 44) bow drill on a
patient with a bruised bone to create a gap in the skull (!) (Majno 1975, 141–206;
Scurlock 2006a, 80–81; cf. Scurlock 2004a, 24). Moreover, they rarely admitted the
possibility of person-to-person transmission of disease (Scurlock 2004a, 25), something
known in Mesopotamia since at least the second millennium BCE (Finet 1954–1957, 129).
Among Hippocratic treatments there is also a procedure that appears to have descended
from a known Mesopotamian treatment for draining the lungs by making an incision and
inserting a lead tube (Scurlock 2005, 312). But otherwise, in treating patients, the
Hippocratic system was reductionist and minimalist, showing a strong preference for
bleeding, purging and a starvation diet, after which nature was to be allowed to take its
course. (For details, and comparison to ancient Mesopotamian regimens, see Scurlock
2004a, 13–14.)
However, there were ancient Greek doctors who based some of the finest medical
observations ever penned on an ancient Mesopotamian foundation (Scurlock 2004a, 20–
24). And the biggest surprise is the partial acceptance of ancient Mesopotamian
diagnoses with “supernatural” causes as a starting point for discussion—minus, of course,
the god, ghost, or demon originally in the text. So, for example, kausos is based, in
conformity to expectations, on an ancient Mesopotamian diagnostic category without a
supernatural cause. However, phrenitis is based on, of all things, “hand” of ghost
(Scurlock 2004a, 14–15, 27–29). Indeed, one could argue that much of Greek medicine,
including Aretaeus of Cappadocia and Soranus of Ephesus (Scurlock 2008, 195–202), is
incomprehensible without knowledge of the Mesopotamian texts to which ancient Greek
scholars clearly had access.
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Oxford Handbooks Online: Mesopotamian Beginnings For Greek Science?

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Mesopotamian Beginnings for Greek Science?

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Abstract and Keywords

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

That Egyptian sciences reached Greece is well established, and it is beginning to be

212–217; Heeßel 2005).

1. Āšipu and Asû: Iatros and Pharmakopōlēs

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

(Böck 2007, 223, lines 3–7 with Scurlock 2011, 98–99).

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Some entries also give specific reference to habitat:

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

references in ancient Mesopotamian therapeutic texts and which is probably henna, we

2. Diagnostic and Prognostic Series

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Ancient Mesopotamian āšipus generated a special vocabulary to describe medically

The Diagnostic and Prognostic Series contained information on the development of

On the neurology tablets, it is possible to recognize descriptions of what we call

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 320–322)

Then, gelastic seizures:

(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 322)

(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 435)

(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 336–337; with Scurlock 2010, 57)

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

3. The Role of the Gods

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Magic is a self-consistent system. The magical elements of Mesopotamian medicine were

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 117)

Human intestinal movements:

The [. . . are continually] loosened; the stomach is twisted; intestines are

(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 117–118)

The need for medicine:

(Scurlock 2005, 313)

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Braun, T. F. R. G. “Greek Forces in Campaigns of the Saïte Dynasty.” In Cambridge

Farber, Walter. “Witchcraft, Magic and Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia.” In

Finet, André. “Les médecins au royaume de Mari.” Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et

Finkel, Irving L. “Adad-apla-iddina, Esagil-kīn-apli, and the Series SA.GIG” In A Scientific

Hanson, A. E. “Aphorismi 5.28–63 and the Gynaecological Texts of the Corpus

Jastrow, Morris. “Babylonian-Assyrian Medicine.” Annals of Medical History 1 (1917):

Köcher, Franz. Die babylonisch-assyrische Medizin in Texten und Untersuchungen. 6 vols.

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Maul, Stefan. “Tontafel Bibliothek aus dem sogenannten ‘Haus des

Riddle, John M. Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine. Austin: University of Texas,

Röllig, Wolfgang. “Griechen.” In Reallexikon der Assyriologie 3.4 (1971): 643–647.

Scurlock, JoAnn. “Physician, Conjurer, Magician: A Tale of Two Healing Professionals.” In

———. “From Esagil-kin-apli to Hippocrates.” Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes 3

———. “The Hippocratic Treatise Humors, Chapter 1: A Humerous Student Commentary,”

———. Magico-Medical Means of Treating Ghost-Induced Illnesses in Ancient

———. “A Proposal for Identification of a Missing Plant: Kamantu/ÚÁB.DUḪ = Lawsonia

———. “Advantages of Listening to Patients: The First Descriptions of Parkinson’s.” Le

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Scurlock, JoAnn, and Burton R. Andersen. Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian

Medicine: Ancient Sources, Translations and Modern Medical Analysis. Urbana:

Scurlock, JoAnn, and Dafydd Stevens. “A Ringing Endorsement for Assyro-Babylonian

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018