Disease in Babylonia.

• Author: Scurlock, Joann
• Position: Book review

Disease in Babylonia. Edited by IRVING L. FINKEL and MARKHAM J. GELLER. Cuneiform Monographs, vol. 36. Leiden: BRILL, 2007. Pp. viii + 226. $122.

The book under review is the publication of a conference on ancient medicine held in December 1996 but whose papers did not actually appear in print until 2007. The published papers cover a wide range of subjects and represent expertise not only in "Babylonia" but also concerning the Hittites and Greeks, as well as Rabbinic writings.

In "Fevers in Babylonia," M. Stol has collected references to fever and fevers and made a then-pioneering attempt to identify the better-attested fevers. For the results of my collaboration with B. Andersen, an expert in infectious diseases, on this subject (some agreeing and some not), see our Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2005), chapter 3 and in the index under the individual fevers. It is a pity that we did not have Stol's identifications to consider when we wrote our hook.

N. Wasserman's "Between Magic and Medicine--Apropos of an Old Babylonian Therapeutic Text against Kur[a.bar]rum-Disease" is considerably more than just an edition of 87.56.847, an unpublished text with a treatment for kur[a.bar]ru ('ringworm'). Included is a discussion of two groups of Old Babylonian medical incantations (actually recitations--they were not sung but recited). These were indeed, as Wasserman says, compositions lying between magic and medicine, and interesting from both perspectives.

For our opinions on the subjects covered in J. V. Kinnier-Wilson's "Infantile and Childhood Convulsions, and SA.GIG XXIX" and J. V. Kinnier-Wilson's "On Stroke and Facial Palsy in Babylonian Texts," see Diagnoses, chapter 13 and in the index under "stroke" and "seizures."

V. Haas's "Hittite Rituals against Threats and Other Diseases, and Their Relationship to the Mesopotamian Traditions" is a nice overview of Hittite magical healing. Of particular interest to Assyriologists are the rituals in which support is enlisted from Istar of Nineveh (pp. 116-17).

N. Heessel, "The Hands of the Gods: Disease Names and Divine Anger," discusses the problem of how to understand the expression "hand" of this or that god, primarily from a theological standpoint. But perhaps this is not the best angle from which to approach theological problems. Gods were never the actual causes of diseases, if you are going to split hairs. But then, it is the typewriter that actually...