Ninmaḫ and Her Imperfect Creatures: The Bed Wetting Man and Remedies to Cure Enuresis (STT 238) (original) (raw)
A multidisciplinary approach to ritual enema scenes on ancient Maya pottery
Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 1986
There are various enema scenes on classic Maya pottery, which undoubtedly represent rituals and may very well indicate that the ancient Maya took intoxicating enemas in a ritual context. This idea is quite contrary to the traditional view thatthe ancient Maya were a contemplative people, who did not indulge in ritual ecstasy. The occasional display of vomiting actors would seem to provide a plausible reason why the Maya opted for rectal application. Some scenes present a fair amount of evidence that an alcoholic beverage may have been taken rectally. Anecdotal experimental evidence suggests that an alcoholic liquid may certainly induce or intensify a state of inebriation, when it is administered via the rectal route. Other scenes open up the possibility that tobacco and the water lily or some other flowering plant may have served as an enema ingredient. The phytochemistry and psychopharmacology of tobacco are well documented and there can be little doubt that this herb may produce toxic effects, when it is taken in the form of a clyster. Unfortunately, little is still known about the constituents and pharmacological activity of the water lily. It is sometimes speculated that this plant is hallucinogenic, but experimental confirmation of this view is still awaited. *This paper is derived from the more lavishly illustrated doctoral dissertation Ritual Enemas and Snuffs in the Americas,
De Gruyter , 2021
After more than fifty years since the last publication, the cuneiform texts relating to the treatment of the loss of male sexual desire and vigor in Mesopotamia are collected in this volume. The aim of the book is to present Mesopotamian medical tradition regarding the so-called nīš libbi therapies. šà-zi-ga in Sumerian, nīš libbi in Akkadian, lit. "raising of the 'heart'", is the expression used to indicate a group of texts intended to recover the male sexual desire. This medical tradition is preserved from the Middle Babylonian period to the Achaemenid one. This broad range testifies to the importance of the transmission of this material throughout Mesopotamian history. The book provides the edition of this textual corpus and analyzes it in the light of new knowledge on ancient Near Eastern medicine. Moreover, this volume aims to show how theories and methodologies of Cultural Anthropology, Ethnopsychiatry and Gender Studies are useful for understanding the Mesopotamian medical system. This edition is an important tool for understanding Mesopotamian medical knowledge for Assyriologist, however since the texts have been translated and discussed using the anthropological and gender perspectives they are accessible also to scholars of other research fields, such as History of Medicine, Sexuality and Gender. https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110757040/html
Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice by Markham
2013
The study of ancient Mesopotamian medicine has expanded dramatically over the past couple of decades. In addition to the publication of major editions and studies of cuneiform medical works, several monographs have appeared which study particular illnesses or methods of healing in Mesopotamia, and a number of conferences have been held and published exploring bothMesopotamianmedicine itself, its role within wider cuneiform scholarly traditions, and its relationship with later, particularly Greek, medical traditions. The field even has its own journal, the Journal des Médecines Cuneiformes, which has appeared twice yearly since 2003. Mark Geller has been one of the scholars to play a key role in this growth of interest in Mesopotamian medicine. This makes it appropriate that he should be the first to attempt to write a general introduction to the subject which will be both accessible to the nonspecialist (which includes historians of medicine in other ancient cultures, Assyriologists...
Magic and Medicine in Ancient Mesopotamia—A New Collection of Translations
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Evaluation of a volume of English renderings of Akkadian-language texts concerning treatment of illness in ancient Assyria and Babylonia. This Sourcebook for Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine is a welcome new contribution to the field of Mesopotamian medicine and magic. It is well structured and contains a wide variety of diagnostic, pharmacological, and therapeutic documents. Also included are their associated commentaries and several healing rituals. Further welcome is the fact that Scurlock has edited some texts for the first time (p. xiii). The Sourcebook accomplishes its purpose in illustrating Mesopotamian healing texts, reflecting the fact that Scurlock knows the material in great detail. Of course such an ambitious contribution to the field will elicit additions and corrections from colleagues. There are several areas of particular concern, general and specific. After some discussion of the book's general contents we will consider Scurlock's edition of the Assur Medical Catalog (hereafter AMC; UGU in the Sourcebook, pp. 295-306). Furthermore, we will make some observations relevant to AMC. Scurlock's self-referential citations occasionally overshadow the abundant and useful information in the Sourcebook, since Scurlock and Andersen 2005 appears multiple times on every single page with notes, while other relevant literature has been ignored. In the introduction, Scurlock leads the reader into the problematic discussion of the two healing professions: asû and āšipu/mašmašu. Scurlock is confident that she has given an accurate description of the two Mesopotamian healing professions (p. 2 n. 3). Nevertheless, Scurlock's analysis of asû as 'pharmacist' and āšipu as 'physician' is anachronistic, based on her own work, but never really substantiated. Different points of view and description of the asû's and āšipu's healing areas may be found in
Urinary diseases and ethnobotany among pastoral nomads in the Middle East
Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine, 2005
This article is derived from a broad, twenty-year study of ethnobotany and folk medicine among pastoral nomads in the Middle East which took place from 1984 to 2004. The article presents examples of different treatments of diseases and disorders of the urinary tract carried out by healer herbalists. The preparation of remedies includes boiling infusions, extraction of dry or fresh leaves, flowers, seeds or whole plants. Some of these plants were used both as food and as medicine, by ingesting different parts of the plants, such as leaves, flowers, fruits, and so on, either while soft, cooked or dried. Data were collected by using unstructured interviews and by observation. These plants were identified by healers, patients, and university botanists. This paper identified eighty-five plant species, which belong to thirty-six families. The most representative families are: Asteraceae (8), Brassicaceae (6), Poaceae (6), Umbelliferae (6).
In 7 century BC Nineveh, in an area located within today's much-troubled Iraqi city of Mosul, an astonishing episode of human history occurred. Thousands of texts from all corners of the Assyrian empire were brought into the royal capital of Nineveh in order to create the rst universal library in human history. The majority of the excavated tablets are now being kept in the British Museum, London. (On these tablets, see this article and this post). Among the texts transported to the Ashurbanipal library, there were works of literature such as the tale of Gilgamesh, written descriptions of rituals and prayers, litanies, explanatory works, and large collections of omens, or royal letters. Numerous collections of healing texts, magical and medical prescriptions , rituals and incantations also found their way into the archives of Nineveh (SAA 7, chapter 7). Among the thousands of manuscripts dealing with healing, one collection stood out. It was written down in cuneiform by highly educated scribes who carefully edited a handbook with medical prescriptions, in-cantations and rituals on behalf of king Assurbanipal. This handbook was arranged into distinctive series , addressing body parts in a sequential order from head to toe. Each series had its own name and chapter called simply 'tablets' in Akkadian. The majority of tablets in this handbook carried the same colophon (i.e. inscription at the end of a tablet with facts about its production): Palace of Ashurbanipal, king of the world, king of the land Assyria, to whom (the gods) Nabû and Tašmētu granted understanding, (who) acquired insight (and) a high level of scribal prociency, that skill which among the kings, my predecessor(s) no one has acquired. I (i.e. Ashurbanipal) wrote, checked, and collated tablets with medical prescriptions from head to the (toenail il, non-canonical material, elaborate teaching(s) (and) the advanced healing art(s) of (the gods) Ninurta
Systems of Classification in Premodern Medical Cultures: Sickness, Health, and Local Epistemologies, ed. U. Steinert, London: Routledge, 2020
He will only be able to drink water every three days, whereas it will taste rotten and salty. Finally his body is broken by diarrhoea. 2 This quotation is part of a text which was intended to promote the profession of the scribe over all other careers, but it also provides us with a vivid, albeit exaggerated, example of a soldier's life and his daily perils, of which diarrhoea was just one problem. We can only assume that internal ailments, caused by polluted water and parasites or by other pathogens, were quite common afflictions in ancient Egypt and therefore commonly dealt with in medical treatises. The textual sources, which could be compiled by their respective scribes from sources of varying age, can be differentiated into essentially two major types of texts. On the one hand, there are the so-called 'Fachbücher', specialised texts, which concentrate on one specific body part 3 or healing method. 4 On the other hand, we have so-called 'Sammelhandschriften', collections of many different recipes concerning a wide array of diseases affecting various body parts. 5 Furthermore, in both of these kinds of manuscripts, we are confronted with several major types of texts describing healing practices and knowledge; only two types will be of interest here. We will look at simple recipes, naming only the treated disease, the ingredients used and their application, and at more elaborate teaching texts, 6 which list symptoms, describe the patient's condition in detail and provide more detailed information on the treatment. 7 To illustrate the different levels of knowledge that we can derive from these types of medical texts, especially concerning renal and rectal diseases and their perception in ancient Egypt, a number of significant examples will be given later, beginning with the only two extant specialised texts on that topic, Papyrus Chester Beatty VI (henceforth Bt) and Papyrus Brooklyn 47.218.75+86 (henceforth Brk).
Urinary Incontinence (Salasal Bawl) in Greco-Arabic Medicine: A Review
2015
INTRODUCTION Greco-Arabic Medicine imparts vast knowledge regarding diseases afflicting different systems. Urinary incontinence (UI) is involuntary leakage of urine. It is an undiagnosed, under-reported, and frequently untreated medical condition that greatlyaffects the quality of life of women in any age. Therefore, a literary search in classical literature of Greco-Arabic medicine for UI was explored to implement in current era. Material and METHODS Meticulous literature search was carried out to comprehend the concept of urinary incontinence described in ancient Unani literature. The classical Greco-Arabic medicine texts were searched. Further, browsing of PubMed/Google Scholar and other websites was carried by searching complementary and alternative treatment for urinary incontinence and herbal remedies useful in urinary incontinence. RESULTS The causes of urinary incontinence described in Greco-Arabic texts are abnormal temperament of body or bladder, dislocation of vertebrae, ...
Ancient egyptian medicine Contribution to urology
Urology, 1974
Most of the medical history books and articles touch only lightly on urology during the ancient Egyptian epoch. A review of those books and articles stimulated us to set forth the interesting facts presented herein about the history of urology.
Dynamis, 2014
This article offers, in the first place, an overview on women's healthcare in relation to childbirth in ancient Mesopotamia, as an introduction that helps to evaluate the meaning of the 7th century Assur text BAM 248 within therapeutic cuneiform texts on childbirth. We proceed to analyse the variety of therapeutic approaches to childbirth present in BAM 248, which brings together various healing devices to help a woman give birth quickly and safely. We analyse the text in its entirety as an example of intersection between different medical approaches to childbirth, given the number of differences in the complexity of remedies, in the materia medica employed, in the methods of preparation and application, even in the technical knowledge required and also, most probably, in the social origin and/or use of the remedies in question.
Mesopotamian Medicine and Magic: Studies in Honor of Markham J. Geller is a thematically focused collection of 34 brand-new essays bringing to light a representative selection of the rich and varied scientific and technical knowledge produced chiefly by the cuneiform cultures. The contributions concentrate mainly on Mesopotamian scholarly descriptions and practices of diagnosing and healing diverse physical ailments and mental distress. The Festschrift contains both critical editions of new texts as well as analytical studies dealing with various issues of Mesopotamian medical and magical lore. Currently, this is the largest edited volume devoted to this topic, significantly contributing to the History of Ancient Sciences.
Perplexing Remedies in Ancient Medicine: 'Dreckapotheke' in Mesopotamia and the Graeco Roman World
2024
The topic of a potential relationship between Babylonian and Greco-Roman medicine has been discussed for a long time, yet it is notoriously difficult to give it flesh and bones by means of concrete examples. The main goal of this study is to identify real elements in the therapeutical traditions of the one system that can be connected to those of the other, which would confirm a certain degree of practical knowledge-sharing between the two cultures. By analyzing Dreckapotheke (filthy medicaments) and similarly perplexing medical ingredients, and by exploiting the concept of misunderstandings in translation, I show how elements of Assyro-Babylonian therapy were still present or emerging in the pharmaceutical compositions of the Early Roman Empire, ultimately supporting the idea of at least occasional transfers of medical knowledge between the two cultures. With its positive findings, this study contributes to a broader reconstruction of the context within which ancient medicine developed. It also finds reciprocal explanations of obscure passages and fuels further questions regarding the medical interrelations/interconnections between these neighboring ancient cultures.