Watches of the day (1)

Text
The text of Ned. 40a in the Babylonian Talmud comments that during the first three hours of the day, a patient’s ‘mind is relieved’ and during the last three hours of the day, ‘weakness is severe’. Such general medical observations were used among all systems of diagnosis and prognosis, but the Aramaic text was probably based upon local medical lore from Babylonia, rather than from Greek sources. Babylonian maṣṣartu or ‘watches’ divided the day into three hour intervals, as does the Talmud, and one Babylonian diagnostic text bases symptoms on the relative condition of patient either at night vs. morning, or in mid-day, e.g. ‘when he (the patient) is ill at night and well in the morning’ (Heessel 2000: No. 17 74).

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 40a

Bibliography

Mark Geller

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