Text
Kethuboth 77b cites Abaye’s remedy for raˀtan-disease, which follows an enumeration of the disease symptoms:
‘it’s remedy: pylˀ (= Akkadian pillû ‘mandrake’), lwdnˀ (var. lwd, lydnˀ, lywdnˀ), grinding (gyrdˀ) of a nut (ˀgwzˀ: var. dˀzgˀ ‘glass’) and of ˀšpˀ (‘hide’, but the var. dˀwškpˀ ‘saddler’ is better, since Akkadian aškāpu, ‘leatherworker’ is both plant name and stone name), and the klyl mlkˀ (‘crown of the king’, var. klylˀ dmlkˀ) of the mtḥlˀ (var. mtḥlyˀ) of a red date palm (= Akkadian tuhallu, ‘unripe date’), boiled (šlyq) together equally (bhdy hddy, var. adds mṣprˀ wˁd pnyˀ, ‘from morning to evening’).’
The rest of the recipe is also difficult: the patient is brought into a ‘house of marble’ (bytˀ dšyšˀ), but if there is none, he is brought into a house seven bricks thick (var. lybny, lwbny); 300 cups of the mixture are poured on his temple (ˀrˁytˀ, ˀryytˀ) until his ‘brain’ is soft, and he tears open (qrˁ) his brain [mwḥyh] (var. wqrˁ lyh lmwḥyh) and brings 4 leaves of myrtle (ˀsˀ) to be hung from each foot and put upon it, and it is taken with shavings and burned or else it will return to him. The garbled wording of this recipe gives the impression of an attempt at brain surgery, which is extremely unlikely. The misunderstanding can be explained by reexamining the terms involved. The phrase to be ‘hung from each foot’, for instance, probably refers to a foot of scales, and the final clause that the medical application must be burned reflects a very much older although uncommon practice in Akkadian medicine, in which used poultices or bandages were to be burned. Furthermore, expressions such as lmwḥyh does not refer to the ‘brain’ (mwḥ) but represents a verbal form with 3 m. s. suffix, lit., ‘to mash it’. The verbs qrˁ (‘to tear’), rpy (‘to make soft’), and mwḥ (‘to mash’), all refer to things which are done to the materia medica, not to the patient. The rest of the passage is also likely to be corrupt. For instance, ‘house of marble’ (bytˀ dšyšˀ) is probably for by šmšˀ ‘at twilight’. The common Akkadian instructions upon which this text is probably based refer to preparing materia medica either in daylight (ina mahar šamši) or setting them under the stars (ina kakkabi tušbat).
Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Kethuboth 77b
Bibliography
| Geller 2004, 24-25 | Geller, Mark J. Akkadian Healing Therapies in the Babylonian Talmud. Preprint 259. Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte 2004. [PDF] |
Links (external links will open in a new browser window)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (1)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (2)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (3)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (4)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (6)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (7)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (8)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (9)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (10)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (11)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (12)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (13)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (14)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (15)
Cf. Talmudic medical recipes (16)
Cf. Talmudic nosebleed recipes (1)
Cf. Talmudic nosebleed recipes (2)
Mark Geller
URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000938.php
|
