Talmudic materia medica (1)

Text
In Ned. 41b, a Hebrew proverbial statement claims that ˁrsn is good for illness, but the Aramaic Talmud asks what this substance is. One authority explained ˁrsn as ‘husks of barley which are stuck in the top of the sieve’, and the scholar Abaye comments that it requires boiling like ox flesh. It is likely, however, that the materia medica referred to corresponds to Akkadian arsānu-groats, which were boiled in a soup as part of the preparation of a remedy.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 41b

Bibliography

Mark Geller

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