Talmudic nosebleed recipes (1)

Text
This Talmudic recipe dealing with blood from the nose contains prescriptions of drugs and tampons, like the Akkadian recipes from Seleucid Uruk. The ritual prescribed in the Talmud are also known from Mesopotamia, although no exact duplicate can as yet be found (cf. Namburbi).

Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 69a:
For nosebleed … he can take root of clover (ˀspstˀ = Akkadian aspastu) and rush (= Akkadian ašlu) from an old bed and papyrus (?) and saffron and the red part of a palm branch and roast them all together. Then take tufts of wool and twist two strands (ptyltˀ = Akkadian pitiltu) and soak it in vinegar, and cut it in ashes and place it in his nostrils. Or he can look for a watercourse running from east to west and stand astride over it and pick up some clay with his right hand from under his left leg and with his left hand from under his right leg and twine two threads of wool and rub them in the clay and put them in his nostrils.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 69a
SAA 10 321
SAA 10 322

Bibliography

Amar Annus

URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000957.php