Talmudic medical recipes (14)

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The expression ‘virgin goat’ in this recipe is a calque from the expression in Akkadian ritual, namely unīqu lā petitu, lit. a ‘goat not opened’, and Akkadian recipes also use the spleen as a drug. The recommendation to drink water from a smithy is based upon an observation which is similar to the casuistic associations in Akkadian omens.

Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 69b:
For swelling of the spleen, let him take seven leeches and dry them in the shade and every day drink two or three in wine. Alternatively he may take the spleen of a virgin goat which has not yet had young, and stick it inside the oven and stand by it and say, ‘As this spleen dries, so let the spleen of So-and-so son of So-and-so’ dry up’. … Or again, he can take a fish and fry it in a smithy and eat it in the water of the smithy and wash it down with the water of the smithy. A certain goat which drank from the water of a smithy was found on being killed to have no spleen.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 69b

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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