Renal and Rectal Disease Texts (review)

For many years the therapeutic medical literature of Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq) has languished inaccessible to medical historians. Older translations are largely obsolete, while more recent ones are often published piecemeal in journals devoted to Mesopotamian studies, where "outsiders" are unlikely to find them. A significant number of sources have never been edited at all. In such a situation, an entire volume of editions of therapeutic medical recipes is most welcome.

Geller's book aims to gather together all known prescriptions for diseases of the rectum, kidneys, and urinary tract (though a number of shorter recipes were apparently overlooked). It edits over forty tablets of therapeutic prescriptions (in varying states of preservation) and a number of related documents. There are also two indices: a list of the incipits of the various recipes, and a list of Sumerograms with Akkadian equivalents. The ancient sources are in Akkadian (i.e., Babylonian and Assyrian), inscribed on clay tablets in cuneiform script. Geller presents them in transliteration into Roman characters and translation on facing pages, so that in principle the book can be consulted by scholars without knowledge of the ancient languages. Copies (scale drawings) of the tablets themselves, when not already available elsewhere, appear in an appendix.

Three justifications are adduced for studying renal and rectal conditions together: both are often treated with invasive procedures; both refer to the lower abdomen; and both appear listed together in an ancient catalogue of medical prescriptions. It is also worth noting that they can sometimes crop up in the same prescription (e.g., page 207, lines 45-53, hereafter 207:45-53), and that discharges from the penis and anus are both occasionally described using vivid comparisons with menstruation and gynecological conditions (cf. 69:17', 105:4, and 189:6' with 141:14', 213:19, 215:27, 215:42, and 219:2'). (An apostrophe following the line number indicates that the numbering refers to a fragment rather than a complete text.)

A large amount of work has gone into the making of this book. It contains many astute decipherments and makes available for the first time a large corpus of interesting and important evidence. For this, the author, one of a small number of scholars with expertise in Mesopotamian medical literature, deserves thanks and recognition.

At the same time, the volume begs criticism at several levels. Its aim is "to make the material accessible to non-specialists [i.e., to Assyriologists who do not specialize in medical matters] and even non-Assyriologists" (vii). For someone with no previous acquaintance with Mesopotamia, however, the volume is not user-friendly. The introduction is extremely short and fails to provide essential background information. For instance, it fails to alert the reader to the comprehensive bibliography of Mesopotamian medicine in Heeßel's volume Babylonisch-assyrische Diagnostik (2000, with the update in the Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes, 2005, 6), and gives the reader little sense of what Mesopotamian medical literature exists apartfrom that dealing with renal and rectal diseases. It will leave medical historians lacking previous acquaintance with the medical literature of Mesopotamia feeling baffled.

As for the editions themselves, the commentary on individual prescriptions is sparse. More would have been desirable, for complexities in decipherment and translation, and the author's thought-processes in grappling with them, are sometimes hidden. This would matter less, perhaps, if the translations were fully accurate. Alas, however, little care seems to have been devoted to the volume in the final stages of preparation. It is awash with inconsistencies and minor errors. For example, "the leaf of silver rosette (and that) which is called nuşābu" should be "leaf of the silver rosette whose (common) name is nuşābu" (47:32); manuscript B₁ (=AMT 61,1) reads [i-n]a-a&#x0163 (from ná&#x0163u "to have a bowel complaint...