Magico-Medical Means of Treating Ghost-Induced Illnesses in Ancient Mesopotamia (review)

JoAnn Scurlock draws on all known Babylonian and Assyrian medical texts, most of which were found in the library of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (ca. 650 BC), and singles out 352 passages on the negative effects of ghosts on human well-being as well as the relevant treatments. In part 1 of the book she evaluates the contents of the texts. Ghosts made themselves obnoxious in three distinct ways: by emitting screams, by haunting people in visible form, and by causing physical problems (p. 5). The physical problems were many; they affected the whole body, and included neurological disorders (pp. 10–18). It is interesting that they did not cause women's troubles, jaundice, urinary tract and anal problems, constipation, cough, toothache, skin diseases, stroke, or more than a few of the many eye problems (p. 19). The following Babylonian belief is only vaguely indicated in the book: We know from nonmedical texts that the ghosts entered the head through the ears (p. 78 n. 1289), and not through the sole of the foot (as suggested on p. 64). You can hear them in your skull talking in their language, sounding like nonsense syllables (p. 23)—that is why ear-disease incantations are often phrased in incomprehensible, often rhyming, words, like tuhat shukhat ukkipshu sukkipshu (pp. 413–14; according to Scurlock, normal Babylonian language).

The treatments are largely magical: incantations, prayers (legomena) (pp. 23–41), or rituals using figurines, amulets, fumigants, bandages, and so forth (dromena) (pp. 43–65). The main actor is the healer, the expert in magical lore, but healers also experimented with plants, according to the author (pp. 71, 79, 83). On the qualities of the 251 medicaments, "preliminary remarks" are made; a book is in preparation (pp. 67–71).

In the conclusion of part 1 Scurlock discusses some general problems of Babylonian medicine. Sin is an important cause of disease, but not "moral" sin as "an ethical defect"—rather, it is any offense against the gods or ghosts (pp. 73–74). The distinction between "natural" and "supernatural" causes is not relevant in polytheistic religious traditions (pp. 76–77). Medicine and magic were two categories of prescriptions, the one "inspired by some sort of demonological theory" (magic), the other "suggested by the trial and error application of the various medicinal plants" (medicine): "The distinction is, however, not between 'magic' and 'medicine' as we define them, but remedies directed primarily against the putative cause of the illness and those directed primarily against the symptoms which the illness has produced" (p. 82).

The largest part of the book (part 2, B) is an edition of the 352 passages in transliteration and translation. Many of them have never been edited, and this edition is most welcome. Collations of original clay tablets were made in the museums. This reviewer, an Assyriologist, can attest that the translations are reliable. One remark: the word lippu is mostly translated "suppository" (p. 65) but also "tampon, burl" (thus the dictionaries) (pp. 483, 486, 734).

Identifications of Babylonian medical terminology or disease descriptions with modern concepts are sometimes new and surprising; they have been explained in another book by J. Scurlock and B. R. Andersen, published almost simultaneously, Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005). Examples in the book under review are "alcoholism" (pp. 19, 78), "cholera (dehydration)" (p. 19), and more (pp. 77–78). In general, rational explanations of seemingly meaningless "magical" activities are suggested more than once (pp. 63–64, 67: the qualities of snake skin, fumigation, salves; p. 140 n. 922: grease as disinfectant).

This is a comprehensive and stimulating book.