Story

The Babylonian kingdom reached its highest prosperity and power in the Old Babylonian period in the time of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) - one of the most prominent rulers of antiquity, which united under its rule the scattered lands of Dvurechie and created a powerful state that included the entire Lower and most of Upper Mesopotamia.

The system of knowledge of the ancient Babylonians (as well as other peoples of ancient Mesopotamia) was determined primarily by practical necessity. They achieved great success in agriculture and pottery, in the manufacture of fabrics and the production of metals, in the development of law and the development of architecture, linguistics, mathematics, astronomy, and healing. The mathematical methods of the Babylonians, rooted in Schumer, were compared with the achievements of all the other modern civilizations of them for three thousand years, that is, up to the Hellenistic era. Does the whole world use their division of a circle by degrees today? minutes and seconds. The sundial and the division of the day into 12 parts, proposed by the Babylonians, were subsequently borrowed by the Greeks. It is no coincidence that our watch has 12 digits on the dial, and the year consists of 12 months. All this is the result of astronomical observations of the Sumerians, and then - the Babylonians, who in the middle of I millennium BC. e. they introduced mathematical methods in astronomy (one of the main achievements of the Mesopotamian science) and precisely determined the duration of the lunar month and the solar year, the time of the spring and autumn equinox.

The Babylonians believed that earthly life is a reflection of heavenly and perceived all the phenomena of public life and human health in unity with the whole world, that is. The universe.

The powerful neighbor of Babylonia was the Assyrian kingdom. Its original capital was Al-Shur. During the time of the Sargonid dynasty (late VIII – VII centuries BC), the city of Nineveh became the capital of the kingdom. The highest power of Assyria reached at Ashshurbanapale (c. 668-626 BC), the conquests of which greatly expanded the borders of the kingdom.

Ashurbanapal himself described his conquests in the following words:

“The King of Arabia, Wight ... fell into my captivity. Having lifted up my hand, which I used to raise to subdue my enemies, and taking into it the orders of the god Ashur and the goddess Nin-lila, I polished my face, ordered him to put a bridle on him, put him on the dog belt. cage at the eastern gate ... whose name is "Gates of the Processions of Nations."

“The remaining population ... I interrupted. With the chopped meat of their bodies I fed the dogs, pigs, wolves, vultures, birds of the sky and fish in the freshwater sea. ”

At the same time, this cruel king created the largest royal repository of cuneiform texts in the then world (the so-called “library” of Ashurbanbanapala). At the behest of the king, the cuneiform tablets were copied in all the territories under his control and were brought to Nineveh. Thus, in the originals and copies, almost all Sumerian and Akkadian literature was collected: texts on philosophy, religion, mathematics, astronomy, business correspondence, fortune telling, etc. Some of the plates of this collection are devoted to the description of diseases and their treatment methods (Fig. 9).

The ability to write made Ashshurbanapal "the most outstanding of the Pis-1: s," and he deliberately emphasized in the last of his tablets: "Of the kings that preceded me, no one mastered the art of pits."

Two centuries later, when the mussels were the conquerors razed to the ground by Nineveh, under its ruins they perished, and _:;: a large collection of cuneiform texts, which was discovered only by archeologists in the ::. of the last century.

For centuries, in the culture and scientific knowledge of Assyria ~: it was mainly kept by the Babylonian traditions. This allows one to speak of the Babylonian-Assyrian cult (and healing) as a single whole ..

Mythology and healing

The ancient Babylonians adopted the beliefs of the Sumerians and the pantheon of the Sumerian gods (just as one and a half millennia later, the ancient Romans borrowed the pantheon of the ancient Greek gods). They retained their functions, but gods or other names. According to the ideas of the ancient Babylonians, the supreme triad of gods stood in the world Ave: the sky god Anu, the ruler of the earth, and: the heat Enlil and the god of the water element of the World Ocean) Ea (Eya).

According to legend, Ea knew the depths of the Yud, where, as the Sumerians believed, wisdom reigned. Therefore, Ea was worshiped just as the god of wisdom and the patron of the medical art. He transmitted the secret of the knowledge of water to those who "know the water" —asu (noise. A-zu, Akkad. Asu). This name in ancient Mesopotamia was called healers, who were portrayed in the form of fish (Fig. 10). The essential attributes of the asu were a jug of water and an incense burner with coals — a ritual vessel for burning incense.

In addition to the supreme triad of the gods, there was another triad: the sun god Shamash, the god of the moon, Sia, and the goddess of the Morning star Ishtar.

People believed that the image of Ishtar brought healing from diseases. Thus, the ruler of the country Mitanni - Dushratta (XIV century BC) sent a statue of Ishtar of Nineveh to Egypt to the sick pharaoh Amenhetep IV (Akhenaten), thus expressing his faith in the healing powers of Ishtar.

The goddess Ereshkigal, the mistress of the underworld - "a country from which there is no return" was considered just as powerful. Her husband, the god Nergal, who conquered Ereshkigal and also became the ruler of the underworld, ruled, among other things, infectious diseases and fevers that, like ghosts, crawled out of the underworld. The direct opposite of Ereshkigal was the goddess of healing and healing, Gula, who received her art from the supreme triad of gods.

Gula is translated from Sumerian means "Great." Under this name, it is mentioned in the texts of Mesopotamia since the XXII century. BC e. She was also called the “Great Healer” or “Reviving the Dead Buzz”. It was believed that by touching her clean hand she returns the dead to life. Along with this, they believed that Gula could also send incurable diseases. Gula's cult animal was a dog, which was often depicted next to it (Fig. 11).

In addition to Gula, the patrons of healing were Ninaza - “the lord of knowledge of water” and Ningishzida - “the lord of the good tree” (the tree of life). The Ningishzidi emblem was a staff entwined with two snakes, which later became one of the emblems of medicine. The oldest image of such a staff was made on the cup of a Sumerian ruler from the city of Lagash - Gudea, who lived in the XXII century. BC e. (Fig. 12).

At the time of Hammurabi, in connection with the rise of the capital city of Babylon, his patron Marduk, son of Ea, became the supreme deity. All positive qualities were attributed to Mar-Duku: from the all-conquering power in battles to the healing of the sick.

On the territory of Assyria supreme

In addition to the gods, the world of the inhabitants of the ancient Dvorichchia was filled with demigods, heroes, seven wise men and seven evil demons, other demons and spirits. Some of them were considered good, but most were evil, fearsome creatures who, according to the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, constantly watched people and were responsible for unpleasant events and the occurrence of diseases.

In general, the ideology of ancient Mesopotamia was religious and wore a ritual and magical character. She consecrated the existing system of family, community, state, and property, and contributed to the strengthening of royal power. Its influence on the development of empirical knowledge (and healing, among other things) over time became more and more tangible.

Healing development

Medical knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia has long been transmitted orally. In the Old Babylonian period, they increasingly began to be recorded on clay tablets. Collections of plates were selected on the basis of signs of disease or the names of the affected parts of the body. Their combination constituted a kind of "guide", very valuable for healers.

By the middle of the II millennium BC. e. In ancient Mesopotamia, two main directions of healing were formed: asuta (akkad. Asutu - the art of healers) and ashiputa (akkad. asiputu - the art of spellcasters).

The empiricist healers — asu (Akkad. Asu — knowing water) were engaged in the art of healing. Representatives of another direction were called ashipu (akkad. Asipu - exorcising).

Both traditions remained almost unchanged until the second half of the 1st millennium BC. Oe. when, in connection with the strengthening of religious beliefs, they merged into one, closer to ashiputu, “it was prestigious that today we call unscientific medical speculation,” noted the famous Assyriologist A. Oppenheim.

Ideas about the causes of diseases in ancient Mesopotamia can be divided into three main categories.

1. Associated with the violation of ritual, legal, moral and other prescriptions in the community. For example: "... he approached a married woman" or "... he approached the priestess of his god; within 31 days he will recover and will live. "

2. Associated with natural phenomena and lifestyle. We should not think that the diseases of the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia were associated only with evil spirits. They were also explained by the use of junk food, bathing in a dirty river, and contact with dirt and sewage.

3. Related to religious beliefs (“the hand of God”, “the breath of the evil spirit”, “the embrace of Lamashtu”, etc.).

So, it was thought that the demon of the storm, Pazuzu, caused headaches and nausea, and the terrible old woman Lamashtu, who wanders around the city at night and throws herself at children, spreads childish fever. Lamashta was depicted as a scruffy old woman with the paws of a bird of prey and the head of a grimacing lion (Fig. 13). “Protection” against such “witchcraft” was quite adequate: women wore small figures of demons around their necks or placed them under the threshold of their house in order to frighten off demons with their own image, and the spellcasters read magical texts that were in such a set that their targeted search created special catalogs for the sections “Deliver from the spell ...”, “Headache”, “Diseases of the throat”, “Deliver from evil spirits with the help of flour water ...”, etc.

The doctor-asu often associated the occurrence of diseases with natural causes. The ashipu exorcist, on the contrary, is primarily with supernatural powers: the “hand” of a particular god, demon or ghost, evil spell, etc. Along with this, ashipu allowed that diseases can occur without the participation of gods or demons, for example, fever or "hit" in the head (the description of which resembles a stroke).

At the same time, nowhere - neither in the texts of asutu nor in the texts of ashiputu - diseases are associated with the emanation of stars and astral cults, which in ancient antiquity did not exist in Mesopotamia.

Contrary to the opinion that had long dominated Europe, there is no written evidence on the development of astrology in ancient Babylonia — it became an “important science” at the Assyrian court of the Sargonids (VII century BC), surpassing the value of divination by internal organs ( Fig. 14). In Babylonia, fortune-tellers were not priests, and the stepped towers (ziggurats) were not, as recently considered, astronomical observatories.

The Babylonian mathematical astronomy, which was famous for the ancient Mesopotamian science, was not associated with astral cults, which spread in ancient Mesopotamia in the later period of its history and were characteristic not so much of the Middle East, as of Hellenistic Egypt and medieval Western Europe, as evidenced by significant the number of astrological texts and documents that have come down to us from the Hellenistic era, the Roman and Byzantine periods (O. Neugebauer, A. Oppenheim).

Having determined the disease and its cause, he made a prediction before the start of treatment. In the texts of ashiputu, he is most often unfavorable: “he will die,” <he will not recover, ”etc. A favorable prognosis is less common:“ he will live, ”“ he will recover, ”“ his illness will go away ”,“ he will recover and will live". If the forecast was hopeless, ashipu (unlike the asu) was deleted without starting healing. Ashipu even had warnings against treatment: "This person is under the dangerous influence, do not approach him." Perhaps this is due to the beginnings of ideas about infectious diseases.

Asu's predictions are usually optimistic: “he will recover,” “he should be treated,”. The forecast "he will die" in texts asuta is rare. Here is an example of such an unfavorable forecast:

"If a person suffers from jaundice in such a way that his illness has reached the center of the eyes ... this person is in pain, he is all sick, he will not last long and will die."

If the disease was beyond the competence of the asu, he "did not stretch out his hand" (later this expression appeared in the "Hippocratic Collection") ..

Asu medical treatment was aimed at relieving specific manifestations of the disease. The goals of his treatment were quite real: “stop the fever and fever”, “take away the swelling”, “make the disease go away”, “calm the protruding vessels of the arms and legs”, etc.

Asu was a great connoisseur of local medicinal flora and fauna. He used medicinal herbs (mustard, cumin), roots, seeds (in particular, about 50 kinds of seeds), vegetables (onions, garlic, lettuce, peas, cucumbers), leaves and fruits of trees (dates), cedar balsam, mineral means (alum, red iron ore, sulfur, salts), petroleum, animal products (honey, wax, ghee, mongoose blood, fish oil, mussel shell, goat and lamb skin), birds, sheep excrement, etc.

The names of many drugs in cuneiform texts are expressed by signs we do not understand. They may be encrypted. That is why most of them cannot be identified with the famous today.

The physicians themselves collected the medicinal products, compiled and stored them, and boiled them themselves with honey, beer, vinegar, water, or solid fat. The composition of each finished drug consisted of several components (sometimes more than 20). Finished products with dressings were applied on strips of leather and fabric, rubbed with oil during the massage process, used in rinsing and washing, injected with enemas, used in the form of ointments, powders, pills, candles and tampons. Unlike the asu, the main thing in the ritual of the healer was the ashipu spell casting. A collection of 40 incantations of spells and ceremonial actions under the general title “When the caster goes to the patient’s house” is found in the manuscript repository of Ashshurbanapal. The art of his healing lay in the realm of what is today called “psychotherapy,” but behind this art was another aspect of his activity — drug treatment. So, in one of the tablets states:

If the seizures are caused by the ghost's hand, tie five drugs ... to a strip of lamb skin and wrap it around the patient's neck, and he will feel better.

It is clear that the five medicines that have already been tested in practice, in combination with the healing properties of the lamb skin itself, could not have had a favorable effect.

Sometimes during the process of healing, Ashipu made figurines of clay or wax, depicting a sick or “haunting” ghosts, in order to scare or destroy them. An important place in the Ashipu rites was occupied by magic circles, which he outlined around the patient, and magic numbers (3 times, 7 drops, etc.). He defined the critical days of recovery or exacerbation of the disease that he had predicted in advance, based on previous experience; and always accompanied his actions with an address to the gods (as a rule, Marduk and Na-bu) and good spirits.

The set of drugs to ashipu was significantly narrower than the empiricist asu doctor. However, in almost every recommendation there is an indication of the use of drugs. For example: "... 25 drugs to free from witchcraft" or: "sage (?) Herb herbs and mix it with oil; Say the spell three times and put it on the tooth. "

The mentioned spell - "Conspiracy against toothache" - is a highly artistic literary work of ancient Mesopotamia and deserves to bring it in full:

When Anu made heaven,

Heaven made the earth

Earth has created.

Rivers made channels, 5 Channels made swamps,

Marsh worm made.

Worm went to Shamash, crying,

Before God Ea his tears flow,

“What will you give me for food? 10 What will you give me for sucking? "

"Ripe figs

And apricot juice.

“What do I need figs

And apricot juice? 15 To settle among the teeth,

Make the jaw my dwelling.

I will suck the blood from the tooth, 18-19 I will gnaw the roots of the tooth. "

20 "Grab the tip, grab the root!

To yourself, worm, you chose that!

Bless you

Mighty hand! "

Translated by V. K. Afanasyev

In the ancient Mesopotamian texts there is no mention of the removal or filling of teeth. It is reported only oj the use of anesthetic pastes (containing henbane) and medicinal mastics (with herbal ingredients), which were placed in the hollow of the sick tooth.

The unsuccessful outcome of the doctoring (which was quite natural at that level of development of medicine) was attributed to Ashipu by the intervention of supernatural forces: “such is the will of the gods” or “the disease did not go away because the patient did not accurately perform the prescribed ritual of taking the medicine”, etc. Thus , prestige ashipu has always remained high.

The reputation of empiricism-asu was more vulnerable: his failures were attributed not so much to the account of the gods, as to the account of the healer himself. As a result, the asu gradually lost their positions.

However, in general, as cuneiform texts indicate, the treatment of asu was more effective than the treatment of ashipu. This is also confirmed by the letter plates of the healer Mukallim (Mukallim, XIV century BC), who treated patients in the temple near Nippur: he successfully cured fevers and inflammation of the respiratory organs, co-diseases and injuries. In all the letters of Mukallim and his assistant, who was engaged in the preparation of medicines (the so-called "pharmacist"), there is not a single word about prayers or spells - his treatment was empirical.

From Mukallim's letters it is clear that the patients were under his supervision during the whole illness. Consequently, in ancient Mesopotamia, at the temples there were premises for the sick (“hospitals”), where they treated noble people (Mukallim reports on the treatment of the princess), servants of temples, and even slaves:

Two of your adult slaves, ”writes Mukallim to the chief administrator of the temple,“ who fell into a well: one of the clavicle is broken, the second smashed his head; let my lord write to give oils [for rubbing] in order to let them get better.

This letter, as well as the Laws of Hammurabi, suggests that in some cases slaves in ancient Mesopotamia were healed.

The structure of the human body in ancient Mesopotamia was not studied (the autopsy of the bodies of the deceased is not mentioned in the texts). The dissection of the sacrificial animals gave only the most general idea of ​​the large internal organs: liver, heart, kidneys, intestines, stomach.

Women engaged in childbirth. According to the legal texts, after the death of the woman in labor it was allowed to cut down a live baby by cutting the abdomen (i.e. by cesarean section).

None of the medical texts of ancient Mesopotamia mention what we call surgical treatment; there is no evidence of tooth extraction, lifetime cesarean section, or craniotomy, which is so common in other regions of the world. However, legal texts and collections of laws speak of the remuneration of the healer for the successful treatment of injuries or the successful “incision with a bronze knife”.

The most extensive monument of law, ancient Mesopotamia are. Laws of the sixth Babylonian king of the first dynasty Hammurabi. They are carved on a basaltic pillar 2.25 m high (Fig. 15), which was discovered in 1901 by a French archaeological expedition led by J. de Morgan during excavations of the ancient city of Susa (on the territory of modern Iran). The laws of Hammurabi are among the most ancient laws of the world and clearly reflect the social relations of the period of early slavery in the East.

Some sections of the Law relate to the legal aspects of the activities of physicians. In case of successful treatment, they received a very high reward:

221. If a doctor has spliced ​​a broken bone [in a person] or cured a sore joint, [then] the patient must pay the doctor five shekels of silver.

222. If [this] is the son of a mushkenum, [then] he must pay three shekels of silver.

223. If [it is] a slave of a man, [then] the slave master must pay the doctor two shekels of silver.

At the time of Hammurabi, for one shekel of silver (approx. 8.4 g), one could buy 300 liters of grain. According to the consumption standards of that time, a man required about 550 liters of grain (barley) at the rate of 1.5 liters per day per year (meat was eaten only during the rites of sacrifice). For women and children, the norms of grain were two times less. Thus, the five silver jokles accounted for a large amount: it was possible to feed several people for a whole year.

With the general severity of the Hammurabi Laws, such a high payment to the healer for treatment was associated with a greater risk of his profession due to the custom of "talion" (equal pay for equal: eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth). In the event of an adverse treatment outcome, the healer was severely punished:

218. If the healer made a strong incision to a free person with a bronze knife and [so] killed this _human, or made an incision in the nakkaptu area (eyebrow or temple) to that person with a bronze knife and [that] destroyed the eye of this person, he should cut off his hand (translated And M. Dyakonov and V. A. Yakobson).

“A strong incision with a bronze knife” in this part of the head could have been made in various cases (with abscess, wound suppuration, etc.) and was always invariably associated with a greater risk of damaging the eye, blood vessels or nerves, especially in the absence of adequate anatomical knowledge of the Babylonians . That is why, with a favorable outcome of the same operative intervention, the doctor received the highest reward:

215. If a healer made a strong incision to a free person with a bronze knife and: zac of a person or made an incision in the area of ​​riskkaptu (eyebrow or temple) to this person: using a speeding knife and saved the person's eye, then: n must receive ten shekels of silver.

216 .. If the patient is a mushkenum, then he is flat five shekels of silver.

217. If the patient is someone's slave, then the geepodin slave pays the healer two shekels of silver.

Various healer's fees for: the bottom and the same treatment testifies: social inequality and social stratification of society, and k'ak consequence - a class approach to medical activity, and the organization of medical affairs.

As already mentioned, strict hygiene regulations have long existed in Mesopotamia. However, sewage systems in the cities have not been built for a long time (it is advantageous in this nlan, it differs from the Kharappa _ :: the vilization of ancient India, the mid-3rd millennium BC, see page 69). All sewage, as a rule, was thrown into the street (this was done later in the cities of Western Europe and the East).

In Assyria, channels for supplying water and wastewater began to be built in capital cities. So, in Nineveh, but the times of Sinanherib were- erected a grand water supply 18 km long. He had a slope of 1: 80 and rested on numerous arched bridges that passed over the valleys with gorges. One of the bridges, Dzher-Zansky, was about 300 m long and relied on 14 columns. The bed of the aqueduct was lined with three layers of limestone slabs. Water was fed through an artificial reservoir. vilische, created as a result of the erection of the dam, and changes in the bed of eighteen rivers. The construction of the Canal Sinanherib ended in 691 BC. e. - more than two centuries before the construction of the first Roman aqueduct (see p. 115).

However, natural and artificial reservoirs were so contaminated (see p. 62) that there was a custom: not to drink raw water from canals and rivers, but to drink boiled beer and other various beverages that were prepared in large quantities and were widely consumed by both adults and others. and children.

Medical transfer

knowledge was carried out in a narrow circle of initiates: “Let the initiate (who knows) show his secrets of magical knowledge — the initiate; May the uninitiated not see them; as for the son you are patronizing, make him swear by the names of Asalluhi (Mardu ka) and Ninurta ... then show him ... "

The students of the doctor were called asu agashgu (akkad. Asu agasgu). They studied masculinity in the famous traditional secular school of Babylonia (e-Dubba), which existed until the 17th century. BC e. The activities of e-Dubba had a very positive effect on the development of natural science knowledge in Mesopotamia.

Specially about medical schools in the texts of ancient Mesopotamia is not mentioned. In all likelihood, they did not exist yet.

The number of freely practicing healers in ancient Mesopotamia was small .. Their position in society was different depending on the historical period and tended to deteriorate over time due to the decline in the prestige of the empiricists asu. At the Assyrian court in the last centuries of the history of Assyria, only aspihu exorcists served (there are no references to the court healers of the Asa).

The position of the healers at the court was very important: they monitored the health of the king, his family and the harem (only women and eunuchs were allowed into the harem). The most famous court healers were sometimes sent to other countries for the treatment of their monarchs. So, it is known that in the XIII century. BC e. The Babylonian king sent his healer to the Hittite king.

Cuneiform tablets also indicate some medical specialization. Thus, in the Old Babylonian texts there is a single mention of a woman doctor who treated women's diseases, and in the New Babylon texts (XI-VI centuries BC) it is said of healers who treated eye diseases. Much has been said about veterinarians Mu-naishu (akad. Muna "isu - healers for cattle, noise. A-zu ansu - donkeys). In veterinary practice, Mu-naishu often castrated oxen. They also performed this operation on people (number The eunuchs who served the palaces of the kings in ancient Mesopotamia were very large.) Subsequently, the operation of the castration began to be carried out by specially trained people (not doctors).

By the middle of I millennium BC. e. medicine of ancient Mesopotamia was valued lower than ancient Egyptian. This is evidenced by Herodotus, who visited Mesopotamia in the middle of the 5th century. BC Oe., when the lands of the Two Years were conquered by the Persians and the states of Babylonia and Assyria no longer existed. However, throughout its centuries-old history, Babylonian-Assyrian culture had a great influence on the development of scientific knowledge throughout Western Asia, where the Mesopotamian medical texts, which corresponded almost without change before the beginning of our era, were widely distributed along with cuneiform writing.