The Practice of Diagnosis in Mesopotamian Medicine: With Editions of Commentaries on the Diagnostic Series Sa-gig (2012)
Wee, John Zhu-En (Author)
Yale University
Frahm, Eckart Erich Marcel
Edition Details: Advisor: Frahm, Eckart Erich Marcel.
Physical Details: 779 pp.
Language: English
This dissertation examines the practice of medical diagnosis in ancient Mesopotamia, clarifying the ways in which observed bodily phenomena were expressed in the language of medical signs, as well as how textual contexts and the physicality of textual objects shaped the interpretation of written observation claims. Of central importance is a composition named Sa-gig (the Diagnostic Series), which was systematized by the 11th century BCE scholar Esagil-kin-apli, and whose most remarkable characteristic was the "head to foot" arrangement of medical signs in its second subseries (i.e., Subseries II). Because earlier diagnostic and therapeutic texts organized medical information around themes of diagnosed maladies, any one of these texts would not have been recognized as relevant unless the doctor already knew or suspected the identity of his patient's malady. In contrast, because Subseries II prioritized the "medical sign" over the "malady," the doctor could consult it as a reference from the starting point of nescience and arrive by inductive reasoning at diagnosed maladies that were atypical for the medical signs under consideration. The new diagnosis was portrayed as a complement to physiognomy and as a continuation of terrestrial divination, situating it intellectually as an integral part of larger inquiries about the world. Though individual medical entries in the Diagnostic Series have precursors in earlier texts, older elements such as the head-to-foot ordering of bodily descriptions, the formulaic expression "he is struck in his body part X," the attachment of time references, the practice of addressing the malady as "sickness" ( murs[dotbelow]u ), and the title of an older diagnostic work ("as you approach the sick man") were all invested with new meaning in the context of the Diagnostic Series. Where parts of therapeutic series or individual therapeutic tablets arrange medical information "from head to foot," the parameter thus organized is the "malady," resulting in sequences of medical entries that differ radically from the head-to-foot order of "medical signs" in Subseries II. A comparison of both reveals a subtle but important difference in the way they envision the relationship between sickness and body parts. For example, while therapeutic texts are concerned with "eye conditions," Subseries II goes further in exploring "conditions that can affect the eye." Included in the dissertation are new cuneiform text editions and translations of commentaries on the Diagnostic Series Sa-gig, the majority of which derive from the Achaemenid city of Uruk and are ascribed to Anu-iks[dotbelow]ur and his Sangû-Ninurta family of magicians ( asipu's ). While the commentaries are substantially medical in nature, they are rhetorically presented as scholastic works aligned with broad fields of textual learning. As evidentiary support, they cite diverse textual authorities such as lexical lists, divinatory texts on terrestrial and astrological omens, prayers, incantations, and literary compositions. In line with such interdisciplinary emphases, they also employ two-member, multiple member, and single member patterns of argumentation that are applicable across different genres. These commentaries functioned as ancient "medical textbooks," attesting to the knowledge assumptions, methodologies of diagnosis, and medical vocabularies possessed by both commentators and their students. They suggest that these medical students, who were being initiated into the Diagnostic Series, were already expected to be familiar with language conventions and concepts in the therapeutic tradition. Moreover, the commentaries show that it was conceptually difficult to describe medical signs in isolation from the manifestations of a known malady, and that there was a natural tendency to understand unusual written descriptions and atypical medical phenomena in light of more common language idioms and medical conditions. While Subseries II represents an intellectual achievement in terms of heuristic method, its capacity to express unusual medical signs could be hampered by such harmonizing propensities.
...MoreDescription Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 73/12(E), Jun 2013. Proquest Document ID: 1038171695.
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