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Two Medical Texts from Nimrud (Continued)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Extract

The text of this fragment consists of a number of medical prescriptions, and the six of these which are either complete or very nearly so, together with the first line of a seventh (Obv. i, 26, given as the fourth in order) form the basis of this study. Details of the discovery of the fragment were given in Iraq, XVIII, Pt. 2, p. 130; for the copy see Pl. XXV of the same issue. The system of transliteration which is adopted is that which conveys the text exactly as written, in the belief that, while this procedure inevitably makes for slow reading in a scientific work, only thus can it be safeguarded against possible transcriptional error. The translation wrestles with difficulties both of meaning and interpretation and the need for improvement should be recognised in many places.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1957

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References

page 41 note 1 The necessary shading has been inadvertently omitted from the copy.

page 41 note 2 Omitting I.18, see end note.

page 43 note 1 The translation is that of Thackeray and Marcus in the Loeb Classical Library edition.

page 43 note 2 Copy AŠ DI.

page 43 note 3 Gurney, , A.S. VI, 163 Google Scholar. This reference I owe to Dr. Gurney himself to whom I am also grateful for other assistance

page 43 note 4 This phrase appears to be commonly used where English would prefer ‘arms and legs.’

page 44 note 1 Cf. Labat, , T.D.P. 190, 17 Google Scholar.

page 44 note 2 Cf. Wilson, S. A. Kinnier, Neurology, 2nd edition, Vol. 3, 1636Google Scholar. ‘Clonic’ derives from clonus (Gk. klonos), the term used to denote a series of movements characterised by alternate contractions and relaxations.

page 44 note 3 Num. xxiv.4 and 16. A.V. ‘falling into a trance’ follows the LXX: . The phrase has also occurred amonst the Dead Sea fragments in the form (see Allegro, , J.B.L. LXXV (1956), 183 Google Scholar, but the rendering there given, ‘with eye skinned and uncovered’, even if meaningful, hardly translates the Hebrew.

page 44 note 4 Cf. Labat, , ‘frissons glacés’, T.D.P. 164, 77 Google Scholar, where the same phrase occurs, also C.A.D. VI, 248 Google Scholar and K. 10798, C.T. XVIII, 17 Google Scholar, ḫur-ba-[šu] after ṙšātu, ‘fever’.

page 44 note 5 On this term see Iraq, XVIII Pt. II, pp. 130 ff. and 145–6Google Scholar.

page 45 note 1 Catalogue Tablet XXVII.

page 46 note 1 On bultu, ‘prescription’ cf. A.M.T. 99, 2, 26–7 also Gurney, , A.S. VI, 161, l.127 (‘cures’)Google Scholar.

page 46 note 2 For this meaning cf. (1) šim-bi-zi-igi-gun-nu = e-gu-u ša e-qí-e, II R 36, 57g; (2) the use of the verb kḥal in Syriac medicine for the application of drugs; and (3) the ideogram MAR for egû, which probably reflects Sum. igi-mar, eme-sal of igi-gar, ‘to apply make-up to the eyes’ (e.g. Inanna's Descent, I.25).

page 46 note 3 Note particularly ma-ak-ra-ku = ṣi-in-du š´ ast, C.T. XVIII 13 Google Scholar, K. 275, 5 (a line discussed also by Oppenheim, , On Beer and Brewing, 49 Google Scholar, n.70), and cf. H.A.B.L. 108, Rev.

page 47 note 1 From D.A.B. 240.