Night blindness in Babylonian Talmud (1)

Text
Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 69a:
For night blindness let (the healer) take a rope of white strands and bind together one of (the patient’s) legs and a leg of a dog, while children toss potsherds behind him and say to him (the incantation): “Heal the dog, hide the cock.” Let (the healer) collect seven pieces of meat from seven houses, and position them for himself on the door-pivot, and let them (the dogs?) eat (the meat) on the town’s refuse-heap. After this, undoing the white rope, let (the healer) say: “O blindness of So-and-so, depart from So-and-so’, and let them stab (or blow at) the dog in the pupil of the eye. For day blindness let (the healer) take seven red (pieces) from the belly of animals, and let him roast them in a craftsman’s vessel. Let (the healer) place himself inside, with the other man outside, and let (the healer) say to (the patient), “Blind one, give that I may eat!” Let (the patient) say to him: “Open-eyed one there, take and eat!” After it is eaten, let him break the vessel, that (blindness) not return to him.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 69a

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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