Talmudic medical recipes (3)

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In the Babylonian Talmud a number of recipes are ascribed to the scholar Abaye, such as the following remedy from Git. 67b, in which a ‘one-day fever’ (šymšˀ bt ywmˀ) is treated by giving the patient water; for a ‘two-day fever’, the patient is given sykwry (bloodletting?); for a ‘three-day fever’, the patient is given red meat and wine. For an ‘old fever’ (šymšˀ ˁtyqtˀ), the remedy consists of a magic ritual of applying a hen (trngltˀ) to the patient’s shaved head, after which the patient is immersed in a river. This kind of remedy is reminiscent of Akkadian Namburbî rituals, which were often administered to the patient at the river, while applying a hen to the patient’s head has parallels in Akkadian magical rituals in which a pig is laid upon a sick patient to transfer the evil from all parts of the patient’s body to that of the pig. If that particular remedy does not work, an alternative recipe for šymšˀ (sun-fever) proposes imbibing red meat with wine. Finally, for a cold, fat meat on coals with undiluted wine is to be administered to the patient. It is likely that these recipes are all abbreviated and corrupted, and although they may ultimately have been based upon more complex fever-remedies from Babylonia, there are no exact surviving Akkadian parallels.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 67b

Bibliography

Mark Geller

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