MEDICINE IN ANYCIENT BABYLONIA

MEDICINE IN ANYCIENT BABYLONIA (MESSOPOTAMIA)

SPECIFICALLY THE “LAWS OF HAMMURABI”

By: Helao Silas

Mesopotamia

Babylonia is the city from ancient Mesopotamia conceding with Tigris-Euphrates basin, around 7th AD.It is ruins lies where Iraq is based today. It was an ancient Akkadian speaking nation and cultural based in central southern Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia became a an independent state in 1894 after fierce battles between tribes. This empire was ruled by many dynasties, prior to such as Amorite dynasty 1894-1155Native rule of Isin 1155-1026 BC, Assyrian and Persian ruled around 620 BC.

CITY OF BABYLONIA

THE HAMMURABI’S KINGDOMBabylonia remained a tiny city until its sixth king Hammurabi, an Amorite lived 1792-1750 BCE, after the death o f his father-Sin-Muballit.Hammurabi as a king established the very first centralised government with written laws. He waged wars and conquering other nations until the whole of Mesopotamia came under his control and rule; and became to known collectively as Babylonia.

States covered under new Babylonia

Hammurabi code of laws

What make Hammurabi outstanding among all the other kings, is the order he gave for the establishment of written laws. He expelled Emalites.The code has been as an early example of primitive constitutional law regulating the government, idea of being innocent until proven guilty in the court.These laws were written on the stel and diotere approximately of the of the size of the human being.These laws were 282.THE LAWS WERE WITTEN IN THE LANGUAGE PEOPLE CAN READ AND UNDERSTAND.

Subjects covered by Hammurabi laws

1. Religion127-”If anyone point a finger at a sister or god, wife of someone; he shall be taken before the judge and have his skin marked. 2. TradeLaw#265-if the herdsman , to whose cattle or sheep have been entrusted, be guilty of fraud and make false return of the natural increase or sell them for money, he shall be convicted and pay the owner.

Laws continues……..3. Slaverylaw#15-if anyone take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed ma, he shall be put to death.4. The duties of workersLaw#42- if anyone take over the field to tilt it, and no harvest was obtained, and his neighbour obtained good harvest, it must be proven that he did not work on the field.5. TheftLaw#15- If a man has committed highway robbery and has been caught, that man shall be put to death. 6. Food Law#104- if the merchant give a certain agent to transport, the agency should give the receipt to the merchant .7. Military service

Hammurabi laws to physicians

206=If a man has struck another in quarrel, and caused him a permanent injury, that man shall swear, "I struck him without malice," and shall pay the doctor. 215=If a surgeon has operated with the bronze lancet on a patrician for a serious injury, and has cured him, or has removed with a bronze lancet a cataract for a patrician, and has cured his eye, he shall take ten shekels of silver.

Laws regarding Physicians……..216. If it be a plebeian, he shall take five shekels of silver. 217. If it be a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels of silver to the surgeon. 218. If a surgeon has operated with the bronze lancet on a patrician for a serious injury, and has caused his death, or has removed a cataract for a patrician, with the bronze lancet, and has made him lose his eye, his hands shall be cut off. 219. If the surgeon has treated a serious injury of a plebeian's slave, with the bronze lancet, and has caused his death, he shall render slave for slave. 220. If he has removed a cataract with the bronze lancet, and made the slave lose his eye, he shall pay half his value.

Laws regarding physicians………

221. If a surgeon has cured the limb of a patrician, or has doctored a diseased bowel, the patient shall pay five shekels of silver to the surgeon. 222. If he be a plebeian, he shall pay three shekels of silver. 223. If he be a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels of silver to the doctor. 224. If a veterinary surgeon has treated an ox, or an ass, for a severe injury, and cured it, the owner of the ox, or the ass, shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel of silver, as his fee.

Medicine Medical diagnosis and prognosis

There was a real common ground among these Babylonian forms of knowledge... an approach involving analysis of particular cases, constructed only through traces, symptoms, hints. Depending on the form of knowledge called upon. Toward future, that was the medical science of symptoms, with its double character, diagnostic, explaining past and present, and prognostic, suggesting likely future of a patient.

Babylonian Texts

The most extensive Babylonian medical text, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū, or chief scholar, Easilgl (1069-1046 BC).Along with contemporary ancient Egyptian medicine, the Babylonians introduced the concepts of diagnosis , prognosis , physical examination, and prescriptions. In addition, the Diagnostic Handbook introduced the methods of therapy and aetiology and the of empiricism, logic and rationality in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. The text contains a list of medical symptoms and often detailed empirical observations along with logical rules used in combining observed symptoms on the body of a patient with its diagnosis and prognosis.The disease where treated by means of therapeutic (bandaging, creams and pills) or if not curable, the patient was referred to seek cleansing from curses.

SOURCES:

Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters, by C. H. W.

• Johns, in 1904, one of a series called the “Library of Ancient Inscriptions”, from a facsimile produced by The Legal Classics Library, Division of Gryphon Editions, New York in 1987.

• http://www.ancient.eu.com.EDU• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonia