Editing History of medicine (section)

=== Ancient Mesopotamian medicine ===
[[File:Medical recipe concerning poisoning. Terracotta tablet, from Nippur, Iraq, 18th century BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul.jpg|thumb|A [[cuneiform]] terracotta tablet describing a medicinal recipe for poisoning (c. [[18th century BC|18th century]] [[Common Era|BCE]]). Discovered in [[Nippur]], Iraq.|left|alt=A terracotta tablet describing a medicinal recipe concerning poisoning (c. 18th century BCE). Museum of the Ancient Orient, Turkey.]]The [[Mesopotamia]]n region, covering much of present-day [[Iraq]], [[Kuwait]], [[Syria]], [[Iran]], and [[Turkey]], was dominated by a series of civilisations including [[Sumer]], the earliest known civilisation in the [[Fertile Crescent]] region,<ref>{{Cite journal | vauthors = Borchardt JK |date=2002 |title=The beginnings of drug therapy: Ancient mesopotamian medicine |journal=Drug News & Perspectives |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=187–192 |doi=10.1358/dnp.2002.15.3.840015 |pmid=12677263 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | vauthors = Robson E |date=2008-06-28 |title=Mesopotamian Medicine and Religion: Current Debates, New Perspectives |journal=Religion Compass |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=455–483 |doi=10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00082.x }}</ref> alongside the [[Akkadians]] (including [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]] and [[Babylonia]]ns). Overlapping ideas of what we now understand as medicine, science, magic, and religion characterised early Mesopotamian healing practices as a hybrid [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalistic]] and [[supernatural]] [[belief system]].<ref name="McIntosh2005">{{cite book |title=Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspectives |vauthors=McIntosh JR |date=2005 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-966-9 |location=Santa Barbara, California, Denver, Colorado, and Oxford, England |pages=273–76}}</ref><ref name="Abusch">{{cite book |title=Mesopotamian Witchcraft: Towards a History and Understanding of Babylonian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature |vauthors=Abusch T |publisher=Brill |year=2002 |isbn=978-90-04-12387-8 |location=Leiden, The Netherlands |page=56}}</ref><ref name="Farber1995">{{cite book |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780684192796/page/1891 |chapter=Witchcraft, Magic, and Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia |vauthors=Farber W |date=1995 |title=Civilizations of the Ancient Near East |publisher=Charles Schribner's Sons, MacMillan Library Reference, Simon & Schuster MacMillan |isbn=978-0-684-19279-6 |volume=3 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780684192796/page/1891 1891–908] |access-date=2018-05-12}}</ref>

The [[Sumer]]ians developed one of the earliest known writing systems in the [[3rd millennium BCE]], and created numerous [[cuneiform]] clay tablets regarding their civilisation. These included detailed accounts of [[drug prescriptions]] and operations, as well as exorcisms. These were administered and carried out by highly defined professionals including ''bârû'' (seers), ''[[Ašipu|âs[h]ipu]]'' (exorcists), and ''asû'' (physician-priests).<ref>{{Cite journal | vauthors = Retief FP, Cilliers L |date=2007 |title=Mesopotamian medicine |hdl=10520/EJC68840 |journal=South African Medical Journal|volume=97 |issue=1 |pages=27–31|pmid=17378276 }}</ref> An example of an early, prescription-like medication appeared in [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] during the [[Third Dynasty of Ur]] ({{circa}} 2112 BCE – {{circa}} 2004 [[Common Era|BCE]]).<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Biggs RD |year=2005 |title=Medicine, Surgery, and Public Health in Ancient Mesopotamia |journal=Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies |volume=19 |pages=7–18 |number=1}}</ref>

Following the conquest of the [[Sumer]]ian civilisation by the [[Akkadian Empire]] and the empire's eventual collapse from a number of social and environmental factors,<ref>{{Cite journal | vauthors = Cullen HM, Demenocal PB, Hemming S, Hemming G, Brown FH, Guilderson T, Sirocko F |date=2000 |title=Climate change and the collapse of the Akkadian empire: Evidence from the deep sea |journal=Geology |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=379 |doi=10.1130/0091-7613(2000)28<379:ccatco>2.0.co;2 |bibcode=2000Geo....28..379C }}</ref> the [[Babylonia]]n civilisation began to dominate the region. Examples of [[Babylonian Medicine]] include the extensive Babylonian medical text, the ''Diagnostic Handbook,'' written by the ''ummânū'', or chief scholar, [[Esagil-kin-apli]] of [[Borsippa]],<ref name="Horstmanshoff_2004">{{cite book |title=Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine |vauthors=Horstmanshoff HF, Van Tilburg CR, Stol M |publisher=Brill |year=2004 |isbn=978-90-04-13666-3 |location=Leiden}}</ref>{{rp|99}}<ref name="Heeßel_2004">{{cite book |title=Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine |vauthors=Heeßel NP |date=2004 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-13666-3 |veditors=Horstmanshoff HF, Stol M, Tilburg C |series=Studies in Ancient Medicine |volume=27 |location=Leiden, The Netherlands |pages=97–116 |chapter=Diagnosis, Divination, and Disease: Towards an Understanding of the ''Rationale'' Behind the Babylonian ''Diagnostic Handbook'' |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p6rejN-iF0IC&pg=PA97 }}</ref> in the middle of the 11th century [[Common Era|BCE]] during the reign of the Babylonian king [[Adad-apla-iddina]] (1069–1046&nbsp;BCE).<ref>{{cite book |title=Epilepsy in Babylonia |vauthors=Stol M |date=1993 |publisher=STYX Publications |isbn=978-90-72371-63-8 |location=Groningen |page=55}}</ref>

This medical treatise devoted great attention to the practice of [[diagnosis]], [[prognosis]], physical examination, and remedies. 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 their diagnosis and prognosis.<ref name="Horstmanshoff_2004" />{{rp|97–98}} Here, clearly developed rationales were developed to understand the causes of disease and injury, supported by theories, agreed upon at the time, of elements we might now understand as natural causes, supernatural [[Magic (supernatural)|magic]] and religious explanations.<ref name="Heeßel_2004" />[[File:Cuneiform tablet fragment of a medical text c 9 to 7 BCE.png|alt=A Neo-Assyrian cuneiform tablet fragment describing a medical text (c. 9th to 7th century BCE).|thumb|A [[Neo-Assyrian Empire|Neo-Assyrian]] [[cuneiform]] tablet fragment describing medical text (c. [[9th century BC|9th]] to [[7th century BC|7th century]] [[Common Era|BCE]])]]Most known and recovered artefacts from the ancient [[Mesopotamia]]n civilisations centre on the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire|neo-Assyrian]] ({{circa}} 900 – 600 [[Common Era|BCE]]) and [[Neo-Babylonian Empire|neo-Babylonian]] ({{circa}} 600 – 500 [[Common Era|BCE]]) periods, as the last empires ruled by native Mesopotamian rulers.<ref>{{Cite book | vauthors = Scurlock JA |title=A Companion to the Ancient Near East: Snell/Companion |date=2005 |publisher=Blackwell Publishing Ltd |isbn=978-0-470-99708-6 | veditors = Snell DC |location=Oxford, UK |pages=302–315 |doi=10.1002/9780470997086|hdl=11693/50901 }}</ref> These discoveries include a huge array of medical clay tablets from this period, although damage to the clay documents creates large gaps in our understanding of medical practices.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Fetaya E, Lifshitz Y, Aaron E, Gordin S | title = Restoration of fragmentary Babylonian texts using recurrent neural networks | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | volume = 117 | issue = 37 | pages = 22743–22751 | date = September 2020 | pmid = 32873650 | pmc = 7502733 | doi = 10.1073/pnas.2003794117 | arxiv = 2003.01912 | bibcode = 2020PNAS..11722743F | doi-access = free }}</ref>

Throughout the civilisations of Mesopotamia there are a wide range of medical innovations, including evidenced practices of [[prophylaxis]], measures to prevent the spread of disease,<ref name="McIntosh2005" /> accounts of stroke,<ref>Karim, S., & Amin, O. (2018). Stroke in ancient mesopotamia. Medicinski Arhiv, 72(6), 449-452.</ref> and an awareness of mental illnesses.<ref name="NemetNejat">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinancie00neme |title=Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia |vauthors=Nemet-Nejat KR |date=1998 |publisher=Greenwood |isbn=978-0-313-29497-6 |location=Santa Barbara, California |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinancie00neme/page/80 80]–81 |author-link=Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat |url-access=registration}}</ref>