The “Four Organ-System” and developments in Mesopotamian medical theory in the 1^st millennium BCE

The Late Babylonian text SpTU 1, 43, copied by a conjurer from Uruk at the end of the 5^th or beginning of the 4^th century BCE, is a unique document among Mesopotamian medical texts. It presents a culture-specific disease taxonomy with four sections, in which groups of diseases are listed according to four internal organs, in which the diseases are believed to originate: the heart, the stomach, the lungs, and the kidneys. This text has sparked considerable interest and discussion in Assyriological research (see e.g. Geller 2001-02; 2014; Steinert 2016), because it can be compared with similar theoretical models and developments in Greek and Chinese medicine, known as the system of the four humours and the five agents/phases.

The aim of this presentation is to analyse the physiological and nosological concepts found in SpTU 1, 43 within the context of Mesopotamian medical texts and to present parallels for similar systematisations in contemporary therapeutic texts.

Please note: the colloquium starts at 10 am sharp.