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    Chapter Depersonalized Case Histories in the Babylonian Therapeutic Compendia

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    Author(s)
    Cale Johnson, J.
    Collection
    European Research Council (ERC); EU collection
    Language
    English
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    Abstract
    Standard histories of medicine identify Hippocratic texts such as Epidemics as the earliest medical case histories in human history. In contrast to the Hippocratic case histories, it is often stated that Babylonian medicine made no use of individual case histories. In this paper, I investigate ‘depersonalized case histories’ in the Babylonian therapeutic corpora (ca. 800–600 BCE, although in many cases probably based on earlier lost sources). On the face of it, the suggestion that certain complex collocations of symptoms derive in a straightforward way from individual cases might seem far-fetched, or at minimum not a demonstrable interpretation. Comparison of Babylonian therapeutic texts with the treatment of ‘cases’ in Mesopotamian law, in particular in so-called imperial rescripts in which an individual case is converted into a general statute, suggests that certain clusters of symptom descriptions actually represent ‘depersonalized’ case histories in which personal details have been intentionally omitted from the tradition in order to make these cases suitable for inclusion within authoritative(or as I suggest we call them infrastructural) technical corpora. The identification of this process of ‘depersonalization’ may also play an important role in bringing epistemological critiques of one kind or another (Foucault on ‘the clinical sciences’ or Forrester on ‘thinking incases’) into a fruitful dialogue with Mesopotamian materials.
    Book
    In the Wake of the Compendia
    URI
    http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/23813
    Keywords
    early scientific thought; compilation and redaction in the ancient world; infrastructural compendia; empiricism
    DOI
    10.1515/9781501502507-012
    ISBN
    9781501510762; 9781501502521
    OCN
    1135847674
    Publisher
    De Gruyter
    Publisher website
    https://www.degruyter.com/
    Publication date and place
    Berlin/Boston, 2015
    Grantor
    • FP7 Ideas: European Research Council - 323596 - BabMed Research grant informationFind all documents
    Classification
    Middle Eastern history
    Christianity
    Indigenous religions, spiritual beliefs and mythologies of the Americas
    Rights
    All rights reserved
    • Imported or submitted locally

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    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

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