Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary

Ancient Mesopotamian Commentaries on a Handbook of Medical Diagnosis (Sa-Gig), Cuneiform Monographs Vol. 49/1
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-41754-0
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 49, 493 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 889 g

Reihe: Cuneiform Monographs

Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary is intended for historians of medicine and interpretation, and explores the dynamic between scholastic rhetoric and medical knowledge in ancient commentaries on a Mesopotamian Diagnostic Handbook.

In line with commentators’ self-fashioning as experts of diverse disciplines, commentaries display intertextuality involving a variety of lexical, astronomical, religious, magic, and literary compositions, while employing patterns of argumentation that resist categorization within any single branch of knowledge. Commentators’ choices of topics and comments, however, sought to harmonize atypical language and ideas in the Handbook with conventional ways of perceiving and describing the sick body in therapeutic recipes. Scholastic rhetoric—supposedly unfettered to any discipline—served in fact as a pretext for affirming current forms of medical knowledge.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Z Wee, John

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Naher & Mittlerer Osten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

I. Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary

Preface

Acknowledgements

Contents (Two Volumes)

List of Figures

Medical Text Labels and Abbreviations

Format and Translation Issues

Glossary

I.1 Introduction to the Sa-gig Commentaries

I.1.1 The Situatedness of Commentaries

I.1.2 The Diagnostic Handbook Sa-gig and Its Serialization

I.1.3 Serialized Variants and Their Interpretation

I.1.4 The Presentation of Alternatives in Text Series and Commentaries

Chapter Two: Commentary and Scholastic Rhetoric

I.2.1 Commentary Designations and Scribal Actors

I.2.1.1 “Glossary” (sâtu)

I.2.1.2 “Oral Lore” (šut pî)

I.2.1.3 “Readings” (malsûtu)

I.2.1.4 “Questionings” (maš'altu)

I.2.1.5 “From the Mouth of the Ummânu-scholar” (ša pî ummâni)

I.2.1.6 Patterns of Commentary Designations

I.2.2 Textual Sources of Authority

I.2.2.1 Lexical Text Citations

I.2.2.2 Narratival Intertextuality

I.2.2 Forms of Argumentation

I.2.3.1 Two-Member Arguments

I.2.3.2 Multiple Member Arguments

I.2.3.3 Single Member Arguments

I.2.4 Exemplar and License in Scholastic Hermeneutics

Chapter Three: Commentary and Medical Knowledge

I.3.1 Epistemic Progression in Medical Practice and Texts

I.3.1.1 The Therapeutic Tradition

I.3.1.2 Structuring the Diagnostic Handbook

I.3.2 Harmonizing Texts and Phenomena

I.3.2.1 Knowledge Assumptions in Topic Choice

I.3.2.2 The Pericope and Omissions from Topics

I.3.2.3 Comment Choice and Argument as Pretext

I.3.1 Habits of Use and the Cuneiform Handbook

I.4 Conclusion: Scholasticism and the Boundaries for Interpretation

Appendix One: Embedded Variants in the Diagnostic Handbook Sa-gig

Appendix Two: Transliterations of Medical Texts

Bibliography

Index of Excerpts (Two Volumes)

II. Mesopotamian Commentaries on the Diagnostic Handbook Sa-gig

Preface

Acknowledgements

Contents (Two Volumes)

Medical Text Labels and Abbreviations

Format and Translation Issues

Chapter One: Edition of the Sa-gig Commentaries

II.1.1 Commentary Sa-gig 1A

II.1.2 Commentary Sa-gig 1B

II.1.3 Commentary Sa-gig 1C

II.1.4 Commentary Sa-gig 1D

II.1.5 Commentary Sa-gig 1–3

II.1.6 Commentary Sa-gig 3A

II.1.7 Commentary Sa-gig 3B

II.1.8 Commentary Sa-gig 3C

II.1.9 Commentary Sa-gig 4A

II.1.10 Commentary Sa-gig 4B

II.1.11 Commentary Sa-gig 4C

II.1.12 Commentary Sa-gig 5

II.1.13 Commentary Sa-gig 7A

II.1.14 Commentary Sa-gig 7B

II.1.15 Commentary Sa-gig 7Ca

II.1.16 Commentary Sa-gig 7Cb

II.1.17 Commentary Sa-gig 7Cc (?)

II.1.18 Commentary Sa-gig 10 & 11

II.1.19 Commentary Sa-gig 13+

II.1.20 Commentary Sa-gig 14

II.1.21 Commentary Sa-gig 18

II.1.22 Commentary Sa-gig 19

II.1.23 Commentary Sa-gig 21 & 22a

II.1.24 Commentary Sa-gig 23

II.1.25 Commentary Sa-gig 29

II.1.26 Commentary Sa-gig 34

II.1.27 Commentary Sa-gig 36

II.1.28 Commentary Sa-gig 39

II.1.29 Commentary Sa-gig 40A

II.1.30 Commentary Sa-gig 40B

Chapter Two: Commentary Notations

II.2.1 Disjunction Sign

II.2.2 “The Case of / Where” (ša)

II.2.3 “Which It Said” (ša iqbû)

II.2.4 “As in” (libbû)

II.2.5 “Complement to” (IGI / pani)

II.2.6 “(Points) to” (ana)

II.2.7 “The Usual (Meaning)” (kayyan)

II.2.8 Other Notations

Photographs

Bibliography

Index of Excerpts (Two Volumes)

Über Autor(innen)

John Z. Wee, Ph.D. (2012), Yale University, is Assistant Professor of Assyriology at the University of Chicago. He is author of books and articles on medicine and astronomy in Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman antiquity, and editor of The Comparable Body (Brill, 2017).