Author: Apiladey ApilSin
Date: Oct 20, 2002 - 02:43

I have two sources for this topic, from which I will quote. In the aforementioned Civilizations of the Near East (edited by Jack M. Sasson) is the paragraph Some texts appear to describe bladder or kidney stones, which, when passed, cause considerable pain and bleeding. Other texts mention incontinence in such phrases as "he keeps dribbling his urine and cannot hold it in." Such a case might be treated by introducing medication into the urethra through a bronze tube. Ancient Iraq by Georges Roux, although less comprehensive on Babylonian medicine, gives a more complete description of this procedure. It says, In the following recipe, for instance, opium by mouth and emollients in local application are prescribed for urinary retention: Crush poppy seeds in beer and make the patient drink it. Grind some myrrh, mix it with oil, and blow it into his urethra with a tube of bronze. Give the patient anemone crushed in alappanu-beer. It was this last quote that convinced me, when choosing a job at AS, that I didn't want to be a physician. It was my claim, at my e, that I am an apothecary (even though an apothecary as someone separate from a physician didn't exist until Islamic times). Ancient Iraq also offers the quote, If...for three days he has a stone of the bladder (aban mushtinni), this man will drink beer: (thus) the stone will dissolve; if this man, instead of drinking beer drinks much water, he will go to his destiny (i.e. die).