The cuneiform medical texts of Mesopotamia testify to the healing activity of one of the oldest literate cultures.

The clay tablets preserve numerous illness names and symptom descriptions, hundreds of references to healing materials and various methods of treatment. Although the vast majority of our sources originate from a very restricted period (i.e.

Mesopotamian medicine was incorporated into the magical-religious worldview of the culture and there was no sharp boundary between medi­cine and magic. In fact, it has already been observed that medical as well as magical means were used at the same time to handle certain medical prob­lems, and incantations and other magical acts are documented in the cunei­form medical corpus.^[61] Despite the wealth of information about Assyrian and Babylonian medical lore, defining their scientific conception of disease is prob­lematic because the various types of sources emphasised different aspects of Mesopotamian medicine.^[62] The supernatural and religious background of the illnesses is generally clear but we do not wholly understand the relationship between the deities, symptoms, diseases and healing procedures. According to the curse formulas and prayers, the deity could either be the sender of the illnesses or, on the other hand, the names of some diseases refer directly to specific gods.^[63] Furthermore the identification and invocation of the relevant deity was a condition for successful treatment.^[64]

In the therapeutic prescriptions, the scientific conceptualisation of illness is based on the medical rubric (e.g. if somebody has been ill with such-and- such a disease), which could contain the name of the disease and a descrip­tion of its symptoms—e.g.