The Supernatural Aspect of “Fever”
The supernatural aspect of the Mesopotamian conception of disease is clearly seen with illnesses that have magical causes such as witchcraft, the attack of a harmful demon or ghost, or divine anger.
The above mentioned lexeme izi = isatu “fire” probably refers to the personified or demonised disease^1 but our sources also mention two other harmful demons who can cause a rise in body temperature: first, the female demon Lamastu, whose destructive activity was connected to heat and fever;52 and, second, the male demon Asakku, who frequently appears in connection with the di’u and suruppu illnesses. Di’u refers to some kind of infection with a high body temperature—probably malaria.[104] Suruppu “frost”, referring to an illness that causes a drop in body temperature, was interpreted by Stol as stadium frigoris in malarial[105] [106] [107] [108] So the Asakku demon could be considered the demonised form of this illness.55 Although ummu was not associated with a specific god, in the diagnostic texts some deities and supernatural beings, such as Lamastu,56 Sin57 and ghost,5[109] were connected with diseases with various forms of “fever”. On the other hand, himit seti is always attributed to qat il abisu “the hand of the personal god of (the patient's) father”.5[110]The supernatural aspect of “fever” is also demonstrated by its treatment with amulets and phylacteries. Although references to amulets against hot temperature are rare in the magical-medical corpus,[111] we have more prescriptions for phylacteries.[112] The following text is from one of the most comprehensive tablets from Assur, and it contains a separate section of phylacteries for ummu:
1If somebody is seized by fever hair of skull [...] “flea” broken 2place (it) in his neck and rub him with ankinutu-plant.62 (then) he will recover. 3If ditto “bone-of-mankind” [...] 4harmunu-plant (and) salve (him).
4If ditto (you wrap) “fly-catching spider” [into a fleece].5lf ditto you wrap black (hair from) the leg of donkey,63 “fungus of leatherworker” into a piece of leather.64
6If ditto (you wrap) scale of snake mother scorpion, “bone of mankind”, 7soiled rag, black frit, musu-stone sasuntu-plant into a piece of leather.
8If ditto (you wrap) hulu-mouse, andahsu-plant[113] [114] [115] [116] [117] into a fleece (and) place (it) in his neck. 9If ditto (you wrap) nuhurtu-plant, thread of [...] lizard (from) the steppe (and) oil into a piece of leather. i°If ditto you crush cumin, kammantu-plant, male and female nikkiptu- plant, kukru-plant,66 n6urdsu-juniper, “fox-vine”-plant, these plants you mix together with oil, boil (them) in a bronze tamgussu-vessel, nthrow a lizard into it, you roast (it) on fire, [...as soon as] it has been boiled, lift (it) out, i3throw down, cool (it) and recite the incantation “The Sky is destroyed, the Earth is destroyed” three times then salve him and he will recover. i4Eight poultices in order to remove the fever that has seized the man (bam 315 i 28-42). The use of phylacteries pertains to the magical-medical aspect of Mesopotamian medicine. In some prescriptions the phylactery served as a supplementary treatment to therapeutic medicine: 9'If in his illness he experiences [recurrent] attacks of fever (lit. heat), he becomes numb, and also i°'he has no sa[li]va—Hand of Zaqiqu, Deputy n’Power of [...]. In order to release him from the hand of Zaqiqu 12’you put... and coral, male and female (part) of nikkiptu-(plant) i3’around his neck; finally, you repeatedly rub him with fox-grape and he will recover.[118]