Problems of conceptualization in Ancient Mesopotamian medicine in the context of traditional medicine systems
HISTORY OF MEDICINE
Abstract
This article analyzes generalized concepts of bodily function, natural health, and disease, as well as systematizes models of practical healing experience in Ancient Mesopotamian medical thought. The complex of physiological and diagnostic ideas of Ancient Mesopotamia is considered in the context of the typological features of traditional medicine as a special stage in the development of medical knowledge. Explanatory models of human physiology, diagnostic experience, and the etiological and nosological systems of Ancient Mesopotamian medicine are analyzed. Methods for systematizing large volumes of diagnostic and therapeutic materials are considered: from the formal thematic organization of medical texts to complex systemic symptoms, transitional, or similar diagnoses. Conceptualization in Ancient Mesopotamian medicine is examined through the prism of the immaturity of Mesopotamian theoretical thought compared to classical systems of traditional medicine: Indian, European, and Greco-Arabic. Mesopotamian medicine focus on practical tasks and prescriptions, while ignoring theories, is compared with similar examples from the history of ancient medicine. The openness and dynamism of Mesopotamian medicine as a system is emphasized, in contrast to the sequential and closed classical systems of traditional medicine. An epistemological shift is observed between Ancient Mesopotamian medicine and modern medicine in its inductive approach to examining diseases and constructing nosological classifications. The ability of Mesopotamian medicine, despite its theoretical and methodological weaknesses, to offer universal, authentic traditional medical approaches that transcend the limitations of various historical forms of epistemology is acknowledged.
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