Ašipu
In ancient Mesopotamia, asipu (also āšipu), were practitioners of diagnosis and treatment techniques used in Tigris-Euphrates valley of Mesopotamia (a modern-day Iraq) around 3200 BC. At the time, ideas of science, religion and witchcraft were closely intertwined and formed a basis of asiputu, the practice used by asipu to combat sorcery[1] and to heal decease.[2] Asipu directed medical treatment at the Assyrian court, where they predicted the course of the decease from signs observed on the patient's body and offered incantations and other magic as well as the remedies indicated by diagnosis.[3]
Asipu visited sick people's houses and were tasked with predicting the patient's future (e.g. he will live or she will die) and also to fill in details about the symptoms that the patients may have disregarded or omitted.[4] The purpose of the visit was to identify the divine sender of the illness based on the symptoms of a specific ailment.[5]
Asipu also acted as advisers on risky, uncertain and difficult decisions. Asiputu was unusual for that period in history because asipu did not claim to foresee the future but approached the construction of advice through a repeatable, consistent process of identifying important dimensions of the problem, considering alternatives and collecting data. The practice was similar to modern balanced methodology in hazards risk management where alternatives were marked with plus or minus signs depending on favorability.
References
- ^ Abusch, Tzvi. Mesopotamian Witchcraft: Towards a History and Understanding of Babylonian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature. p. 56.
- ^ Brown, Michael (1995). Israel's Divine Healer. Zondervan. p. 42.
- ^ Oppenheim, Leo (1977). Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. University of Chicago Press. p. 304. ISBN 0226631877.
- ^ Horstmanshoff, Herman. Magic And Rationality In Ancient Near Eastern And Graeco-roman Medicine. 2004. p. 39.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - ^ Horstmanshoff, Herman (2004). Magic And Rationality In Ancient Near Eastern And Graeco-roman Medicine. p. 99.
- Clifton D. Bryant; Dennis L. Peck (2006). 21st century sociology: a reference handbook. SAGE Publications. ISBN 1-41-291608-9.
- Rüdiger Trimpop (1994). The psychology of risk taking behavior Elsevier. ISBN 0-444-89961-8
- Daniel M. Kammen; David M. Hassenzahl (2001). Should we risk it?: exploring environmental, health, and technological problem solving (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-07457-7