© John Z. Wee, 2021 | doi : 10. 1163 / 9789004443143 _ 015 Chapter 13 A Systemic Etiology of Sicknesses from Ancient Iraq: Organ Systems and the Functional Holism of the Babylonian Body John Z. Wee Abstract From the Late Achaemenid city of Uruk comes a single cuneiform document de- scribed here as a Systemic Etiology, which attributes to various sicknesses their origins ‘from’ four ancient organ systems – psychic, alimentary, respiratory, and excretory-reproductive – that bear remarkable resemblance to classifications in mod- ern biology. Features of such a functional holism may already be detected, in vary- ing degrees, elsewhere in the Mesopotamian medical literature. The striking manner in which the Etiology re-categorizes certain sicknesses, nonetheless, illustrates how holisms do not organize their constituents in a disinterested fashion, or group them together merely on the basis of previously known characteristics, but can also reframe perspectives in ways that impose new meanings on individual constituents’ identities. Many hundreds of cuneiform medical tablets from ancient Iraq compel us to rethink the ways we write ancient histories of medicine. In contrast to medical manuscripts of papyrus, parchment, or paper that often survive today in rela- tively late copies, these highly durable clay tablets from Mesopotamia come to us from much closer to their milieus of composition, transmission, and usage, allowing us to envision probable scenarios in which such documents were ac- tually employed in historical contexts. While the cuneiform materials open up new kinds of agenda beyond what have been considered in the study of other ancient medical cultures, there are also issues on which they are particularly intractable – among which is the question of how individual sicknesses and bodily constituents were assigned to separate categories that, when viewed in relation to each other, informed one’s understanding of the whole. Explanatory discourses in Greek or Chinese treatises, for example, have ar- ticulated or clearly implied well-defined positions and principles on general topics like nutrition, the environment, medicaments, or categories of sickness. 9789004443082_Thumiger_text_proof-02.indb 318 9789004443082_Thumiger_text_proof-02.indb 318 24/09/2020 6:37:57 pm 24/09/2020 6:37:57 pm