It has sometimes been claimed that the earliest medicine in Mesopotamia was a “rational” or “scientific” medicine which was only later “contaminated” by magical practices. Recently published letters from Mari (modern Tell Hariri), however, clearly show the physician, asû(m), and magician, (w)āšipu(m) or mašmaššu(m) working side by side on the same cases. There is no hint in the ancient texts that one approach was more legitimate than the other. In fact, the two types of healers seem to have had equal legitimacy, to judge from such phrases as “if neither medicine nor magic brings about a cure,” which.
