Fever in the Babylonian Talmud

One of the best indicators of infection in a world without medical instruments was the presence of fever in a patient, but fever could both serve as a symptom and designate a disease.

These Aramaic passages are typical of Babylonian (Akkadian) medicine. Several of these recipes were transmitted by Abaye in the late fourth century CE. He attributed them to ’em, a word usually translated as “mother.” The word ’em instead probably referred to a healing expert; it should be read as an abbreviation of ’oman, “expert.” Many of these recipes are comparable to nontalmudic medicine of the same period or earlier. (For a different identification of ’em, see “Em, Abaye’s Teacher.”)