- Jean MacIntosh Turfa with Marshall J. Becker –
2012). Predictions keyed to days of the calendar year often warn of multiple events such
as storms, wind or rain, famine or compromised food supply, and disease; likewise, war
and hunger seem to be linked to disease. This might be the result of long folk traditions
and orally transmitted wisdom. For example:
AUGUST 13 If in any way it should thunder, there will be plague upon the bodies of
both humans and dumb animals.MARCH 18 If it thunders, it signifi es a period of severe rain, and disease, and the
birth of locusts, barrenness [of crops] near at hand.TreatmentThe most famous aspect of Etruscan divination, haruspicy, involved the excision of a
victim’s liver and scrutiny thereof by a specially trained priest. As has been noted in relation
to Egyptian mummifi cation practices, this sort of dissection in extispicy does not seem
to have transferred anatomical or physiological learning to any sort of medical practice
(although lack of anaesthetics and antibiotics would have made surgery impractical).
Trepanation, known in many cultures and eras, has been practiced in Italy since the
Neolithic period and is found in Etruria occasionally, apparently as treatment for skull
fracture or other trauma, for instance near Mantua in fi fth-century bc Bozzolo: the bone
is unhealed, implying the patient did not survive (Mazzucchi et al. 2009; Cattaneo and
Mazzucchi 2005; see Chapter 4 for additional cases in Classical Italy).
The scores of votive models of swaddled infants testify to the happy outcome of
many births, and other models imply some level of obstetrical/gynecological care or
intervention: highly stylized uteri, often depicting the wave-like ridges of third-stage
labor contractions, are perhaps the best circumstantial evidence for knowledge of human
reproduction (Figs 47.4–5). The simplifi ed form can only represent a primate’s uterus,
Figure 47.4 Liverpool uterus model, inv. 10.4.84.48, collected in nineteenth century by Joseph Mayer.
Courtesy of National Museums Liverpool (World Museum).