(flatulence) (Foster 1993 : II 858 ; Cadelli 2000 : 84 ), which is addressed to flatulence:
‘O wind, wind, you are the hot wind of the gods, the wind (situated) between the
turds and urine! You have exited and your stool is placed among the gods (or spirits),
your brothers!’ The jocular tone of the incantation seems clear.
The difference in tone between ‘medical’ incantations and those found within
traditional magical texts may be explained by context and purpose of the compositions
themselves. Although incantations as separate compositions were intended to solve
certain kinds of problems, usually primarily addressed to the patient’s anxieties or
fears, medical texts existed for entirely different reasons. The medical corpus was
intended for the alleviation of symptoms through prescriptions and uses of drugs,
with the incantations only serving an ancillary function. Hence, the incantations did
not have to define the patient’s problems in the same way, nor did they actually have
to treat the problems, but the incantations within the medical corpus were used to
illustrate the problems in some way easily understandable to the patient, without
being too technical or complex. Hence the use of simple analogy, often in a nursery-
rhyme style, was adopted, since the real work of the medical text was performed by
the diagnosis and prescription, combined with the application of the drugs.
Finally, not all medical incantations are either simple or humorous, since occasionally
we encounter spells of more literary value, which also serve some sort of therapeutic
purpose. One good example are incantations against masˇkadu-illness, which refer to
the goddess Gula – patron goddess of healing – and her role within the process of
therapy. The following examples of incantations to Gula within the medical corpus
speak for themselves in encouraging the patient to accept his treatment and hope for
a cure.
I, [Gula’s] servant, have called on you in the midst of the remote heavens.
Alone [.. .] I stand before you, I am speaking, listen to me!
Because I am ill, I stood before you, woe is me!
Great one who knows illness, I am alone, woe is me!.
You are the august queen who grants good life and good health.
My lady, be calmed and have pity.
O she who saves lives help me (lit. take my hand) with this unknown sickness,
(and) to my dying day let me praise you.
May the onlooker praise your divinity,
(and) as long as I am alive let me praise you.
[I], your servant [the] incantation-priest, will praise you.Incantation. I beheld your face, [O Gula], august healer,
[.. .], you are supreme and pre-eminent,
together... this drug which I hold up before you.
In these days, there exists pardannuor sˇahhihu-diseases,
discharge or stricture or rectal-disease or incontinence, or one bleeds like a
woman or whatever illness that I am sick with,
and you know what I do not know: am I to drink this drug?
With these drugs (or days?) let me be healthy, let me be well, let me be
happy,
so that I may praise your great divinity!— Incantations within Akkadian medical texts —