Read The 12th Planet for Free Online Page A

included sections dealing with fees payable to surgeons for successful operations, and penalties to be imposed on them in case of failure: A surgeon, using a lancet to open a patient's temple, was to lose his hand if he accidentally destroyed the patient's eye.
     
    Some skeletons found in Mesopotamian graves bore unmistakable marks of brain surgery. A partially broken medical text speaks of the surgical removal of a "shadow covering a man's eye," probably a cataract; another text mentions the use of a cutting instrument, stating that "if the sickness has reached the inside of the bone, you shall scrape and remove."
     
    Sick persons in Sumerian times could choose between an A.ZU ("water physician") and an IA.ZU ("oil physician"). A tablet excavated in Ur, nearly 5,000 years old, names a medical practitioner as "Lulu, the doctor." There were also veterinarians-known either as "doctors of oxen" or as "doctors of asses."
     
    A pair of surgical tongs is depicted on a very early cylinder seal, found at Lagash, that belonged to "Urlugaledina, the doctor." The seal also shows the serpent on a tree—the symbol of medicine to this day. (Fig. 14) An instrument that was used by midwives to cut the umbilical cord was also frequently depicted.
     

     
    Fig. 14
     
    Sumerian medical texts deal with diagnosis and prescriptions. They leave no doubt that the Sumerian physician did not resort to magic or sorcery. He recommended cleaning and washing; soaking in baths of hot water and mineral solvents; application of vegetable derivatives; rubbing with petroleum compounds.
     
    Medicines were made from plant and mineral compounds and were mixed with liquids or solvents appropriate to the method of application. If taken by mouth, the powders were mixed into wine, beer, or honey; if "poured through the recturn"—administered in an enema—they were mixed with plant or vegetable oils. Alcohol, which plays such an important role in surgical disinfection and as a base for many medicines, reached our languages through the Arabic
kohl,
from the Akkadian
kuhlu.
     
    Models of livers indicate that medicine was taught at medical schools with the aid of clay models of human organs. Anatomy must have been an advanced science, for temple rituals called for elaborate dissections of sacrificial animals—only a step removed from comparable knowledge of human anatomy.
     
    Several depictions on cylinder seals or clay tablets show people lying on some kind of surgical table, surrounded by teams of gods or people. We know from epics and other heroic texts that the Sumerians and their successors in Mesopotamia were concerned with matters of life, sickness, and death. Men like Gilgamesh, a king of Erech, sought the "Tree of Life" or some mineral (a "stone") that could provide eternal youth. There were also references to efforts to resurrect the dead, especially if they happened to be gods:
     
Upon the corpse, hung from the pole,
     
they directed the Pulse and the Radiance;
     
Sixty times the Water of Life,
     
Sixty times the Food of Life,
     
they sprinkled upon it;
     
And Inanna arose.
     
    Were some ultramodern methods, about which we can only speculate, known and used in such revival attempts? That radioactive materials were known and used to treat certain ailments is certainly suggested by a scene of medical treatment depicted on a cylinder seal dating to the very beginning of Sumerian civilization. It shows, without question, a man lying on a special bed; his face is protected by a mask, and he is being subjected to some kind of radiation. (Fig. 15)
     
    •
     
    One of Sumer's earliest material achievements was the development of textile and clothing industries.
     
    Our own Industrial Revolution is considered to have commenced with the introduction of spinning and weaving machines in England in the 1760s. Most developing nations have aspired ever since to develop a textile industry as the first step toward industrialization. The evidence shows that