Paragraph 215.  If a doctor has treated a gentleman for a severe wound with a bronze lances and has cured the man, or has opened an abscess of the eye for a gentleman with the bronze lances and has cured the eye of the gentleman, he shall take ten shekels of silver.

218.  If the doctor has treated a gentleman for a severe wound with a lances of bronze and has caused the gentleman to die, or has opened an abscess of the eye for a gentleman and has caused the loss of the gentleman’s eye, one shall cut off his hands.

219.  If a doctor has treated the severe wound of a slave of a poor man with a bronze lances and has caused his death, he shall render slave for slave.

220.  If he has opened his abscess with a bronze lances and has made him lose his eye, he shall pay money, half his price.

221.  If a doctor has cured the shattered limb of a gentleman, or has cured the diseased bowel, the patient shall give five shekels of silver to the doctor.

224.  If a cow doctor or a sheep doctor has treated a cow or a sheep for a severe wound and cured it, the owner of the cow or sheep shall give one-sixth of a shekel of silver to the doctor as his fee.(22)

     (22) The Oldest Code of Laws in the World; translated by C.
     H. W. Johns, Edinburgh, 1903.

HEBREW MEDICINE

The medicine of the Old Testament betrays both Egyptian and Babylonian influences; the social hygiene is a reflex of regulations the origin of which may be traced in the Pyramid Texts and in the papyri.  The regulations in the Pentateuch codes revert in part to primitive times, in part represent advanced views of hygiene.  There are doubts if the Pentateuch code really goes back to the days of Moses, but certainly someone “learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians” drew it up.  As Neuburger briefly summarizes: 

“The commands concern prophylaxis and suppression of epidemics, suppression of venereal disease and prostitution, care of the skin, baths, food, housing and clothing, regulation of labour, sexual life, discipline of the people, etc.  Many of these commands, such as Sabbath rest, circumcision, laws concerning food (interdiction of blood and pork), measures concerning menstruating and lying-in women and those suffering from gonorrhoea, isolation of lepers, and hygiene of the camp, are, in view of the conditions of the climate, surprisingly rational."(23)

     (23) Neuburger:  History of Medicine, Oxford University
     Press, 1910, Vol.  I, p. 38.

Divination, not very widely practiced, was borrowed, no doubt, from Babylonia.  Joseph’s cup was used for the purpose, and in Numbers, the elders of Balak went to Balaam with the rewards of divination in their hands.  The belief in enchantments and witchcraft was universal, and the strong enactments against witches in the Old Testament made a belief in them almost imperative until more rational beliefs came into vogue in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.