| Abstract: |
Illness is shown in most cuneiform texts as a state, the result of a process that leads from health to physical and psyc hological uneasiness. Sometimes experienced as a subjective suffering, sometimes seen as a literary object, or perceived as the main concern i n therapeutic practice, illness appears as an enormously complex reality. Assuming this multifaceted profile of illness, I will try to analyze the idea of contact as a crucial element to explain the action of diseases over the human being. The use of the "physical" verbs lapātu ("to run one's hand over something, to touch lightly"), mahā§ u ("to hit") and §abātu("to seize, to grasp") in indicating the fact of contact-contagion, reveals parallelisms between the literary images of demons attacking and immobilizing their victims, and the references included in the later m edical texts. |
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