Eknoyan Garabed
The Selzman Institute of Kidney Health, Section of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.
Semin Dial. 2016 May;29(3):236-46. doi: 10.1111/sdi.12441. Epub 2015 Oct 1.
A defining period in the history of civilization occurred in ancient Mesopotamia. While some of Mesopotamian contributions to knowledge (writing, mathematics, astronomy) have been recognized, those made to medicine are just beginning to be studied and appreciated. The medicine of the time developed in a theocratic society where local gods controlled all aspects of life and their healers were learned scribes who established the priestly medicine of old. For their use of prayers and incantations as a component of therapy Mesopotamian medicine has been belittled and relegated to magic. In fact, the Mesopotamian healers established the basic medical skills of observation, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment and, over time, systematically produced an expanding corpus of medical knowledge that had not existed theretofore. The kidney as an organ, the components of the urogenital tract, some signs and symptoms of renal diseases, and the art of urinalysis were first conceptualized, studied, and codified in Mesopotamia. In doing so, the Mesopotamians set the foundations of rational medicine that would follow after the introduction of the phonetic alphabet and the Socratic method of questioning and debate to stimulate critical analysis.
文明史上一个具有决定性意义的时期出现在古代美索不达米亚。虽然美索不达米亚对知识（书写、数学、天文学）的一些贡献已得到认可，但其对医学的贡献才刚刚开始被研究和重视。当时的医学是在一个神权社会中发展起来的，当地的神灵掌控着生活的方方面面，他们的治疗师是有学问的抄写员，创立了古老的祭司医学。由于美索不达米亚医学将祈祷和咒语作为治疗的一部分，它一直被贬低并被归入魔法范畴。事实上，美索不达米亚的治疗师建立了观察、诊断、预后和治疗等基本医疗技能，并且随着时间的推移，系统地积累了越来越多此前不存在的医学知识。肾脏作为一个器官、泌尿生殖道的组成部分、肾脏疾病的一些体征和症状以及尿液分析技术，都是在美索不达米亚首先被概念化、研究并编纂的。通过这样做，美索不达米亚人为理性医学奠定了基础，而这种理性医学是在引入拼音字母表以及苏格拉底式的提问和辩论方法以激发批判性分析之后才得以发展的。
