2-14 THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES^ ESQ., LL.D., M.R.A.S., ON 



From the medical point of view, however, a certain amount 

 of information is available and may serve to indicate the 

 true meaning. I learn from Dr. Ernmeline Da Cunha that 

 abscesses in the eye-ball are exceedingly rare, so that it is 

 extremely improbable that laws would be made in which they 

 were specially mentioned ; and that it would be quite useless, 

 moreover, to operate upon such abscesses with a lancet.* On 

 the other hand, operations for cataract by native practitioners 

 are common in the East, at least in India, and some of these 

 men, who are mere quacks, simply push, by means of their 

 instruments (a kind of spatula) the crystalline lens into the 

 vitreous humour. The patient is then able to see, but loss of 

 sight results in consequence of the lens not being completely 

 removed, and it was probably to prevent such criminally un- 

 skilful treatment that the laws here referred to were made. 



In the Mosaic law, it was enacted, that " if men strive 

 together," and anyone get hurt, " then thou shalt give life for 

 liffe, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 

 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe," and 

 though all these things are not mentioned here, there can be 

 but little doubt that tlie intention of the Babylonian code was, 

 that the principle should apply to all the cases of injury 

 possible. It is not likely that they drew the line at the life, 

 the eye, and the tooth of a man, or the breaking of his bones. 

 The two codes may in this be regarded as in perfect agree- 

 ment. 



But not only are the enactments of the Laws of Moses 

 illustrated, but we find, both in the interesting code which 

 I am now briefly describing and in the legal documents 

 of the period to which it belongs, noteworthy parallels to 

 circumstances referred to in other parts of the Bible. Of special 

 interest in this connection is the case of the giving of Hagar by 

 Sarai to Abraham because Sarai had no children. Several 

 tablets referring to the marriage of more than one wife by a 

 man occur among the inscriptions of Babylonia, the most 

 interesting of them being those referring to the two wives of 

 Arad-Samas, and the conditions attending the marriage of the 

 inferior wife. Another case is that of Samas-niiri, daughter of 

 Ibi-iSan, who was brought by Bunini-abi and Belisunu, his wife, 

 from her father, "as a wife for Bunini-abi, as a servant for 



* The only operative treatment would be the removal of the eye-ball. 



