Hammurabi's Laws dealing with conditions necessitating surgical
activity mainly on humans or animals [notice that the grammar of verbs
is present in King\s translation]
215. If a physician
make a large incision with an operating knife and cure it, or if he
open a tumor (over the eye) with an operating knife, and saves the eye,
he shall receive ten shekels in money.
216. If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.
217. If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician two shekels.
218. If a physician make a large incision with the operating knife,
and kill him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the
eye, his hands shall be cut off.
219. If a physician make a large incision in the slave of a freed
man, and kill him, he shall replace the slave with another slave.
220. If he had opened a tumor with the operating knife, and put out his eye, he shall pay half his value.
221. If a physician heals the broken bone or diseased soft part of
a man, the patient shall pay the physician five shekels in money.
222. If he were a freed man he shall pay three shekels.
223. If he were a slave his owner shall pay the physician two shekels.
224. If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass
or an ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a
shekel as a fee.
225. If he perform a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kill it, he shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value.
226. If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign
of a slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be
cut off.
227. If any one deceive a barber, and have him mark a slave not
for sale with the sign of a slave, he shall be put to death, and buried
in his house. The barber shall swear: “I did not mark him wittingly,”
and shall be guiltless.
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