That Asharîdu is the same as the writer of some thirty astrological reports who was the son of Dankâ, a _ḳatnu_, and servant of the king, may be doubted. He is more likely to be the author of several letters who seems to have been connected with Borsippa. Another letter(930) is from Nêrgal-sharâni in response to another about some sacrifices, sent by the queen-mother. He prays for a thousand years of rule for Esarhaddon, so there can be no mistake about the period. He recounts the preparations made—an ox, two sheep, and two hundred geese. But he says that Ninḳai, the handmaid of the queen-mother, for some reason, will not perform the sacrifice. The queen-mother is asked to send authority for someone to open the treasury and perform the work. The letter is defective and obscure by reason of unknown words. Nêrgal-sharâni may be the same Ashur-shum-uṣur who so often writes to the king about this time. Again Nabû-shum-lîshir writes to the queen-mother(931) about a woman, Kallati, who was intrusted to the writer in the house of Shama’, and about some sheep. (M840) (M841) Another group includes the letters which refer to medical treatment. Here especially Dr. C. Johnston, himself a medical man, has made a most valuable start in his Assyrian _Epistolary Correspondence_, and we can hardly do better than to follow his guidance. As a rule, what these ancient peoples said and thought of disease is very obscure to us. Many terms were then, as now, used in the medical vocabulary which were well known in ordinary language, but which were given a distinctly different technical meaning. Great attention was paid to surgery and medicine, as is shown by the clauses in the Code.(932) There are also a great number of tablets dealing with medicine, some of which have been published. Long ago Professor Sayce discussed one such text under the title, “An Ancient Babylonian Work on Medicine,”(933) and from the British Museum Catalogue fully four hundred and fifty such texts are known. Dr. C. F. H. Küchler in his _Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Assyrischen Medicin_ has made great progress toward settling the reading and meaning of certain words and phrases. Dr. Baron Felix von Oefele, who has devoted much study to ancient medicine in general, has made noteworthy contributions to the study, by his articles in learned journals. Still, the (M842) great obstacle is that so much of the materia medica, which was a very full one, is unknown; and the diseases appear under names which do not assist us in determining the meaning. The medical treatises considered affections of all parts of the body, and made much of symptoms. They prescribe roots and oils and a great variety of powdered drugs. Some of the treatment is evidently based on extended trial and observation. But also much reliance was placed on charms, and diseases were associated with demons. To drive away the demon, as well as cure the pain, was the doctor’s duty. There was