"When disease 'touches', 'hits' or 'seizes' in Assyro-Babylonain medicine", KASKAL 12, 319-336.

Among others, the verbs lapātu, maḫāṣu and ṣabātu are very often used to describe diseases or their symptoms; deities, ghosts and evil demons can, respectively, “touch”, “hit, strike” or “seize” the victim to transmit diseases. Moreover, in some prescriptions we find the description of a sick person touching a specific part of his body; in this way the healer can understand which god is responsible for the patient’s sickness. These three verbs are very often translated with the generic English word “to hurt”, but in this article I prefer to render them with their original meanings, for the purpose of understanding if a given verb was specifically used to describe a particular symptom or disease. Moreover, I will investigate the use of other relevant verbs, such as mašādu, maqātu, aḫāzu and kašādu. Highly similar to lapātu, ṣabātu and maḫāṣu, their meanings have different nuances, revealing the fact that the vocabulary belonging to āšipūtu and asûtu was very rich in specific terms.