The Exorcists Manual, also known as KAR 44,[i 2] is sometimes described as a vademecum or handbook and is a compendium of the works all those aspiring to master the āšipūtu or craft of exorcism, should be cognizant.
The final tablet, Šumma šer’ān pūt imittišu ittenebbi, “if the vein on the right side of his forehead throbs,” concerns itself with involuntary movements.
He says of these omens, “that since long ago had not been organized into a new edition but was tangled like threads and had no master edition.”[nb 1] The primary purpose of the diagnosis was to identify the divine sender of the disease, as this was perceived to be a message from a deity.
He applies a logical set of axioms and assumptions, including the need to inspect the symptoms of a patient in order to come up with a diagnosis, and arranges the more than 3,000 entries systematically from head to foot, left (inauspicious) to right (auspicious), and in the color sequence red/brown, yellow/green, black or white, and two shades of uncertain hue on 40 tablets as this is the number of the god Ea who gave man diagnostic knowledge.
It is divided into six chapters of unequal length and starts with a two-tablet section beginning “when the exorcist goes to the house of a sick person,”[nb 2] which provides the omens that one might encounter on the way such as a multi-colored pig (patient has dropsy).
[7] The second chapter, “when you approach the sick man,” is arranged a capite ad calcem, “inspection from the head to the feet,” and was attributed to the authorship of the deity Ea.