Babylonian-Assyrian Birth-Omens and Their Cultural Significance

This is a medical book. As a result of researches in the field of Babylonian-Assyrian divination, now extending over a number of years, it may be definitely said that apart from the large class of miscellaneous omens, the Babylonians and Assyrians developed chiefly three methods of divination into more or less elaborate systems—divination through the inspection of the liver of a sacrificial animal or Hepatoscopy, through the observation of the movements in the heavens or Astrology, (chiefly directed to the moon and the planets but also to the sun and the prominent stars and constellations), and through the observance of signs noted at birth in infants and the young of animals or Birth-omens. Elsewhere, I have suggested a general division of the various forms of divination methods into two classes, voluntary and involuntary divination, meaning by the former the case in which a sign is deliberately selected and then observed, by the latter where the sign is not of your own choice but forced upon your attention and calling for an interpretation. Hepatoscopy falls within the former category, Astrology and Birth-omens in the latter.