Histories

This, then, was their best custom; but it does not continue at this time; they have invented a new one lately [so that the women not be wronged or taken to another city]; since the conquest of Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon made them afflicted and poor, everyone of the people that lacks a livelihood prostitutes his daughters.

I come now to the next wisest of their customs: having no use for physicians, they carry the sick into the market-place; then those who have been afflicted themselves by the same illness as the sick man's, or seen others in like case, come near and advise him about his disease and comfort him, telling him by what means they have themselves recovered from it or seen others recover. No one may pass by the sick man without speaking and asking after his sickness.