] These healing priests were educated in schools associated with their temples.  The method of instruction included practical hands on training, similar to apprenticeship patterns we will study in Europe and early America, and the memorizing of the hundreds of clay tablets that contained the bulk of Mesopotamian medical knowledge.  These priest‑physicians administered mostly to the court, the nobility, and the upper classes.  The lower‑classes, that constituted the great majority of the populace, had to rely on the early barber‑surgeons to care for their illnesses, along with following local folk remedies.