If his procedures were successful upon someone in the amelu class, he’d be paid ten shekels. The price paid for successful treatment of a person in the muskinu class would be five shekels, but for a slave, the fee would be lowered to two shekels. This is a case where one put a price on the value of human life.
Although there is a clear distinction of classes, according to both the works of Strayer’s chapter 3 and article by Rev. Claude Hermann Walter Johns, M.A., Babylonia Law- The Code of Hammurabi, I found clarity in the documents provided in Considering the Evidence: Life and Afterlife in Mesopotamia & Egypt (Strayer’s text, pgs. 115-125). The Be a Scribe document, demonstrated how some professions meant greater hardships than others as well as how hierarchies exists among actual professions, as in the case of Scribes and their