The Jewish Doctor 600 Years Ago

The Jewish Doctor 600 Years Ago Cures were different then, but Jews were still important physicians, often transmitting ancient learning to the Christian world A phrase from the Book of Isaiah*...

...How do you avoid contagious diseases...
...In the 90 years since the genizah's discovery, more than 200,000 items have come to light from the little Ben-Ezra Synagogue in Cairo...
...By translating texts such as these from Arabic into Hebrew and, subsequently, into European languages such as Italian, Jewish scholars made a major contribution to the new learning of the Renaissance...
...The languages of the text are Hebrew, Italian (written in Hebrew characters) and Arabic (also written in Hebrew characters...
...text written in Hebrew characters...
...The title page contains a number of familiar items: the Magen David or Shield of David (a six-pointed star), used here long before it became widely accepted as a specifically Jewish symbol...
...Oxford, the more royalist university, had a better collection of manuscripts than Cambridge, the more Puritan university...
...In one series of illuminations we see a woman patient having her urine specimen examined (p...
...until 6 P.M., and on Tuesday evenings until 8:45 P.M...
...The knowledge and ideas that they carried with them as they were forced to migrate from country to country laid the foundations for much of what became modern science and thought...
...Elsewhere in the book we see professors lecturing to their students, and a doctor with a display of drugs on his desk (right...
...An English book collector bought Faraji's manuscript collection and brought it to England...
...One of the most unusual manuscripts is the Bird's Head Haggadah from 14th-century Germany, which depicts human forms with bird-like heads...
...Dead Sea Scroll to a contemporary Haggadah illustrated by Leonard Baskin...
...The 185 books range in age from a 63 B.C.E...
...What foods and drinks are particularly valuable...
...One prescription will supposedly turn a black horse into a white one...
...Stefan C. Reif at Cambridge University Library, West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR, England, U.K...
...The letters and words themselves are extensively decorated...
...In this period, some Jewish artists believed that to depict Jews with human faces would mean making a graven image, transgressing the Second Commandment...
...How do you lose or gain weight...
...Approximately 140,000 of these items are in the Cambridge University Library, rescued in 1897 by Solomon Schechter, then professor of talmudic studies at the University of Cambridge.1 These priceless manuscripts shed light on almost every aspect of Jewish life, and its connections with Christians and Muslims in the Mediterranean area of the day...
...Faraji was a Jewish scholar and manuscript collector living in Italy...
...This textbook is strikingly illuminated with colorful letters that have retained much of their original luster...
...The child's textbook introduces the young reader to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the various vowels used to pronounce them in different ways...
...Additional details about the Hebrew collections at Cambridge University Library and complimentary copies of the newsletter of its Cairo Genizah Research Unit are available by writing Dr...
...But the major illustrations of medical practice current in 15th-century Italy are what immediately catch the eye...
...How do climate and environment influence health (the so-called "miasmatic theory...
...At that time, the Puritans controlled the government...
...The patient may be depicted unclothed as part of a full examination by the physician or at a whim of the artist This tract on taking a pulse and interpreting the result is also signed by Joseph ben Isaac...
...Diagnosis and treatment as affected by astrology and magic (the equivalent of modern horoscopes) are also covered...
...Reif was chosen for the responsibility...
...Only part of the book has been preserved...
...the container of manna from the Temple...
...Unfortunately, only two facing pages of text can be shown at the exhibit at any one time...
...The New York Public Library is located at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.—H.S...
...Through the Jews this knowledge was then transferred to the Western world...
...Faraji's Hebrew medical text is so valuable—it is insured for SI.6 million—that Cambridge University insisted that one of the library's senior scholars serve as a personal courier...
...Other items from the exhibit include a Tripartite Mahzor (three-part festival prayer book) which was written in southern Germany around the year 1320...
...38), and, in a third picture, having her blood let (p...
...The Jewish Doctor 600 Years Ago Cures were different then, but Jews were still important physicians, often transmitting ancient learning to the Christian world A phrase from the Book of Isaiah* inspired the title of a new exhibit, "A Sign and a Witness: 2,000 Years of Hebrew Books and Illuminated Manuscripts," which opened at the New York Public Library on October 15, 1988...
...The contents of the volume reflect many A physician takes the pulse of an unclothed female patient who is sitting up in bed...
...It was recovered from the famous Cairo Genizah...
...The show will run through January 14, 1989 and is open to the public free of charge from Monday to Saturday, 10 A.M...
...One of the most visually arresting items in the exhibit is a 15th-century Jewish medical * "And it shall be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 19:20...
...and, central and splendid, the menorah...
...In addition, the book contains tracts on obstetrics, pharmacology and urology, among other medical subjects...
...What are the healthiest resorts in Italy and France...
...Curator Leonard Singer Gold spent four years in negotiations and research to create the exhibit, which includes Bibles, prayer books, talmudic works, mystical texts, literature, and philosophical and scientific manuscripts...
...The three parts, long separated, were brought together from collections in Budapest, London and Oxford, and are diplayed side by side for the first time...
...Teachers of medieval youngsters were as conscious as their modern counterparts of the need to present their pupils with bright and lively material along with the texts...
...of the same concerns as physicians and patients have today...
...Reif also brought with him for display in the exhibit a 10th or 11th century child's textbook to teach the Hebrew alphabet...
...What can be seen here in the accompanying illustrations is therefore considerably more extensive than can be seen at the New York exhibit...
...The medical text's 280 vellum leaves are in superb condition...
...Displeased with this imbalance, Parliament purchased the Faraji manuscripts and presented them to Cambridge University in 1648...
...in the Gottesman Exhibition Hall...
...This text reflects the scientific knowledge Jews had acquired in Spain and other centers of Islamic culture during the Middle Ages," according to Stefan C. Reif, director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research of the Cambridge University Library, which lent this magnificent volume to the exhibit...
...8' 1 Conservation of and research on these documents, supported by private donations, continues to be a major scholarly enterprise...
...A special feature of the volume is its extraordinarily beautiful illuminations...
...the eternal light from the Sanctuary...
...The manuscript was first bound in the 17th century, with the name of the original owner, Isaac Faraji, stamped on the cover...
...36), having her pulse taken (p...
...These tracts are based directly or indirectly on textbooks of ancient Greeks and medieval Arabs, such as Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Averroes and Ibn Masa-waih, according to Reif...
...The manuscripts were borrowed from 30 of the world's great repositories of Judaica in the United States, Eastern and Western Europe and Israel...
...All travel brings with it worries about safety and security," Reif commented, "but carrying a unique 500-year-old volume valued at $1.6 million as hand luggage is a particularly daunting responsibility...
...Is physical fitness a religious duty...

Vol. 13 • November 1988 • No. 8


 
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