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(Continued
from issue #11.)
History of the Jewish Physicians, from the
French of E. Carmoly, by John R. W. Dunbar, M. D. &c. Baltimore,
8vo. pp. 94.
"Although
history has not said positively that Shabtai obtained his medical
knowledge at Salernum, it is without doubt, that it was only in this
city where the Jews divided with the Greeks and Saracens, the glory of
having founded this celebrated school, the duration of which was short,
as its origin was ancient. Many languages were used there, and to
accommodate the wants of their auditors, Pontus taught in Greek, Abd
Alla in Arabic, and Elisha in Hebrew.
"This
last professor is only known by the quotation of Clifton, he was
probably of Salernum itself, where the Israelites had institutions from
time immemorial. They enjoyed freedom and other important privileges
under the Ducal protection. It was not until 1086, that the Duchess
Siehelgaite, wife of Duke Roger, bequeathed to the church of Notre Dame
of Salernum, the revenues of all the Jews who lived in that city, and
her husband, the Duke of Punille and son of Robert Guiscard, ceded all
the revenue derived from the Jews who lived there, to the Archbishop of
Salernum. Nevertheless, the Jews of Salernum, did not abandon their
devotion to medicine. We feel confident that it rather formed among them
a kind of national education, by which they found the means as by
commerce, to amass great riches, and enable them to discharge the
thousand and one various taxes imposed upon them, such as the platiacum,
the portulaticum, the dationes, the paraverdum, the
pulveraticum, the mansionaticum, the coenaticum, &c.
"We
shall often have occasion, in the course of this work, to speak of the
Jewish physicians, of the Salernum school, and we will only state here,
that in a period when they were the sole depositaries of the European
medicine, which they communicated from the Arabs to the Christians, they
established with the aid of the Greek and Arabic Physicians this ancient
school, which during a long period had in Europe no rival, but the
University of Montpelier.
"During
a long period the Jews successfully cultivated the learning of the
Arabians in Spain. They particularly excelled in the study of astronomy
and medicine. Among those learned in this last science, Chasdai ben
Sprot, deserves the first rank.
"The
tenth century was particularly remarkable for the progress of medicine
among the Jews. Hippocrates who continually referred to experience, and
Galen so profound in his observations, were held in high favour by those
doctors; it is nevertheless true, that the works of the doctors would
have been more useful to the science if they had observed nature more.
On the other hand their regarded the dissection of bodies as a
profanity, and surgery as an ignoble profession; which opinion was
injurious to the improvement of medicine.
"From
whatever cause it may be produced, this age witnessed the birth of a
great number of celebrated Jewish physicians, viz. Haroun of Cordova,
Yehuda Chaioug of Fez, Amram of Toledo,
&c."
Although
the prejudice against the Jewish religion was great at the commencement
of the eleventh century, and the persecutions were both frequent and
bitter, the medical skill of the Jews was still greatly admired and
generally acknowledged; and Mr. Carmoly speaks thus on the subject:
"Jewish
medicine about the commencement of the eleventh century advanced with
gigantic steps, and assumed a firm and decided character. This was in
consequence of its introduction into the schools of the Rabbis, who
became almost the sole physicians of Europe, 'The Oriental languages,'
said the learned Cabanis, 'were familiar to them, and at a time when
Galen, Hippocrates, and the other fathers of medicine were only known in
the west through the medium of Syriac and Arabic translations; the Jews
were almost the only persons who knew how to treat diseases with some
system, from the advantages derived from the works of antiquity.'
"In
fact they then devoted themselves so much to medicine, that this science
became one of the principal objects of their labour. Each prince, each
prelate, had his Israelite physician, who was more than once involved in
religious controversies.
"However
this may be, the superiority of the Jewish physicians over other
physicians, was so generally recognised, that Huarte, one of the best
minds that the Spanish nation has produced, has endeavoured to prove,
that, by the Galenical theories, their temperament is that which was
most adapted to medicine. The subtilties on which he founds his opinion,
says Cabanis, fail to convince of its truth, but it is very certain that
even at his time, the most sought for, and probably most skilful
physicians, were Jews.
"In
fact, the Jewish physicians were well received, not only in the palaces
of the Mussulman and the Christian princes, but even popes and prelates
had them in their service, notwithstanding the canons which declared
that no Jew could be permitted to be a physician, or to administer
remedies to a Christian, as we will see in a future part of this
work."
(To be continued.)
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