Melanges d'histoire de la medecine hebraique: Etudes choisies de la "Revue d'histoire de la medecine hebraique" (1948-1985) (review)

In June 1948 Isidore Simon, a medical doctor specialized in psychiatry, edited the first volume of the Revue d'Histoire de la Médecine Hébraïque; publication ceased when Dr. Simon passed away on 17 September 1985. In the almost four decades of the journal's existence, nearly six hundred articles, on various subjects within the vast field of Hebrew medicine from antiquity to the twentieth century, were published. According to their own statement, the large number of articles of considerable scientific interest rendered the editors' task of selection extremely difficult. Gad Freudenthal and Samuel Kottek finally chose twenty-eight contributions of the most outstanding quality. All articles were reproduced without alterations (only printing errors and the occasional awkwardness of language were corrected).

The volume is divided into five parts, starting with biblical and Talmudic times, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, up to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The fifth part contains diachronic studies. Some of the articles focus on such well-known Jewish medical practitioners as Maimonides (Jean Théodoridès), Joseph Ibn Zabarra (Meyer A. Halévy), Elia di Sabbato (Ladislao Münster), John Astruc (Samuel Kottek), Ferdinand Cohn (Jacob Seide), Michel Lévy (Henri Baruk), Moritz Benedikt (Henri F. Ellenberger), or Frédéric Grosz (Sámuel Izsák). Isidore Simon examines the "medical sermon" of the legendary Jewish physician Assaf, and adds a comparative study on the Hippocratic oath, Maimonides' "medical prayer," and the "sermon of Montpellier." Jacques Dubarry follows the traces of Ephraim Bueno, a friend of the painter Rembrandt and physician at the university of Bordeaux. Three studies by Augusto d'Essaguy deal with the life and work of Elie Montalto, a letter of Manuel Teles da Silva (secretary of the Royal Portugese Academy) addressed to the physician and member of the Royal College of London Jacob de Castro Sarmento, and finally a letter of Ribeiro Sanchez to the Marquis de Pombal. Arslan Terzioglu introduces the reader to an unknown treatise on dentistry composed by Moses Hamon at the beginning of the sixteenth century, while Ladislao Münster discusses the Enarratio brevis de senum affectibus (Short Treatise on Diseases of the Aged) written in Italy by the Jewish physician David of Pomis. Samuel Kottek's study is dedicated to aspects of infant health care in Jacob ben Isaac Zahalon's treatise Treasure of Life. Hans-Joachim Schoeps depicts the life and work of the eighteenth-century Jewish scientist Gumpertz Levison.

Other articles discuss different medical aspects in the Bible and Talmud (Isidore Simon, Gérard Weindling), Jewish students of medicine entering German universities (Wolfram Kaiser), the history of Jewish hospitals in Moldavia (Paul Pruteanu), the role of Jewish medical practitioners in modern France (Richard Kohn, Jean Goldman, István Csillag), Jews and pharmacy (Paul B. Fenton, Lavoslav Glesinger), and even dogs in Jewish medicine and superstitions (Lavoslav Glesinger).

Without any doubt, this volume is of great value to everyone interested in the field of Jewish medical history. It becomes even more useful with its two appendices: the first contains biographical notes on the authors of the studies reunited in this volume, and the second lists the contents of all 154 numbers of the Revue d'Histoire de la Médecine Hébraïque in chronological order, allowing a quick overview for all further research. Thus, the volume is much more than just a reedition of some selected articles: it is a handbook that belongs in every university library.