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Traditional Healing and Folk Medicines [57] R. Pinchas Katzenelbogen: Remedy for a Fever in Sefer Yesh Manhilin Rabbi Pinchas Katzenelbogen, Sefer yesh manhilin, ed. Yitzhak Dov ben Ephraim Fischel Feld (Jerusalem: Mekhon Hatam Sofer, 1986), 101–2.1 For one sick with a fever, heaven forbid, purchase a pot with a lid for whatever price the seller demands, and pour seventy-seven grains of legumes into the pot, and you shall recite “nit einz, nit zwei” [not once, not twice] etc. until you reach seventy-seven. After that, the owner of the pot should urinate into the pot on the legumes, then put soft mud around the lid of the pot so that lid adheres to the pot. Next they will bury the pot and the cover with all that is in it deep in the earth where no one shall pass over it (for instance, close to a wall), and this is tried and tested with the help of God. note 1. [R. Pinchas Katzenelbogen (b. 1691 in Dubnov) composed Sefer yesh manhilin between 1758 and 1764. While this publication was published before the tsarist period, its remedies were similar to popular folk remedies promoted by traditional Jewish healers in the nineteenth century. See Lisa Epstein, “Caring for the Soul’s House: The Jews of Russia and Health Care, 1860–1914” (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1995), 99–132.] [266]   health & sexuality [58] Moshe Shtudentski: A Pediatrician on Puberty in Adolescent Girls (1847) Moshe Shtudentski, Rofe hayeladim: kolel ‘etsot tovot ve-ne’emot li-shemor beriut ha-yeladim (Warsaw: Gedruckt bei H. N. Schriefigtesser, 1847), 264. The training of girls during these years is a matter of guiding them in manners of morals and modesty. The most essential is this: pay close attention and keep a most watchful eye on them. And here is the helpmate of men, and the success of human history, the parent and giver of life in the womb. One must doubly supervise and watch over their ways during these years of their life for their benefit and for that of their children after them. For when they corrupt their ways, not only do they corrupt their own souls, but the offspring of their wombs too shall be heavily tainted by the effects of their sin. At that stage of childhood, a force of intense development awakens in the girls along with the enlargement of the body: the breasts enlarge and assume their natural shape. It is therefore necessary to keep an eye on the girls, and to remove all types of blockages from that growth lest the youthful breasts be squeezed by tight clothing that is confining and uncomfortable to the body or by things that obstruct them. When the girls reach the time of their first menarche, a profound change takes place in their bodies. Therefore it is necessary to watch them and avoid anything that can cause a constriction of the uterus and a change in its structure. An incorrect timing of menstruation is most damaging to a girl’s health, so parents are advised to avoid feeding their daughters all manners of food and drink which heat up the body, as well as [using] excessively warm clothing, especially for the lower part of the body as that will prevent them from arriving at [this stage of] their adolescence . May they know no evil and let affliction not approach their tents. And here I shall write about one further disease that may strike girls during these years of their lives. It is a fairly common illness , and fathers will do well to keep an eye on them to keep them from all evil—the illness of paleness. This term is used to describe a kind of illness that affects girls between the ages of fifteen and eighteen years. It may be recognized by the following symptoms: a pale and silvery facial appearance, pale lips, a swollen body, pain in the loins, tremors of the limbs, loss of appetite, depressed spirits , desire for excessive sleep, and weakness throughout the body. Besides all these, menstruation will be irregular—that is, either it will not occur at all or it will be diminished and light in appearance. The causes of this illness are [the following]: eating the kinds of food that weaken [the body]; insufficient physical exercise in the open air; and sitting to excess in a small unkempt room. Excessive sleep [. . .] can cause fever, colds, anger, anxiety , and depression. If this illness has not...

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