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Lecturer(s)
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Visi Tamás, doc. Ph.D., M.A.
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Course content
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1. Introduction: Medicine in the Ancient World (Egypt and Babylonia. Magic, religion, and science. The Hippocratic Corpus. Dogmatists, Empiricists, and Methodists) 2. Introduction: Medicine in the Arabic World (The transmission of medical lit. to Arabic. The bimaristan. State supervision of physicians in Egypt. Isaac Israeli, Moses Maimonides) 3. Medical themes in Rabbinic lit. (Medical considerations justifying the suspension of religious taboos. Anatomy of animals and anatomy of humans: Rabbinic Hebrew terminology. Nidda topics and gynecology. Midrashim on the life of the embryo in the womb. Piyyutim with medical content) 4. Hebrew medicine in Byzantium (Sefer Assaf and its Greek Sources, The myth about the origins of medicine, Shabbetay Donolo: the career of a Jewish intellectual in 10th century Byzantium) 5. Meditating on the Human Body: The Arabic Genre. (Theological premises: man created on the image of God. Man as microcosm. The evolution of the khalq al-insan genre. Shabbetay Donolo's contribution. Perush had [khalq?] al-insan attributed to "Saadyah, the head of the yeshiva") 6. Meditating on the Human Body in Ashkenaz (Rashi's utilization of midrashic sources on human physiology and psychology. The reception of Assaf-literature in Ashkenaz. The human body in the mysticism of Hasidei Ashkenaz. Shlomo ben Abin?s medical compendium) 7. Medicine and Social Ethos in Ashkenaz (Judah he-Hasid's interest in nature. Physicians in Sefer Hasidim. The Sefer Yetzira tradition in Ashkenaz. Medical themes in the works of Eleazar of Worms. Healing and exorcism) 8. Tracts on uroscopy: a genre without borders (Byzantine medical literature on uroscopy, Isaac Israeli, Salerno school, Hebrew uroscopic literature. Shlomo ben Abin?s uroscopic compendium and its fate) 9. The physician in literature: Berekhiah ben Natronay ha-Nakdan's Mishlei Shu'alim. Seminar by Tovi Bibring (Bar-Ilan University) 10. The Black Death: An Ashkenazi tract (The basic facts about the plague in 1348/49 and in the subsequent centuries. The genre of plague tracts and the spread of medical knowledge, David ben David Landshut, Sefer ahim: chronological problems. Cooperation with Christian doctors) 11. The Black Death: Medicine, Theology, and Halakha in the Later Middle Ages (Moses Narboni on Black Death and divine predestination. A medical advice turned into a halakhic rule: Maharil and Rema) 12. Epilogue: Jewish medicine and healthcare in the early modern period: continuity and new developments (Hippocratic-Gallenic medicine: survival and challenge. Jews at medical universities. Bookprinting and Hebrew medical literature.)
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Learning activities and teaching methods
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Dialogic Lecture (Discussion, Dialog, Brainstorming)
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Learning outcomes
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The purpose of the seminar is to introduce the students to the problematic of healthcare, medical instruction and sciences and their relationship to Jewish religion and law in the Middle Ages. Hebrew texts relating to the topic including unedited manuscripts will be read in classes, and thus paleography will be a secondary focus of the seminar. Besides outlining the history of Jewish medical literature and healthcare the seminar will be organized around two main topics: (1) the genre khalq al-ins?n ("creation of man") in early medieval religious and medical literature, (2) medicine and healthcare in medieval Ashkenazi society.
Recognizing the main characteristics of premodern medical thought. Mastering Hebrew medical terminology. Acquiring knowledge of the literary conventions of Hebrew medical literature and of the literary topoi of traditional Hebrew literature concerning physicians and patients. Medieval Ashkenazi paleography.
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Prerequisites
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Ability to read English.
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Assessment methods and criteria
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Oral exam, Student performance, Seminar Work
Reading secondary literature and preparing the Hebrew texts to be read on a weekly basis. (For students who read Hebrew): oral exam of the Hebrew texts read during the semester at the end of the semester. (For students who do not read Hebrew:) A seminar-paper of 10-15 pages to be submitted at the end of the semester. Grade: participation at seminars (50%), oral exam / seminar-paper (50%)
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Recommended literature
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Carmen Caballero-Navas. (2011). Medicine among Medieval Jews: The Science, the Art, and the Practice,? in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, ed. G. Freudenthal, 320-342. Cambridge.
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Elinor Lieber. (1984). Asaf?s Book of Medicine etc. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984): 233-249.
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J. Shatzmiller. (1983). Doctors and Medical Practicers in Germany around the Year 1200: The Evidence of Sepher Asaph,"PAAJR 50 (1983): 149-164.
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J. Shatzmiller. (1982). Doctors and Medical Practicers in Germany around the Year 1200: The Evidence of Sepher Hasidim, JJS 33 (1982): 583-593.
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Maud Kozody. (2011). Medieval Hebrew Medical Poetry,? Aleph 11 (2011): 213-288.
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V. Nutton. (2004). Ancient Medicine. London, New York.
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Y. Tz. Langermann. (2006). Medical Isr???liyy?t?Aleph 6 (2006): 373-398.
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