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( úְּøåּôָä , teruphahh a medical powder, Eze_47:12; Sept. ὑãßåéá , comp. èåñáðåßá of Rev_22:2; Vulg. medicina; also the plur. øְôֻàåֹú , rephuoth', medicaments, or remedies for wounds, Jer_30:13; Jer_46:11; “healed,” Eze_30:21; but âֵּäָä ,gehah', in Pro_17:12, is properly the removal of the bandages from a sore, hence its healing; therefore render, “ a joyful heart perfects a cure “). ‘‘In the following article we endeavor as far as possible to treat the subject from the modern scientific point of view. SEE HEAL
I. Sources of Medical Science among the Hebrews.-
1. Natural. — Next to care for food, clothing, and shelter, the curing of hurts takes precedence even among savage nations. At a later period comes the treatment of sickness; and recognition of states of disease, and these mark a nascent civilization. Internal diseases, and all for which an obvious cause cannot be assigned, are in the most early period viewed as the visitation of God, or as the act of some malignant power, human — as the evil eye or else superhuman, and to be dealt with by sorcery, or some other occult supposed agency. The Indian notion is that all diseases are the work of an evil spirit (Sprengel, Gesch. der Arzeneikunde, 2:48). But among a civilized race the pre-eminence of the medical art is confessed in proportion to the increased value set on human life, and the vastly greater amount of comfort and enjoyment of which civilized man is capable.
2. Egyptian. — It would be strange if their close connection historically with Egypt had not imbued the Israelites with a strong appreciation of the value of this art, and with some considerable degree of medical culture. From the most ancient testimonies, sacred and secular, Egypt, from whatever cause, though perhaps from necessity, was foremost among the nations in this most human of studies purely physical. Again, as the active intelligence of Greece flowed in upon her, and mingled with the immense store of pathological records which must have accumulated under the system described by Herodotus, Egypt, especially Alexandria, became the medical repertory and museum of the world. Thither all that was best worth preserving amid earlier civilizations, whether her own or foreign, had been attracted, and medicine and surgery flourished amid political decadence and artistic decline. The attempt has been made ‘by a French writer (Renouard, Histoire de' Medicine depuis son Origine, etc.) to arrange in periods the growth of the medical art as follows
1st. The Primitive or Instinctive Period, lasting from the earliest recorded treatment to the fall of Troy.
2dly. The Sacred or Mystic Period, lasting till the dispersion of the Pythagorean Society, BC. 500.
3dly. The Philosophical Period, closing with the foundation of the Alexandrian Library, BC. 320.
4thly. The Anatomical Period, which continued till the death of Galen, AD. 200.
But these artificial lines do not strictly exhibit the truth of the matter. Egypt was the earliest home of medical and other skill for the region of the Mediterranean basin, and every Egyptian mummy of the more expensive and elaborate sort involved a process of anatomy. This gave opportunities. of inspecting a vast number of bodies, varying in every possible condition. Such opportunities were sure to be turned to account (Pliny, N. H. 19:5) by the more diligent among the faculty, for ‘ the physicians” embalmed (Genesis 1, 2). The intestines had a separate receptacle assigned them, or were restored to the body: through the ventral incision (Wilkinson, v. 468); and every such process which we can trace in the mummies discovered shows the most minute accuracy of manipulation. Notwithstanding these laborious efforts, we have no trace of any philosophical or rational system of Egyptian origin, and medicine in Egypt was a mere art or profession. Of science the Asclepiadae of Greece were the true originators. Hippocrates, who wrote a book on “Ancient Medicine,” and who seems to have had many opportunities of access to foreign sources, gives no prominence to Egypt. It was no doubt owing to the repressive influences of her fixed institutions that this country did not attain to a vast and speedy proficiency in medical science, when post mortem examination was so general a rule instead of being a rare exception. Still it is impossible to believe that considerable advances in physiology could have failed to be made there from time to time, and similarly, though we cannot so well determine how far, in Assyria. Recent researches at Kuyunjik have given proof, it is said of the use of the-microscope in minute devices, and yielded up even specimens of magnifying lenses. A cone engraved with a table of cubes, so small as to be unintelligible without a lens, was brought home by Sir H. Rawlinson, and is now in the British Museum. As to whether the invention was brought to bear on medical science, proof is wanting. Probably such science had not yet been pushed to the point at which the microscope becomes useful. Only those who have quick keen eyes for the nature world feel the want of such spectacles. The best guarantee for the advance of medical science is, after all, the interest which every human being has in it, and this is most strongly felt in large gregarious masses of population. Compared with the wild countries around them, at any rate, Egypt must have seemed incalculably advance. Hence the awe with which Homer's Greeks speak of her wealth, resources, and medical skill (II 9:3 1; Od. 4:229. See also Herod. 2:84, and 1:77). The simple heroes had reverence for the healing skill which extended only to wounds. There is hardly Any recognition of disease in Homer. There is sudden death, pestilence, and weary old age, but hardly any fixed morbid condition, save in a simile (Od. v. 395). See, however, a letter De rebus ex Homnero medicis, D. G. Wolf (Wittenberg, 1791). So likewise even the visit of Abraham, though prior to this period, found Egypt no doubt in advance of other countries. Representations of earl, Egyptian surgery apparently occur on some of the monuments of Beni-Hassan. Flint knives used for embalming have been recovered; the “Ethiopic stone” of Herodotus (2. 86; comp. Ezekiel 4:25) was probably either black flint or agate SEE KNIFE, and those who have assisted at the opening of a mummy have noticed that the teeth exhibit a dentistry not inferior in execution to the work of the best modern experts. | This confirms the statement of Herodotus that every part of the body was studied by a distinct practitioner. Pliny (7. 57) asserts that the Egyptians claimed the invention of the healing art, and (26. 1) thinks them subject to many diseases. Their” many medicines” are mentioned (Jer_46:11). Many valuable drugs may be derived from the plants mentioned by Wilkinson (iv. 621). and the senna of the adjacent interior of Africa still excels all other. Athothmes II, king :of the country, is said to have written on the subject of anatomy. Hermes (who may perhaps be ‘the same as Athothmes, intellect personified, only disguised as a deity instead of a legendary king), was said to have written six books on medicine, in which an entire chapter was devoted to diseases of the eye (Rawlinson's Herod. note to 2:84), and the first half of which related to anatomy. The various recipes known to have been beneficial were recorded, with their peculiar cases, in the memoirs of physic, inscribed among the laws, and deposited in the principal temples of the place (Wilkinson, 3:396, 397). The reputation of its practitioners in historical times was such that both Cyrus and Darius sent to Egypt for physicians or surgeons (Herod. 3:1, 129-132); and by one of the same country, no doubt, Cambyses's wound was tended, though not, perhaps, with much zeal for his recovery.
Of midwifery we have a distinct notice (Exo_1:15), and of women as its practitioners, which fact may also be verified from the sculptures (Rawlinson's note on Herod, 2:84). The sex of the practitioners is clear from the Hebrews grammatical forms. The names of two, Shiphrah and Puah are recorded. The treatment of new-born Hebrew infants is mentioned (Eze_16:4) as consisting in washing, salting, and swaddling-this last was not used in Egypt (Wilkinson). The physicians had salaries from the public treasury, and treated always according to established precedents, or deviated from these at their peril, in case of a fatal termination if, however, the patient died under accredited treatment, no blame was attached. They treated gratis patients when travelling or ‘on military service. Most diseases were by them ascribed to indigestion and excessive eating (Diod. Sicul. 1:82), and when their science failed them magic was called in. On recovery it was also customary to suspend in a temple an exvoto, which was commonly a model of the part affected; and such offerings doubtless, as in. the Coan Temple of Esculapius, became valuable aids to the pathological student. The Egyptians who lived in the corn-growing region are said by Herodotus (ii. 77) to have been specially attentive to health. The practise of circumcision is traceable on monuments certainly anterior to the age of Joseph. Its antiquity is involved in obscurity, especially as all we know of the Egyptians makes it. unlikely that they would have borrowed such a practice, so late as the period of Abraham, from any mere sojourner among' them. Its beneficial effects in the temperature of Egypt and Syria have often been noticed, especially as a preservative of cleanliness, etc. The scrupulous attention paid to the dead was favorable to the health of. the living. Such powerful drugs as asphaltum, natron, resin, pure bitumen, and various, aromaticgums, suppressed or counteracted all noxious effluvia from the corpse; even the saw-dust of the floor, on which the body had been cleansed, was collected in small linen bags, which, to the number of twenty or thirty, were deposited in vases near the tomb (Wilkinson, v. 468, 469). For. the extent to which these practices were imitated among the Jews, SEE EMBALMING.
At any rate, the uncleanness imputed to contact with a corpse was a powerful preservative against the inoculation of the livings frame with morbid -humors: But, to pursue to later times this merely general question, it appears (Pliny, N. H. 19:5) that the Ptolemies themselves practiced dissection, and that, at a period when Jewish intercourse with Egypt was complete and reciprocal, there existed in Alexandria a great deal for anatomical study. The only influence of importance which would tend to check the Jews from sharing this was the ceremonial law, the special reverence of Jewish feeling towards human remains, and the abhorrence of “uncleanness.” Yet those Jews and there were, at all times since the Captivity, not a few, perhaps who tended to foreign laxity, and affected Greek. philosophy and. culture, would assuredly, as we shall have further occasion to notice that they in fact did, enlarge their anatomical knowledge from sources which repelled their stricter brethren, and the result would be apparent in the general elevated standard of that profession, even as practiced in Jerusalem. The diffusion of Christianity in the 3d and 4th centuries exercised a similar but more universal restraint on the dissecting-room; until anatomy as a pursuit became extinct, and, the notion of profaneness quelling everywhere such researches, surgical science became stagnant to a degree to which it had never previously sunk within the memory of human records.
3. Grecian.-In comparing the growth of medicine in the rest of the ancient world, the high rank of its practitioners — princes and heroes-settles at once the question as to the esteem in which it was held in the Homeric and preHomeric period. To descend to the historical, the story of Democedes at the court of Darius illustrates the practice of Greek surgery before the. period of Hippocrates anticipating, in its gentler waiting upon nature, as compared (Herod. 3:130) with that of the Persians and Egyptians, the methods, and maxims of that father of physic, who wrote against the theories and speculations of the so-called Philosophical school, and was a true empiricist before that sect was formularized. The Dogmatic school was founded after his time by his disciples,. who departed from his eminently practical and inductive method. It recognized hidden causes of health and sickness arising from certain supposed principles or elements, out of which bodies were composed, and by virtue of which all their parts and members were tempered together and became sympathetic. Hippocrates has some curious remarks on the sympathy of men with climate, seasons, etc. He himself rejected supernatural accounts of disease, and especially demoniacal possession.
He refers, but with no mystical sense, to numbers as furnishing a rule for cases. It is remarkable that he extols the discernment of Orientals above Westerns, and of Asiatics above Europeans, in medical diagnosis. The Empirical school, which arose in the 3d century BC., under the guidance of Acron of Agrigentum, Serapion of Alexandria, and Philinus of Cos, waited for the symptoms of every case, disregarding the rules of practice based on dogmatic principles. Amongits votaries was a Zachalias (perhaps Zacharias, and possibly a Jew) of Babylon, who (Pliny, N. H 37:10; comp. 36:10) dedicated a book on medicine to Mithridates the Great; its views were also supported by Heroddotus of Tarsus, a place which, next to Alexandria, became distinguished for its schools of philosophy and medicine; as also by a Jew named Theodas, or Theudas, of Laodicea (see Wunderbar, Biblisch- Talmudische Medicin, 1:25), but a student of Alexandria, and the last, or nearly so, of the empiricists whom its schools produced. The remarks of Theudas on the right method of observing, and the value of experience, and his book on medicine, now lost, in which he arranged his subject under the heads of indicatoria, curatoria, and salubris, earned him high reputation as a champion of empiricism against the reproaches of the dogmatists, though they were subsequently impugned by Galen and. Theodosius of Tripoli. His period was that from Titus to. Hadrian., The empiricists held that observation and the application of known remedies in one case to others presumed to be similar constitute the whole art of cultivating medicine. Though their views were narrow, and their information scanty when compared with some of the chiefs of the other sects, and although they rejected as useless and unattainable all knowledge of the causes and recondite nature of diseases, it is undeniable that, besides personal experience, they freely availed themselves of historical detail, and of a. strict analogy founded upon observation and the resemblance of phenomena” (Dr. Adams, Paul. AEgin. ed. Sydenham Soc.).
This school, however, was opposed by another, known as the Methodic, which had arisen under the leading of Themison, also of Laodicea, about the period of Pompey the Great. Asclepiades paved the way for the “method” in question, finding a theoretic basis in the corpuscular or atomic theory of physics which he borrowed from Heraclides of Pontus. He had passed some early years in Alexandria, and thence came to Rome shortly before Cicero's time (Quo nos medico amicoque usi sumus,” Cicero, de Orat. 1:14).: He was a transitional link between the Dogmatic arid Empiric schools and this :later, or. Methodic (Sprengel, ut sup. pt. v. 16), that sought to rescue medicine from the bewildering mass of particulars into which empiricism had plunged it. He reduced diseases to: two classes, chronic arid acute, and endeavored likewise to simplify remedies. In the meanwhile, the most judicious of medical theories since Hippocrates, Celsus, of the Augustan period had reviewed medicine in the light which all these schools afforded, land, not professing any distinct teaching, but borrowing from all, may be viewed as eclectic. He translated Hippocrates largely verbatim; quoting in a less degree Asclepiades and others. Antonius Musa, whose “cold-water cure,” after its successful trial on Augustus himself, became generally popular, seems to have had little of scientific basis, but by the usual method, or the usual accidents, became merely the fashionable practitioner of his day in Rome. Attalia, near Tarsus, furnished also, shortly after the period of Celsus, Athenaeus, the leader of the last of the schools of medicine which divided the ancient world, under the name of the “Pneumatic,” holding the tenet “of an ethereal principle ῥ ( ðíåῦìá ) residing in the microcosm, by means of which the mind performed the functions of the body.” This is also traceable in Hippocrates, and was an established opinion of the Stoics. It was exemplified in the innate heat, èåñìὴ ἔìöõôïò (Aret. de Caus. et Sign. Morb. Chron. ii; 13), and the calidum innatum of modern physiologists, especially in the 17th century (Dr. Adams, Pref. Aretceus, ed. Sydelh. Soc.).
4. Effect of these Systems.-It is clear that all these schools may easily have contributed to form the medical opinions current at the period, of the N.T.; that the two earlier among them may have influenced rabbinical teaching on that subject at a much earlier period; and that, especially at the time of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem, the Jewish people, whom he favored and protected, had an opportunity of largely gathering from the medical lore of the West. It was necessary, therefore, to pass in brief review the growth of the latter, and especially to note the points at which it intersects the medical progress of the Jews. Greek Asiatic medicine culminated in Galen, who was, however, still but a commentator on his Western predecessors, and who stands literally without rival, successor, or disciple of note, till the period when Greek learning was reawakened by the Arabian intellect. The Arabs, however, continued to build wholly upon Hippocrates and Galen, save in so far as their advance in chemical science improved their pharmacopoeia: this may be seen on reference to the works of Rhazes, AD. 930, and Haly Abbas. AD. 980. The first mention of small-pox is ascribed to Rhazes, who, however, quotes several earlier writers on the subject. Mohammed himself is said to have been versed in medicine, and to have compiled some aphorisms upon it; — and a herbalist literature was always extensively followed in the East from the days of Solomon downwards (Freind's History of Medicine, 2:5,:27). Galen himself belongs to the period of the Antonines, but he appears to have been acquainted with the writings of Moses, and to have travelled in quest of medical experience over Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, as well as Greece, and a large part of the West, and, in particular, to have visited the banks of the Jordan in quest of opobalsamum, and the coasts of the Dead Sea to obtain samples of bitumen. He also mentions Palestine as producing a watery wine, suitable for the drink of feeble patients.
II. Historical Notices.— Having thus described the external influences which, if any, were probably most potent in forming the medical practice of the Hebrews, we may trace next its internal growth. The cabalistic legends mix up the names of Shem and Heber in their fables about healing, and ascribe to those patriarchs a knowledge of simples and rare roots, with, of course, magic spells and occult powers, such as have clouded the history of medicine from the earliest times down to the 17th century.
1. In the Old Testament. — So to Abraham is ascribed a talisman, the touch of which healed all disease. We know that such simple surgical skill as the operation for circumcision implies was Abraham's; but severer operations than this are constantly required in the flock and herd, and those who watch carefully the habits of animals can hardly fail to amass some guiding principles applicable to man and beast alike. Beyond this, there was probably nothing but such ordinary obstetrical craft as has always been traditional among the women of rude tribes, that could be classed as medical lore in the family of the patriarch, until his sojourn brought him among the more cultivated Philistines and Egyptians. The only notices which Scripture affords in connection with the subject are' the cases of difficult midwifery in the successive households of Isaac, Jacob, and Judah (Gen_25:26; Gen_24:17; Gen_38:27), and so, later, in that of Phinehas 2 Samuel 4:19). :Doubts have been raised as to the possibility of twins being born, one holding the other's heel; but there does not seem to be any such limit to the operations of nature as an objection on that score would imply. After all it was perhaps only just such a relative position of the limbs of the infants at the. mere moment of birth as would suggest the “holding by the heel.” The midwives, it seems, in case of twins, were called upon to distinguish the first-born, to whom important privileges appertained. The tying on of a thread or ribbon was an easy way of preventing mistake, and the assistant in the case of Tamar seized the earliest possible moment for doing it. “When the hand or foot of a living child protrudes, it is to be pushed up, and the head made to present” (Paul. AEgin. ed Sydenh. Soc. 1:648, Hippocr. quoted by Dr Adans). This probably the midwife did, at the same time marking him as first-born in virtue of being thus “presented” first. The precise meaning of the doubtful expression in Gen_38:27 and mag. is discussed by Wunderbar, ut sup. p. 50, in reference both to the children and to the mother. Of Rachel a Jewish commentator says, “Multis etiam ex itinere difficultatibus praegressis,viribusque post diu protractos dolores exhaustis, atonia uteri, forsan quidem hemorrhagia in pariendo mortua est” (ibid.). The traditional value ascribed to the mandrake, in regard to generative functions, relates to the same branch of natural medicine; but throughout this period there occurs no trace of any attempt to study, digest, and systematize the subject.
But, as Israel grew and multiplied in Egypt, they doubtless derived a large mental cultivation from their position until cruel policy turned it into bondage; even then Moses was rescued from the lot of his brethren, and became learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, including, of course, medicine and cognate sciences (Clem. Alex. i, p. 413), and those attainments, perhaps, became suggestive of future laws. Some practical skill in metallurgy is evident from Exo_32:20. But, if we admit Egyptian learning as an ingredient, we should also notice how far exalted above it is the standard of the whole Jewish legislative fabric, in its exemption from the blemishes of sorcery and juggling pretences. The priest, who had to pronounce on the cure, used no means to advance it, and the whole regulations prescribed exclude the notion of trafficking in popular superstition. We have no occult practices reserved in the hands of the sacred caste. It is God alone who doeth great things, working by the wand of Moses, or the brazen serpent; but the very mention of such instruments is such as to expel all pretence of mysterious virtues in the things themselves. Hence various allusions to God's “healing mercy,” and the title “Jehovah that healeth” (Exo_15:26; Jer_17:14; Jer_30:17; Psa_103:3; Psa_147:3; Isa_30:26). Nor was the practice of physic a privilege of the' Jewish priesthood. Any one might practice it, and this publicity must have kept it pure. Nay, there was no scriptural bar to its practice by resident aliens. We read of “physicians,” “healing,” etc., Exo_21:19; 2Ki_8:29; :2Ch_16:12; Jer_8:22. At the same time the greater leisure of the Levites and their other advantages would make the the students of the nation, as a rule, in all science, and their constant residence in cities would give. them the opportunity, if carried out in fact, of a far wider field of observation.
The reign of peace in Solomon's days must have opened, especially with renewed. Egyptian intercourse new facilities for the study. He himself seems to have included in his favorite natural history some knowledge of the medicinal uses of the creatures. His works show him conversant with the motion of; remedial treatment (Pro_3:8; Pro_6:15; Pro_12:18; Pro_12:22; Pro_20:30; Pro_29:1; Ecc_3:3); and one passage (Ecc_12:3-4) indicates considerable knowledge of anatomy. His repute in magic is the universal theme of Eastern story. It has even been thought he had recourse to the shrine of Esculapius at Sidon, and enriched his resources by its records-or relics; but there is some doubt whether this temple was of such high antiquity. Solomon, however, we cannot doubt, would have turned to the account, not only of wealth but of knowledge, his peaceful reign, wide dominion, and wider renown, and would have sought to traffic in learning as well as in wheat and gold. To him the Talmudists ascribe all volume of cures” ( ñôø øôåàåú ), of which they make frequent mention (Fabricius, Cod. Pseudep. V. T. p. 1043). Josephus (Ant. 8:2) mentions his knowledge of medicine, and the use of spells by him to expel daemons who cause sicknesses,” which is continued among us,” he adds, “to this time.” The dealings of. various prophets with quasimedical agency cannot be' regarded as other than the mere accidental torn which their miraculous gifts took (1Ki_13:6; 1Ki_14:12; 1Ki_17:17; 2Ki_1:4; 2Ki_20:7; Isa_38:21). Jewish tradition has invested Elisha it would seem, with a function more largely medicinal than that of the other servants of God; but the scriptural evidence on the point is scanty, save ‘that he appears to have known at once the proper means to apply to heal the waters, and temper the noxious pottage (2Ki_2:21; 2Ki_4:39-41).
His healing the Shinammite's son has been discussed as a case of suspended animation and of animal magnetism applied to resuscitate it; but the narrative clearly implies that the death was real As regards the lepros, had the Jordan commonly possessed the healing power which Naaman's faith and obedience found in it, would there have been “many lepers in Israel in the days of Eliseus the prophet,” or in any other- days? Further, if our Lord's words (Luk_4:27) are to be taken literally, Elisha's reputation could not have; been founded on any succession of lepers healed.: The washing was a part of the enjoined illustration of the leper after his cure was complete; Naaman was to act as though clean, like the ten men that were lepers,”bidden to “go and show themselves to the priest” in either case it, Was “as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” The sickness of Benhadad is certainly so described as to imply treachery on the part of Hazael (2Ki_8:15). Yet the observation of Bruce, upon a “cold- water cure” practiced among the! people near the Red Sea, has suggested a view somewhat different. The bed-clothes -are. soaked with cold water, and kept thoroughly wet, and the patient drinks cold water freely. But the crisis, it seems occurs on the third day, and not till the fifth is it there usual to apply this treatment. If the chamberlain, through ‘carelessness,' ignorance, or treachery, precipitated the application, a fatal issue may have suddenly resulted. The “brazen serpent,” once the means of healing, and worshipped idolatrously in Hezekiah's reign, is supposed to have acquired those honors under its Esculapian aspect. This notion is not inconsistent with the Scripture narrative, though not therein traceable. It is supposed that something in the “volume of cures,” current under the authority of Solomon, may have conduced to the establishment ‘Of these rites, and drawn away the popular homage, especially in prayers during sickness, or thanksgivings after recovery from Jehovah. The statement that king Asa (2Ch_16:12) “sought not to Jehovah but to the physicians,” may seem to countenance the notion that a rivalry of actual worship, based on some medical fancies, had beer set up, and would so far support the Talmudical tradition.
The captivity of Babylon brought the Jews into contact with a new sphere of thought. Their chief men rose to thy highest honors, and an improved mental culture among a large section of the captives was no doubt the result which they imported on their return. Wunderbar regards the Babylonian captivity as parallel it its effects to the Egyptian bondage, and seems to think that the people would return debased from its influence. On the contrary, those whom subjection had made ignoble and unpatriotic would remain. If any returned it was a pledge that they were not so impaired; and, if not impaired, they would certainly be improved by the discipline they had undergone. He also thinks that sorcery had the largest share in any Babylonian or Persian system of medicine. This is assuming too much there were magicians in Egypt, but physicians also (see above)of high cultivation. Human nature has so great an interest in human life that only in the savage, rudimentary societies is its economy left thus involved in phantasms. The earliest steps of civilization include something of medicine. Of course ‘superstitions' are found copiously involved in such medical tenets, but this is not equivalent to abandoning the study to a class of professed magicians.
Thus in the Ueberreste de;- altbabylonischen Literatur, p. 123, by D. Chwolson, St. Petersb. 1859 (the value of which is not, however, yet ascertained), a writer on poisons claims to have a magic antidote, but declines stating what it is, as it is not his business to mention such things, and he only does so in cases where the charm is in connection with medical treatment and resembles it; the magicians, adds the same writer on another occasion, use a particular means of cure, but he declines to impart it, having a repugnance to witchcraft. So (p. 125-6) we find traces of charms introduced into Babylonian treatises on medical science, but apologetically; and as if against sounder knowledge. Similarly, the opinion of fatalism is not without its influence on medicine; but it is chiefly resorted to where, as often happens in pestilence, all known aid seems useless. We know, however, too little of the precise. state of medicine in Babylon, Susa; and the “cities of the Medes,” to determine the direction in- which the impulse so derived would have led the exiles; but the confluence of streams of thought. from opposite sources, which impregnate each other, would surely produce a tendency to sift established practice and accepted axioms, to set up a new standard by which to try the current rules of art, and to determine new lines of inquiry for any eager spirits disposed to search for truth. Thus the visit of Democedes to the court of Darius, though it seems to be an isolated fact, points to a general opening of Oriental manners to Greek influence, which was not too late to leave its traces in some-perhaps of the contemporaries of Ezra. That great reformer, with the leaders of national thought gathered about him, could not fail to recognise medicine among the salutary measures which distinguished his epoch. Whatever advantages the Levites had possessed in earlier days were now speedily lost even as regards the study of the divine law, and much more therefore as regards that of medicine; into which competitors would crowd fin proportion to its broader and more obvious human. interest, and effectually demolish any narrowing barriers of established privilege, if such previously existed.
2. In the Interval between the Old and the New Testament.-It may be observed that the priests in their ministrations, who performed at all seasons of the year barefoot on stone pavement, and without perhaps any variation of dress to meet that of temperature, were peculiarly liable to sickness (Kall, De Morbis Sacerdotum, Hafn. 1745). Hence the permanent appointment of a Temple physician has been supposed by some, and a certain Ben-Ahijah is mentioned by Wunderbar as occurring in the Talmud in that capacity. But it rather appears as if such an officer's appointment were precarious, and varied with the demands of the ministrants.
The book of Ecclesiasticus shows the increased regard given to the distinct study of medicine by the repeated mention of physicians, etc., which it contains, and which, as probably belonging to the period of the Ptolemies, it might be expected to show. The wisdom of prevention is recognised in Sir_18:19; perhaps also in Sir_10:10. Rank and honor are said to be the portion of the physician, and his office to be from the Lord (Sir_38:1; Sir_38:3; Sir_38:12). The repeated allusions to sickness in Sir_7:35; Sir_30:17; Sir_31:22; Sir_37:30; Sir_38:9, coupled with the former recognition of merit, have caused some to suppose that this author was himself a physician. If he was so, the power of mind and wide range of observation shown in his work would give a favorable impression of the standard of practitioners; if he was not, the great general popularity of the study and practice may be inferred from its thus becoming a common topic of general advice offered by a non-professional writer. In Wis_16:12, plaister is spoken of; anointing, as a means of healing, in Job_6:8.
3. In the New Testament. — Luke, “the beloved physician,” who practiced at Antioch while the body was his care, could hardly have failed to be conversant with all the leading opinions current down to his own time. Situated between the great schools of Alexandria and Cilicia, within easy sea-transit of both, as well as of the Western homes of science, Antioch enjoyed a more central position than any great city of the ancient world, and in it accordingly all the streams of contemporary medical learning may have probably found a point of confluence. The medicine of the New Test. is not solely, nor even chiefly, Jewish medicine; and even if it were, it is clear that the more mankind became mixed by intercourse, the more medical opinion and practice must have ceased to be exclusive. The great number of Jews resident in Rome and Greece about the Christian aera, and the successive decrees by which their banishment from the former was proclaimed, must have imported, even into Palestine, whatever from the West was best worth knowing; and we may be as sure that it's medicine and surgery expanded under these influences as that, in the writings of the. Talmudists, such obligations would be unacknowledged. But, beyond ‘this, the growth of large mercantile communities, such as existed in Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Ephesus. of itself involves a peculiar sanitary condition from the mass of human elements gathered to a focus under new or abnormal circumstances. Nor are the words in which an eloquent modern writer describes the course of this action less applicable to the case of an ancient than to that of a modern metropolis. Diseases once indigenous to a section of humanity, are slowly but surely creeping up to commercial centres, whence they will be rapidly propagated. One form of Asiatic leprosy is approaching the Levant from Arabia. The history of every disease which is communicated from man to man establishes this melancholy truth, that ultimately such maladies overleap all obstacles of climate, and demonstrate a solidarity in evil as well as in good among the brotherhood of nations” (Dr. Ferguson, Pref. Essay to Gooch on Diseases of Women, New Sydenham Society, London, 1859, p. xlvi)., In proportion as this “melancholy truth” is perceived would an intercommunication of medical science prevail also.
4. In Contemporary Heathen Writers. — The medicine and surgery referred to in the New Test., then, was probably not inferior to that commonly in demand among educated Asiatic Greeks, and must have been, as regards its basis Greek medicine, and not Jewish. Hence a standard Gentile medical writer, if any is to be found of that period, would best represent the profession to which the evangelist belonged. Without absolute certainty as to date, we seem to have such a writer in Areteus, commonly called “the Cappadocian,” who wrote certainly after Nero's reign began, and probably flourished shortly before and after the decade in which Paul reached Rome and Jerusalem fell. If he were of Luke's age, it is striking that he should also be perhaps the only ancient medical authority. in favor of daemoniacal possession as a possible account of epilepsy. If his country be rightly indicated by his surname, we know that it gave him the means of intercourse with both the Jews and the Christians of the apostolic period (Act_2:9; 1Pe_1:1). It is very likely that Tarsus, the nearest place of academic repute to that region, was the scene of, at any rate, the earlier studies of Areteeus, nor would any chronological difficulty prevent his having been a pupil in medicine there when Paul and also, perhaps, Barnabas Were, as is probable, pursuing their early studies in other subjects at the same spot. Aretseus, then, assuming the date above indicated, may be taken as expounding the medical practice of the Asiatic Greeks in the latter half of the first century. There is, however, much of strongly-marked individuality in his work, more especially in the minute verbal portraiture of disease. That of pulmonary consumption in particular, is traced with the careful description of an eye-witness, and represents with a curious exactness the curved nails, shrunken fingers, slender, sharpened nostrils, hollow, glazy eye, cadaverous look and hue; the waste of muscle and startling prominence of bones, the scapula standing ‘off like the wing of a bird; as also the habit of body marking predisposition to the malady, the thin, veneer-like frames, the limbs like pinions, the prominent throat and shallow-chest, with a remark that moist and cold climates -are the haunts of it ( Áñåô . öèßóåùò ).
His work exhibits strong traits here and there of the ‘Pneumatic school, as in his statement regarding lethargy, that it is frigidity implanted by nature; concerning elephantiasis even more emphatically, that it is a refrigeration of the innate heat, “or, rather, a congregation as it were one great winter of the system.” The same views betray themselves in his statement regarding the blood, that it is the warming principle of all the parts; that diabetes is a sort of dropsy, both exhibiting the watery principle; and that the effect of white hellebore is as that of fire: “so that whatever fire does by burning, hellebore effects still more by penetrating inwardly.” The last remark shows that he gave some scope to his imagination, which indeed we might illustrate from some of his pathological descriptions; e.g. that of elephantiasis, where the resemblance of the beast to the afflicted human being is wrought to a fanciful parallel. Allowing for such overstrained touches here and there, we may say that he generally avoids extravagant crotchets, and rests chiefly on wide observation, and on the common-sense which sobers theory and rationalizes facts. ‘He hardly ever quotes an authority; and though much of what he states was taught before, it is dealt with as the common property of science, or as become sui juris through being proved by his own experience. The freedom with which he follows or rejects earlier opinions has occasioned him to be classed by some among the Eclectic school. His work is divided into-I, the causes and signs of (1) acute and (2) chronic diseases; and, II, the curative treatment of (1) acute and (2) chronic diseases. His boldness of treatment is exemplified in his. selection of the vein to be opened in a wide range of parts the arm, ankle, tongue, nose, etc. He first has a distinct mention of leeches, which Themison is said to have introduced; and in this respect his surgical resources appear to be in advance of Celsus. He was familiar with the operation for the stone in the bladder, and prescribes, as Celsus also does, the use of the catheter, where its insertion is not prevented by inflammation, then the incision into the neck of the bladder, nearly as in modern lithotomy.
His views of the internal economy were a strange mixture of truth and error, and the disuse of anatomy was no doubt the reason why this was the weak point of his teaching. He held that the work of producing the blood pertained to the liver, “which is the root of the veins;” that the bile was distributed from the gall-bladder to the intestines; and, if this vesica became gorged, the bile was thrown back into the veins, and by them diffused over the system. He regarded the nerves as the source of sensation and motion; and had some notion of them as branching in pairs from the spine. Thus he has a curious statement as regards paralysis, that in the case of any sensational point below the head, e.g. from the membrane of the spinal marrow being affected injuriously, the parts on the right side will be paralyzed if the nerve towards the right side be hurt, and similarly, conversely, of the left side; but that if the head itself be so affected, the inverse law of consequence holds concerning the parts related, since each nerve passes over to the other side from that of its origin, decussating each other in the form of the letter X. The doctrine of the Pneuma, or ethereal principle existing in the microcosm by which the mind performs all the functions of the body, holds a more prominent position in the works of Aretaeus than in those of any of the other authorities (Dr. Adams's Preface to Aret. p. x, xi). He was aware that the nervous function of sensation was distinct from the motive power; that either might cease and the other continue. His pharmacopoeia is copious and reasonable, and the limits of the usefulness of this or that drug are laid down judiciously. He makes large use of wine, and prescribing the kind and the number of cyathi to be taken; and some words of his on stomach disorders ( ðåñὶ êáñäéáëãßçò ) forcibly recall those of Paul to Timothy (1Ti_5:23), and one might almost suppose them to have been suggested by the intenser spirituality of his Jewish or Christian patients. “Such disorders,” he says, “are common to those who toil in teaching, whose yearning is after divine instruction, who despise delicate and varied diet, whose nourishment is fasting, and whose drink is water.” As a purge of melancholy, he prescribes “ a little wine, and some other more liberal sustenance.” In his essay on causus, or “brain” fever, he describes the powers acquired by the soul before dissolution in the following remarkable words: “Every sense is pure, the intellect acute, the gnostic powers prophetic; for they prognosticate to themselves in the first place their own departure from life; then they foretell what will afterwards take place to those present, who fancy sometimes that they are delirious: but these persons wonder at the result of what has been' said. Others also talk to certain of the dead, perchance they alone perceiving them to be present, in virtue of their acute and pure sense, or perchance from their soul seeing beforehand, and announcing the men with whom they are about to associate. For formerly they were immersed in humors, as if in mud and darkness; but when the disease has drained these off, and taken away the mist from their eyes, they perceive those things which are in the air, and, through the soul being unencumbered, become true prophets.” To those who wish further to pursue the study of medicine at this sera, the edition of Aretaeus by the Sydenham Society, and in a less degree that by Boerhaave (Lugd. Bat. 1735). to which the references have here been made, may be recommended.
As the general science of medicine and surgery of this period may be represented by Areteus, so we have nearly a representation of its Materia Medica by Dioscorides. He too was of the same general region-a Cilician Greek-and his first lessons were probably learnt at Tarsus. His period is tinged by the same uncertainty as that of Aretaeus; but he has usually been assigned to the end of the first or beginning of the second century (see Smith, Dict. of Class. Biog. s.v.). He was the first author of high mark who devoted his attention to Materia Medica. Indeed, this branch of ancient science remained as he left it till the times of the Arabians; and these, though they enlarged the supply of drugs and pharmacy, yet copy and repeat Dioscorides, as, indeed, Galen himself often does, on all common subject-matter. Above 90 minerals, 700 plants, and 168 animal substances are said to be described in the researches of Dioscorides, displaying an industry and skill which has remained the marvel of all subsequent commentators. Pliny, copious, rare, and curious as he is, yet, for want of scientific medical knowledge, is little esteemed in this particular branch, save when he follows Dioscorides. The third volume of Paulus AEgin. (ed. Sydenham Soc.) contains a catalogue of medicines simple and compound, and the large proportion in which the authority of Dioscorides has contributed to form it will be manifest at the most cursory inspection. To abridge such a subject is impossible, and to transcribe it in the most meagre form would be far beyond the limits of this article.
III. Pathology in the Bible.-Before proceeding to the examination of diseases in detail, it may be well to observe that the question of identity between any ancient malady known by description and any modern one known by experience is often doubtful. Some diseases, just as some plants and some animals, will exist almost anywhere; others can only be produced within narrow limits depending on the conditions of climate, habit, etc.-and were only equal observation applied to the two, the habitat of a disease might be mapped as accurately as that of a plant. It is also possible that some diseases once extremely prevalent may run their course and die out, or occur only casually; just as it seems certain that, since the Middle Ages, some maladies have been introduced into Europe which were previously unknown. See Biblioth. Script. Med. (Geneva, 1731), s.v.; Hippocrates, Celsus, Galen; Leclerc's History of Medicine (Paris, 1723; transl. London, 179f); Freind's History of Medicine.
1. General Maladies. — Eruptive diseases of the acute kind are more prevalent in the East than in colder climes. They also run their course more rapidly; e.g. common itch, which in Scotland remains for a longer time vesicular, becomes, in Syria, pustular as early sometimes as the third day. The origin of it is now supposed to be an acarus, but the parasite perishes when removed from the skin. Disease of various kinds is commonly regarded as a divine infliction, or denounced as a penalty for transgression; “the evil diseases of Egypt” (perhaps in reference to some of the ten plagues) are especially so characterized (Gen_20:18; Exo_15:26; Lev_26:16; Deu_7:15; Deu_28:60; 1Co_11:30); so the emerods SEE HAEMORRHOIDS of the Philistines (1Sa_5:6) ; the severe dysentery (2Ch_21:15; 2Ch_21:19) of Jehoram, which was also epidemic SEE BLOOD, ISSUE OF; and SEE FEVER, the peculiar symptom of which may perhaps have been prolapsus ani (Dr. Mason Good, 1:311-13, mentions a case of the entire colon exposed); or, perhaps, what is known as diarrhaea tubularis, formed by the coagulation of fibrine into a membrane discharged from the inner coat of the intestines, which takes the mould of the bowel, and is thus expelled; so the sudden deaths of Er, Onan (Gen_38:7; Gen_38:10), the Egyptian first-born (Exo_11:4-5), Nabal, Bathsheba's son, and Jeroboam's (1Sa_25:38; 2Sa_12:15; 1Ki_14:1; 1Ki_14:5), are ascribed to the action of Jehovah immediately, or through a prophet. Pestilence (Hab_3:5) attends his path (comp. 2Sa_24:15), and is innoxious to those whom he shelters (Psa_91:3-10).
It is by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos associated (as historically in 2Sa_24:13) with “the sword” and “famine” (Jer_14:12; Jer_15:2; Jer_21:7; Jer_21:9; Jer_24:10; Jer_27:8; Jer_27:13; Jer_28:8; Jer_29:17-18; Jer_32:24; Jer_32:36; Jer_34:17; Jer_38:2; Jer_42:17; Jer_42:22; Jer_44:13; Eze_5:12; Eze_5:17; Eze_6:11-12; Eze_7:15; Eze_12:16; Eze_14:21; Eze_33:27; Amo_4:6; Amo_4:10). The sicknesses of the widow's son of Zarephath, of Ahaziah, Benhadad, the leprosy of Uzziah, the boil of Hezekiah, are also noticed as diseases sent-by Jehovah, or in which he interposed (1Ki_17:17; 1Ki_17:20; 1 Kings 2 Kings 1:3; 20:1). In 2Sa_3:29, disease is invoked as a curse, and in Solomon's prayer (1Ki_8:37; comp. 2Ch_20:9) anticipated as a chastisement. Job and his friends agree in ascribing his disease to divine infliction; but the latter urge his sins as the cause. So, conversely, the healing character of God ‘is invoked or promised (Psa_6:2; Psa_41:3; Psa_103:3; Jer_30:17). Satanic agency appears also as procuring disease (Job_2:7; Luk_13:11; Luk_13:16). Diseases are also mentioned as ordinary calamities; e.g. the sickness of old age, headache (perhaps by sunstroke), as that of the Shunammite's son, that of Elisha, and that of Benhadad, and that of Joram (Gen_48:1; 1Sa_30:13; 2Ki_4:20; 2Ki_8:27; 2Ki_8:29; 2Ki_13:14; 2Ch_22:6).
2. Among special diseases mentioned in the Old Test. are, ophthalmia (Gen_29:17, îְëִìּåֹú òֵðִéַí )., which is perhaps more common in Syria and Egypt than anywhere else in the world, especially in the fig season, the juice of the newly-ripe fruit having the power of giving it. It may occasion partial or total blindness (2Ki_6:18). The eye-salve ( êïëëýñéïí , Rev_3:18; Hor. Sat. i) was a remedy common to Orientals, Greeks, and Romans (see Hippocr. êïëëïýñéïí ; Celsus, 6:8, De oculorum morbis, [2] De diversis collyriis). Other diseases are- barrenness of women, which mandrakes were supposed to have the power of correcting (Gen_20:18; comp. 12:17; 30:1, 2, 14-16); “consumption,” and several, the names of which are derived from various words, signifying to burn or to be hot (Lev_26:16; Deu_28:22) SEE FEVER; compare the kinds of fever distinguished by Hippocrates as êáῦóïò and ðῦñ .
The “burning boil,” or “of a boil” (Lev_13:23, äִùְּׁçַéï öָøֶáֶú , Sept. ïὐëὴ ôïῦ ἕëêïõò ), is again merely marked by the notion of an effect resembling -that of fire, like the Greek öëåãìïíή , or our “carbuncle;” it may possibly find an equivalent in the Damascus boil of the present time. The “botch ( ùְׁçַéï ) of Egypt” (Deu_28:27) is so vague a term as to yield a. most uncertain sense; the plague, as known by its attendant bubo, has been suggested-by Scheuchzer. It is possible that the Elephantiasis Graecorum may be intended by ùְׁçַéï , understood in the widest sense of a continued ulceration until the whole body, or the portion affected, may be regarded as one ùְׁçַéï .
Of this disease some further notice will be taken below; at present it is observable that the same word is used to express the “boil” of Hezekiah. This was certainly a single locally-confined eruption, and was probably a carbuncle, one of which may well be fatal, though a single “boil” in our sense of the word seldom is so. Dr. Mead supposes it to have been a fever terminating in an abscess. The diseases rendered “scab” and “scurvy” in Lev_21:20; Lev_22:22; Deu_28:27, may be almost any skin-disease, such as those known under the names of lepra, psoriaris, pityriasis, icthyosis, favus, or common itch. Some of these may be said to approach the type of leprosy as laid down in Scripture, although they do not appear to have involved ceremonial defilement, but only a blemish disqualifying for the priestly office. The quality of ‘being incurable is added as a special curse, for these diseases are not generally so, or at any rate are common in milder forms., The “running of the reins” (Lev_15:2-3; Lev_22:4, marg.) may perhaps mean gonorrhoea, or more probably blennorrhcea (mucous discharge). If we compare Num_25:1; Num_31:7, with Jos_22:17, there is ground for thinking that some disease of this class 'derived from polluting sexual intercourse, remained among the people.
The existence of gonorrhoea in early times -save in the mild form- has been much disputed. Michel Levy (Traiti d'Hygine, p. 7) considers the affirmative as established by the above passage, and says of syphilis, “Que pour notre part, nous n'avons jamais pu considerer comme une nouveaute du xve siecle.” He certainly gives some strong historical evidence against the view that it was introduced into France by Spanish troops under Gonzalvo de Cordova'on their return from the New World, and so into the rest of Europe, where it was ‘known as the morbus Gallicus. He adds, “La syphilis est perdue confusdment dans la pathologie ancienne par. la diversite de ses symptomes et de ses altdrations; leur interpretation collective, et leur redaction en une seule unite morbide, a fait croire a l'introduction d'une maladie nouvelle.” See also Freind's History of Med., Dr. Mead, Michaelis, Reinhart (Bibelkrankheiten), Schmidt (Biblisch. Med.), and others. Wunderbar (BibTalm. Med. 3:20, commenting on Leviticus 15, and comparing Mishna, Zabim. 2:2, and Maimonides, ad loc.) thinks that gonorrhoea benigna was in the mind of the latter writers. Dr. Adams, the editor of Paul. AEgin. (Sydenh. Soc. 2:14), considers syphilis a modified form of elephantiasis. For all ancient notices of the cognate diseases, see that work, 1:593 sq. The “issue” of 15:19, may be the menorrhagia, the duration of which in the East is sometimes, when not checked by remedies, for an indefinite period (Mat_9:20), or uterine hemorrhage from other causes. In Deu_28:35 is mentioned a disease attacking the “knees and legs,” consisting in a “ sore botch which cannot be healed,” but extended, in the sequel of the verse, from the “sole of the foot to the top of the head.” The latter part of the quotation would certainly accord with Elephantiasis Graecorum; but this, if the whole verse be a mere continuation of one described malady, would be in contradiction to the fact that this disease commences in the face, not in the lower members. On the other hand, a disease which affects the knees and legs, or more commonly one of them only-its principal feature being intumescence, distorting and altering all the proportions — is by a mere accident of language known as Elephantiasis Arabum, Bucnemia Tropica (Rayer, 3:820-841), or “Barbadoes leg,” from being well known in that island. Supposing, however, that the affection of the knees and legs is something distinct, and that the latter part ‘of the description applies to the Elephantiasis Graecorum, the incurable and all-pervading character of the malady are well expressed by it. This disease is what now passes under the name of “ leprosy” (Michaelis, 3:259)-the lepers, e.g. of the huts near the Zion gate of modern Jerusalem are elephantiacs. It has been asserted that there are two kinds, one painful, the other painless; but, as regards Syria and the East, this is contradicted. There the parts affected are quite benumbed and lose sensation. It is classed as a tubercular disease, not confined to the skin, but pervading the tissues and destroying the bones. It is not confined to any age or either sex. It first appears in general, but not always, about the face, as an indurated nodule (hence it is improperly called tubercular), which gradually enlarges, inflames, and ulcerates. Sometimes it commences in the neck or arms.
The ulcers will heal spontaneously, but only after a long period, and after destroying a great deal of the neighboring parts. If a joint be attacked, the ulceration will go on till its destruction is complete, the joints of finger, toe, etc., dropping off one by one. Frightful dreams and fetid breath are symptoms mentioned by some pathologists. More nodules will develop themselves, and, if the face be the chief seat of the disease, it assumes a leonine aspect (hence called also Leontiasis), loathsome and hideous; the skin becomes thick, rugose, and livid; the eyes are fierce and staring, and the hair generally falls off from all the parts affected. When the throat is attacked the voice shares the affection, and sinks to a hoarse, husky whisper. These two symptoms are eminently characteristic. The patient will become bed-ridden, and, though a mass of bodily corruption, seems happy and contented with his sad condition, until, sinking exhausted under the ravages of the disease, he is generally carried off, at least in Syria, by diarrhoea. It is hereditary, and may be inoculated, but does not propagate itself by the closest contact; e.g. two women in the aforesaid leper-huts remained uncontaminated though their husbands were both affected, and yet the children born to them were, like the fathers, elephantisiac, and became so in early life. On the children of diseased parents a watch for the appearance of the malady is kept; but no; one is afraid of infection, and the neighbors mix freely with them, though, like the lepers of the Old Test., they live “ in a several house.” Many have attributed to these wretched creatures a libido inexplebilis (see Proceedings of Med. and Chirurg. Soc. of London, Jan. 1860, 3:164, fromwhich some of the above remarks are taken). This is denied by Dr. Robert Sim (from a close study of the disease in Jerusalem), save insd' far ‘as idleness and inactivity, with animal wants supplied, may conduce to it. It became first prevalent in Europe during the crusades, and by their means was diffused, and the ambiguity of designating it leprosy then originated, and has been generally since retained. Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxvi, 5) asserts that it was unknown in Italy till the time of Pompey the Great, when it was imported from Egypt, but soon became extinct (Paul. AEgin. ed. Sydenh. Soc. 2:6). It is, however, broadly distinguished from the ëÝðñá , ëåýêç etc. of the Greeks by name and symptoms, no less than by Roman medical and even popular writers; comp. Lucretius, whose mention of it' is the earliest —
”Est elephas morbus,
qui propter flumina Nili,
Gignitur AEgypto in media,
neque piretelrea usquam.”
It is nearly extinct in Europe, save in Spain and Norway. A case was seen lately in the Crimea, but may have been produced elsewhere. It prevails in Turkey and the Greek Archipelago. One case, however, indigenous in England, is recorded among the medical facsimiles at Guy's Hospital. In Granada it was generally fatal after eight or ten years, whatever the treatment. This favors the correspondence of this disease with one of those evil diseases of Egypt, possibly its botch,” threatened in Deu_33:27. This “botch,” however, seems more probably to mean ‘the foul ulcer mentioned by Areteus (De Sign. et Caus. Maor. Acut.i, 9), and called by him ἄöèá or ἐó÷Üñç . He ascribes its frequency in Egypt to the mixed vegetable diet there followed, and to the use of the turbid water of the Nil:' but adds that it is common in Coele-Syria.' The Talmud speaks of the elephantiasis (Baba Kama, 80 b) as being “moist without and dry within” (Wunlderbar, Biblisch-Talmudische Med. Mes Heft, 10, 11). ‘ Advanced cases are said to have: a cancerous aspect, and some even class it as a form of cancer; a disease dependent on faults of nutrition;
It has been asserted that this, which is perhaps the most dreadful disease of the East, was Job's malady. Origen, Hexapla on Job_2:7, mentions that one of the :Greek versions gives it, loc. ci