Medicine

VIEW:33 DATA:01-04-2020

MEDICINE.—Palestine was probably a comparatively healthy country in Bible times, as it is now. Its natural features in most localities would protect it from the usual endemic diseases of Oriental lands, and its want of harbours would to a great extent prevent the importation of epidemics (contrast the reputation of Egypt, as attested by Deu_7:15; Deu_28:50, Amo_4:10); moreover, the legislation of the Priestly Code, if it was ever observed, would have operated to prevent the spread of disease, and the existence of far-reaching destitution. These provisions, and the common occurrence of external and internal warfare, must also have tended to eliminate overcrowding as a cause of disease; but the ratio of population to area in ancient times is very difficult to estimate; the figures in 1Ch_21:5 and 2Sa_4:9 are clearly untrustworthy.
1. Jews believed in a definite connexion between health and virtue (cf. Isa_58:8, Jer_8:15; Jer_8:22). Disease was popularly regarded as penal (Joh_9:2), and as sent by God either directly (Exo_4:11, Deu_32:39) or permissively by means of others (Job_2:7, Mar_9:17; Mar_9:25). It might also be caused by human envy (Job_5:2), or by bodily excess (Sir_37:30-31), but even so its vera causa was God’s direct authorization.
Under these circumstances healing was treated as a token of Divine forgiveness (Exo_15:26). And the connexion of priest with physician was correspondingly close. On the whole, the medical knowledge of the Bible peoples was very defective; nor are there any traces of medical education in Palestine. Jacob was embalmed by Egyptian physicians (Gen_50:2), but there must probably have been some Jewish practitioners at the time when Exo_21:19 was compiled. The word in Jer_8:22 means a ‘bandager.’ The writer of 2Ch_16:12 seems to take the extreme view that it was a sin to consult physicians, but saner ideas are represented in Sir_38:2. Still, it may be doubted whether medical duties were not usually performed by priests (as in early Egypt), at any rate in the earlier OT times; certainly the priests had the supervision in the case of certain diseases, e.g. leprosy; and prophets also were applied to for medical advice (cf. 1Ki_14:2; 1Ki_17:18, 2Ki_4:22; 2Ki_20:7). And even in Sir_38:14 the physician is regarded as having certain priestly duties, and the connexion between religion and medicine is seen in the counsel, given in that same chapter, that repentance and an offering shall precede the visit of the physician. In the NT we have St. Luke described as a physician (Col_4:14), and a somewhat depreciatory remark on physicians in Mat_5:26, which, however, is much toned down in Luk_8:43.
It is therefore probable that up till late times medicine was in the charge of the priests, whose knowledge must have been largely traditional and empirical. The sacrificial ritual would give them some knowledge of animal morphology, but human anatomy can scarcely have existed as a science at all, since up to about a.d. 100 the ceremonial objections to touching or dissecting the dead prevailed. Thus Bible references to facts of anatomy and physiology are very few in number. Blood was tabooed as food (Gen_9:4, Lev_17:11)—a highly important sanitary precaution, considering the facility with which blood carries microbes and parasites. A rudimentary embryology can be traced in Job_10:10, Psa_139:15-16 (cf. Ecc_11:5). But most of the physiological theories adverted to in the Bible are expressed in language of poetry and metaphor. On the whole, however, we may infer that the Jews (like other ancient peoples) regarded the heart as the seat of mental and moral activity (exceptions to this view are Dan_2:28; Dan_4:5; Dan_7:1), the reins or kidneys as the seats of impulse, affection, conscience (Jer_11:20; Jer_12:2, Psa_7:9), the bowels as the organs of sympathy (Psa_40:8, Job_30:27). Proverbs about physicians seem to be alluded to in Mat_9:12, Luk_4:23, Sir_38:1. Except in the case of certain diseases, visitation of the sick is enjoined in the Talmud (though not in the OT), and enforced by Christ in Mat_25:36.
2. General terms for disease.—The words ‘sick,’ ‘sickness,’ ‘sicknesses,’ ‘disease,’ ‘diseased,’ ‘diseases,’ are of the most frequent occurrence, though they are not always used as the tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of the same words in the original. Sometimes the term is qualified, e.g. ‘sickness unto death’ (Isa_38:1), ‘sore sickness’ (1Ki_17:17), ‘evil disease’ (Psa_41:8), ‘incurable disease’ (2Ch_21:18). We also have ‘infirmity’ three times in the OT, in Lev_12:2 meaning periodic sickness, in Psa_77:10 as weakness from sickness, in Pro_18:14 as weakness generally. The term plague is sometimes used of a specific epidemic, at other times of sickness in general. There are also various figurative expressions for disease, and in some places it is described as inflicted by the angel of God, e.g. 2Sa_24:16. In the NT, again, various Gr. words are translated by ‘sickness,’ ‘disease,’ ‘infirmity’; the allusion in 1Co_11:30 may be to mental weakness, and in Rom_15:1 to weakness of conscience.
Some diseases, e.g. leprosy, were regarded as unclean, and those suffering from them were excluded from cities. But in general the sick were treated at home. As to the treatment we know very little. It is possible that in earlier times bleeding was not resorted to because of the taboo on blood, though in later times the Jews followed the universal practice. Pro_30:15 has been supposed to show a knowledge of the medicinal use of leeches; but this inference can by no means be drawn with any certainty from the context.
3. Specific diseases.—As a rule the Bible references to specific diseases are general and vague; and even where we find concrete mention of particular ailments, it is not always easy to decide what the exact nature of the maladies was. In some cases the symptoms are given, though sometimes very indefinitely.
In Deu_28:22 a group of terms is used for diseases which appear to resemble each other in the fact that they are sudden, severe, epidemic, and fatal. The first is called consumption. This may be phthisis, but more probable it means a kind of wasting fever, characterized by weakness and anæmia, often of long duration, and perhaps not unlike Mediterranean or Malta fever. The same word is used in Lev_26:16. The ‘consumption’ mentioned in Isa_10:22; Isa_28:22 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] does not appear to be a specific disease at all. This is followed in Deut. by fever; the same word in Lev_26:16 is rendered ‘burning ague’ by the AV [Note: Authorized Version.] , and the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] translates it by the Greek word for ‘jaundice.’ Its symptoms are given in the passage of Lv.; it may be a sort of malarial fever which occurs in certain parts of Palestine, and is occasionally accompanied by jaundice. This may be the disease alluded to in Joh_4:26 and Luk_4:38, both instances at Capernaum. Then comes inflammation (Deu_28:22 EV [Note: English Version.] , LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ague). This may be ague, or even typhoid, which is common in Palestine. Next we have ‘extreme burning’ (Deu_28:22 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] , RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘fiery heat,’ LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ‘irritation’); either some unspecified kind of irritating disease, or erysipelas; but this latter disease is not of frequent occurrence in Palestine. The ‘sword’ (Deu_28:22 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] , RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘drought’) may be a form of disease, or more probably, like the next two words, may refer to a destruction of the earth’s fruits. The same word ‘sword’ in Zec_11:17 seems, from the symptoms described, to refer to a wasting paralysis. The descriptions given in Psa_39:11, Zec_14:12, Lev_26:39, Eze_24:23; Eze_33:10, Psa_38:5 are largely figurative; but the imagery may be taken from an attack of confluent smallpox, with its disfiguring and repulsive effects. It seems highly probable that smallpox was a disease of antiquity; perhaps the sixth plague of Egypt was of this character.
Allusions to pestilence or plague are exceedingly common in the OT. Thus at least four outbreaks took place among the Israelites during their wanderings in the wilderness, viz. Num_11:33 (it has been suggested that the quails here mentioned may have come from a plague-stricken district) Num_14:37; Num_16:46; Num_25:9 (in this last case it may have been communicated by the Moabites). For other references to plague, cf. 2Sa_24:15, 2Ch_21:14, Psa_91:3; Psa_91:6, Jer_21:9; Jer_42:17, perhaps 2Ki_19:35. The bubonic plague was the periodic scourge of Bible lands. It has but a short period of incubation, spreads rapidly and generally, and is very fatal, death ensuing in a large proportion of cases, and nearly always within three days. No precautions against it are prescribed in the Levitical Code, because it was regarded as a special visitation of God. As the plague is not endemic in Palestine, the Jews probably incurred it by mixing with their neighbours. The emerods of 1Sa_5:6 were tumours of a definite shape, and may therefore be the buboes of the plague. The tumours appeared somewhere in the lower part of the abdomen. Some have supposed them to be hæmorrhoids, by comparison with the phrase in Psa_78:66, but this is doubtful. The same word occurs in Deu_28:27.
Of diseases in the digestive organs the case in 2Ch_21:19 is one of chronic dysentery in its worst form. That in Act_28:8 (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] bloody flux) is also dysentery, which is very prevalent in Malta. The mention of hæmorrhage in this case shows that it was of the ulcerative or gangrenous type, which is very dangerous.
The results of intemperance are mentioned in Pro_23:29 ff., Isa_19:14.
The liver. The Hebrew physicians regarded many disorders as due to an alteration in the bile (cf. Job_16:15, Pro_7:23, Lam_2:11). The disorders alluded to in 1Ti_5:23 were probably some kind of dyspepsia, apparently producing lack of energy (cf. 1Ti_4:13-16); the symptoms are often temporarily relieved by the use of alcohol. In Psa_69:3 allusion is made to the dryness of throat produced by mental emotions of a lowering character; and in Isa_16:11, Jer_4:10 to the flatulent distension of the colon due to the same cause.
Heart. There are few references to physical diseases affecting it. Pro_14:30 may be one. Cases of syncope seem to be recorded in Gen_45:26, 1Sa_4:18; 1Sa_28:20, Dan_8:27. The allusions to a ‘broken heart’ in Scripture are always metaphorical, but the theory that our Lord’s death was due to rupture of the heart deserves mention.
Paralysis or palsy. This is a disease of the central nervous system, which comes on rapidly as a rule, and disappears slowly, if at all. Such cases are mentioned in the NT, e.g. Mat_4:24, Luk_4:18, perhaps Act_9:33. The case in Mat_8:6 may have been one of acute spinal meningitis, or some other form of especially painful paralysis. In the case of the withered hand of Mat_12:10, Mar_3:1, Luk_6:8 a complete atrophy of the bones and muscles was probably the cause. The case in Act_3:2 was possibly of the same nature. Such cases are probably intended also in Joh_5:3. The man in Joh_5:7 can hardly have been suffering from locomotor ataxia, as he could move himself, and his disease had lasted 38 years. Therefore this also was, in all likelihood, a case of withered limbs. The sudden attack mentioned in 1Ki_13:4 was probably due to sudden hæmorrhage affecting some part of the brain, which may under certain circumstances be only temporary.
Apoplexy. A typical seizure is described in 1Sa_25:37, due to hæmorrhage in the brain produced by excitement, supervening, in this particular instance, on a drinking bout (cf. also 1Ma_9:55). The same sort of seizure may be referred to in 2Sa_6:7, Act_5:6-10.
Trance is mentioned in Gen_2:21; Gen_15:12. But the cases in 1Sa_26:12, Jdg_4:21, Mat_8:24 were probably of sleep due to fatigue. Prophetic frenzy is alluded to in Num_24:3-4, 2Ki_9:11 (cf. Isa_8:18). Saul is an interesting psychical study: a man of weak judgment, violent passions, and great susceptibility, eventually succumbing to what seem to be recurring paroxysms of mania, rather than a chronic melancholia. A not uncommon type of monomania seems to be described in Dan_4:1-37 (the lycanthropy of Nebuchadnezzar). In the NT various nervous affections are probably included among the instances of demoniac possession, e.g. Luk_11:14, Mat_12:22. In Luk_1:22, Act_9:7 are apparently mentioned cases of temporary aphasia due to sudden emotion. (Cf. also Dan_10:15.)
Deafness and dumbness. Many of the NT cases of possession by dumb spirits were probably due to some kind of insanity or nervous disease, e.g. Mat_9:32, Mar_9:25. In Mar_7:32 stammering is joined to deafness. Isa_28:11; Isa_32:4 (cf. Isa_33:19) probably refer to unintelligible rather than defective speech. Moses’ slowness of speech and tongue (cf. Exo_4:10) was probably only lack of oratorical fluency. Patience with the deaf is recommended in Lev_19:14.
Epilepsy. The case in Mat_17:15, Mar_9:18, Luk_9:38 is of genuine epileptic fits; the usual symptoms are graphically described. Like many epileptics, the patient had been subject to the fits from childhood. The ‘pining away’ mentioned in the Markan account is characteristic of a form of the disease in which the fits recur frequently and cause progressive exhaustion. The word used in Mt. to describe the attack means literally ‘to be moon-struck’; the same word is found in Mat_4:24, and an allusion to moon-stroke occurs in Psa_121:6. It was a very general belief that epilepsy was in some way connected with the phases of the moon. Such a theory is put forward by Vicary, the physician of Henry VIII., at so late a date as 1577.
Sunstroke. This is mentioned in Psa_121:6, Isa_49:10, and cases of apparently genuine siriasis are described in 2Ki_4:10 and Jdt_8:2. This seizure is very rapid and painful, accompanied by a great rise in temperature, passing speedily into coma, and resulting as a rule in death within a very short space of time. The cure effected in 2Ki_4:1-44 was plainly miraculous. Heat syncope, rather than sunstroke, seems to have been the seizure in Jonah’s case (Jon_4:8). He fainted from the heat, and on recovery was conscious of a severe headache and a feeling of intense prostration.
Dropsy is common in Jerusalem. The cure of a case of dropsy is recorded in Luk_14:2.
Pulmonary disease as such finds no mention in Scripture. The phrase used in 1Ki_17:17, ‘there was no breath left in him,’ is merely the ordinary way of stating that he died.
Gout. This disease is very uncommon among the people of Palestine; and it is not, as a rule, fatal. The disease in his feet from which Asa suffered (1Ki_15:23, 2Ch_16:12) has usually been supposed to be gout, though one authority suggests that it was articular leprosy, and another that it was senile gangrene. The passages quoted give us no clue to the nature of the disease in question, nor do they state that it caused his death. Josephus describes Asa as dying happily in a good old age. The OT records remark only that he suffered from a disease in the feet, which began when he was advanced in years.
Under the heading surgical diseases may be classed the spirit of infirmity, affecting the woman mentioned in Luk_13:11; Luk_13:13, who, though she could attend the synagogue meetings, was bowed together and unable to lift herself. This was probably a case of senile kyphosis, such as not infrequently occurs with aged women, and sometimes with men, who have spent their lives in agricultural or horticultural labour, which necessitates constant curvature of the body.
Crook-backedness (Lev_21:20) disqualified a man for the priesthood. This disease is one which can occur in youth, and is due to caries of the vertebræ. The collections of bones found in Egypt justify the inference that such curvatures must have been fairly common in Egypt.
Fracture of the skull. A case is recorded in Jdg_9:53, where insensibility did not immediately supervene, showing the absence of compression of the brain. In Act_20:9 fatal compression and probably a broken neck were caused by the accident. The fall in 2Ki_1:2 was the cause of Ahaziah’s ultimate death.
Lameness. Mephibosheth’s lameness was due to an accident in infancy (2Sa_4:4), which apparently produced some sort of bone disease, necessitating constant dressing, unless the phrase in 2Sa_19:24 refers merely to washing. Lameness was a disqualification for the priesthood (Lev_21:18); Christ healed many lame people in the Temple (Mat_21:14) as well as elsewhere. Jacob’s lameness (Gen_32:31) may also be mentioned.
Congenital malformations. Cf. 2Sa_21:20, 1Ch_20:6. The possession of superfluous parts was held to disqualify a man for the priesthood (Lev_21:18), as did also dwarfishness (Lev_21:20), unless the reference there is to emaciation from disease. The word in Lev_21:18, which is translated ‘that hath a flat nose,’ may refer to the deformity of a hare-lip.
Skin diseases are of common occurrence in the East. The most important of them was leprosy (wh. see). But there are many minor diseases of the skin recognized in Bible enactments under various terms.
Baldness (Lev_13:40-43) was not looked upon as causing ceremonial uncleanness, nor apparently was it common; it seems to have been regarded not as a sign of old age, but as the result of a life spent in excessive labour with exposure to the sun (cf. Eze_29:18), and so in Isa_3:24 it is threatened as a mark of degradation and servitude.
Itch (Deu_28:27) is probably the parasitic disease due to a small mite which burrows under the skin, and, if neglected, sometimes spreads all over the body; this disease is very easily communicated, and is not uncommon in Syria at the present time. It was a disqualification for the priesthood (Lev_21:20).
Scab (Deu_28:27) or scurvy (Lev_21:20) is a kindred disease in which a crust forms on the skin; it is most common on the head, but sometimes spreads all over the body, and is most difficult to cure. ‘Scab’ in Lev_21:20 is the tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of a different word, but is probably another form of the same disease (cf. Isa_3:17).
Scall or scurf of the head and beard (Lev_13:30) is another parasitic disease of similar nature.
Freckled spot (Lev_13:39, RV [Note: Revised Version.] tetter) may be psoriasis, a non-contagions eruption.
The botch of Egypt (Deu_28:27; Deu_28:35). The same word is used in Job_2:7, Exo_9:9, 2Ki_20:7, Isa_38:21. It is probably a general term for a swelling of the skin. In Exo_9:10 blains, perhaps pustules containing fluid, are stated to have accompanied the boils. The disease in Deu_28:35 affected especially the knees and legs. Job’s disease appears to have been one of itching sores or spots all over the body, which disfigured his face (Job_2:11), caused great pain and a feeling of burning (Job_6:4), made his breath fetid (Job_19:17), and were infested with maggots (Job_7:5). Various names for the exact nature of the disease have been suggested, such as elephantiasis, leprosy, smallpox, etc. Some authorities, however, suppose the symptoms to agree better with those or the ‘Biskra button’ or Oriental sore, sometimes called ‘Aleppo sore’ or ‘Baghdad sore,’ which begins with papular spots, which ulcerate, become crusted over, are slow in granulation, and often multiple. This complaint is probably due to a parasite. Lazarus’ sores (Luk_16:20) were probably old varicose ulcers of the leg.
Spot (Deu_32:5, Job_11:15, Son_4:7) and blemish (Lev_21:17, Dan_1:4) seem to be general terms for skin disease. Wen (Lev_22:22) means a suppurating sore.
The bloody sweat of our Lord (Luk_22:44) is difficult to explain. Some regard the passage as meaning merely that His sweat dropped, as blood drops from a wound. Instances of bloody sweat have been quoted in comparison, but it seems that none is satisfactorily authenticated.
Poisonous serpents are mentioned in Num_21:6 (where they are miraculously cured by the erection of a brass model of a serpent), Deu_32:33, Job_20:14-15, Isa_11:8; Isa_14:29; Isa_30:8; Isa_59:5, Jer_8:17, Mat_3:7 (metaphorically, as also in Mat_12:34; Mat_23:33, Luk_3:7), Mar_16:18, Luk_10:19, Act_28:3. There are several poisonous serpents in the desert of the Exodus narrative, whose bites are often fatal; but it has been suggested that the fiery serpents of Num_21:6 were really the parasitic worms called guinea-worms, which are not uncommon in the desert region. Scorpion bites are common and often fatal to children in Egypt, but not in Palestine.
Worms (Act_12:23) is the description of the disease of which Herod died. One authority suggests that it was acute peritonitis set up by the perforation of the bowel by an intestinal worm. Josephus states that Herod suffered from a violent abdominal pain which in a few days proved fatal. Thus it cannot have been a case of phthiriasis. The death of Antiochus Epiphanes (2Ma_9:5-9) is described as preceded by a violent pain of the bowels; then he was injured by a violent fall, and ‘worms rose up out of his body’—in all probability a case of compound fractures, in which blow-flies laid their eggs and maggots hatched, owing to neglect of the injuries.
The third plague of Egypt (Exo_8:16) is called one of lice, but the margin of the RV [Note: Revised Version.] suggests ‘sand-flies’ or ‘fleas.’ It is possible that they were mosquitoes or sand fleas, the latter of which generate in the dust.
Discharges or issues of a certain nature caused ceremonial impurity; cf. Lev_15:2-25. Some of these were natural (Deu_23:10), others probably were the result of impure practices, but it is doubtful how much the ancients knew of the physical consequences of vice. Cf., however, Psa_107:17-18, Pro_2:18; Pro_5:11-22; Pro_7:23; Pro_7:26.
Blindness is exceedingly common among the natives of Palestine; the words describing this affliction are of frequent occurrence in the Bible, sometimes in the literal, sometimes in the metaphorical, sense. Apparently only two forms of blindness were recognized: (1) that which arose from the ophthalmia so prevalent in Oriental lands, a highly infectious disease, aggravated by sand, sun-glare, and dirt, which damages the organs, and often renders them quite useless; (2) that due to old age, as in the case of Eli (1Sa_3:2), Ahijah (1Ki_14:4), Isaac (Gen_27:1). Cf. also Deu_34:7. Blindness was believed to be a visitation from God (Exo_4:11), it disqualified a man for the priesthood (Lev_21:18); but compassion for the blind was prescribed (Lev_19:14), and offences against them were accursed (Deu_27:18). Leah probably suffered from a minor form of ophthalmia (Gen_29:17). In Lev_26:16 we see ophthalmia accompanying malarial fever. The blinding of Elymas in Act_13:11 may have been hypnotic, as also possibly the blinding of the Syrian soldiers in 2Ki_6:18.
The cases of blindness which were cured by our Lord are usually given without special characterization; the two of most interest are that of the man born blind (Joh_9:1), and that of the man whose recovery was gradual (Mar_8:22). In the latter case we do not know whether the man was blind from birth or not; if he was, the stage in which he saw ‘men as trees walking’ would be that in which he had not yet accustomed himself to interpret and understand visual appearances. Our Lord’s cures as described were all miraculous, in the sense that the influence of a unique personality must be postulated in order to explain the cure; but He used various methods to effect or symbolize the cure in various cases.
St. Paul’s blindness (Act_9:8) was probably a temporary amaurosis, such as may be caused by looking at the sun. The ‘scales’ (Act_9:18) need not necessarily have been material; the words suggest a mere simile. One of the theories as to his ‘thorn in the flesh’ is that it was a permanent ‘weakness of eye’ remaining after his experience (cf. Gal_4:15). But other explanations have been suggested. The blindness of Tobit and its cure may also be mentioned (Tob_2:10; Tob_11:11); the remedy there adopted has a parallel in Pliny (HN xxxii. 24). Eye-salve is recommended in Rev_3:18, but the context is metaphorical.
Old age. Under this heading should be mentioned the famous passage in Ecc_12:1-14, where the failure of powers consequent on growing years is described in language of poetic imagery.
Child-birth. The special cases of child-bearing which are mentioned in the Bible are mostly quoted to illustrate the ‘sorrow’ of conception, which was regarded as the penalty of Eve’s transgression (Gen_3:16). There are two cases of twins, that of Esau and Jacob (Gen_25:22), and that of Perez and Zerah (Gen_38:29 ff.). The latter was ‘a case of spontaneous evolution with perineal laceration, probably fatal to the mother.’ Rachel’s case (Gen_35:18) was one of fatal dystocia, and the phrase in Gen_31:35 may hint at some long-standing delicacy. Phinehas’ wife (1Sa_4:19) was taken in premature labour, caused by shock, and proving fatal. Sarah (Gen_21:2), Manoah’s wife (Jdg_13:24), Hannah (1Sa_1:20), the Shunammite woman (2Ki_4:17), and Elisabeth (Luk_1:67) are instances of uniparæ at a late period. Barrenness was regarded as a Divine judgment (Gen_20:18; Gen_30:2), and the forked root of the mandrake was used as a charm against it (Gen_30:10); fertility was correspondingly regarded as a proof of Divine favour (1Sa_2:5, Psa_113:9), and miscarriage is invoked as a token of God’s displeasure in Hos_9:14. The attendants at birth were women (Gen_35:17, Exo_1:15, midwives). The mother was placed in a kneeling posture, leaning on somebody’s knees (Gen_30:3), or on a labour-stool, if such be the meaning of the difficult passage in Exo_1:10. After child-birth the mother was unclean for 7 days in the case of a male, for 14 days in the case of a female, child. After this she continued in a state of modified uncleanness for 33 or 66 days, according as the child was boy or girl, during which period she was not allowed to enter the Temple. The reason for the different lengths of the two periods was that the lochia was supposed to last longer in the case of a female child. Nursing continued for 2 or 3 years (2Ma_7:27), and in 1Ki_11:20 a child is taken by a relative to wean.
The legislation for the menstrual period and for menorrhagia is given in Lev_15:19 ff. A rigid purification was prescribed, including everything which the woman had touched, and everybody who touched her or any of those things (see Clean and Unclean). Menorrhagia (EV [Note: English Version.] issue of blood) was considered peculiarly impossible of treatment (Mat_9:20, Mar_5:26, Luk_8:43), and magical means were resorted to for its cure. In Eze_16:4 Is a description of an infant with undivided umbilical cord, neither washed nor dressed. The skin of Infants was usually dressed with salt to make it firm. The metaphorical use of terms derived from child-labour is exceedingly common in the Bible.
Infantile diseases seem to have been very severe in Palestine in Bible times, as at the present day. We hear of sick children in 2Sa_12:15, 1Ki_17:17, and Christ healed many children.
Among cases of unspecified diseases may be mentioned those of Abijah (1Ki_14:1), Benhadad (2Ki_8:7), Elisha (2Ki_13:14), Joash (2Ch_24:25), Lazarus (Joh_11:1), Dorcas (Act_9:37), Epaphroditus (Php_2:27), Trophimus (2Ti_4:20).
4. Methods of treatment.—The Bible gives us very few references on this point. We hear of washing (2Ki_5:10); diet perhaps (Luk_8:55); the application of saliva (Joh_9:6); unction (Jam_5:14); the binding of wounds and the application of soothing ointment (Isa_1:5); the use of oil and wine for wounds (Luk_10:34); a plaster of figs for a boil (Isa_38:21); animal heat by contact (1Ki_1:2; 1Ki_17:21, 2Ki_4:34).
Balm of Gilead or balm is mentioned in Gen_37:25; Gen_43:11, Jer_8:22; Jer_46:11; Jer_51:8, Eze_27:17. It appears to be regarded as a sedative application, and was probably an aromatic gum or spice (see art. Balm).
Mandrakes (Mandragora officinalis) were used as a stimulant to conception (Gen_30:16), and the fruit as a medicine. Mint (Mentha silvestris), anise (Anethum graveolens), cummin (Cuminum sativum) were used as carminatives; salt for hardening the skin, nitre (Jer_2:22) to cleanse it. The caper-berry (Capparis spinosa) is mentioned in Ecc_12:5; it was regarded as an aphrodisiac. The wine offered to Christ at His crucifixion was probably intended as a narcotic (Mat_27:34; Mat_27:48, Mar_15:23; Mar_15:36, Luk_23:3 b, Joh_19:29). Most of the remedies were dietary in the Jewish as in the Egyptian pharmacopœia, e.g. meal, milk, vinegar, wine, water, almonds, figs, raisins, pomegranates, honey, etc.
We have a mention of amulets in Isa_3:20 and perhaps Gen_35:4. The apothecary’s art is mentioned in Exo_30:25-35; Exo_37:29, Ecc_10:1, 2Ch_16:14, Neh_3:8, Sir_38:8; Sir_49:1. But in all these passages the reference is to makers of perfumes rather than compounders of medicines. It is probable that medicines were compounded by those who prescribed them.
Hygienic enactments dealing with food, sanitation, and infectious diseases are common in the Levitical Code. With regard to food, herbivorous ruminant animals were permitted to be eaten; all true fishes also were allowed; but birds which lived on animal food were forbidden, and all invertebrates except locusts. The fat and the blood of animals were prohibited as food, and regulations were given for the inspection of animals slaughtered for eating. The origin, however, of many of these regulations probably lies in primitive taboo laws (see Clean and Unclean). Fruits could not be used for food until the tree had been planted for four years (Lev_19:23-25). The provisions repeated in Exo_12:19; Exo_13:7, Deu_16:3 for the periodic destruction of leaven, whatever their historical origin, must have been of service for the maintenance of pure bread-stuffs.
The agricultural sanitary laws are directed chiefly to prohibit the mixing of different species, e.g. the sowing of different seeds in a field at the same time, the cross-grafting of fruit-trees, the cross-breeding or yoking together of dissimilar cattle. And periodic rest for man and beast was prescribed. No mixture of linen and woollen materials in garments was permitted (Lev_19:19, Deu_22:11), as such garments cannot be so easily or thoroughly cleansed as those of one material. There were also various regulations as to domestic sanitation; thus the covering with earth of excreta and of blood was ordered; possibly the fires of the Valley of Hinnom were intended to consume the offal of the city. Houses were to be built with parapets to prevent accident (Deu_22:8). Isolation in suspected cases of Infectious disease was prescribed (Lev_13:4), and the washing of body and clothes (Num_19:11) was obligatory on those who had touched unclean things.
Uncleanness was in many cases merely ceremonial in nature. But the regulations must often have served to diminish the chances of propagating real infection. Various grades of uncleanness are recognized in the Talmud, and different periods of lustration and isolation were ordained, in accordance with the different grade of uncleanness contracted.
5. Surgical instruments. A flint knife was used for circumcision (Jos_5:8), but in later times steel knives were employed. An awl for boring the ear is mentioned in Exo_21:8.
The most important surgical operation was the performance of circumcision. Its original idea may have been that of imposing a tribal mark on the infant (unless it was at first performed in early manhood and subsequently transferred to the time of infancy); but it came to be regarded as an operation of purification. The exclusion of eunuchs from the service of God (Deu_23:1) may have been due to the dread of importing heathen rites into Israel. But they were important officials in the time of the kingdom, as in Oriental courts generally (1Ki_22:9, 2Ki_8:6; 2Ki_9:32; 2Ki_24:16, Jer_29:2; Jer_34:19; Jer_38:7; Jer_41:16), and there were eunucbs at the court of the Herods, as elsewhere (cf. Act_8:27). The passage in Isa_56:4 implies that eunuchs were then under no special religious disability; cf. also our Lord’s reference in Mat_19:12.
Of course we must admit that in many cases the use of remedies, the sanitary laws, the prescriptions as to food, the regulations as to uncleanness, and so forth, did not necessarily originate in any theory as to their value for the preservation of public health. Primitive taboo customs, folk-lore, magic, superstition, are no doubt responsible for the existence of much that has been here placed under the heading of medicine. And it is quite likely, too, that up to a late period the popular Jewish view of the majority of these rules and customs was enlightened by no very clear conception of their hygienic value. The more educated minds of the nation may possibly in time have come to see that enactments which had originated in crude or mistaken notions of religion might yet be preserved, and valued as important precautions for the prevention of disease and its cure. But it may be doubted whether, even in late times, the vulgar opinion about them was at all scientific. At the same time, it is necessary to recognize that many of the laws, begotten, perhaps, of primitive superstition, did nevertheless serve a medical purpose, and so may without untruthfulness be included in a treatment of Bible medicine.
A. W. F. Blunt.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

The physicians in Genesis 1 were Egyptian embalmers. Physic was often associated with superstition; this was Asa's fault, "he sought not unto Jehovah but to the physicians" (2Ch_16:12). Luke "the beloved physician" practiced at Antioch, the center between the schools of Cilicia (Tarsus) and Alexandria. Ecclesiastes (Ecc_12:6) uses language which under the Spirit (whatever Solomon knew or did not know) expresses scientific truth: "the silver cord" is the spinal marrow, white and precious as silver, attached to the brain which is "the golden bowl." The "fountain" may mean the right ventricle of the heart, the "cistern" the left, the "pitcher" the veins, the "wheel" the aorta or great artery. The "wheel"' however may mean life in its rapid motion, as Jas_3:6, "the wheel of nature." The circulation of the blood is apparently expressed.
The washing's, the restriction in diet to clean animals and the prohibition of pork, the separation of lepers, the laws of marriage and married intercourse (Leviticus 15), the cleanliness of the camp (Deu_23:12-14), and the comprehension of all varieties of healthful climate in Palestine, account for Israel's general exemption from epidemics and remarkable healthiness. The healing art in the Old Testament seems mainly to consist in external applications for wounds, etc. balm abounded in Gilead, and therefore many physicians settled there. Jer_8:22, "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health (lengthening out) of the daughter of my people gone up (Hebrew)?" i.e., why is not the long bandage applied? or why is not the health come up again, as skin coming up over a wound in healing? (See BALM.)
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Medicine. Egypt was the earliest home of medical and other skilld for the region of the Mediterranean basin, and every Egyptian mummy, of the more expensive and elaborate sort, involved a process of anatomy. Still we have no trace of any philosophical or rational system of Egyptian origin; still medicine in Egypt was a mere art or profession. Compared with the wild countries around them, however, the Egyptians must have seemed incalculably advanced. Representations of early Egyptian surgery apparently occur on some of the monuments of Beni-Hassan. Those who have assisted at the opening of a mummy have noticed that the teeth exhibited 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.
The reputation of Egypt's practitioners, in historical times, was such that both Cyrus and Darius sent to that country for physicians or surgeons. Of midwifery, we have a distinct notice, Exo_1:1, and of women as its Practitioners, which fact may also be verified from the scriptures. The scrupulous attention paid to the dead was favorable to the health of the living. The practice of physic was not among the Jews, a privilege of the priesthood. Any one might practice it, and this publicity must have kept it pure. 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.
To bring down the subject to the period of the New Testament, St. Luke, "the beloved physician," who practiced at Antioch, whilst the body was his care, could hardly have failed to be convenient, with all the leading opinions current down to his own time. Among special diseases named in the Old Testament is ophthalmia, Gen_29:17, 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 "burning boil," Lev_13:23, is merely marked by the notion of an effect resembling that of fire, like our "carbuncle." The diseases rendered "scab" and "scurvy" in Lev_21:20; Lev_22:22; Deu_28:27, may be almost any skin disease. Some of these may be said to approach the type of leprosy. The "botch (shechin) of Egypt," Deu_28:27, is so vague a term as to yield a most uncertain sense. 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 Elephantiasis gracorum is what now passes under the name of "leprosy;" the lepers, for example, of the huts near the Zion gate of modern Jerusalem are elephantissiacs. See Leprosy.
The disease of King Antiochus, 2Ma_9:5-10, etc., was that of a boil breeding worms. The case of the widow's son restored by Elisha, 2Ki_4:19, was probably one of sunstroke. The palsy meets us in the New Testament only, and in features, is too familiar to need special remark. Palsy, gangrene and cancer were common, in all the countries, familiar to the scriptural writers, and neither differs from the modern disease of the same name. Mention is also made of the bites and stings of poisonous reptiles. Num_21:6.
Among surgical instruments or pieces of apparatus, the following only are alluded to in Scripture: A cutting instrument, supposed a "sharp stone," Exo_4:25, the "knife" of Jos_5:2, The "awl" of Exo_21:6 was probably a surgical instrument. The "roller to bind" of Eze_30:21 was for a broken limb, and is still used. A scraper, for which the "potsherd" of Job was a substitute. Job_2:8; Exo_30:23-25 is a prescription in form. An occasional trace occurs of some chemical knowledge, for example, The calcination of the gold by Moses, Exo_32:20, the effect of "vinegar upon natron," Pro_25:20; compare Jer_2:22. The mention of "the apothecary," Exo_30:35; Ecc_10:1, and of the merchant in "powders," Son_3:6, shows that a distinct and important branch of trade was set up in these wares, in which, as at a modern druggist's, articles of luxury, etc., are combined with the remedies of sickness.
Among the most favorite of external remedies has always been the bath. There were special occasions on which the bath was ceremonially enjoined. The Pharisees and Essenes aimed at scrupulous strictness in all such rules. Mat_15:2; Mar_7:5; Luk_11:38. River-bathing was common, but houses soon began to include a bathroom. Lev_15:13; 2Sa_11:2; 2Ki_5:10.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

med?i-sin, med?i-s'n (גּהה, gēhāh, תּרוּפה, terūphāh, רפאה, rephu'āh): These words are used in the sense of a remedy or remedies for disease. In Pro_17:22 the King James Version, a merry heart is said to do good ?like a medicine.? There is an alternative reading in the King James Version margin, ?to a medicine,? the Revised Version (British and American) ?is a good medicine?; the Revised Version margin gives another rendering, ?causeth good healing,? which is the form that occurs in the Septuagint and which was adopted by Kimchi and others. Some of the Targums, substituting a waw for the first h in gēhāh, read here ?doeth good to the body,? thus making this clause antithetic to the latter half of the verse. In any case the meaning is that a cheerful disposition is a powerful remedial agent.
In the figurative account of the evil case of Judah and Israel because of their backsliding (Jer_30:13), the prophet says they have had no rephu'āh, or ?healing medicines.? Later on (Jer_46:11), when pronouncing the futility of the contest of Neco against Nebuchadrezzar, Jeremiah compares Egypt to an incurably sick woman going up to Gilead to take balm as a medicine, without any benefit. In Ezekiel's vision of the trees of life, the leaves are said (the King James Version) to be for medicine, the Revised Version (British and American) reads ?healing,? thereby assimilating the language to that in Rev_22:2, ?leaves of the tree ... for the healing of the nations? (compare Eze_47:12).
Very few specific remedies are mentioned in the Bible. ?Balm of Gilead? is said to be an anodyne (Jer_8:22; compare Jer_51:8). The love-fruits, ?mandrakes? (Gen_30:14) and ?caperberry? (Ecc_12:5 margin), myrrh, anise, rue, cummin, the ?oil and wine? of the Good Samaritan, soap and sodic carbonate (?natron,? called by mistake ?nitre?) as cleansers, and Hezekiah's ?fig poultice? nearly exhaust the catalogue. In the Apocrypha we have the heart, liver and gall of Tobit's fish (Tobit 6:7). In the Egyptian pharmacopoeia are the names of many plants which cannot be identified, but most of the remedies used by them were dietetic, such as honey, milk, meal, oil, vinegar, wine. The Babylonian medicines, as far as they can be identified, are similar. In the Mishna we have references to wormwood, poppy, hemlock, aconite and other drugs. The apothecary mentioned in the King James Version (Exo_30:25, etc.) was a maker of perfumes, not of medicines. Among the fellahı̂n many common plants are used as folk-remedies, but they put most confidence in amulets or charms, which are worn by most Palestinian peasants to ward off or to heal diseases.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Jer_30:13 (a) The Scriptures are used as a type in this place because they heal the broken heart, they mend the wounds that sin makes, they bind up the bruises that are incurred in wandering away from GOD's path.

Jer_46:11 (a) The many means and methods used by Israel to help in their troubles and

sorrows are described by this type. Men are still evading GOD's remedy and trying by legislation and by religious programs and by social service plans to relieve the wickedness and sin of men. None of these remedies are successful. Every one fails. Only that which is provided by GOD through JESUS CHRIST, and administered by the Holy Spirit will succeed in curing the ills of society.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.

Medicine
(תְּרוּפָה, teruphahh a medical powder, Eze_47:12; Sept. ὑγίεια, comp. θεραπεία of Rev_22:2; Vulg. medicina; also the plur. רְפֻאוֹת, rephuoth', medicaments, or remedies for wounds, Jer_30:13; Jer_46:11; “healed,” Eze_30:21; but גֵּהָה,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 (πνεῦμα) 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, θερμὴ ἔμφυτος (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” (ספר רפואות), 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 (Αρετ. φθίσεως).
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 (περὶ καρδιαλγίης ) 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, מְכִלּוֹת עֵנִיַם)., 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 (κολλύριον, Rev_3:18; Hor. Sat. i) was a remedy common to Orientals, Greeks, and Romans (see Hippocr. κολλούριον ; 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 καῦσος and πῦρ.
The “burning boil,” or “of a boil” (Lev_13:23, הִשְּׁחַין צָרֶבֶת, Sept. οὐλὴ τοῦ ἕλκους), is again merely marked by the notion of an effect resembling -that of fire, like the Greek φλεγμονή, or our “carbuncle;” it may possibly find an equivalent in the Damascus boil of the present time. The “botch (שְׁחַין) 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 שְׁחַין, understood in the widest sense of a continued ulceration until the whole body, or the portion affected, may be regarded as one שְׁחַין.
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 λέπρα, λεύκη 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 ἄφθα or ἐσχάρη. 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. cit., as the affliction which befel him. Wunderbar (ut sup. p. 10)'supposes it to have been the Tyrian leprosy, resting chiefly on the itching implied, as he:-supposes, by Job_2:7-8. Schmidt (Biblischer Med. 4:4) thinks the “sore boil” may indicate some graver disease, or complication of diseases. But there is no need to go beyond the statement of Scripture, which speaks not only of this “boil,” but of “kin loathsome and broken,” “covered with worms and clods of dust;” the second symptom is the result of the ‘first' and the “worms” are probably the larvae of some fly, known so to infest and make its nidus in any wound or sore exposed to the air, and to increase rapidly in'size. The “clods of dust” would of course follow from his “ sitting in ashes.” The “breath strange to his wife,” if it be not a figurative expression for her estrangement from him, may imply a fetor, which in such a state of body hardly requires explanation. The expression my “ bowels boiled” (Job_30:27) may refer to the burning sensation in the stomach and bowels, caused by acrid bile, which is common in ague. - Aretaeus (De Cur. Morb. Acut. 2:3) has a similar expression, θερμασίη τῶν σπλάγχνων οἵον ἀπὸ πυρός, as attending syncope. The “scaring dreams” and “terrifying visions” are perhaps a mere symptom of the state of mind bewildered by unaccountable afflictions. The intense emaciation was (Job_33:21) perhaps the mere result of protracted sickness.
The disease of king Antiochus (2Ma_9:5-10, etc.) is that of a boil breeding worms (ulcus verminosunz). So Sulla, Pherecydes, and Alcman, the' poet, are mentioned (Plut. Vita Sullae) as similar cases. The examples of both the Herods (Josephus, Ant. 17:6,5;; War, 1:33, 5) may also be adduced, as-that of Pheretime (Herod. 4:205). There is some doubt :whether this disease ‘be not allied to phthiriasis, in which lice are bred, and cause ulcers. This condition may originate either in a' sore, :or in a morbid habit of body brought on by uncleanliness, suppressed perspiration, or neglect; but the vermination, if it did not commence in a sore, would - produce one. ‘Dr. Mason Good (iv. 504-6), speaking of μάλις, μαλιασμός =cutaneous vermination, mentions a case in the Westminster Infirmary, and an opinion that universal phythiriasis was no unfrequent disease among the ancients; he also states (p. 500) that in gangrenous ulcers, especially in warm climates, innumerable grubs or maggots will appear almost every morning. The camel and other creatures, are known to be the habitat of similar parasites.” There are also cases of vermination without any wound or faulty outward state, such as the Vena :Medinensis, known in Africa as the “Guinea worm,” of which Galen had heard only, breeding under the skin, and needing to be drawn out carefully by a needle, lest it break, when great soreness and suppuration succeed (Freind, Hist. of Med. i,'49; De Mandelslo's Travels, p.-4; and Paul. AEgin. t. iv, ed. Sydenh. Soc.). Rayer (iii. 808-819) gives a list of parasites, most of them in the skin. This “Guinea-worm,” it appears, is also found in Arabia Petraea, on the coasts of the Caspian and Persian Gulf, on the Ganges, in Upper Egypt and Abyssinia (ib. 814). Dr. Mead refers Herod's disease to ἐντοζῶα, or intestinal worms. Shapter, without due foundation, objects that the word in that case should have been not σκώληξ, but εὐλή (Medica Sacra, p. 188).
In Deu_28:65 it is possible that a palpitation of the heart is intended to be spoken of (comp. Gen_45:26). In Mar_9:17 : (comp. Luk_9:38) we have an apparent case of epilepsy, shown especially in the foaming, falling, wallowing, and similar violent symptoms mentioned; this might easily be a form of demoniacal manifestation. The case of extreme hunger recorded in 1 Samuel 14 was merely the result of exhaustive fatigue; but it is remarkable that the bulimia of which Xenophon speaks (Anab. iv 5, 7); was remedied by an application in which “honey” (compr.; 1Sa_14:27) was the chief ingredient.
Besides the common injuries of wounding, bruising, striking out eye, tooth, etc., we have in Exo_21:22 the case of miscarriage produced by a blow, push, etc., damaging the foetus.
The plague of “boils and blains” is not said to have been fatal to man, as the murrain preceding was to cattle; this alone would seem to contradict the notion of Shapter (Medica Sacra, p. 113), that the disorder in question was small-pox, which, wherever it has appeared, until mitigated by vaccination, has been fatal to a great part p
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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