Part 19

In the early Middle Ages the Jewish physicians played a role of the first importance as preservers and transmitters of ancient knowledge. With the fall of Rome the broad stream of Greek science in western Europe entered the sud of mediævalism. It filtered through in three streams--one in South Italy, the other in Byzantium, and a third through Islam. At the great school of Salernum in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, we find important Jewish teachers; Copho II wrote the Anatomia Porci, and Rebecca wrote on fevers and the fœtus. Jews were valued councillors at the court of the great Emperor Frederick. With the Byzantine stream the Jews seem to have had little to do, but the broad, clear stream which ran through Islam is dotted thickly with Hebrew names. In the eastern and western Caliphates and in North Africa were men who to-day are the glory of Israel, and bright stars in the medical firmament. Three of these stand out preëminent. The writings of Isaac Judæus, known in the Middle Ages as Monarcha Medicorum, were prized for more than four centuries. He had a Hippocratic belief in the powers of nature and in the superiority of prevention to cure. He was an optimist and held strongly to the Talmudic precept that the physician who takes nothing is worth nothing. Rabbi ben Ezra was a universal genius and wanderer, whose travels brought him as far as England. His philosophy of life Browning has depicted in the well-known poem, whose beauty of diction and clarity of thought atone for countless muddy folios.

_Maimonides: Prince Among Physicians_

But the prince among Jewish physicians, whose fame as such has been overshadowed by his reputation as a Talmudist and philosopher, is the Doctor Perplexorum--_dux, director, demonstrator, neutrorum dubitantium et errantium!_--Moses Maimonides. Cordova boasts of three of the greatest names in the history of Arabian medicine: Avenzoar, Albucasis, and Averroes (Avenzoar is indeed claimed to be a Jew). Great as is the fame of Averroes as the commentator and transmitter of Aristotle to scholastic Europe, his fame is enhanced as the teacher and inspirer of Moses ben Maimon. Exiled from Spain, this great teacher became in Egypt the Thomas Aquinas of Jewry, the conciliator of the Bible and the Talmud with the philosophy of Aristotle. He remains one of Israel's great prophets, and while devoted to theology and philosophy, he was a distinguished and successful practitioner of medicine and the author of many works highly prized for nearly five centuries, some of which are still reprinted. He says pathetically, "Although from my youth Torah was betrothed to me and continues to live by me as the wife of my youth, in whose love I find a constant delight, strange women, whom I took at first into my house as her handmaids, have become her rivals and absorbed part of my time." The spirit of the man is manifest in his famous prayer, one of the precious documents of our profession, worthy to be placed beside the Hippocratic oath. It ends with: "In suffering let me always see only my fellow creature."[A]

_Jewish Physicians and Medieval Popes_

In the revival of learning in the thirteenth century, which led to the foundation of so many of the universities, Hebrew physicians took a prominent part, particularly in the great schools of Montpelier and of Paris; and for the next two or three centuries in Italy, in France, and in Germany, Hebrew physicians were greatly prized. But too often the tribulations of Israel were their lot. As one reads of the grievous persecutions they suffered, there comes to mind the truth of Zunz' words: "_Wenn es eine Stufenleiter von Leiden giebt, so hat Israel die hochste Staffel erstiegen._" Their checkered career is well illustrated by the relations with the Popes, some of whom uttered official bulls and fulminations against them, others seem to have had a special fondness for them as body physicians. Paul III was for years in charge of Jacob Montino, a distinguished Jewish physician, who translated extensively from the Arabic and Hebrew into Latin, and his edition of Averroes is dedicated to Pope Leo X. In my library there is a copy of the letter of Pope Gregory XIII, dated March 30th, 1581, and printed in 1584, confirming the decrees of Paul IV and Pius V, which he regrets were by no means held in observance, "but that there are still many among Christian persons who desiring the infirmities of their bodies be cured by illicit means, and especially by the service of Jews and other infidels. . . ." It was at Mantua that a Jewish physician, Abraham Conath, established a printing press, from which the first Hebrew works were issued.

_Names of Distinction in Later Centuries_

Throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries in France, Germany, and Italy we meet many distinguished names in the profession, and in his _Geschichte der Jüdischen Aertz_ Landau pays a very just tribute to their work. Only a few are met with in England. Isaac Abendana, a Spaniard, practised in Oxford and lectured on Hebrew at Magdalen College. We have at the Bodleian Jewish almanacs which lie issued at the end of the seventeenth century, and a great Latin translation of Mishnah. He afterwards migrated to Cambridge. A more important author was Jacob de Castro Sarmento, a Portuguese Jew, who became licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1725, and Fellow of the Royal Society in 1730. There is in the Bodleian an interesting broadsheet from the Register of the London Synagogues respecting charges made when his name was proposed at the Royal Society. He contributed many papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and was the author of several works. In the eighteenth century Jean Baptiste de Silva, of a Portuguese Jewish family, became one of the leading physicians of Paris, consulting physician to Louis XV, and the friend of Voltaire, who remarks, "_C'était un de ces médecins que Moliere n'eut ni pu ni osé rendre ridicules_." One of the special treasures of my library is a volume of the Henriade superbly bound by Padeloup, and a presentation copy from Voltaire to de Silva, given me when I left Baltimore by my messmates in "The Ship of Fools" (a dining club). Voltaire's inscription reads as follows:

"_A Monsieur Silva, Esculape François. Recevez cet hommage de votre frère en Apollon. Ce Dieu vous a laissé son plus bel héritage, tous les Dons de l'esprit, tous ceux de la raison, et je n'eus que des Vers, hélas, pour mon partage._"

_The Achievement of Recent Years_

In the nineteenth century, with the removal of the vexatious restrictions, the Jew had a chance of reaching his full development, and he has taken a position in the medical profession comparable to that occupied in the palmy Arabian days of Cordova and Bagdad. In Germany particularly, the last half of the century witnessed a remarkable outburst of scientific activity. Traube, who may well be called the father of experimental pathology; Henle, the distinguished anatomist and pathologist; Valentin, the physiologist; Lebert, Remak, Romberg, Ebstein, Henoch, have been among the clinical physicians of the very first rank. Cohnheim was the most brilliant pathologist of his day; to Weigert pathological histology owes an enormous debt, and, to crown all, the man whose ideas have revolutionized modern pathology, Paul Ehrlich, is a Jew. In America Hebrew members of our profession for many years occupied a very prominent position. The father of the profession to-day, a man universally beloved, is Abraham Jacobi, full of years and honors; and the two most brilliant representatives in physiology and pathology, Simon Flexner and Jacques Loeb, carry out the splendid traditions of Traube and Henle.

I have always had a warm affection for my Jewish students, and the friendships I have made with them have been among the special pleasures of my life. Their success has always been a great gratification, as it has been the just reward of earnestness and tenacity of purpose and devotion to high ideals in science; and, I may add, a dedication of themselves as practitioners to everything that could promote the welfare of their patients. In the medical profession the Jews had a long and honorable record, and among no people is all that is best in our science and art more warmly appreciated; none in the community take more to heart the admonition of the son of Sirach, "Give place to the physician, let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him."

[Illustration: Signature: Wm Osler]

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote A: I am told by authorities that the attribution of this prayer to Maimonides is doubtful. Where is the original?]

The War from a Jewish Standpoint

BY RICHARD GOTTHEIL

[Illustration: _RICHARD GOTTHEIL (born in Manchester, England, in 1862; came to New York in 1873), educated at Columbia and at German Universities; since 1887 Professor of Semitic Languages and Rabbinical Literature at Columbia. Apart from his scholarly labors, Professor Gottheil has devoted himself body and soul to many Jewish causes, notably Zionism, in which he has been a leader in America from the beginning. He was among the first to extend an encouraging hand to the Menorah movement and has responded generously to repeated calls to lecture before Menorah Societies. The present article is based upon an address recently delivered before the Cornell Menorah Society._]

The war in Europe presents problems for the Jews which must be faced no matter what the consequences may be. These problems are of two kinds, due to the fact that we are members of a race that is scattered over the whole earth, and the units of which are to be found in the four corners of the globe. In this way a double set of duties is entailed upon us. On the one hand, we have to take our rightful place as citizens of the different countries in which we live: to accept all the burdens that go with such citizenship, and to partake of the joys and sorrows that are its inevitable accompaniment--in a word, to take the advice of the Rabbis of old and "seek the welfare" of the country in which we live. But this obligation is so self-evident, and the problems raised by it solve themselves so naturally, that they need no further thought. In point of fact, the patriotism of the Jews for the lands in which they live has been demonstrated on so many occasions that only blind ignorance or wilful misrepresentation can call it into question. At the present moment, in all the armies that are at the front, our brethren are doing service even beyond their numerical proportion.

_The Toll Paid by the Jew_

It is to the second set of problems that I venture to call attention--those Jewish problems that concern ourselves in particular, that deal with our relations to and with our fellow Jews--problems which I am afraid are not always present in our minds. For one reason or another, they are apt to be forgotten, to slip into the background through sheer negligence. Indeed, in many cases we are fain to put them intentionally into a corner and remove them discreetly from sight. It has needed a great world event at this time, as it has in the past, to bring many of us to reason and to a realization of our duty. The titanic struggle in which so many of the nations of the world are engaged has come to remind us also of our position as Jews and to recall to us our relations with the past, our connections with the present, and our hopes for the future. It is indeed true that none of the great political movements that have affected the world have passed by without in some special manner affecting the Jewish people. As we look back through history and allow our thoughts to run down the highway of the ages, we perceive the effects such struggles have had upon the Jew. We think of the time when ancient Babylonia stretched out its arm from the East to gain a foothold on the Mediterranean and to grasp the power of the world. What was the effect upon the Jews? The Babylonian captivity. Many hundreds of years after, Rome--the Babylonia of the West--lunged out toward the East in the same search for universal dominion; and we still observe the Ninth of Ab in commemoration of the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. Again some centuries passed us by, and we come to the inevitable conflict between Christianity and the rising power of Islam. Who was it but our own Jews who suffered most as the crusading hordes moved through Europe--our own Jews who were driven before them from the Rhine into what at a later time became the great national Ghetto in Poland? And now in this twentieth century, as a people, and in proportion to its numbers, which body of men, women and children is paying the most exacting toll to the forces of destiny? Again it is the Jew.

_"The Belgians of All History"_

We all have the greatest possible sympathy for the Belgian people and for the Belgian land. Yet how much greater has been the suffering of the Jewish people--the Belgians not of a day but of all history? In Eastern Europe, in Poland, in Galicia and in parts of Russia, at least two or three millions of Jews have suffered from the ravages of a war waged with a bitterness that exceeds all bounds. Invading armies have passed and re-passed over their homes--miserable as they were even in times of peace. False accusations have been launched against them so that they have been regarded as enemies by both sides and treated as such. Thousands have been driven from their homes to congest villages already filled to overflowing or to increase the want and suffering indigenous to towns and cities. An amount of anguish and pain has been caused such as the Jews have never known in all their long tramp through the ages. What have we done, we Jews in America, to assuage even a part of this pain? What measures have we in view, when once the war shall be over, to regain for these people the possibility of living, to bring back for them a little of that which they have lost through no fault of their own and in no cause which is theirs? In most cases the only right permitted to them is the right to suffer, and they must in addition pay the price of that suffering. As we think of all these circumstances, is it not proper and meet that we should ponder the whole situation in which we Jews find ourselves today?

I believe that it is eminently the moment to do so. We refuse to believe that the great waste of human life and energy now going on in Europe is a waste pure and simple. We refuse to believe that some purification is not to result from the fire through which mankind is passing, and that some sanity in handling human affairs is not to follow the evident insanity with which we are now confronted. Something a little more stable because a little more reasonable must appear at the end to replace the inconstancy and unrest which have up to now characterized the relations of peoples to each other. And as we hope this for the world at large, we are hopeful too that full attention will be given to those problems which concern the Jews specifically. I wish then to indicate the chief among these problems, in order that we may ourselves see clearly the road that must be taken.

_The Prospect in Russia and Poland_

First and foremost, of course, rank the questions that concern the Jews in Russia. Quite apart from any consideration of the general problems affecting that country, the case of the Jews in Russia and Poland demands a settlement that shall make existence bearable for them, and which at the same time shall not run counter to the real and vital interests of the Russian people. Nay more; such existence must not only be bearable. It must be of a kind that will place the Jews upon a level with the other inhabitants of the Empire and will give them the necessary opportunity to develop whatever talents or capabilities they possess. It is not for us to prescribe in what manner and by what means this shall be accomplished; and I use the word "must" not in the sense that any compulsion is to be applied to Russia in this respect, but rather as an expression of the certainty that the trial through which the Czar's land is now passing is of such a kind as to purge her necessarily of all traces of national and religious intolerance. This feeling cannot be expressed in better words than those used by M. Bourtzeff, the well-known reactionary, when he said, "We are convinced that after this war there will no longer be any room for political reaction and Russia will be associated with the existing group of cultured and civilized countries."

Proof that such feelings are making their way among the most intelligent portion of the Russian population is shown by the remarkable document put forth some weeks ago over the signatures of noted Christian professors, litterateurs, and members of the Duma, in which the plea is made for the removal of all restrictions that at present shackle the Jews. "Let us understand," they say, "that the welfare and the power of Russia are inseparably bound up with the welfare and liberties of all the nationalities that constitute the whole Empire. Let us then conceive this truth. Let us act in accordance with our intelligence and our conscience, and then we are sure that the disappearance of all kinds of persecution of the Jews and their complete emancipation, so as to be our equals in all rights of citizenship, will form one of the conditions of a real constructive imperial policy." And we are the more persuaded that these views will prevail when we remember that Russia has been brought into closer contact with just those nations of Europe where Jewish emancipation has been most perfect and has brought forth the best fruits. It is unthinkable that these nations should fail to put their influence on the side of Jewish freedom in Russia when European accounts are finally balanced.[B]

_The Broken Faith of Roumania_

In the second place, any regulation of the Jewish status in Europe must of necessity include Roumania. The injustice of the Government's attitude in that country is even more pronounced than it is in Russia. For Roumania is bound to a certain course by a "scrap of paper." At the Berlin Congress of 1878, one of the conditions upon which statehood was granted to Roumania was that the rights of free citizenship should be conferred upon the Jewish inhabitants in the principality--who, it may be remarked in passing, were among the oldest residents there. Roumania gave her solemn promise to carry out this condition; but by political subterfuge of the most brazen kind she has circumvented the whole spirit of the demand. The Roumanian Chamber passed a law to the effect that only Jews who had been naturalized by it were entitled to citizenship; and as the Chamber refused to naturalize more than a handful each year, the provisions of the Berlin Treaty have been as good as void. When quite recently--in 1913--during the progress of the last Balkan War and prior to the intervention of Roumania, the Roumanian Jews volunteered to serve in large numbers, the proposal was brought forward to grant the rights of citizenship to all Jews who had entered the army. Yet this proposal was voted down; and the condition of the Jews has remained as it was prior to 1878. They are inhabitants in a country, subject to its laws, liable to all duties placed upon citizens--but they are themselves prohibited from becoming citizens. It is intolerable that such a condition should be allowed to continue; and if right is to take the place of might in the inevitable re-arrangement of the community of European nations, the status of the Roumanian Jews must be one of the Jewish problems to be solved.

_The Hope of Regaining Palestine_

There is a third Jewish problem the importance of which perhaps even transcends the two just mentioned; transcends because of the interest that attaches to it and because of its vital import to every Jew the world over. I refer to the problem of Palestine, which is wrapt up with the very existence of the Jews and which symbolizes the hopes that have been nurtured throughout the centuries. We know that the Jew in his inevitable march westward has kept his face turned towards the East; that in prayer and in meditation his gaze has rested upon that country which enshrined at one and the same time his origin and his future aspirations. It is true that up to within some forty years that aspiration remained in large part a pious wish; and that though it was cherished as coming to realization "quickly and in our day," very few attempts were put through to arm the Almighty with human effort. At best, God-fearing and pious Jews removed to Palestine, either to immerse themselves there in study and contemplation, or to end their days in the odor of sanctity.

But the last twenty-five years have witnessed a conscious effort to make of Palestine a rallying point for the Jewish people, a place where Jewish life may be lived to its fullest extent and which may serve as a beacon light to all parts of the Diaspora. Many a waste place has been made to blossom again; and much of the culture and learning acquired by the Jews in the long centuries of toil and effort has been made available to revivify the Land of Promise. With infinite pains and untold sacrifices the Jewish pioneers went forward in their peaceful effort to regain the soil of their forefathers. Colonies have been founded there; primary schools, high schools and technical institutions have been established, and many of the forces have been started that make the foundation for a permanent settlement. This conscious effort can not have been put forth in vain. Palestine represents the goal of our endeavor. And any settlement after the war that has in view the general problems involved will be forced to take cognizance of the just hopes that we Jews place in the future of that country and the just rights that the Jewish people believe they possess and have acquired there. The form in which such rights shall be expressed is not a matter for discussion at present. The fact alone is of importance. In the past the world has applauded the fight made by the Poles for their national existence; it has followed with interest the Greek War of Independence, the Italian striving for unity, the Irish endeavors for racial autonomy, and the Alsatian effort after independent expression. It must and will appreciate and esteem the attempt made by the Jews to re-fashion their anomalous status and to re-create the statehood that they lost nearly two thousand years ago.

_The Collapse of Principles Held Sacred by the Jews_