medical interest. Here, we see the attitudes of people, distressed by illness,
to healing practices and what they had recourse to in the hope of returning
to full health. Some treatments seem benign. There was an association
between sanctified wine for the ceremonies of kiddushand havdalahand the
strengthening of weak eyes because mediaeval Jews saw the drinking of the
wine or merely bathing the eyes with it as a remedy in itself.^39 Other treat-
ments posed religious problems. Patients would ask the rabbi for permission
to undergo procedures that might be in conflict with the laws of Shabbat
and many of the medications would have required the taking of foodstuffs
forbidden by a kosher diet. In general permission seems to have been given
for the consumption of the most outlandish products if it would benefit
health, although some rabbis indicated that they would withhold consent ‘to
all remedies which are biblically forbidden’.^40
Zimmels records what he calls medicines in their natural state such as
goats’ milk, fish oil, warm animal blood, human milk and urine. More
commonly, medicines contained a number of ingredients. One celebrated
ingredient was the Egyptian mummy, the embalmed flesh of which was
taken internally or more often applied as a plaster. Given the scarcity of
mummies from Egypt, eventually the bones and flesh of ordinary corpses
were ground up and sold as mummies. Some rabbis had problems about
using ‘the flesh of corpses’ which the mummy represented, but usually
permitted it considering that the product no longer resembled its original
matter. Using the principle of sympathy it was the upper half of the mummy,
containing as it does the heart, lungs and stomach, that was considered most
likely to be effective.
Some treatments were considered to have specific effects. A modest
Jewish herbal of the fifteenth century copied and illustrated in Italy
preserves a sense of plants and their properties. Here St John’s wort (Hyper-
icum perforatum) is considered to be a diuretic and expectorant.^41 Treat-
ments included fish oil for coughs, and drinking urine for jaundice and ass
milk for asthma and haemoptysis. People with epilepsy could be given such
products as broth from a reptile or a mole whereas people with mental
illness could be given the flesh of a fowl that had died a natural death.
Topical treatments, including ointments, bathing and the application of
plasters and poultices, such as oats or barley, were also used. One plaster
that was ‘proved by experience’ had sheep fat, butter, olive oil, wax, egg
yolk, almonds, alum and herbs all fried together.^42
Mediaeval herbal therapy
Herbs often have natural healing properties that have been accepted by
medical science and the search for active ingredients in traditional medicines
has intensified in modern times. Substances of medicinal plants played a
Traditional Jewish medicine | 301