PHARMACOLOGY AND DIETETICS IN THE BIBLE AND

FRED ROSNER

Introduction

In his classic book on biblical and talmudic medicine, Julius Preuss devotes an entire chapter to materia medica and another chapter to dietetics, thereby accentuating the importance of these topics in Jewish antiquity and the middle ages. 1 Since numerous volumes could be written on either of these two vast subjects, this essay confines itself primarily to presentations of two examples of each topic. In regard to pharmacology in the Bible and Talmud, the famous balm of Gilead and the equally renowned biblical mandrakes will be discussed. As examples of dietetics, classic Jewish sources dealing with dairy products as well as chicken soup, the Jewish penicillin, will be cited.

Pharmacology in Bible and Talmud

One must be extremely careful in describing the pharmacology of antiquity. The entire system of dispensing drugs today is much simpler and more precise than even only a few decades ago. One need only compare the list of ingredients or length of prescriptions of one hundred years ago to a modern prescription. Medications described in the Bible and Talmud are mostly derived from the flora. However, numerous animal remedies were known to the talmudic Sages. For example, although honey was used to revive a person who fainted (? hypoglycemia), eating honey was thought to be harmful for wound healing. 2 A person with pain in the heart should suck goat's milk directly from the udder of the animal. 3 Someone bitten by a dog was given liver from that dog to eat4 as recommended by physicians in antiquity, perhaps an early form of immunotherapy. The

1 J. Preuss, Biblical and Talmudic Medicine (New York, 1978). 2 Baba Kamma 85a. [unless otherwise noted, all Talmudic references are from the Babylonian Talmud]. 3 15b. 4 8:6. 2 FRED ROSNER gall of a white stork in beer was given to a child bitten by a scorpion. 5 The juice of the kidney of a goat was imbibed for ear-aches6 and squashed gnats were applied on snake bites. 7 Medications derived from the flora include the leaves of trees as cited in the Bible: "the fruit shall be food and the leaf thereof for medicine. "8 Sometimes all parts of the tree were used, other times only the leaves, and rarely the roots or the barks. Plant oils were also used as therapeutic agents; for example, olive oil was used as a gargle for pain in the throat. 9 Mostly, drugs were cooked, either individually or together. One such liquid remedy was called shikyana and was most efficacious when imbibed in the springtime. These remedies were taken for three, seven, or twelve days, mostf y on an empty stomach. 10 Sometimes the drugs were pulverized and then consumed internally, either as a dry powder or suspended in water or other liquid. In this manner, the abortifacient medicine known as samma de naftza was imbibed. 11 For an oral abscess, the remedy was blown into the mouth with a blade of straw. 12 Cultured plants were probably used as emetics because the use of products of the sabbatical year for this purpose was specifically prohibited. 13 A medication with an unusually efficacious therapeutic potency is samtar, a type of herb which heals major surgical wounds14 including the wound caused by a spear or arrow. 15 Another type of remedy is the salve or ointment for whose base tallow and wax were used. 16 A variety of plasters and poultices are described in ancient Jewish sources. A retiya is only applied to a wound, never on healthy flesh 17 or at most on a healed wound for protection. 18 A wound inflicted by a hammer can be healed with retiya. 19 The exact nature of retiya is unknown but wheat flour is one of its ingredients.20 A poultice recommended for all types of pain consisted of seven parts of

s 50a. 6 28b. 7 77b. 8 Ezekiel 47: 12. 9 Berachot 36a. 10 70a 11 30b. 12 Shabbat 88b; Erubin 54a; Taanit 7a; 72b. 13 40b. 14 Baba Bathra 74b. 15 Yevamot 114b. 16 Shabbat 133b. 17 Tanchuma commentary on Mishpatim p. 41b. 18 Yerushalmi Shabbat 6:Sb. 19 Mechilta commentary on Exodus 14:24. 20 2:3; Tosefta 1:25.