Jewish Medicine

Faced with infectious diseases, starvation, lack of medicines, lack of clean water, and safe sewage, Jewish physicians practiced medicine under severe conditions in the ghettos and concentration camps of the Holocaust. Despite the odds against them, physicians managed to supply public health education, enforce hygiene protocols, inspect buildings and latrines, enact quarantine, and perform triage. Many gave their lives to help fellow prisoners. Based on archival materials and featuring memoirs of Holocaust survivors, this volume offers a rich array of both tragic and inspiring studies of the sanctification of life as practiced by Jewish medical professionals. More than simply a medical story, these histories represent the finest exemplification of a humanist moral imperative during a dark hour of recent history.

Although conventional wisdom holds that there's no such thing as "Jewish Medicine," Dr. Nevins disagrees, suggesting it's not so much what Jewish doctors have done as why. For example, in premodern times Jewish doctors viewed their work as a sacred calling in collaboration with God. Later, there often was a perception that Jewish doctors practiced differently because they were familiar with mystical and magical techniques. While many Jewish physicians through the ages have been inspired by such values as selflessness, compassion and profound respect for life itself, contemporary medicine seems to have lost its soul. To rectify this, Dr. Nevins proposes the Jewish cultural icon the "mensch" as a model of virtuous behavior for all doctors to emulate. This book is written for a general audience as well as for physicians. In it Dr. Nevins surveys Jewish medical history and, along the way, describes many remarkable "medical menschen."

From the Middle East B.C.E. to medieval Spain through the end of WWII, Frank Heynick traces the relationship between a people and a science in Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga. The ancient ritual of circumcision, Maimonides, the Bavarian Jacob Henle and Nobel-winner Otto Loewi make appearances in this sweeping history of literary, religious and professional links between Judaism and medical practice. Heynick, a scholar of medical history and linguistics, discusses the sale of mummified remains as a cure for disease, the ascendance of psychoanalysis and hundreds of other famous and obscure historical moments. -Publisher's Weekly.

Is ‘Jewish medicine’ a valid historical category? Does it represent a collective constituted by the interplay of medical, ethnic and religious cultures? Integrating academic disciplines from medical history to philology and Jewish studies, this book aims at answering this question historically by presenting comprehensive coverage of Jewish medical traditions in Central Eastern Europe, mostly on what is today Poland and Germany (and the former Russian, Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires). In this significant zone of ethnic, religious and cultural interaction, Jewish, Polish, and German traditions and communities were more entangled, and identities were shared to an extent greater than anywhere else. Starting with early modern times and the Enlightenment, through the 19th century, up until the horrors of medicine in the ghettos and concentration camps, the book collects a variety of perspectives on the question of how Judaism and Jewish culture were dynamically related to medicine and healthcare. It discusses the Halachic traditions, hygiene-related stereotypes, the organization of healthcare within specified communities, academic careers, hybrid medical identities, and diversified medical practices.

Ethical issues in modern medicine are of great concern and interest to all physicians and health-care providers throughout the world, as well as to the public at large. Jewish scholars and ethicists have discussed medical ethics throughout Jewish history.

Cincinnati Jewish Hospital has remained a beacon of service to the city for more than a century and a half. Although it always accepted patients regardless of their heritage or faith, the institution maintains its Jewish identity. Founded in 1850, the Hospital weathered depressions and wars while reflecting changes that occurred within the Jewish community and the city. Cincinnati's Jewish health professionals pioneered medical education, new treatments for polio and the introduction of new psychological treatments for children. Author Frederic Krome explores the fascinating history of the Cincinnati Jewish Hospital and the many contributions Cincinnati Jews made to the field of medicine.

"Encyclopedia of Medicine in the Bible and the Talmud includes many items dealing with the field of Jewish medical ethics and serves as an important tool for those who wish to read about or research medical and related topics as found in traditional biblical and talmudic sources.".

Jews were excluded from most professions in medieval, predominantly Christian Europe. Bigotry was widespread, yet Jews were accepted as doctors and surgeons, administering not only to other Jews but to Christians as well. Why did medieval Christians suspend their fear and suspicion of the Jews, allowing them to inspect their bodies, and even, at times, to determine their survival? What was the nature of the doctor-patient relationship? Did the law protect Jewish doctors in disputes over care and treatment? Joseph Shatzmiller explores these and other intriguing questions in the first full social history of the medieval Jewish doctor. Based on extensive archival research in Provence, Spain, and Italy, and a deep reading of the widely scattered literature, Shatzmiller examines the social and economic forces that allowed Jewish medical professionals to survive and thrive in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Europe. His insights will prove fascinating to scholars and students of Judaica, medieval history, and the history of medicine.