In Mt 14 τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας is used for ‘those that were sick’; and in Ro 15! ἀσθενήματα means weaknesses or infirmities of conscience, as in Aristotle (de Gener. Animal. i. 18, where it is used as the parallel of ἀρρωστήμα).
Some sicknesses, such as leprosy, rendered the patients unclean, and caused their exclusion from cities (see LEPROSY); but in general the sick were treated at home. In later times hospitals were established, generally near the city gates. These were called n'wpn ‘na, and were like the Kaati of the present day.
In the earlier days of Jewish medicine it is
robable that bleeding, the universal panacea in
e dominant classical medical schools, was not
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used, on account of the tribal belief concerning the blood. In this the Jews were in accord with Pythagoras and Erasistratus. It has been thought that they were acquainted with the use of leeches from the words of Agur (Pr 30"); but if ‘ horse- leech’ is the correct rendering (οἵ, HORSELEECH, ad fin.), this only implies their knowledge of the bloodthirsty habits of the leech, and does not refer to its medicinal use. Targ. on Ps 12 paraphrases n>; 592 as the ‘leeches which suck blood.’ See on this point Aboda Zara 136. In later days, however, the Jewish physicians conformed to the universal practice.
Biblical references to specific diseasea are of two kinds, either so very general that they are indefinite, or concrete in connexion with individual cases. The former class for the most part consists of names alone which are as vague as the folk- names of disease usually are. Several of these disease-names are grouped together in Dt 28” as forming a class, which, on account of being sudden, severe, epidemic, and often fatal, appear as if judgments directly from God. Most of these are febrile diseases, and although it is not possible precisely to identify the disease expressed by each name, yet, from the experience which residents in the East have acquired of the most prevalent forms of disease, it is most probable that the diseases referred to are malarial fevers of different kinds with, perhaps, tropical typhoid, and Medi- terranean fever.
The first name on the list is n5q¥ shahepheth, from a root signifying ‘leanness or wasting,’ hence it is rendered ‘consumption’ both in RV and AV (LXX ἀπορία). This may be phthisis, but, from the connexion in which it occurs, is more likely a febrile disease of long duration and attended with wasting, something of the type of Mediterranean or Malta fever, which may last for months, and whose most prominent characteristics are the weakness, anemia, and wasting with which it is accompanied. The same word occurs in Ly 26'°, In both RV and AV the word ‘consump- tion’ is used in Is 10” as the tr. of ἡ": killayén, meaning a wasting or destruction in general. The RV, however, distinguishes in Is 10” and 28” be- tween this and kdlah, translating the latter as ‘consummation,’ whereas the two are confounded inthe AV. In neither case, however, does it seem to be a specific disease. Phthisis is not a charac- teristic disease either in Syria or in Egypt, although it does occasionally occur in the former country. See Tobler, Med. Topographie von Jerus. 42, and Wittman, p. 92.
The three names that follow in Dt are now kaddahath, ‘fever’ (RV and AV ; LXX πυρετόξ) ; npoa dalleketh, ‘inflammation’ (LXX ῥῖγος, ‘ague’) ; and 1770 harhir (AV ‘extreme burning’; RV ‘fie heat’; LXX ἐρεθισμός, ‘irritation’). That these three describe different kinds of fever is plain, as all three words imply burning or heat. The kaddahath is called in AV of Lv 26 ‘burning ague,’ and is said to ‘consume the eyes and make the soul to pine away’ (LXX calls this disease Ixrepos, ‘jaundice’). It may be the malarial fever which occurs in the Jordan Valley and the Lebanon valleys, in Jerusalem and in the Shephélah, as well as around the Sea of Galilee. This disease is occasionally accompanied by jaundice. πυρετός war the disease of the nobleman’s son at Capernaum (Jn 4%) and of Simon’s mother-in-law (Lk 4" ‘a
eat fever’) at the same Se (see Hippocr.
‘pidem. iii.). The word in Mt 8" and Mk 1” is πυρέσσουσα.
Dalleketh was considered by some Jewish writers as a burning fever, but by the LXX as an inter- mittent fever. It may possibly have been some form of ague, which often occurs in the same
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localities as the other forms of malarial fever, perhaps indeed typhoid, which is now, and prob- ably was in former times, one of the commonest fevers in Palestine. Typhus was probably rare, and is so still except in crowded ἜΘΕΙ Surck- hardt mentions its occurrence under the name of putrid fever at Djiddah (Arabia, i. 495), but says that most of the fevers elsewhere are intermitting in type, ii. 290. For typhus in Palestine see Rafalowitsch in Ausland, 1847, p. 1084.
Harhér must be something characterized by irritation and heat, such as erysipelas, only that this is not at all common as an epidemic, indeed is not very common in Palestine. It might be one of the exanthemata. The Hebrew name refers to its heat, the Greek to the local irritation caused by it. Of all these fevers the Rabbinic physicians recognized four stages: incubation, ἘΣ ΉΣΕ augmentation, and decline or convalescence. Tor erysipelas in Egypt see Pruner, p. 118; see also Brayer, Neuf années ἃ Constantinople, p. 46.