Digestive and other disorders from intemperance are graphically enumerated in Pr 23%; interjec- tional cries of distress, accident, redness of eyes, strange visions, bitings as sharp as those of the serpent. In Is 191} the drunkard is represented as staggering or falling in his vomit; in Is 288 the defile all that they touch (see Jer 2557), being ulti- mately drugged to sleep (Jer 51*-°7), Disease is also associated with riotous eaters of flesh (Pr 23”).
Disorders of the Liver.— The Heb. physicians regarded many diseases as due to an alteration in the bile, and in this respect they agreed with the dogmatic school of Humoralists, such as Plato and Praxagoras. ‘This is expressed in Baba Kamma 92, Baba mezia 107, Chagigah 26. There is an allusion to this belief in Job 16%, where the patri- arch complains that the disease, God’s arrow, had compassed him about, and poured out his gall upon the ground. The gall in La 3° and Dt 2918 is, however, not the bile, but a poisonous plant. Celsius regards résh here as perhaps a poppy. See, further, art. GALL. In La 2" the same expression is used of the 133 or liver, the pouring out of which is regarded as a fatal condition. Hence the dis- solute fool is punished by a dart striking through his liver, Pr7*. Of the true functions of the liver the Jewish physicians were as ignorant as were the Egyptians. In Papyrus Ebers xxxvi, ¢, ciii, it is said that the vessels brought air as well as blood to the organ.
The πυκναὶ ἀσθένειαι of Timothy (1 Ti 5%) were probably digestive troubles, flatulent atonic dys- pepsia, whose most urgent symptoms are tempor- arily relieved by alcohol. This disease seemed to have produced in him a disposition to slackness, concerning which St. Paul repeatedly warns him (1 Ti 416), In such eases, however, while alcohol allays the morbid functional sensibility, it does not really remove the cause of the disease.
Mental emotions of a lowering nature, such as grief or anxiety, produce important physical effects on the alimentary canal, checking certain secretions; hence in Ps 69° the dryness of the throat in such cases is mentioned. In Is 16" and Jer 419 31” there are references to the suddenly arising flatulent distension of the colon, which is often to be noticed under the same conditions. These borborygmi are referred to the heart in Jer 48%,
The effects of the water in the jealousy ordeal (Nu 5!) may here be referred to. The ‘bitter water which causeth the curse’ consisted of holy water, consecrated by the priest, into which dust from the floor of the sanctuary was put, and with which the curses pronounced against untaithful- ness written out by the priest were washed off the parchment on which they had been written. This is a kind of ordeal of which examples are not un- common in primitive religions. ‘lhe meaning of the dust is given by R. Menahem in Siphre x., that as the dust is regarded as defiling the holy place, so the edges of unfaithfulness defiles the person ol ae bea . In the same place the priest is recommended to write the curses ont on tablets, not on paper, but on prepared skins, and not with
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gum or copperas, but with black ink. The ordeal was a direct appeal to God, and the water was supposed, in cases of guilt, to cause wasting of the buttock (dislocation of the right thigh, Jos. Ant. I. xi. 6) and swelling of the abdomen, possibly ovarian dropsy ; see Dillmann, in loc.
The effects of eating that on which prophetic writings were inscribed as a preparation for dis- charging the prophetic office are referred to in Ezk 3}, Rev Ἰοῖ his is also an action of which examples are known in several folk-religions (see Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 347), and even in British folk-lore. Our Lord promised His disciples pro- tection if ey were subjected to the ordeal of poisonous drinks (Mk 16").
The heart, mentioned more frequently (716 times in OT and 105 in NT) in Scripture than any other of the bodily organs, on account of its sup- posed connexion with the intellectual as well as the moral and spiritual life, was, as far as its physiological action is concerned, so little known that there are few references to physical disease atlecting it (see HEART, vol. ii. 317). The peri- cardium or caul over the heart is mentioned in Hos 13°. ‘A sound heart is the life of the flesh’ (Pr 14*), which is parallel to Juvenal’s mens sana in corpore sano (x. 356), may have a physical as well as a psychological reference. 1e curious
roverb, ‘A wise man’s heart is at his right hand,
ut a fool’s heart at his left’ (Ec 103), has its par- allel in the ancient Egyptian aphorism, ‘ The breath of life passes to the right side, the breath of death to the left’ (Pap. Ebers ec).
Syncope, or failure of the heart’s action, causing fainting, is described in several instances. Jacob’s heart fainted at the news of Joseph’s exaltation in Egypt (Gn 4538). Eli had a sudden attack of ri leading to a fatal fall, from the shock of the news that the Philistines had taken the ark (1S 4"). Saul fainted with hunger and fear on the recep of Samuel’s message through the witch of Endor (1S 28"), Daniel also fainted and was sick for several days on receiving Gabriel’s message (85). See FAINT, vol. i. 826. eart pal- pitation is given in Pap. Lbers xlv as a symptom of the ‘i* disease or chlorosis.