There are very few references to methods of treatment in the Bible. External applications, such as bathing or washing (2 K 5!) ; diet (Lk 8°) ; the application of saliva (Jn 9°; see Maimon. on Shabb, 21); anointing with oil (Ja 5); binding of sores and mollifying them with ointment (Is 1°); pouring in oil and wine (Lk 10“); Hezekiah’s pete of figs prescribed by Isaiah (Is 3831); animal 1eat by contact (1 K 17, 2 K 4%), especially with those failing from old age (1 K 1°). Clandivs Her- mippus is said to have prolonged his life to 115 years by breathing the breath of young girls.
Of actual medicines few are mentioned ; possibly the balm of Gilead was one, Gn 37”, 434, Jer 8” 46" 515 (from this last passage it appears to have been used as a local sedative, Ezk 2717, This
material was probably the resin of Pistacia lentis- | from the taint of infectious disease.
cus, the mastic tree ; as the plant now called Batm of Gilead (Balsamodendron Gileadense) is a native of Somali-land and S. Arabia, and it is doubtful il it ever extended as far north as Palestine. The »s may, however, have been the resin of Balanites Aigyptiaca, still used as an application to sores, See, further, art. BALM. Mandrakes (didd’im) were used as a stimulant to conception, the forked root as a charm, and the sweetish fruit as a medi- cine. The plant is Mandragora officinalis (for ancient views on this see Deusing, de Mandragora, Groningen, 1659 ; Celsius, Hierobot. s.v. ‘Dudaim’). Of other plants, mint, anise, and cummin, men- tioned πα ἘΞ Foop (vol. ii. p. 385), are used as carminatives. The last was used for the wound in circumcision, Shabbath 1336. Myrrh, lign-aloes, onycha, stacte, frankincense, spikenard, are odorous materials, but scarcely remedial ; salt was used for hardening the skin and as a preservative; nitre, native sodic carbonate, not saltpetre (Pr 25”, Jer 2"), was used as a cleansing arent to remove the fatty secretions of the skin. ‘The caper-berry (Capparts spinosa) had a considerable reputation as an aphrodisiac (Ee 125). Narcotics were used to abate pain (Baba mezia 83b). The wine given to our Lord at His crucifixion was probably for this purpose.
As in Egypt, the most of the remedies in com- mon use were dietary: meal, milk, vinegar, wine, water, almonds, figs, raisins, pomegranates, honey, dibs, and butter, made up a large part of the Egyptian as of the Jewish pharmacop@ia. Some few remedies were of a less agreeable nature, such as the heart, liver, and gall of Tobiah’s fish (To 67). The Talmud adds to this list radishes, mustard, ringer, dog’s dung, wormwood, calamus, cinnamon, adanum, galbanum, storax; and of poisons, hemah (supposed to be some hemlock-like plant), rosh (probably poppy), and bashah or aconite. Many of the medicines given in the Egyptian medical writings, and almost all in the Babylonian and Assyrian plant lists, cannot be identified.
The art of the apothecary is mentioned in Ex 307-85 372, as well as in Ec 101, The np was, however, rather a maker of perfumes (2 Ch 16%) than a compounder of medicines. They seem to have formed a kind of guild (see Neh 38). RV has replaced the word by ‘ perfumer’ except in Neh, 1 Ch, and Sir 388 and 491. Probably, as in Egypt, the physician compounded his own medicines. In Pap. ΩΣ there is an invocation given to be used by the physician when thus engaged: ‘ May Isis heal me as she healed Horus from all pain which his brother Set hath inflicted on him when he slew his father Osiris. Oh Isis! great wonder-worker, heal me and set me free from all evil, destructive, and demoniacal inflictions, from fatal diseases and un- cleanness of every kind which befall me,’ ete.
It is probable that charms of this kind were in use among the later Jews. Neck-chains like ser- pents, such as those mentioned in Is 3%, protected against diseases produced by envy and the evil eye (see Berachoth δῦ, Shabbath 51, Chullin 77, Shebuoth 17, and Elworthy’s Evil Eye, 1898). The ond of Is 3*° and the oD}; or ear-rings of Gn 354 are sup- posed to have been charms.
The Levitical code contains a large number of Hygienic enactments with regard to food, sanita- tion, and the recognition of infectious diseases. It prescribes as sources of food, animals of the herbivorous and ruminant group, excludes all birds which live upon animal food, and permits the use of all true fishes; and, among invertebrates, permits only the use of locusts. Of food-animals, the fat and the blood are prohibited ; and special rules were laid down for the slaughter and inspec-
tion of the animals, that the meat may be clean Among fruits,
MEDICINE
those produced by trees in the first three years of their life are ‘uncircumcised’ and not to be eaten ; that of the fourth year is ‘devoted’; and that of the fifth and later years may be used as food (Lv 19%), The provision of the periodic cleaning out and destruction of leaven, that even the bread- stuffs may be kept wholesome, is also an important law for the maintenance of a pure food (Ex 12° 137, Dt 164).
The agricultural sanitary laws forbid the mixture of seeds in a field at the same time, the sowing of crops in a vineyard, the cross grafting of fruit- trees, the cross-breeding and even the yoking together of dissimilar cattle, and enforces the complete rest of man and beast on the Sabbath days, as well as on the great religious and national festivals (Ex 23"). To ensure the perfect purifica- tion of garments, no mixture of linen and woollen materials was permitted (Ly 19, Dt 22"), as they cannot be so thoroughly or easily cleansed as pure garments of one material (see Kilayim). Such compound fabrics, however, might, according to Nidda, be used as shrouds.