Amulets were also much in use among the Jews ; the character of which may be shown from the same source It is permitted [even on the Sab bath] to go out with the egg of a grasshopper, or the tooth of a fox, or the nail of one who has been hanged, as medical remedies' (T. Bab. tit. Sab bath., fol. 4. 2). Strict persons, however, dis countenanced such practices as belonging to the ways of the Amorites.' Enchantments were also employed by those who professed the healing art, especially in diseases of the mind ; and they were much in the habit of laying their hands upon the patient (2 Kings v. is • Joseph. Antiq. ii. 5).
The part taken by the priest in the judgment on leprosy, etc., has led to an impression that the medical art was in the hands of the Levitical body. This may in some degree be true ; not because they were Levites, but because they, more than any other Hebrews, had leisure, and sometimes inclination, for learned pursuits. The acts pre scribed for the priest by the law do not, however, of themselves prove anything on this point, as the inspection of leprosy belonged rather to sanitary police than to medicine—although it was certainly necessary that the inspecting priest should be able to discriminate, according to the rules laid down in the law, the diagnosis of the disease placed under his control (Lev. xiii. 13 ; xiv. 15). The priests
themselves were apt to take colds, etc., from being obliged to minister at all times of the year with naked feet ; whence there was in latter times a medical inspector attached to the temple to attend to their complaints (Kali, De Marbis Sacerdot. V. T. ; Lightfoot, p. 781).
Of anatomical knowledge some faint traces may be discerned in such passages as Job x. 8, sty. It does not appear that the Hebrews were in the habit of opening dead bodies to ascertain the causes of death. We know that the Egyptians were so, and their practice of embalmment must have given them much anatomical knowledge (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt., iii. 392). But to the acquisition of such knowledge there were great obstacles among a people to whom simple contact with a corpse conveyed pollution. Besides the authorities cited, see F. Bonier, Dissert. de Statu Mea'icinee ap. Vett. Ebr., 1755 ; Sprengel, .De IUedieiva Ebraor., 1789 ; Mead, Medica Sacra, 1755 ; Schmidt, Bibl. Medic. ; Norberg, De Medicina Arabian, in Opusc. Acad. iii. 404, seq. ; see also DISEASES OF THE JEWS, and the names of diseases in the present work.—J. K.