Health has been consider• able dispute as to the existence of a class of professional medical men distinct from the priestly class in Biblical times. The occurrence of the expression tthy healer* (Ex. xv, 26) has been advanced as an argument for the affirmative, but the whole verse may be inter preted as referring to a union of the sacerdotal and the medical offices. Certainly the context in Ex. xxi. 18-20 seems to imply that the doctor was paid; and there is mentioned in Isaiah the Hobhesh or woundbinder. Asa, king of Judah, is reproached for having sought help from the physicians and not from God. The Prophets were frequently appealed to for aid in sickness and one interesting cure is recorded as having been made by Isaiah. King Hezekiah had fallen sick of a disease which Lauder Brunton identifies with the in flammation of the tonsils. The prophet cures him with a plaster of figs,— a remedy not un known to modern treatment. Later, we find physicians highly honored (Ecclesiasticus xxxviii, 1-8), and numerous evidences of con siderable skill on their part. A long array of famous physicians is recorded in the Talmud and many difficult operations are credited to them (Kotelmann, Virchow's (Archiv.,) 84). A prolonged controversy has raged round the interpretation of a passage in the Talmud (T. B. Niddah 40A) which according to one reading refers to the successful performance of Section,') Hysterotomy, mother and child both being saved. Of special importance is the physiology and pathology of the Talmud tractate Hullin. Certainly the health laws of the Bible give eloquent testimony to the ad vanced condition of social hygiene. Certain biotic advantages have been claimed for the Jew. Greater longevity, greater fecundity, greater exemption from tuberculosis and syph ilis, special capacity for acclimatization, are among these. But the advantages do not ap pear to be racial and seem to be entirely de pendent upon the degree of the observance of the special laws, and to be forfeited with the non-observance of these (Adler, Nossig).
Work and first health laws are given in the Decalogue with the institution of the six days of labor and the seventh day of rest. The hygiene of labor is clearly recognized in Jewish law. Even the scholar is enjoined to acquire a handicraft (Pirke Aboth ii, 2). The necessity of physical training is insisted upon with emphasis, and it is accounted a paramount duty for the father to teach his child a craft and to train him to swim. Even the women of the wealthiest class are enjoined to work because of the destructive effect of idleness upon moral strength and mental sanity (T. B. Kethuboth 59B; cf. Proverbs xxxi), but over pressure has been guarded against by the com plementary regulation of a full day of periodical rest. Since the nature of the toxins produced by fatigue and the extremely gradual rate of their elimination from the system have been more clearly recognized the Sabbath rest has become a scientifically demonstrable hygienic necessity, which no shortening of the day's labor can possibly supply.
Nearly all the food laws have their hygienic aspect. The prohibition of the canny orm with their exclusively nitrogenous diet; of the swine with its tendency to trichinic in fection, and the readiness of its meat, as most freely productive of gelatine, to provide a fa vorable nidus for morbific bacilli "(Dr. E. Bal lard), has been welcomed as a health law of importance. Dr. Borell of Goppingen (Vir chow's 65) describes the presence of worms similar to trichina in the blood of the raven, and Virchow adds, that this is a variety of Filaria similar to the Filaria sanguinis hominis which is known to be the cause of chyluria and chylous hematuria and supposed to be the cause of Elephantiasis. Similar dis
coveries have been made by Herbst in the blood of the crow, the daw, the hawk and the jay. The rejection of eels, munena, oysters, mus sels and Crahs from the list of foods has been regarded as hygienic since these feed largely on sewage, and have been the causes of numerous epidemics, especially of typhoidal character. The ordinary mussel, mythis edulis, has had its poison examined and analyzed by several spe cialists (Virchow's Vols. 103, 104, 110, 115). The preference for the scaled fish of the sun-bathed, purer and more highly oxygen ated surface waters has also its hygienic aspect. Recent investigation as to the propagation of disease through insects and animals,— malaria and yellow fever by the mosquito, typhoid by the fly, pneumonia by mice, hydatid cysts by the clog, etc., seems to afford continually grow ing evidence to the hygienic value of the food laws and of the elaborate regulations concern ing the defilement of person,clothes, food stuffs and utensils by contact with the various species (Lev. xi, 32 et seq.).
The rejection of blood has also its hygienic effect. It is in the blood that toxins produced by disease germs and occasionally the germs themselves circulate, and this makes it a vehi cle for communication of disease; and further by its own rapid decomposition, it becomes also an original source of disease. The intestinal fat has also been considered by many hygienic ally objectionable, as harboringrasites in the lymphatic ganglia (Ebstein). In the method of slaughter (Shehitah) a valuable group of health laws is encountered. (1) The two main characteristics of the Shehitah are the quick bleeding and the accompanying epilep toidal convulsions. These produce, after cer tain chemical reactions, the acid phosphate of potash, which is antiputrefactive. It hinders the development of micro-organisms, delays the formation of the products of decom position of ptomaines and toxins, and imparts an additional savor to the meat. (2) Through the epileptoidal convulsions the blood left in the meat is less alkaline and therefore less fa vorable to the development of bacteria (Dembo). The Bedikah (Examination) is avowedly a pure health law. Its function is to determine whether or not the animal was suffering from any fatal disease or lesion, as this would make it Trefah, 'Torn," and unfit for food. For this purpose the chief organs have to be examined, especially the lungs. It must be clearly determined whether or not there are any adhesions either of one lobe of the lungs to the other, or the whole or part of the lungs to the diaphragm or chest wall. The lungs are tested for perforations by inflation during immersion in water. The surface of the lungs is examined for tubercules of any kind (Dr. Behrend in Nineteenth Century, 1889). Inspection of other organs occurs only when symptoms are observed indicating the presence — or when there is general prevalence — of some affection. Nor are the lungs of a fowl examined unless there is special ground for suspicion. Koch (Inter. Med. Cong. 1890) has, however, shown that tuberculosis of fowl is a species distinct from human or bovine tubercu losis and is innocuous to man.