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Theory and Practice: A Jewish Physician in Paris and Avignon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2009

Susan Einbinder
Susan Einbinder
Affiliation:
Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio
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Extract

Not otherwise known as a bright era for the Jews of Christian Europe, the late fourteenth century nonetheless counted a number of thriving Jewish medical careers. One physician who surfaced in this period was Jacob b. Solomon of Avignon (sometimes called Jacob b. Solomon haTzarfati), whose career has been documented in two cities. In northern France, the land of his ancestors, we find him in the 1370s in the orbit of the University of Paris and its prestigious medical faculty. By the early 1380s, however, Jacob was at the papal court in Avignon, where or near where he was raised. There, in his own day at least, he achieved some renown while serving as physician to Pope Clement VII's brother, Count Pierre of Geneva.

Type
Research Article
Information
AJS Review , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 135 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2009

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References

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13. Kibre, Scholarly Privileges in the Middle Ages, 267. This paper does not take a position on the legitimacy of the Avignon popes, as that was apparently not an issue for Jacob b. Solomon or his coreligionists employed by the papal court in Avignon.

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18. Jacquart, Danielle, Le milieu médical en France du XIIe au XVe siècle (Geneva: Librairie Droz; Paris: Librairie Champion, 1981)Google Scholar, 207 n. 1; see also O'Boyle, The Art of Medicine, 124, 126.

19. O'Boyle, The Art of Medicine, 124, 126. For all these works except Maimonides, see also Wickersheimer, Commentaires de la Faculté de Médecine, xxxvii–xxxix.

20. Ballester, Luis García, Ferre, Lola, and Feliu, Eduard, “Jewish Appreciation of Fourteenth-Century Scholastic Medicine,” in Renaissance Medical Learning: Evolution of a Tradition, ed. McVaugh, Michael and Siraisi, Nancy, special issue, Osiris 6 (1990): 85–117Google Scholar.

21. Ibid., 91.

22. See, e.g., ibid.; Freudenthal, Gad, “Science in the Medieval Jewish Culture of Southern France,” in Science in the Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Traditions (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 23–58Google Scholar (reprinted from History of Science 33 [1995]: 23–58); Shatzmiller, Joseph, “Rationalisme et orthodoxie religieuse chez les Juifs provençaux au commencement du XIVe siècle,” Provence Historique 22 (1972): 261–85Google Scholar; and idem, “Ẓurat ‘aryeh le-kelayot vehamaḥloket ‘al limude ha-ḥokhmot bereishit ha-meah hay’'d” [Lion images for kidney (disease) and the debate over the study of science in the early fourteenth century], in Sefer ha-yovel li-Shelomoh Pines bi-melot shemonim shanah, pt. 2 (Meḥkere Yerushalayim be-maḥshevet Yisra'el 9 (1990): 397–408.

23. Wickersheimer, Ernst, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au moyen âge (Paris: Libraire E. Droz, 1936), 1:217–18Google Scholar.

24. O'Boyle, The Art of Medicine, 45; and Wickersheimer, Commentaires de la Faculté de Médecine, xv. Wickersheimer notes that the clerical status of the faculty meant that “c'est au Souverain pontife que la Faculté de Médecine s'addresse comme à son protecteur naturel.”

25. O'Boyle, The Art of Medicine, 42; and Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins, 1:218.

26. Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins, 1:218. He was a canon at Laon, Chalons, Meaux, St. Martin de Tours, and St. Germain-l'Auxerrois in Paris; he served as chaplain of St. Nicolas in the church of Tonnerre, St. Jean Baptiste in the church of St. Merri, and in the churches of St. Martin and St. Louis in Mâcon.

27. Jacquart, La médecine médiévale dans le cadre parisien; O'Boyle, The Art of Medicine; Goddu, André, “The Effect of Canonical Prohibitions on the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris in the Middle Ages,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 20 (1985): 342–62, esp. 345Google ScholarPubMed; and Wickersheimer, Commentaires de la Faculté de Médecine, xxxiv–xl.

28. Kibre, Scholarly Privileges in the Middle Ages, 263; see also idem, “The Faculty of Medicine at Paris, Charlatanism, and Unlicensed Medical Practices in the Later Middle Ages,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 27, no. 1 (January–February 1953): 1–20, esp. 14.

29. Ernst Wickersheimer, “Les secrets et les conseils de maître Guillaume Boucher et ses confrères. Contribution à l'histoire de la médecine à Paris vers 1400,” Bulletin de la Société française d'histoire de la médecine 8 (1909): 199–305; Jacquart, La médecine médiévale dans le cadre parisien, 88–90, 287, 500–501; and O'Boyle, The Art of Medicine, 76.

30. Wickersheimer, “Les secrets,”; Jacquart, La médecine médiévale dans le cadre parisien, 287; and Courtenay, William, “Parisian Theology, 1362–1377,” in Philosophie und Theologie des ausgehenden Mittelalters: Marsilius von Inghen und das Denken seiner Zeit, ed. Hoenen, M. J. F. M. and Bakker, P. J. J. M. (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 3–19, esp. 13Google Scholar. Theory was also notably absent from the fledgling German medical programs. See Nutton, Vivian, “Medicine at the German Universities, 1348–1500: A Preliminary Sketch,” in Medicine from the Black Death to the French Disease, ed. French, Roger et al. (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate: 1998), 85–109, esp. 94Google Scholar.

31. Wickersheimer, “Les secrets.” For the case of tinnitus, see no. 10b, p. 221 (“R grana pomi pini et ligetis cum filo et ponetus in aure con. [?] ). The paralysis case is no. 47, pp. 245–53. Avicenna's Canon groups together diseases “of the brain” that affect bodily movement, among them vertigo, epilepsy, and paralysis. Boucher's paralysis case takes up most of the collection and was apparently severe. The dietary and therapeutic treatment recapitulates a number of medicinal elements found in Jacob's treatise; many have laxative or purgative qualities and are designed to eliminate excess humor from the body. Because the recommended diet for victims of paralysis is to use hot and dry items, the humor being purged is cold and moist; the knight's vertigo is also attributed to an excess of phlegmatic humor, which has these properties.

32. See Jacquart, La médecine médiévale dans le cadre parisien, 303, on the case of Jean de Dompremi; this case is also treated in Wickersheimer, “Les secrets,” lxxv, 129–40.

33. Kibre, Scholarly Privileges in the Middle Ages, 262–64.

34. Einbinder, No Place of Rest, 115.

35. Leon de Carcassonne describes “speaking” to Jean de Tournemire in Montpellier, saying “his behavior was not like that of the other scholars of his generation, who scorned those Jews who practiced the art of medicine.” See García Ballester, Ferre, and Feliu, “Jewish Appreciation of Fourteenth-Century Scholastic Medicine,” 95.

36. Einbinder, No Place of Rest, chap. 5; see also Kaufmann, “Le ‘Grand-deuil’ de Jacob b. Salomon Sarfati d'Avignon”; and Barkai, “‘Al mot yeladim bamagefah hasheḥorah.”

37. Richler, Benjamin, “Manuscripts of Avicenna's Kanon in Hebrew Translation; A Revised and Up-to-Date list,” Korot 8, no. 3–4 (1982): 145*–69*Google ScholarPubMed (English), 136–43 (Hebrew); see also Ferre, Lola, “Avicena Hebraico: La traducción del Canon de Medicina,” Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos, sec. Hebreo 52 (2003): 163–82Google Scholar, esp. 168, 177; Leibowitz, Joshua, “Ibn Sina in Hebrew,” Korot 8 no. 1–2 (1981): 3*–8*Google Scholar; and Rabin, Haim, “Toldot tirgum sefer ha-kanun le-‘ivrit [The history of the translation of the Canon into Hebrew], Melilah 3–4 (1950): 132–47Google Scholar.

38. Ferre, “Avicena Hebraico,” 163–82; and Richler, “Manuscripts of Avicenna's Kanon.” I rely on the 1491 Naples edition, a copy of which is in the Klau Library, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.

39. See n. 17 herein.

40. He modifies Avicenna's more aerobic list of activities to suggest stretching in bed before rising, taking daily walks, and avoiding steep hills and unattractive scenery. See Jacob, fol. 29a; and the 1491 Naples edition of the Canon, Book 1, Fen 3, Teaching 2.

41. Curiously, the modern-day diagnosis of Ménière's disease, a form of recurrent vertigo accompanied by temporary loss of hearing, also relies on diuretics as part of a standard drug treatment; see http://www.menieresinfo.com/start.html. The cause of Ménière's is described as “idiopathic endolymphatic drops,” that is, an excess of endolymphatic fluid (in the inner ear), an etiology weirdly analogous to the medieval notion of excess phlegmatic humor in the “brain.”

42. Canon (Naples 1491 ed.), p. 31a, col. 1.

43. For the uses of chickpea broth, see Einbinder, Susan L., “A Proper Diet: Medicine and History in Crescas Caslari's Esther,” Speculum 80 (2005): 459–60CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

44. [ והגגות הגבוהות וראוי שירחיק בעל סבוב הראש מלהביט לכל דבר סובב מהרה, וירחיק מהשקיף המגדלים והנהרות והגבעות] Canon (Naples 1491 ed.), p. 31a, col. 1, Book 3, Fen 1, Article 5, Section 1.

45. [ובכלל השינה הרבה מזיקה וכל שכן על המלוי הרב] Canon (Naples 1491 ed.), p. 33b, col. 1, Book 3, Fen 1, Article 5, Section 7.

46. Gad Freudenthal, “Science in the Medieval Jewish Culture of Southern France,” in Science in the Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Traditions, 23–58, esp. 31 and conclusion.

47. As Freudenthal also reminds us, the medieval category of “experience” should not be confused with our own. It is a blend of trial and error with the received knowledge of books. See Freudenthal, Gad, “Maimonides' Philosophy of Science,” in The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides, ed. Seeskin, Kenneth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 134–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 154.

48. Cf. Estori haParḥi's insistence, at the early end of the century, that Christian physicians “respect scholarship and scholars, no matter what creed they possess.” See García Ballester, Ferre, and Feliu, “Jewish Appreciation of Fourteenth-Century Scholastic Medicine,” 98.

49. Green, Monica H. and Smail, Daniel Lord, “The Trial of Floreta d'Ays (1403): Jews, Christians, and Obstetrics in Later Medieval Marseille,” Journal of Medieval History 34, no. 2 (2008): 185–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50. García Ballester, Ferre, and Feliu, “Jewish Appreciation of Fourteenth-Century Scholastic Medicine”; the citation is taken from Appendix D, 110–13, Leon's prologue to his translation of Gerard de Solo's Practica super nono Almansoris. The translation is theirs.