Jews and Medicine: An Epic SagaJews have long been recognized by friend and foe as medical superstars. They have filled the ranks of physicians out of all proportion to their numbers. One might almost say that medicine has been the Jewish profession. This book tells the history of Jews in medicine as a flowing epic, from the (pre-) biblical era to the Nobel Prize winners of the twentieth century, from the Middle East through the countries of Europe, to the Orient and to America--always against the backdrop of the cultural, religious, political, and scientific developments of the times, It is a fascinating and valuable tale of scientific achievement. |
Contents
The Wandering Jew as Doctor | 1 |
A Serpent upon a Pole 19 | 22 |
Hellas and Talmud | 49 |
The Doctor Who Could Stop the Crescent from Waning | 87 |
A Tale of Two Peninsulas | 123 |
The Fifth Element from the Orient | 145 |
The Stars across the Pyrenees | 165 |
The Sage of Amsterdam | 191 |
The Magic Bullet in Frankfurt | 335 |
Vienna City of Dreams | 363 |
Blood Germs and Genes in the Third Reich | 399 |
The War of the Microbes at Oxford | 445 |
Heralding the American Century | 473 |
From the Soil of the New World | 515 |
Epilogue | 549 |
559 | |
Common terms and phrases
Abraham American ancient animal anti-Semitism Arabic Avicenna bacteria Baruch Berlin Bismarck blood body Catholic cause cells cholera Christian Cohn concept coreligionists course court cultural cure death decades developed disease dream drug East Eli Metchnikoff Europe fact Ferdinand Ferdinand Cohn Flexner France French Freud Galen gentile germ German Greek Haffkine healing Hebrew Henle Hippocrates human humors immunity infected Institute Islamic Jewish community Jewish doctors Jewish physicians Judaism Jung King later least living Maimonides Marrano medical faculty medicine Medieval microbes microorganisms microscopic Moses Moslem nation natural Nazi nineteenth century particularly Pasteur Pasteur Institute pathogenic patients Paul Ehrlich penicillin perhaps phagocytes physician plague poison practice professor rabbis Rambam religion religious Robert Koch Rudolf Virchow Russian scientific Selman Selman Waksman Simon Spain Spinoza spirit surgeon syphilis Talmud theory tion toxins tradition turn twentieth century University Vienna Virchow Waksman Wandering Jew wrote