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tired and in perspiration. At such times the bath should be put off for a while.

17. As soon as one leaves the bath one should cover oneself, and especially cover the head, so that no draught may strike it. Even in summer, care must be taken to observe this rule. After this one should rest for a while until the heat of the body passes off and then should go to table. If one could sleep a little just before a meal it is often very beneficial. Neither during the bath nor immediately after it should cold water be drunk, and if there is an inappeasable thirst a little wine and water or water and honey should be taken. In winter it is beneficial to rub the body with oil after the bath.

18. Venesection should not be practised frequently, for it is only meant for serious illness. It should not be permitted in winter or summer, nor during the months of April or September (the "r" months). After passing his fiftieth year an individual should abstain from venesection. Venesection should not be practised on the day when one takes a bath or goes on a journey or returns from it. On the day when it is practised less than usual should be eaten and drunk, and the patient should give himself to rest, undertake no work nor bothersome occupation, and take no walk.

19. Whoever observes these rules of life faithfully I guarantee him a long life without disease. He shall reach a good old age, and when he comes to die will not need a physician. His body will remain always strong and healthy, unless of course he has been born with a weak nature, or has had an unfortunate bringing up, or should be attacked by epidemic disease or by famine.

20. Only the healthy should keep these rules. Whoever is ill or a sufferer from any injuries, or has lost his health through bad habits, for him there are special rules for each disease, only to be found

in the medical books. Let it be remembered that every change in a life habit is the beginning of an ailment.

21. If no physician can be secured, then ailing people may use these rules as well as the healthy.

These rules are, of course, full of the common sense of medicine that endures at all times. For the tropical climate of the Eastern countries they probably represent as good advice as could be given even at the present time. With them before us it is not surprising to find that on other subjects Maimonides was just as sensible. Perhaps in nothing is this more striking than in his complete rejection of astrology. Considering how long astrology, in the sense of the doctrine of the stars influencing human health and destinies, had dominated men's minds, and how universal was the acceptance of it, Maimonides' strong expressions show how much genius lifts itself above the popular persuasions of its time, even among the educated, and how much it anticipates subsequent knowledge.

It is well to remind ourselves that as late as the middle of the eighteenth century Mesmer's thesis on "The Influence of the Stars on Human Constitutions" was accepted by the faculty of the University of Vienna as a satisfactory evidence not only of his knowledge of medicine, but of his power to reason about it. At the end of the twelfth century Maimonides was trying to argue it out of existence on the best possible grounds. "Know, my masters," he writes, "that no man should believe anything that is not attested by one of these three sanctions:-rational proof as in mathematical science, the percep

tion of the senses, or traditions from the prophets and learned men." His biographer in the monograph "Maimonides," published by the Jewish Publication Society of America,1 expresses his further views on the subject in compendious form, and then gives his final conclusion as follows:

"Works on astrology are the product of fools, who mistook vanity for wisdom. Men are inclined to believe whatever is written in a book, especially if the book be ancient; and in olden times disaster befell Israel because men devoted themselves to such idolatry instead of practising the arts of martial defence and government.' He says, that he had himself studied every extant astrological treatise, and had convinced himself that none deserved to be called scientific. Maimonides then proceeds to distinguish between astrology and astronomy, in the latter of which lies true and necessary wisdom. He ridicules the supposition that the fate of man could be dependent on the constellations, and urges that such a theory robs life of purpose, and makes man a slave of destiny. It is true,' he concludes,' that you may find strange utterances in the Rabbinical literature which imply a belief in the potency of the stars at a man's nativity, but no one is justified in surrendering his own rational opinions because this or that sage erred, or because an allegorical remark is expressed literally. A man must never cast his own judgment behind him; the eyes are set in front, not in the back.'"'

While Maimonides could be so positive in his opinions with regard to a subject on which he felt competent to say something, he was extremely mod

1 "Maimonides," by David Yellin and Israel Abrahams, Philadelphia,

est with regard to many of the great problems of medicine. He often uses the expression in his writings, "I do not see how to explain this matter." He quotes with approval from a Rabbi of old who had counselled his students, "teach thy tongue to say, I do not know." In this, of course, he has given the best possible evidence of his largeness of mind and his capacity for making advance in knowledge. It is when men are ready to say, "I do not know," that progress becomes possible. It is very easy to rest in a conscious or unconscious pretence of knowledge that obscures the real question at issue. A great thinker, who lived in the century in which Maimonides died, Roger Bacon, set down as one of the four principal obstacles to advance in knowledge indeed, as the one of the four that hampered intellectual progress the most, the fact that men feared "I do not know."

to say,

One of the most interesting features of Maimonides' career for the modern time is the influence that his writings exerted over the rising intellectual life of Europe within a half century after his death. Most people would be rather inclined to think that this Jewish author of the East would have very little influence over the thinkers and teachers of Europe within a generation after his death. He died in 1204, just at the beginning of one of the great productive centuries of humanity, perhaps one of the greatest of them all. In literature, in art, in architecture, in philosophy, and in education, this century made wonderful strides. Two of its greatest teachers, Albertus Magnus and his pupil, Thomas Aquinas, quote from Moses Ægyp

tæus, the European name for Maimonides at that time, and evidently knew his writings very well. Maimonides was for them an important connecting link with the world of old Greek thought. Others of the writers and teachers of this time, as William of Auvergne, and the two great Franciscans, Alexander of Hales and Duns Scotus, were also influenced by Maimonides. In a word, the educational world of that time was much more closely united than we might think, and it did not take long for a great writer's thoughts to make themselves felt several thousand miles away. Maimonides was, then, in his own time one of the world teachers, and, in a certain sense, he must always remain that, as representing a special development of what is best in human nature.

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