mud with this paragraph:

"I conclude this brief review of Talmudic medicine with some
reference to how high the worth of science was valued in this
much misunderstood work. In one place we have the expression
'occupation with science means more than sacrifice.' In
another 'science is more than priesthood and kingly
dignity.'"[4]

After all this of national tradition in medicine before and after
Christ, it is only what we might quite naturally expect to find, that
there is scarcely a century of the Middle Ages which does not contain at
least one great Jewish physician and sometimes there are more. Many of
these men made distinct contributions to medical science and their names
have been held in high estimation ever since. Perhaps I should say that
they were held in high estimation until that neglect of historical
studies which characterized the eighteenth century developed, and that
there has been a reawakening of interest in our time. We forget this
curious decadence of the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
which did so much to obscure history and especially the history of the
sciences. Fortunately the scholars of the sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries accomplished successfully the task of printing
many of the books of these old-time physicians and secured their
publication in magnificent editions. These were bought eagerly by
scholars and libraries all over Europe in spite of the high price they
commanded in that era of slow, laborious printing. The Renaissance
exhibits some of its most admirable qualities in its reverence for these
old workers in science and above all for the careful preparation by its
scholars of the text of these first editions of old-time physicians. The
works have often been thus literally preserved for us, for some of them
at least would have disappeared among the vicissitudes of the
intervening time, most of which was anything but favorable to the
preservation of old-time works, no matter what their content or value.

During the second and third centuries of our era, while the Talmudic
writings were taking shape, three great Jewish physicians came into
prominence. The first of them, Chanina, was a contemporary of Galen.
According to tradition, as we have said, he inserted both natural and
artificial teeth before the close of the second century. The two others
were Rab or Raw and Samuel. Rab has the distinction of having studied
his anatomy from t