lusive evidence, but because of it I have preferred
to class Avenzoar among the Arabian physicians.

The one historical fact of importance for us is that everywhere in
Europe at that time Jews were being accorded opportunities for the study
and practice of medicine. There are local incidents of persecution, but
we are not so far away from the feelings that brought these about as to
misunderstand them or to think that they were anything more than local,
popular manifestations. The more we know about the details of the
medical history of these times the deeper is the impression of academic
freedom and of opportunities for liberal education.

Much has been said about the intolerance of ecclesiastical authorities
toward the Jews, and of Church decrees that either absolutely forbade
their practice of the medical profession and their devotion to
scientific study, or at least made these pursuits much more difficult
for them than for others. Of course it has to be conceded, even by those
who most insistently urge the existence of formal legislation in the
matter, that in spite of these decrees and intolerance and opposition,
Jews continued to practise medicine and to be the chosen physicians of
kings and even of high ecclesiastical dignitaries, as well indeed of
the Popes themselves. This, it is usually declared, must be attributed
to the surpassing skill of the Jewish physicians, causing men to
overcome their prejudices and override even their own legal regulations.
There is no doubt at all about the skill of Jewish physicians at many
times during the Middle Ages. There is no doubt also of the sentiment of
opposition that often developed between the Christian peoples and the
Jews. Any excuse is good enough to justify men, to themselves at least,
in putting obstacles in the paths of those who are more successful than
they are themselves. Religion often became a cloak for ill-will and
persecution.

The state of affairs that has been presumed however, according to which
laws and decrees were being constantly issued forbidding the practice of
medicine to Jews by the ecclesiastical authorities, while at the same
time they themselves and those who were nearest to them were employing
Jewish physicians, is an absurdity that on the face of it calls for
investigation of the conditions and from its very appearance would
indicate that the ordinary historical assumption in the matter must be
wrong.

I have been at some pains, then, to