material, and I have found Landau's "Geschichte der Juedischen Aerzte"
(Berlin, 1895) of great service.]

[Footnote 4: Of course there are many absurd things recommended in the
Talmud. We cannot remind ourselves too often, however, that there have
been absurd things at all times in medicine, and especially in
therapeutics. It is curious how often some of these absurdities have
repeated themselves. We are liable to think it very queer that men
should have presumed, or somehow jumped to the conclusion, that portions
of animals might possess wonderful virtue for the healing of diseases of
the corresponding special parts of man. We ourselves, however, within a
little more than a decade, had a phase of opotherapy--how much less
absurd it seems under that high-sounding Greek term--that was apparently
very learned in its scientific aspects yet quite as absurd as many
phases of old-time therapy, as we look at it. We administered cardin for
heart disease and nephrin for kidney trouble, cerebrin for insanity
(save the mark!), and even prostate tissue for prostatism--and with
reported good results! How many of us realize now that in this we were
only repeating the absurdities, so often made fun of in old medicine,
with regard to animal tissue and excrement therapeutics? The Talmud has
many conclusions with regard to the symptoms of patients drawn from
dreams; as, for instance, it is said to be a certain sign of sanguineous
plethora when one dreams of the comb of a cock. One phase of our
psycho-analysis in the modern time, however, has taken us back to an
interpretation of dreams different of course from this, yet analogous
enough to be quite striking.]

[Footnote 5: "Maimonides," by David Yellin and Israel Abrahams,
Philadelphia, 1903.]

[Footnote 6: "Das Arabische und Hebraeische in der Anatomie," Dr. Joseph
Hyrtl, Wien, 1879.]

[Footnote 7: "Anat. Antiq. Rariores," Vienna, 1835.]

[Footnote 8: It seems hard to understand how so useful an auxiliary to
the surgeon as the ligature,--it seems indispensable to us,--could
possibly be allowed to go out of use and even be forgotten. It will not
be difficult, however, for anyone who recalls the conditions that
obtained in old-time surgery. The ligature is a most satisfying
immediate resource in stopping bleeding from an artery, but a septic
ligature inevitably causes suppuration and almost inevitably leads to
secondary hemorrhage. In the old days of septic surgery secondary
hemorr