ong list of eminent names might be extracted from
the tenth and eleventh centuries. In it we should find Haroun of
Cordova, Jehuda of Fez, Amram of Toledo. Already it was apparent that
the Saracenic movement would aid in developing the intelligence of
barbarian Western Europe through Hebrew physicians, in spite of
opposition encountered from theological ideas imported from
Constantinople and Rome. Mohammedanism had all along been the patron of
physical science; paganizing Christianity not only repudiated it, but
exhibited towards it sentiments of contemptuous disdain and hatred.
[Sidenote: Imposture-medicine.] Hence physicians were viewed by the
Church with dislike, and regarded as atheists by the people, who held
firmly to the lessons they had been taught that cures must be wrought by
relics of martyrs and bones of saints, by prayers and intercessions, and
that each region of the body was under some spiritual charge--the first
joint of the right thumb being in the care of God the Father, the second
under that of the blessed Virgin, and so on of other parts. For each
disease there was a saint. A man with sore eyes must invoke St. Clara,
but if it were an inflammation elsewhere he must turn to St. Anthony. An
ague would demand the assistance of St. Pernel. For the propitiating of
these celestial beings it was necessary that fees should be paid, and
thus the practice of imposture-medicine became a great source of profit.
In all this there was no other intention than that of extracting money
from the illiterate. With men of education and position it was
different. Bishops, princes, kings, and popes had each in private his
Hebrew doctor, though all understood that he was a contraband luxury, in
many countries pointedly and absolutely prohibited by the law.
[Sidenote: The rabbis cultivate medicine and other sciences.] In the
eleventh century nearly all the physicians in Europe were Jews. This was
due to two different causes: the Church would tolerate no interference
with her spiritual methods of treating disease, which formed one of her
most productive sources of gain; and the study of medicine had been
formally introduced into the rabbinical schools. The monk was prohibited
a pursuit which gave to the rabbi an honourable emolument. From the
older institutions offshoots in quick succession appeared, particularly
in France. Thus the school at Narbonne was under the presidency of
Doctor Rabbi Abou. There was also a flourishing
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