Introduction
The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries marked a significant period in the transformation of scientific scholarship. The Latin philosophical tradition’s dominance waned as empirical methods gained credence. University educated men of science began to trust information actually seen and tested more than knowledge contained in books, especially ancient ones. The larger implications of this transformation — the questioning of the authority of the written word of the Bible and the accompanying narrative of the origins of the universe — have received significant scholarly attention. The smaller shifts in the way individuals weighed textual and empirical sources of authority, however, has been largely overlooked. The work of Italian rabbi and physician Isaac Lampronti (1679-1756), whose years as a student and teacher overlapped with these shifting grounds, provides a significant entry point into the subject. Lampronti saw the rabbinic and scientific systems as fundamentally compatible and accordingly employed his personal medical knowledge throughout his encyclopedia of Jewish law, the Pahad Yitzhak. Examination of two passages from his work shows both the influence of empirical authority on rabbinic scholarship and the continued importance of ancient texts, even non-Jewish ones. Through such analysis, historians can better understand the influence and reach of the new epistemology and the complex hierarchies of authority that emerged in the era.
Bibliography:
Useful studies on observation, experience, and empiricism in the early modern period include:
Daston, Lorraine, and Elizabeth Lunbeck, eds. Histories of Scientific Observation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Dear, Peter. Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Pomata, Gianna and Nanncy G. Siraisi, eds. Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005.
Smith, Pamela. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004.
For more on science and Jewish law in the early modern period see:
Kahana, Maoz. “The Scientific Revolution and the Encoding of Sources of Knowledge: Medicine, Halakhah, and Alchemy in Hamburg-Altona, 1736” (Hebrew). Tarbiẓ Vol 82: Issue 1 (2013): 165-212.
Malkiel, David. “The Burden of the Past in the Eighteenth Century: Authority, Custom and Innovation in the Pahad Yitzhak.” Jewish Law Annual 16 (2006): 93-132.
Ruderman, David B. Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
Source 1 Translation
Isaac Lampronti, Paḥad Yiẓḥak, Vol. 2, p. 100r, s.v. “dam nidah” (Venice, 1750) (first printed edition); Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Ms. Hebrew 481, f. 266r (manuscript original).
Dam nidah - See Pliny Book 9, Chapter 15,[^1] who says the following but in another language: “There is nothing more wondrous and amazing about women than their menstrual blood, for [contact with it] turns wine sour, [it causes] the fruit of the earth to become barren, [as well as] shoots to die and garden seeds to burn up. The fruit of trees falls off if the [menstruating] women happen to sit on them. The bright glimmer of mirrors becomes darkened from the glance of the menstruating woman, the sharpness of the iron is blunted, and the gleam of ivory dulled. Dogs become crazy and rabid if they happen to eat the blood of a menstruating woman and their bite is infected with a poison from which they cannot be cured.”[^2]
The previously mentioned scholar [Pliny] returned to these words in Book 28, Chapter 6.[^3] And all the iniquities attributed to this blood were absolved, and in agreement with him were Fallopio,[^4] Rodericus Ma-Castro [Rodrigo de Castro],[^5] Guglielmo Balogno [Guillaume de Baillou],[^6] and Daniel Sennert[^7] and others, as one can see in their books.[^8]
In spite of this, the instances that we see every day teach us how many sicknesses come to women who do not have a menstrual flow and also how many come to those who do at the time of their flow. And every day we have seen with our eyes and our ears have heard that the men and women who eat the blood by way of a philtre [magic potion] no longer have a memory, a bitter darkness [i.e. melancholy] controls them, they become mad, and their madness waxes and wanes according to the phases of the moon, and others become lepers.
The cure for this sickness can be accomplished in many ways that should be performed by experts in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding as is written in medical books: One drama[^9]** of pearls thin like dust[^10] with water of melissa fillo; [^11] One to two scrupolo[^12]** of trochisci viperni;[^13] The Conciliator[^14] mentions only one remedy, the belzoar;[^15] And also very effective is the seed of the cavolo[^16] and the stomach of the rabbit;[^17] Very helpful is the theriaca,[^18] two dracmas with fumaria water.[^19] The sick person’s drink should be boiled wine with melissa herb or wine in which the previously mentioned herb has been steeped. Above all,[^20] he should increase the washing of his body, always in warm water with boiled herbs in it.
Footnotes
[^1] The correct citation is actually Book 7, Chapter 15. This is a printing error. The manuscript says Book 7.
[^2] There are only a few small differences between the Latin original and Lampronti’s translation, namely the absence of the last few clauses about hives of bees, bronze and iron rusting, and a horrible smell filling the air. The structure of Lampronti’s rendition is otherwise faithful to the Latin.
Latin original: “sed nihil facile reperiatur mulierum profluvio magis monstrificum. acescunt superventu musta, sterilescunt contactae fruges, moriuntur insita, exuruntur hortorum germina, fructus arborum [quibus insidere] decidunt, speculorum fulgor adspectu ipso hebetatur, acies ferri praestringitur, eboris nitor, alvi apium moriuntur, aes etiam ac ferrum robigo protinus corripit odorque dirus aera, in rabiem aguntur gustato eo canes atque insanabili veneno morsus inficitur.”
Translation by WHS Jones: “But nothing could easily be found that is more remarkable than the monthly flux of women. Contact with it turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seeds in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees falls off, the bright surface of mirrors in which it is merely reflected is dimmed, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison.”
[^3] The printed text says Chapter 6, but the manuscript says Chapter 7. In Chapter 7, Pliny discusses the therapeutic use of saliva. Elsewhere in Book 28, however, he discusses the positive benefits of menstruation. For example, Book 28, Chapter 10 says: “Many kinds of illness are cleared up by the first sexual intercourse, or by the first menstruation; if they do not, they become chronic, especially epilepsy.” And in Book 28, Chapter 23 Pliny mentions that women are powerful and hailstorms are driven away by menstrual blood.
[^4] Gabriele Fallopio (d. 1562) was a Paduan anatomist known for his anatomical studies of the reproductive organs, especially his identification of the uterine tubes.
[^5] Rodrigo de Castro (d. 1627) was a converso physician who wrote an important two-volume gynecological work, De universa mulierum medicina, which was printed widely throughout Europe in the seventeenth century*.*
[^6) I searched the following medical bibliographies and resources and Guillame de Baillou is the only name that seems to possibly match the Italian version transliterated into Hebrew by Lampronti as seen in the text: James Ricci, The Genealogy of Gynaecology: History of the Development of Gynaecology Throughout the Ages (Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company, 1950); Wellcome Historical Medical Library, A Catalogue of Printed Books in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library, (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1962); Leslie T. Morton and Robert J. Moore, A Bibliography of Medical and Biomedical Biography (Brookfield, VT: Gower, 1989); Alain Besson ed., Thornton’s Medical Books, Libraries and Collectors: A Study of Bibliography and the Book Trade in Relation to the Medical Sciences (Vermont: Gower, 1990). The exact work Lampronti may have referenced is: Guillaume de Baillou, De Virginum et Mulierum Morbis liber, in quo multa ad mentem Hippocratis explicantur (Paris, 1643). For a note on Guillaume de Baillou’s role in the development of gynecology see: Helen King, Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology: The Uses of Sixteenth-Century Compendium (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 16.
[^7] Daniel Sennert (d. 1637) was a German physician and prolific author of books on chemistry, alchemy, and medicine. He is chiefly known for his contributions to atomic theory, but his medical writings, including Practicae medicinae (Volumes 1-6) were also widely circulated. Book 4 of Practicae medicinae specifically covers female illnesses. In Book 4, Section II, Part 2 Sennert addresses a question as to whether menstrual blood is negative in its quantity or quality and he answers that it only offends in quantity (based on the Hippocratic/Galenic understanding that women have too much blood in their bodies), and that there is nothing inherently bad or toxic about the blood itself.
[^8] As far as I can tell, none of these individuals made statements about the magical or toxic qualities of menstrual blood itself. They do, however, talk about female illnesses, some of which are closely related to menstruation, either caused by it or by the lack thereof.
[^9] Drama/dracma is a measurement equal to 1/16 of an ounce.
[^10] Giambattista Morgagni (d. 1771) mentions a substance containing extracts of pearls in one of the consultations he wrote to Lampronti. See: Saul Jarcho, ed., The Clinical Consultations of Giambattista Morgagni: The Edition of Enrico Benassi (1935) (Boston: The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, 1984), p. 155, see footnote 555 p. 389.
[^11] Melissa officinalis (lemon balm) was a widely used medicinal herb, often prepared with water. Nicholas Lemery (d. 1715) discussed melissa water specifically in his pharmacological work, Farmacopea Universale. See: Lemery, Farmacopea Universale (Venice, 1720), p. 391. I reference this text because I have seen Lampronti mention it specifically on other occasions in the Paḥad Yiẓḥak.
[^12] Scrupolo is a measurement equal to 1/3 dram.
[^13] A preparation of viper meat, discussed in another Italian pharmacological work I have seen Lampronti mention elsewhere: Antidotario Romano (Rome, 1624) p.108. Morgagni also mentions the use of viper frequently in his consultations and even mentions it specifically with reference to menstrual ailments. See Saul Jarcho, ed., The Clinical Consultations of Giambattista Morgagni: The Edition of Enrico Benassi (1935) (Boston: The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, 1984), 73-4.
[^14] The Conciliator is a scholastic medical written by Paduan physician Pietro d’Abano (d. 1313). In 1472, an edition of the Conciliator was printed together with Pietro d’Abano’s short treatise on toxicology, De veneris eorumque remediis. There Abano discussed the therapeutic qualities of the bezoar stone.
[^15] The bezoar stone (a small mass found in the stomach) was long considered an antidote to poison. A short article on the belzoar can be found in the 1743 edition of the Giornale de’letterati: Giornale de’letterati, Della Pietra Belzoar, Articolo XXII, (Rome, 1743), p. 274-5. Morgagni also mentions a substance containing the bezoar stone in his exchange with Lampronti: The Clinical Consultations of Giambattista Morgagni, p. 155, see footnote 555, p. .389
[^16] Lemery discussed cavolo (cabbage): Lemery, Farmacopea, p. 161.
[^17] The stomach of the rabbit is mentioned in a medieval Hebrew translation of Galen’s Book on the Womb. See Ron Barkai, A History of Jewish Gynaecological Texts in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 1998), p. 174.
[^18] Theriaca was one of the most common ancient and medieval medicinal cures, often considered a universal cure- all. See Barkai, p. 221.
[^19] Fumaria officinalis is a medicinal herb discussed by both Lemery and Morgagni.
[^20] The manuscript reads: “ועל הכל ירבה לרחוץ”.