Sick on the Sabbath? and Other Questionable Medical Advice: b.Avodah Zarah 28
Do not eat fish within three days of your bloodletting procedure!
Today’s page begins with more of the isolationist xenophobia we’ve come to expect from this chapter—setting up exceptional circumstances in which one may received healthcare from non-Jews—but takes a detour toward the wild side offering you medical advice so wacky that it puts TikTok to shame.
Some of you might be familiar with a baraita quoted in b.Shabbat 12b, in which anyone visiting the sick on Shabbat is encouraged to say ״שַׁבָּת הִיא מִלִּזְעוֹק, וּרְפוּאָה קְרוֹבָה לָבֹא״, which can roughly be translated as “refrain from crying out on Shabbat, your healing is nigh.” The deal is that, unless one’s injury is life-threatening (פיקוח נפש, Shabbat 132a), that treatment is withheld until Shabbat is over. In our sugiyah, Rabbi Yohanan is cited as saying that one must only seek foreign health providers for maladies that can be treated on Shabbat. There is, however, another statement by him, forbidding non-Jewish caregiving for internal injuries. Rav Adda bar Matnah cites Rav as saying that the back of the hand and the soul of the foot count as internal injuries and should not be treated on Shabbat.
The patchy medical knowledge that informs this taxonomy is really interesting: Rav Zutra cites Rav as saying that any malady that requires assessment can be treated on Shabbat; Rav Shemen cites Rabbi Yohanan as allowing to treat fevers. Then, they try to figure out whether a dental/gum issue counts as an “internal injury.” Dentistry was nowhere close to where it is now, but we do get a mishnaic prohibition (m.Shabbat 111a) against sipping vinegar to heal teeth on Shabbat.
Which brings us to… scurvy! Rabbi Yohanan had scurvy, and went to a Roman matronita who made medication for him on Thursday and Friday. He asked her what to do should he need some on Saturday. She swore him to secrecy (“I will not reveal them to God”, then revealed the ingredients to his people (and thus was not technically in violation of the oath.) This incident is proof of nothing useful for our purposes, so they move on and elaborate on scurvy: it manifests as bleeding from the gums, and comes from eating cold wheat foods (קָּרִירֵי קָרִירֵי דְּחִיטֵּי), warm barley foods (חַמִּימֵי חַמִּימֵי דִּשְׂעָרֵי), and fried fish leftovers (שִּׁיּוּרֵי כָּסָא דְּהַרְסָנָא). The matronita’s cure combined sourdough water, olive oil, and salt, or perhaps goose fat smeared on the gums with a goose feather. Abaye complains that none of this helped his own scurvy, until he got a great tip from a taya’a: make a paste out of charred olive seeds and smear it on the gums. Anyway, in case you were wondering, it was okay for Rabbi Yohanan to go to the matronita for help with his gums, because his fame would keep him safe. Moreover, he went to a reputable healer, who would not hurt him and risk her reputation. Rabbi Abbahu (also important) went to see a physician (also reputable) and was not as lucky: the salve the physician gave him was poisonous. This comparison, as if we can generalize from these completely different cases, reminded me of this classic:
Now we change gears and get a series of remedies for various ailments. I want to remind everyone that I’m not that kind of doctor, nor am I a TikTok influencer, so please take these with a grain of salt (and don’t even take the salt expecting miracles, please):
A sword cut: eat cress soaked in vinegar and bandage the injury with yavla (?) and thornbush, or use earthworms.
Boils: soak a tigna plant in honey or soak parsley in wine. Rub a grape on the boil - a white one for a white boil, a black grape for a black boil.
Abscess before fever: snap the boil sixty times with your fingers, then tear it vertically and horizontally. If the head of the boil is white, that means it’s healing on its own.
Hemorrhoids (Rabbi Ya’acov’s affliction): seeds of ice plant, wrapped in cloth from a shirt and in some hair, dip the bundle in naphtha, burn it, and spread ashes on the problem area; also, put the kernel of a bramble against your bum. If the hemorrhoid is deep in the intestine, go with melted goat fat, ashes of dried pumpkin leaves, snail shells, or a mix of oil and wax rubbed on flax or cotton.
Earache: Rabbi Yohanan’s mom says only kidney liquid from a bald goat will do - apply it while tepid to the ear. If unavailable: fat from a large beetle or an oil/alfalfa preparation tied with hair and burned, and hey, avoid drafts. The Gemara summarizes the healing principle here: dry remedies for wet afflications and vice versa. If the earache comes from a dislocated jaw, do not raise your ears to replace it on Shabbat, as your ears might be injured.
Rav Yehuda ruled it okay to put kohl to heal an injured eye on Shabbat (though some opine that this is true only if the ingredients were pre-ground ahead of time). This involved a petty scenario. Rav Shmuel slandered him as violating Shabbat. But what goes around comes around, and when Rav Shmuel himself had an afflicted eye, Rav Yehuda told him, “everyone else is allowed to put kohl on it except you.” Rav Shmuel replied, “it’s no my eye, it’s the eye of one of
Eggs Benedictmy servants.”Hornet stings, thorn pricks, eye issues, and fevers, require avoiding the bathhouse. As to food, pick your root vegetables wisely:
Warm food is good for scorpion bites and cold food for hornet bites, but not vice versa.
Hot water is good for splinters and cold is good for facial wounds, but not vice versa.
After bloodletting, drink vinegar, and after a fast, eat small fish. And please do not eat fish within three days of having a bloodletting procedure.
