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[Illustration: Signature: Charles W. Eliot]

Israel and Medicine

BY SIR WILLIAM OSLER

[Illustration: _SIR WILLIAM OSLER (born in Ontario, Canada, in 1849)
Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford and one of the world's leading
medical authorities; distinguished not merely as investigator,
teacher, and practitioner, but also as essayist and ethical teacher of
singular grace and humanity, as shown in the volumes entitled
"Aequanimitas" and "Counsels and Ideals." The present address,
delivered in London at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Jewish
Historical Society of England, is here given its first publication in
this country, with Sir William's special authorization._]

In estimating the position of Israel in the human values we must
remember that the quest for righteousness is Oriental, the quest for
knowledge Occidental. With the great prophets of the East--Moses,
Isaiah, Mahomet--the word was, "Thus saith the Lord"; with the great
seers of the West, from Thales and Aristotle to Archimedes and
Lucretius, it was "What says Nature?" They illustrate two opposite
views of man and his destiny--in the one he is an "_angelus sepultus_"
in a muddy vesture of decay; in the other, he is the "young
light-hearted master" of the world, in it to know it, and by knowing
to conquer. Modern civilization is the outcome of these two great
movements of the mind of man, who to-day is ruled in heart and head by
Israel and by Greece. From the one he has learned responsibility to a
Supreme Being, and the love of his neighbor, in which are embraced
both the Law and the Prophets; from the other he has gathered the
promise of Eden to have dominion over the earth on which he lives. Not
that Israel is all heart, nor Greece all head, for in estimating the
human value of the two races, intellect and science are found in
Jerusalem and beauty and truth at Athens, but in different
proportions.

_Medicine in the Talmud_

It is a striking fact that there is no great Oriental name in
science--not one to be put in the same class with Aristotle, with
Hippocrates, or with a score of Grecians. We do not go to the Bible
for science, though we may go to Moses for instruction in some of the
best methods in hygiene. Nor is the Talmud a fountain-head in which
men seek inspiration to-day as in the works of Aristotle. I do not
forget the saying:

"_In uns'rem Talmud kann man Jedes lesen,
Und Alles ist schon einmal dagewe