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The definitive guide to the medicinal plant knowledge of Ashkenazi herbal healers--from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.Until now, the herbal traditions of the Ashkenazi people have remained unexplored and shrouded in mystery. Ashkenazi Herbalism rediscovers the forgotten legacy of the Jewish medicinal plant healers who thrived in Eastern Europe's Pale of Settlement, from their beginnings in the Middle Ages through the modern era.Including the first materia medica of 26 plants and herbs essential to Ashkenazi folk medicine, Ashkenazi Herbalism sheds light on the preparations, medicinal profiles, and applications of a rich but previously unknown herbal tradition--one hidden by language barriers, obscured by cultural misunderstandings, and nearly lost to history. Written for new and established practitioners, it offers illustrations, provides information on comparative medicinal practices, and illuminates the important historical and cultural contexts that gave rise to Eastern European Jewish herbalism.Part I introduces a brief history of the Ashkenazim and provides an overview of traditional medicine among Eastern European Jews. Part II offers a comparative overview of healing customs among Jews of the Pale of Settlement, their many native plants, and the remedies applied by local healers to treat a range of illnesses. This materia medica names each plant in Yiddish, English, Latin, and other relevant languages, and the book also details a brief history of medicine; the roles of the ba'alei shem, feldshers, opshprekherins, midwives, and brewers; and the remedy books used by Jewish healers.

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This volume deals with the medical and paramedical topics, compiled from the works of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived in the first century C.E. in Judea, and later in Rome. The study of medicine from ancient Jewish sources has focused on the Bible and the Talmud, the content of which is primarily theological and cultural. The present work reveals two main trends. Josephus'paraphrase of the Biblical narrative introduced a number of additions and/or discrepancies which bear on medicine. Moreover, his account of the Jewish War and of contemporary political events includes many details related to medicine and hygiene.This book deals with physicians and healers, diseases and epidemics, with surgery, psychiatry and psychology, and with therapeutics. The work concludes with a discussion of medical metaphors and with a sequence of detailed treatments of topics including suicide, the Essenes and King Herod. It throws light on an aspect of Josephus studies which has rarely been considered till now.