Taub, Jacob

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 29 | Number 1 Article 4February 1962Medicine in the New TestamentJacob TaubFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationTaub, Jacob (1962) "Medicine in the New Testament," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 29 : No. 1 , Article 4.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol29/iss1/4It is with deep humility that I undertake to fill the offic£ new president. My illustrious predecessors have made ou records in growth of guilds and in the activities of the FedE' ask your continued cooperation and your prayers that the H may guide me and the other officers in these very important e During the past few years the Federation has moved int of new activities which have received international attention: f Care of Religious and Clergy Program is moving ahead. M01 the Medical Mission project has developed. The Medica Scholarship plan as inaugurated at the last meeting should ha, dous potentialities. We hope to have closer cooperation and exchange of id, all of the affiliated guilds. We expect to have a member from e represented on several of our committees. By utilizing all sources we can go on to greater goals. Our Federation through a rapid growth phase and we need advice and cm each of our guilds. At times. there will be a difference of , procedure. This is healthy. This will all culminate in deve proper programs with which we can best serve God and Hi� The names of the chairmen and present members of each i committee are listed in this issue. Please write to any of the,, wish to offer suggestions or need advice. f your anding Uon. I Spirit eavors. i series Health ecently v'lission re men-among h group our re-moving el from :nion on Jing the ick. deration hen you Please remember the Federation and all of its functions in :·•)Ur daily prayers. J. E. HoLOUBEK. ',1.D. LINACRE QUARTERLY MEDICINE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT JACOB TAUB. M.D .. F.C.A.P." Whether it is the Old Testa­ment or the New Testament the Bible is not to be construed as a medical textbook. It is a book of religious and moral instruction. Its undeviating and single purpose is to expound the singleness. the uniqueness and significance of God for all mortal beings. Medicine does not appear in the Bible as a distinct science or art. In the Old Testament it determines certain hygienic laws or gives comparative medical terms· for moral punish­ments where sin was committed; in the New Testament it only identifies the sick bodies which Jesus miraculously healed. In all religions from time im­memorial. control over health and disease emanted from the godhead. Before the appearance of the Is­raelites, before the time of Moses. gods were identified with count­less diseases. There was a god for every conceivable illness and since primitive man attributed malignant and benign influences to animals, lo various natural phenomena. to • Dr.Jacob Taub is Associate Professor of athology at New York Medical C.Ollege, and Director of Pathology at both Westchester Square Hospital and St. Patrick's Home for the Aged and ln8rm, Bronx. New York. His Biblical l'elearch on the subject of Medicine has been productive of many lectures and the foregoing was one given at the an­pual meeting of the medical staff of St. atrtck's Home early last year. P!BRUARY. 1962objects inanimate and often repul­sive. these became his gods. The first medicine men were the magi­cian-priests who acted as inter­mediaries between the disease­ridden populace and the multiple deities. In their roles as invokers they eventually learned to practice excellent medicine. However their charlatanism and m y s t ic ism in combination with the superstitions and credulity of ancient society produced situations where such practitioners as Imhotep, Horus. Aesculapius and many others be­came deified as medical and heal­in11 gods. This type of worship with its strange rites and cruel orgies was eradicated, with the advent of the Bible. Health and disease are still considered of divine origin but the one God cannot be controlled at the beck and whim of the temple functionaries. With monotheism the intercession by priests, sorcer­ers. incantators is prohibited and forbidden. Bible passages show that disease and its cure emanate from God: "I will kill and I will make to live. I will strike and I will heal ... " (Deut. 32:39) "If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord, thy God, and will do what is right in His sight and will give ear to His commandments and keep His statutes, I will put none of the disease upon you which I 5 have brought from the Egyptians for I am the Lord that heals you." (Ex. 15:26) The Biblical concept of medicine thus was one of prophylaxis in­stead of therapeusis. Among the ancient Hebrews religious rituals and ceremonials became a code of preventive medicine. Physical puri­fication was placed on a par with moral purification. and cleanliness of the body went hand in hand with cleanliness of the soul. This inter-relatedness of the physical and spiritual is also manifest throughout many passages of the New Testament and is exemplified in the rites of baptism. The Old Testament makes ref­erence to many signs and symp­toms of illness but mentions only one disease - leprosy. The lep­rosy described in Leviticus, how­ever, does not resemble the chronic disease we know today. The an­cient Hebrews had a very realistic knowledge of the principles of sanitation, and tzaraas, the He­brew word for leprosy, is more properly an inclusive generaliza­tion for all skin diseases, conta­gious or otherwise. Other words and descriptions which imply phys­iology as well as pathology are discharge, wasting, fever, emerods ( Buboes or hemorrhoids), womb, bile, barrenness, obesity, menstru­ation, to mention just a few. The nu1:1e�ous narratives referring to afflictions as threats of punishment serve as a wonderful and original source for investigation and re­search. The language is very basic and exegesis of the Bible stories is broad and varied. As a result the commentaries are astronomical in number. While these are inately homoletical. scho, commentators over the have recorded every co1 phase of medicine includi omy, embryology, surger1 mology, obstetrics and gy dermatology, public healt edom­·s and 1illenia <!ivable J anat­opthal­cology. etc. In making a list of mer ·al sub­jects and words in the C ,pels, it is found that Matthew vith 28 chapters has 239 such r i!rences; Mark with 16 chapters as 123; John· with 21 chapters ha 148, and Luke with 21 chapters ,as 252. more references than ei er Mat­thew or John and twice he num­ber that Mark uses.1 Tl . is to be expected for Luke was a hysician, the "Beloved Physician of Paul. ( Co[. 4: 14) His accoun ,f the life of Christ describes me medical instances than do the ;, :cunts of the other Evangelists. J records 21 while the others gi· them as follows: Matthew 19, ,\,lark 16, and John 6. His descrip .. ons in the original Greek indicat an ac­quaintance with medical terminol­ogy compared to the lay words used by the other Gospel writers. The se veral d isease entities mentioned in the New Testamentare easily recognized. and the lan­guage describes them very ade• quately. A third year medical student can make a diagnosis from the lucid descriptions. Among the medical conditions mentioned are arthritis, menorrhagia, epilepsy and poliomyelitis. These are rec• ognized by their descriptions while l Smith, C. Raimer: The Physician Ex• amines the Bible, Philosophical Librar}', New York 1950, page 183. LINACRE QUARTERLY others like dropsy, palsy, blind­ness and sores are only identified by their names. Luke's experience in orthopedics is evident from the fo llow ing: "Behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of in­firmity 18 years and was bowed together and could not lift herself up." (Luke 13: 11) What infirm­ity would last so long and not cause the patient's death? Luke picked this patient correctly, for this disease is far more frequent in women than in men. She suffered from osteoarthritis with ankylosis or fixation of the joints. The cure, "Woman, thou are loosed from thy infirmity" ( Luke 13: 12), en­visions a technique or procedure whereby· the adhesions and calci­fications are broken up and dis­aolved away: and pliability is restored to her joints and move­ment to her limbs. Mark and Luke both record the instance of the woman who suf­fered from menorrhagia (Mark5:25-26, Luke 8:34 ). Mark, the layman, seemingly had a poor opinion of doctors. He was also concerned with the cost of medical care, an ancient as well as a mod­ern problem, to quote: "And a certain woman which had an issue of blood 12 years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing the better but rather worse." Luke, the physician. was non-committal concerning the un­lllccessful treatment by other colleagues, to quote: "And a wom­an having an issue of blood 12 Years who had bestowed all her lllbstance on physicians, and could IIOt be healed by any." Besides Pl!BRUARY, 1962 being a good practitioner, Luke observed medical ethics. He was also cognizant of the high cost of medicine as every physician should be. The above examples were inci­dents of Christ in the Synagogue. So was the following: "And behold a man among the crowd cried out, saying: Master, I beseech thee look upon my son, because he is my only one. And lo, a spirit seizeth him, and he suddenly crieth out, and he throwing him down and t e areth  him, so that he foameth; and bruising him, he h a r d I y d e p a r t e  t h  from him." (Luke 9:38-39) Mark  m a kes some additional observations: "Sometimes he falls into the fire and sometimes he falls into the water." (Mark 9: 17-22) What more is required to identify an at­tack of epilepsy. This is a classical description. In the Old Testamentthe phrase "falleth, and so his eyes are opened." ( N um. 24: 4 ) is in­terpreted as signifying an attack of epilepsy. "The man whose right hand was withered" (Luke 6:6) presumably survived an attack of polio which left his right hand atrophic and use­less. (Matthew 19: 12) describes instances of eunuchism: "For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb and there be some eunuchs which are made eunuchs of men." This is the earliest reference in any lit­erature recognizing the difference between congenital and acquired hypogonadism. From the examples cited one can conclude that a high degree of med­ical knowledge existed in Biblical 7 times, and that the observations of 2000 years ago deviate very little from the basic medical con­cepts we hold today. Study of the Bible reveals an extraordinary con­cordance between data of the Scriptures and many of the mod-em and most recent di� in the biological and medic To quote Sir Isaac Newto Scriptures are the most philosophy. I find more , authenticity in the Bible profane history anywhere veries fields. "The ublime .rks of 1an in THE NEW OFFICERS and retiring president of the National Fedcs:iiion pau�ed for a photograph during the busy session of the Winter Executive Ho,1rd meeting held in Denver, December I, 1961. Seated, from the left: F. E. \'Prdon, M.D., Miami, Fla., secretary; J. E. Holoubek, M.D., Shreveport, La., the 1,cw president; E. J. Murphy, M.D., Bronx, N. Y., retiring president; Rt. Rev. Msgr. D. A. McGowan, Washington, D.C., national moderator; Miss Jean Read, executive se�,..tary. Stant ing, from the left, are G. P. J. Griffin, M.D., Brooklyn, N. Y., first vice-president; P. Cunningham, M.D., Rock Island, Ill., second vice-president; Reverend John J. Flanagan, S.J., editor THE LINACRE QUARTERLY, and F. M. Taylor, l\-f.D., Houston,Texas, third vice-pre·sident. 8 LtNACRE QUARTERLY Medical Secrecy: Some Moral Aspects JOHN J. LYNCH, S.J. Editor's note: The Editorial Committee of THE LINACRE QUARTERLY has requested that this article be reprinted from an earlier issue of the journal to emphasize the ever-important subject under consideration. Fath« John J. Lynch, S.J .. Professor of Moral Theology at Weston College. Weston, Mass., has been a frequent contributor to LQ on a number of topics. A SURVEY c o nducted  a m o n gsome hundred English and Welsh physicians a few years ago revealed a marked difference of opinion regarding the practical obligations of medical secrecy.1The questionnaire submitted to these doctors took the form of a series of imaginary cases in which either the common good or the rights of individuals seemed to argue in favor of a doctor's di­vulging certain information ac­quired in the course of his pro­fessional practice. The doctors were asked to express their per­sonal opinions as to proper pro­cedure in each instance. whether to disclose or to withhold the in­formation in question. Some of the problems posed are quite provocative - and perhaps the divergence of opinions ex­pressed would be considered even more so. If a physician, for ex­ample, as a private practitioner, should discover that a railroad en­gineer, whom he has diagnosed as epileptic, intends neither to inform his employers of his condition nor to give up his work, should the doctor himself report the case to railway authorities? Answers were � "Du ed by E. C. Dawson, M.R.C.S .. ties of A Doctor as A Citizen," �8· Medical Journal, 4902:' 1474-(Dec. 18) 1954. Pl!BRUARY, 1962almost seven to one in favor of divulging the information. Should the doctor report to the police the identity of a criminal abortionist, whose name he has learned from a woman patient who forbids him to make use of the knowledge? A slight majority favored reporting the culprit, while a strong minor­ity declared for the contrary. A workman is receiving industrial insurance compensation for an in­jury alleged to have been received in the course of his work. Would his personal physician be justified in revealing to authorities that the disability was actually incurred prior to his employment and that the claim is therefore fraudulent? By approximately two to one, the doctors decided against the pro­priety of revealing this medical information. The results of such a poll might easily provoke doctors to any one of several adverse reactions -either consternation at the number who would countenance an ap­parent breach of professional eth­ics in certain situations; or impa­tience with the insistence of some on the absolute sacredness of the medical secret regardless of all circumstances; or chagrin at the failure of doctors to agree on so basic a question; or perhaps re­sentment towards medical soci-9 

Medicine in the New Testament

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Medicine in the New Testament

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