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An Alternative to the Cosmic and Mechanic Metaphors for the Human Body? The House Illustration in Ma'aseh Tuviyah (1708)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2012

Etienne Lepicard
Etienne Lepicard
Affiliation:
Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University. At present: Research Fellow, Institute for the History of Medicine, Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Germany; and Guest Lecturer, Program in Biological Thought, Open University, Israel; e-mail: [email protected]
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Information
Medical History , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , 01 January 2008 , pp. 93 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2008. Published by Cambridge University Press

References

1 Tobias Cohen, Ma'aseh Tuviyah, Venice, 1708, folio 106a.

2 For an overview on the analogy between micro- and macrocosm, see George Boas, ‘Macrocosm and Microcosm’, in Philip P Wiener (ed.), Dictionary of the history of ideas, 5 vols, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973–74, vol. 3, pp. 126–31. On the history of the idea in Jewish thought, see Zvi Almog, ‘Critical edition of Moses Ibn Tibbon's 'Olam Katan with an essay on the history of microcosm in medieval Jewish philosophy’ (PhD Dissertation), Philadelphia, Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1966, and more recently: Jacob Haberman, ‘Introduction’, in Saul Horowitz, The microcosm of Joseph ibn Saddiq, Madison, NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London, Associated University Presses, c.2003.

3 ‘The stars and the human body,’ in Apocalypse, ca. 1420, fol. 41r, MS 49, Wellcome Library, London, reproduced in Nancy G Siraisi, Medieval and early Renaissance medicine: an introduction to knowledge and practice, University of Chicago Press, 1990, p. 112. This picture is also accessible online under “zodiac man” at http://medphoto.wellcome.ac.uk/

4 Siraisi, ibid., pp. 67–8.

5 Frances A Yates, The art of memory, University of Chicago Press, 1974 (1966), especially pp. 51–4 for the use of the Zodiac by Metrodorus of Skepsis. More recently, see the works of Mary Carruthers, The book of memory and The craft of thought, both published by Cambridge University Press, 1990 and 1998 respectively. For an exploration of the art of memory “hidden in the rhetoric of more recent forms of intellectual discourse”, see Patrick H Hutton, ‘The art of memory reconceived: from rhetoric to psychoanalysis’, J. Hist. Ideas, 1987, 48: 371–92. In this article, Hutton suggests that the art of memory was not only a way to remember but also a way of representing and so of knowing the world.

6 A Synnott, The body social: symbolism, self and society, London, Routledge, 1993, pp. 22–7.

7 In the West, of course. For a comparison with China on blood-letting, see, for instance, Shigehisa Kuriyama, The expressiveness of the body and the divergence of Greek and Chinese medicine, New York, Zone Books, 1999; pp. 201–7.

8 Mirko D Grmek and Raffaele Barnabeo, ‘La machine du corps’, in M D Grmek and B Fantini (eds), Histoire de la pensée médicale en Occident, vol. 2, De la Renaissance aux Lumières, Paris, Seuil, 1997, pp. 7–36; Yves Gingras, Peter Keating, Camille Limoges, Du scribe au savant. Les porteurs du savoir de l'antiquité à la révolution industrielle, Paris, PUF, 2000, especially ch. 9, pp. 289–329.

9 See Synnott, op. cit., note 6 above. See also Alfred W Crosby, The measure of reality: quantification and western society, 1250–1600, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

10 Andrew Wear cites here the example of Harvey versus Descartes. See, Andrew Wear, ‘Medicine in early modern Europe, 1500–1700’, in L I Conrad, M Neve, V Nutton, R Porter, A Wear, The western medical tradition 800 BC to AD 1800, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 215–361, on pp. 335–6.

11 See Andrea Carlino, ‘Representing the body: the visual culture of Renaissance anatomy’, in his Paper bodies: a catalogue of anatomical fugitive sheets 1538–1687, Medical History, Supplement no. 19, London, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1999, pp. 5–45.

12 The term “metaphor” is used here for both the cosmic and mechanistic conceptions of the body rather than in the usual relatively narrow rhetorical sense. I thus point to its broader anthropological signification as one of the “mechanisms of the mind”, i.e. “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.” See George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors we live by, University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 3.

13 When speaking about “hostile environment”, I am referring to what Tobias tells us in his book about his own experience, and the explanation he gives for his moving from Frankfurt-on-Oder to Padua together with his friend, Gabriel Felix of Brody. I have no intention, however, of entering into the actual historiographical debate about this issue.

14 Tobias Cohen, Ma'aseh Tuviyah (in Hebrew), first edition, Venice, 1708.

15 David B Ruderman, Jewish thought and scientific discovery in early modern Europe, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 2001(c. 1995), pp. 100–17, 229–55. For biographic information, see also J O Leibowitz, ‘Tobie Cohen, auteur médical de langue hébraïque (1652–1729)’, Revue d'Histoire de la Médecine Hébraïque, 1964, 63: 15–24.

16 See S A Goldberg and A Derczansky, ‘Les juifs du moyen âge à nos jours: monde Achkenaze’, in S A Goldberg (ed.), Dictionnaire encyclopédique du judaïsme, Paris, Du Cerf, 1993, pp. 1288–332, on pp. 1297–8.

17 For general background on the University of Padua, see J J Bylebyl ‘The school of Padua: humanistic medicine in the sixteenth century’, in C Webster (ed), Health, medicine and mortality in the sixteenth century, Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 335–70; and Brendan Dooley, ‘Science teaching as a career at Padua in the early eighteenth century: the case of Giovanni Poleni’, History of Universities, 1984, 4: 115–41. For the Jewish context, see David B Ruderman, ‘The impact of science on Jewish culture and society in Venice (with special reference to Jewish graduates of Padua's medical school)’, in David B Ruderman (ed.), Essential papers on Jewish culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, New York University Press, 1992, pp. 519–53.

18 Ruderman, op. cit., note 15 above, pp. 111–12. See also the document published by Dubnov asserting that Tobias registered as a Polish Jew living in the ghetto: “(1681.30.XII.). Il Sigr. Tobia Moschide … hebreo Polacco, sum [sic] primo anno di studio in Padova, habita in Ghetto, matricolato d'ordine dell’ Eccel. Sigr. Capitaneo.” Simon Dubnov, ‘Jewish students at the University of Padova (in the seventeenth and eighteenth century)’, Sefer hashana lihude America (in Hebrew), 1931, 1: 216–19, on p. 219.

19 D Kaufmann, ‘Trois docteurs de Padoue: Tobias Moschides, Gabriel Selig B. Mosé, Isak Wallich’, Revue des Etudes Juives, 1889, 18: 293–8; Daniel Carpi, ‘Jewish graduates of the University of Padua during the sixteenth century’ (in Hebrew), in idem, Between Renaissance and ghetto: essays on the history of the Jews in Italy in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries (in Hebrew), Tel Aviv, University Publishing Project, 1989, pp. 96–130.

20 For background, see, for example, J Hacker, ‘The intellectual activity of the Jews of the Ottoman empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in I Twersky and B Septimus (eds), Jewish thought in the seventeenth century, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1987, pp. 95–135. I would like to point out the excellent, as yet unpublished work of a younger colleague of mine at the University of Tel-Aviv: Y Ecker, ‘Jewish physicians in the Ottoman empire as agents of cultural transfer, 1650–1750’ (in Hebrew), and to thank him for having allowed me to read it.

21 For example, we could cite Yerushalmi's classic study on another such Jewish physician, Isaac Cardoso: Y H Yerushalmi, From Spanish court to Italian ghetto: Isaac Cardoso: a study in seventeenth-century Marranism and Jewish apologetics, New York, Columbia University Press, 1971.

22 In effect, following the part devoted to medicine proper, there are further chapters, presented as independent sections. These sections, however, are not as extensive as the first two parts, and in any event are all related to medicine.

23 Solomon Conegliano, ‘Preface to Ma'aseh Tuviyah’ (in Hebrew), in Tobias Cohen, Ma'aseh Tuviyah, Venice, 1708. It is not unusual to find 1707 as the date of publication. The date of the publication licence can help resolve a debate I believe to be due to the fact that the Hebrew date (tav-samekh-zayin – 5467) can correspond both to 1707 and to 1708. For the date 1707, see, for example, Leibowitz, op. cit., note 15 above, p. 15; and Ruderman, op. cit., note 15 above, p. 229. For 1708, see D A Friedman, ‘Tuviyah Katz, the physician’, in Kovetz Refui (in Hebrew), 1940: 33–43; and N Allan, ‘A Jewish physician in the seventeenth century’, Med. Hist., 1984, 28: 324–8, especially p. 326.

24 Ruderman, op. cit., note 15 above, p. 229.

25 Song of Songs 4:12 for “a garden enclosed” and “a fountain sealed”; and Genesis 30:2 or Isaiah 13:18 for “fruit of the womb”.

26 See note 22 above.

27 Allan, op. cit., note 23 above, p. 326.

28 A possibility would be to identify the press in which the book was printed in order to discover who its illustrators were and if there was collaboration between them and the author, or perhaps with Conegliano, who was in charge of bringing the book to the press (see note 23 above). I wish to thank here one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion of further research. Also the architectural style of the house has not been researched in spite of the historical data which might well be drawn from it. I focus rather on the metaphorical significance of the illustration and its possible alternative status to better known metaphors of the body as the microcosm and the machine.

29 See Siraisi, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 84–5.

30 On the order of presenting the material in early-modern anatomical treatises, see Rafael Mandressi, Le regard de l'anatomiste: dissections et invention du corps en occident, Paris, Seuil, 2003, especially pp. 118–132. Mandressi shows the progressive evolution from a presentation following the order of dissection to one following the order of composition (by which term he means, a theoretically reconstituted order).

31 According to Mandressi, the traditional presentation was a three “bellies” one—venter inferior (abdomen), venter medius (thorax), venter superior (head). Mandressi, ibid., pp. 117–21. Here only the abdomen and thorax are open but are divided, nevertheless, into three storeys.

32 S Kusukawa, ‘Illustrating nature’, in M Frasca-Spada, and N Jardine (eds), Books and the sciences in history, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 90–113.

33 On the incorporation of Harvey's revolution in the work of Tobias, see J O Leibowitz ‘Harveian items in Hebrew medicine’, Harofé HaIvri (English part of the current edition), 1957, 30(2): 134–8 (English part of Annual combined Israel edition, 1957, 30: 229–33).

34 M Lindemann, Medicine and society in early modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 79. Ruderman, op. cit., note 15 above, pp. 244–9. See also A G Debus, ‘La médecine chimique’, in Grmek and Fantini (eds), op. cit., note 8 above, vol. 2, pp. 37–59, and, of course, his classic study: A G Debus, The chemical philosophy : Paracelsian science and medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, New York, Science History Publications, 1977.

35 Leibowitz, op. cit., note 15 above; and Allan, op. cit., note 23 above.

36 F N L Poynter, ‘John Donne and William Harvey’, J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., 1960, 15: 233–46.

37 William Harvey, Prelectiones anatomiae universalis, (Lumleian Lectures, 1616) facsimile edition, London, J & A Churchill, 1886; new edition and translation by G Whitteridge, Edinburgh, E & S Livingstone, 1964. See also William Harvey, Lectures on the whole of anatomy, an annotated translation of Prelectiones anatomiae universalis, by C D O'Malley, F N L Poynter, K F Russell, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1961.

38 Wilson presents them as “lecture notes intended not for publication but to be read by their author while he conducted public dissections”. See L Wilson, ‘William Harvey's Prelectiones: the performance of the body in the Renaissance theater of anatomy’, Representations, 1987, 17: 62–95, on p. 62.

39 See note 19 above.

40 Bylebyl, op. cit., note 17 above, pp. 368–9.

41 See note 5 above.

42 See pp. 103–4 below for further discussion of the relationship which existed between Tobias Cohen and Salomon Conegliano.

43 Judah Messer Leon, The book of the honeycomb's flow: Sepher Nophet Suphim, a critical edition and translation by Isaac Rabinowitz, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1983 (hereafter Rabinowitz, JML). Two years earlier a facsimile edition of the first edition was published in Jerusalem: Judah Messer Leon, Nofet Zufim on Hebrew Rhetoric, Mantua ca. 1475, with an introduction by Robert Bonfil, Jerusalem, The Jewish National and University Library and the Magness Press (The Hebrew University), 1981. (hereafter Bonfil, JML). The Mantua edition of Messer Leon's book was digitalized and is now online at http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/books/html/bk1929127.htm. On Rabbi Judah Messer Leon, see (in Hebrew) Daniel Carpi, ‘Notes on the life of Rabbi Judah Messer Leon’, in Carpi, op. cit., note 19 above, pp. 57–84. Note that the Hebrew title of this article is ‘R. Judah Messer Leon and his activity as physician’. I would like to thank Reuven (Robert) Bonfil for bringing this work to my attention.

44 See Rabinowitz, JML, Messer Leon's Preface, p. 11, n. 12.

45 Messer Leon explicitly suggests using “houses and upper stories” as backgrounds for the figures one wants to remember. See Rabinowitz, JML, bk 1, ch. 13.

46 See, for example, J Rykwert, The dancing column: on order in architecture, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1996, especially pp. 56–90. I would like to thank Andrea Carlino for having drawn my attention to this work. See also Mandressi who has devoted a whole chapter of his book on this issue but without referring to issues of memory. Mandressi, op. cit., note 30 above, pp. 111–32.

47 Literally “little world”. The capital letters, here and elsewhere in the passage, are meant to render typographical accentuations in Tobias’s original text.

48 Literally “their days”.

49 Literally “took man up the hill to the city”, perhaps an allusion to the fact that Solomon built the Temple on the heights of Davidic Jerusalem. The Temple is also simply referred to as “The House”, and the offerings made there as “risings”. The terminology employed is thus rich with traditional connotations.

50 Tobias uses the exact phrase with which the biblical chapter he has just cited begins: Ecclesiastes 9:1.

51 Literally “taken up and even raised”.

52 This expression, “dwellings of a walled city” (in Hebrew: “batei ‘ir homa”) is a halakhic category. See below for a discussion of its use in this context. For the sources employed by Tobias, I used the Responsa Project CD-ROM, Version 11+, Bar Ilan University, 1972–2003, which also includes all the published volumes of Encyclopaedia Talmudica (in Hebrew), vol. 1–25, Jerusalem, Yad Harav Herzog, 1947–2002; see under “Batei ‘Ir Homa”, vol. 5.

53 A biblical expression (e.g., Deuteronomy 3, 5; I Samuel 23:7; etc.) that reinforces the idea of a fortress.

54 In Hebrew, “beit hanefesh”. This expression appears only once in the Bible (Isaiah 3:20), in a list of women's adornments. See below for an interpretation of its use in Ma'aseh Tuviyah.

55 Cohen, op. cit., note 1 above, folio 105a.

56 Genesis 6:4.

57 Numbers 13:1–14, 35; and Deuteronomy 1:19–40.

58 Cohen, op. cit., note 1 above, first part, ch. 4, ‘Microcosm’, section 3.

59 The term microcosm, little world, is neither biblical nor talmudic. It appears, however, in the Midrash and medieval commentaries, e.g. Midrash Tanhuma, Pekudei, 3; or Ibn Ezra (Tudela, 1089–1164) in his commentary on Genesis 1:26. For further study, see references note 2 above. On the importance of neologisms in characterizing the debut of scientific literature in Hebrew, see Y T Langernan, ‘On the beginnings of Hebrew scientific literature and on studying history through “Maqbilot” (Parallels)’, in Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism, 2002, 2: 169–89.

60 Cohen, op. cit., note 1 above, folio 6a.

61 Ibid., and on the names of the giants in Jewish sources, see, for example, Midrash bereshit rabba, critical ed. by J Theodor and C Albeck, Jerusalem, 1965, 26, 4.

62 Mishnah Pesahim 4,9; Talmud Bavli (hereafter TB), Berakhot 10b, TB Pesahim 56a. See Ruderman, op. cit., note 15 above, p. 379.

63 Ecclesiastes 9:14.

64 Another context worth exploring would be the “Quarrel between the ancients and the moderns”, in which the dwarf–giant metaphor was often used. But this is a task beyond the scope of this article. For a thorough introduction to this context within Medieval and Renaissance Jewish thought, however, see Abraham Melamed, On the shoulder of giants: the debate between moderns and ancients in medieval and Renaissance Jewish thought (in Hebrew), Ramat-Gan, Bar-Ilan University Press, 2003. The author dedicates a section of the book to Tobias, which is entitled: ‘R. Tobias the Physician, the scientific superiority of the moderns’, ibid., pp. 226–32. Quite surprisingly Melamed begins the section saying (in a free translation) “It is not a matter of chance that he [Tobias] has no need of the metaphor of the dwarf and the giant”.

65 See Jacob Shatzky, ‘On Jewish medical students of Padua’, J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., 1950, 5: 444–7, on p. 446. This point is also discussed by Ruderman, op. cit., note 15 above, pp. 108–9.

66 Ruderman, op. cit., note 15 above, pp. 111–12.

67 Cohen, op. cit., note 1 above, folio 6a.

68 There is of course no reason to suppose that Solomon Conegliano and Tobias Cohen were alone in their use of such pedagogical devices. It is far more likely that they were in general use at Padua at that time; a fact that may explain their use by Harvey as well.

69 Cohen, op. cit., note 1 above, folio 105a.

70 Ibid., folio 60a.

71 Ecclesiastes 9:14–15: translation from The holy scriptures, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1917.

72 Although far from the most ancient, the most systematic commentary on Ecclesiastes is Midrash ecclesiastes rabba (Vilna edition), 9:14 and 15 (the commentary follows the order of the biblical verses). On this Midrash, see H L Strack, and G Stemberger, Introduction au Talmud et au Midrash, Paris, Cerf, 1986, p. 362.

73 Ecclesiastes 9:16 and 18.

74 TB Nedarim 32b.

75 For example, Bereshit Rabbah (Vilna edition), 33,2.

76 Ibn Ezra (Tudela, 1089–1164) on Ecclesiastes 9:14.

77 In the singular in Tobias's text; see note 54 above. In the Pléiade edition of the Bible, for example, Koenig translates “batei hanefesh” as “boîtes à parfum”: L'Ancien Testament, ed. E Dhorme, Paris, Gallimard (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), 1961, vol. 2, p. 14.

78 Specifically Rashi (Troyes, 1040–1105), Radak (Narbonne, 1160–1235) and Metzudat Tzion (R David Altschuler and his son R Hillel, Prague, seventeenth to eighteenth centuries) on Isaiah 3:20.