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bib37228 (01 / June / 2026)

Darrera modificació: 2026-05-28
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat

Einbinder, Susan L., A Jewish Physician's Response to the Black Death: Abraham Caslari's Tractate on Pestilential Fevers and Fever Types, edited and translated by —, York, ARC Humanities (Foundations), 2026, 148 pp., il·l.

Resum
Abraham Caslari was a Jewish physician in Catalonia, where he and his family found refuge after the great expulsion of French Jews in 1306. In 1348, he was also one of the many physicians who found themselves treating men, women, and children during the Black Death. Rejecting the emerging consensus among physicians that the fevers were pestilential, Caslari insisted that this misdiagnosis had caused many needless deaths. The Hebrew tractate that presents his analysis and recommended treatments is one of the earliest written responses to the Black Death by a contemporary physician. Writing in the shadow of the anti-Jewish violence of the time, Caslari's exemplar is important not only for what he has to say, but because it represents a moment before genre conventions relating to Black Death tractates became fixed. This study makes the tractate available in English for the first time, accompanied by an introduction to the work and to its remarkable author. -- Susan L. Einbinder is Professor emerita of Hebrew & Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut–Storrs. Her four earlier books examine literary and historical responses to crises in European Jewish communities.

Contents:
* Preface
* Acknowledgements
* Abraham Caslari's Tractate on Pestilential Fevers and Fever Types
* The Texts: Transcriptions and Translations
- LEIDEN, LEIDEN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY (MS or. 4778, fols. 115a–123b)
- PARIS, BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE (MS héb. 1191, fols. 134b–141a)
- Translation of Leiden, Leiden University Library, MS or. 4778, fols. 115a–123b
- Translation of Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS héb. 1191, fols. 134b–141a
* Glossary: Hebrew to English
* Glossary: English to Hebrew
* Select Bibliography
Matèries
Medicina - Pesta i altres malalties
Història de la medicina
Jueus
Hebreu
Fonts
Edició
URL
Informació de l'editor .
What are the images?

The small images on the decorative ribbon correspond, from left to right, to the following documents: 1. James II orders the settlement of neighborhood disputes over an estate of the royal doctor Arnau de Vilanova in the city of Valencia. 1298 (ACA); 2. Contract between Guglielmo Neri de Santo Martino, a surgeon from Pisa, and the physician-surgeon from Majorca Pere Saflor, bachelor of medicine, to practise medicine and surgery under the latter’s direction, 1356 (ACM); 3. Valuation of the workshop of Guillem Metge, an apothecary from Barcelona, made by the apothecaries Miquel Tosell, Berenguer Duran and Vicenç Bonanat, for its sale to Llorenç Bassa, a fellow apothecary, 1364 (AHPB); 4. Peter III the Ceremonious regularizes the legal situation of Esteró, a Jewish female doctor from Vilafranca del Penedès, granting her an extraordinary license to practice medicine. 1384 (ACA); 5. Power of attorney of Margarida de Tornerons, a doctor in Prats de Molló and Vic, in order to recover the goods withheld from her by a third party in Vic, 1401 (ABEV); 6. Doctorate and teaching license of Narcís Solà, bachelor of medicine, issued by Bernat de Casaldòvol, doctor of medicine and chancellor of the Faculty of Medicine in Barcelona, 1526 (AHCB); and 7. Partnership between Joan Llunes and Joan Francesc Llunes, father and son, and Lluís Gual, the former’s son-in-law, surgeons of Caldes de Montbui, in order to practise the profession, 1579 (AHCB).