Korot (Jerusalem : 1952)最新文献

By end of the thirteenth century, surgeons and university-trained physicians in Western Europe had a plethora of authorities from the Greco-Roman and Arabic tradition from which to consult for the treatment of snake-bites. Venomous animals receive the largest share of attention in the literature on biting animals. Nearly all of the sources focus on the idea of the animal biting or puncturing the skin's surface with their mouths and few poisonous animals where the venom is passed on through the skin or hairs are mentioned. Venomous animals frequently appear in discussions on poisons in general, with poisons of animal, mineral or vegetable origin. The bulk of the discourse dealt with venomous snakes and rabid dogs, the latter considered venomous due to its 'poisonous' saliva, and to a lesser extent, scorpions and spiders. In general the bites of non-venomous animals received scant attention. Unlike modern taxonomical categories, medieval categories for animals were usually connected to the movement or the locale of the animal: flying animals, animals in water, land animals (which mainly covered quadrupeds), and crawling animals. It is in the latter category that snakes were located, along with lizards.

In this article we explore how the vision uniting Zionism, science, medicine and public health is depicted in Herzl's novel Altneuland (Old-New Land). Altneuland, which belongs to the genre of fin-de-siècle utopian novels, presents a modernistic vision of progress, integrating science with a humanistic society of equals. The remedy for the "psychopathology of the Jew" was believed by many Zionists to be a return to Palestine, and the establishment there of a healthy national Jewish home. Yet, Herzl's utopia, as depicted in Altneuland, is homogeneous, not allowing for other voices to be expressed, such as those of women and Arabs. Moreover, the belief that science and technology could solve social problems did not take into account the tensions that they would create in the society and environment. This vision of science and society, with its inherent tensions, will continue to inform the Zionist discourse of our present day.

The article explores the activity of the Bnei-Brak psychiatric asylum and "The Society for the Help of the Insane" in the years 1929-1939 and its role in the development of mental health care in mandatory Palestine. Based on archival materials from the municipal archive of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa and the Israeli State Archive, as well as on the Hebrew daily press, the article concentrates on the administrative, the medical and the political aspects of the Bnei-Brak asylum and on the activities of "The Society for the Help of the Insane" discussing the central problems of the psychiatric field and the mentally ill people in the country during the reviewed period.

This semantic analysis of the Israeli Patients' Rights Law reconstructs the historical root of some of its philosophical values through a linguistic approach similar to Foucault's. It aims to distinguish the origins of this type of discourse, and in particular, to examine whether most Israeli values in the field of medical ethics are anchored in Western or Jewish tradition. The main concepts examined are kavod, "dignity," and pratiut, "privacy." The concept of dignity shows a strong, direct derivation from the Bible through the monotheistic notion of absolute and sacred human essence, whereas the concept of privacy appears to be more recently developed by the Western human rights discourse. In that light, "privacy" could be linked to human having: it enhances an external point of view on objective entities, which justifies its secular elaboration. "Dignity" could be linked to human being: it enhances an inner, subjective point of view, which justifies deeper spiritual roots.

The Jewish physician, specializing in psychiatry in Warsaw, Poland, Shneor Zalman Bychowski (1865-1934) was deeply involved in public affairs, and especially in Zionist activity. Although he supported the need for eugenic means to avert the degenerative trends among Eastern Jewish populations, he insisted that the notorious neuropathies of these Jews were not hereditary, but rather induced by the social and economic conditions to which these individuals were exposed. An abridged and annotated trans- lation of Bychowski's Hebrew article in the periodical Ha-Tekufah is presented.

The Jewish population in Israel during the 1950s was very heterogeneous. This was true also regarding genetic diseases that were common only among certain ethnic communities. Physicians who conducted research on those diseases, as well as on frequencies of blood groups, used them also as markers that enhabled the study of historical processes. Presented in this article is the work of three well-known Israeli physicians, on the genetics of Jewish ethnic communities (Edot): Chaim Sheba, Joseph Gurevitch and Harry Heller. The aim is to show that ideology motivation greatly influenced the nature of their research.