Medical Aphorisms

Moses Maimonides is among the most celebrated rabbis in the history of Judaism and the author of enduring works on philosophy, law, and medicine. Medical Aphorisms is the best known and most comprehensive of his works, and Gerrit Bos offers here a masterly English translation with detailed annotations.

Medical Aphorisms consists of approximately 1,500 maxims compiled by Maimonides from the treatises of Galen, the ancient Greek physician. Maimonides arranges the aphorisms into twenty-five treatises, organizing them by traditional medieval subspecialties such as gynecology, hygiene, and diet. The central subjects of the treatises presented in this volume include fevers, periods and crises of a disease, and surgery. Because the original texts that Maimonides drew from have not survived, these aphorisms provide tantalizing clues about aspects of Galen’s thought that are otherwise unknown. They thus serve as a window onto the ancient medical theories of Galen as well as on the medieval practice of Maimonides.