Intellectual·relations between jewish and christian physicians: the hebrew translation of the ·medicationis parabole, of Arnau de Vilanova, by Abraham Abigdor (about 1384)

Abstract

The historicians of medicine have scarcely devoted their attention to the study of the intellectual relations between the physicians belonging to the three religious groups (Christians, Jews and Muslims) that coexisted in the south of the Western Christian Europe during the low medieval centuries. We are referring to those physicians who considered medicine not only a more or less empirical practice but also and activity whose actual foundations were rooted in natural philosophy. One of the channels used, for that relation were translations (from Latin to Hebrew or by the intermediary of a Romance language) of medical works written by Christian university doctors. The present article deals with this problem through the analysis of a concrete case, the translation activities of the Jewish rationalist physician Abraham Abigdor (about 1351-1402), particularly his translation from Latin into Hebrew of the Medicationes Parabole, of Arnau de Vilanova, made during the eighties of the XIV century of the south of France.