Function and Aesthetics of Talmudic Medical Recipes

Abstract

Abstract The present article investigates possible practical and intellectual contexts of talmudic medical recipes, and especially the ones that introduce therapies with a verb, such as “bring XY.” According to my count, there are 47 such recipes disseminated over the Talmud, and most of them likely stem from the same source, a treatise of simple remedies. These recipes often provide multiple therapies, a feature that has caused scholars to doubt their effectiveness. This ineffectiveness would, according to these scholars, already have been realised in late antiquity and therefore caused users to add another try. Contrary to these assumptions, I argue that alternative therapies fulfil a wide range of tasks, from offering therapies more suitable to the season or the patient, to accounting for an aesthetics of variegation.