JEWS IN THE MEDICAL & LIFE SCIENCES
jinfo.org
From the article: "Winston Churchill, writing of the expulsion referred to above, states: "The Jews, held up to universal hatred, were pillaged, maltreated, and finally expelled from the realm. Exception was made for certain physicians without whose skill persons of consequence might have lacked due attention."2 Indeed, more often than not, the chief court physicians of the rulers of Europe were Jews or crypto-Jews. To cite but a few examples, Frederick III of the Holy Roman Empire, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Elizabeth I of England, Louis XIV of France, Catherine de Medici, and Catherine the Great of Russia all employed Jewish personal physicians.3 Nor was it only the secular rulers of Christendom that depended on Jewish medical skills. As the Spanish philosopher and theologian Ramon Lull (Raymond Lully) complained in the thirteenth century: "Jews are universally entrusted by the great with the care of their health. Nor is the Church free from this abomination, for nearly every monastery has its Jewish physician."4 Among the many Popes who maintained Jewish personal physicians were Martin IV, Nicholas IV, Boniface VIII, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII, Paul III, Gregory XV, Urban VIII, and Innocent X.5" |
