Diet and Regimen Involved in a Cure
[Aramaic] Said R. Judah: The [sting of a] hornet, if a thorn or an abscess is pricking him, if one’s eye pains him, or someone is overcome by fever—for all those, [the heat in] the bathhouse [constitutes] danger.
Radish [ḥamah] for a fever [ḥamah] and beets for chills; but the reverse [constitutes] danger.
Hot [remedies] for the [sting of a] scorpion and cold [remedies] for [the sting of a] hornet; the reverse [constitutes] danger.
Hot [remedies] for a thorn and cold for ḥaspanita’ [-disease]1; the reverse [constitutes] danger.
Vinegar [is good] for stanching [blood, sikure], and brine [is good] for a fast; the reverse [constitutes] danger.
Cress and stanching [blood constitute] danger.
Fever and stanching [blood constitute] danger.
A pained eye and stanching [constitute] danger.2 [ . . . ]
[Hebrew] The sages taught: Six things heal a sick person from their illness, and their cure is [really] a cure. And these are: cabbage, beets, a sap of dry sisin [plant], rennet, sweetbread, and the lobe of the liver. And some say: even small fish. And what is more, small fish increases a person’s whole physical potency. Ten things return the patient to his [state of] illness and worsen his illness. And these are: eating ox meat, fat [meat], roast meat, birds’ meat, roasted egg, sheḥalim, shaving, bathing, [and consuming] cheese and liver. And there are some who say: even nuts. And others say: even cucumbers. A teaching from the house of R. Ishmael: Why are they [cucumbers] called kishu’in? Because they are harmful [kashin] like swords to a person’s whole body.
Notes
[See parallel text in b. Shabbat 134a. This may be a skin condition.—Trans.]
[The additional Hebrew notation, “blood is altered for fish and fish is altered for blood,” is no longer comprehensible, and the added note (not in most manuscripts), that the “third is a danger to him,” is an interpolation.—Trans.]
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.
