The Babylonian Talmud on Healing Objects

b. Shabbat 67a

220–600

One may go out with a locust egg, or with a fox’s tooth, or with the nail of one who has been hanged. [ . . . ]

[Aramaic] One may go out with a locust egg—because it works for an ear infection. And [one may go out] with a fox’s tooth—because it works regarding sleep. [A tooth] of a living [fox]—for one who sleeps much; [a tooth] of a dead [fox]—for one who does not sleep.

And [one may go out] with the nail of one who has been hanged—because it works for an inflammation.

For the sake of healing—these are the words of R. Meir.

Abaye and Rava both said: [Hebrew] Everything that comprises healing is not the “ways of the Amorite.”

Translated by Markham J. Geller and Lennart Lehmhaus.

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Credits

b. Shabbat 67a, trans. Markham J. Geller and Lennart Lehmhaus, publication forthcoming. Copyright Markham J. Geller and Lennart Lehmhaus. Used with permission of the translators.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.