"From Machon Puah"

Natural Medicine - A Historical Perspective

The use of natural remedies is by no means a new phenomena. In the time of the Mishna the instruction was to seek the advice of doctors and to follow the conventional medical advice of the time. The Mishna states that one of the basic requirements of any city is the presence of a doctor. However there were people who sought out other “medical” alternatives and the Sages of the Mishna had to relate to halachic questions that arose due to using such treatments.
“One is permitted to carry (on Shabbat where there is no eruv) the egg of a locust, the tooth of a fox or a nail since this is medical treatment, says Rabbi Meir. The Rabbis did not permit it even during the week since this is considered the ways of the Emori (idolatrous).” (Mishna Shabbat 6:10) The Gemara explains that anything that is a medical treatment cannot be considered the ways of the Emori, and so the Rabbis disagree with Rabbi Meir’s position that these natural remedies can be included in the category of medicine that would permit them to be performed and not considered idolatrous, and would also enable them to be used on Shabbat.
Rashi explains that “medical treatment” must be something that can be observed and seen to heal, “such as drinking a cup (of medicine) or a bandage on a wound, however regarding reciting a spell we cannot see how it heals.” A possible alternative translation of Rashi would be that we do not observe that it helps.
According to this explanation of Rashi we can now begin to define a medicine. It must be something that has a logical medical explanation. If a drug affects a certain muscle and alleviates the pain then we can comprehend how it should work and heal. However with alternative medicines the pathway of healing is less obvious and possible to understand. Thus it would be outside the definition of a medicine. Some alternative medicines can be explained logically and medically. Acupuncture affects blood flow and so can be “proven” to help and heal.
The other possible translation of Rashi speaks about observing the benefit of the treatment. If we see that in clinical trials it has a significant benefit then it can be considered medicine. This does not mean that we can bring up one or two cases where something helped, that is not considered any sort of proof and no drug would be allowed to go on the market under such conditions. This requires an actual charted improvement and should really be compared with a control group who received a placebo instead of the actual treatment. There are very few such natural medicines on the market. This does not mean that one cannot avail themselves of natural medicine, however, when there is the question of transgressing a prohibition, a non-tested treatment would not be permitted.
More on this next week

• Other "From Machon Puah"
• Supervision - is it really necessary?
• Training Supervisors
• Supervision - Who are the Supervisors