Moses Maimonides: Physician and rabbi

Maimonides Portrait

Time	1138-1204 AD
Title	Moses Maimonides: Physician and rabbi
Event	Prominent medieval Jewish physician is born in Spain and raised in Morocco. Maimonides becomes court physician to the Regent of Egypt. He incorporates the teachings of Hippocrates, Galen and Muslim physicians (including Rhazes) into his works. Maimonides is also a rabbi, renowned as a scholar in religion and philosophy. He wrote major commentaries on the Torah, including Commentary on the Mishnah and Mishneh Torah and the philosophical treatise Guide for the Perplexed.

Maimonides believes in a "healthy mind in a healthy body" – that a person’s physical well-being depends on his or her mental health and vice versa.

In Medical Aphorisms, Maimonides describes the symptoms, diagnosis, pathology and treatment of many diseases, including stroke, diabetes, liver inflammation, pneumonia and asthma. He believes in treating disease by removing the underlying cause. He advocates disease prevention with hygiene, fresh air, clean water, exercise and healthy diet. He also wrote the Glossary of Drug Names, an extensive compilation of medicinal treatments of the day.

Maimonides included many medical references in his commentaries on the Torah. In his Mishneh Torah he wrote: “Maintaining a healthy and sound body is among the ways of God – for one cannot understand or have any knowledge of the Creator if he is ill.”