Abstract
THE January issue of Medical Life is a Maimonides number containing an account by Prof. Louis Gershenfeld, of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, of the Hispano-Jewish physician, astronomer and theologian, Moses Maimonides or Abu Amran Musa Ben Maimon, on the occasion of the octocentenary of his birth. Born at Cordova in Spain on March 30, 1135, he studied under Averrhocs, and in 1160 left Spain for Fez, finally settling in 1165 at Cairo, where he died on December 13, 1204. His best-known medical work is a collection of 1,500 aphorisms from Galen's writings with forty-two critical comments. His other chief medical works are a treatise on diet and personal hygiene written at the request of Saladin's eldest son, who suffered from melancholia, and a book on poisons and antidotes. In a work on astronomy, he recognised the limitations of astrology, and declared that all works on the subject were the products of fools. He differentiated between astrology and astronomy, maintaining that in the latter only was to be found true and necessary knowledge. His most famous work, however, was the “Guide for the Perplexed”, which was not intended for popular consumption, but claimed to be written by a philosopher to the philosophically minded, his purpose being to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Jewish theology and the doctrines of Judaism.
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Moses Maimonides. Nature 135, 575 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135575c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135575c0