THE TALMUD.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2855, 9 April 1878, Page 2

THE TALMUD.

Dr Hermann Adler delirerad a lecture on the Talmud at the' Jewish -Workingmen's Club in Hatchiton street, Aldgate, London, in the coarse of which he gave •e?eral illustrations, from passages to which he gare the references in the Talmud, of anticipations of modem science, by ancient practice. JBabbi Gamaliel, he said had in about the 30th year of the common era a kind of orerj in his house. We are told in the Talmud "Babbi Gamaliel had a representation of the rarious forms and positions which the moon assumes at the ptsjacL of her conjunction with the sun, and^fr means of these he was able to cross-examine the witnesses who came to testify to the first appearance of the moon." It might be asked how the rabbis aimed at their extensive knowledge of astronomy without possessing a telescope. Now, h*> was not in a position to state with absolute certainty that they made use of a telescope with object-glass and microscope, bat he thought it dear,, from;a passage which he would read, that they possessed. an instrument very closely resembling it. It was written that Babibt Gamaliel was on board a ship wbieh landed on Friday evening after night* fall, yet the passengers were permitted to land, because he said; " I hare been on the look-out, and find that we were within the Sabbath journey before' dark." Another passage explains more elearW what is meant by those words, translated "on the look-out." The eiUtioa runs, " Babi Gamaliel had a tube, by means of which he could see a distance of two thousand cubits by land and air; also two thousand cubits on the sea;" Galileo's purse muove was anticipated by a rabbi, who derived the Hebrew name for the earth from a rerb '* to run," because it runs through space to do its master's bidding. It is generally believed that the famous American, Benjamin Franklin, whose observations led to the modern knowledge of electricity, was the first to make lightning conductors; but it was written in the Talmud " one must not place iron in the poultry yard from a superstitious motive, but if it be done on account of the thunder and lightning is is permitted." The passage had recently .been quoted in Germany to prove that in the fourth and fifth centuries after the Christian era the efficacy of an arrangement of metal to protect from lightning was known. It does not prove that they understood the rationale of the prooeas, but the fact indicates that there were close observers of natural phenomeia in those days. One of the greatest benefits which has been conferred upon mankind was the use of, anawthetics in surgery—certain agents, such as. chloroform enabled s surgeon to perform the most paiaful operations without inflicting suffering on the patient. There is clear preof that the use of such agents was known to the teachers of the Talmud. We read in it

—"They gave him a potion to drink, which cast him into a profound sleep, so that they were enabled to perform;,the, operation of gastronomy." The Talmud mentions, artificial teeth, "a tooth that

was put in," " a tooth covered with gold so as to stop and hide the decay." , We find in the Talmud the first mention of insurance — " There were societies of

shipowners and assdrivers, who agreed to make good the loss of a ship or an ass which any of their company had sustained, pro?ided that the loss did hot take place through wilful neglect." With this quotation of a phrase used in oontracts which still agitates the English law courts, Dr Hermann Adler brought that part of his lecture to a close. He observed in the sequel .that the Talmud fcaq few references to trade. Most of the Jews mentioned in it were students/

artificers, or agriculturalist!.