Isaac Israeli (ca. 855–932 CE, Kairouan) was part of the first generation of authors who began to build a legacy of medical and philosophical knowledge based on Arabic translations of Greek writings and on their own experience. Isaac Israeli wrote at least three medical monographs, among them the Book on Fevers, which is composed of five treatises. The first of these, entitled Book on the Definition of Fever and Its Essence, is the subject of this work. In his book, Isaac Israeli writes about fever more from a philosophical than a medical point of view and this is what makes the Book on the Definition of Fever and Its Essence such an exceptional work.The success of Isaac Israeli’s medical book is a notable example of the transfer of science from the East to the West. Translations of Isaac Israeli’s medical books became compulsory reading in most European universities during the Middle Ages. Moreover, this transmission phenomenon increased when Jewish communities in Europe became aware of and interested in this literature and translated it into Hebrew, as well as when the vernacular languages started to play a role in medical literature. This particular text was translated into Latin, into Hebrew twice, as well as into Old Spanish.
Isaac Israeli is a key figure who deeply impacted medieval medicine through the birth of a rich corpus of philosophy and, especially, of medicine, who explored the interaction between philosophy and medicine, translated this Greek-Arabic medicine from Arabic into Latin and other languages, and influenced the rise of Jewish authors, whose use of language was conditioned by the Islamic or European Christian environment.
The importance of published accounts by African slave shipsurvivors is well-known but not their existence in large numbers. Fogleman andHanserd catalog nearly five hundred discrete accounts and more than 2,500printings of them over four centuries in numerous Atlantic languages. Shortbiographies of each African, print histories of the complete or partial lifestory. Five Hundred African Voices an invaluable resource for scholars, teachers,students, and others wishing to study transatlantic slavery using AfricanVoices.
The story of Benjamin Franklin’s lifelong delight in swimming and his influence in making swimming popular in the western world has never been told. This book uses Franklin’s love of swimming to examine the founder’s life, times, and strong, inventive personality through a lens that historians have previously overlooked. Franklin’s personality emerges through the lens of swimming. We see him clearly as a leader, an inventor, and a strong, proud man. As he was in many fields, he was self-taught. He interacted with family, friends, and acquaintances through swimming. Swimming also offered him an entrée into British society.
Franklin discusses swimming in his Letters and in his Autobiography. Friends and family also comment on his swimming. Primary sources for this book include Franklin’s writing, that of his contemporaries, and other artistic and archaeological sources. When Franklin’s grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache was in his care in France he swam in the Seine. Bache’s Journal constitutes another important primary source for this book. The escapades of this engaging literate teenager in France with his grandfather never before have been published.
In 1968 the International Swimming Hall of Fame honored Franklin with membership. The citation mentions his various inventions that made swimming more efficient and his own feats as a swimmer, but most of all his success in promoting swimming as an essential part of any education. Benjamin Franklin’s advice about water safety and his conviction that everyone should learn to swim because it promotes health, hygiene, and safety is still relevant. Swimming has always been “useful knowledge.”
Sarah B. Pomeroy is Distinguished Professor of Classics and History, Emerita, at Hunter College and the Graduate School, CUNY. She is also Lady Joan Reid Author in Residence at Benjamin Franklin House, London, and a Member of the American Philosophical Society. Widely recognized as a pioneer in the fields of women’s history and classical studies, she uses not only textual sources but also artistic and archaeological evidence in order to reconstruct the past. Her publications include Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (1975, 1995); Women in Hellenistic Egypt from Alexander to Cleopatra (1984, 1990); Spartan Women (2002); The Murder of Regilla. a Case of Domestic Violence in Antiquity (2007); and Pythagorean Women: Their Lives and Their Writings (2013). Her most recent book is Maria Sibylla Merian, Artist, Scientist, Adventurer (2017). Her books have been translated into Italian, Spanish, German, and Chinese. Professor Pomeroy received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and she is an Honorary Fellow of St. Hilda’s College, the University of Oxford. Like Ben Franklin, she likes to play the harpsichord and to swim.
