O pasożytach wywołujących suchoty. Na styku żydowskiej kultury ludowej i dawnej medycyny
About Suchote-Causing Parasites. The Crossroads of Jewish Popular Culture and Old Medicine

Summary/Abstract: The article portrays a narrow segment of the popular culture of Polish Jews of the end of the 19th and early 20th century, concerning the conviction about the existence of a specific parasitic disease afflicting small children and causing symptoms referred to by the general term “suchoty” (suchote, dur). A description of the condition can be found in Regina Liliental’s treatise Dziecko żydowskie [The Jewish Child], as well as in a number of original health guides in Yiddish and Hebrew (e.g. Rafael ha-malach, Taamej ha-minhagim, Mifalot Elokim et al.). The author of the article explains what the disease consisted in and how its symptoms, etiology and methods of treatment were explained. He also demonstrates that similar phenomena could be found among the customs practices by the Christian population. He looks for the origin of these similarities not only in cross-influences but also in the common roots of views about health, recorded in Central Europe since the beginning of the modern era. At the same time, he seeks to trace back the literary route by which popular 16th century beliefs reached Jewish readers at the threshold of the 20th century, and to identify convergences between medical discourse of yore and popular Jewish literature.

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