| THE BIBLE is a rich lode. Depending on what they are searching for, prospectors find a variety of nuggets in its inexhaustibleseams. Adherents of Judaism and Christianity discover deposits of divinerevelation. For some it contains magnificent literature in its poetry,hymns, and dirges. For others it is literature, particularly the KingJames version, which has influenced English prose with its resonantrhythms and sonorous style. For still others it is vivid political history,narrating the ebb and flow of kingdoms in a crucial part of the world.Finally, there are those who use it as an archaeological guide to thelocation of many places long since obliterated by devastations fromman and nature. Now comes a distinguished endocrinologist, Robert B. Greenblatt,M.D., to do his own special kind of prospecting. Using the physician sdiagnostic tools, hc mincs nuggets of insight into the illnesses thatat~icted the Bible s storicd characters. From scriptural descriptions heinfers that Esau was suffering from hypoglycemia, a syndrome of lowblood sugar, and thus was so deathly weak that he was willing to sellhis birthright for life-sustaining "pottage. : He suggests that the giantGoliath may havc bcen suffering from a pituitary tumor, pressing onthe optic nerve, which obstructed his peripheral vision and made himan easier prey for David. Dr. Greenblatt discovers techniques that were forerunners ofcertain medical practices today. When the good Samaritan bound upthe wounded traveler with "oil and wine," was he revealing theingenuous conviction of the ancients that wine had curative power,explained today as the power of the benevolent fungus shared by wineand penicillin? A fascinating account of the plants and shrubs referred |
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