The child in traditional Jewish medicine around 1900

The traditional healing culture of Eastern Ashkenaz, as it had developed by the turn of the nineteenth century, made use of amulets and prescribed diets to ensure the birth of healthy and virtuous children. The traditional value system also helped to explain the death of a child when it occurred. At the same time, the development of modern medicine, which was very attractive to the Jewish elite and led to the emergence of many Jewish doctors, presented an increasingly successful challenge to the traditional Jewish medical world. In Jewish traditional medicine, children were not only patients, but sometimes functioned as caregivers and even healers. This was a role particularly assigned to adolescent girls, while medicines derived from children played an important role in traditional Jewish medical culture. Methods of protecting the community from evil forces were focused specifically on male children as well as on actions and rituals appropriate to the male domain of Judaism.