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Zutot 2003 pp 66–77Cite as

New Light on the Physician Aaron Salomon Gumpertz: Medicine, Science and Early Haskalah in Berlin

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Part of the book series: Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture ((ZUTO,volume 3))

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References

  1. The fullest biography of Gumpertz is M. Freudenthal, ‘Ahron Emmerich-Gumpertz, der Lehrer Moses Mendelssohns’, in D. Kaufmannand M. Freudenthal, Die Familie Gomperz (Frankfurt a. M. 1907) 164–200. Very valuable is still L. Landshuth, ‘Dr. Aron Gumpertzgen. Aron Emmerich’, Die Gegenwart. Berliner Wochenschrift für Jüdische Angelegenheiten 1 (1867), 318f., 324ff., 330f., 340f., 347f., 357f., 365-367ff. J. Eschebacher, ‘Die AnfÔnge allgemeiner Bildung unter den deutschen Juden vor Mendelssohn’, in Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Juden. Festschrift zum siebzigsten Geburtstage Martin Philipsohns (Leipzig 1916) 168–177 is mostly devoted to Gumpertz. More recent discussions are: D.B. Ruderman, Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (New Haven 1995) index s.v.; D. Sorkin, ‘The Early Haskalah’, in S. Feiner and D. Sorkin, eds, New Perspectives on the Haskalah (London 2001) 9–26, esp. 19–25.

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  2. See the title of Freudenthal’s biography(n. 2).

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  3. A. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, A Biographical Study (Alabama 1973) 23ff., 36.

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  4. A claim could be made that ‘priority’ must be attributed to Raphael Levi of Hanover (1685–1788). But although he was Leibnitz’s secretary, he fulfilled this role only in the last six years of the latter’s life, and did not take part in strictly scientific debates of his time. See the exceptionally well-informed and contextualised study by S. and H. Schwarzschild, ‘Two Lives in the Jewish Frühaufklärung: Raphael Levi Hannover and Moses Abraham Wolff’, Leo Baeck Institute. Yearbook 29 (1984) 229–276. Levi’s scientific-technical competence can be gauged from the recently published account which Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) wrote of his meeting with Levi in August 1772: U. Joost, ‘Lichtenberg bei Raphael Levi’, Die Horen. Zeitschrift für Literatur, Kunst und Kritik 44 (1999) 203f. (For this reference I am grateful to Siegmund Probst.

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  5. H. Lausch, ‘A.S. Gumpertz und die Académie royale des sciences et belles lettres in Berlin. Zum Auftakt zur Euler-Dollondschen Achromasie-Kontroverse’, Leo-Baeck Institute Bulletin 88 (1991) 11–26; idem, ‘The Ignorant Hold Back Their Judgement and Await the Conclusions of the Knowing — Moses Mendelssohn and Other Mathematicians’, Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 2 (2002) 93’109.

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  6. Freudenthal, ‘Ahron Emmerich-Gumpertz’, 186, 189.

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  7. See E. Winter, Die Registres der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1746–1766. Dokumente für das Wirken Leonhard Eulers in Berlin (Berlin 1957) 203 (no. 351; meeting of 11 July 1754). This fact has gone unnoticed so far.

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  8. Preface to Sefer Megalleh sod, Hamburg 1765.

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  9. SeferMegallehsod, Preface (unnumbered, p. ii[a]): nishlach mi-shamayim lehoshi’eni’ ezer’ elyon me’ir’ enay.

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  10. ’al chokhmat ha-nittuach shaqadeti mi-pi sefarim ve-tziyyurim... (ibid.)

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  11. ’ad she-qamti le-nateach ha-metim lo’ notar’ od ruach bam le-hitnashem (ibid.)

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  12. rofe’e’ elil kulam (ibid., p. i[b]).

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  13. Ibid., p. i[b]–ii[a].

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  14. Ibid., p. ii[a].

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  15. Freudenthal, ‘Ahron Emmerich-Gumpertz’, 174–178.

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  16. Ibid., 177f.

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  17. On details and on the dissertation see Freudenthal, ibid., 183ff. See also L. Lewin, ‘Die jüdischen Studenten an der Universität Frankfurt an der Oder’, Jahrbuch der Jüdisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft 14 (1921) 217–238; 15 (1923) 59–96, esp. 70.

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  18. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, 25. Freudenthal only raised an eyebrow: ‘...und bereits am 12. Februar 1751 erbat die medizinische Fakultät... vom König die bei einem Juden vorgeschriebene Spezialerlaubnis zur Promotion’; ‘Ahron Emmerich-Gumpertz’, 183 (my italics).

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  19. T.H. Broman, The Transformation of German Academic Medicine, 1750–1820 (Cambridge 1996) 16, n. 9. Some students received their M.D. only after eight years of study at various universities. On the curriculum see ibid., 28–33.

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  20. This is the suggestion of Landshuth, ‘Dr. Aron Gumpertz’, 341. Similarly L. Geiger, ‘Gumpertz, Aaron Samuel (sic)’, in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie 10:121. See also R. Landau, Geschichte der jüdischen Aerzte (Berlin 1895) 127 (which is erroneous throughout).

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  21. Freudenthal, ‘Ahron Emmerich-Gumpertz’, 181.

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  22. Freudenthal (ibid., 189) places the beginning of this voyage in 1754. The letter to Euler was written in London in May 1752, and it is unclear whether it was written on the same long trip. On the social norm of these trips see Broman, The Transformation of German Academic Medicine, 16f.

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  23. Landshuth, ‘Dr. Aron Gumpertz’, 341, already alluded, albeit very briefly, to such a possibility.

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  24. W. Kaiser, ‘Qui fut le premier professeur juif ayant enseigné la médecine en Allemagne à titre officiel?’, Revue ďhistoire de la médecine hébraïque 110 (December 1974) 145ff., reprinted in G. Freudenthal and S. Kottek, eds, Mélanges ďhistoire de la médecine hébraïque. Études choisies de la Revue de ľhistoire de la médecine hébraïque, 1948–1985 (Leiden 2003) 371–375, esp. 372–373; idem, ‘Ľenseignement médical et les juifs à ľUniversité de Halle au XVIIIe siècle’, Revue ďhistoire de la médecine hébraïque 91 (March 1971) 23–26; 93 (July 1971) 81–84; 94 (October 1971) 107–110; 96 (March 1972) 11–14, reprinted in Freudenthal and Kottek, Mélanges, 347–370, esp. 350.

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  25. M.A. Spira, ‘Meilensteine zur Geschichte der jüdschen Ärzte in Deutschland’, in J. Schumacher, ed., Melemata. Festschrift für Werner Leibbrand zum 70. Geburtstag (Mannheim 1967) 149–158, esp. 154. Gumpertz was taught medicine by his father, Z. Emmerich (1662–1728), a physician himself. In 1719 he passed cum laude the examinations at the University of Prague, which however denied him the diploma. In Frankfurt Gumpertz thus graduated extra-cathedra; cf. Lewin, ‘Die jüdischen Studenten an der Universität Frankfurt an der Oder’ (1923) 63. Spira (p. 156) mentions also the case of a Jewish student who obtained a doctoral degree in 1725 within a year of his arrival at Heidelberg, and another who (in 1817) went through the entire process in less than a week. See on this also W. Kaiser, ‘Das Studium Pragense des 18. Jahrhunderts an der Universität Halle’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universität Halle 19.4 (1970) 131–137, esp. 132f.

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  26. W. Kaiser and W. Piechocki, ‘Anfänge des Medizinstudiums jüdischer Studenten in Halle’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Math.-Nat. Reihe 19.4 (1970) 389–393.

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  27. See n. Meilensteine zur Geschichte der jüdschen Ärzte in Deutschland’, in J. Schumacher, ed., Melemata. Festschrift für Werner Leibbrand zum 70. Geburtstag (Mannheim 1967) 149–158, esp. 154. Gumpertz was taught medicine by his father, Z. Emmerich (1662–1728), a physician himself. In 1719 he passed cum laude the examinations at the University of Prague, which however denied him the diploma. In Frankfurt Gumpertz thus graduated extra-cathedra; cf. Lewin, ‘Die jüdischen Studenten an der Universität Frankfurt an der Oder’ (1923) 63. Spira (p. 156) mentions also the case of a Jewish student who obtained a doctoral degree in 1725 within a year of his arrival at Heidelberg, and another who (in 1817) went through the entire process in less than a week. See on this also W. Kaiser, ‘Das Studium Pragense des 18. Jahrhunderts an der Universität Halle’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universität Halle 19.4 (1970) 131–137, esp. 132f. 27.

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  28. A. Freimann, ‘Briefwechsel eines Studenten der Medizin in Frankfurt an der Oder mit dem in Halle Medizin studierenden Isak Wallich im Jahre 1702’, Zeitschrift für hebräische Bibliographie 14.4 (July–August 1910) 117–123.

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  29. M. Richarz, Der Eintritt der Juden in die akademischen Berufe (Tübingen 1974) 52f.

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  30. All information on the Collegium is drawn from H. Lehmann, ‘Das Collegium medico-chirurgicum’ in Berlin als Lehrstätte der Botanik und der Phramazie (Math.-Nat. Diss. Berlin 1936).

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  31. See P. Diepgen and E. Heischkel, Die Medizin an der Berliner Charité bis zur Gründung der Universität (Berlin 1935) esp. 1–7; Lehmann, Das Collegium medico-chirurgicum, 25.

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  32. A. von Lyncker, ‘Die Matrikel des preussischen Collegium medico-chirurgicum in Berlin 1730 bis 1768’, Archiv für Sippenforschung 11.5 (May 1934) 129–158.

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  33. Kaiser, ‘Les juifs à ľUniversité de Halle’, 348, 351.

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  34. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, 23.

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  35. Lehmann, Das Collegium medico-chirurgicum, 24.

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  36. Ibid., 18, 25.

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  37. Hans Lausch kindly informed me that the fact has been noted in P. Raabe, ed., Friedrich Nicolai, 1733–1811: die Verlagswerke eines preußischen Buchhändlers der Aufklärung 1759–1811 [Ausstellung, 5. März-1. Mai 1983] (Wolfenbüttel and Berlin 1983 ) (Ausstellungskataloge der Herzog August Bibliothek, 38), which at the time of writing is no longer accessible to me.

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  38. Abhandlung der auserlesensten Arzneymittel, nach derselben Ursprung, Güte, Bestandtheilen, Maasse und Art zu würcken... (Berlin 1755). The book, which originally grew out of the author’s lectures at the Collegium (‘zum Nutzen seiner Zuhörer abgefaßt’), went through several further editions by various editors, the last of whom was J.F. Gmelin (5th edition 1785; 6th edition, 1790).

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  39. Loesecke, Abhandlung, 215, n. i.

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  40. D.B. Ruderman, Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key (Princeton 2000) 204; see 204–214 for more about Mendes da Costa and an extensive bibliography. For more recent research see G.S. Rousseau and D. Haycock, ‘The Jew of Crane Court: Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717–1791), Natural History and Natural Excess’, History of Science 38 (2000) 127–170; G. Cantor, ‘The Rise and Fall of Emanuel Mendes da Costa: A Severe Case of “the Philosophical Dropsy”?’, English Historical Review 116 (2001) 584–603.

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  41. Ruderman, Jewish Enlightenment, 211ff. Gumpertz’s letters are in English, no doubt because this was the language in which the two scholars conversed when they met in London.

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  42. See J. G. Meusel, Lexikon der vom Jahr 1750 bis 1800 verstorbenen teutschen Schriftsteller VIII (Hildesheim 1967) 332f.; Allgeme inedeutsche Biographie 19:214; Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ätzte aller Zeiten und Völker III, ed. A. Hirsch (Munich-Berlin 19623) 825.

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  43. See E. Graf zur Tippe, Militaria aus König Friedrichs des Grossen Zeit (Berlin 1866) 27–35; Allgemeine deutsche Biographie 4: 517–518; Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärtzte XXI, 23–124.

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  44. A. Harnack, Geschichte der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin I (Berlin 1900) 473, 475.

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  45. J. Katz, Die Entstehung der Judenassimilation in Deutschland und deren Ideologie (Frankfurt a. M. 1935), reprinted in idem, Zur Assimilation und Emanzipation der Juden (Darmstadt 1982) 1-82, esp. 43f., and in idem, Emancipation and Assimilation. Studies in Modern Jewish History (Westmead, England 1972) 195–276, esp. 237f.

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  46. I was pleased to discover that a few of the findings of this zuta agree with those presented in the recent study by Britta L. Behm, Moses Mendelssohn und die Transformation derjüdischen Erziehungin Berlin. Eine bildungsgeschichtliche Analysezur jüdischen Aufklärung im 18. Jahrhundert. (Münster, etc., 2002). (Jüdische Bildungsgeschichte in Deutchland, vol. 4).

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  1. Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris

    Gad Freudenthal

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  1. Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Shlomo Berger  & Irene Zwiep  & 

  2. Salomon Ludwig Steinheim-Institut an, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany

    Michael Brocke

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Freudenthal, G. (2004). New Light on the Physician Aaron Salomon Gumpertz: Medicine, Science and Early Haskalah in Berlin. In: Berger, S., Brocke, M., Zwiep, I. (eds) Zutot 2003. Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2628-5_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2628-5_9

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