Page 252 - ירושלים: גיליון רפואי
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ר מזיא¢ר מזיא ˇ משפחת איזקסון¨ צאצאי ד¢שלט דלת המרפאה של ד
Name-plate of Dr Masie's clinic | Isakson family, descendants of Dr Masie
During this time, Dr Masie was completely immersed in an effort to educate the settlers in Eretz
Israel on proper hygienic practices in order to protect them from contaminating diseases. One
of the better known diseases caused by contamination was trachoma, an eye affliction that Dr
Masie called gar‘enet because the eye-lid of the patient appeared megur‘enet – or granulated
in Hebrew. Trachoma could result in blindness for those afflicted with the disease, but due to
the good hygienic practices followed by Dr Masie, the disease disappeared from the country,
and its name was firmly set in our vocabulary.
Dr Masie was known for such linguistic pursuits, and he was approached by many with requests
to coin scientific terms. Such was the case with farmers who asked him to invent a word for
the anthrax disease, which attacked humans and cattle. The Greek word was derived from the
word for coal, as the affliction causes skin lesions with a black center; thus Masie decided to
call the disease gahelet – Hebrew for coal.
More than once, the decision to use certain words resulted in intense arguments among
scholars, and these are preserved among the pages of the press during that period. One of
the stormy public debates broke out around the Hebrew word for diphtheria, a disease that
attacks the upper respiratory system and was considered fatal until the discovery of antibiotics.
In 1895, an epidemic of diphtheria broke out in the settlements in Judea. Dr Masie worked
miracles and succeeded to cure patients who were in critical condition by using a serum which
was still in the experimental stage at the time. The disease also broke out in the German Colony
in Jerusalem, and to the credit of the mayor, Salim Effendi, “the serum […] was brought to the
city, and the diphtheria disease was cured.” The city’s physicians were requested to use the
serum to heal indigent patients of all nations and tongues, free-of-charge.
Dr Aaron Meir Masie ■ 51e
