Page 269 - ירושלים: גיליון רפואי

St John the Baptist), but since its main purpose was the administration of a hospital in
Jerusalem, it was known as the Knights Hospitaller.

The hospital’s patients were knights, the social elite, and anyone who needed medical assistance,
including ordinary people and the poor. Care was given with endless devotion. The hospital
had specialized departments, including a gynecology section for women. At any given time,
there were four physicians and four surgeons at work in the hospital. In every department, the
physicians had nine medical assistants who were responsible for the welfare and needs of those
hospitalized and for administering certain treatments under the guidance of the physicians, such
as supplying potions and medications, and applying bandages and salves.

For the most part, the hospital treated patients with fever resulting from common ailments
and intestinal diseases. Bloodletting was suggested for any number of illnesses. The doctors
would stop hemorrhages with the aid of a white-hot iron, and amputation of limbs was an
accepted procedure. The hospital physicians learned from local practitioners how to “sugar the
pill,” dissolving medical substances in a sweet solution to make medications easier to swallow.
The concept of a “syrup” entered the medical lexicon as a distortion of the Arabic word for
“drink” (sharab).

The hospital was financed by grateful private individuals and by the official authorities. In 1112,
the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin I, decreed that the Order of Knights would be responsible for
administering the Jerusalem facility, which would be known as a “hospital,” and the Knights of
St John would be called “Hospitallers.”

The buildings comprising the hospital were considered the property of the Order, and were
thus exempt from taxes. Pope Paschal II sent an official letter (papal bull) recognizing the Order,
which became its founding charter and placed it under the aegis of the Holy See.

The recollections of pilgrims who visited Jerusalem during this period describe the hospital of
the Knights of the Order of St John; they suggest how important the hospital was for the city
of Jerusalem. Johann of Würzburg visited Jerusalem in 1179 and was profoundly impressed
by the hospital:

“Over against the Church of the Holy Sepulchre […], towards the south, is a beautiful church
built in honour of John the Baptist, annexed to which is a hospital, wherein in various rooms
is collected together an enormous multitude of sick people, both men and women, who are
tended and restored to health daily at a very great expense. When I was there I learned that
the whole number of these sick people amounted to two thousand, of whom sometimes in
the course of one day and night more than fifty are carried out dead, while many other fresh
ones keep constantly arriving.”

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