3. How Maimonides became a great physician
Maimonides was a famous physician and scholar and leader of the Jewish community in Cairo (and al-Fustat). He is also known as Saladin's personal physician. The story is a Jewish legend.
Also, beware smartass aprentices.
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How Maimonides became a great physician
Young Maimonides wanted to become a physician. At that time, a famous physician would take students and train them for free, but after a year of practice, he would kill them so that they would not go on their own and would not become competition for the former master.
Maimonides came up with a clever idea and, despite his mother's fears, decided to implement it. He began to pretend to be deaf-mute and in this way gained the physician's trust, who kept him as an assistant for five years, certain that the student did not understand anything. Every time Maimonides had a free moment, he would take out a piece of paper and write down everything he saw and heard. Where he thought something could have been done better, he wrote down his corrections. In this way, after five years, he became a great physician.
One day, the king's daughter fell ill. Many physicians came to treat her, and among them was the master of Maimonides with his apprentice. The physician opened the skull and everyone saw that the cause of the illness was a frog stuck to the princess's brain. The master of Maimonides grabbed a pair of surgical forceps and reached for the frog, but then suddenly his apprentice hit him on the hand, shouting: "I hope your hand falls off! Do you want to kill the princess?!"
When the apprentice, who had been mute for years, spoke, the master was stunned. Seeing this, the king handed the fate of the operation into the hands of his apprentice. He heated a nail red-hot and touched the frog's legs one by one with it. Each time, the frog lifted its foot, and Maimonides put a piece of cotton under it. Finally, the frog could be torn away from the brain. Maimonides closed the skull cap and the princess recovered.
The master finally regained his composure and ordered Maimonides to leave the palace, but he knew he would be killed, so he appealed to the king for help. The king said: "Maimonides is staying with me. He is a better doctor than you.
Since he is a better doctor than me," the master replied venomously, "let us conduct a test. He will drink a poison prepared by me and I will drink a poison prepared by him and we will see who comes out of it unscathed.
Maimonides accepted the challenge because he knew the antidote. He took the poison and fell down, and the Jews he had asked for help did as he had said. They dragged Maimonides' body through seven red-hot furnaces and then put it inside seven slaughtered bulls. After applying the antidote, Maimonides came back to life.
Now it's my turn, Maimonides told the king.
He took seven boxes and put one inside the other. In the smallest one he placed soda water, and wrapped the container in seven linen cloths. Then he took long tongs, covered his mouth and nose, and, taking the box in the tongs, carried it to the master.
"What terrible poison is this? How dangerous it must be, since Maimonides gives it to me with tongs, covering his face. What antidote should I use?"
The master began to unpack the boxes, but when he reached the fifth one, he fell as if struck by lightning and died of dread.
Maimonides became the royal physician and minister. He lived many years enjoying peace.