title: Annual discourse--don't eat the quails.
abstract: Physicians were the first individuals recorded by name in history. Their attempts to define disease influenced fundamentally the cultures and religions of the world. Surgical skills, although highly developed in ancient times, appear to have been less well documented historically than medical disorders. Because of the greater threat to survival that diseases posed, they became incorporated into religious customs. Contagious diseases also influenced greatly the laws, traditions and historical events of the Bible. Leprosy provided a physical example that presumably represented an image of sin, but it probably was no more prevalent as a disease during Biblical times than at present. Many of the Biblical stories assumed to be allegorical may have been founded on medical fact. For example, it appears likely that the quails that poisoned the wandering Jews were contaminated with cyanide.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001633:Bible; D002835:Christianity; D005517:Foodborne Diseases / Q000266:history; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D006856:Hydrogen Cyanide / Q000506:poisoning; D007557:Israel; D007565:Jaundice / Q000266:history; D007585:Jews; D007599:Judaism; D007918:Leprosy / Q000266:history; D011784:Quail; D012068:Religion and Medicine
chemical_list: D006856:Hydrogen Cyanide