Jewish Bodies and Jewish Doctors During the Cholera Years of the Polish Kingdom

Abstract

Epidemics challenge the social, ethnic, cultural or national cohesion of a society. When cholera reached the Polish Kingdom in 1892 medical debate about the disease produced a specific understanding of Jewishness. The category was not only considered to be a religious one but a socio-economic one as well. Furthermore, first ideas about a different Jewish biology emerged. However, medical ‘othering’ during the cholera epidemic concerned unprivileged Jews only. Jewish doctors, for instance, were not considered to be members of a ‘different’ group. The paper will trace this tension between Jewish ‘othering’ and religious/national/ethnic indifference. It will show that in the beginning of the twentieth century this indifference became more and more contested. It ended when Jewish members were excluded from Warsaw’s Medical Society in 1907.