Isaac ben Todros
ISAAC BEN TODROS
ISAAC BEN TODROS (mid-fourteenth century), known as Isaac Tauroci (ben Todros ) in Latin; French physician. Isaac ben Todros practiced in Carpentras and audited the accounts of the Jewish community in 1367. He was the pupil of the astronomer, Immanuel b. Jacob *Bonfils, with whom he calculated the constellations in Avignon during the month of Nisan (April) 1373. Isaac possessed a profound knowledge of theology and philosophy. He wrote a work dealing with the plague in Avignon entitled Be'er la-Ḥai ("Source of Life"). This work included a study of the dietetics and the therapeutics of the sick, as well as of the healthy. He declared that there were many Jewish victims of the epidemic. This treatise was published by Baron David *Guenzburg from the only existing Hebrew manuscript on the occasion of the 90th birthday of Leopold *Zunz. Isaac also wrote another medical work on facial convulsion (Avit ha-Panim; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Heb. Ms. 2141, 31).
bibliography:
E. Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire Biographique des Médecins en France au Moyen Age (1936), 311f.; Kaufmann, Schriften, 3 (1915), 482–6.
[Isidore Simon]