Turkey, and his advice was sought by the doge of Venice.[36]

The personage who typifies best the enlightened Slavonic Jew of the
pre-Haskalah period is Tobias Cohn (1652-1729). He was the son and
grandson of physicians, who practiced at Kamenetz-Podolsk and Byelsk,
and after 1648 went to Metz. After their father's death, he and his
older brother returned to Poland, whence Tobias, in turn, emigrated
first to Italy and then to Turkey. In Adrianople he was
physician-in-ordinary to five successive sultans. In the history of
medicine he is remembered as the discoverer of the _plica polonica_, and
as the publisher of a Materia Medica in three languages. To the student
of Haskalah he is interesting, because he marks the close of the old and
the beginning of the new era. Like the Maskilim of a century or two
centuries later, he compiled and edited an encyclopedia in Hebrew, that
"knowledge be increased among his coreligionists." His acquaintance with
learned works in several ancient and modern languages of which he was
master, enabled him to write his magnum opus, _Ma'aseh Tobiah_, with
tolerable ease. This work is divided into eight parts, devoted
respectively to theology, astronomy, pharmacy, hygiene, venereal
diseases, botany, cosmography, and chemistry. It is illustrated with
several plates, among them the picture of an astrolabe and one of the
human body treated as a house. From the numerous editions through which
it passed (Venice, 1707, 1715, 1728, 1769), we may conclude that it met
with marked success.[37]

* * * * *

To understand the _raison d'Être_ of the Haskalah movement, it may not
be superfluous to cast a glance at the inner social and religious life
of the Slavonic Jews during pre-Haskalah times. The labors of the farmer