1)

(a)The cure for wet boils comprises seven fat wheat kernels, which one roasts on the metal of a new hoe.

(b)Rav Shimi bar Ashi used this same cure to heal a Nochri from leprosy.

(c)There was no hope for someone who was pierced by a Persian spear because Persians tended to temper it with poison.

(d)They would nevertheless serve juicy meat roasted on coal and wine to someone who was to prolong his life for a sufficient period of time for him to write his last will and testament (though it is unclear why they would not have done so anyway, just for the sake of prolonging his life).

2)

(a)The same is true of someone who swallowed a hornet, whom they would serve a Revi'is ha'Lug of strong vinegar, in order to prolong his life, as they did in the previous case

(b)Rebbi Yehoshua ben Levi said that someone who eats ox meat with turnip and sleeps out in the moonlight on the night of the fourteenth or the fifteenth of Tamuz will contract a fever of the bones.

(c)The same will happen, says the Tana of a Beraisa, to someone who eats his fill of any sweet food that he particularly likes.

(d)Rav Papa needs to add that this applies even to dates in spite of Mar, who said that dates satisfy, warm the body, clear one's bowels and strengthen a person.

3)

(a)Abaye, who teaches us the cure for a fever of the bones, quotes his nanny, who taught him that it is different than all other cures in two ways; Other cures must be taken for three, seven or twelve days on an empty stomach, whereas this one must keep on taking until such time as he is cured, and one takes it after having eaten and drunk, and after having relieved oneself.

(b)The cure consists of Shesisa d'T'lafchi (a fistful of a dish made from lentil-flour and salt), which one mixes with a fistful of old wine.

(c)After that, he induces perspiration by wrapping himself in his sheet and going to sleep.

(d)One should ...

1. ... not wake him up (but let him wake up by himself), because perspiring is good for him.

2. ... take away his sheet, after he wakes up and arises, otherwise, the illness is likely to recur.

4)

(a)Eliyahu advised Rebbi Nasan that when he ate, he should eat a third, drink a third and leave a third free to allow for the possibility of his becoming angry, which takes up the extra third (otherwise he is liable to burst).

(b)The Tana advises one to avoid stomach problems by ...

1. ... dipping one's bread in vinegar and wine (rather than eating it dry).

2. ... eating less that one's fill.

3. ... going to the bathroom as soon as one feels the urge to do so (and not holding it back).

(c)According to Mar Ukva, someone who drinks poor quality white wine (known as 'Tiyla'), or someone who, according to Rav Chisda, sits by the fire on a Nisan morning, and anoints himself with oil, before going out into the sun will become lethargic.

(d)According to Rav Chisda, there are sixty different kinds of wine, the worst of which is Tiyla. The best is red wine with a pleasant aroma.

5)

(a)The Tana of a Beraisa says that if ...

1. ... one of the partners lets blood immediately prior to intimacy they will have children who are lethargic.

2. ... both of them do so they will have children who are very weak, due to an insect that will grow in the brain.

(b)It is safe to perform Tashmish after blood-letting, says Rav Papa as long as one first has eaten something.

(c)Rabah bar Rav Huna says that someone who arrives from a long journey and immediately performs Tashmish will have children who are lethargic.

(d)The Tana of the Beraisa says that someone who performs Tashmish immediately after leaving the bathroom will have children who are epileptics. It is only safe to do so after he has waited the time it takes to walk half a Mil (nine minutes), because, otherwise, he is followed by the demon who rules over the bathroom.

6)

(a)Someone who performs Tashmish ...

1. ... standing will suffer cramps.

2. ... sitting will emit a lot of wind.

3. ... switching positions with his wife will be struck with 'Dalarya' (which is not explained).

(b)The cure for Dalarya, says Abaye, is a crocus that grew on a hedge. Rav Papa would chew it and swallow it Rav Papi used to chew it and spit it out.

(c)Abaye advises someone who is unable to perform Tashmish to take a Kapiza (a vessel holding three Lugin) of Kurtami (safflower) that grew in earth that was manured with sheep's dung (see Rashash) which he then grinds well, boils in wine and drinks.

(d)Rebbi Yochanan said that this was what regained him his youthful stamina.

7)

(a)Three things make a person weak: fear, travel and sins.

(b)A second list of three things that make a person weak includes someone who eats or drinks standing or performs Tashmish standing.

(c)These same three things are also contained in a list of five things that, if one stands immediately after performing them, are closer to death than to life. The other two are blood-letting and sleeping.

8)

(a)Six things are listed as fatal: Someone who arrived from a journey and immediately performs rigorous exercises, lets blood and enters the bathhouse, drinks wine and becomes drunk. The last item is Tashmish on the ground (if sleeping on the ground is a separate entity, then it is unclear how the Tana arrives at the number 'six'). One is only in danger if he actually performs them all.

(b)Rebbi Yochanan insists that he performs them in the right order, to which Abaye adds that if he does not, he will not die, but he will become weak.

(c)We reconcile Rebbi Yochanan with the story of Me'uras, who did only three of the six things with her slave, yet the slave died by establishing that he was a weak man to begin with.

9)

(a)What the following items have in common ...

1. ... Travel, Tashmish, wealth, work, wine and sleep is that a little of them is good, whereas a lot is harmful.

2. ... Salt, hunger, Tzara'as, weeping and sleeping on the ground is that they diminish the Zera.

(b)The two items that should be added to the first list are hot water (for bathing and drinking) and blood-letting.

(c)The two foods that should be added to the second list are coriander and hops.

(d)Blood-letting too, should be added to the second list to make up the eight things. Rav Papa draws a distinction between letting blood from the lower half of the body (below the Beitzim), which is twice as dangerous as all the other things in the list, and the upper half (above the Beitzim), which will make him twice as healthy.

10)

(a)We learned above that hops out of season are harmful. According to Rav Papa Teves is considered out of season for hops ...

(b)... and Tamuz in-season.

(c)The difference between hops in-season, and the other months of the year, in this regard, is that whereas hops in-season, are healthy, during the other months, they have no effect whatsoever.

11)

(a)We learned in our Mishnah that if a man appointed a Shali'ach to write his wife a Get, and after he has been seized by Kurdaikus he rescinds it, the original Shelichus stands. According to Reish Lakish, we write the Get immediately, according to Rebbi Yochanan only after he recovers.

(b)Reish Lakish explains 'Ein Devarav ha'Acharonim Klum' literally Rebbi Yochanan interprets it to mean that, in spite of the cancellation, the Shali'ach will not need to be re-appointed following the husband's recovery.

(c)Reish Lakish compares Kurdaikus to someone who is asleep, whereas Rebbi Yochanan compares him to a Shoteh.

(d)

1. Rebbi Yochanan does not compare him to someone who is asleep because someone who is asleep will wake up automatically, whereas he requires a cure.

2. Reish Lakish does not compare him to a Shoteh because a Shoteh is incurable, whereas he is curable.

12)

(a)Rav Yehudah Amar Shmuel says that should someone whose two pipes (the wind-pipe and the esophagus) or the majority of them, have been cut hint (see Tosfos DH 've'Ramaz') that one should write his wife a Get, one writes it and gives it to her immediately.

(b)The Beraisa says the same about someone who has been badly wounded or hanged (but who is still alive).

(c)This poses a Kashya on Rebbi Yochanan, who maintains that, if someone is seized by Kurdaikus, one cannot give the Get that he appointed a Shali'ach to give, until he is cured because, in the above cases, that would entail writing and giving the woman a Get after her husband's death and would contravene the rule 'Ein Get l'Achar Misah'.

(d)Rebbi Hoshaya explains that Rebbi Yochanan concedes there that one writes and gives the Get immediately, because in those two cases, the man may be weak physically, he is mentally strong, whereas in Rebbi Yochanan's case, he has been affected mentally.

13)

(a)Rav Yehudah Amar Shmuel rules that if witnesses testified about the state of that man his wife is permitted to remarry.

(b)We nevertheless permit writing her a Get, because the reason that she is permitted to remarry is (not because he is presumed to be dead, but) because he is on the verge of death. So provided the Get is written immediately, it is valid.

(c)The person who inadvertently dealt the stroke does not have to run into exile because of the likelihood that the victim's death is caused either by the wind or by his own gasping.

(d)The difference whether it was the wind that ultimately caused his death or the dying man's own gasping will be when the killing took place in a marble house (where no wind enters) or in a case where he did not gasp.

14)

(a)We learned in our Mishnah that, if a dumb man nods his head a number of times to different questions, we acknowledge his request to write his wife a Get. We are not afraid that he has adopted a tendency to ...

1. ... say 'Yes' to everything or 'No' because we alternate the questions (e.g. one that requires an affirmative answer and one that requires a negative one).

2. ... alternate, once 'Yes' and once 'No' because we ask him first a question that requires an affirmative answer, then two that require a negative one, and finally another question that requires an affirmative answer, or vice-versa.

(b)Tana d'Bei Rebbi Yishmael actually specifies the questions that one asks him. Initially, when he says that we ask him about 'summer things in the winter' and 'winter things in the summer', we think that he is referring to clothes and suchlike (e.g. a coat in the summer, and thin sheets in the winter).

(c)We reject this suggestion however on the grounds that he might just be feeling cold in the summer or hot in the winter, in which case, his answers do not reflect that he is demented.

(d)What he therefore means is that we ask him whether he would like summer fruits (such as cherries) in the winter and winter fruits (such as sour apples) in the summer.