Mordechai Gumpel HaLevi Schnaber (alias, Dr. George Levison). Maamar HaTorah VeHaChochmah [Essay on Law and the Sciences]

(SCIENCES).

Moses b. Gershon & Partners

London

1771

Vinograd, London 63; Roth, London 22.

The author distinguished himself both as a Hebrew scholar and as a medical practitioner in England and Sweden. He originally hailed from Berlin studying under the Chief Rabbi David Frankel (author of Korban Ha-Edah). He was the grandson of his name-sake, R. Gumpel Schnaber, the Dayan of the tri-communities of Altona, Hamburg and Wandsbeck. Schnaber studied medicine in England with Dr. John Hunter and was appointed physician to the Duke of Portland. He later served as a Professor of Medicine at the University of Upsala, Sweden, where, King Gustavus III encouraged him to translate all of his medical and polemical works into Swedish. The present work, which stressed the importance of studying the sciences engendered controversy among the zealous. See Piccioto, Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History, p. 138; and Friedenwald, Jewish Luminaries in Medical History p. 95. For much detail on the author’s life see: http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2009/11/mordechai-gumpel-schnaber-part-i.html.