Disquisitio philol. de Iudaeorum odio et abstinentia a porcina, eiusque c ausis

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The Israelite people were once strangely prone to those diseases which for the most part infested the Syrians and Egyptians: for the highest of physicians long ago ascribed vitiligo a skin condition causing loss of pigment and itches, and foul ulcers to those nations as if they were their own plagues; but Moses gathered these and similar diseases under one name, and called them leprosy. Furthermore, MANGE AND UNCLEANNESS IN SWINE is not a vice but their nature. Wherefore, lest contagion also approach through eating or touching—leading to a perverse affliction of bodies—they avoided the pig a little more superstitiously than the law of the divine, perhaps, had commanded. a) The celebrated SPENCER does not think this reason is solid; if that reason, he says, contained something solid, undoubtedly the neighbors of the Jews would never have raised so many herds of pigs, nor would the ancient Greeks and Romans have counted the pig and the boar among the delights of the table. Nor, if they had abstained from swine for that reason alone, was there any need that they should abhor their sight, touch, and name. But all these things are dispelled by the breath of a single wind: 1) He calls to that fact, that neighboring peoples raised pigs; this happened partly because the eating of it was not prohibited, and partly because it was not lawful for the Jews to forbid them the eating and foddering of pigs. 2) That pork is a delight to other peoples. b) The reason is that other nations, not infected with leprosy, have a different heat, blood, life, and customs than the Jews, who were easily prone to leprosy c)

a) The same words are read in M. BOXHORN, Universal History, p. 138, who copied the entire passage of Cunaeus.
b) In this, writers of physics agree: that pork is very beneficial to robust men and those exercised by much labor, but to the weak, on the contrary, and to those suffering from wounds, ulcers, or mange, it is very harmful. See KOENIG, Animal Kingdom, p. 129, and others in J. CYPRIAN, on Franz’s History of Animals, p. 695. BARTHOLIN, On Biblical Diseases, p. 464, holds that the flesh of the pig is most healthful.
c) Regarding the leprosy of the Jews, the following are worth reading: the celebrated OVSEEL, Franc. dissertation, 1709; CALMET, dissertation prefixed to the Commentary on Leviticus; JENK. THOMASIUS, Dissertations of various arguments, dissertation IX [Altorf, 1712, 8]; HULSIUS, On the Prerogative, dissertation 16, p. 859; LANG, Mystery.