EXOD571 The official view of Judaism on medicine is summarized in the Tur Yore Deah, §336: "The School of R. Ishmael derived from the words Verappe yerappe ('and the offender shall cause the victim to be thoroughly healed,' [this verse]) that permission is granted the physician to heal. The physician may not say 'Why borrow trouble? I may err and appear like one who killed a person unwittingly.' He shall indeed be exceedingly careful in exercising his art even as a judge must be careful in deciding criminal cases. In like manner, the physician may not say: 'God smites, and shall I heal?' This is not the way of men with regard to healing, as we find Asa and his sickness consulting not God, but physicians. Hence Scripture came to teach us that the physician is permitted to heal. He who is zealous in the work of healing is praiseworthy; and he who refuses to heal is a shedder of blood." Repeated in the Shulchan Aruch, this represents the law of traditional Judaism. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch places the responsibility upon the patient. In time of sickness it becomes a religious duty to consult a physician. The neglect of calling for medical aid constitutes an active presumption on the part of the sufferer, for he seems to presume such righteousness as to merit the direct miraculous help of God. [Nahmanides, Torat Haadam, Shaar Hasakanah, and p. 16f. and Comment. on Leviticus 26:11]. It is instructive that medical means for checking pestilence were not regarded by the masters of Judaism as interference with the will of God. While teaching man to submit to the inevitable, they urged him to resist the things that blight life and to promote human health and welfare.