במאי קא מיפלגי אמר רבה אשכחתינהו לרבנן בבי רב דיתבי וקאמרי הכא במכה ניתנה לאגד קמיפלגי
But even [if the calculation be made on the basis of] a mutilated arm, would it amount only to Pain and not also to Pain plus Degradation, as it is surely a humiliation that a part of the body should be taken away and thrown to dogs? — It must therefore mean that we estimate how much a man whose arm had by a written decree of the Government to be taken off by means of a drug would require that it should be cut off by means of a sword. But I might say that even in such a case no man would take anything [at all] to hurt himself [so much]? — It must therefore mean that we have to estimate how much a man whose arm had by a written decree of the Government to be cut off by means of a sword would be prepared to pay that it might be taken off by means of a drug. But if so, instead of TO BE PAID should it not be written 'to pay'? — Said R. Huna the son of R. Joshua: It means that payment to the plaintiff will have to be made by the offender to the extent of the amount which the person sentenced would have been prepared to pay.
Contemporary Halakhic Problems, Vol I
This view was rejected by Rabbinic Judaism, but not without due recognition of the cogency of the theological argument upon which it is based. Rabbinic teaching recognized that intervention for the purpose of thwarting the natural course of a disease could be sanctioned only on the basis of specific divine dispensation. Such license is found, on the basis of talmudic exegesis, in the scriptural passage dealing with compensation for personal injury: "And if men quarrel with one another and one smites the other with a stone or with the fist and he die not, but has to keep in bed … he must pay the loss entailed by absence from work and he shall cause him to be thoroughly healed" (Exod. 21:18–19). Ostensibly, this passage refers simply to the financial liability incurred as the result of an act of assault. However, since specific reference is made to liability for medical expenses, it follows that liability for such expenses implies biblical license to incur those expenses in the course of seeking the ministrations of a practitioner of the healing arts. Thus the Talmud, Baba Kamma 85a, comments, "From here [it is derived] that the physician is granted permission to cure." Specific authorization is required, comments Rashi, in order to teach us that "we are not to say, 'How is it that God smites and man heals?' " In much the same vein Tosafot and R. Solomon ben Adret, in their commentaries upon this passage, state that without such sanction, "He who heals might appear as if he invalidated a divine decree."
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