Jewish medicine and surgery in Catania, Italy before 1492

The Jewish community was present on the island of Sicily for more than 15 centuries, and featured an important medical legacy, such as Virdimura, a Jewish woman doctor in Catania, who in 1376 was the subject of an appreciative decree by the king of Sicily. Catania owes a debt to the Jews for a long medical tradition, which helped make the island prosperous and famous in the Mediterranean until 1492, when the Spanish King Ferdinand II ordered the expulsion of the Jews from Sicily.