סימן שכח סעיף לח-מב

You're allowed to eat this, some type of sweet tree sap, or swallow a raw egg if your intention is only to make your voice sound better. Making your voice sound better is not healing, so there is no decree that you'll come to grind spices on Shabbat, because this has nothing to do with healing.

You're not allowed to make some kind of drink that causes someone to throw up. You're not allowed to do this even on a weekday if you're doing it, as Mishnah Berurah explains, just to get hungry again and eat again. You love the food so much that you want to throw up so you can eat again. That's wasting the food, so you can't even do that on a weekday. But if you're in pain from eating so much, then on a weekday you're allowed even to take some kind of medication to throw up. On Shabbat, though, it's asur (not allowed) to use any type of potion or medication. But you can stick your finger in your throat and throw up. Using a drink made to make you throw up might be confused with using medication. You're allowed to use your hand because this is not a medicine. This is not a refuah (healing) at all. Throwing up is not a refuah. So you're allowed to use your finger. Technically, the drink also is not a refuah, but the Beit Yosef says that since you can use your finger, we're not going to let you use the drink, because people may confuse it with another type of refuah.

Mishnah Berurah—I'm sorry, Maran (our master). Mem. Somebody has a stomachache; his stomach is hurting. You're allowed to take a cup that was filled with burning-hot water, pour out the water, and then put the hot cup on your stomach, even though steam is still coming out of it. What does this mean? You turn the cup over on your belly button. When someone's stomach hurts, you hold the cup so it sticks to your skin, and it's going to pull some of the intestines back to the right spot. So says Rashi: you're allowed to put hot clothing on the area if someone feels pain there, or use any type of hot pottery or hot brick. There's no problem. This has nothing to do with bathing in hot water or putting hot water that was heated on Shabbat. This is something dry, and it's allowed because there's no way to take care of this problem with medication. The whole decree is that if you take medication, you're going to come to grind. But in this instance, putting the cup on the stomach is the only healing. There's no other way to do it, so there's no decree that you'll come to grind for this. And when you come to grind, you're going to come to grind; you're not going to make a decree that you'll come to grind somewhere else. Maran says that even though the cup is still burning hot, don't think this is bathing in hot water, as though all hot water is forbidden on your body. Maran is telling you this is allowed, as it says in Masechet Shabbat: you're allowed to heat a towel on Shabbat and put it on your stomach. There's also the case of someone who's drunk, and the healing for that is to put oil on your palms as well as on your feet. Oil on your feet, oil mixed with salt—you're allowed to put that on on Shabbat.

Mishnah Berurah: Taking away drunkenness—that is, being drunk—is not called healing. The Acharonim (later authorities) say you're allowed to sniff tobacco through your nose, whether you have a headache or want to dissipate your drunkenness. Since sniffing tobacco is done for Ta'anug—it's for pleasure—or to smell a nice fragrance, it's Ma'achal Beri'im—it's something that healthy people do. Even if you're intending it for Refuah, it's like drinking hot tea for your throat, but it's something that healthy people do. There's no Isur (prohibition) of Refuah on that. The healing here for drunkenness is mixing oil and salt together and putting it on the palms and feet.

You're not allowed to exercise by pressing on the body forcefully to tire yourself out and sweat. You're not allowed to exercise to sweat. You're not allowed to press on a baby's stomach to get his excrement out. What does that mean? You're moving your arms in and out in front of you, then behind you. This is exercise. You get hot from it. You're stretching your legs and bringing them back, causing yourself to sweat; that is asur on Shabbat. This is a form of healing: causing sweat. Don't ask me, “Well, there's no decree that you're going to come to grind spices here, so we should allow it.” He says, “No, there is a way to make a sick person sweat through medication, so we're worried you're going to do that.” So you can't sweat by stretching, because you might come to make yourself sweat by taking medication and grinding it. But next, they're going to talk about a case where there is no such possibility at all: you'll never come to grind spices for it. In that case, there's no decree.

We'll see when we get there what we hold about doing this for a woman, and whether the same applies here. Even if a person reaches the state of being bedridden, you're not allowed to do anything for him unless you do it with a... All the more so if he's healthy and just has a weakness: you're not allowed to do anything for him. He points out that we hold that once a person is considered to be in a certain condition, there are no decrees at all on his medication. He could take any medication without any... A massage that people give to those who need energy brings back their strength and takes away their tiredness. That is not a good thing, and I'm not sure whether giving a massage is forbidden or not. We hold that if your only purpose is to give yourself strength, but not to heal, like with a vitamin, that's allowed.

And the last Mishnah in the daf (page): you're not allowed to press on a baby's stomach to get the excrement out, because if you do, you may come to give the baby some kind of medication that's going to loosen his bowels. Ma'am Zion asks a question: “I thought a baby is considered to be in that condition, so you're allowed to do it if you are...” But pressing on his stomach isn't included in this. He could really get it out himself, and therefore this isn't something that's absolutely necessary. But in general, a child is considered a sick person for whom medication is allowed. And this will conclude today's daf.