Nedarim 40: More on Visiting the Ill, Immersion

We are told that visiting the ill is a particularly important mitzvah.  What happens if we don't visit people who are ill?  Why would we stop ourselves from visiting those who are ill?  Today's daf is enlightening regarding how our ancestors understood illness, how they lived, and how they died.

Through stories and proofs, we learn that a person who was not visited, like Rav Chalbo, might be living in a windowless, small, dusty room.  The kindness offered by visitors might include sweeping and sprinkling water on the dirt floor and similarly airing out the dusty space.  Apparently the poor are equated with those who are ill.  Is this because those who were poor had little access to the conditions that would offer good health?  Or did those who were privileged, like Talmud scholars, believe that those who were poor were ill?

To be counted as performing the mitzvah, visiting the ill must happen while sitting, looking into the face of the person suffering, below them to inspire their self-prayer.  Visitors should not arrive within the first three hours of the day, when the ill person seems well, for that might suggest that s/he needs no prayer.  And they should not arrive within the last three hours of the day, when suffering is so intense that prayer seems worthless.  Thus increased prayer is one of the purposes of visiting the ill.

The rabbis then discuss other arguments shared by Ravin in Rav's name.  The conversation turns to ritual immersion and the practices of Shmuel and others.  Mats were used to ensure that his daughters  were allowed to fully immerse in the Euphrates.  Or, perhaps those mats were used vertically to provide privacy during immersion in such a public place.