2. Scientific Revelations in the Bible (7)

Hygiene is commonly understood as the prevention of infection and contagious diseases by cleanliness. We now consider good hygiene to be common sense, because we know bacteria and infectious diseases spread through physical contact and a wider spread can be prevented by simple techniques such as washing hands, clean food preparation, clean drinking water, burying human waste, burning infected items, avoiding contact with dead bodies, and so on.

This understanding is relatively new. Before the nineteenth century, the importance of hygiene was not appreciated by the Western world. In those days a hospital stay carried the significant risk of disease, as not even doctors would wash their hands between treatments.

A dramatic breakthrough was the work of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865), a Hungarian physician.  He is often referred to as the “Savior of Mothers” because in 1847 he discovered the incidence of childbed fever (puerperal fever, an infection of the mother’s genital tract shortly after birth) could be significantly reduced by simple hand-washing. This disease was common up to the mid-nineteenth century, with hospitals recording mortality rates as high as 35%! Even though Vienna General Hospital , where Semmelweis worked, saw mortality rates plummet from 18% to less than 1%, it was only much later that his work was recognized.  It was confirmed by Louis Pasteur’s germ theory and the invention of pasteurization in 1862.[20]

Many illustrations of bad hygiene and its deadly effects through history are available. One example is the spread of the Black Death (the plague) from 1347 to 1352. The plague is estimated to have killed as many as 60 million people in Europe in only five years.[21] A number estimated to be as high as half of Europe ’s population at that time. As the Black Death ravaged Europe , desperate people turned to the church for guidance. Returning to the laws of Moses, they instituted principles practiced by the Israelites for dealing with diseases such as leprosy, for handling of the dead and waste disposal, and for quarantine as described in Leviticus 13, 14, and 15. It is now understood that these procedures were essential to the control of this tragic epidemic.

Leprosy was far more common in the ancient world, even though there are still millions of lepers today. This disease is contagious during its active phase, but once the disease has run its course, the risk of contamination is over. As Leviticus 13:46 commands: “As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean.” However, after the infection is over, the person could come back into the camp. [22]

Once again, how could Moses have known this?