THE BIBLE AND HEALTH
From the very earliest times religious legislation has proved an
extremely important factor for health. The book of Leviticus, one of
the very oldest religious documents that we have, contains a sanitary
code which is a marvel of completeness in its prescriptions for the
maintenance of health and the prevention of disease. It anticipates
most of the modern discoveries in this matter and the faithful keeping
of its regulations has made the Jew the powerful personal factor that
he has been so often in history, notwithstanding the fact that he
belonged to a despised subject race. The orthodox Jew has kept his
health in spite of the unfavorable conditions in which he was placed
much better on the average than the Gentiles around him, and it is for
that reason that his nation has been preserved. It would have seemed
almost impossible for a people treated so badly as they were, crowded
into unhealthy ghettos, often in the lowest and most insanitary parts
of the towns, with no municipal care exercised for their
health--except when it was feared that epidemics might spread from
them to the Gentiles---to have maintained themselves for all these
centuries; but they have not only survived but have been the most
vigorous of people, at all times full of initiative and readiness to
work far beyond the average of humanity.
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The sanitary code of the Jewish people which is contained in the Old
Testament is one of the greatest triumphs of sanitary legislation that
the world has ever known. Doctor Alexander Rattray, in his volumes on
"Divine Hygiene, Sanitary Science and Sanitarians of the Sacred
Scriptures and Mosaic Code", [Footnote 17] has brought this out very
clearly. The Scriptural motto of his work, "That Thy way might be
known upon earth; Thy saving health among all nations", is an
excellent text for what he has to say. With regard to the sanitary
code of the Hebrews, as compared with other ancient documents in
sanitation. Doctor Rattray says:
[Footnote 17: London, 1903.]
"Indeed, contrasted with the teachings of modern times, the
comprehensiveness and sufficiency of the rules and cardinal points
comprised in the Hebrew Sanitary Code, primitive in time but not in
practice; ancient, but not antiquated and obsolete; comprising a
treasure of infallible truth, which is the admiration of all
experts; and altogether so remarkable as to be comparable to, if
indeed they do not surpass both in literary style and professional
excellence, extracts from the best modern works on hygiene. So that
savants, notwithstanding their increased anatomical and
physiological knowledge, the accumulation of ages and the result of
modern enlightenment and civilization, bringing with them vastly
improved facilities for medical study, professional experience in
hospitals and communities, may still quote his model work with
approval; sit with advantage at the feet of the Jewish sage; and
learn in language as concise and forcible as that of the best modern
thinkers, not only the great base facts, but even many of the less
important minutiae of the art and science which they {308} study; if
they would not continue to despise this authority because he is a
Hebrew; ignore his work because it is Asiatic; slight the book in
which it is found because it is not a rare, costly and abstruse
volume; spurn instruction on a scientific subject because it comes
from a Biblical source; and neglect the ready-made and divinely
inspired code because it is ancient and a non-professional
publication."
The question of the place that this health legislation of the Bible
has in medical history is worth noting, for it makes very clear that
it was no mere human development but something divine. Doctor Rattray
said:
"Moses was no doubt learned in the medicine and surgery of that era,
and could at least have taught his old Egyptian teachers, both
theoretically and practically, especially in sanitary matters, a
science of which they knew little, as the germ thought of preventive
medicine had not then been begotten. But it was not to be his role
to indoctrinate the Jews and Mankind in the least important sanatory
or healing branch of medicine, but rather to initiate its higher and
most philosophical department, the sanitary or disease preventing.
And to shew both by precept and practice that this is the most
philosophic and wisest policy to pursue regarding physical health,
as it also is in moral, social and spiritual matters. Part of his
beneficent and Divinely inspired mission was to inculcate in those
early days the lesson popularly taught in modern times by the trite
yet true proverb, 'prevention is better than cure': and to
illustrate it on the Israelites; to shew that its scope is not only
of private but of national, nay racial, import; and applicable not
only to his day, but all-time: although grievously neglected in past
ages even by medical men. From its {309} Biblical study does not
medical science thereby appear in a new light, and come in the garb
of one of the most incontrovertible aids to human faith in the
veracity of Holy Writ; the truth of Scripture as the inspired word
of the Almighty; God's medical message to Man, sent in His own
method, at His own time, and by servants of His own choosing?
"The Sinaitic or so-called 'Mosaic' code and its hygienic sub-code,
more ancient by five or six hundred years than Esculapius and the
earliest human medical records, was not written and interpolated by
any modern or medieval medical sage, but is as Moses says, an
emanation of his era. And yet, as he himself affirms, it was not his
conception, but strictly and entirely Divine in elaboration,
codification, and delivery to humanity. Its true Author and Deviser
was Jehovah, and Moses merely its earthly recipient, editor and
human expounder and applier. For this most important educational
information we are indebted to God's Holy Bible, and to that alone.
What was the supernal object of the Code? It was humanitarian and
tuitional."
The English physician discusses the origin of this code
of laws and traces it to divine interposition:
"Viewed apart from its source, the Hebrew Health Code is an
anachronism. And it must be evident that Moses was not a
semi-barbarous Jew, but either a secularly scientific or an inspired
man. And if we cannot accept the former hypothesis, and think it
unlikely that imparted information and unaided intellect could have
originated this consummate production; then we must avow the latter
conviction, that he was truly 'a man of God.' But was the sanitary
code that goes by his name, or styled the 'Sinaitic', his conception
or not? This {310} question Moses himself answers indirectly and
often; and takes no credit for but disclaims it. Assuredly Moses was
not only a man of science and the foremost sanitarian of his own or
any other age; but also a man gifted by his Maker with the faculty
to discover and appreciate not only the great fundamental facts and
elements, but also many of the more important minutiae of private,
public, and national sanitation. Still he takes no credit for the
sanitary utterances of the Pentateuch or even says or hints at their
being partly, chiefly or wholly self-generated; and his own unaided
creation; or that we are purely indebted for them to the genius of
their practical expounder. Over and over again he insists and
reiterates that they are solely heaven-sent and of Divine origin.
Nay, more, what he says appears to suggest that his sanitary code
was a premeditated and authoritative emanation, which in its
elaboration probably occupied more years than any work that has
since been handed down to posterity. In early times medical
treatises were more slowly elaborated than now; and swayed only by
the double patriotism of zeal for his Master and loyalty to his
people, Moses had no need to give hasty and incomplete work to the
world. In the desert he would have ample time to write his book of
the law and the early story of Man and the Earth leisurely. From the
Holy Bible alone we glean the great base facts about the Mosaic Law
and its Hygienic portion. Here we learn, and by Moses' own
handwriting, that he was not their author, but Jehovah Himself; that
Moses only gave or wrote the law as averred by the Saviour (John,
vii. 19); therefore, that it is Divine and inspired. Moses was
merely its earthly recipient and transcriber and applicant. This
great fact practically {311} attested by over two millions of
Hebrews, who heard the Voice of God delivering the Decalogue at
Sinai, materially enhances the value of the bequest, as its supernal
nature and origin attests its truth and infallibility. This great
honour reserved for Moses, and the culminating fact in his earth
history, stamps his character and place in history. Taught by the
Divinity as no other man has yet been, Moses thus became Earth's
greatest sanitarian and the Deity's ambassador and mouthpiece to Man
in sanitary as in many other matters. What Moses wrote was revealed.
He penned as he was inspired and wrote what Jehovah dictated in the
Holy of Holies. Moses himself attests this, and thus wholly
disclaims the authorship. Chapter after chapter begins thus, 'And
the Lord said' (Leviticus, xvii). And thus the Hebrew leader and
sage, as has been recorded by his successor Joshua, himself 'full of
the spirit of wisdom' (Deuteronomy, xxxiv. 9), fully deserves this
record, 'there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses
whom the Lord knew face to face' (Deuteronomy, xxxiv. 10-11)."
The distinction between the meats allowed to the Hebrews and those not
allowed remains down to the present day an extremely valuable canon of
preventive medicine. The carnivorous animals were not to be eaten and
were declared unclean. They are, as modern science has abundantly
shown, much more likely to be the subject of parasites of various
kinds than are the herbivorous animals. Any animal that died of itself
or had been torn by beasts was not to be eaten, and this was an
extremely wise provision, for those that had died were very likely to
be the subject of serious disease, while those torn by wild animals,
if they did not perish at once were likely to have pyemia or
septicemia set in in their wounds, {312} while if they had been killed
at once and their bodies had been exposed for any length of time in
the open air, they were likely to become the subject of serious
putrefactive changes from the growth of bacteria in them. Any of these
processes were likely to make the meat toxic, and the one safeguard
was prohibition of their consumption. The Hebrews were not allowed to
take the blood of animals, hence the necessity for having cattle
butchered in their own way so that it might be _kosher_, and it is
interesting to realize that this prohibition probably meant much for
the prevention of disease. Meat that is well drained of blood keeps
longer than that which contains the tissue fluids, and it has come to
be felt that the protection of the Hebrews to a considerable extent
against tuberculosis, so that their death rate from this disease is
much lower than that of other races living under similar
circumstances, is perhaps due to their abstinence from blood according
to their law. They were forbidden to eat many of the fats, and this
was hygienic in general, for the fat is a sluggish tissue and may
contain parasites; but above all this was important for preventing the
Hebrews from eating such an amount of fat as would make them obese and
sluggish. The orthodox Jews of the present time who fail to keep this
prohibition as to fat are weighted down with a load of surplus fatty
tissue that takes away from their activity and shortens their lives.
Obesity has certain relations directly with diabetes which also makes
this fat prohibition of significance, and as the Jew is probably more
subject to diabetes than most of those living in similar circumstances
there is here another index of the value of this Mosaic law which
prevented pathological tendencies of several kinds that now make
themselves manifest.
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The greatest weight was placed upon keeping food materials covered
from the air, and the use of liquids kept in vessels that were
uncovered is forbidden, as is likewise the eating of fruit with open
moist cracks. It has often been said in modern times that the paring
of fruits, when unbroken, constitutes the best possible safeguard
against spoiling, and many have the feeling that this fact was
discovered or its significance properly recognized only since we have
been studying fermentation and putrefaction. It was known long ago,
however. It was recognized also that food materials should not be
handled except with the greatest precautions and that those who
prepared them should practice careful cleansing. These regulations
undoubtedly had much to do with the prevention of the spread of the
infectious diseases. We have learned in recent years that cooks have
had much to do with the spread of the intestinal infections, and we
now recognize the need of the meticulous precautions on which Moses
insisted. The place of the hands in conveying disease was emphasized
very much, as for instance by Jewish writers who insisted on the rule
that coins should never be placed in the mouth because they had been
handled by so many people.
We have now come to appreciate this thoroughly, after having suspected
for some time that the hands have more to do with the conveyance of
contagion in many diseases than almost any other factor. A series of
experiments made upon young sailors in the United States service after
the Armistice was signed and when the "flu" was at its height
demonstrated almost beyond doubt that influenza cannot be conveyed by
breathing or coughing into the faces of others, nor in any way through
the air. Most army surgeons came to the {314} conclusion, therefore,
that the mode of conveyance of the disease was by the hands, which in
handling food and in touching the mouth and nose transmitted
infectious material which had been gathered in various ways. It is
interesting then to realize that the Jewish law insisted on careful
cleansing of the hands before eating and on not touching the mouth or
nose before the hands were washed in the morning, and that the
Talmudic writings emphasized these regulations as regards the
cleansing of the hands. They required that the finger nails, when
pared, should be burnt. Some of the Talmudists suggested that if water
could not be obtained gloves should be worn while eating, which would
recall the use of surgical gloves in modern times, for the surgeons
learned long since that the hands were by far the most dangerous media
for the transmission of infection.
Some years ago Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, one of the most
distinguished of the English physicians of the latter half of the
nineteenth century, pointed out that the records showed a very marked
difference in the health and death rate of the Jews living in various
cities of Great Britain as compared to their Gentile neighbors, and
always in favor of the Jews. Other statistics gathered later in the
nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth emphasize the
fact that there is manifestly something which enables the Jew to
resist disease and maintain health under circumstances where the
people around him suffer much more severely than he does. For
instance, in Manchester the average annual death rate for three years
in the two Jewish districts was over eight in one and over nine in the
other below the death rate per thousand of the whole city. The two
Jewish districts are among the worst slums of Manchester, yet {315}
not only do they exhibit a much lower death rate, but the morbidity
statistics show that there is less sickness among the Jews from all
the serious infectious diseases than among the Gentiles. They had a
higher morbidity rate than all the other parts of the city for
erysipelas, pyemia, and puerperal fever, showing that they were
subjected to the influence of dirt and septic contagion, but in
everything else they were much lower in the sickness rate than their
neighbors. They had only about one half as many premature births,
their children suffered from only half as many convulsions and
scarcely more than half as much from diarrhea and dysentery.
The children in the Jewish districts proved to be particularly capable
of resisting disease and their death rate is distinctly lower. The
diarrheic diseases of childhood are practically all due to improper
feeding, and the saving of children's lives in the unsanitary Jewish
districts where poverty stalks abroad so openly is due to the more
healthy feeding of the infants, but above all to the mother's very
careful care of them. The Jewish mother is, by age-long tradition, an
absolutely unselfish caretaker of her children. When they are ailing
her devotion is constant, and nothing is too much for her to do. No
wonder that she saves more of her children than the Gentile mothers
around her. It is because of the presence of the Jewish mothers in New
York and Boston that our Boards of Health have come upon the startling
discovery that the foreign-born mother in this country raises one in
seven more of her children than does the native-born mother. The
reason, of course, for this is maternal devotion and readiness to
sacrifice herself in any and every way for the sake of her children.
At least twice as many of these foreign mothers--and among {316} these
of course every orthodox Jewish mother who can possibly do it--nurse
their children, and that is by far the most important factor in
securing the survival of children beyond the first year.
The Jews have been particularly careful for the lives of their infant
children both before and after birth. It is considered a disgrace for
a Jewish mother to have a premature birth, for it is felt that some
blame attaches to the mother. As for the prevalent practice of
abortion, there is almost none of it among the poor Jewish
populations, and none at all until their orthodox Jewry begins to
break down under the influence of contact with their Gentile
neighbors. Human life is a very sacred thing to the orthodox Jew, and
no matter how small or insignificant that life may be it has all the
qualities of humanity for him and appeals to his protection. The
solicitude of the Jewish mother for her children has been the subject
of poet and painter all down the ages and is to be found as well
developed and as strikingly manifest in the slums of the large cities
of the west where it is so extremely difficult of exercise as it was
in the Jewish towns of the olden time.
In Leeds, toward the end of the nineteenth century, there were some
fifteen thousand Jews, the great majority of them belonging to the
very poorest class. Most of them lived in the central ward of the
city. As pointed out by Doctor Porritt in "Religion and Health", "that
ward, one of the most squalid in Leeds, had a death rate lower than
that of the whole city, the statistical records for which show all the
advantages derived from the healthier or better class districts."
In London itself, in Whitechapel and Mile End, which were principally
occupied by Jews, the death rates were only 18.5 and 19.3 per thousand
of population, while in {317} the neighboring districts of Limehouse
and St. George, where there were many fewer Jews--Limehouse being
practically without them--the death rates were respectively 23 and
24.6 per thousand. There was distinctly less morbidity from the
infectious diseases in the Jewish districts, there being actually more
than one fourth more in Limehouse than in Mile End on the average, and
the infantile death rates were much lower among the Jews in spite of
the fact that most of them were immigrants who had led very hard and
anxious lives before settling in London and since coming had to work
under unwonted, exceedingly unsanitary conditions, in a climate to
which they were not as yet accustomed.
In other countries besides England the mortality and morbidity
statistics favor the Jew even more strikingly than in England. In
Frankfurt (on Main), as pointed out by Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson,
where the influence of the Jewish ghetto still made itself felt about
the middle of the nineteenth century and Jews were herded together
under restricted regulations that would seem inevitably prone to hurt
their health, they had as a matter of fact ever so much better health
than the Gentiles around them. The average duration of life among the
Jews was forty-eight years and nine months. Among all other classes it
was thirty-six years and eleven months. More than half of the Jews
reached fifty years of age, while scarcely more than one third of the
other classes lived up to that. During the first five years of life
Jewish children died at the rate of about thirteen per cent while
Gentile children died at the rate of a little more than twenty-four
per cent. One fourth of the Jewish population attained the age of
seventy; one fourth of the rest of the inhabitants lived to be less
than sixty.
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In Furth the tenacity of life among the Jews could be noted at all
ages. Of the Jewish children from one to five years ten per cent died,
but among the rest of the population the infant mortality of the same
age was fourteen per cent. At every stage of life Jewish mortality was
lower until past the age of sixty, when, owing to the greater number
of Jews who reached advanced age, the ratio was inverted. The number
of Jews who lived to be above eighty and even ninety is strikingly
larger than among the Gentiles. In Prussia, Legoit found that the
average life of the Jew is greater than that of the Gentile by at
least five years. The mortality among the population of the whole
kingdom was a little over two and one half per hundred, while among
the Jews it was only one and one half per hundred. The population in
Prussia is increasing annually at the rate of one and one third per
hundred among non-Jews, but at the rate of nearly one and three
fourths among the Jews. The ordinary population requires fifty-one
years to double itself, but the Jews require only forty-one and a half
years for the same progression.
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, by a comparison of the ages of two
thousand five hundred Jews buried in London in three years with the
mortality of the whole population of London at different ages, found
that under five years of age forty-four Jews died to forty-five
non-Jews; from thirty-five to forty-five years of age, five Jews died
to every eight non-Jews; and it was not until the age of eighty-five
was reached that the ratio was reversed and two Jews were buried to
every one non-Jew, there being considerably more than twice as many
non-Jews alive at that age to supply the bodies for the burial.
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