Medical Ignorance Exposed

Reading:   Leviticus 14-15

And now, as promised two blog days ago, is the great and wondrous chapter on fighting infection.  Keep in mind that the instruction given here was way before its time in terms of medical understanding and yet the guidelines, if followed today, would be deemed medically appropriate...

LEVITICUS 15:2-7

2    Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man hath a running issue out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean. 

3    And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue: whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is his uncleanness. 

4    Every bed, whereon he lieth that hath the issue, is unclean: and every thing, whereon he sitteth, shall be unclean. 

5    And whosoever toucheth his bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. 

6 And he that sitteth on any thing whereon he sat that hath the issue shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. 

7    And he that toucheth the flesh of him that hath the issue shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. 

For those among you that may be a bit confused, as I was, no shame, the term "even" means "evening."  So any contact with the patient, or contact with anything that has been around the patient, requires the priest to cleanse himself and his clothes and keep clear of others till evening.  Come on now, you must admit that this is pretty cool.  Moses and Aaron were given concise guidelines to abate the spread of infection thousands of years before doctors understood the importance of cleanliness.  Even as recent as the Civil War, doctors were moving from one patient to the next without washing their hands or sterilizing their tools - insane!

In the Saturday morning session of the 1992 General Conference, Russell M. Nelson (a heart surgeon, so he knows what he is talking about) gave an awesome talk, Where is Wisdom:

 Mankind's unfamiliarity with the scriptures has sometimes brought sorrow to great numbers of people over long periods of time. The suffering that has resulted from such ignorance is truly tragic. May I illustrate with excerpts from history that pertain to the spread of infection. 

 In the nineteenth century, health officials and others were concerned about pollution of the air, not by visible smoggy hydrocarbons of today, but by an invisible miasma that was blamed for almost any infection. In 1867, for example, Lord Lister indicted bad air as the chief cause of infection. (J. Lister, "On a New Method of Treating Compound Fracture, Abscess, etc., with Observations on the Conditions of Suppuration," Lancet, 1 (1867): 326.) Because of that, in 1869 Simpson from Edinburgh urged that hospitals be taken down and rebuilt every few years. (J. Y. Simpson, "Our Existing System of Hospitalism and Its Effects," Edinburgh Medical Journal, 14 (1869): 817.) Such an extravagant practice was also advocated by other experts. (L. A. Stimson, "Bacteria and Their Influence upon the Origin and Development of Septic Complications of Wounds," New York Medical Journal, 22 (1875): 144.) 

 Even Florence Nightingale, a living legend following her heroic efforts in the Crimean War, failed to recognize the transmission of infection from one patient to another-this despite her careful notations that wound infection accounted for 40 percent of postoperative mortality. (See Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1913), 1:352-438.) 

 But others missed the connection, too. For centuries, lives of innumerable mothers and children were claimed by "childbirth fever"-infections unknowingly transmitted among the innocent by unwashed hands of attendants. (See Ignaz Philipp Semmelweiss, Die Aetiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers, reprinted from 1861 ed. (New York: Johnson Reprint Co., 1966), pp. 102-13.) 

 It was only a short century ago that the great work of Koch, Pasteur, and others proved that infection could be caused by bacteria in contaminated body fluids-or infected issues-passed from one individual to another.  

With these highlights of history in mind, may I quote the word of the Lord recorded long ago in Leviticus, chapter fifteen: 

Nelson quotes the verses I have noted above and then continues...

 Several verses follow which re-emphasize and illustrate those important principles. Then we read this conclusion: 

 "And when he that hath an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall ... wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean." (Lev. 15:13.) 

 Thus, our loving Heavenly Father had clearly revealed principles of clean technique in the handling of infected patients more than three thousand years ago! These scriptures are in complete harmony with modern medical guidelines. (See Isolation Techniques for Use in Hospitals (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1970), p. 9.) But during those many millennia, how many mothers needlessly perished? How many children suffered because man's quest for knowledge had failed to incorporate the word of the Lord? 

No way I'm going to try and follow that - thank you Dr. Apostle Nelson!

~Kipling