The doctor walked his rounds with a gas mask. And this gas mask was strange looking, to say the least. It was essentially a huge bird beak covering his face with the beak extending out about a foot. The beak was stuffed with fresh flowers and scents so that the bad smells he encountered on his rounds were suppressed.

Bad smell, you see, was thought to cause the Black Plague of the 14th Century which wiped out much of the world’s population, including one third of Europe. Many of the doctors who worked with the suffering wore such an apparatus. This was part of the long-lingering “miasmic theory” of contagious disease. “Bad air” was thought to be the problem. And the theory persisted right up until the late 19th century, through the industrial revolution, when many urban areas suffered horrible outbreaks of cholera and dysentery.

The miasmic theory of contagious disease was closely associated with the idea of “spontaneous generation”. The “bad air”, for example, from sewer gas and garbage fumes supposedly generated vermin, pestilence, and disease “spontaneously”!

So, millions of people continued to die from cholera outbreaks and other epidemics for many years because basic principles of water sanitation were ignored – principles that are spelled out in the Bible. The miasmic theory finally began to decline only when germ theory came to dominate after Louis Pasteur – the great Christian scientist – used the Scientific Method to famously disprove the fallacy of “spontaneous generation”. His experiments proved the primary biological law of Biogenesis in 1864 – it takes life, including germ life, to make life, including other germ life.

The Bible says do not drink from stagnant water nor let dead things come in contact with the water you use (Leviticus 11:33-36). It says not to defile yourself with things that die naturally (Leviticus 22:8). The Bible also tells us to wash sores and bodily issues in running water (Leviticus 15:13).

Hospitals of the early 19th century were not places to recover from disease. They were places of death. Incidents of mothers giving birth and then dying from bacterial blood poisoning were routine. And there were frequent outbreaks of blood poisoning in hospital birthing wards. But in 1844, Ignaz Semmelweis noticed this did not happen with midwives or in home births. Turned out that was because midwives were not allowed to perform autopsies, while hospital physicians were. And the physicians did not wash their hands between performing autopsies and delivering babies!

After Semmelweis had his doctors wash with chlorinated lime soap, mortality from blood poisoning was reduced by 99 percent in his ward. Yet the medical professionals of the day ridiculed and refused to accept his practices until after Louis Pasteur proved the germ theory. In fact, many doctors were offended that they should have to wash their hands!

To us today, this is amazing. But entrenched practices and pseudoscience can be a real stronghold in people and in society. And even though the Word of God may be clear, mankind tends to elevate his own reasoning above the clear reading of Scripture.

- Mark Cadwallader, Creation Moments Board Chairman

Photo:  A plague doctor and his typical apparel during the 17th-century outbreak. (PD) 617

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