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     In 2003, TV news programs showed us the Chinese people wearing surgical masks going about their daily routines.  Masked?  Yes, to avoid contracting SARS.  Yet, an medical doctor in our community told me that more emphasis should be given to the frequent washing of hands through the day, which would be more effective in stopping the spread of SARS.  Masks and washing!
     In Exodus chapter 24 (Old Testament) God extended a covenant to ancient Israel.  The 10 commandments and over 600 other commandments constituted the law code commonly called the Old Testament, which was also the entire covenant between God and Israel.  This law code governed every aspect of Israel’s life.  In the books of Leviticus, chapters 13-15 and Numbers, chapter19 (Old Testament), state some laws of sanitation.  Although these appear to be ceremonial laws, close examination reveals that washing hindered the spread of leprosy and contamination from handling the dead.  Numbers 19:18, instructs a clean person to take hyssop and water and sprinkle it on everything/ everybody that was contaminated.  .S. I. McMillen, MD, wrote in “None of These Diseases,” “...wet branches of hyssop were used to shower soapy water on the unclean person.  Most authorities believe hyssop refers to a type of marjoram plant.”  The oil of marjoram contains about 50% carvacrol which is almost identical to thymol, an antifungal and anti-bacterial agent still used in medical practice.
     Ironically, the simple sanitation principle of washing was not practiced by the modern world until scientifically discovered by Austrian Doctor Semmelweiss in the 1840s.  He observed that one in six women died of fever in the maternity ward.  His contemporaries thought the women died of poison in the air or from fear, but he disagreed.  The hospital was co-located with a medical school, where the medical students’ first daily task was to perform autopsies on those who died the previous day.  Immediately following the autopsies, they tended to the women in the maternity ward.  Dr. Semmelweiss reasoned they must be transmitting pollution from the dead bodies.  So he directed all personnel to wash their hands before tending each patient.  As a result the death rate dropped to one in 42 in the first month and one in 84 in subsequent months.  American doctors did not accept this practice until the 1890s...or have they?  The Readers Digest (Feb 2003), in bold headlines states “About 50% of doctors and nurses do not clean their hands between patients.”
     Moses, who had been reared in the Egyptian Pharaoh’s palace, thus had the best education (Acts 7:21- 22, New Testament), wrote the books of Leviticus and Numbers 3500 years ago.  Although Egypt was the world’s medical authority, nowhere in the available Egyptian literature do we see this fundamental principle of sanitation.  Thus we ask, how did Moses know to write the prescription of washing after touching anything that was diseased or dead?  Mere chance or inspiration by God?

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