April 29 The Dirty Hand Won

April 29

The Dirty Hand Won

1Ti 6:20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: 

Within 14 days of being forced into an insane asylum he would be dead. The official records said he caught an infection from a cut on his hand. Unofficially the cause of death was the guards beating him bloody. Either way he died from a septicaernia infection.

The tragic thing is he was not insane, but people thought his extreme medical methods were so outrageous they had to be the work of an insane man. Who was he and what did he do?

Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor in early 1800. He worked in the Allegemeine Krakenhaus (hospital) in Vienna. Women who were maternity patients died at a disturbing rate. In April, 57 women died. Dr Semmelweis had seen a pattern and thought he knew why so many women died.

When a woman died she was wheeled into the autopsy room. Each morning the Dr.’s and their students examined the women who had died and then went to the maternity ward and did pelvic exams. No one bothered to wash their hands.

Dr. Semmelweis was in charge of the ward and set up a policy that the Dr.’s and students all had to wash their hands after the autopsy exams. The death rate fell into single digits.

But then one day 11 of 12 women in a row died. Semmelweis surmised that something had been spread between the living women and then required Dr.’s to wash their hands after every patient.

That was way too much for the staff to put up with. They complained long and loud and Dr. Semmelweis was removed from the hospital. So he went back to Budapest, his home and finally found a job in the hospital there.

Again the death rate was similar to hospitals throughout Europe.  One in six women died. His hand washing policy had the same results as in Vienna. It worked and he was scorned.

So he decided to write a book and explain why hand washing was so essential. Now Dr.’s in hospital all over were upset with him. Frustrated and haunted by so many unnecessary deaths he began writing letters, which grew angrier and called hospital and Dr.’s murderers. Finally even his family concluded he was insane and had him committed.

But Moses would not have thought he was nuts. Washing your hands after dealing with dead people was a Biblical requirement nearly 4000 years before Dr. Semmerweis.   

Nu 19:11  He that toucheth the dead body of any man

shall be unclean seven days. 

Nu 19:22 And whatsoever the unclean person

toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul that

toucheth it shall be unclean until even. 

Nu 19:19 …and on the seventh day he shall purify

himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself

in water, and shall be clean at even.

In the book of Leviticus it mentions using running water for washing.

Le 15:13 And when he that hath an issue is cleansed

of his issue; then he shall number to himself seven

days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes,

and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean.

If you browse through Numbers 19 and Leviticus 15 you will see some effective ways to stop the spread of germs. But the science of 1800 did not recognize germs. It would be several years until Louis Pasteur was able to develop a scientific proof that things called germs actually existed. Even then his “Germ Theory” was not universally understood or accepted. It was applied in some cases and not others.

As late as 1910 efforts to get New York City child care workers to wash their hands resulted in Dr.’s complaining to the Mayor that such practices would ruin medicine by keeping too many babies well!

Have we learned anything yet?  The New England Journal of Medicine did a study of intensive care units and found in spite of continual training and oversight hand washing rates was as low as 30% and never exceeded 48%.

Ro 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise,

they became fools,

Our meditation for today is not about hand washing! All the above is to show how the foolishness of men is nearly incurable. The Bible contains some information which modern science is still learning. Some of the material in our meditation for today came from Dr. S I McMillen’s book “None of these Diseases”.

Today let us be thankful for our Bible. Even in something like hand washing, the bible is accurate, beyond the knowledge of those who were recording the Word of God. How else can you explain all the prophecies, and scientific knowledge the Bible contains. No man could have foreseen such things, or understood things so contrary to the culture and knowledge of the time that God spoke to them.  

A second meditation for today is why are men so slow to accept the truth when it is presented to them? Even unsaved people could profit by following the wisdom in Proverbs.

Our world desperately needs to heed the scriptures. Not just in practical matters but in spiritual as well. May our lives be the example that helps the spiritually blind to see.

2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: