By 1853 there were so many mines laid around Russia that the Allied Fleet supporting the troops in the Crimea was forced to anchor its medical supply ship at Balaklava where it was destroyed by a hurricane on 13 November. The 7,000-ton medical cargo went down to the bottom leaving the British troops to an unimaginable winter of pneumonia, starvation and dysentery.
Florence Nightingale and 38 other nurses who had arrived in the Crimea one week earlier suddenly found out how bad the medical services really were. “British military doctors recommended smoking or else growing a moustache (to filer the germs). In one recovery area, 1,000 men suffering from diarrhoea shared twenty chamber pots. In the hospitals the patients underwent operations on the floors covered with blood and their wounds often not dressed for five weeks. The hospital mortality rate was close to 50%. By the end of the war, of the 18,058 British casualties, nine out of ten died from disease.”[1]
This seems to us today as unimaginable and certainly unacceptable. It was part of the glorious mystique of the once famous British Empire – not published! I expect the doctors suggested smoking to calm the shattered nerves of the shattered wounded, but a moustache to filter germs seems ridiculous. No doubt those with beards would live for ever?
According to recent research we are now a pill-popping nation with prescriptions for antidepressants, drugs for obesity rising nine-fold in ten years. Increasingly people are turning to drugs to combat numerous ills that self-control could cure. The number of prescriptions for antidepressants rose by 78% in 10 years to nearly 36 million in 2008 which is over half the population costing 45 million pounds. Go back 130 years and witness the diabolical conditions of those unfortunate soldiers who would have given anything for some relief, antidepressants or not.
There have been great advances in medical science and the knowledge of disease in the last century and its treatment, but mankind has deteriorated in many other ways. It has become drug-dependant for normal living. However, thinking back I wonder if we could grow a spiritual moustache that would filter out sin, what a benefit that would be, except the women would have a hard time, although not all of them. As we look to the future is there anything that Doctor Carr can recommend to stave off that inevitable infection of succumbing to temptation and developing the runny nose of a guilty conscience?
Perhaps there is, but it can’t be bought at chemists. There is no over-the-counter pill or syrup that can cure this malady but there is a medical textbook that both diagnoses the cause and recommends a cure. It is the Bible, which is the best medical textbook in the world, written by over 40 experts all qualified to speak with authority about sin, which is the worst killer germ known to mankind. Here’s a moustache that will help filter the germs from many in the months ahead.
“Walk in the light as He is in the light . . .”[2] It is known that light kills disease. Improve the light and increase the health. Light can fall on a refuse tip and not be contaminated but conversely can help purify. Walking in the light is an attitude developed by obeying God’s truth. An athlete who has programmed their muscles can respond instantly to a demand suddenly placed upon their body. Likewise those who walk in the light (obey God’s truth encapsulated in the scripture) can respond in any given situation where danger looms unexpectedly.
We can pick up infections through shaking hands as people pass on their germs because they have handled their face. Touching people in God can, at time, be dangerous, if we are not protected by the Living Word that puts a vaccine in our souls alerting the defence mechanism of sanctification into operation. When visiting hospitals it is recommended that people use the alcohol-based fluid set by every entrance to wash their hands before visiting and after leaving the ward.
Avidly read the Bible and imbibe the truths, hold the principles, live the promises and obey the covenant. Let the Bible give us the clue: “How can a young man (woman) cleanse (keep healthy) his (her) way? By taking heed according to Your word.”[3]
[1] Scientific American page 86 article by James Burke called Connections.
[2] 1 John 1:7
[3] Psalm 119:9
