Leprosy

We're going to read enough about leprosy that we might as well learn why it was such a feared disease in the ancient world, and what eventually made it go away. Most of what I will reference will come from the Wikipedia entry, which you can view if you wish.

I had forgotten this, but the formal name for leprosy is Hansen's disease, not because Norwegian physician Gerhard Hansen discovered the disease, but proved in the late 1800s that it was caused by exposure to the Mycobacterium leprae bacteria. It is a disease of the skin (a dramatic oversimplification, but I won't bore you with the details) and if left untreated, can lead to numbness of the extremities, which, if left unchecked, can result in tissue loss. The primary mode of transmission is from person to person in respiratory droplets, which makes it highly contagious. The ease of transmission is why leper colonies still exist to this day, and why lepers were and are ostracized and separated from the rest of their communities.

Today, leprosy is easily treated with a multiple antibiotic regimen. The primary reason for any leprosy today is due to poor living standards, and pockets of leprosy still exist in Third World countries. It is a disease virtually unheard of in the United States, and what cases do present typically confound physicians because they're so unfamiliar with it.

But that's modern-day leprosy. Today's reading describes the measures to be taken with lepers in the Israelite camp, and these measures are pure common sense when viewed through the backdrop of modern disease prevention. As I wrote in a previous entry, large camps like this were easy targets for any contagious disease, particularly one that could spread through airborne vectors. When two million or so people are camped in tight quarters, it can be decimated by disease in short order, particularly in the pre-antibiotic era. 

As we read the various rules for the people of Israel, try to separate your current knowledge from what was known then. Fairly easily, you will find that God was caring for the people and keeping them safe, and they didn't know why, nor would they had understood it. God doesn't give much explanation as to WHY they needed to follow the law, only THAT they had to. Has that really changed at all?

Scott