SWINE'S FLESH PKOHIBITED IN HOT CLIMATES. 23 



. In fact the hog was held in very high esteem among the early 

 nations of Europe, and some of the ancients have even paid it di- 

 vine honors. In the island of Crete it was regarded as sacred. 

 This animal was always sacrificed to Geres at the beginning of har- 

 vest, and to Bacchus at the commencement of the vintage, by the 

 Greeks ; probably, it has been suggested, " because this animal is 

 equally hostile to the growing corn and the ripening grape." 



The Jews, the Egyptians, and the followers of Mohammed, alone 

 appear to have abstained from it. To the former nation it is ex- 

 pressly forbidden by the laws of Moses. Leviticus xi. 7, says: 

 "And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven-footed, 

 yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean unto you." Mohammed 

 probably founded his prohibition on this one, or was induced, by 

 the prejudices of his followers, to make it. Numerous theories 

 have been advanced by different authors to account for this remark, 

 able prohibition uttered by Moses against a species of food generally 

 so wholesome and nutritious as the flesh of the hog. Maimonides 

 says : " The principal reason why the law prohibited the swine was, 

 because of their extreme filthiness, and their eating so many impu 

 rities ; for it is well known with what care and precision the law 

 forbids all filthiness and dirt, even in the fields and in the camp, not 

 to mention in the cities. Now, had swine been permitted, the 

 public places, and streets, and houses, would have been made nui- 

 sances." 



Tacitus states that the Jews abstained from it in consequence of a 

 leprosy by which they had formerly severely suffered, and to which 

 the hog is very subject. And several other writers concur in this 

 view, stating that it was on account of the flesh being strong, olea- 

 ginous, difficult of digestion, and liable to produce cutaneous diseases, 

 that it was forbidden. Michaelis observes, that throughout the whole 

 climate under which Palestine is situated, leprosy is an endemic 

 disease ; and the Israelites being overrun with it at the period of 

 their quitting Egypt, Moses found it necessary to enact a variety of 

 laws respecting it, and the prohibiting the use of swine was one of 

 these. Plutarch (de Iside) affirms that those who drank the milk 

 of swine became blotchy and leprous. 



M. Sonnini states that in Egypt, Syria, and even the southern 

 parts of Greece, swine's flesh, although white and delicate, is so 

 flabby and surcharged with fat, as to disagree with the strongest 

 stomachs, and this will account for its prohibition by the priests and 

 legislators of hot climates, such an abstinence being absolutely ne- 

 cessary to health beneath the burning suns of Egypt and Arabia. 

 " The Egyptians," he says, " were only allowed to eat pork once a 

 year, on the feast-day of the moon, and then they sacrificed a num 

 ber of these animals to that planet. If at any other time an Egyp. 

 ;ian even touched a hog, he was obliged to plunge into the Nile, 



