SOME DISEASES MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE. 267 



worse thing happen to thee," seems to indicate that his 

 disease was due to an immoral hfe; a not improbable circum- 

 stance. To another palsied person whom He healed at 

 Capernaum our Lord said " thy sins be forgiven thee," as if 

 his disease also was the result of wrong living. The writer 

 has known similar cases which were certainly caused, at least 

 partially, in this way. 



The woman mentioned in Luke xiii., 11, who " had a spirit 

 of infirmity eighteen years and was bowed together and 

 could in no wise lift up herself," was probably suffering from 

 the result of chronic inflammation of the bones of the spine, 

 such as may not infrequently be seen in our own country. 

 It occurs more especially in delicate people who stoop much 

 at their daily work. Farm labourers are peculiarly liable to 

 it as they grow old. 



The " crookbackt " person of Lev. xxi., 20, may have 

 suffered in this way, or may have had destructive disease of 

 the vertebral bones, or been born a " hunchback." 



10. Pestilence and Plague are frequently mentioned in the 

 Bible, and in some instances the two terms are used as synony- 

 mous (1 Chron. xxi., 14, 22). Four out of the five Hebrew 

 words triinslated plague are from roots signifying to strike, like 

 the English word plague from plaga an d ttXijji]. The disease to 

 which this term is now restricted (in so far as it has reference 

 to disease) is the terrible "bubo-plague " or ''Oriental plague," 

 which has been known for many centuries in Egypt and 

 Syria, and was perhaps known in the time of the Exodus. 

 But there is nothing to show whether the plagues of the 

 Bible were of this kind. That with which the Israelites were 

 punished after eating the quails (Num. xi., 31, et seq.) may 

 not improbably have been caused by the flesh of those birds 

 having become poisonous from their feeding on some 

 poisonous food. Pliny refers to this danger from eating 

 quails. Or it may have been that the flesh had undergone 

 some septic change which led to the formation of compounds 

 {ptomaines) very deleterious when eaten. Isolated cases of 

 this sort occur in our day, especially with tinned provisions. 

 If this great mortality may thus be referred to known and 

 secondary causes, this does not in the least throw doubt 

 on its having been inflicted by the hand of Jehovah 

 Himself. 



The question naturall}'- arises whether cholera may not 

 have been one of the forms of pestilence mentioned ? We 

 do not know. There is nothing to indicate such a disease. 



