The First Book Of Public Hygiene
by David Wise on December 1, 2003

Originally published in Creation 26, no 1 (December 2003): 52-55.

The nuns at the Yambuku mission hospital were using five unsterilized needles to give injections to hundreds of people each day. Epidemiologists have concluded that this caused the outbreak.

On 28 September 1976, the following telegram was received at the World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva:

A SERIOUS EPIDEMIC OF NATURE STILL UNKNOWN IS GOING ON IN THE REGION OF TWO OF OUR PLANTATIONS IN BUMBA ZONE, YAMBUKU COLLECTIVITY. WE THINK IT POSSIBLE FULMINATING TYPHOID OR YELLOW FEVER. SAMPLES HAVE … BEEN SENT TO I.T.M. [Institute of Tropical Medicine] IN ANTWERP TO BE ANALYZED. WE WOULD BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THE DIAGNOSIS BY TELEX AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. IN THIS WAY, WE WILL BE ABLE TO ORGANIZE A CAMPAIGN OF VACCINATION FOR OUR EMPLOYEES.
SIGNED /
DR. BUSQUET, KINSHASA¹

This was the first information to come out of Zaïre (now Republic of the Congo) regarding the Ebola viral epidemic that killed hundreds of infected Africans living in and around the Yambuku hospital, near the headwaters of the Ebola River.²

The deadly African Ebola virus
Among the more deadly and incurable of viruses is the Ebola virus, named after the Ebola River region in the African Congo, where it was first identified. It has since been found elsewhere in Africa with the same deadly effects.

The onset of infection is accompanied by non-specific symptoms such as severe abdominal pains and diarrhoea. Soon the victim is bleeding from many orifices as internal organs liquefy.

Doctors suspect that the virus, which equally affects all primates, may have originated in rats. Strangely, some people are totally unaffected by the virus. Outbreaks come in waves and then seem to subside completely.

While research continues, little is known for certain of the virus’s origin and mechanisms of infection.

The nuns at the Yambuku mission hospital were using five unsterilized needles to give injections to hundreds of people each day. Epidemiologists have concluded that this caused the outbreak that occurred simultaneously in 55 villages surrounding the hospital.

The first to die were those who received the injections. Then the disease moved through families, killing mainly those who had prepared the dead for burial. It also swept through the hospital’s staff, killing nurses and midwives who had contact with patient blood and vomit. It is believed that the Ebola disease may have been transmitted through sexual contact as well.

Ebola is only one of a number of newly-emerging killer pathogens that are gaining a foothold throughout the world. Viral diseases such as Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, hantavirus and dengue are also striking panic and alarm worldwide. Old diseases that had been considered to be no longer health problems are re-emerging in importance. The jet plane and increasing international travel have created the situation in which someone with one of these diseases can travel around the world spreading it even before noticing any symptoms.³ What is worse, there is no cure or vaccine for many of these deadly diseases.

On the positive side, the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, provide tremendous insight and relief concerning disease prevention. Remarkably, the Pentateuch is regarded as the earliest evidence we have of sound public health and sanitary practices.⁴ These ancient writings, when used in conjunction with modern medicine, can break the mode of transmission of virtually every scourge known to humanity.

What follows is a brief summary of the biblical instructions pertaining to public health and sanitation. Bear in mind that these regulations were practiced some 3,500 years before the germ concept of disease was discovered (mainly by the creationist Louis Pasteur⁵)!