9/15/14
Early on Christians realized the connection between health
and hygiene. Girolamo Fracastoro, a very versatile student in the
sixteenth-century, began to investigate the spread of contagious diseases. In
the next century his work was continued by Thomas Sydenham. Ministers advocated
personal hygiene. It was John Wesley who said 'Cleanliness is, indeed, next to
Godliness.' The social activism of the Quakers is well-known, among them John
Fothergill who campaigned to eliminate social wrongs on grounds that they
undermined the health of the people. Another Quaker, John Howard, had a great
concern for prisons, where overcrowding and typhus were rife, and successfully
promoted two prison reform Acts of Parliament. Edward Jenner, a devout man, was
responsible for the beginnings of immunology and in ridding the world of the
scourge of smallpox.
Psa 36:5 Your
steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the
clouds.
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