Melihah, or "salting the meat' prior to use, has for its purpose the removal of the stagnant, impure, diseased, germ-laden, surface blood. When the conditions, under which meat has often to be kept before use, be remembered, the health value of the Melihah law will be clearly apparent (Hyamson, Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. IX). The avoidance of the mixed meat and milk diet has also been hygienically com mended. It is claimed that the simultaneous ingestion of soluble and fibrinous albumen is not well borne by the gastric apparatus (Aron scam). Of importance are the special laws aim ing at the purity of water and milk. In coun tries where poisonous reptiles abound, water and milk must not be left uncovered. Articles of food should not be kept in any unclean place, as under the bed, nor be served from any impure vessel. Timely and simple diet is recommended. There are 83 diseases that are prevented by an early breakfast of bread and salt and a pitcher of water. For health rea sons, it was enjoined that meat and fish should not be eaten simultaneously.
In its insistence on the purity of the body Jewish law presents a unique phenomenon. As Leroy Beaulieu declares, "for 25 centuries the Jew has striven to be clean, and alone has observed the laws of moral and physical purity.' Yet here as elsewhere there should be no con fusion between effects and motives. Though the motives were to a considerable degree avowedly hygienic, yet predominantly they were religious. Ablutions were demanded from the Jew, for prayer could not be pronounced amid physical uncleanliness; his body had to be scrupulously clean for the Phylacteries could not otherwise be worn. At the very moment of rising, ablution of the hands and face was enjoined— without this he could not offer his morning prayer (Psalm xxvi, 6). Before and after every meal the hands had to be washed and a special benediction for the injunction of cleanliness pronounced. After every unclean bodily function, after touching any unclean object, after visiting a cemetery, ablutions had to be performed. Although water is truly precious in the East, yet there never was stint of it for the purposes of cleanliness. Rabbi Akiba in prison preferred to leave his thirst unassuaged, and used his dole of water for ablutions. It was prohibited to live in a town that had not a bath, and the use of water was regarded as the infallible panacea. 'Better a little cold water in the morning and a warm hand and foot bath in the evening than all the salves in the world" (Shah. 109A) : 'Man endangers the eye, nose, mouth and ear if he touch them with unwashed hands.* The value of the warm baths of Emmaus near Tiberias, of Gadara in Perira and Callirrhoe near the Dead Sea, was thoroughly appreciated Nor were zsthetic considerations overlooked in the case of the body. Physical beauty was highly valued (T. B. Berachoth 20A). The long list of .blemishes and disfigurements, over 150 in number, that were disqualifying for the priest hood points to the existence of a high standard for physical conformation (Sifra, Emor III).
view entertained as to the cleanliness of clothes is tersely stated in the apothegm, the sage upon whose garments a grease spot is found is worthy of death' The uncleanliness of his garment was an insult to the holy law whose dignity it was his duty to protect. Whenever the man has been in con tact with any impurity, whether it be one of the leproidal diseases or the impurity of the corpse, or any sexual impurity, it is not only his body, but also his clothes that have to be washed. It is perhaps unduly imaginative to see in the law which prohibits the wool being mixed with flax in the manufacture of garments, an anticipation of Jaeger (M. N. Adler). But Ebstein insists nevertheless that such a garment would be hygienically harmful as the wool would tend to warm and the cotton or flax to cool the body and there would be unequal pro tection for the body surface (Deut. xxii, 11). There is a reference in Leviticus to a peculiar species of reddish or greenish discolorations occurring in garments and destroying the ma terial. It is termed leproid and may be some form of fungoid growth. Where garments are worn for long periods such growths may occur. Directions are given for inspection and seclu sion, lustration or destruction (Lev. xiii, 47).
Sanitary Arrangements.— The Bible already makes provision for the protection of the camp from the usual plagues of typhoid, diarrhoea and dysentery attendant on camp life. The consignment of all putrid matter to the earth — in a place without the camp — ensured disin fection and the protection of the water and the air (Deut. xxiii, 9-14). These admirable hy gienic provisions are the direct consequences of the Holiness motive with its psychophysical implications: ((that thy camp shall be holy.° In the subsequent city life similar precautions were taken. It was prohibited to rear poultry or keep wild animals or permit dung-heaps to gather in Jerusalem (T. B. Baba Kama, 82B). No tannery could be erected within 50 cubits of the city limits, and then only to the east of the city so that the prevalent west wind would carry away the effluvia. Kirnhi maintains in his comment to Psalm xxvii, that a fire burned con tinually without the city for the destruction of all cadavers and offal and refuse. Many scholars, though not all, accept this statement. Certain writers have referred to the extremely valuable sanitary results of the minutely scru pulous removal of all leaven from the homes before the advent of Passover (M. N. Adler). As this involves the thorough overhauling of the whole house from garret to cellar, the purification and cleansing of all utensils and kitchen accessories, and the destruction of the accumulation of scraps, etc.— the hygienic ef fects, however undesigned, must be acknowl edged (Ex. xii, 19; Deut. xvi, 4).