Mandrakes

Leah and Rachel were rivals in love although they were sisters. Leah's son, Reuben, found mandrakes in the field. Reuben gave Leah mandrakes exultantly, saying, "Mother, here they are mandrakes which you were always looking for." The mandrakes added fuel to love competition between Leah and Rachel, which resulted in three more children given to Leah and Joseph and Benjamin given to Rachel. Rachel died of hard labor to give birth to Benjamin. But, fortunately, Esther, a descendent of the Benjamins later saved Israel. Without mandrakes, Joseph, Benjamin and the Jews could not appear in the world. (Genesis: 30:35, Esther: 2)

The mandrake is "mandragoras" in Latin, a plant of the nightshade and belladonna family with a narcotic property by an alkaloid. This alkaloid is a narcotic on animals and is a kind of poisonous material. Anesthesia includes a slight intoxication and also a serious one which may lead to death. The alkaloid affects the central nervous system and paralyzes the man's sensation. It especially makes it difficult for a man to restrain his fundamental desire. However, in a way, this desire contributes to maintain the descendants. A male mantis can send spermatozoa into the female when he cannot keep the restraints by the cerebrum because of the spinal cord which was cut by the female. Female mantis does not mean to eat male mantis but bites off the male spinal cord so that they can have next generation.

"The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved." (Song: 7:13) The mandrakes led the history to the new different direction.

Pharmacy

Trademark for pharmacies in Europe is the one with a balance and a serpent around it. A serpent coiling around the cross, a serpent of brass, is designed in emblems of many medical associations. It originates from a serpent of brass which Moses made in the wilderness of Edom. (Numbers: 21:9)

Efficacy of snakes as a medicine may not be entirely unscientific because even now there are some scientists who assert that charred Mamushi ( a kind of Japanese snakes ) makes men full of energy and that the lifeblood of snakes is good for health. A snake has been hated by human beings, especially women, since the time of the Creation. On the other hand, the turtle which also belongs to the reptiles and which served as a ferryboat to the Palace of the Dragon King has been esteemed highly and it is indispensable in celebrations because an ancient radition says that a turtle lives for ten thousand years.

How nasty men are to snakes! Snakes have been persecuted as double-tongued and cold-blooded animals. But I would rather think that it must be human beings that are really double-tongued and cold-blooded animals. Anyway, a snake has a peculiar figure without feet. All the skin serves as feet, and muscles under the skin have been developed for the convenience to creep around.

It is amazing that the snake has a full set of body structures such as a heart, a lung, an intestine, nerves and a spine in such a slim body. Of course, there is some modifications. For instance, there is just one lung modestly located around a heart. The snake meanders with only one lung working. An air sac at the tip of the lung helps gas exchange to control a dead space of a long trachea, which is also the case in birds.

I would say fellow snakes are surprisingly cute with their own minute body structures. How about making friends with snakes?

Myrrh

"And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshiped him; and whe they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." (Matthew 2:11)

"Joseph's brethren sold Joseph to the company of Ishmeelites. The Ishmeelites were carrying spicery and balm and myrrh to sell in Egypt." (Genesis: 37:25)

After Joseph became a ruler over all the land of Egypt, his brethren, who had once sold Joseph, brought presents from Canaan to Joseph to obtain food. Myrrh was included in the presents which was one of "the best fruits in the land". (Genesis: 43:11)

"God ordered that myrrh should be put in an oil of the holy ointment to anoint the tabernacle of the congregation and the ark of the estimony." (Exodus: 30:23) It was used as a present for a lover. "My hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh." (Song: 5:5) It was mostly used as a perfume, not as a drug to treat a patient with a real disease. "I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon." (Proverbs: 7:17)

It was Esther who used myrrh in the most impressive and splendid way. She prepared to become a queen by purifying her body with the oil of myrrh for six months. It was for a basic toilet purpose, so it might have helped to cure skin disease. It probably contained aromatic chemicals produced in Mesopotamia. She was originally fair and beautiful and finally made the first lady, who saved the Jews when they were about to be destroyed. (Esther: 2:12) Without Esther and myrrh, Jesus Christ would not have been born. Indeed, myrrh was a valuable thing. No wonder, it was one of the presents offered by the visitors from the East.

Alcoholism

Recently alcoholics are increasing in Japan. If you feel like drinking after 5 o'clock and are apt to linger in front of cultural pubs, you are already in the early stage of alcoholism. By and by you begin to be tempted to drink even in the morning and cannot stop drinking.

In the Bible there are many stories appear in which alcohol brought troubles. For example, drunken Noah gave affliction to Canaan, Ham's descendants (Genesis 9:20 to 27). We can find many warnings about alcohol in the Bible, such as "Whoredorn and wine and new wine take away the heart" (Hosea: 4:11), "wine inflame them" (Isaiah 5:11), and "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess" (Ephesians 5:18). God advised priests and kings not to drink wine (Leviticus 10:9 and Proverbs 31:4 to 5), and recommended that bishops must be "not fiven to wine" (1 Timothy 3:3), and that the deacons must be "not given to much wine" (1 Timothy 3:8).

A good Samaritan came to a man who fell among robbers, and was stripped, beaten and left half-dead, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. The Samaritan had wine with him. (Luke: 10:34) Paul wrote to Timothy and told him to use a little wine for the sake of his stomach and his frequent ailments (1 Timothy 5:23).

Alcohol brings a good blood circulation and helps to decrease stress as Bible says "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." (Proverbs 31:6). But too much alcohol causes fatty degeneration in liver and cerebellar atrophy, and sometimes hurts the muscle of heart to cause cardiomyopathy. It is awful if you hurt somebody else besides losing your own health with excessive drinking. The Bible also says "drunkards never inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians: 6:10).

Asphalt

The king of Egypt III ordered his people that every boy baby of Israel should be cast into the river around the time when Moses was born in about 1500BC.

Moses' mother prepared an ark of bulrushes, daubed it with asphalt pitch, put Moses in it and laid it in the flags by the river's brink (Exodus 2:3).

Asphalt appears in another place of the Bible, that is, in a description on mortar for the construction of the Tower of Babel (Genesis: 11:3). They used asphalt to mortar bricks together. Incidentally it is because of this tower construction that one common language split into thousands of different languages and even now we have to try hard to learn foreign languages.

As in the Bible, in recent medical care asphalt sometimes serves us well and in other occasions it brings us ill effects. Namely, while a certain kind of asphalt, pine tar, is used in ointment to cure skin diseases, benzopyrene contained in asphalt is one of the carcinogenic materials.

Development of petrochemistry has brought us many kinds of chemical materials. For instance, we can name food additives, synthetic coloring agents, preservation agents, antibiotics added in food. When these chemical materials come into human bodies, metabolic enzyme from the liver is mainly produced to detoxicate them. However, this metabolic mechanism sometimes produces carcinogenic materials in the process to metabolize the chemical materials.

It is interesting that as asphalt can be good or evil to us, metabolic mechanism to detoxicate chemical materials such as asphalt has two aspects, to help us and to bring us evil.

Low Temperature

"Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he got no heat." (1 King 1:1) Generally temperature of a child is higher than that of an old man. An old man likes to sleep with his grandchild, who is as warm as a foot warmer. A young damsel, Abishag, was brought to King David and cherished him and ministered to him. But the king did not know her. In an attempt to oppose Solomon's succession to the throne, Solomon's brother, Adonijah, asked Solomon's mother to give him Abishag as his wife. But Abishag was not David's wife. Old David with poor reproductive functions due to his age and Abishag whose body heat was taken away by David could never have a child.

Animals have various defense mechanisms against the coldness. Roughly speaking, the nervous system and endocrine system contribute to that mechanism. Especially the thyroid gland is significant, because in the cold, hypophysis promptly secretes thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), though the original instruction which probably comes from hypothalamus in the brain. It must have been because even the brain was already aging that David could not warm himself any more.

Extinction of mammoth during the glacial age occurred because they lacked adaptability to the low temperature. By the way, Darwin's evolution theory cannot explain the extinction of a certain species because selection and evolution cannot happen in animals, such as Japanese crested ibises in Sado Island and Iriomote jungle cats in Nishi-Iriomote Island in Okinawa Pref., once they are extinct. Darwinism is just a theory.

Senescence

Dr. Lintzbach reported that the hearts of aged people have very many diseases such as cardiac infarction, endocarditis, and disorders in cardiac conduction system. They also have various diseases in organs other than hearts and seem to, so to speak, walk on the tightrope above the valley with the shadow of death.

Can you think of the age when people are considered to be the aged if it is possible to draw a line? It was established by Taihou Ritsuryou law in 701 that people over the age of sixty were the aged. Tokyo Municipal Governer ordained that people over the age of 65 were classified as the aged in 1963. Tu Fu in China wrote in his poem that it was very rare that men lived to the age of seventy, and seemed to consider people over that age were the old men. Bible does not give any definitions of the old man. Bible only tells us that we should rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man. (Leviticus 19:32). In 1954, reported that the age of 70 +-10 would be a reasonable line to classify the aged.

If you feel that you have managed to spend this year on the tightrope all right, you are exactly in the category of the aged. Even when old people get sick, the symptom does not appeared as in the case of young people and the disease is often left unnoticed. If they cough, we should suspect of pneumonia, not of just a cold. Even a flu which is not a serious disease among young people sometimes endangers old people's lives. They also catch tuberculosis quite easily, although tubercle bacillus did not ruin their health when they were young. Carcinogenic materials which have been accumulated in their bodies often cause cancer in old people.

Longevity

According to an investigation on the cause of death in the aged over 100, we have learned that there are many cases in which we cannot find any particular fatal disease in any organ. This type of death is called a natural death, or a peaceful death, which comes after a soul has departed from its body. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." (Ecclesiates 12:7) All animals except a few like ameba which is reproduced asexually grow old and inevitably die, unlike plants such as a lotus which has lived for 2000 years as a seed.

At present there is none over the age of 120 all over the world. Dr. and Dr. Foreman investigated if it was true that in southern Ecuador there were many people over the age of 150, and found out that they fudged the count on their age and were actually around 120 years old. To our regret, Mr. Shigechiyo Izumi who was the oldest person in the world died at the age of 120 on February 21, 1986. It was reported in the newspaper that he died peacefully as if he went to sleep.

What determines the length of life? We can encounter neither a crane 1000 years old nor a tortoise 10000 years old. The length of life is determined according to species. For instance, a mouse lives for three years, a mink does for ten years, a hen lives for thirty years, a Galapagos tortoise lives for 170 years, and a man lives for 120 years. It arouses much controversy in medical journals whether the length of life is already programmed in cells of each species or it is determined by an error catastrophe which is accumulated in the cell proliferation and activity. However, the Bible says just after the story of Noah's Ark that man's days shall be a hundred and twenty years. (Genesis 6:3). After all, the length of man's life seems to be 120 years.

Mummy

Egypt is famous for not only pyramids but also for its mummies. In mummification it is important to have a suitable climate and chemicals as well as to know the technique. Anyone can make a mummy very easily. Joseph who had been sold to Egypt became the ruler over all the land of Egypt owing to his tremendous talent. He invited his father and brothers from his home country, Israel, and let them live in Egypt. There the Israelites learned various techniques, which helped them greatly during their long journey to their home land, the exodus from Egypt. The technique for mummification was one which they learned.

Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father, Jacob. (Genesis 50:1) It took forty days to embalm him and they did so in order to bury Jacob in the grave of Abraham in the land of Canaan. It was about ten-days journey from Egypt to the grave and they might have had to mummify Jacob because the human body begins to putrify just after death.

Joseph died and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. This is the last description in Genesis.

Mummy is, in medical terminology, dry gangrene. It means that that tissues become dried and necrotic without being infected by bacteria after the blood ceases to be supplied. Localized dry gangrene is often caused in lower extremities where blood does not reach due to angiitis obliterans.

Mummies in China revealed us the ancient history about 3000 years ago. In the future maybe someone will discover the mummy of Jacob somewhere in Israel. The mummy of Jacob must have a dislocated hip joint, for at the ford Jabbok he wrestled the angel who touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh and the hollow of his thigh was out of joint. (Genesis: 32:24)