Egyptian and Babylonian
influences; the social hygiene is a reflex of regulations the origin
of which may be traced in the Pyramid Texts and in the papyri. The
regulations in the Pentateuch codes revert in part to primitive times,
in part represent advanced views of hygiene. There are doubts if the
Pentateuch code really goes back to the days of Moses, but certainly
someone "learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians" drew it up. As
Neuburger briefly summarizes:

"The commands concern prophylaxis and suppression of epidemics,
suppression of venereal disease and prostitution, care of the skin,
baths, food, housing and clothing, regulation of labour, sexual life,
discipline of the people, etc. Many of these commands, such as Sabbath
rest, circumcision, laws concerning food (interdiction of blood and
pork), measures concerning menstruating and lying-in women and those
suffering from gonorrhoea, isolation of lepers, and hygiene of the
camp, are, in view of the conditions of the climate, surprisingly
rational."(23)

(23) Neuburger: History of Medicine, Oxford University
Press, 1910, Vol. I, p. 38.

Divination, not very widely practiced, was borrowed, no doubt, from
Babylonia. Joseph's cup was used for the purpose, and in Numbers, the
elders of Balak went to Balaam with the rewards of divination in their
hands. The belief in enchantments and witchcraft was universal, and the
strong enactments against witches in the Old Testament made a belief in
them almost imperative until more rational beliefs came into vogue in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Whatever view we may take of it, the medicine of the New Testament is
full of interest. Divination is only referred to once in the Acts (xvi,
16), where a damsel is said to be possessed of a spirit of divination
"which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying." There is only one
mention of astrology (Acts vii, 43); there are no witches, neither
are there charms or incantations. The diseases mentioned are numerous:
demoniac possession, convulsions, paralysis, skin diseases,--as
leprosy,--dropsy, haemorrhages, fever, fluxes, blindness and deafness.
And the cure is simple usually a fiat of the Lord, rarely with a prayer,
or with the use of means such as spittle. They are all miraculous,
and the same power was granted to the apostles--"power against unclean
spirits, to cast them out, to heal all manner of sickness and all manner
of disease." And more than this, n