The continents of Europe and Asia have periodically been engulfed by epidemics of leprosy and plague, especially from 1200 to 1400. More than sixty million people, almost one-third of the population of Europe in the fourteenth century, are estimated to have died by the Black Death (bubonic plague). Those who survived described scenes that sounded like the haunting visions of Dante’s descriptions of hell.

How was this dreaded plague finally stopped? During a trip to Vienna, in the center of the city I examined a strange-looking plague statue dedicated to the Black Death’s countless victims and the actions of the church fathers to abolish the curse of that plague. In light of God’s advanced health laws, one might expect to learn that it was only after the people began to follow the Biblical laws of sanitation and disease control that the epidemic was broken.

Several church leaders began to search the Bible to discover whether there was a practical solution. They saw that in Leviticus 13:46, Moses laid down strict regulations regarding the treatment of those afflicted with leprosy or plague: “All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.” God answered their prayers for deliverance when they finally began to obey His Scriptural commands. This divine medical rule demanded that a person who contracted the plague must be isolated from the general population during his infectious period.

Fortunately, the church fathers of Vienna finally took the Biblical injunctions to heart and commanded that those infected with the plague must be placed outside the city in special medical quarantine compounds. Caregivers fed them until they either died or survived the disease. Those who died in homes or streets were quickly removed and buried outside the city. These Biblical sanitation measures quickly brought the dreaded epidemic under control. Other cities and countries rapidly followed the medical practices of Vienna until the deadly spread of the Black Death was halted.

Until the twentieth century, nearly every society other than the Israelites kept infected patients in their homes—even after death—unknowingly exposing other people to deadly disease. Even during the Black Death epidemic, patients who were sick or had died were kept in the same rooms as the rest of the family. People often wondered why the disease affected so many people at one time. They attributed the epidemic to “bad air” or evil spirits. However, careful attention to the medical commands of God as revealed in Leviticus would have saved untold millions of lives. Arturo Castiglioni characterized this Biblical law with these words: “The laws against leprosy in Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the first model of a sanitary legislation.”

Moses’ instruction to segregate infected patients from their families and other people was one of the most important medical advances in human history. Yet no other ancient nation followed this effective medical regulation. The only reasonable explanation is that Moses received this advanced medical knowledge from God’s inspiration.