We can learn from pandemics in the past
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This is a column by Dornoch Free Church minister Duncan Macleod.
Last month I shared the story of how during the Bubonic Plague a tailor in the village of Eyam in Derbyshire received a piece of infected cloth from London, as a result of which he and many others in the village were struck down.
And how under the influence of a local vicar the village folk isolated themselves and in many cases sacrificed their own lives in order to prevent the disease from spreading to their neighbouring communities.
What I wasn’t aware of as I wrote that column, was that here in Dornoch in 1832, as reported in the NT two weeks ago, during a very serious nationwide cholera epidemic the community reacted in a very different way to the residents of Eyam but for a very good reason I hasten to add!
Whereas in Eyam the plague was already in the village and what they wanted to do very commendably was to prevent it from spreading elsewhere, in 1832 when the first deaths were recorded nearby, measures were taken so as to prevent cholera from entering Dornoch and in so doing save all the residents from its terrible consequences.
I only discovered this as walking through Earls Cross Wood recently I came across a wooden plaque recording how guards were posted to prevent anyone entering the town and ordering that “all pigsties, ashpits, and manure of every description be removed from within the burgh.” Their measures were successful: no cholera deaths appear in the records.
The plaque also shows a stone marking the grave of a man who was brought by some Portgower boys to be buried in Dornoch but were forbidden entry as it was thought he had died of the cholera whereupon the boys dug a grave and buried him right there. Such was the stigma attached to cholera that the man’s son inscribed the following denial on the gravestone. “ Erected by K.R. over the remains of his dutiful Father K.R. who departed this life July 24 1832 aged 44 years. It was then supposed he died of cholera but afterwards contradicted by most eminent medical men.”
Similar reactions have been very much in evidence at this present time as signs have been erected in local communities seeking to make clear that this is not the time for people to travel here needlessly from elsewhere whilst stressing that all will be most welcome again once it is safe for them to come.
The principle of taking care of ourselves and others is one we find throughout the Bible. God promises those who trust him that they will be kept from all harm and that he will watch over their coming and going both now and forevermore.
The Bible tells us that it was to protect us from the spiritual disease of sin that Jesus came. By his perfect life and by his death and resurrection he has provided a covering and eternal protection from sin’s consequences for all who trust him.
As we all long for a cure for Covid 19 how wonderful it is that God has already provided us with a cure for human sin and just as it would be quite unforgivable for us to be kept in the dark if a foolproof vaccine were found, so it is unforgivable for those of us who say that we have found in Christ a perfect cure for mankind’s spiritual problem if we then decide to keep such wonderfully good news to ourselves and not share it with the rest of humanity whose need of it is just as great as our own.
