Having any problems with falling hair?  What do you do to cover up that bald spot and receding hairline?

Probably the only solution is to massage your head, comb your hair forward, get a toupee or just simply let it fall.

If you had lived about 3500 years ago you would have gotten very different advice - not from a therapist but from your physician.

He would have quoted from the famous medical authority of that day, Papyrus Ebers.

"When it falls out, one remedy is to apply a mixture of six fats, namely those of the horse, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the cat, the snake and the ibex. To strengthen it, anoint with the tooth of a donkey crushed in honey."

The Papyrus Ebers was published about 1552 BC and occupied a dominant position in the ancient medical world and was one of the leading guides for practicing physicians for a long time.

There are literally hundreds of remedies for diseases in this book, such as lizard's blood, swine's teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pig's ears, milk goose grease, asses hooves, animal fat from various sources, excrete from animals, including human beings, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats and even flies.

THROUGH MOSES, GOD MADE HIS HEALING COVENANT WITH THE JEWISH NATION!

Moses was born about the time the 'Papyrus Ebers' was written in Egypt!  He was educated in their highest schools of learning - scholars think he was also a physician - as the son of Pharoah's daughter.

But when God called Moses to lead His people out of Egyptian bondage, He did not borrow from the "occultic clap-trap" in their medical books.  He rejected the highest, most respected medical authority of that day!

His directive was "Heed the voice of God, do right, obey His commandments, keep His statutes and I will heal you"!

God did not borrow medical advice from the 'Papyrus Ebers'. His advice to Moses was contrary to the most highly respected medical thought of that day.

THE CHURCH WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN STOPPING THE BLACK DEATH!

Millions of Europeans died of leprosy for hundreds of years.  Some physicians thought the cause was eating hot food or the meat of diseased hogs.  Others blamed malign conjunction of the planets.

Approximately 60 million people died from the BLACK DEATH in the 14th century.  Dr. George Rosen of Columbia University writes: "Leadership was taken by the Church, as the physicians had nothing to offer.  The Church took as its guiding principal the concept of contagion as embodied in the Old Testament.

"Once the condition of leprosy has been established, the patient was to be segregated and excluded from the community...it accomplished the first great feat...in methodical eradication of disease."

Possibly, the Church needs to investigate measures to insure that the AIDS epidemic does not leap from high risk groups to the general population, since governmental and medical bodes are again "doing nothing"!

For centuries in Europe, multitudes perished because of improper hygiene, sanitation and sloppy hospitals.  In many villages, human excrement and waste was dumped into the streets, bringing deadly epidemics of typhoid, cholera and dysentery.

The solution to the problem, the burying of wastes, had been given by God 3500 years before (in Deuteronomy 23:12-13).

HYGIENE CUT MORTALITY RATE!

Vienna in the 1840s was famous as a medical center.  One of the most famous teaching hospitals of that  day was Allegemeine Krakenhus.  In its materity ward, one out of six women died.

Dr. Ignaz Semmelveis discovered that if doctors washed their hands well, after doing autopsies and before examining expectant mothers, the mortality rate dropped drastically.

Dr. Semmelveis was not applauded by the Medical Profession.  However, he was ridiculed by his peers, discredited, lost his position and eventually succumbed to the pressure, dying in a mental hospital.

Moses had given the same advice many centuries before (in Numbers 19).  If wasn't until 1878 that the method of cleaning hands and instruments was introduced by men like John Tyendall, Louis Pasteur and Sir Joseph Lister that the mortality rate began to drop.

The New York State Department of Health, in 1960, issued a book describing a method of washing the hands very similar to that found the BIBLE - Numbers Chapter 19.

It's interesting to note that John Wesley - founder of the Methodist Church declared that it is God's will for miracles to be in the Church, for the entire Church age, but have been lost to the church because of UNBELIEF!

He further stated, "The only method of physics employed by the Early Church for the first 400 years, was the prayer of faith."

Medical science has come a long way since Papyrus Ebers was published in 1552, BC and even since the 1840's in Vienna, but I still think that when your family physician advises you to get a second or third opinion about an operation, its a good idea.

Now if anyone wants to try the remedy for falling hair, don't let me discourage you. But then where would you find a hippopotamus these days?