Jesus Christ bled from every pore

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Criticism

The Book of Mormon contains a reference to the intense agony endure by Jesus Christ in performing the Atonement:

And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people. (Mosiah 3:7, emphasis added.)

Critics claim that the reference to blood coming from a pore is anachronistic, since Nephite authors would not have known about skin pores. Joseph Smith, it is claimed, would have known about pores, and so the Book of Mormon's addition of the word "pore" to the Bible's account of Christ's suffering reflects Joseph's worldview, and not that of an ancient author.

Response

When were skin pores discovered?

Contrary to the critics' assertion, the medicine of antiquity had long speculated and written about "pores."

• Empedocles, a Greek philosopher who lived from about 490–430 B.C., belived that air and vapour could pass into or out of the body via pores.^[1]
• Galen, the Greek physician of the Roman era (A.D. 129–c. 210) likewise believed that "innnumerable skin pores" drew air into the body, and also expelled wastes.^[2] Galen was of multiple opinions on sweat (Gk ιδρος=hidros), but he sometimes claimed that it derived from skin pores in droplet form.((ref|note3}}
• A variety of other classical physicians (such as Ascelepiades, Petronas, Soranus, Themison) believed that tightening of the pores was a potential cause of disease, and a variety of regimens were recommended to overcome this (e.g. purging, hot baths and drinks, heavy bedclothes to cause sweats, induced vomiting).^[3]
• John of Gaddesdon (c.1280-1349?1361) was physician to the Royal Household in England during the 14th century, and the first English author of a published medical book.^[4] He wrote of a disease that:

The cause of it is in the grossness of the matter of the body or the blocking up of the pores from an external cause ... the heat of the sun or a fire, or from cold water; briefly anything that closes the pores and prevents the escape of vapours.^[5]

• French physician Ambroise Paré (1510–1590) wrote in 1554 that the skin "is penetrated by many pores or breathing places, as we may see by the flowing out of sweat."^[6]

Despite at least two millenia of theory and discussion in the medicine of antiquity, the skin's pores had not been seen! English anatomist William Cumberland Cruikshank (1745-1800) indicated that "after some pains, and assisted with a pretty good microscope, I have not been able to discover perforations in the cuticle or rete mucosum [i.e. pores in the skin.... I believe, nevertheless, that they certainly exist."^[7]

Endnotes

None

Further reading

FAIR web site

• FAIR Topical Guide:

External links

E.T. Renbourn, "The Natural History of Insensible Transpiration: A Forgotten Doctrine of Health and Disease," Medical History 4/2 (April 1960): 135–152.*