Jesus Christ bled from every pore

This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

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.^[3]
• 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).^[4]
• 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.^[5] 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.^[6]

• 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."^[7]

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."^[8]

What did Joseph Smith's day believe about sweat and pores?

American medicine at the time of Joseph Smith was still exceedingly primitive. Medical practitioners still drew heavily on the theories and works of antiquity for medical theory, diagnosis, and treatment.

As discussed above, the concept of "pores" in the skin for sweat and other substances is an ancient one in western medicine. Despite this, the pores had never been definitively demonstrated throughout the skin.

A popular medical textbook of the time, Buchan's Domestic Medicine Modernized, etc. (1807) blamed the following diseases on blocked perspiration: most fevers, gout, rheumatism, scurvy, asthma, epilepsy, hypochondria, and inflammation of lung, kidney, bowel, and brain.^[9]

Thus, contrary to the critics' claims, Joseph Smith or his contemporaries were no better suited to know the facts about skin pores or sweat than classical writers of 2500 years earlier. Theory and knowledge on the subject had not advanced much, and a rural farmboy such as Joseph would hardly have been aware of any of the learned discussions taking place on the topic, which were not terribly advanced anyway.

Sweat glands and associated structures were finally demonstrated to exist in 1835, six years after the translation of the Book of Mormon.^[10] The modern understanding of sweat and the role of the skin in fluid homeostasis was fixed around the turn of the century.^[11]

Joseph Smith had as much chance at being right about the relationship between sweat and pores as an ancient author writing thousands of years earlier.

Can skin pores produce blood?

Critics of Christianity generally have sometimes questioned Luke's account of Christ sweating "drops of blood."

But, the phenomenon of "hemohidrosis" or "hematidrosis" (blood in the sweat), while uncommon, is certainly known from both historical and modern accounts.

An epidemic disease (called the sweating sickness) in England between 1485 and 1581 caused "bloody sweat." Suggested causes have included hantavirus,^[12]

A recent Chinese study reported a case of hemohidrosis (called hematidrosis in the translated study) which described a patient in which "episodes of skin bleeding occurred on any site of the body spontaneously and promptly." The blood was identical to blood drawn from the patient's circulatory system, and the sweat glands were normal. It was hypothesized that this case was the result of a vasculitis (inflammation of blood vessels) which allowed the leak of blood. ^[13]

Another review of the literature found that the causes of modern cases of "bloody sweat" included:

• other systemic disease
• excessive exertion
• psychogenic
• unknown^[14]

Thus, it seems clear that severe mental and/or physical anguish can cause this condition.

Endnotes

1. [note]  E.T. Renbourn, "The Natural History of Insensible

Transpiration: A Forgotten Doctrine of Health and Disease," Medical

History 4/2 (April 1960): 135.

[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1034547&pageindex=1

• ]

1. [note]  Renbourn, 135–136.
2. [note]  Renbourn, 136.
3. [note]  Renbourn, 136&ndasm;137.
4. [note]  "John of Gaddesden's Rosa Anglica," King's College

London,*

1. [note]  John of Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica practica medicine a capita

ad pedes (Pavia: Joanes-Antonius Birreta, 1492); translation and cited by

Renbourn, 137.

1. [note]  Ambrose Paré, Works (1554); Trans. from Latine by

J. Johnston, 1664; cited by Renbourn, 137.

1. [note] W.C. Cruikshank, Experiments on the Insensible Perspiration

of Huamn Bodies, etc.' (1785); cited by Renbourn, 1 46.

1. [note]  Renbourn, 147–148.
2. [note]  Renbourn, 149.
3. [note]  Renbourn, 150.
4. {[note|chinesestudy1}} FK Zhang, Zhonghua Xue Ye Xue Za Zhi ("Clinical and laboratory study of a case of hematidrosis") in Chung-Hua Hsueh Yeh Hsueh Tsa Chih ¦ (Chinese Journal of Hematology) 25(3) (01 March 2004): 147-50. *
5. {[note|review1}} JE Holoubek, "Blood Sweat and Fear: A classification of hematidrosis," Journal of Medicine 27/3–4 (1 Jan 2006): 115–133.*

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.*