Health benefits often resulted from observance of the Law. For instance, it required that at a military encampment human excrement be covered over (De 23:9-14), thus providing considerable protection from fly-borne infectious diseases such as dysentery and typhoid fever. Contamination of food and water was guarded against, the Law specifying that anything upon which an “unclean” creature fell in its death was rendered unclean and requiring that certain measures be taken, including the smashing of an earthenware vessel thus contaminated.​—Le 11:32-38.

Significantly, it has been stated: “Prophylactic considerations were basic to this legislation, which when followed would go far toward preventing the incidence of food-borne polioencephalitis, the enteric fevers, food poisoning, and the parasitic worms. Insistence on the safeguarding of a clean supply of water was the most effective means of forestalling the rise and dissemination of diseases such as amoebiasis, the fevers of the enteric group, cholera, bilharziasis, and spirochetal jaundice. These prophylactic measures, which constitute a fundamental part of any system of public health, were of particular importance for the welfare of a nation living under primitive conditions in a subtropical region of the earth.”​—The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by G. Buttrick, 1962, Vol. 2, pp. 544, 545.

In his book The Bible and Modern Medicine, A. Rendle Short, M.D., pointed out that public sanitary law existed, if at all, only in elementary form among nations that surrounded ancient Israel, and stated: “It is the more surprising therefore that in a book like the Bible, alleged to be unscientific, there should be a sanitary code at all, and equally surprising that a nation just escaped from slavery, frequently overrun by enemies and carried away into captivity from time to time, should have on its statute books so wise and reasonable a code of rules of health. This has been recognized by good authorities, even those with no great interest in the religious aspect of the Bible.”​—London, 1953, p. 37.

According to the Law, the hare and the pig were among animals the Israelites were not permitted to eat. (Le 11:4-8) Regarding this, Dr. Short states: “True, we eat the pig, the rabbit and the hare, but these animals are liable to parasitic infections and are safe only if the food is well cooked. The pig is an unclean feeder, and harbours two worms, trichina and a tape worm, which may be passed on to man. The danger is minimal under present conditions in this country, but it would have been far otherwise in Palestine of old, and such food was better avoided.”​—The Bible and Modern Medicine, pp. 40, 41.

Adherence to Jehovah’s righteous requirements as to sexual morality also had a good effect on the Israelites spiritually, mentally, and physically. (Ex 20:14; Le 18) Healthful benefits are similarly enjoyed by Christians who maintain moral cleanness. (Mt 5:27, 28; 1Co 6:9-11; Re 21:8) Observing the Bible’s high moral standards affords protection from sexually transmitted diseases.

Quarantine. According to the Law, a person who had or was suspected of having a communicable disease was quarantined, that is, kept away from others or isolated for a time. Seven-day periods of quarantine were imposed in tests for leprosy in the case of persons, garments, and other items, or houses. (Le 13:1-59; 14:38, 46) Also, a person was rendered unclean for seven days as a result of touching a human corpse. (Nu 19:11-13) Though the Scriptures do not say that the latter regulation was given for health reasons, some protection was thus afforded other individuals if the corpse was that of a person who had died of an infectious disease.