I sometimes encounter the claim that a failure of the D&C 89 (the Word of Wisdom) is that, as it does not touch upon boiling water to kill bacteria, it is not prophetic. Furthermore, related to this criticism, is the claim that no one thought of boiling water with the goal of killing bacteria until Pasteur in 1860s. The following is an example of such criticisms:
Again,
I realize it is a common apologetic response to say that God only gives us the
answers that we ask, which is why Joseph Smith got a revelation the day after
the National Day of Temperance which just happened to repeat all of the ideas
of the temperance movement, but this is a common aspect of Joseph Smith's life
where he takes surrounding ideas and puts them in the voice of God. At some
point we have to ask why Joseph Smith is only able to get answers from God that
anyone else could get, with nothing that is actually unkown to the world such
as boiling water to kill bacteria and stop very dangerous health outbreaks. . .
. a cholera outbreak sickened over sixty
people and took the lives of over a dozen early members of the church. This
outbreak happened the year after the Word of Wisdom was recorded -- what better
way to show that Joseph Smith was receiving real truth from God than to learn
such a basic necessity as boiling their water before consuming it? . . . I can
not stress this enough: Every concept in the Word of Wisdom was known to Joseph
Smith through outside movements such as the temperance movement, yet the most
important revelations that were unknown to people at the time, such as boiling
water, were left unsaid. For me that is a red flag that can not be overlooked,
because just as in the Book of Mormon, the revelations and prophecies end
exactly when the material was written. . . . [the Word of Wisdom was] written
without any foresight or prophetic knowledge, leaving out any mention of boiling
water . . . ("Overview of the
Word of Wisdom Revelation," LDS Discussions Website)
While germ theory and, with it,
the process of pasteurization, would have to wait until the 1860s, it is false
to claim that boiling water was not understood to purify the water. Note the
following from The Journal of Health from December 1829:
OF
THE DIFFERENT METHODS OF PURIFYING WATER.
Those which are most usually
resorted to are as follows:--1. By filtration.—2. The addition of charcoal and
other substances.—3. Machinery.—4. Boiling.—5. Distillation. . . . 4. The
ancient Romans not satisfied with obtaining clear water from great distances,
at an immense expense, had often recourse to the additional process of boiling,
to prepare it for use. Public buildings even were erected for this purpose.
They were called Thermopolia, from the names of the hot springs in
Greece. Herodotus gives an instance of pardonable royal luxury in the practice
of the king of Persia, who, when on an expedition with his army, drank no water
but that taken from the river Choaspes, which after having been boiled and
afterwards received into silver vessels, was conveyed on four-wheeled machines
drawn by mules, and kept solely for his use.
The reason for the very general
use of tea in China and Holland, as a common beverage through the day, is a
great measure owing to the necessity of having the water, so often of a bad
quality in these countries, boiled. By the addition of the tea leaf they obtain
a drink more grateful than the water itself.
Though the boiling of hard or pump water will, in a measure, free it from the earthy matters which were dissolved in it, yet the saline ingredients still remain. If a few grains of an alkali, such as the salt of tartar, be dropped into a kettle full of pump water, and boiled with it, all the unpleasant properties of the latter, will according to Dr. Heberden, be neutralized. ("Of the Different Methods of Purifying Water," The Journal of Health 1, no. 7 [December 9, 1829]: 103, 104-5)