Apart from their chief function of consoling men for the inevitability of death, religions have concerned themselves with some of the results of other disharmonies of the human constitution. From time immemorial they have claimed the direction of diet, the control of the reproductive functions and the prevention or cure of all kinds of disease. The dietary regulations given by the religions are familiar. Even at the present day, the cookery of many races is regulated by their religion. The Jewish diet, notably, is regulated by the Mosaic law, down to the most minute detail. For instance, it was forbidden to eat the blood of animals. Moses commanded: “Notwithstanding, thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God, which he hath given thee; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck, and as of the hart. Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it on the earth as water.”[202] Later on: “Only be sure that thou eat not the blood; for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh.”[203] “Thou shalt not eat it, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.”[204] The Books of Moses also contain receipts for the cooking of certain meats. “Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire, his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.”[205] It has been suggested that these rules were founded on ideas of hygiene in consonance with the results of modern science. Some of them, it is true, such as the prohibition of uncooked or partially cooked meat, are confirmed by our modern knowledge. But the greater number of the Mosaic rules, as, for instance, the prohibition of the consumption as food of blood or the flesh of pigs or hares and so forth, are in direct opposition to a modern knowledge of hygienic diet. Religious cookery has no more than a historical interest. The religions have been greatly occupied with the functions of the reproductive organs. Most of the founders of the great faiths have paid a keen attention to the disharmonies of this side of our constitution. They became persuaded of the merit of abstention, which they practised themselves and preached to others. Buddha, after devoting his youth to all the pleasures and not being satisfied, passed to absolute asceticism. He and his adepts formed an order of monkhood, on which an absolute celibacy was imposed. If a member of the order had intercourse with a woman, he was considered to be as guilty as a murderer or a thief. In the Buddhist rules framed even for laymen, “sexual intercourse outside marriage was forbidden, on the ground that it was degrading.”[206]