Jonah, a Whale, and Parkinson’s
In the Biblical book of Jonah, the Prophet Jonah runs away from God and ends up being swallowed by a great fish. He lives inside the great fish for three days, and then is vomited out alive. He then obediently submits to God’s plan for him. It is an amazing story of God’s patience with Jonah, the impact on the sailors who were in the boat with Jonah, God’s gracious providence in saving Jonah’s life, Jonah’s prayer of thanks when he found himself not drowned but alive in a whale, and God’s love even for the notoriously vicious Assyrians.
But is it true? Did it really happen? For many reasons I believe that the story of Jonah does recount real events in the life and ministry of this rebellious prophet. If so, did it involve a supernatural act of God to keep Jonah alive without air to breath while in the great fish? Or was it rather a series of miracles of God’s perfect timing and provision to keep Jonah alive? While the Lord is able to act in either way, it seems to me that no supernatural acts were necessary here. Here’s why:
The Hebrew word used for the sea creature could refer to any kind of fish or to a whale. In this story it seems to refer to the largest kind of whale, the sperm whale, which typically grows to 50-55 feet in length, and weighs 35-45 tons. Sperm whales are known to roam throughout the oceans of the world, including the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, in ancient times the Phoenicians had a thriving whaling industry based in Joppa, where Jonah got on the boat.
The sperm whale is a mammal, the largest air-breathing creature. Their favorite food is the giant squid, which lives on the sea floor and is known to grow to lengths of over 40 ft. long. Sperm whales are known to vomit up very large pieces of giant squid when dying.
Whales breathe air at the surface of the water through a single, s-shaped blowhole. The blowhole is located on the left side of the front of its huge head. They spout (breathe) 3-5 times per minute at rest, but the rate increases to 6-7 times per minute after a dive. Blowholes in whales are anatomically analogous to nasal passages in terrestrial mammals. The nasal passages of whales meet the trachea at the back of the throat – just like the rest of mammals.
It has been argued that whales cannot breathe through their mouths (like people can), and that their trachea (the tube to the lungs) and esophagus (the tube to the stomach) are not connected. This statement is false. The whale’s blowhole is connected to the trachaea which, as in all mammals, does connect to the esophagus. The explanation is that mammalian anatomy have the upper part of the trachaea above the esophagus and the lower part of the trachaea below the esophagus, which are connected rather than bypassing each other (which is why it is possible for most mammals to choke on food). This is the arrangement in whale anatomy, as well. However, in whales, the intersection is bridged by a structure known as the laryngeal spout or “goose beak”. In effect this extends the trachea through the gap that other mammals have between the lower and upper opening of the trachaea and through the esophagus. Imagine a pipe passing through the walls of another pipe from one side to the other. This can still cause problems in whales; if this extension tube gets displaced or constricted by food or foreign objects in the esophagus the animal can suffocate or be unable to get food past the blockage and thus wwould starve. https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/63990-sperm-whale-breathing-anatomy/
In the American periodical, Bibliotheca Sacra, (1942) G. Macloskie, of Princeton University, suggested how the true whale may be able to rescue a man from drowning. He points out that, as the whale is an air-breathing animal, it has to expel from its mouth cavity all superfluous water immediately after having received its food. Now if any other air-breathing creature should get mixed with its food and be carried by the influx of water between the whale's jaws, the intruder would be transferred from the water in which it was drowning into the air supply of the whale itself. It could not enter the whale’s stomach because of the narrow inlet, but it might reach the great laryngeal pouch, which starts from below and in front of the larynx and runs down the front of the neck on to the chest. It has thick, elastic walls, and a cavity quite large enough to receive a human body, and to supply it with air for breathing. The purpose of the laryngeal pouch or sac is as a safety reservoir for excess air during rapid changes in ambient pressure. For example, if the air in lungs were to rapidly expand during an encounter with a negative pressure phase, the sacs would serve as a balloon to house the suddenly increased volume and prevent lung over-expansion and loss of air. During the positive phase, the sacs would return the air to the lungs and prevent trauma from total lung collapse.
The whaling industry has provided a few accounts over the years of men falling overboard and later having been found inside a whale. The Princeton Theological Review of 1927 mentions a case analogous to that of Jonah. A member of the crew of a whaling ship in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands was swallowed by a large sperm whale which had been harpooned, his boat being upset by a lash of its tail. The whale was killed and dissected and on the third day the missing sailor was found inside the stomach of the animal, doubled up and unconscious. A bath of sea water soon revived him, but the skin of his face, neck and hands, exposed as it had been to the action of the gastric juices, was bleached to a deadly whiteness and never recovered its natural appearance; otherwise his health was not affected by this terrible ordeal. (A. J. Wilson, ‘The Sign of the Prophet Jonah,’ Princeton Theological Review, vol. xxv. p. 636.)
So what does all this have to do with Parkinson’s Disease? One of the symptoms of Parkinson’s which I have experienced involves a problem in swallowing. If I am not careful in how I eat, I tend to have some food and liquids start to go down my trachea (air pipe), rather than down the esophagus tube into the stomach (which can potentially result in pneumonia). The reaction of my body to this is an immediate violent sneezing, as well as spasms of coughing and draining sinuses. It is enough to remind me of a whale which ingested a man one day, and eventually became so irritated by him blocking its air and/or food supply that it vomited (or sneezed!) Jonah out onto the land!