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MR No. 1420: Health Reform Principles
1.2 Your letter to me, under date of February 12, is received. Your question is, “Is it advisable to employ a good, Christian physician, who treats his patients on hygienic principles? In urgent cases, should we call in a worldly physician, because the sanitarium doctors are all so busy that they have no time to devote to outside practice? Some say that when the sanitarium doctors do use drugs, they give larger doses than ordinary doctors.”
1.3 If the physicians are so busy that they cannot treat the sick outside of the institution, would it not be wiser for all to educate themselves in the use of simple remedies, than to venture to use drugs that are given a long name to hide their real qualities? Why need anyone be ignorant of God’s remedies—hot water fomentations and cold and hot compresses? It is important to become familiar with the benefit of dieting in case of sickness. All should understand what to do themselves. They may call upon someone who understands nursing, but everyone should have an intelligent knowledge of the house he lives in. All should understand what to do in case of sickness.
1.4 Were I sick, I would just as soon call in a lawyer as a physician from among general practitioners. I would not touch their nostrums, to which they give Latin names. I am determined to know, in straight English, the name of everything that I introduce into my system.
1.5 Those who make a practice of taking drugs sin against their intelligence and endanger their whole afterlife. There are herbs that are harmless, the use of which will tide over many apparently serious difficulties. But if all would seek to become intelligent in regard to their bodily necessities, sickness would be rare instead of common. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
1.6 You say, “The reason why I advise with you is because there are some who have never heard of the principles of health reform. Converts in the S.D.A. faith, whom one would naturally suppose would be easily led to see the beauty of hygienic remedies for the sick, are being taught to take the Lord for their Healer, without even using simple means and Heaven-blessed agencies for the recovery and preservation of health. These agencies are excluded by close rooms and a neglect to procure pure water.”
1.1 (Written August 25, 1897, at “Sunnyside,” Cooranbong, N.S.W., Australia.) I have many things to say, but I do not know that I can say them now. My left eye is so weak that I may have to refuse to write till it is stronger. Be assured that I am praying in regard to this afflicted member. The Lord has been very gracious to me. Again and again He has answered my prayers in regard to my eyesight. His loving kindness faileth not, so I shall urge my petition to the throne of grace till an answer comes.