A New Era Begun in the Health Movement

And so began a new era in the health reform movement among Seventh-day Adventists. The leadership of members of the medical profession, more highly trained in scientific lines, resulted not so much in altering the principles upon which the work had been carried forward for a decade as to justify these principles by giving satisfactory reasons for their adoption in the treatment of the sick and the education of all.SHM 211.1

In the light of further knowledge, some of the methods used at the institute might be deemed “ultra,” but statements that have appeared in certain quarters that prior to this time it had been only a struggling “water cure” and that its procedure was wholly irrational cannot be substantiated by well-ascertained facts. It would be difficult to harmonize such a disparaging view with statements found in a prospectus put out by the new physicians, under date of October 19, 1876. Regarding the former work of the institution, they point out that during the eleven years of its operation it had “successfully treated more than two thousand patients with an average of only one death a year among those received for treatment.” And, furthermore, the claim that many types of rational remedies were employed was repeated. The public was informed that “this institution is not a ‘water cure,’ neither does it employ, exclusively, any special method of treatment; but the plan upon which it is carried on is to employ all remedial agents, applying each to the cases of which it is especially adapted. All diseases are treated here in a thoroughly scientific manner, and with a degree of success unattainable under any other plan of treatment. Besides the usual remedies, the physicians employ, together with all hydropathic appliances, electricity, Swedish movements, lift cure, and the modified Russian and Turkish baths.”—The Review and Herald, October 19, 1876.SHM 211.2