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This remark is occasionally heard by the nurses from a departing patient, "I feel worse than I did when I came in.' And well he might. He is carrying away a load he did not have when lie entered the institution- A friend of mine was visiting a hospital patient recently, and the patient complained, "I didn't feel so bad when I came in, but I am feeling terrible now. I think it is some medicine they are giving me.' Doctors, nurses, and patients take such complaints for granted as a necessary evil. One is reminded of the well-know verse:
Are there as many pages in the Spirit of Prophecy writings devoted to the evils of drinking alcoholic beverages, as are devoted to the drug practice? -No, and we have (had) a lively, wide-awake Temperance Departments to warn men against spirituous, death-dealing liquors. But what General Conference, union, or local conference departments do we have that have an active program of education about the dangers and contraindications of the death-dealing drugs that are so freer dispensed today throughout the land. We have a chain of medical institutions circling the globe, which according to Medical Ministry, page 27, "were established to reform the medical practice of physicians in regard to drugs." Dr. David Paulson made a collection of unpublished Spirit of Prophecy testimonies regarding the use of drugs. In it we read: I thought the matter of using drugs had been settled for us years ago by the testimony of the Spirit of Lord. But the Lords warning has been unheeded. I am ashamed and distressed over this matter, and I tell you that a decided reformation must take place. The physicians at the Sanitarium are departing a long way from the light the Lord has given concerning drugs. WONDER DRUGS -OR GOD'S ONE WAY? Medical Science is constantly modifying its concepts and practices. During the Dark Ages the scrapings from the skulls of people who had died from a certain disease were administered to the sick. In the present enlightened age we inject cow pus and horse pus into the patient. In the course of wonderful new scientific discoveries, one powerful drug after another is discarded, when continual usage reveals its harmful effects, and in its place a more powerful one is used. Disturbing is the fact, that despite wonder drugs and the wonderful claims made for them, hospitals and cemeteries are doing very well. New construction on these twin facilities is hardly keeping pace with the needs of our time. Never before has one disease, such as cancer, affected over half of our population. Cancer deaths keep pace with new drugs. Administering reined filth defiles and destroys the temple of God with loathsome disease. "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." Ecclesiastes 7:29. "Satan knows that he cannot overcome man unless he can control his will. He can do this by deceiving men so they will co-operate with him in transgressing the laws of nature, which is transgression of the Law of God. -Healthful Living, page 25. "It is just as much sin to violate the laws of our being as to break one of the Ten Commandments, for we cannot do either without breaking God's Law." Testimonies, volume 2, page 70. "God, the Creator of our bodies, has arranged every fiber and nerve and sinew and muscle, and has pledged Himself to keep the machinery in order if the human agent will cooperate with Him and refuse to work contrary to the laws which govern the human system." -Healthful Living, page 22. "Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord thy God will keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which He sware unto thy fathers. ..And the Lord will take away from thee, all sickness and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee." -Deuteronomy 7:12,15. "The Lord will not work a miracle to preserve anyone in health who will not make an effort to obtain knowledge within his reach concerning this wonderful habitation that God has given. "-Medical Missionary, volume 2, page 216. Man's Maker does not need to change the methods of healing He has ordained, in order to conform to the shifting and confused ideas of men. The Creator who established the laws that govern men's bodies, knows far better than does erring, mortal man the rules that should be followed in order to preserve mankind in health. And He understands very well what must be done in order to regain health when these rules have been broken. Thank God for the Inspired Word! Listen to His counsel: "There are MANY ways of practicing the healing art; but there is only ONE way that Heaven approves. God's remedies are the simple agencies of nature that will not tax or debilitate the system through their powerful properties. Pure air and water, cleanliness, a proper diet, purity of life, and a firm trust in God, are remedies for want of which thousands are dying; yet these remedies are going out of date because their skilled use requires work the people do not appreciate. Fresh air, exercise, pure water, clean sweet premises, are in the reach of all with but little expense; but drugs are expense, both in the outlay of means, and the effect produced on the system. "--Testimonies, volume 5, page 443; Counsels on Health, page 323. It is gratifying to learn that there is an ever-increasing number of those who are studying the Blueprint, and in alarm are turning from the erroneous custom of introducing into the human system a foreign and poisonous substance to cover over the signals that nature is displaying to warn of toxins and irritants already distressing the body. And we are also thankful for the many intelligent physicians of our own church who recognize the danger of drug-medication and are striving to counteract it. It is time that prominence be given in our medical institutions, as well as in our health publications, to the use of the simple natural remedies of nature that God told us to use. It is too late to compromise with worldly ideas and with worldly methods. "There is no such thing NOW as a neutral position. We are all decidedly for the right, or decidedly for the wrong. Testimonies, volume 3, page 328. There are no perplexing choices to make between harmful and non-harmful drugs when, in our hearts we accept the fact that "there is only ONE WAY that Heaven approves." "To make plain NATURAL LAW and to urge the obedience of it, is the work that accompanies the Third Angel's Message to PREPARE a people for the coming of the Lord."-Testimonies, volume 3, page 161. WHO CAN ENDURE THE FINAL TEST? We must yet, as a people, face our test. It will constitute part of the great final test that all the word must face over obedience to the Law of God. "The truth for this time the Third Angel's Message, is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, (meaning with increased power) as we approach the GREAT FINAL TEST. This test must come to the churches in connection with true medical missionary work, a work that has the Great Physician to dictate and preside in all it comprehends. "-Loma Linda Messages, page 62. "Be not deceived; many will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. We have now before us the Alpha of this danger. The Omega will be of a most startling nature."-Series B, number 2, page 16. The Alpha of the danger occurred when one man, medical doctor, apostatized in the field of religion. What could be more startling than to see our church papers seriously-and officially--extolling the virtues of the wonder drugs and vaccines, while currently the daily newspapers quip about the need for medical science to discover "anti-anti-drugs" and "counter-counter-irritants" to "help you hurt the help that hurts you." Our heavenly Father gave Israel of old the divine commission of proclaiming to the world a knowledge of the one true God. If she had obeyed this commission, she would have become its leading nation. But Israel turned her back on the Lord's bright promises and embraced the gods of the heathen-and became the least-respected nation on earth. God gave modern Israel a most wonderful health message to proclaim to the world, a message that would have made her the head and not the tail. But astonishment of astonishments! -Our denominational medical organization has put the Lord's methods in the background and in its place have embraced the medical practices of the world. And, an even stranger anomaly- those leading out in a return to the simple remedies given in nature-are thinking men out in the world who reason from cause to effect and who refuse to compromise principle when lives are at stake. "The church has turned her back from following Christ her Leader, and is steadily retreating toward Egypt.. Doubt and even disbelief of the testimonies of the Spirit of God is leavening our churches everywhere. Satan would have it thus. The testimonies are unread and unappreciated."-Testimonies, volume 5, page 21.7. "There is a spirit of opposition to the plain Word of God and to the testimony of His Spirit. There is a spirit of idolatrous exaltation of mere human reason above the revealed will of God." -Testimonies, volume 5, page 79. "But the days of purification of the church are hastening on apace. God will have a people pure and true. In the mighty sifting soon to take place, we shall be better able to measure the strength of Israel . . Those who have rendered supreme homage to 'science falsely so-called,' will not be the leaders then. . The time is not far distant when the test will come to every Soul."-Testimonies, volume 5, page 80-81. I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness to the Laodiceans. Some will not bear this STRAIGHT testimony. They will rise up against it, and this wilt cause a shaking among God's people."-Testimonies, volume 1, page 181. "Satan will work his miracles to deceive, he will set up his power as supreme. The church may appear as about to fall, but it does not fall. It remains while the sinners in Zion will be sifted out. The chaff is separated from the precious wheat. This is a terrible ordeal, but nevertheless it must take place. None but those who have been overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony will be found with the loyal and true, without spot or stain of sin, without guile in their mouth. The remnant that purify their souls by obeying the truth, gather strength front the trying process exhibiting the beauty of holiness amid the surrounding apostasy. The great issue so near at hand will weed out those whom God has not appointed, and He will have a pure true, sanctified ministry prepared for the latter rain.''-Letter 55,. 1886. "My attention was then turned to the company I had seen, who were mightily shaken .. The numbers of this company had lessened. Some had been shaken out and left by the way."-Testimonies, volume 1, page 181-182. "Those who come up to every point, and stand every test, and overcome, be the price what it may, have heeded the counsel of the True Witness and they will receive the latter rain, and thus be fitted for translation."-Testimonies, volume 1, page 187-188. "Oh, how many I saw in the time of trouble without a shelter! They had neglected the needful preparation." Early Writings, page 71. A creeping paralysis seems to be holding many of us back from making the needful preparation. It is a paralysis engendered by the twin infections of complacency and fear. The organism that produces the complacency is the preaching of "smooth things" that suggest to us that getting rid of sin is a long drawn-out process. The organism that produces the fear is the dread of losing one's job, or the fear of social ostracism, or the embarrassment of being called a 'fanatic." The opprobrium usually attached to the connotation of the word fanatic would be dispelled if we were to accept its dictionary definition: "One who is zealous for God." If Ellen White said back in her day that only one in twenty was then ready for what was ahead [1T 632 and ChS 41], it is left to the reader to decide whether he thinks the ratio is greater or lesser in our day. "Not one of us will ever receive the seal of God while our characters have one spot or stain upon them. " -Testimonies, volume 5, page 214. WE CANNOT SERVE TWO MASTERS Our heavenly Father is using many agencies to arouse a deeper interest in health reform and the natural remedies, both among His people and in the world around us. I send this little pamphlet out in the hope that it will help us realize which master we are serving in the medical missionary work we carry on. My objective is that we may return in unity to God's Divinely-given Plan, -not that we merely react to this material with excuses or dissension. For, you see, the stage is being set for the GREAT FINAL TEST. In the first test, Satan told Eve: "Ye shall not surely die. Eve died. Eve's modern children "who receive not the love of the truth," are bowing before one of His modern lies: "Medicine is a thing to be desired to make one well." But God says about these poisonous substances, "Medicines kill hundreds where they benefit one." May the Great Physician lead His people back to the ONE WAY-the one way of healing that Heaven approves. -Conclusion of the study. "DRUG TRIAL ABANDONED-Alarmed by continued reports of undesirable effects from the drug carbutamide, given by mouth for the relief of diabetes (Time, Oct. 29), Indianapolis'. Eli Lilly and Co. asked 2,900 doctors who have been testing it on 10,000 patients to abandon the trial. Most disturbing was a report that at least in animals-carbutamide can cause liver damage which might be worse than the diabetes it is meant to control. Lilly was already experimenting with other promising drugs."-Time, November 12, 1956. "DRUG OF SULFA FAMILY MAY CAUSE SERIOUS POISONING-Modern medicine has produced a miracle drug-sulfathiazole -which will cure gonorrhea if properly administered. Taken by mouth in dosages prescribed by a physician, this new drug of the sulfa family will eradicate the disease in eighty or ninety percent of all gonorrhea cases within a few weeks. The treatment is the same for women as for men. It must be emphasized, however, that self-administration of the drug may cause serious poisoning . . "-How to Keep Well, published by, Life and Health, "Venereal Diseases and War, "by R.A. Vonderlehr M. D., p. 48. "SEVERAL HUNDRED DEATHS FROM THE USE OF PENICILLIN-Los Angeles-Penicillin was accused as deadly in certain cases by Dr. Jason E. Farber, Highland-Alameda County Hospital at Oakland, speaking here at a recent meeting of the California Medical Association. 'Probably several hundred deaths from penicillin have occurred in the United penicillin have occurred in the United States since the drug was first used. Shock-like reactions, sometimes fatal, following the injection of penicillin or related drugs have shown a disturbing increase during the last two years,' Dr. Farber disclosed. 'There is no doubt that the public is developing hypersensitivity to the 'miracle drug.' He said a survey in Central California revealed that more than 300 patients suffered severe reactions following penicillin injections and that seven died. All seven deaths occurred within three minutes after the injection. None had been reported previously in medical literature, he reported."-Article, "Deaths Blamed on Penicillin," in Let's Live, September, 1954. "NEGATIVE REACTIONS OF PENICILLIN AND OTHER MODERN DRUGS Penicillin is losing its punch; aureomycin can cause mouth ulcers; terramycin can make you so nauseated you might wish you'd never heard the name; chloroycetin too, unless properly used. And the latest of the miracles ACTH and cortisone are as potentially dangerous as they are potentially good . . We are now learning that penicillin carries a punch for the patient as well as for the disease the hypodermic needle is directed toward. Although penicillin when first released was considered almost non-toxic, physicians now report reactions in as many as 30 percent or more of their patients. Because millions of persons are receiving the drug at one time or another, more and more reactions can be expected . . "Like penicillin, these three wonder drugs-aureomycin, terramycin, and chloromycetin -often cause reactions, among them a sore, red ulcerated mouth . , Another disturbing effect of this trio of wonder drugs is the intense nausea and vomiting they can produce in some patients. Gastro-intestinal upsets occurring in both adults and children have been reported by many doctors . . Although itching and skin rash are less frequent with these wonder drugs than with penicillin, there are, nonetheless, other annoying reactions . ."-J. De Witt Fox, M.D., article, in Review and Herald, February 2, 1956, "Are the Wonder Drugs so Wonderful?" "EVIL EFFECTS OF ASPIRIN IN THE SYSTEM-Although, because of its low toxicity, its inability to dull the pain-reaction sense, and its lack of any effect on normal body temperature, acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) ranks high among the safest of chemotherapeutic agents, it is by no means entirely innocuous. It has its savage side. Like most substances, it can produce a variety of allergic reactions -dizziness, ear ringing, nausea, vomiting, skin eruptions, asthmatic seizures, muscular spasms . Some of these idiosyncratics are so exquisitely responsive that a single grain can have a shattering, or even fatal, impact .. '-The New Yorker Magazine, "Annals of Medicine," March 31, 1956, page 49. "Children are much more sensitive to any drug than adults are, and an overdose even of aspirin can have drastic and even fatal effects on them .."-Changing Times, April, 1956. "ANTIBIOTICS ARE POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS AND PRODUCE TOXIC EFFECTS-Some micro-organisms originally sensitive to the action of antibiotics have developed resistant strains. And, finally, all of the drugs are potentially dangerous. Too many patients demand an antibiotic from the physician without realizing that it could turn a relatively mild, self-limiting infection into an extremely serious, or even fatal, one .. Since the last report, more has been learned about two very serious reactions to antibiotics, both of which emphasize the need for care and discrimination in their use. One is the severe, sometimes fatal, shock-like 'anaphylactic' reaction to penicillin, occurring within a very short period after injection . . It happens less frequently and is less severe when the antibiotic is given by mouth. "The second serious reaction to antibiotics is a gastro-intestinal disorder-such as sore mouth, cramps, diarrhea, or anal itch-which occurs most frequently after use of the tetracycline group, but has also been reported after penicillin and streptomycin. It is believed that these reactions result from suppression of normal intestinal bacterial flora by the antibiotic-resistant staphylococci, which are almost normally present in the intestine, are then free to flourish and cause infection . . "Other antibiotics that have toxic effects include streptomycin and dihydrestroptomycia, which may affect certain cranial nerves; bacitracin, polymiyxin and neomycin, which may injure the bone marrow . . 'When injected, these drugs (neomycin, polymyxin, and bacitracin) are capable of producing serious toxic side-effects, and they are used in this way only with great caution Excerpts from an article entitled, Antibiotics," Consumers Reports, October, 1956. "A sour note in the development of the preponderance of new wonder drugs is the increase in allergy problems, says Dr. W.C. Spain of New York University in the [medical] journal, GP. "About 500 different drugs can be proved to be sensitizing substances, he says. Any of the antibiotics are capable of producing allergic reactions, with penicillin being the chief offender, followed by streptomycin and chlortetracycline, chloramphenicol, or exytetracycline. About ten percent of the users become sensitive to penicillin. Sometimes the reaction doesn't set in for weeks or months and the patients may have forgotten about having had penicillin. Then may come hives, fever, a rash and various kinds of skin inflammations. Some severe effects have been reported following the use of as little as 100 units of penicillin. "Dr. Spain advises that doctors give patients who are allergic to drugs a card to be carried in the wallet or purse, describing the sensitivity. The person with the more dangerous sensitivity should be advised to wear an identification bracelet bearing his name and address and a warning concerning the allergy."-Science Digest, February, 1957, article, "Allergies Haunting New Wonder Drugs. " "COMMON DRUGS IN PROLONGED USE MAY HARM BRAIN -New York-In rats and presumably in people, also, the prolonged taking of certain drugs which are in common use causes brain and nervous system damage from which the rats never recover. "Dr. Richter cited indirect evidence for a presumption that what these drugs did to rats they are capable of doing to people -if taken steadily over long periods. "Although in common use, all of the drugs belong to chemical families for which all physicians have the greatest respect . . The chemical families are: The sulfa drugs, represented by sulfamerazine; drugs which suppress secretion of the thyroid gland, represented by propylthicuracil and thiouracil; the barbiturates, which often are prescribed as sleeping pills, represented by barbital,* fever-reducing drugs . . , and sex hormones, such as the estrogens and androgens - . "He (Dr. Richter] suggested the damage (caused by these drugs) most probably had been done in the hypothalamus, a regulatory section of the brain which many scientists believe is the boss of the whole system of internally secreting glands. The doctor stated that cells of the hypothalamus either were hit directly by the continuing intake of the drugs or they were exhausted by their efforts to restore the harmonious balance disturbed by drug intake. Sacramento Bee, November 21, 1957. "Every dose of medicine is a blind experiment on the vitality of the patient "-Bostwick, History of Medicine. "Food will be the medicine of the future."- Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, founder of the federal agency, the Food and Drug Administration. "The harmful effects of certain drugs pointed out by the Testimonies [of Ellen G. White] given in 1865 were not demonstrated by scientific research until after the turn of the century and some of them not until ten or fifteen years beyond 1900."-G.K. Abbott, M.D., The Witness of Science, page 9. "Beware of Acetanalid and acetphenetedin (Phenacetin) in headache cures. These drugs depress the heart, Injure the blood, and produce a[n addictive] habit:]-William E. La Rose, M.D., Youth at Seventy, page 33. "Acetanilide (antifebrin), which results from action of acetic acid (acetic anydride, acetyl chloride) and aniline is used as a remedy for headache, neuralgia, and mild fever. Methyl ecetanilide is also anti-neuralgic, but is more toxic than acetanilide."-Weirtheim, Organic Chemistry. "Within a few years penicillin may lose much of its power to cure some of the most prevalent diseases."-Hans Molitor, director of Merck Institute, in Pageant, February 1949, page 5. "Hammersmith Hospital in England, 1946, reported 14.1 per cent of germ strains cultivated there are resistant to penicillin. In 1948, the percentage had increased to 38 percent."-Your Health, vol. 9, no. 4, page 62. "The harmfulness, long ago proved, of such drugs as calomel as a cathartic, strychnine as a stimulant, quinine as a medicine for colds, acetanilide for fevers, and alcohol for colds, pneumonia, etc., has become known among well-informed people. But ignorance still keeps these drugs in all too common use. To these have been added a host of new drugs which are no less harmful. Old fashioned soda now parades under pseudo-scientific dress as an alkalizer. New coal-tar drugs, such amidapyrine are sold in so many forms and under such a variety of trade names as to be confusing even to the physicians; and many deaths have resulted from damage done by these drugs to nature's own protective means against infections- the white blood cells and their activities."-G.K. Abbott, M.D., Witness of Science, pages 219-220. "Over 6,000,000 pounds of aspirin was sold in this country in 1940. Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid and is used as an antipyretic [antifever], and for headache, sore throat, and neuralgia. Most of you take headache powders without realizing your danger in taking them. According to the greatest association of doctors in America, most of these headache powders are really dangerous. About the best known is a preparation known as aspirin. It was invented by a German chemist named Dresser and at first it had a large sale in Germany. But that nation investigated this preparation and found out its real nature. They passed a law so that aspirin cannot be sold in Germany without a doctor's ?? in that category. So it was dumped into America where it now has such a large sale."-Youth at Seventy, William E. La Rose, M. D. 'We have listed in medical science 407 different diseases and out of the 407 only six are curable."-Richard C. Cabot, M.D., of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. "Most drugs have no effect on the disease for which they are administered, William Osler, M.D., one of the founders of Johns Hopkins. "No drugs-save quinine and mercury will cure a disease. Only rest, food, sunshine, and fresh air can do that miracle."-Woods Hutchinson, M.D. "Drugs and medicines that work while you are asleep, a little later are going to prevent your working while you are awake."-Elbert Hubbard, the noted lecturer and writer. "Back of disease lies a cause-and that cause no drug can reach."-S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. "Poisonous drugs poison the human system and weak drugs have no effect."-L.W. Edwards, M.D., of Omaha, Nebraska. "Already the number of preparations devised by the chemist for the drug treatment of disease exceeds 75,000 different 'remedies.' The array of material from which to select is so great as to constitute a perpetual riddle in medicine."-Dr. L.F. Kebler, of the U.S. Bureau of Drugs. "The amido of psulfanilic acid (sulfanilmide) is one of the new 'sulfa' compounds whose use in medicine has affected a revolution in treatment of systemic bacterial infections. . They are the only chemicals available which are effective in doses so small as to be harmless to the patient."-Wertheim, Organic Chemistry, second edition, section entitled, `Sulfa Drugs." "All sulfa drugs damage the phagocytes, one of nature's chief means of protection against the pneumococcus and many other disease organisms. Nearly every drug ever used in pneumonia produces serious damage to the phagocytes (granulocytes) and lessens oxidation. These are proven scientific facts and show the basis of the condemnation of poisonous drugs in the treatment of disease, especially of infectious fevers, and the great advantage of nature's remedial agencies."-G.K. Abbott, M.D., Witness of Science. "The Testimonies are scientific, reliable, and have given us advance information years before science discovered these same facts. They are just as true today In reference to toxic drugs and to natural physiologic methods of treatment as the day they were written. Scientific advance in drug making has only given us more highly toxic drugs, more damaging to the body's delicate structures and mechanisms than those of fifty years ago. Let us show by our practice that we believe the Testimonies. They do not need our personal interpretations. They mean just what they say, and should be taken just as they read. With this determination to study and practice God's methods for the treatment of the sick, may we not read them again and with a working faith in them-decide to study physiology as God has so urgently pleaded with us to do?"-G.K. Abbott, M.D., Witness of Science, page 230. CARING FOR THE SICK "God's servants should not administer medicines which they know will leave injurious effects upon the system; even if they do relieve present suffering." -4 Spiritual Gifts, 140. "Not a poisonous drug should be used. When you have a case that does not respond to simple remedies, take it to the Lord in prayer. -Letter 16, 1910. THE HUMBLE WILL HE GUIDE IN KNOWLEDGE "When a physician enters upon his work as practitioner, the more genuine, practical experience he has, the more fully will he feel his want of knowledge. If self-sufficient, he will read articles written in regard to diseases and how to treat them without nature's aid; he will grasp statements and weave them into his practice, and without deep research, without earnest study, without sifting every statement, he will merely become a mechanical worker. Because he knows so little, he will be ready to experiment upon human lives, and sacrifice not a few. This is murder, actual murder. He did not do this work with evil design; he had no malicious purposes. But life was sacrificed on account of his ignorance, because he was a superficial student, because he had not had that practice that would make him a safe man to be intrusted with human lives. It requires care taking, deep, earnest taxation the mind to carry the burden a physician should carry in learning his trade thoroughly. Every physician who has received a thorough education will be very modest in his claims. It will not do for him to run any risk in experimenting on human life, lest he be guilty of murder, and this be written against him in the books of heaven. There should be a careful, competent physician who will deal scarcely ever in drugs."-Manuscript 22, 1887.
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