Our Medical Work from 1866 to 1896—No. 8

A problem that early confronted medical workers was the fact that the State of Michi­gan had not yet made provision for philan­thropic or health institutions as corporate in­stitutions. Contacts were made with the State department, and on March 13, 1867, the Michi­gan Legislature passed an act providing "for the formation of corporations for the establish­ment of health institutions and imparting in­struction in the principles of hygiene . . . in compliance with the provisions of an act en­titled, 'An Act to Authorize the Formation of Corporations for Mine Smelting or Manufac­turing Iron, Copper, Mineral Coal, Silver, or Other Ores or Minerals and for Other Manu­facturing Purposes.' "

It may seem inconsequential to the casual reader that our first institution was chartered under a mining act, but apparently it was largely that act serving as a precedent that caused these early pioneers to think it neces­sary for them to have stockholders and to pay stockholders' dividends for their investment, even in a philanthropic organization. The matter of paying dividends to stockholders was afterward corrected, as related in our former article, but the relationship of these institu­tions to stockholders remained intact, and brought about some of the greatest perplexities with which the brethren had to deal in later years.

Another problem was the fact that a corpo­ration could secure a charter covering a period of only thirty years. Thus it was that in 1896 a new charter for the institution was required, which brought about the organization of the Michigan Sanitarium and Benevolent Associa­tion. Prior to this, in the General Conference session of 1893, the S. D. A. Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association had been or­ganized, and the International Health and Temperance Association, which had formerly cared for the health education and missionary work in the denomination, was merged into this larger association.

In the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, the board of trustees or board of directors were to be elected by the stockholders. The constituency of this newly created organization, in addition to the stock­holders, would include the Seventh-day Ad­ventist General Conference committee and the presidents of American and overseas Seventh-day Adventist conferences. The only differ­ence in the vote accorded stockholders in the old sanitarium corporation and the new was that stockholders were not permitted as many votes each as they had shares. Each stock­holder was allowed but one vote. The re­mainder of his share votes were to be allotted to individuals authorized officially by him as proxy voters.

In the plans for the new association, a change had taken place in the personnel of the controlling body of the medical missionary activities of the church. In the old charter of 1867 we read, "Any person keeping the com­mandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ may become a shareholder in this insti­tute on the payment of $25 into its treasury, and such persons may hold as many shares as they shall thus purchase, and for each and every share held by them they shall be entitled to one vote in all of the business meetings of the stockholders." Only those could vote by proxy who would sign a writing "certified by the elder or clerk to which such person be­long."

In the new charter of 1896 (ratified by the State in 1897) we find no statement which would protect the constituency from the possi­bility of so developing that a majority of its members would not be sympathetic with the denominational point of view and its purposes in the maintenance of a medical institution. Instead, the declaration of principles which the stockholders of 1896 were required to sign simply declared their belief in God, in the Bible as the inspired word of God, and in the principles of the Christian religion. The 1896 Year Book of the S. D. A. Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association gives us a better understanding of the responsibilities of this Association and the far-reaching extent of the work involved in such control:

Resolved, That we hereby organize ourselves into an association to be known as the Seventh-day Ad­ventist Medical Missionary and Benevolent Associa­tion.* The objects of this Association shall be to erect and manage homes for orphan children and for friendless aged persons, also hospitals and sani­tariums for the treatment of the sick poor and others, the same to be ^.either self-supporting or supported in whole or in part by funds secured for the purpose; to establish dispensaries in cities, medical missions at home and abroad, visiting nurses' work, Christian. help work ; to educate missionary physicians and nurses; to provide for the needy poor ; to promulgate the principles of health and temperance : and to do good in a variety of ways, independent of denomina­tional or sectarian interests."

It is evident from the records that the rela­tionship of the various medical activities to the primary objective of the church created con­siderable discussion. In a joint meeting of the General Conference Committee, called by G. A. Irwin, president of the General Conference, and the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association (called by Doctor Kel­logg, president of the Association), which convened in Chicago in 1897, Doctor Kellogg endeavored to define the relationship between denominational and undenominational work. There seems to have been confusion in the minds of many as to the meaning of sectarian acts as relating to the work of an individual Christian and that of a corporate body. The question was repeatedly asked, How can we have an undenominational side of the work? It seemed sometimes that as these discus­sions continued, common agreement would be reached by all. Again, in some instances, the discussions would cease by the statement of some individual who endeavored to explain the indefiniteness of the chasm between the two philosophies of thinking. In one of these meetings W. W. Prescott made this very perti­nent statement:

"To get a man free from sin and teach him how to live in harmony with God's law is the work of both the minister and the physician. And when each understands what his work is, both will understand that there is only one work and that they can work side by side, each helping the other."

At another time Professor Prescott stated his conviction that the doctrines of this mes­sage—the Bible, the sanctuary, the nature of man, etc.—had a close connection with the health principles which should restore the sick to health. He stated further that if one prin­ciple is omitted in our teaching, then only a part of the message is given instead of the whole. It should be noted here that these were not new issues, for as early as 188T the constituency of the Health Reform Institute had appointed a committee of three, with Doctor Kellogg as chairman, to bring in a re­port of a plan for reorganization more like that then governing the publishing and educa­tional work. The available records indicate that this committee made no report, or if they did, no change was effected.

In reading these historical statements, many of which we cannot include in this short dis­cussion, we understand more clearly how easy it was for the type of organization formed by those early pioneers to be detrimental to the best interests of a united work. It was in con­nection with such a situation that testimony after testimony reached the leaders in the nine­ties, relative to the unity of the work, urging them in some messages not to "make the arm the body," and then again urging these same leaders to remember "that the arm was a very definite part of the body."

Problems of Dual Control

Another question which arose as the Inter­national Medical Missionary Association grew in power and had branches throughout the world field, pertained to the administrative control and the relationship to the local field to which it looked for support. It must be remembered that the actions taken by this asso­ciation were not subject to ratification by the general or local conference. However, money for this "undenominational" work was secured by soliciting church members through the liter­ature published by the association and through personal appeals for financial support.

We can hardly say that any one individual was at fault for the basic weaknesses in the organization of our early medical work, but we do know that similar types of dual control and divided administrative responsibility have proved a perplexity in many lines of endeavor. Perhaps an analogous situation was found in the early days of our country in the intro­duction of public-health work into the school system, when there was considerable concern whether medical workers coming into the pub­lic school of any system should be under the direction of the superintendent of schools, or under the direction of the Board of Public Health of the municipality in which the school was located. Hoag and Terman, in their book "Health Work in the Schools," state that such dual control "inevitably leads to conflict be­tween the board of health and the educational authorities." A single control by the organ­ization in which the worker operates means slower progress sometimes, but eventually re­sults in a greater progress for all.

It was evident at times during the latter part of the nineteenth century that efforts were put forth by both the conference and the medical leaders to reach a common understanding of the plan for the supervision of medical workers in local conferences. The fact, however, that the leadership of the medical work con­tended that the work was unsectarian and un­denominational, and that the health work car­ried on within the conferences was not to be connected with evangelistic activities, brought perplexity to those who seriously endeavored to find a way in which these two lines of activ­ity could be closely associated. Today, as we read again certain messages from the pen of Ellen G. White, we recognize the pertinency of the following quotations:

"Medical missionary work is in no case to be di­vorced from the gospel ministry."

"The medical missionary work is the gospel in illustration. But God did not design that the medical missionary work should eclipse the work of the third angel's message. The arm is not to become the body."

"Both home and foreign missions should be con­ducted in connection with the ministry of the Word. The medical missionary work is not to be carried forward as something apart from the work of the gos­pel ministry. The Lord's people are to be one. There is to be no separation in His work. Time and means are being absorbed in a work which is carried for­ward too earnestly in one direction. The Lord has not appointed this. . . . The two lines of work must not be separated. Satan will invent every possible scheme to separate those whom God is seeking to make one. We must not be misled by his devices. The medical missionary work is to be connected with the third angel's message, as the hand is connected with the body; and the education of students in medi­cal missionary lines is not complete unless they are trained to work in connection with the church and the ministry."

Pacific Union Medical Organization

Coming back, however, to the problem of organization, which was a deeper-seated diffi­culty than that of cooperation of individuals, we find that the beginning of our present plan of organization was largely pioneered in the development of the organization for the Pacific Union Medical Missionary Association. Elder A. T. Jones was at that time the presi­dent of the Pacific Union, and he was asked in the General Conference session of 1902 to report to the committee the plan of organiza­tion that he had effected on the West Coast. This report was published in the February 24, 1903, issue of the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald. Prefacing the complete report, Elder Jones indicates that the change of organization from that which was in effect in the Interna­tional Medical Missionary and Benevolent As­sociation had been made in harmony with tes­timonies which had repeatedly indicated "that the form of organization of the medical mis­sionary work was in certain vital points defec­tive." He said, "This required that this board should search for original principles as the basis of the organization that it was appointed to effect."

In the year 1901 there had been a reorgan­ization of the General Conference based on the principle of local self-government. The Gen­eral Conference had pushed back to the unions all that could be done by union conferences; and the union conferences in turn had pushed back to the local conferences all that could be done by the individual conferences; the con­ferences had pushed back to the respective churches all that could be done by individual churches; the churches had pushed back to e-ch individual Christian all that could be done by him; and the individual Christian had pushed back to God all that could be done in and through the individual Christian by God. On the basis of this principle of organization, the brethren on the Pacific Coast had gone about to organize the Pacific 'Union Medical Missionary Association. The preface to their preamble read, "Where the burden of labor rests, there rests the weight of control." In concluding the plan of organization, it was stated:

"In short, the Medical Missionary Association shall be essentially of the church, simply the church itself at work in medical missionary lines, just as schools and colleges represent the church at work in intellec­tual lines, and the churches and conference the church at work in evangelistic lines. The sanitariums shall be instrumentalities of the church, just as are schools, tract societies, etc. The physicians, nurses, etc., shall be regularly licensed by the conference as church workers, the same as others."

Quoting from this same report by Elder Jones, we find a statement read by him from a testimony of Mrs. White's during those days of perplexity in the early struggles of organ­ization in this denomination:

"To the leaders in the medical missionary work I must say that no one is to claim kingly power over God's heritage. God's people are to be under Him, and Him alone. There is one Shepherd and He has one flock. The Lord knows the future, He is the one to be looked to and trusted in to guide and guard and direct in the future development of the various branches of His work, For several years I have been warned that there is danger, constant danger, of men looking to men for permission to do this and that instead of looking to God for them­selves."

To this very excellent report Elder F. M. Wilcox made the following comment, "I am glad to see our organization finding its source in God's unit." After the report by A. T. Jones, Elder W. T. Knox made this motion:

"That the constituency of the Pacific Union Medi­cal Missionary and Benevolent Association be com­posed of the executive committee of the Pacific Union Conference, the presidents of the local conference medical missionary and benevolent associations, medi­cal superintendents of all sanitariums in the territory, one representative from every soo members in every local conference, the managers of the food factories in the territory, and such delegates as may be pres­ent from the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, not to exceed ten."

The funds for the operation of these medical missionary endeavors were to accrue from the tithe of the income of local enterprises, both State and union associations.

There is abundant documentary evidence that the difficulties of those early years were not difficulties between individual men, but be­tween great principles, although personalities often accentuated the problems created through unsound organization. In 1906 the General Conference Committee made the statement that the false religious philosophies which began to be promulgated, constituted "but a part of the difficulty. Plans of organization and adminis­tration have been urged upon the denomina­tion which would make the medical missionary work the body instead of the arm, and give to a central board of management and to a single individual a controlling, dominating power which would utterly pervert God's plan of organization."