Forty years of medical and surgical practice, together with much study of the results of research work, has left me with some very settled conclusions regarding the reliability of scientific statements made in the Testimonies on health and medical practice. Many statements made in these writings were published at a time when they were quite contrary to generally accepted ideas among physicians and could not have been proved by any research work then extant. But so sound have been these guiding principles in pointing out the necessity of conformity to physiologic law, and the use of nature's aid in the treatment of the sick, that following them would have saved, and did save, many Seventh-day Adventist physicians from making serious mistakes in the treatment of the sick. Such mistakes have been common—indeed, very common, among medical men—not only mistakes in the last thirty-five years of the nineteenth century, since these messages began coming, but also errors in the forty-five years of this twentieth century.
DRUGS.—The harmful effects of certain drugs pointed out by the Testimonies given in 1865 were not demonstrated by scientific research until after the turn of the present century, and some of them not until ten or fifteen years beyond 1900. The description of the effects of one of these drugs, strychnine (the active principle of nux vomica) was so clear and so accurate as given in the little book How to Live (1865), which I read as a boy, that when I saw a person who had been using the drug as a heart stimulant I recognized the picture at once, though no such description was given in any medical book.
A retired clergyman called me to see him in Burbank, California, in 1904, where I first practiced medicine. As I entered the room of the patient, a rug was pushed away by the door as I opened it. It had been put there to prevent a draft from entering. The windows were all shut and entirely covered over with blankets to keep out drafts. The man was in bed with many blankets over him and a shawl pulled tightly around his head. The weather was warm, and it was the middle of the day, and yet the patient felt cold. Questioning brought out the fact that small doses of strychnine had been prescribed by a physician as a heart Stimulant, and the patient had kept it up for some time.
Note the accuracy of the description as given by Mrs, E. G. White, who of herself could have had no knowledge at all of such drug effects, and which could not have been found in any medical book or medical writing.
"The second case was again presented before me. The patient had appeared better under the influence of nux vomica. She was sitting up, folding a shawl closely around her, and complaining of chilliness. The air in the room was impure. It was heated and had lost its vitality. Almost every crevice where the pure air could enter was guarded to protect the patient from a sense of painful chilliness, which was especially felt in the back of the neck and down the spinal column. . . She could not bear the least draft of air from the door or windows. A gentleman of intelligence stood looking pityingly upon her, and said to those present, 'This is the second result of nux vomica. It is especially felt upon the nerves, and it affects the whole nervous system. There will be, for a time, increased forced action upon the nerves. But as the strength of this drug is spent, there will be chilliness, and prostration. Just to that degree that it excites and enlivens, will be the deadening, benumbing results following.' "—flow to Live, Art. "Disease and Its Causes,' p. 55.
"'Its effects are always tending to death. The condition the system is in, at the time these poisons are received into it, determines the life of the patient. Nux vomica can cripple, paralyze, destroy health forever, but it never cures.' —Ibid., p. 58.
In addition to the accuracy of this description of the manifest effects of the drug, note also the complete agreement of the last two statements in this excerpt, with the ultimate effects of strychnine as given by Dr. George W. Crile, from animal experiments, record of which was published in his book Blood Pressure in Surgery, pp. 266, 268 (Lippincott, 1903), and in the Detroit Medical Journal for May, 1903, pages 38 and 39.
"After each dose, when the effect had worn off, the blood pressure fell to a lower level than it was before the injection was given, until finally it reached the level, usually between zo and 30 mm., which was not altered by an additional dosage."
"In a series of experiments in which strychnine was given in various degrees of shock in such dosage as to cause a stimulation, the effect was proportional to the degree of shock, i.e., when but little shock was present, a marked effect from strychnine was obtained; and when most profound. there was no effect. In the intervening degrees the effects were proportional, but after giving the strychnine, the animals not yet in complete shock always passed into a deeper degree of shock."
"In any degree of shock, after the administration of a therapeutic dose of strychnine, the animals passed into deeper shock."
"Later in the research it is found that the most convenient and certain method of producing shock for exnerimental purposes, is by the administration of physiologic doses of strychnine. The treatment of shock, then, by therapeutic doses of strychnine is inert, and in physiologic doses dangerous."
There are additional details of the effects of strychnine given in the Testimonies which are not in Dr. Crile's experimental research, and there are details in the latter which are not in the Testimonies. One is in nontechnical language, the other in scientific terms, but there is no disagreement.
It would be too long a story to tell of the many other statements in the Testimonies which have been hard to understand, or which seem contradictory, or which have been greatly misunderstood by some because of preconceived notions, or which by some are called unscientific and even held up to ridicule because they disagreed with currently accepted ideas.
Butter and Egg Yolk Problem
One of the most discounted statements contained a positive testimony against butter, along with tea, coffee, meat, tobacco, and alcohol. But in 1901 someone who had brought on himself a very serious, and at that time invariably fatal, disease—pernicious anemia—was instructed by a personal testimony to put back into his diet those things which he had discarded—milk and eggs. (As a medical student I had counted the blood cells of this person many times and so had a very vivid picture of the condition. When this testimony was printed some years later, I was greatly interested to learn the scientific reasons.)
Thus, these two testimonies seemed to contradict each other. Yet beginning in 1908, on down to 1920, Anitschkow and other Russian physiologists had demonstrated conclusively that cholesterol, which is contained in both butter and egg yolk as well as in all flesh foods, when used freely or largely, produces the serious and irreversible disease of arteriosclerosis. This was later confirmed in 1033 in America by Dr. Timothy Leary by a grant from the American Medical Association of expenses for a similar piece of research, which included both animal experiments and human pathology.
In the autumn of that year (1933), while taking a course in major urology at the Boston City Hospital, where Dr. Timothy Leary is pathologist, I became acquainted with him, and he spent some time showing me the results of this research the year before it was published. These experiments revealed the cause of arteriosclerosis, with its many serious and incurable results. In that same year Dr. Edmund Cowdry Published a treatise on arteriosclerosis, to which there were twenty-three contributors. This book revealed not only the primary cause, the chemical substance always involved in the disease, but also the secondary or contributing causes of this disease.
In 1924 Dr. Sansum, of Santa Barbara, California, had published experimental work with three different types of diet: The first diet was high in protein and contained cholesterol. The second was high in protein but contained no cholesterol. Both of these were acid in ash. The third was high in protein but alkaline in ash and contained no cholesterol. These three diets revealed definite differences in their effects upon blood pressure, blood vessels, kidneys, and the accumulation of protein wastes in the blood.
The experiments explained in greater detail the much-misunderstood causes of high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, and Bright's disease, and why these are so variable in occurrence, in degree, and in combination.* Together, these various researches enabled the formation of principles and rules for the content of the diet in amounts and proportions of the structural and fuel elements of food, to avoid life-shortening diseases and preserve the characteristics of youth. Latest vital statistics show that this one group of diseases is responsible for 44 per cent of deaths at all ages in the United States, and 62 per cent of all deaths for ages 65 and over.
These experimental facts, when gathered together, reveal the consistency and importance of the statement written in 1870: "We bear positive testimony against tobacco, spiritous liquors, snuff, tea, coffee, flesh meats, butter, spices, rich cakes, mince pies, a large amount of salt, and all exciting substances used as articles of food."—Testimonies, vol. 3, p. 21. Of the full list of causes of present-day degenerative diseases, there need be added only eggs to the dietary factors, and to secondary causes, competitive athletics. Of two of these dietary causes—butter and eggs—it has been clearly shown to be a quantitative matter ; that is, moderation or limited use being healthful and necessary, while very free or large use is conducive to serious degenerative diseases of the vital organs of the body—the heart, blood vessels, and kidneys.
On the other side of this seemingly contradictory statement of 1901, in explaining the reason for the advice to use eggs, the testimony stated that eggs contain properties that are remedial agencies in counteracting certain poisons. From the circumstances of the case of pernicious anemia, one must come to the conclusion that these poisons are from perfectly wholesome food. For many years I kept my eyes open to find any research which would explain how one food (eggs) could counteract poisons in other perfectly good food. Not until 1932 was my search rewarded. I found the explanation in research work done by Mellanby and by Mervish of England. These researches revealed that a diet excessive in cereal grains contains acid poisons, which both vitamins A and D of egg yolk counteract, each in a different way. (A full account of scientific facts and the importance of this instruction was printed in THE MINISTRY for June, July, and August, 1940.)
My confidence in the foregoing statements was for many years based entirely on faith, not science, for science is human knowledge, which in this case came thirty years later. However, it is to be remembered that neither the ultimate cause of pernicious anemia nor the nature of the chemical present in normal liver, which is used in treating pernicious anemia, has as yet been demonstrated by any scientific research. For this reason full comparison is as yet impossible.
One of the most helpful principles in medical practice was stated in the Testimonies in 1887. It is the matter of investigating the habits of the sick which have laid the foundation for disease, and particularly the habits of eating and drinking. This is called the diet history. This is now being advocated and extensively used by investigators in nutrition, and applied in medical practice. Following this instruction as a clue to the treatment of a disease of unknown cause in 1936, I was sure I had found the key to the situation in the fact that a certain patient, a boy of eleven years, ate no fruit or vegetables.
The disease had received most extensive description in medical works for many years, but no cause had ever been discovered for its occurrence. I had previously seen five or six cases of the same type of hemorrhagic disease (Purpura humorrhagica of Schonlein-Henoch type). The diagnosis was confirmed by a professor of medicine of Stanford University Medical School, and later in Lane-Stanford Hospital. I failed at first to secure any relief for the patient by attempts at feeding friuts and vegetables by mouth. At last, after the return of the boy from the two hospitals mentioned, when he was brought home to die, I put down a feeding tube through the nose, past the stomach and into the duodenum, and began with a half-ounce feeding of citrus fruit juices, and later other concentrated liquid foods. The boy made a complete recovery, and was sent home from the local hospital in less than three weeks.
Just after his recovery was an accomplished fact, there 'came the announcement from Europe that Dr. Szent-Gyargyi, of the university of Szeged, Hungary, had discovered and isolated a vitamin from lemon peel and citrus fruit juices that cures this particular hemorrhagic disease, and which he proposed to call vitamin P, or the blood vessel permeability presenting vitamin. A number of investigators have experimented with this vitamin P in citron, as the crude product is called. The relationship of this vitamin to this certain hemorrhagic disease, and its distinction from vitamin C and scurvy, has been confirmed by other researches, particularly by Dr. Scarborough, of Scotland.
The Testimonies throw light on other problems of diet, such as the needs and abilities of the body in the utilization of protein, the matter of overeating and fasting, eating between meals, and the like. Important basic principles of medical practice, nature's aid (physiologic therapy) in the treatment of disease, the damaging effects of poisonous or toxic drugs, the place and importance Of trust in God (religion) in the recovery of the sick, are all discussed, and principles given which, unknown at the time they were written and still much neglected even today, are recognized and approved by outstanding medical authorities as scientific. Not a single one of these many important facts regarding the physical welfare of the human body has in these years since 1864 been proved incorrect.
Yet one more statement, this one made in 1905, remains to be experimentally explained or corroborated. All but this one have now been shown to be scientific. Of how many medical books written by physicians from 1865 down to 1901, could this be said? Nearly all, if not all, such books are now of little or no scientific value. Historically, they remind us of the many bltuiders and misconceptions of our medical fraternity which we might like to forget. The situation in regard to the scientific unreliability of medical literature is undoubtedly even worse than that of other physical sciences. Of these it is said that in a large Paris library there are three and a half miles of bookshelves containing nothing but scientific volumes which have been discarded as obsolete and untrue to fact ; and that as early as 1861 the French Academy of Science published a list of fifty-one so-called "scientific facts" advanced by scientists in their day as true to science, every one of which is now rejected by modern scientists.
Yet here in Mrs. White's writings are a number of volumes on health, diet, nutrition, and medical practice, written by one who had no medical or scientific education, and with the exception of but one fact or principle, all have now been explained or corroborated in the main by scientific research done many years later. That pertains to cancer, the research work on which is even now tending to corroborate the germ or virus theory of cancer's cause. We hope to report some of the results of recent investigations and findings in a later article.
* The Visual Education Department of the Pacific Union Conference has prepared projector slides for two lectures for educational use on these subjects. Study or lecture outlines suitable for health lectures to patients in sanitariums or students in colleges and nurses' training schools can be furnished with these.—G.R.A.
