Chapter 28—Statements on the Use of Drugs

A Statement in Answer to Questions on Drugs

Your questions, [See introductory note, pp. 276-278.] I will say, are answered largely, if not definitely, in How to Live. Drug poisons mean the articles which you have mentioned. The simpler remedies are less harmful in proportion to their simplicity; but in very many cases these are used when not at all necessary. There are simple herbs and roots that every family may use for themselves and need not call a physician any sooner than they would call a lawyer. I do not think that I can give you any definite line of medicines compounded and dealt out by doctors, that are perfectly harmless. And yet it would not be wisdom to engage in controversy over this subject.

The practitioners are very much in earnest in using their dangerous concoctions, and I am decidedly opposed to resorting to such things. They never cure; they may change the difficulty to create a worse one. Many of those who practice the prescribing of drugs, would not take the same or give them to their children. If they have an intelligent knowledge of the human body, if they understand the delicate, wonderful human machinery, they must know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that not a particle of these strong drugs should be introduced into this human living organism.

As the matter was laid open before me, and the sad burden of the result of drug medication, the light was given me that Seventh-day Adventists should establish health institutions discarding all these health-destroying inventions, and physicians should treat the sick upon hygienic principles. The great burden should be to have well-trained nurses, and well-trained medical practitioners to educate “precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little and there a little” (Isaiah 28:10^L).

Train the people to correct habits and healthful practices, remembering that an ounce of preventive is of more value than a pound of cure. Lectures and studies in this line will prove of the highest value.—Letter 17a, 1893.

Other Clarifying Statements

Do They Leave Baleful Influences Behind?—Nothing should be put into the human system that will leave a baleful influence behind.—Medical Ministry, 228 (Manuscript 162, “How to Conduct Sanitariums,” 1897).

The simplest remedies may assist nature, and leave no baleful effects after their use.—Letter 82, 1897 (To Dr. J.H. Kellogg).

Substances Which Poison the Blood—In our sanitariums, we advocate the use of simple remedies. We discourage the use of drugs, for they poison the current of the blood. In these institutions sensible instruction should be given how to eat, how to drink, how to dress, and how to live so that the health may be preserved.—Counsels on Diet and Foods, 303 (Sermon at Lodi, California, May 9, 1908).

Do not endeavor to adjust the difficulties by adding a burden of poisonous medicines.—The Ministry of Healing, 235 (1905).

Every Pernicious Drug—Every pernicious drug placed in the human stomach, whether by prescription of physicians or by man himself, doing violence to the human organism, injures the whole machinery.—Manuscript 3, 1897 (General Manuscript).

Break Down Vital Forces—Drugs always have a tendency to break down and destroy vital forces.—Medical Ministry, 223 (General Manuscript entitled “Sanitarium,” 1887).

Poisonous Preparations Which Leave Injurious Effects—God’s servants should not administer medicines which they know will leave behind injurious effects upon the system, even if they do relieve present suffering. Every poisonous preparation in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, taken into the system, will leave its wretched influence, affecting the liver and lungs, and deranging the system generally.—Spiritual Gifts 4a:140 (1864).

Deadly Aftereffects of Poisonous Drugs—Nature’s simple remedies will aid in recovery without leaving the deadly aftereffects so often felt by those who use poisonous drugs. They destroy the power of the patient to help himself. This power the patients are to be taught to exercise by learning to eat simple, healthful foods, by refusing to overload the stomach with a variety of foods at one meal. All these things should come into the education of the sick. Talks should be given showing how to preserve health, how to shun sickness, how to rest when rest is needed.—Letter 82, 1908 (To physicians and manager at Loma Linda).

Counsel on the Administration of Drugs

Seldom Needed—Use Them Less and Less—Drug medication, as it is generally practiced, is a curse. Educate away from drugs. Use them less and less, and depend more upon hygienic agencies; then nature will respond to God’s physicians—pure air, pure water, proper exercise, a clear conscience. Those who persist in the use of tea, coffee, and flesh meats will feel the need of drugs, but many might recover without one grain of medicine if they would obey the laws of health. Drugs need seldom be used. [In harmony with these words was Mrs. White’s counsel when asked concerning the use of quinine in the treatment of malaria. Her son, who traveled with her and assisted her, reports the following:

“One time while we were in Australia, a brother who had been acting as a missionary in the Islands, told mother of the sickness and death of his first-born son. He was seriously afflicted with malaria, and his father was advised to give him quinine, but in view of the counsel in the testimonies to avoid the use of quinine he refused to administer it, and his son died. When he met Sister White, he asked her this question: ‘Would I have sinned to give the boy quinine when I knew of no other way to check malaria and when the prospect was that he would die without it?’ In reply she said, ‘No, we are expected to do the best we can. ’”—W. C. White letter, September 10, 1935.—Compilers.]—Counsels on Health, 261 (1890).

Seek to Lessen Their Use—In their practice, the physicians should seek more and more to lessen the use of drugs instead of increasing it. When Dr. A came to “the Health Retreat”, she laid aside her knowledge and practice of hygiene, and administered the little homeopathic doses for almost every ailment. This was against the light God had given. Thus our people, who had been taught to avoid drugs in almost every form, were receiving a different education.—Letter 26a, 1889 (To a prominent physician in institutional work).

Strong Drugs Need Not Be Used—The first labors of a physician should be to educate the sick and suffering in the very course they should pursue to prevent disease. The greatest good can be done by our trying to enlighten the minds of all we can obtain access to, as to the best course for them to pursue to prevent sickness and suffering, and broken constitutions, and premature death. But those who do not care to undertake work that taxes their physical and mental powers will be ready to prescribe drug medication, which lays a foundation in the human organism for a two-fold greater evil than that which they claim to have relieved.

A physician who has the moral courage to imperil his reputation in enlightening the understanding by plain facts, in showing the nature of disease and how to prevent it, and the dangerous practice of resorting to drugs, will have an uphill business, but he will live and let live.... He will, if a reformer, talk plainly in regard to the false appetites and ruinous self-indulgence, in dressing, in eating and drinking, in overtaxing to do a large amount of work in a given time, which has a ruinous influence upon the temper, the physical and mental powers....

Right and correct habits, intelligently and perseveringly practiced, will be removing the cause for disease, and the strong drugs need not be resorted to. Many go on from step to step with their unnatural indulgences, which is bringing in just as unnatural [a] condition of things as possible.—Medical Ministry, 221, 222 (General Manuscript entitled “Sanitariums,” 1887).

As It Is Generally Practiced—Drug medication, as it is generally practiced, is a curse.—Healthful Living, 246 (1888).

Less Dangerous if Wisely Administered—Do not administer drugs. True, drugs may not be as dangerous wisely administered as they usually are, but in the hands of many they will be hurtful to the Lord’s property.—Letter 3, 1884 (To workers at St. Helena Sanitarium).

Discarding Almost Entirely—Our institutions are established that the sick may be treated by hygienic methods, discarding almost entirely the use of drugs.... There is a terrible account to be rendered to God by men who have so little regard for human life as to treat the body so ruthlessly in dealing out their drugs.... We are not excusable if through ignorance we destroy God’s building by taking into our stomachs poisonous drugs under a variety of names we do not understand. It is our duty to refuse all such prescriptions.

We wish to build a sanitarium [in Australia] where maladies may be cured by nature’s own provisions, and where the people may be taught how to treat themselves when sick; where they will learn to eat temperately of wholesome food, and be educated to refuse all narcotics—tea, coffee, fermented wines, and stimulants of all kinds—and to discard the flesh of dead animals.—Temperance, 88, 89 (General Manuscript 1896).

The Ideal—Finally Cease to Deal Out Drugs—When you understand physiology in its truest sense, your drug bills will be very much smaller, and finally you will cease to deal out drugs at all. The physician who depends upon drug medication in his practice, shows that he does not understand the delicate machinery of the human organism. He is introducing into the system a seed crop that will never lose its destroying properties throughout the lifetime. I tell you this because I dare not withhold it. Christ paid too much for man’s redemption to have his body so ruthlessly treated as it has been by drug medication.

Years ago the Lord revealed to me that institutions should be established for treating the sick without drugs. Man is God’s property, and the ruin that has been made of the living habitation, the suffering caused by the seeds of death sown in the human system, are an offense to God.—Medical Ministry, 229 (To a leading physician and his wife, 1896).

The Divine Presence in the Operating Room

[The assurances of this chapter will remove any question as to the propriety of surgery with its attendant anesthetic.]

Christ in the Operating Room—Before performing a critical operation, let the physician ask for the aid of the Great Physician. Let him assure the suffering one that God can bring him safely through the ordeal, that in all times of distress He is a sure refuge for those who trust in Him.—The Ministry of Healing, 118 (1905).

The Saviour is present in the sickroom, in the operating room; and His power for His name’s glory accomplishes great things.—Manuscript 159, 1899 (Manuscript, “The Privileges and Duties of a Christian Physician”).

Surgery Not a Denial of Faith—It is our privilege to use every God-appointed means in correspondence with our faith, and then trust in God, when we have urged the promise. If there is need of a surgical operation, and the physician is willing to undertake the case, it is not a denial of faith to have the operation performed. After the patient has committed his will to the will of God, let him trust, drawing nigh to the Great Physician, the Mighty Healer, and giving himself up in perfect trust. The Lord will honor his faith in the very manner He sees is for His own name’s glory. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength” (Isaiah 26:3, 4^L).—Manuscript 67, 1899 (General Manuscript).

Jesus Guided Your Hands—Who has been by your side as you have performed these critical operations? Who has kept you calm and self-possessed in the crisis, giving you quick, sharp discernment, clear eyesight, steady nerves, and skillful precision? The Lord Jesus has sent His angel to your side to tell you what to do. A hand has been laid upon your hand. Jesus, and not you, has guided the movements of your instrument. At times you have realized this, and a wonderful calmness has come over you. You dared not hurry, and yet you worked rapidly, knowing that there was not a moment to lose. The Lord has greatly blessed you.—Testimonies for the Church 8:187, 188 (To the medical superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, 1899).

As you looked to God in your critical operations, angels of God were standing by your side, and their hands were seen as your hand performing the work with an accuracy that made the beholders surprised.—Letter 73, 1899 (To the physician addressed in the preceding item).

The Divine Watcher by the Side of the Physician—Christ is the greatest medical missionary that ever lived. He never lost a case. He understands how to give strength and guidance to the physicians in this institution. He stands beside them as they perform their difficult surgical operations. We know that this is so. He has saved lives that might have been lost had the knife swerved a hair’s breadth. Angels of God are constantly ministering to those for whom Christ has given His life.

God gives the physicians of this institution skill and efficiency because they are serving Him. They know that their skill is not their own, that it comes from above. They realize that there is beside them a divine Watcher, who gives wisdom to His physicians, enabling them to move intelligently in their work.—Manuscript 28, 1901 (Words addressed to workers at the St. Helena Sanitarium).