History of the Medical Missionary Work

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 24, 1907

History of the Medical Missionary Work

The history of the religious movement set on foot by the proclamation of the third angel’s message shows that the medical missionary work as a department of the whole movement is co-equal with the other parts of the movement.

The principles of a healthful dietary and of the rational treatment of disease were recognized and applied in conjunction with the other special features of the message. All came gradually to light, and were developed together. Our medical missionary work is not an appendage to the message; it is an inherent part of it. It began with the whole movement, and it has grown with it until the present time. And furthermore, the true medical missionary work of the third angel’s message will never be separated from the message. While there will be those who are not identified with the third angel’s message who will recognize and apply, in their way, some of the principles of our medical missionary work, yet the work itself, as a part of the third angel’s message and developed with the message, will remain with it to the end.

It is generally understood, I think, that Joseph Bates was the first Seventh-day Adventist in the world. He was the first man, who, under the third angel’s message, connected the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath with the doctrine of the immediate coming of the Saviour. He had been in the first advent movement up to the disappointment in 1844; when the disappointment occurred, he, with all the rest, was thrown into great confusion and perplexity. But believing that the movement had been of God, he felt sure that there must be a true explanation of what had taken place, and so he addressed himself to the task of finding that explanation. He prayed earnestly for light, and searched the Scriptures with great diligence to learn, if possible, what that great advent movement meant, and why they were disappointed. The result of his earnest effort was that he began to get clear views of the third angel’s message. He came to see clearly that the third part of the great threefold message was to follow the first and second parts, and that a prominent feature of the third part of the message was to restore the Sabbath to its proper place in the decalogue. He received much help from the eleventh chapter of Revelation, which says, “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” In his study of that statement his mind was directed to the law that was deposited in the ark, and when he began to examine the law, he found to his amazement that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment was being desecrated every week by the Christian churches. He began immediately to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. That step marked the beginning of the religious movement under the third angel’s message, and Joseph Bates was the man with whom, in the providence of God, that movement began.

For many years previous to this Joseph Bates had been an earnest temperance reformer. In 1821, when twenty-nine years of age, he discarded intoxicating liquors. A year later he added wine to the list of discarded beverages. In 1823 he ceased using tobacco. In 1824 ale, porter, beer, and cider were rejected.

What he had seen of the evils of intemperance, and the benefits he had experienced by abstaining from intoxicants, led him to consider seriously the advisability of organizing temperance societies. In 1827 he organized the Fairhaven Temperance Society. This was the first temperance society ever organized in the United States. The members of this society were given the name of “teetotalers.” But the movement became popular, and town, county, and State temperance societies were organized in the State of Massachusetts. From this may be dated the beginning of the organized work of temperance societies throughout the world.

But Joseph Bates went further in temperance reform than the discarding of intoxicating liquors and tobacco. In 1832, when forty years of age, he discontinued the use of tea and coffee, and eleven years later, at the age of fifty-one, he discarded the use of flesh foods and became an ardent vegetarian. From that time until his death, at the good ripe age of eighty, his dietary consisted of fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables.

From these facts it is plain, and it is significant as well, that the man who was led to the Sabbath truth under the light of the third angel’s message was also led to adopt and establish the dietary of the medical missionary department of our cause. From this step Joseph Bates, and other pioneers of the message associated with him, steadily advanced toward the light until they came into possession of all the fundamental principles of our medical missionary work.

Thus we see that this medical missionary work as a distinctive feature of the whole movement under the third angel’s message, was recognized and developed with the other features of the message from the very beginning of the movement.

The adoption and advocacy of a healthful dietary was the first step in the development of our medical missionary work. Then came light on the rational treatment of disease. The essential principles of natural and rational therapeutic agencies began to be recognized and advocated. These principles were first brought forcibly to the attention of our people by Sister E. G. White in a series of six small pamphlets. Later these were bound together in a book entitled “How to Live.” The following notice of this little book appeared in the REVIEW AND HERALD, dated June 13, 1865:—

“This work, in six small pamphlets neatly put up in paper covers, four hundred pages of reading-matter in all, is now complete, and we have sent all the numbers by mail, post-paid, to about eight hundred only, who had subscribed for

the work, leaving twenty hundred at the Office waiting for orders.”

This was the first book published by our denomination on the subject of a proper dietary and the rational treatment of disease. When this book was published, there were but three physicians, so far as we know, in the denomination. These were, Dr. H. S. Lay, Dr. John Byington, and Dr. J. H. Ginley. In 1865 Dr. Lay contributed a series of articles for the REVIEW AND HERALD on the subject of health.

The next important step in the development of our medical missionary work was the launching of a health journal under date of June 5, 1866. The REVIEW AND HERALD contained the following statement regarding the new journal:—

The Health Reformer

“The first number of a monthly periodical, with the above title, sixteen pages, magazine form, with cover, will be issued at the Western Health-Reform Institute, Battle Creek, Mich., Aug. 1, 1866.

“The nature of this journal is sufficiently indicated by its name. It is designed to aid in the great work of reforming, as far as possible, the false habits of life so prevalent at the present day.

“It will aim to teach faithfully and energetically those rules of health by obedience to which people may secure the largest immunity from sickness and premature death.

“It will advocate the cure of diseases by the use of nature’s own remedies, air, light, heat, exercise, food, sleep, recreation, etc.”

The first number of this health journal contained articles from Dr. Ginley, Mrs. E. G. White, Elders J. N. Loughborough, D. T. Bourdeau, R. F. Cottrell, J. N. Andrews, J. H. Waggoner, and Dr. Lay. As there were but few physicians and no nurses to advocate the health work, our ministers came forward and rendered all the help they could. Their articles show that they did this with much zeal, and a fair degree of intelligence regarding the question. This health journal has never been discontinued.

(To be concluded)