FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M. D
By Frederick M. Rossiter
The Gospel of Health—No. 7
FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M. D
THE degenerative diseases are chronic in nature, and are attended with degenerative changes of the tissues of the organs involved, such as the brain and the nervous system; the heart and the circulatory system; the decay of the teeth; diseases of the stomach, liver, intestines, and kidneys. All these diseases are on the increase. The cause of this increase in all degenerative diseases can be summarized in one word, and that word is intemperance. Excesses in eating and drinking, alcoholism, smoking, sexual excesses, excesses of mental strain and worry, and the burden of sin, overexertion of the mental and physical forces, with abuse of all life's forces,—these are the reasons why so few attain to old age even though they may have been born with the capacity to live threescore and ten years. With a practical appreciation of our present knowledge of healthful living, most of the mortality between forty and seventy years could be prevented. The Bible promise of life is seventy years (Ps. 90: 10), but by reason of strength or effort ten years more may be added. If this is true at seventy years, then certainly the exercise of preventive measures and living in accordance with laws of health at the prime of life will add many years of usefulness to one's life as a reward for right-doing. Prevention is greater than cure, and it is more important. It is one thing to say this, and another to practise it. One of the great difficulties before physicians and sanitarians today is to get people who enjoy a reasonable degree of health to see the importance of guarding the health, and to deny themselves of pleasures that will surely and eventually bring on disease. Some time ago while talking with a State health commissioner, he remarked to me that the indifference of those who are not sick to matters that pertain to the health of the individual and of the community is a very discouraging feature in the work of the State boards of health. Some States have equipped a train made up of several coaches, for the purpose of giving free demonstrations on matters pertaining to health and hygiene, in order to get people to take better care of the health and to help in the prevention of diseases. In this way some States have accomplished very gratifying results. On the other hand, some State boards have been discouraged by the little interest the masses take in these efforts. It is a very hard problem to get people to practise the conservation of health when they are feeling fine and disease seems far away. This condition is represented in the message given to the Laodicean church, which says in action, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” This sense of self-security is just as dangerous to the health of the body and the community as it is to the health of the soul. To have health and to maintain it require continual watchfulness and vigilance. The enemy of all righteousness is on the track of every man, woman, and child to tempt them to indulge the senses, and in every way to neglect the health. In this way the mind is weakened and distracted by sickness, and so there is a diminished desire for truth, and also a decreased susceptibility to truth. For this reason the world is full of sickness and misery and woe and death. The words of Paul to the Romans are literally true when he says “that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain until now.” Do you know of a family where every member enjoys good health all the time? Observation seems to justify the conclusion that it is difficult to find a man or a woman of forty years or over whose health has not been impaired in some manner. This is the time when those who in the vigor of life have said, “I can eat anything, I can do anything, nothing seems to hurt me, I am tough as an ox,” find out that things do hurt them, that they have more days of indisposition than formerly, that the health is not what it once was. What woe and misery and desolation is in the world because people love darkness rather than light! The great remedy for this condition of things in the world is the gospel of health, which the Lord has committed in a special sense to this people. This truth has been gradually unfolding during the past fifty years, until now we have a most wonderful constellation of principles so complete that every phase of living is covered. The light we have today on matters pertaining to health is much greater than that committed to the children of Israel. Our responsibility is correspondingly much greater. With Israel perfection of character was not a condition of entrance to the promised land, but with the people of this generation it is. It is no doubt for this reason that light has been so abundantly given on how to care for the mind and body. In 1 Thess. 5: 23 we read: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” A blameless soul and spirit is one that is perfect. A blameless body therefore will be one that is free from disease, one that is in health. I do not believe that the saints of God in the last days of the message are going to be invalids, pale, and ethereal, and transparent. They are going to be men and women who have health, vigor, and endurance,—a people who, because of obedience, are vitalized by the Holy Spirit, and for that reason can accomplish things. Religion in the world is looked upon as something for the soul of man, but as having nothing particularly to do with the body. I have had patients who resented the idea that the rules of religion should be applied to the uses made of the body. The opinion is current that the soul belongs to God, but that the body belongs to man to use as he sees fit. The devil has made men think this all through the ages; or, if he could not make them believe it; then he has pushed them to the other extreme, causing them to believe that they can beautify the soul by torturing the body and heaping every abuse upon it. “Our bodies are Christ's purchased property, and we are not at liberty to do with them as we please. Man has done this. He has treated his body as if its laws, had no penalty. Through perverted appetite its organs and powers have become enfeebled, diseased, and crippled. And these results which Satan has brought about by his own specious temptations, he uses to taunt God with. He presents before him the human body that Christ has purchased as his own property; and what an unsightly representation of his Maker man is!”—Testimonies for the Church, Vol. VI, page 369.