FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M. D
By Frederick M. Rossiter
The Gospel of Health—No. 6
FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M. D
THROUGH the goodness of God we are not left in darkness, but have more light on the subject of healthful living than has ever before been bestowed upon any people. Gospel means “glad tidings,” and to teach others how to live physically is a part of the glad tidings. But before we can give the gospel to others, we must know it for ourselves; and so before we can show others how to live healthfully, we must be able to do so ourselves. In no period of the world has there been so much light on the subject of preventing disease and of preserving the health as in our day. Why is this? Manifestly it is to save people from sickness and the race from extinction, and to prepare them to receive the complete fulfilment of the gospel. While it is true that great light has been shed upon this generation in reference to the prevention of disease and the promotion of health, it is probably true that there never was a time when there was so much sickness, acute and chronic, as at the present time. Statistics show a daily average of more than three million persons in the United States on the sick-list, or an average of thirteen days per capita for the entire population; or in other words, about four per cent of the population is sick all the time. Were death from preventable diseases, such as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, malaria, pneumonia, and diseases peculiar to infants, prevented, the saving of life would be sufficient to add fifteen years to the average duration of life. And, in fact, eighty per cent of the diseases that afflict the human race are preventable. What do these facts mean to us as a people? Let us consider this for a moment. Suppose that four per cent of our people are sick all the time. Four per cent of 100,000 would be 4,000, or the number of our people sick all the time. Suppose that four per cent of our ministers, physicians, nurses, Bible workers, and all other workers are sick all the time. What does this mean to our work? Or suppose we put it in another way: According to the United States Census reports, every one of our 100,000 church-members has thirteen days of sickness each year. Say because of loss of time, expense for physicians, nursing, medicines, patent medicines, sanitarium care, expense of traveling, and change of climate, there is a loss to the denomination of two dollars a day for each of these thirteen days of sickness, how much will it amount to?—Twenty-six dollars for each person, and one hundred thousand times that will give the little sum of $2,600,000. But these figures are no doubt too high for our people, and so we shall reduce them fifty per cent. That still makes the cost of sickness to the denomination $1,300,000. Fifty per cent of this sickness is certainly preventable. An expense of $650,000 might be saved annually. How much would this do for missions? How many workers would it send into the needy fields? There is truth in these figures, and they are of such importance that we ought to give the cause of this expense some consideration. How may most of this money be saved to the cause of God? I should say it could be done by studying the light that the Lord has given us on the subject of health, and then putting it into practical daily application. There ought to be very few funerals among this people except of those who have passed the threescore and ten mark. God has promised this length of life, and when one dies sooner he has died prematurely. Moses, Aaron, and others died when their work was finished, at a time when their strength was not abated. Death should be as physiological as birth. It has been estimated that the average length of life in the sixteenth century was about eighteen to twenty years. The reason for this low average of life was because of the terrible epidemics that swept the nations, due to ignorance and insanitary conditions. At the end of the eighteenth century the average length of life had increased to thirty years. During the past century the average duration of life has increased very materially, and at present it is between forty and fifty years in many of the nations. This saving of human lives, thus increasing the average length of life, is due to increased light on the laws of health, improved sanitation, and laws of preventive medicine made applicable to the individual and to the nation. But this increase in the length of human life is due largely to the prevention of acute diseases. I have already mentioned a few of the acute diseases that are preventable, and if they were prevented, fourteen or fifteen years could at once be added to the average length of life in this country, and this change could probably be brought about in a period of less than ten years. If these same acute diseases were destroying domestic animals as rapidly as they are destroying human lives, it no doubt would be made in much less time, for, as a matter of fact, more attention has been given to the15health of hogs, cattle, and sheep than to that of human beings. Let us look at this situation from another standpoint. A recent government report from the Census Department shows that out of every miscellaneous one hundred persons dying on any given day, only two die of old age. Seven die from accident or violence, but had these seven escaped their violent death we have no reason to believe that they would have lived any longer than the majority of the one hundred. So, then, of every one hundred born, more than ninety-seven come into the world without the capacity for old age, or having that capacity they deplete it and so die prematurely. These figures may seem an exaggeration of the subject in hand, but they are true. In presenting these facts we do not have to become pessimists. However, this condition ought not so to be. I believe that in the providence of God it should not exist. God has placed a remedy in the world for this state of affairs. That remedy is the gospel of health,—health reform,—and this is the part of the gospel that has been very much neglected by all the churches from the days of the Reformation to the present time. To us this gospel message has been given, but we have come far short in living up to this phase of the message. Living out the principles of health in daily life is the gospel in illustration. See “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, page 241. While it is true that the average length of life has been gradually increasing during the past two hundred years, yet we are confronted with the facts today that there are fewer individuals out of every hundred that die who attain old age. While the chances for living up to a certain period, say thirty or forty years, are better today than during past epochs, the mortality from all causes after the period of forty years is steadily increasing. Only a short time ago I received a letter from the chief medical examiner of a large insurance company for which I am an examiner, making suggestions for greater cautiousness in examining men over forty years of age. The reason given for more particular care in examinations was the fact that diseases known as degenerative diseases are on the increase, and these diseases are so subtle and insidious in their beginnings that great care is required to detect them, for the early symptoms are not noticed by the patient until the disease is well established. Insurance companies know that these diseases are on the increase, with an attending increase in the mortality, and they wish to avoid such risks.