The Need of Medical Missionaries by D. H. Kress

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 24, 1910

The Need of Medical Missionaries

By D. H. Kress

At present there exists a great demand in foreign fields for medical missionaries. Even in home missionary work the medical missionary has a decided advantage over the one who lacks the medical training, but especially is this true in foreign fields. It has been found that communities, homes, and hearts which are closed to ordinary missionary effort, open wide to welcome the work of the medical missionary. This is because the medical missionary supplies a need that can not be supplied by the evangelistic missionary.

To bring relief to the sick and suffering is a work which appeals to men and women. In foreign fields great ignorance exists in regard to the causes of disease. As a result, thousands and tens of thousands perish every year from diseases which are wholly preventable, and untold misery prevails. In civilized countries, only a few centuries ago, epidemic diseases would frequently sweep great numbers out of existence. During the sixth century the southern part of Europe was visited by a plague which nearly depopulated the country. During the seventeenth century, Great Britain was visited with a similar plague, and in one year over seventy thousand died in London alone. Typhus fever raged for centuries in Ireland, killing thousands each year. Yellow fever, smallpox, malaria, and cholera in the United States and other countries proved a great scourge for many years.

These diseases no longer exist in civilized lands as epidemics. It is considered a disgrace to a community to-day to be visited with any one of the diseases which a few years ago wrought such havoc. As a result of a better knowledge of the causes of these epidemics, thousands of lives have been saved, and in civilized countries the average length of life has been almost doubled, being now forty or forty-two years, instead of twenty or twenty-five as two centuries ago.

In India, where the efforts on the part of the British government to suppress the plague have been unwelcome, epidemics of disease still prevail, and the average length of life is as it was in civilized countries when these epidemics prevailed in them,—about twenty years.

Two things are always necessary to make germ diseases possible—seed and soil. Germs thrive only where organic impurities exist. For this reason we clean up our alleys, back yards, and the slums of our large cities when threatened with an epidemic. But seed needs the same suitable soil within the body that favors its growth outside. He who keeps the body tissues freest from organic impurities, other things being equal, will be less disposed to die of germ disease than the one who, through lack of exercise, or through the breathing of impure air, or the eating of impure food, fills his body tissues with impurities.

Much more might be said in regard to the importance of personal hygiene. Merely to prevent the spread of the seeds of disease will not greatly build up the vitality of the race. This is shown by the fact that during the same time that the average age of life has almost doubled in civilized lands, deaths from Bright's disease, heart failure, apoplexy, diabetes, and other diseases due to tissue degeneracy, have increased. While anciently the Lord gave definite instruction to his people, whom he desired to be a nation of medical missionaries, regarding how to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, he laid much more stress on the importance of personal hygiene. Their exercise, the quality of their food and drink, and their personal habits, were all dwelt upon. At the same time that the spreading of the seed was discouraged, the soil was made unfavorable for its growth, by the correction of wrong physical habits. This not only increases the average length of life, but builds up vitality and racial vigor.

The promise was made: “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” Long life also was promised on conditions of obedience. To the church of Christ has been committed this educational work. Not only are its members to be sent forth to heal and to preach, but to teach all that was commanded to Israel anciently regarding public and personal hygiene. This is the work of the medical missionary. It should be the work of every member of the church.

Those who are sent forth into heathen countries should go prepared to preach, to teach, and to heal. The time is, when the church of Christ in sending forth workers should be able to send them again with the commission, “Heal the sick, . . . and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.”

The health work, which is responsible for our sanitariums, physicians, nurses, and medical missionaries, has been connected with the proclamation of the third angel's message from its beginning, as a part of the everlasting gospel. Captain Joseph Bates, who was the first one to receive light upon the Sabbath question after the disappointment of 1844, was a health reformer and temperance advocate in every sense of the work. He was in this respect what God designed every Seventh-day Adventist to be. Captain Bates in 1821 gave up the use of alcoholic liquors. This was only the beginning of reforms. Within a few years he gave up beer, wine, cider, and tobacco, and later tea and coffee were abandoned. In the year 1843 he gave up the use of flesh foods, and remained a strict vegetarian up to the day of his death, which occurred thirty years later, at the age of eighty-one. Thus we see God was preparing the mind of Captain Bates, unconsciously to himself, by the reception of the principles of health, for the light he desired to communicate to him regarding the heavenly sanctuary and the seventh-day Sabbath, and through him, to the inhabitants of the world. D. H. KRESS, M. D.