p. 19 | How a Sanitarium Grew Up on the Plains

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 4, 1909

How a Sanitarium Grew Up on the Plains

By R. H. HABENICHT

We have in South America a field that is certainly very needy. In the large cities there are a number of physicians; but out in the country and in the smaller cities and towns there is a crying need of medical missionaries.

Parana, the capital of our province (Entre Rios), has 50,000 inhabitants, and only five physicians; Victoria, with 20,000, has two physicians; Diamante, twelve miles from us, has one physician. We have ten railroad stations in the neighborhood, having a population of from 500 to 4,000, without a single physician. There are from 70,000 to 100,000 persons in villages of from 3,000 to 5,000 inhabitants, without a single physician to help them. We are located in the midst of this community.

I have at times traveled sixty miles in a wagon to see a patient, and upon returning home have found wagons waiting for me, with their patients, or waiting to take me off again in another direction, only to get back and find the people filling the house, as many as eighty coming in one day.

So we have worked, and the Lord has given success in bringing the message to the people. We can count a goodly number who are to-day rejoicing in the light of present truth because of what we are trying to do in our medical work.

Our home was used to receive the people; but during last summer vacation we turned our school building into a sanitarium. Within ten days every room was filled, until we did not have a place to take another person. Sometimes we had fifteen in one room.

Now we are pushing forward the building of a sanitarium, hoping to secure funds to complete it this year. We plan to make it also a training-school for missionary nurses.

R. H. HABENICHT, M. D.

Diamante, Argentina.