HEALTH WORK IN THE SOUTH.
By E. H. Matthewson
The last year has been an encouraging one to those who are interested in the spread of the truth through the avenue of health principles. In several cities in the South where the health work has been properly represented, many of the influential and wealthy, as well as many of the poorer classes, have become our friends, and are interested in the truth. Wherever people are sick, there is a demand for our nurses, and a desire for instruction in health principles; and as sickness increases, this demand increases. The labor of successful nurses and physicians gives a standing to our work everywhere, such as no other labor gives. All confess that we need a better standing in the eyes of people everywhere, and for this reason, if for no other, this work should be pushed. There is no work that results in securing more friends and develops more conscientious Christians than the health work properly coupled with moral truth. When patients come to our sanitariums, they are impressed with the spirit and conscientiousness of the workers, and this influence is conducive to health, and also to a reform in their manner of living. The W. C. T. U. in the South open wide the door of their unions to our health workers, and are anxious to help by living and advocating the principles. A properly educated health worker can find support in a short time in any Southern city, which is another reason for pushing forward this branch of the work at once. The people of the South do not need the introduction of new foods at great expense so much as they need to have demonstrated to them how best to prepare the bountiful supply and variety of food they now have. Good bread, grains, beans, peas, Irish and sweet potatoes, other vegetables, and a reasonable amount of good fruit are possibilities throughout the South, and are cheap. At the camp-meetings I attended in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, the desire of our people to get a knowledge of health principles was manifest. If an expression of the choice of a majority of our people at camp-meetings was obtained, it would certainly be, “We wish there could be more meetings devoted to these studies.” The doctor’s time at all our camp-meetings is fully occupied with private questioners, when not engaged in public work; and people repeatedly ask, “When is the next health meeting?” The testimonies tell us that at our general gatherings, and in our meetings for those not of our faith, the health principles should be made prominent, as they will lessen prejudice, and have an excellent influence. People can easily see the reasonableness of health principles, and our clear and consistent ideas on this subject will increase their confidence in other truths. It seems to me that it is time to carry out this instruction. The openings for small health institutions in the South are many, and people of means could find no better way of doing good than by aiding such enterprises here. A plan of demonstrating to our own people what good cooking is—a plan that will aid in their conversion to its practice—has occurred to me: In conducting the dining-tent, instead of making preparations to board the ministers and a few who can afford it, have facilities for cooking some dishes each meal in quantity. Cook one or two kinds of grains, and one or two other dishes, each day, so that the campers can be supplied. Several dishes could thus be seen and eaten, a good impression made, and the people be benefited. This would require but little more help, room, or expense, and a price could be put upon the food that would pay the expense. That our people would grasp the opportunity offered has already been demonstrated.