p. 148 | CO-OPERATIVE TREATMENTS AND NATURAL REMEDIES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 5, 1901

CO-OPERATIVE TREATMENTS AND NATURAL REMEDIES

By David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

DAVID PAULSON AND W. S. SADLER

A rational remedy is one that brings to the sick man the aid which he most needs, whether it be physical or spiritual. In general, sickness may be regarded as the result of a violation of nature’s laws. Man has wandered into by and forbidden paths, and sickness is sent as a warning voice, bidding him to return. In illness the mind is, in many cases, more or less in a state of discouragement and depression. Very often the poor sufferer, who is unable to interpret this handwriting of disease and affliction, begins to think that God is hiding His face from him; and so, in a double sense, sickness is always a call to prayer, for it is impossible fully to get the invalid back into the divine order as long as his mind is out of tune with the Infinite. In a similar way, every rational remedy has its object; that is, it helps in getting the various tissues of the body out of their unphysiological state into a physiological, or normal, condition. Prayer does not change the mind of God, but it does change the mind of him who prays in sincerity. Rational remedies do not change the laws of nature, but they do change the man, and assist in bringing him into that channel of harmony with nature which makes it possible for nature’s Author to cure him.

HOW GOD HEALS

There is no healing apart from God, for He “healeth all thy diseases.” Ps. 103:3. God is constantly at work day by day, healing the body through the blood. The blood is the life. It is the power of God that constantly cleanses the blood. Joel 3:21. Every few weeks the entire ten or twelve pounds of blood in the human body is renewed; it has all been re-created. Nature builds up blood from the food we eat; but God does not undertake to make pure blood out of impure food, for the Scriptures plainly declare: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.”

It is presumption to ask God to cleanse our blood when we are daily putting into our stomachs food which would require the Lord to work a direct miracle to prevent its contaminating the blood. The Lord has said, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” and He can not consistently, without repentance on our part, arbitrarily or miraculously save us from the penalty of disobedience. The sufferer must begin to sow for good blood by eating good, pure food, before the prayer of faith can fully save him. And until he has become willing thus to co-operate with God in His efforts to cleanse the blood and heal the body, the so-called prayer of faith is only the prayer of presumption, and the prayer of presumption will never heal nor save the sick.

EXERCISE

Paul said, “I die daily,” and this is just as true in a physical sense as in the spiritual. Physically, we are constantly putting off (to death) the old man, and putting on the new man. There is not a tissue nor a cell in the body that is not constantly being torn down; and this process produces various waste products, which necessitate a constant rebuilding from the nourishment brought to the tissues by the blood. It is of the utmost importance that these broken-down tissues shall be quickly eliminated from the human system; otherwise they will accumulate, thus saturating the blood with their poisonous properties, and making it a veritable messenger of death, instead of a messenger of life. Vigorous physical exercise quickens the circulation of the blood, and, in addition, helps to transform into a more harmless state many of those harmful products of tissue breakdown.

Thus physical exercise becomes a most potent factor in our co-operation with God in the use of the cleansing and healing properties of the blood. When we refuse to take spiritual exercise,—when we neglect to work for the salvation of our fellow men,—then it is that the poisonous products of our carnal natures begin to accumulate in our spiritual experience, and we are ready to exclaim: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Rom. 7:24. And so it is with the man who neglects to take physical exercise; the dingy eye, sallow skin, and contaminated breath, and the disinclination to perform any of life’s ordinary duties, are all symptoms which clearly indicate that the invalid could truthfully say of himself, physically, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Such a person’s blood needs to be cleansed, and God has promised to cleanse the blood; but the appointed way to accomplish this wonderful work is by means of thoroughgoing physical exercise, and the partaking of proper quantities of pure, wholesome food. And the patient who has strength and opportunity to utilize these heaven-sent agencies, and neglects to do so, is one of whom God is saying, as He did of Ephraim: He “is joined to idols: let him alone.” Hosea 4:17.

USE OF WATER

Every organ in the body has a corresponding area upon the surface of the skin, with which it is connected by means of the nervous system and blood vessels. Consequently, whatever happens to this skin area is whispered, as it were, to the internal organ. Who has not, on a hot day, experienced the refreshing effect resulting from bathing the face with cold water? This is because the skin of the face is connected by the nervous system and blood vessels with the brain. When the skin over the liver is bathed, there is practically the same refreshing effect experienced by that organ, although it has no nerves whereby it can convey its sense of satisfaction and appreciation to the brain.

On account of this arrangement it is very easy for us, by means of intelligent applications of water of various temperatures, as well as by means of electricity, massage, etc., to exert a most direct and powerful influence upon the activity of the various vital organs of the body. In a certain sense, the surface of the body bears the same relation to the internal organs that the keyboard of a piano does to its internal mechanism. The skilled musician brings out beautiful harmonies by his intelligent touch upon the keyboard. And it is our privilege to learn how to apply nature’s own remedies to the surface of the body so that we shall secure not only an increased but a harmonious action of every organ within the human form divine. If applying cold water to one square foot of skin upon the surface of the face produces such gratifying results, how much more good must result from the free and intelligent application of water to the more than seventeen square feet of body surface?

Just as the musician can produce from the piano almost any sound he may choose, so it is possible by the simple application of water, at proper temperatures, to the surface of the body,

to produce almost any physiological result desired. Is the patient excited, nervous, unstrung? Is his nervous system keyed to the highest tension? Then immerse the body in a full bath, whose temperature is practically that of the skin, from 94° to 96°; in a few minutes the agitated and irritated nerves are relieved of their tension. The whole body becomes conscious of a most delightful sense of repose and restfulness, and often the patient drops asleep in the bath.

If one feels relaxed, and has a sort of instinctive longing for “spring tonics,” or some other stimulating patent medicines, which generally owe their delusive virtues to the amount of bad whisky they contain, let him take a cold spray, a cold hand bath, or a momentary plunge into a tubful of cold water, and he will then appreciate how nature has responded to his effort by increasing all the vital activities of mind and body. Is the body, or some part of it, convulsed with pain? Are some of the muscles in contortions with cramps? Then apply water as hot as can be borne, and the pain will in most cases disappear as if by magic.

While it is God himself who converts and transforms the soul, no one for a moment supposes that the working of this remarkable miracle will relieve the converted man of the necessity of daily studying his Bible or engaging in earnest prayer. Likewise, although it is God who always heals the sick, yet the working of this remarkable miracle does not in any wise relieve the person of the responsibility of utilizing every rational and natural remedy, which his judgment and experience have shown him will assist nature in the work of increasing the healing and life-giving possibilities of the body.

What is true of diet, exercise, and the intelligent application of water, is just as true with reference to having an abundance of pure air, of properly attiring the body with suitable clothing, as well as of carefully guarding the mind itself from all sources of contamination and pollution. God works the miracle of growing the potato in the ground, and He has also created the wonderful mechanism of digestion and assimilation, which enables us to convert the potato into blood, and flesh, and thought; but as long as we have the means at our disposal which enables us to take the potato from the ground, we have no right to expect, or to ask, God to miraculously dig our potatoes, just to save us the trouble, annoyance, or expense of digging them ourselves. This is equally true of the miracle of health, which God is so willing to work for the soul who is willing to live in harmony with His laws, but in the working of which it is decreed that man shall act the part of co-operator. This is why so many efforts fail to gain health from the so-called channels of divine healing. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” James 4:3.