Sickness and Its Relief by Maria L. Edwards, M.D.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 28, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 17.

Sickness and Its Relief

By Maria L. Edwards, M.D.

By Maria L. Edwards, M.D.

(Concluded from last issue.)

As surely as diseases have been afflicting the human race all these years, just so surely have men tried one thing after another to rid themselves of these conditions, and as age after age has come and gone, men have searched out some new scheme and beckoned all sufferers to come and secure help, for now surely the elixir of life is found, and disease and sickness can be banished from our fair world. But with the great discovery has always come the great disappointment, and it is again left with the coming generation to seek out something new.

Go back to the days of the mysterious alchemist of Egypt, and we find the people believing that he was especially endowed with a supernatural power to discern conditions and discover and concoct remedies suited to each separate ailment.

Seeking a Remedy

In later years the confidence rested more in the remedy and less in the supernatural power of the one who administered it; and in still more modern times the preparation and administration of drugs have been reduced to a science, and with the perfecting of the science came the expectant longing on the part of the victims of disease to find somewhere the something that would be suited to their special case, often never even thinking that their manner of life had anything at all to do with the unfortunate plight in which they found themselves.

The patent medicine venders have taken advantage of this longing on the part of the general public and supplied hundreds of kinds of guaranteed cures. So numerous are the preparations — registered and sealed by our good government — that one may give each remedy a week’s trial and doubtless have sufficient number to last his natural lifetime.

With certain individuals their eagerness to overcome all disease and be freed from its burdens, has become so great that they have declared that there is no such thing as sickness and that pain does not exist. So tenacious are they in this belief, that they even go down to death declaring that they suffer no pain, while at the same time the facial expression tells a different story.

Prevention Better Than Cure

Since disease does not come without a cause, and after all the effort of the ages to check its terrible ravages, men still fall sick and die of preventable diseases, — since this state of things has continued and does continue and doubtless will continue, does it not seem that prevention is the safest policy?

An old adage tells us that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and when we take into consideration the wasted time, the expense and inconvenience, and worst of all, the real suffering produced by sickness, experience certainly teaches that the truth is not more than half expressed in the saying.

Prevention of disease calls for an intelligent and practical understanding of the human body and the physical laws which have wisely been established to govern it. We have reached a day of scientific enlightenment when it is not necessary to remain in ignorance of these things, when every one can know for himself the manner of life best suited to his health, and if sickness does come have the cause pointed out, if possible, and then intelligently, not complainingly, cooperate with the physician in again placing the body in a state of health and comfort.

When Carlyle said, “Cursed be the day on which I discovered that I had a stomach,” he did not mean to condemn the physiological information concerning one’s stomach, its needs, and its workings, but he did declare that he exceedingly regretted the day when the despair of indigestion was revealed to him by experience. Just so does every one regret when because of disordered function the danger signal of pain is sent out from any member of the body. “Fearfully and wonderfully has the Creator wrought in the human frame, and He bids us make it our study, understand its needs, and act our part in preserving it from harm and defilement.”