Medical Superstition by R. F. C.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 5, 1865

Medical Superstition.

By R. F. C.

Yes, Bro. Clarke, you are right. To die without a doctor is about as terrible to the people in general, as it is to the Romanist to die without a priest. The doctor flatters the patient and friends with the hope of recovery, till death actually occurs; and then the minister at the funeral tells the people they are not dead. The doctor says, They will not die; the priest responds, They are not dead—two assertions equally false, and received by the people with equal credulity.

But one would think that, in respect to the doctor, at least, they would soon learn their error by experience. It is said, “Experience teaches a dear school.” Still it would be better to learn in that, than not to learn at all. But some fail to learn in this school, because of the superstitions they have imbibed. They will follow the beaten track, though they might see that it ends in death. They must have a physician in case of sickness in their family, and will employ the same one, while one after another of their families is laid in the grave—a physician too that dare not profess to cure the disease, but pronounces it incurable.

Six, out of two families, five children and one adult, treated by the same doctor, had just been laid in the grave, when my son’s little boy was violently attacked by the same disease, diptheria. Our friends, who were acquainted with the disease, visited him, and having seen his symptoms, told my son he must make up his mind to lose the boy, but advised him, by all means, to send for a doctor immediately; and one who had just buried three children and his wife, who all died of that disease, advised him to send for his favorite physician—the one that had doctored all his family to death but one, (and afterward that one,)—recommending him as one understanding the disease as well as any one. But my son and his wife had made up their mind, that as all died with that disease who had a doctor, it would be no worse if one should die without a doctor—a decision marvelous indeed to our friends. They began to treat the child with water, according to the recommendation of Dr. Jackson, of “Our Home,” Dansville, N. Y., and letting him abstain from food till the symptoms were changed. Five days passed in painful, critical suspense—the boy wavering, as it were, between life and death—when the joyful change came; and in a few more days he was out to play, and has had more than his usual health ever since. We thanked God that he had blessed the proper means to the recovery of our much-loved Freddy, and hoped, too, that our neighbors would learn a lesson; but instead of learning it, they turned about and said he did not have the diptheria; that if he had, he certainly would have died.

Since people will follow the fashion, even to the gates of death, what marvel is it that they choose the traditions of men, in preference to the truth of God?

R. F. C.