• “Take that virus, and inject it into a mouse, and see how quickly it will die.” But yet it did not affect her in the least. The fact is, she has become so accustomed to the virus of the snake’s bite that her body is perfectly immune to it, and it apparently does her no harm whatever. Adventist Pioneer History and Vaccines

General Conference Daily Bulletin, vol. 8

February 21, 1899

33rd Session. – WORCESTER, MASS., TUESDAY, – VOLUME 8. SOUTH LANCASTER, MASS. – NUMBER 5

The Daily Bulletin,

PUBLISHED BY THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF
Seventh-day Adventists.F. S. BLANCHARD & CO., Printers, Worcester.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, – 50 CENTS.

CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER

Our Pioneer Tent Preacher,41General Conference Proceedings,Eighth Meeting,41Ninth Meeting,43Bible Study – Daniel and Revelation -A. T. Jones,46Medical Missionary College,47Walla Walla College,48Report Healdsburg College,48Report Cor. Sec. I. R. L. A.,47Financial Statement I. R. L. A.,48

“Words measure power; and they measure thine. Greater art thou in thy childish years Than all the birds of a hundred spheres; They are brutes only, but thou art divine.” GCDB February 21, 1899, page 41.1

The world needs “facts” rather than “isms.” The facts of the gospel pave the path to eternal life – the “isms” of theology are like the fallen leaves which scatter over the path and hide it. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 41.2

Christ, “the Great Physician,” responded to the call of the physically sick and suffering with the same readiness that he answered the cry of the sin-sick soul. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 41.3

NINTH MEETING, MONDAY, 9:30 A. M., FEBRUARY 20

Upon the conference reassembling, Dr. J. H. Kellogg, of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, was asked to address the delegates on medical missionary work, which he did as follows:- GCDB February 21, 1899, page 44.12

The subject of medical missionary work has never occupied a great amount of time in the councils of our General Conference, and I presume it will not be proper to occupy a great amount of your time here to-day. The subject is a very large one, and I want briefly to outline the work that is being done, and needs to be done. To do this fully would occupy more time than you could well afford to devote to it here, where there are so many other subjects that need careful attention. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 44.13

The principles of health reform, or what we call our health principles, have been before this people for thirty-five years, and the more I have studied them, the more I am amazed at their magnitude, and their beauty. During the last three years especially, these principles have grown with wonderful rapidity. The length, and breadth, and depth of these, which God gave us a third of a century ago, are becoming more and more clearly defined, and more and more thoroughly established on scientific facts. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 44.14

We find that almost every new discovery in science having any bearing upon health goes to confirm these great principles, and not a single word can be found – not a single fact can be presented – by anybody that in the slightest degree weakens, or in any sense overthrows, a single one of the principles that have been practised all these years. It is a thing that ought to give us faith and hope and confidence, not only in the principles, but in the way in which the Lord brought them to us, as well as in all the other truths they accompany. If there is anything in the world that ought to strengthen one’s faith in the Lord’s work, it is just to take up these health principles, and see in what a plain, clear, simple way they were first presented, unaccompanied by scientific facts, and note how they have won their way in the world. Not only among this people, but all over the world we find these principles growing. Elder Conradi could tell you how the principles of hygiene are received in Germany and in Hungaria. Brother Holser could tell you how they are developing in Switzerland, and from Australia we have letters from Sister White, Dr. Caro, and Elder Daniells, telling how these same principles are agitating the minds of the people there. Dr. Waggoner and Professor Prescott can tell how they are growing upon the minds of the people in England; and I might spend several hours telling how the principles are developing in this country, and moving the hearts of the people. I remember that sixteen or eighteen years ago a canvasser in Ohio was introducing Good Health, and he called at a house, and introduced himself as a sanitarium missionary, and said to the lady who opened the door, “I came to talk with you about sanitarium methods.” She said, “We have not such a thing in the house, and we don’t want any.” But the time has come when the people begin to see the need of these sanitarium principles, and they want them in their houses, too. There is one thing to which I would call your attention. I do not remember whether or not I spoke about it two years ago; but it is a very fearful thing, and stares the world in the face, and they can not get away from it. There is a class of people in the world who try to make us believe that we are getting healthier; that human life is getting longer; that we are making such wonderful discoveries of how to prevent disease, and how to antagonize plagues, etc.; and that we are gradually getting the victory over these evils, and by and by, if we can not exterminate smallpox, we shall be able, at any rate, to deprive it of its power by vaccination, and in other ways. Now we have to look this matter squarely in the face. Less than a month ago I found some statistical evidence in one of our scientific journals stating that at the present time there is in the United States one idiot for every five hundred persons, and other statistics I have gathered show that there are now, in every million of people, 3,400 idiots, lunatics, and imbeciles; and that this number has increased three hundred per cent. in fifty years. Thirty years ago the proportion in England was just what it is in this country at the present time. At this rate we can look ahead, and easily tell what it will be in fifty years more. Fifty years ago there were about one thousand idiots, lunatics, and imbeciles to the million. At the present time we have 3,400 to the million. That is over three times as many. In fifty years more, increasing at the same rate, we would have ten thousand to the million, or three times 3,400. Then fifty years further on, there would be ten thousand to the million, or one per cent. of all. Fifty years more, we would have three per hundred, or three per cent. In fifty years more, there would be nine to the hundred; and in another fifty years, twenty-seven to the hundred. In another fifty years we would have eighty-one to the hundred; and in fifty years more, two hundred and forty-three to the hundred. But the world could not go so far as that, even though it be but three hundred years. Two hundred and sixty-five years would be the farthest point that could be reached, before the whole world would be made up of lunatics, imbeciles, and idiots. But society could not hold together, even to that point, judging of its condition at the present time. Let some political question come up, and it seems to seize half the population with some phase of lunacy. It is the same in many social reforms. People in the world get an idea, and it carries them away off. So we have anarchists, socialists, and various classes of people who are insane in various ways. This is likely to keep going on until we have so many imbeciles that it will be impossible for society to hold together. When we get to going down, our speed will be accelerated, as when you start a ball rolling down hill. That will go faster and faster, until it gets to the bottom, when it is dashed to pieces. 

Mrs. S. M. I. Henry: Is not that a very strong demonstration of the fact that the Lord is soon to come?

Dr. Kellogg: That is the very thing I wanted to bring to your minds. We have statistical proof of the fact that this world is soon coming to an end. The Lord is not coming to destroy the world, but to save it; he is coming to save the world from what would come to it if it went on. We are coming down to a time of absolute confusion and destruction. Men are getting more and more subject to disease all the time. There are fewer old people than formerly. The last fifty years the bottom seems to have dropped out of the constitution of the human race. The Lord made man the toughest animal on the face of the earth. Even to-day you take a man who is in good training, and there is not another beast that can compete with him. A man can travel farther in six days than a horse. A well-trained man can tire out two or three horses in the course of a week. There is no question about it. Man, however, has greatly deteriorated, but no other animal would stand the abuse that he endures, even now. How long could a horse or a cow endure such treatment as human beings give themselves? A man would not dare feed his horse what he himself eats, or his cow either. He would not even feed his dog the same. A woman eats, and feeds things to her child, that she would not give her bird; she takes better care of her cat than of herself, or her child. The world is coming to see that there is a tremendous catastrophe before the race if something is not done. The hearts of the people, the world over, are wonderfully open to receive these principles. Two things are a constant wonder to me. The first is the beauty of these principles, and the other thing is that we do not appreciate them more. How can it be? Just see what these principles can do for this people! Let me call your attention to what the world is trying to do. Just as soon as small-pox gets into a community, what do the doctors do? They say everybody has to be vaccinated. Over in India they vaccinate from arm to arm, and people get leprosy and consumption through it. In this country that method is not tolerated. You would not allow your children to be vaccinated from your neighbor’s child’s arm; but you allow them to be vaccinated from a calf, because you know the calf has a great deal better blood than your neighbor’s child has. You are afraid of your neighbor, and you have reason to be afraid of him. In India not long ago there was a case where one hundred and sixty students in a school were vaccinated from arm to arm, and sixty of those boys and girls came down with leprosy in three years. Think of that. You see vaccination is not a thing that is entirely safe; but there is some reason in it. But if you are vaccinated from a calf that has tuberculosis, then you get consumption. So you see that is not altogether safe. I believe there is something better on principle than that, and I am going to try to show you some disease with disease, and the man who is vaccinated is a little lower in vitality after he has been vaccinated than before. It is like a boy who becomes immune to the use of tobacco. At first it makes him sick, but afterward he becomes used to it, and it does not affect him; yet it is doing the boy harm all the time. It is thought by some scientists that the time will soon come when vaccination will be employed for all maladies in the earth. It has been said by Dr. Lancaster, of London, that the time will come when a young man taking a course in a medical school would, before he finished, be vaccinated for all diseases that were prevalent in the country. I do not think there would be very much left of that man after he had gone through all that. It has been proved that when a man has had small-pox, he is more subject to consumption than before.

The Chair: Has that been proved, doctor?

J. H. Kellogg: Yes, it has been proved within the last three months by statistics that have been collected that a man is not so good after he has had smallpox as he was before. That is also true of typhoid fever. Very often consumption is fastened upon the victim of typhoid fever. As I said before, this method of obtaining immunity against disease is the method of fighting disease with disease, meeting evil with evil, antidoting poison with poison. It is wonderful to see to what an extent this can be carried. In Chicago a few weeks ago a woman appeared before our medical class; and she had with her a rattlesnake, which she took out of its cage. She held him in her hand and irritated him. She beat him, and stirred him up until he became angry, and then as she bared her arm, the reptile struck it time and again, and fastened his fangs into her arm, until the flesh was all covered with the virus. Then she said, “Take that virus, and inject it into a mouse, and see how quickly it will die.” But yet it did not affect her in the least. The fact is, she has become so accustomed to the virus of the snake’s bite that her body is perfectly immune to it, and it apparently does her no harm whatever.

I remember a woman at the sanitarium, who in one day took eight hundred full doses of morphia, – enough to kill forty men. Apparently it did not hurt her, though in fact it was all the time undermining her constitution. This method of fighting disease with disease is the human way of meeting disease, just as we fight fire with fire. But God has given us a truth that has in it power to lift a man above the power of disease. He has given us principles which, if we obey and follow, will change our bodies so that we shall not have to be vaccinated; that will lift the body above the power of disease, and above the power of sin; for sin and disease go along together. Disease is the consequence of sin, and sin induces a moral disease. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 44.19

Did you ever hear of such a thing as, when there was to be a fight between pugilists like Fitzsimmons and Corbett the battle was called off because one of the men had a cold, or was down with the grip, or fever, smallpox, or anything of the kind? – Why, nobody ever heard of such a thing. The reason for it is that these men have followed the laws of health so rigorously that they are proof against any disease. When Fitzsimmons met Corbett, he was just as ready to meet smallpox or any other condition that could come to him. He was just as ready to fight germs as he was to fight Corbett, and that fact is worth considering. I met a gentleman the other day who told me that he was sick; that because he had to do a little extra work, he had broken down. I said: “That is not what broke you down; you are like a man who had a hole in his boot. As long as he went on dry land, he was all right; but as soon as he stepped his foot into water, it got wet. You have been making holes in your constitution by bad habits, and these habits have let you down; then when a little strain like this came, you broke down altogether. But it is not this little work you have just done that did the mischief; it was your tobacco-smoking and gormandizing at the dinner-table, that did the work.” Thirty years ago God gave us principles which, if they had been followed, might have made us the healthiest people in the world, – a power wherever we are, and an example to all the world. The time will come when there will be some people on this earth whom nothing can kill, not even cyclones nor earthquakes nor disease of any kind, – men whom the plagues can not kill, who can stand anything. God has given us a chance to be some of these men; and why can we not lay hold of the principles that will enable us to be this? It seems to me as if we, of all people, ought hardly to be able to contain ourselves when we have such an opportunity presented before us. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.1

A. F. Ballenger: Could Corbett, with all his training and careful work, be kept from these things without faith? GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.2

Dr. Kellogg: No; because he is not absolutely obedient. I was speaking of what exists at the present time. This man is only measurably obedient; but there will come a time when these diseases will come with such power and intensity that they will strike down everybody that has not yielded to God. There is a point here. It is not faith alone that avails the man, but that which faith leads the man to do. It is not the holding of faith but the obedience that comes from faith. The man who has complete faith in God believes everything that God says; and when God tells him to do a thing, he will implicitly obey him. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.3

E. J. Waggoner: It is faith that saves a man, because it is faith that leads him to do that which he does. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.4

Dr. Kellogg: Yes; that is so. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.5

Mrs. S. M. I. Henry: But does not God recognize obedience as far as it goes? GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.6

Dr. Kellogg: God is true; he can not lie; and when Corbett obeys the law of health, God will stand by that, and give him the result, but you see the time will not always be that this is so. The time will come when there will be a line drawn, and men will have been so enlightened that they will take their stand on one side or the other. Absolute obedience will be on one side, and to those who obey will belong the victory over appetite, and over the mark of the beast, and everything of that kind. But the others who have not rendered obedience fully to the Lord will have surrendered so fully to evil that they will have lost all the power to comply with any of the laws of God. Professor Bouchard, of Paris, made a statement a short time ago that a person with a perfectly healthy stomach could not get the typhoid fever, because such a stomach will digest typhoid germs just the same as it will vegetables, typhoid germs being a vegetable, just like cabbage. If a man’s stomach is strong enough to digest that kind of vegetables, he can not have typhoid fever. The same thing is true of cholera. All cholera germs are vegetables; and if you get these germs in the stomach, they will grow there on the walls of the stomach, just as mold grows on a wall; but they are vegetables, and if that stomach has the power to digest those vegetables, the man does not succumb to the disease. When Professor Koch discovered cholera germs, he brought them home with him from Egypt to Germany. A rival professor said he did not believe there was any danger in those cholera germs, – if they were cholera germs, – because he had swallowed a pint of them, and no harm resulted. Well, numberless cases of cholera occurred in Hamburg, where cholera germs had infected the drinking water. Many, however, were not attacked by the disease. Brother Conradi can bear me out in that statement. Is not that true, Elder Conradi? GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.7

L. R. Conradi: Yes, sir, that is a fact. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.8

Dr. Kellogg: The reason was that some of those people had stomachs able to digest these cholera germs, and so no ill effects resulted from drinking the water full of germs. Only a small proportion of those who used the water died. Why did not all have the cholera? It is a self-evident fact that these germs were destroyed. It is only necessary for a person to have his body in such a condition that he is able to resist all these germs, to be immune; and that is the kind of opportunity that God has offered to us – to reach a state in which we may be immune from these diseases. Now you may wish me to answer this question: Do you think that by any attention a man may give to diet, he can become able to resist the seven last plagues? – No, I do not. I do not believe that a man could live so correctly on a certain diet, as to be free from danger. “Do you think a man, though he exercise so vigorously, and though his manner of living and general conduct be ever so carefully circumscribed, can come into a state where he would not succumb to these plagues?” – No; by no means. I do not think that it is possible for a man to live so healthfully that he could overcome these, unless he has faith in God. He needs that faith, that connection with God, to get the proper instruction and light; and not only that, but the power to obey God. I do not think that we have power enough to suffice, without faith in God. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.9

J. O. Corliss: Do you not think that the more faith a man has, the more healthfully he will live? GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.10

Dr. Kellogg: Why, certainly. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.11

J. O. Corliss: I know this: the more faith I have received the more strictly I have lived health reform. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.12

Dr. Kellogg: Yes; that is true faith. It is not a thing that leads us to believe that God will do what we want him to do for us; but true faith will lead us to want to do the things that God wants us to do. Many people have that reversed. They think they can persuade God to do a thing that he does not want them to do: and they think that it is only necessary to have faith enough, and believe hard enough, to bring God to their terms. But it works the other way. It seems to me that real, true faith is that which leads a man to do absolutely as God wants him to do. When he gets that kind of faith, he gets into the line of God’s providence, into the divine order, so that everything goes right with him, and smoothly. He gets into the divine procession, so to speak, and everything marches along beautifully. But it is hard when we try to bring God to our terms. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.13

A Voice: Faith puts a man in the right channel, where the blessing is flowing. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.14

Dr. Kellogg: That is a channel of obedience. It is not a psychological channel, a mental channel, or a theological channel. It is not a channel simply in which a man is protected from danger, neither is it a doctrinal channel; but it is a channel of absolute obedience to God. It is true obedience, that will lead us to do exactly what God asks us to do. It seems to me that it would be profitable to discuss these principles. First, we might say that this subject divides itself naturally into two heads: (1) the principles of truth that God gave us a third of a century ago in relation to health and philanthropy; (2) our duty to our neighbor and to ourselves. These two principles came to us about the same time, – Christian philanthropy and Christian temperance. Let us consider these principles, and their relation to the other branches of what we call the truth – the third angel’s message. In the second place, let us consider, if we have time, this medical missionary work, – the methods or modes of presenting these principles before the world, and the work that is to be done in presenting these truths to the world; – also the relation of these modes and work to the evangelistic and other lines of work which this people have to do. If we could spend our time in doing this, and allow the business to come up before the legal meetings which will be held in Battle Creek, I think it would be more profitable than to consider business during this session. Why could we not profitably spend the time in that way? GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.15

The Chair: I understand that was the design, doctor. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.16

Dr. Kellogg: If there is no dissent, we will consider that the best thing to do. So far as I know, the meeting is open for anybody that wants to speak, and to say what he wants to say, without any special restriction. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.17

The Chair: Since there are only five or six minutes before the time to adjourn, perhaps it would be well for you to occupy the rest of the time, doctor. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.18

Dr. Kellogg: The question has been asked, What is medical missionary work? As distinguished from purely evangelistic work, medical missionary work represents all those modes and lines of work which will reach men’s souls through attention to their physical needs. Considered by itself, apart from any other mode of Christian activity, the medical missionary work represents the complete gospel, – health, comfort, salvation, redemption for the whole man, – soul, mind, and body. Medical missionary work – not medical work, but medical missionary work – does not confine itself to the administration of medicine as a gospel measure, but employs every sort of means necessary to afford physical help and relief. Thus it includes among these organized agencies, not only hospitals and dispensaries, but sanitariums; asylums for orphans and for friendless and aged persons; rescue work for men, women, children; gospel shelters for homeless and friendless waifs; and all other means for affording physical relief, as illustrative of the various phases assumed up to this present time. I may be permitted to enumerate several institutions that have grown up, under its fostering care, in Battle Creek and Chicago. In Battle Creek there are the Battle Creek Sanitarium, the Sanitarium Hospital, the Haskell Home for Orphans, the James White Memorial Home, a rescue home for outcast women, Christian Help bands, and organized outdoor relief for the poor, cottage meetings, cottage cooking-schools, and the gospel mission. In Chicago we have the following lines of work: a small city sanitarium; the Workingmen’s Home; two gospel missions; a maternity for unfortunate girls, affording them a Christian home; a free dispensary; rescue work for men; a life-boat service; prison, jail, and saloon work; newsboys’ clubs; visiting nurses’ work; cottage and street meetings; gospel-wagon work on the street in connection with the mission industrial department in the Workingmen’s Home. In addition to these, and the natural out-growth to them, we have the training-school for medical missionary nurses, and a medical training-school for training physicians. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.19

Medical missionary work reaches every phase of human need. It seeks to relieve every kind of human woe. The success of medical missionary work can not be numbered by the number of converts or proselytes. If this were not true, what about the success of the great Master Medical Missionary, who went about doing good; who preached the gospel to the poor; and of whom it was said, “He healed all their sick”? At his death, only a few women hovered near the cross, and a bare handful of followers gathered in secret to mourn his loss. The immediate results of Christ’s mission of love and mercy and healing were apparently small, – a failure, – from a human standpoint; but all the centuries since have been bearing fruit to that divinely patient and infinitely wise seed-sowing. The truest measure of the success of a medical mission is its spirit. To what extent does it reflect the image of him who said, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my little ones, ye have done it unto me? How far does it manifest the love and simplicity and sweetness of the Christ-life? If these questions are answered well in any work, the visible results, as regards the number of permanent adherents or converts, may be left to him who has told us, “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” The medical missionary must sow the seed without too anxious thought about the fruitage. God knows where every seed of truth has fallen. His Spirit watches over each, and waters and nurtures it, and the great day of settlement will show the results. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.20

At this point the conference adjourned. GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.21

“When we turn away, from some duty or some fellow creature, saving that our hearts are too sick and sore with some great yearning of our own, we may often sever the line on which a divine message was coming to us. We shut out the man, and we shut out the angel who had sent him on to open the door.” GCDB February 21, 1899, page 45.22

General Conference Daily Bulletin, vol. 8 February 21, 1899, page 44 paragraph 17