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Adventist Publishing Association inserted the following significant
note:
“We have thought proper to add to the foregoing the following
testimonies from men of high standing and authority in the medical
world, corroborative of the views presented in the preceding pages.
And in justice to the writer of those pages, we would say that she
had read nothing from the authors here quoted, and had read no
other works on this subject, previous to putting into our hands what
she has written. She is not, Therefore, a copyist, although she has
[xiii]
stated important truths to which men who are entitled to our highest
confidence, have borne testimony.
Trustees.
To those who suggested that Mrs. White’s writings reflected
the conclusions of contemporary medical innovators, one need only
observe the conflicting pronouncements of the times and ask, “How
would an uninformed layman of that day know what to select and
what to reject?” Few of the popular concepts of that day survive, yet
Mrs. White’s counsels not only stand today, but are reinforced by
the latest discoveries in clinic and laboratory.
Objectives and Conditions of Prosperity Unchanged
Great advances have been made in the medical world since the
death of Ellen White in 1915. While these advances have brought
adjustments in the details of the practice of medicine, they have not
outmoded the therapeutic value of “pure air, exercise, proper diet,
the use of water,” and “trust in divine power,” which Ellen G. White
enumerated as “the true remedies.” While modern methods of rapid
diagnosis and treatment of disease have shortened the time patients
must stay at a medical institution, and while this has its bearing
on the operation of Seventh-day Adventist institutions, the basic
principles set forth in the Ellen G. White counsels constitute a safe,
workable guide today. Writing reflectively, Mrs. White declared:
“As our work has extended and institutions have multiplied,
God’s purpose in their establishment remains the same. The condi-
tions of prosperity are unchanged.”—
Testimonies for the Church 6,
page 224
.