252
Selected Messages Book 2
special situations when it was justifiable and necessary to employ even
medications that were known to be poisonous
.
It is significant that Ellen White gives us the assurance that Christ
and the angels are present in the operating room attending and guiding
the consecrated Christian physician in performing surgical operations.
Before major surgery, the entire body is saturated with a powerful and,
in a sense, harmful drug, to the point of complete unconsciousness and
to complete insensibility. By the same token, after surgical procedures,
the physician may find it necessary to administer sedatives that almost
certainly include drugs, to give relief and prevent the patient from
lapsing, from sheer pain, into a state of surgical shock and, in some
instances, possible death
.
As they strive to know and follow God’s will, not a few today are
making inquiries similar to one expressed in the words of a medical
student who in 1893 wrote to Mrs. White to ask her about the use of
drugs. In his letter he said:
“From our study of the Testimonies and the little work, How to
Live, we can see that the Lord is strongly opposed to the use of drugs
in our medical work....Several of the students are in doubt as to the
meaning of the word ‘drug’ as mentioned in How to Live. Does it refer
only to the stronger medicines as mercury, strychnine, arsenic, and
such poisons, the things we medical students call ‘drugs,’ or does it
also include the simpler remedies, as potassium, iodine, squills, etc.?
We know that our success will be proportionate to our adherence to
God’s methods. For this reason I have asked the above question.”
The first item in chapter 28, which follows immediately, is Mrs.
White’s reply to the inquiry of that medical student
.
White Trustees
.
[279]