412
Selected Messages Book 2
our children. It is all-important that the human organism be understood,
and then intelligent men and women can be their own physicians. If the
people would reason from cause to effect, and would follow the light
which shines upon them, they would pursue a course which would
insure health, and mortality would be far less. But the people are too
willing to remain in inexcusable ignorance, and trust their bodies to
the doctors, instead of having any special responsibility in the matter
themselves.
Several illustrations of this great subject have been presented before
me. The first was a family consisting of a father and daughter. The
daughter was sick, and the father was much troubled on her account,
and summoned a physician. As the father conducted him into the
sick room, he manifested a painful anxiety. The physician examined
the patient, and said but little. They both left the sick room. The
father informed the physician that he had buried the mother, a son and
daughter, and this daughter was all that was left to him of his family.
He anxiously inquired of the physician if he thought his daughter’s
case hopeless.
The physician then inquired in regard to the nature and length of
the sickness of those who had died. The father moanfully related the
painful facts connected with the illness of his loved ones. “My son
was first attacked with a fever. I called a physician. He said that he
could administer medicine which would soon break the fever. He gave
him powerful medicine, but was disappointed in its effects. The fever
was reduced, but my son grew dangerously sick. The same medicine
was again given him, without producing any change for the better. The
physician then resorted to still more powerful medicines, but my son
obtained no relief. The fever left him, but he did not rally. He sank
rapidly and died.
“The death of my son so sudden and unexpected was a great grief
to us all, but especially to his mother. Her watching and anxiety in
his sickness, and her grief occasioned by his sudden death, were too
much for her nervous system, and my wife was soon prostrated. I felt
[444]
dissatisfied with the course pursued by this physician. My confidence
in his skill was shaken, and I could not employ him a second time. I
called another to my suffering wife. This second physician gave her a
liberal dose of opium, which he said would relieve her pains, quiet her
nerves, and give her rest, which she much needed. The opium stupefied