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a lone voice, but she spoke from a heart which could feel and a mind
enlightened by inspiration.
The careful student will avoid misapplying the references to
drugs. Never will he sweepingly apply the condemnation of drugs to
tested remedial agencies made available through scientific research.
He will find from a review of the Ellen G. White statements, putting
line with line and precept with precept, that her references to “strong
drugs” and “poisonous drugs” and the use of “medicines which ...
leave behind injurious effects upon the system,” are qualifying fac-
tors which must be taken into account. See the assembled statements
on the use of drugs in
Selected Messages 2:279-285
.
He will find that Mrs. White employed remedial agencies and
took advantage of true advances in medical science during the later
[xv]
years of her life. He will observe that her position was neither
extreme nor fanatical, but rational and in keeping with scientific
findings and a conservative appraisal of those findings. He will
observe that through all the Spirit of Prophecy counsels on health,
the emphasis is on preventive medicine. There is a call to guard the
body, to cultivate simple habits of living, and to take advantage of
the restorative agencies available to all.
Medical personnel, as they seek to understand the prevention,
cause, and treatment of disease, and as they seek to employ the
medical work as the “right arm” of the third angel’s message, will
find these counsels, warnings, and encouragements of divine origin
to be a timely aid.
The Board of Trustees of the Ellen G. White Estate
Washington, D.C.
November 1, 1962.
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