Ellen G. White: The Progressive Years: 1862-1876 (vol. 2)

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Plans for Health Publications

On this journey, which continued to November 11, James and Ellen White considered how to get the health message across to Seventh-day Adventists generally. A plan emerged to issue five pamphlets (later increased to six) of sixty-four pages each, presenting some phase of what they saw before them along health lines that should be stressed. James White would do some writing, but the pamphlets would feature articles from physicians advocating reforms, and each would contain an article from Ellen White's pen under the general title “Disease and Its Causes.” In early September he noted that “the health question is much agitated among our people.”—The Review and Herald, September 6, 1864. Articles in the Review from Adventist writers J. N. Andrews, H. S. Gurney, and George Amadon, and selected materials from such physicians and other authors as Dr. Dio Lewis, L. B. Coles, and Horace Mann bore witness to this. The November 1, 1864, issue carried a pointed article from Martha Amadon entitled “How to Use Graham Flour.” Ellen White's comprehensive thirty-two-page chapter titled “Health,” in Spiritual Gifts,, Volume IV, published in August, 1864, was her first published material in the wide range of basic health matters. 2BIO 89.7