The Story of our Health Message

Developed on Broad Lines

With the development of the great doctrinal truths, and the effecting of an organization to ensure unity of action, there came in 1863 the comprehensive health reform vision, followed by others from time to time, which called for personal changes in health habits, for an educational campaign in health to be united with evangelistic work by the ministry of the church, and finally for the establishment of a health institution. At the time of its opening it could not be foreseen that the institution was destined to grow till it had become the largest sanitarium in the world and the mother of many similar institutions in other parts of the earth. SHM 426.3

It is not so far in time, counted by years, since it was difficult to receive favorable responses from Seventh-day Adventist youth to calls made for them to enter training as Christian physicians or nurses. Today, with an army of graduate physicians, dentists, and nurses, the medical college and the various schools of nursing can, with their limited capacity, take in only a portion of those who apply for entrance. SHM 427.1

Closely associated with the care of the sick is the attention which must be given to diet, with its influence upon the health. From the very beginning of the health movement among Seventh-day Adventists great emphasis has been laid upon this. The health message in time led to the manufacture of health foods. This was initiated as a branch of sanitarium work to provide the patients with a wholesome diet, but later grew into a large commercial enterprise with a wide distribution of its products. Not all the original food factories remain connected with the church; but scattered here and there, not only in the United States but in other lands, are manufacturing establishments in which are produced wholesome, palatable foods. SHM 427.2