The Story of our Health Message

Remarks by Dr. H. S. Lay

About two weeks after the vision Mrs. White was visiting in Allegan, Michigan, where lived a Seventh-day Adventist physician who for some years had practiced medicine. During a ride with this Dr. H. S. Lay, Mrs. White related to him some of the principles pertaining to health as she had seen them. A few days later, at his home, the doctor asked her to relate that portion of the vision more fully. Regarding this interview, her son, W. C. White, who was present, has written: SHM 82.5

“Although the time was propitious, mother responded very reluctantly to this request She said that she was not familiar with medical language, and that much of the matter presented to her was so different from the commonly accepted views that she feared she could not relate it so that it would be understood. SHM 83.1

“Dr. Lay pleaded, ‘Tell us what you have been shown, and see if we can understand it.’ SHM 83.2

“Then mother told in simple language what she had seen. ... This conversation in Dr. Lay’s home continued for two hours. It covered comprehensively the fundamentals of the great truths that have led to our health reform movement.”—The Review and Herald, November 12, 1936. SHM 83.3

Dr. Lay was profoundly impressed by the factual accuracy of the principles of physiology, hygiene, diet, and therapeutics that lay at the foundation of what Mrs. White related as having been shown her in vision. He knew that her knowledge of these principles had not been acquired from human sources of information. He frequently related these circumstances to others. SHM 83.4

At the General Conference of 1897 a well-known physician said: SHM 83.5

“It is a very interesting fact that the Lord began giving us this light thirty years ago. Just before I came to the Conference I had a talk with Dr. Lay, and he told me of how he heard the first instruction about health reform away back in 1860 and especially in 1863. While he was riding in a carriage with Brother and Sister White, she related what had been presented to her upon the subject of health reform, and laid out the principles which have stood the test of all these years—a whole generation.”—J. H. Kellogg, M.D., in the The General Conference Daily Bulletin, March 8, 1897, p. 309. SHM 83.6

And Dr. Kellogg added, as a basis for his own confidence in the sound health principles as consistently set forth by Mrs. White: SHM 84.1

“It is impossible for any man who has not made a special study of medicine to appreciate the wonderful character of the instruction that has been received in these writings. It is wonderful, brethren, when you look back over the writings that were given us thirty years ago, and then perhaps the next day pick up a scientific journal and find some new discovery that the microscope has made, or that has been brought to light in the chemical laboratory—I say, it is perfectly wonderful how correctly they agree in fact. ... There is not a single principle in relation to the healthful development of our bodies and minds that is advocated in these writings from Sister White, which I am not prepared to demonstrate conclusively from scientific evidence.”—Ibid., 309, 310. SHM 84.2