(Thanks to Tim Campbell for this very interesting piece.)

http://ilena-rose.blogspot.com
Health Lover

Thoughts from an early "Health Reform Movement" writer

"The press teems with accounts of wonderful cures wrought
by such and such medicines; and the point of each statement
is this: 'If you would have health, buy this marvelous remedy.'
Sensible people long ago decided that these certificates
were in the great majority of cases entirely unreliable,
and that they were formed for the manifest purpose of
enriching the proprietor of 'the matchless sanative' that
they respectively extol.

"Now, why should not health reformers be as generally
and as promptly discredited as should the venders of the
various 'magic cordials' and 'healing balsams' everywhere
offered 'for the relief of suffering humanity'? They should,
if they can be justly classed together. And if the same
principle governs the action of each, then let them share
in the same condemnation.

"But observe the contrast: The advocates of the hy-
gienic system declare, as a fundamental principle, that
health can be regained or preserved only upon condition
that we 'cease to do evil and learn to do well;' while
the dealers in the aforesaid wonderful preparations sev-
erally state, as one of the most convincing reasons for
the use of their respective medicines, that 'no change of
diet or of habits of life is required in order to be bene-
fited by this wonderful remedy.'

"The first party declares that the restorative power
exists only in the vital forces which God has given us;
the other, that it is to be found in drugs. The one affirms
that the restorative power within ourselves can alone give
us health, but will do it only upon condition of abstinence
from wrong habits, and of simple obedience to the laws of
our being. But the other replies in derision, 'This is all
humbug; you may eat, drink, and act as you will, with-
out any danger of evil consequences, provided you freely
use my healing balm.'

"Which of these parties is entitled to our confidence?
One of them asks no money, but insists that we govern
ourselves by the laws which the Author of our being has
established within our own organization. The other bids
us freely disobey, and promises us immunity from evil
consequences on condition that we use the medicines which
they desire us to buy at their hands.

"We know which of these two kinds of teaching is
the more enticing to the multitudes; but would it not be
well to ask which is the more reasonable? One of them
declares that obedience to the laws of life is the one con-
dition upon which we can have health. The other asserts
that God has provided means whereby men may deliber-
ately disobey those laws, and yet escape the consequences
of that disobedience; and that that means is something
known only to the ones who say this, and to be had only
on condition that you pay them well for it. On which
side are reason and common sense? on that of self-control,
or on that of self-indulgence? And which of these two
classes is attempting to get your money upon false pre-
tenses?

"I am a firm believer in the principles of health reform.
I have cause to be such. My judgment is convinced that
its principles are reasonable, and just, and true. More-
over, I have proved them true by the test of actual
experience. In this thing, therefore, I speak not merely
that which I have heard, but I also testify that which I
know. I believed in the health reform when I first learned
its principles, because to me they were self-evident truths.
But there is no teacher like experience. Ever after I was
first instructed in this system, I believed it to be true;
but the experience of seven years enables me to speak
now as one who knows whereof he affirms."

J.N. Andrews
1871