Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White (Library of Religious Biography Series)

Ellen Gould White (nee Harmon, 1827 - 1784) was a religious visionary and prophet. She fits well and creditably within a line that includes Roman Catholic Joan of Arc, Shakers foundress Mother Ann Lee, Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science). White, Smith and Eddy were American contemporaries. But Ellen White's prophetic career took off in 1844, the year Joseph Smith was killed. ***

Ellen G. White, along with her husband James White and one-time sea captain Joseph Bates, were early organizers of the Seventh-day Adventist reaction to the collapse in October 1844 of general belief in William Miller's prediction that Christ was to reappear on a day certain in that month. Professor Ronald L. Numbers, raised in an elite Adventist leadership family but no longer active in that denomination, concentrates in PROPHETESS OF HEALTH: A STUDY OF ELLEN G. WHITE, on the health dimension of White's writings and historical impact. ***

None of her ideas on health originated with her. But, somewhat like Cicero with Greek culture, Ellen White made her own synthesis of views in the air and persuaded others to experiment with and adopt them. For some time Mrs White looked keenly into the women's dress reforms of Amelia Bloomer and others. She found women's contemporary clothing unhealthy: too heavy, too confining of the waist, with skirts dragging in the mire. She raised hemlines and for a time wore pants beneath them. (See the several contemporary photographs of reformed dressed included by Professor Numbers.) Mrs White also promoted fresh air and a healthy diet -- moving herself by fits and starts into vegetarianism and steady opposition to alcohol, tea and other stimulants. On the medical front, Mrs White opposed "poisonous" remedies. She also advocated and established Adventist sanitaria in Battle Creek, Loma Linda and elsewhere. ***

During a decade spent in New Zealand and Australia as a missionary, Ellen G. White developed fresh sympathy for animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption. This empathy for animals has since motivated numerous one-time meat eaters to try vegetarian diets. Mrs White rooted her beliefs about health in visions given her by God. God positively wants people to be healthy (something Mrs White rarely was) and to seek the best common-sense supports for sound health. The mid-19th Century was an age of visions in America and visionaries were lining up behind every cure and health idea: from mesmerism/hypnotism, to water cures, clothing reforms, dieting and so on. ***

Professor Ronald Numbers published his first edition of PROPHETESS OF HEALTH in 1976, with later editions in 1992 and 2008. The 1976 edition was something of a bomb thrown into orthodox Adventist circles, what with its naturalistic explanations of the many visions of the denomination's foundress. What endures, however, is the memory of Ellen G. White, sickly, courageous, passionate Christian, a lifelong learner, keen to help alleviate human misery wherever found. Her monuments today include far-flung hospitals, clinics, universities and schools across many lands. She is a woman worth studying, although not as widely known to this day outside Seventh-day Adventism as she deserves to be. -OOO-