The Whites at Dansville

Elder and Mrs. White and Elder Loughborough remained at Dansville for about three months. While there as patients they had a better opportunity than before to make observations regarding the efficacy of the treatments given, and to learn more of the principles of the institution. They found much to commend, yet some of the principles that were advocated there they regarded as contrary to the teachings of Christ. In fact, medical advice was given there that might well have proved fatal in the case of Elder White. In a manuscript giving many details of the affliction of her husband, Mrs. White wrote regarding the sojourn at Our Home:SHM 135.2

“We did not feel that the three months passed at this institution was in vain. We did not receive all the ideas and sentiments and suggestions advanced, but we did gather many things of value from those who had obtained an experience in health reform. We did not feel that there was any necessity of gathering the chaff with the wheat.”—E. G. White Manuscript 1, 1867.SHM 135.3

What some of these matters of disagreement were can be ascertained from Mrs. White’s writings. One pertained to the use of salt. Dr. Jackson’s rule enforcing the absence of this seasoning from the tables was very strict. However, it soon became obvious that Mrs. White’s digestion was impaired when she discontinued it entirely. Rather than to make her case a public exception, he requested her not to come to the dining room for her meals and arranged to have them sent to her own room, saying: “A moderate use of salt is necessary to you; without it you will become a dyspeptic.”—E. G. White Letter 19a, 1891.^{1Later in life she again was persuaded by a physician to try the saltless diet, but found the results inimical to her health. She was led to condemn as an extreme view the teaching that all salt was injurious, not because of her own experience, but as she testified: “From the light given me by God, this article, in the place of being deleterious, is actually essential for the blood. The whys and wherefores of this I know not, but I give you the instruction as it is given me.”—Counsels on Diet and Foods, 344. (Italics mine.)}SHM 135.4