Counseling Sheet

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.
Preventive Medicine

"Patients should have outdoor exercise... Let those who are able take a light, well polished hoe, and for a suitable numbers of hours, or minutes, institute a war of extermination upon unwelcome weeds among vegetables and small fruits. Let others, more feeble, use the garden trowel, rake, or hoe, a few moments each day among the plants and flowers and let them feel that every weed they pull up they do some good. What if the sun does burn the face and hands brown? The sun and the air will do them more good than water baths can do without these blessings." 3HR, No. 1, p. 1

"...In the cultivation of the soil, patients can have opportunity for healthful, outdoor exercise. Such exercise, combined with hygienic treatment, will work miracles in restoring and invigorating the diseased body and refreshing the worn and weary mind." 7T p. 78

"Let men and women work in field and orchard and garden. This will bring health and strength to nerve and muscle. Living indoors and cherishing invalidism is a very poor business. If those who are sick will give nerves and muscles and sinews proper exercise in the open air, their health will be renewed." MM p. 296

"If those who are sick would exercise their muscles daily, women as well as men, in outdoor work, using brain, bone, and muscle proportionately, weakness and languor would disappear. Health would take the place of disease, and strength the place of feebleness." MM p. 297

"In flower garden and orchard, the sick will find health, cheerfulness, and happy thoughts...." MM p. 232

"Those who are feeble and indolent should not yield to their inclination to be inactive, thus depriving themselves of air and sunlight, but should practice exercising out-of-doors in walking or working in the garden. They will become very much fatigued, but this will not injure them. You, my sister, will experience weariness, yet it will not hurt you: your rest will be sweeter after it. Inaction weakens the organs that are not exercised. And when these organs are used, pain and weariness are experienced, because the muscles have become feeble. It is not good policy to give up the use of certain muscles because pain is felt when they are exercised. The pain is frequently caused by the effort of nature to give life and vigor to those parts that have become partially lifeless through inaction. The motion of these long-disused muscles will cause pain, because nature is awakening them to life." 3T p. 78

"As a general thing, if he should engage in some well-directed labor, using his strength and not abusing it, he would find that physical exercise would prove a more powerful and effective agent in his recovery than even the water treatment is receiving." 4T p. 94

"Working the soil is one of the best kinds of employment, calling the muscles into action and resting the mind." 6T p. 179 (1900)

"We should work the soil cheerfully, hopefully, gratefully, believing that the earth holds in her bosom rich stores for the faithful workers to garner, richer than gold or silver. The niggardliness laid to her charge is false witness. With proper, intelligent cultivation the earth will yield its treasures for the benefit of man." TM p. 243 (1895)

"The inactivity of the mental and physical powers as far as useful labor is concerned is that which keeps many invalids in a condition of feebleness which they feel powerless to rise above." 4T p. 95

"...light and pleasant physical labor will occupy the time, improve the circulation, relieve and restore the brain, and prove a decided benefit to the health." 1T p. 555

"The exalting influence of the Spirit of God is the best restorative for the sick. Heaven is all health, and the more fully the heavenly influences are felt the more sure the recovery of the believing invalid." 1T p. 556

"In the beginning He placed our first parents in a garden, amidst the beautiful sights and attractive sounds of nature, and these sights and sounds He desires men to rejoice in today." CH p. 174