From his diary of Friday, January 1, 1836: I have long had doubts in regard to the curative efficacy and health-restoring virtue of the regularly established course of medical practice of the present day. Active depletion of the body, by copious blood-letting, blistering, drastic cathartics and starving, is, to my mind, not the best way to eradicate disease and restore the diseased human body to its normal state. I am well aware that every age has thought its own way the best; but fashion and custom have no doubt, had quite a controlling power in this as in other things; and 'the fashion of the world passeth away,' because there is little or nothing of substantial good in in.
Dr. Samuel Thompson of Vermont is introducing a new system of medical practice which I believe to be more in accordance with the laws of life and health than any I know of. His maxim, applied to disease, is: Remove the cause, and the effect will cease.
Every diseased condition of the body is the effect of some cause. This cause being removed, the disease, either simple or complex, must yield to the restorative forces of nature....
Had Brother Kline penned these words fifty years later in the century, they could not be more in harmony with the popular theory of medical science.... They are almost prophetic. He goes on: I am therefore determined to try the new way of treating disease, and see what I can do with it. His subsequent success as a physician for many years proves that he was not mistaken in the conclusions at which he arrived preparatory to his entering the field of medical practice.
Source: Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, Benjamin Funk
