Two Rival Theories
Behind much modern health counsel stand two very different stories about what disease is and how it comes. On one side men are told that specific unseen “germs” are the chief causes of disease, that these pass from person to person in a kind of perpetual chain, and that safety lies chiefly in guarding against exposure. On the other side many hear of “terrain”—that it is the “internal environment” which matters, not the germ, and that if only one strengthens or supports the terrain by various diets, regimens, and treatments, what “goes around” cannot take hold. In its common form, the terrain message is often presented as a paradigm shift into the light of truth, and while it may turn down certain erroneous theories, it often retains, reframes, or takes up other ideas no less in need of being tried.
Yet in practice, these are not merely lists of observations; they are rival stories about what disease is, whence it comes, and what is to rule the conscience. Much that now passes under the name of “germ theory” has been used to excuse filth and intemperance, to foster continual fear of “infection,” and to justify harsh measures that set aside the plain laws of health. Much that now bears the name of “terrain” has borrowed the same tale about invading causes; only that they are secondary, presented in softer language, or but half truths mingled with practices and indulgences that contradict the light God has given.
This article is not written to ask which party of experts you will side with, but to bring both of these stories to the same bar. The question is not, Germ or terrain?—but rather, By what standard are either of these to be judged? We shall therefore consider what Scripture and the Spirit of prophecy actually declare concerning the life in the blood, the laws of health, the moral causes of disease, and the dealings of Christ with the sick. On that foundation, we may distinguish between accounts of health and disease that accord with God’s laws of life and those which do not.
The Scriptural Frame for Health and Disease
Scripture neither begins with germs nor terrain. It begins with God as Creator, with man formed of the dust of the ground, and with life given by the breath of God. It teaches that “the life of the flesh is in the blood… for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof” (Lev. 17:11, 14), and shows that the condition of the whole body is bound up with the condition of that blood, as already set forth in The Health Question. Under God’s providence, that condition is shaped by what we eat and drink, the air we breathe, the rhythms we keep, the work we do, and the way we govern our thoughts and appetites.
On this foundation, the Bible and the Spirit of prophecy together set before us plain laws of life and health. They speak of times and seasons, of day and night, of labour and rest; of temperance and gluttony, cleanliness and filth; of regard for the body as God’s workmanship and temple; and they trace disease again and again to indulgence, neglect of rest, foul air, uncleanliness, unbelief, and the slighting of simple means. Pure air, sunlight, temperance, rest, movement, a simple, nourishing diet, the use of pure water, and trust in divine power are presented, not as optional embellishments, but as part of the light God has given for the preservation and restoration of health.
Within this frame, disease is not a chain of separate “things,” each with its own independent existence, but a series of conditions that grow out of one another under law and under God’s government. Sin—whether personal, inherited by influence, or social—stands behind all sickness in a fallen world. Specific violations of the laws of health, and wider conditions of filth, intemperance, oppression, and unbelief, give rise to particular disease-conditions in persons and in communities. God may, in justice or in mercy, permit these fruits to appear, withhold them for a time, or remove them by His power; but He does so in a world ordered by law, not in a chaos ruled by chance or by invisible lords of sickness.
This is the standard by which any human account of disease must be judged. Whatever calls itself “germ theory” or “terrain,” whatever claims to explain contagion or the lack of it, must be brought to this light. If it ignores the life in the blood, makes little of the laws of health, treats sin and obedience as irrelevant to sickness and recovery, or sets aside the appointed remedies of air, light, water, rest, and temperance in favour of fear, force, or indulgence, it cannot be received as a faithful guide.
Where Germ Theory Fails This Standard
Modern germ theory is not merely the observation that micro-organisms exist, nor that they are sometimes found in connection with disease. It is a whole account of what disease is and how it comes. In this story, specific unseen entities are treated as the proper causes of specific diseases, as though each disease were a separate “thing” with its own name, history, and powers, moving from person to person like a race of invisible animals. Men are taught to think of “catching” measles, influenza, smallpox, and the like, as though these were independent forces that must be warded off or destroyed.
This account rests upon a series of assumptions which neither Scripture nor sound reason will bear. It assumes, first, that the frequent presence of micro-organisms in and around the sick proves them to be the causal agents of the sickness. It overlooks the fact that the same classes of organisms are found in and about the healthy, that the body itself is made up in part of such microforms, and that many of them appear precisely where there is filth, decay, or tissue-breakdown, as scavengers and servants of nature’s cleansing. It treats correlation as though it were cause, and then builds a doctrine upon that confusion.
It assumes, further, that diseases are fixed and separate entities, each with its own specific “agent,” instead of conditions that grow out of one another under law. Men are taught to imagine that there must once have been a first specimen of each “infectious disease”—a first smallpox, a first measles—as there was once a first dog; and that ever since, that disease has propagated itself by an unbroken chain of descent. Yet observation shows that disease-conditions may arise and pass into one another where no such chain can be traced. The whole structure rests upon thin, changing classifications and stories, not upon fixed realities known in the light of God’s Word.
Upon these assumptions there is then built a further tale about “contagion.” It is said that these specific unseen causes pass from man to man in a largely mechanical way, whether by touch, breath, or contact with surfaces, and that the main safeguard of health is to block, neutralize, or destroy them. In this view, the state of the blood, the violation or observance of the laws of health, and the wider conditions of filth, intemperance, oppression, and unbelief are pushed to the side. The burden of causality is laid upon the supposed invader, and men are encouraged to see themselves chiefly as passive victims of what “goes around.”
Measured by the standard already set forth, this account cannot stand. Scripture nowhere builds its understanding of disease upon a chain of independent entities moving from man to man. It speaks of the life in the blood, of laws written into our frame, of obedience and disobedience, of judgments that fall upon cities and nations because of their sins, and of simple means—air, light, water, cleanliness, temperance—by which disease-conditions are lessened or removed. The Spirit of prophecy traces sickness again and again to indulgence, overwork, neglect of rest, unwholesome food, foul air, filth, and unbelief, and calls men to reform their habits in these respects as the appointed path of safety. In such a frame, any micro-organisms that may be present are at most instruments, not masters, which may change in form and function depending on the environment. To exalt them to the place of lordship over health is to deny, in practice, the very laws of life God has made known.
When the false assumptions of this system are taken together, the result is not only a mistaken theory but a modern superstition. Men speak of “germs” and “infection” as though they were personal powers to be feared and propitiated, while the plain laws of health and the authority of God’s Word are lightly set aside. The imagination is trained to live in dread of unseen invaders and to trust in human devices as charms against them, rather than in obedience to known light and in the providence of God. In this sense, much that now passes for settled science in this field is “science falsely so called:” a mixture of thin measurements, loaded interpretations, and profitable tales, pressed upon the conscience as though they were unquestionable truth.
The germ story also makes men passive where God bids them act. If the chief danger lies in invisible invaders, then the chief remedies must lie in barriers, chemicals, and mandates devised and enforced by other men. The individual is taught that his own obedience to the laws of health—his diet, rest, air, sunlight, cleanliness, and trust in God—are of little account compared with the presence or absence of a “pathogen.” Conscience is thus moved from the keeping of God’s laws of life to dependence upon human systems of control. In this way, germ theory serves not the law of God written into nature and into the body, but the shifting powers and interests of the age, and becomes an instrument by which multitudes are held in bondage to fear.
Where Popular Terrain Fails This Standard
In reaction to the germ story, many have turned to what is now called “terrain.” They speak more truly when they say that the state of the body bears upon health and disease, and when they urge attention to diet, rest, and a quieter way of living. At these points, where they are in harmony with the laws of health, their words agree with light already given. But much that now bears the name of terrain does not, in fact, accord with the witness of Scripture and the Spirit of prophecy regarding the laws of health and the life in the blood.
In the first place, a great deal of so-called terrain teaching is only germ theory in gentler dress. It still takes for granted that specific unseen “pathogens” are the secondary causes of diseases, that these move through populations in a chain, and that the main question is how to prevent or blunt their supposed action. The “terrain” is then treated as something to be tuned so that the germ will not “take hold,” while the germ story itself is left unexamined. In such a case, the mind is not being called back to the laws of health as the true framework, but is being taught to keep the same false standard while merely adding on certain wholesome habits.
In other cases, what calls itself terrain today rightly questions or rejects much of the germ-allopathic paradigm—pointing to the failures and contradictions of virology, genetics, and associated claims—yet does not in fact understand the principles by which God has ordered life in the blood and in the laws of health. It may still commend ways of living wholly out of harmony with the laws of health, such as diets rich in flesh meats, highly seasoned and acidic foods, “healthy” vinegars, and other fermentative and putrefactive agents that burden the blood, disturb its proper life, and wreak havoc upon the system. Men are told that such practices will “strengthen the terrain,” while in reality they tend only to inflame appetite, disturb digestion, and poison the life of the body.
Further, much that travels under the terrain banner mingles truth with error in more open ways. It may speak rightly of diet, rest, movement, and water, yet at the same time commend practices which rest upon occult principles, upon forbidden forms of “energy” manipulation, or upon spiritualistic teachings concerning the self and the body. It may urge men to “trust their body” or “follow their inner guidance” in ways that set aside the written Word and the warnings already given concerning appetite, indulgence, and self-pleasing. Whatever good words it may borrow about outward habits, such teaching cannot be reconciled with the fear of God or with obedience to His commandments.
There are also terrain messages which flatter indulgence while using the right phrases. They promise health while making much of rich and stimulating foods, of constant “hacks” and treatments, of late hours, excessive labour, or undisciplined pleasure, so long as certain supplements or protocols are followed. They speak as though one could maintain “a strong terrain” while slighting temperance, ignoring Sabbath rest, and neglecting the simple use of air, light, water, and plain food. In such cases the word terrain is used, not to call men back to the laws of life, but to soothe the conscience while they remain in cherished habits that God has already shown to be unsafe.
Measured by the standard already set forth, these popular terrain messages fare no better than the germ story they oppose. Where they honour the laws of health and the rule of Scripture, they may be received so far as they go. Where they deny or evade these—whether under the name of “pathogens,” “energy,” or “terrain”—they belong to that science which is falsely so called, and are to be refused.
The Body’s Internal Environment
The body’s internal environment may, in broader terms, be spoken of as the inward condition in which life is carried on—the state of the blood and internal fluids, and the condition of the tissues they bathe, as these are affected over time by our manner of living. In more technical language, the internal environment (milieu intérieur) refers specifically to the intracellular fluids (within the cells), the extracellular fluids (without the cells), and the interstitial fluids (within the tissues), and it is this internal environment that a number of nineteenth- and twentieth-century observers had in view when they spoke of the body’s “terrain.”
In Scripture and in the Testimonies, what goes on in this internal environment is never treated as a merely mechanical matter. The life is in the blood; the body is a temple; the appetites and passions are to be governed; neglect and indulgence bring weakness and disease. Obedience to known light—temperance, cleanliness, simple food, pure water, rest at the proper seasons, diligence without overwork—is presented as the appointed way of preserving the powers of life, and of lessening and removing disease-conditions when they arise. When these laws of health are honoured, the blood and the internal fluids are strengthened; when they are trampled on, the blood is burdened, the fluids are disordered, and the tissues begin to show the effects of that decline in their condition.
Pleomorphism, as some observers have described it, is the recognition that the tiniest forms of living matter may appear, change, and disappear in connection with the state of the tissues and fluids, according to law. Under given conditions of purity or corruption, elementary life-forms arise as instruments in building up or breaking down what already is. When the blood and internal fluids are sound under the laws of health, these smallest forms take part in ordinary nourishment and cleansing; but when the blood is burdened, the fluids disordered, and the tissues breaking down, they gather in the filth, decay, and putrefaction of what is returning toward the dust.
Some have described, in more detailed ways, a “cycle of life” in the blood, noting minute, particulate forms in the plasma and around the red cells that appear, change form, and disappear in connection with the state of the blood and internal fluids. In such accounts, the same basic living units can often be seen, in suitable preparations, as quiet, granular forms in healthy blood, but as more active, budding, and decomposing forms when the blood and tissues are burdened with waste, acidity, or decay; properly restrained, such observations do not prove independent pathogenic entities acting as primary causes of disease, but bear witness to a lawful, reversible cycle of building up and breaking down within the same created order of dust and life. Rightly understood, this is in harmony with Scripture, which declares that man was formed of the dust and shall return to the dust, and shows that the very processes by which the body is broken down after death, and by which corrupted tissues are removed in life, depend upon such humble instruments working under the laws of health.
So far as early pleomorphic observations simply bear witness that the smallest forms of life change with the condition of the blood and tissues, and that they serve in God’s appointed work of building up and breaking down, they are in agreement with the Bible and the Spirit of prophecy. They remind us that the body is of the dust of the earth, upheld by the breath of God, and that when the laws of life are violated, the very dust of which we are made begins to return to its lower state. In this frame, so-called “microbes” are not creators of disease, but instruments in the hand of Him who has said that disobedience brings weakness and decay, and who alone can renew the life of the flesh.
We are speaking, then, of the actual state and delicate condition of the blood, the internal fluids, and the tissues as they tend toward order or disorder according to natural law. This internal environment receives impressions from conditions and habits, both inherited and formed in early development, from environment, from diet, from work and rest, from cleanliness, from thought and feeling, and from the spiritual state, yet none of these are to be treated as independent of the law of God. In such a view, disease is not seen as a thing that descends upon the innocent without cause, but as a condition that arises under law, whether by personal transgression, by the sins of others, or by the general curse that rests upon a fallen world. In such a frame, the path of healing is always, in some measure, a path of ascertaining the true cause, repentance, and reform.
Christ as Great Physician
Yet all of this would remain incomplete if we did not come to the One in whose hand both life and health stand. Jesus is set before us not only as Saviour from sin, but as the great Physician who enters into our weakness. “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows… Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” (Isa. 53:4; Matt. 8:17.) In taking our nature, He became our High Priest who “can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way,” knowing by experience what it is to suffer in body and in mind. (Heb. 5:2.) Sickness, in His dealings, is never a detached “thing,” but part of the broken condition of fallen man which He came to bear and to restore under God’s government.
The Gospels show Him continually surrounded by the sick. “All they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them, and healed them.” (Luke 4:40.) Great multitudes followed Him “because they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased.” (John 6:2.) Yet in these scenes, He is not managing invisible invaders; He is dealing with persons before God—quieting fear, strengthening faith, relieving suffering, and calling men and women back into the order of life which sin has marred.
At the same time, Christ never separates healing from obedience. To the man at the pool of Bethesda He says, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” (John 5:14.) The cleansed leper is sent to the priest with the appointed offerings, “and the priest shall offer the sin offering, and make an atonement for him that is to be cleansed from his uncleanness.” (Lev. 14:19.) In these ways, questions of health are bound up with questions of sin, atonement, and conformity to God’s revealed will, not with the tracking of disease-entities as though they were little lords of sickness.
Our Lord also honours the simple means and commands God has already given. He bids the impotent man, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk” (John 5:8), joining His restoring power to a plain path of action. The wisdom of God still speaks, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart… fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones” (Prov. 3:5–8), and again, “My son, attend to my words… for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.” (Prov. 4:20–22.) In such promises, obedience to known light—turning from evil, ordering the life by God’s counsel—is explicitly linked with the health of the body.
Seen in this light, the quality of the blood, the condition of the fluids, and the state of the tissues is not a side question for those interested in health, but part of the same gospel call to repentance, obedience, and trust. The body, formed of the dust yet made to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, is to be brought back under the rule of God along with the thoughts and affections. To walk with Christ as our great Physician is to receive from His hand both forgiveness and reform—to have the heart set right toward God, and the habits of life brought, step by step, into harmony with those laws of health by which He would preserve and restore our frame.
Witnesses to the Laws of Health
In the history of medicine, there have been those who, often against the spirit of their age, bore witness to the laws of health without using the language of “terrain.” They insisted that light, air, water, cleanliness, rest, and ordered habits were not mere comforts, but the very means by which life was preserved and restored. Wherever such men and women acted on these principles, they found that outcomes changed, not because they had mastered new “entities,” but because they had, in some measure, come into harmony with the order God has written into the body and into the world.
Florence Nightingale stands as a notable example. In filthy hospitals and camps, she pressed for fresh air, pure water, cleanliness of bedding and clothing, decent food, quiet, and regularity, and saw death-rates fall when these simple measures were carried out. She observed that foul air, filth, overwork, bad diet, and confusion weakened men and prepared the way for what was called “disease,” while order, cleanliness, and light strengthened them and lessened their danger. In this she was not confirming a tale about invisible invaders, but dealing faithfully with the visible laws of health which God has appointed; and under His providence those laws brought forth their proper fruit.
Others in the natural hygiene movement likewise taught that the body is upheld by obedience to simple conditions of life, and that many so-called diseases are but the body’s efforts to cleanse and restore itself when those conditions have been long neglected. To the extent that they urged temperance, pure air, pure water, sunlight, rest, plain food, and the laying aside of harmful substances, they were echoing, however imperfectly, the counsels already given in Scripture and in the Spirit of prophecy. Their witness shows that this order of life under the laws of health is not a private notion reserved for a few, but the actual order of God’s world, which proves itself wherever men, in any age, walk in its light.
Walking in the Light of His Word
In the end, these matters do not rest in abstractions about “germs” and “terrain,” but in the way each one orders his life before God. You cannot escape having a standard. Either the conscience will be ruled by tales of invisible invaders and promises of human control, or it will be brought under the Word of God, the light of the Spirit of prophecy, and the gentle, searching authority of Jesus, our great Physician.
If the path you have walked has treated health as a matter of dodging what “goes around,” or has used the name of terrain to cover indulgence, occult practices, or neglect of the plain laws of life, the call is not to despair but to repentance and reform. The same Lord who says, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more,” still invites the weary and heavy-laden to come unto Him, to learn of Him, and to find rest unto their souls. (John 5:14; Matt. 11:28–30.) Under His yoke, the body and the life are to be ordered by faith, obedience, and the simple means He has appointed—air, light, water, rest, temperance, labour, and trust in God.
As you walk in the light of His Word, the confusion of competing claims need not govern your course. If you will take the Bible as your rule, receive the counsels given through the Spirit of prophecy, and look to Jesus as your great Physician, He will make plain, step by step, which ways of thinking and living accord with the laws of nature, and which belong to that “science falsely so called” which must be refused. For the broader setting of this call within the Everlasting Gospel and the three angels’ messages, see The Everlasting Gospel.