Herbs, Beeswax or Horsetail | LaDean Griffin, Is Any Sick Among You?, and LaDean Griffin, No Side Effects: The Return of Herbal Medicine

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These two books from our own Mormon culture are typical of a large number of similar publications in the lay press. Well meaning people who have found that modern medicine cannot cure everything are too easily attracted to the “testimonials” of other well meaning friends that there is a cure not known (or used) by conventional medical practitioners. 

We all know how harmful “hearsay” or “gossip” can be, but these attempts to find unique or unusual medical cures can be considered little more. These, and similar publications, take advantage of how little the average person knows concerning the function of his own body. When such “herbal cures” are used for the treatment of the common cold little harm is done. For the diabetic patient, on the other hand, to believe that “golden seal acts like insulin” could lead to discontinuance of a life-saving medication and the unnecessary death of a parent or child. 

Of particular danger to the Mormon population is the interweaving of church doctrine with “old tales” of cures by herbs, bees wax, or horse tail. Being a forward looking people we believe there is much to be learned. That knowledge will come, however, through hard work and the inspiration which comes to those who have applied themselves to the knowledge which has already been given us, not to dreamers or self-styled healers. 

If we believe in any type of science, the electricity that runs our homes, the engineering that produces our automobiles, or the chemistry that produces photographs, we should believe in the same science which gives us modern medicine. If on the other hand, we desire to return to infant deaths by the thousands from typhoid, whooping cough and pneumonia, we will turn our backs on the knowledge of modern science and medicine. 

Every physician has felt sorrow for the patient who has been mislead by such “home cures,” who has postponed proper therapy for cancer or other serious disease until it was too late. The answer for those who have diseases not subject to cure by medical practice as we know it today is in the priesthood, not in those who would lead us to believe there is a middle cure somewhere in between.

Is Any Sick Among You? by LaDean Griffin. Provo: Biworld, 1975, 228 pp., $8.95. 

No Side Effects: The Return of Herbal Medicine by LaDean Griffin. Provo: Biworld, 1975, pp., $7.95.