Natural Health the Cheap and Easy Way: Ellen White's Top Ten Tips, 1-5 (Part 2 of the Mini-Biography)

Explanatory note: This article was cut from my tribute to Women's History Month, a mini-biography of Ellen White, for readers' convenience. To find out more about Mrs. White as an author and historical character, read the biography.

1. First, the one that's "gone mainstream" to the point where you've probably never thought of it as a health rule: Wear simple, comfortable clothes.

I remember reading Mrs. White's arguments on this subject as a young student, in California yet, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. "Why was this writer so excited about this? What did she want me to wear, a muumuu?"

Not exactly. Ellen White's lifetime coincided with the Victorian fashion era, in which fashionable women's skirts dragged on the ground and both men and women wore stiff, tight corsets. Men's corsets were bad enough, resembling modern women's girdles but stiffer and heavier. Women's corsets could, if pulled fashionably tight for the really dressed-up look, become instruments of torture that crushed ribs, lungs, and digestive organs together.

Both sexes tended to wear too many layers for comfort, and leave the layers of fabric that absorbed sweat and nurtured skin fungus infections on the body too long for health. Instead of applying a little perfume or deodorant, our Victorian ancestors were more likely to try to soak up body odors with more layers of underwear.

Ellen White sensed that these styles would have to be discarded by patients who wanted to recover from all the respiratory diseases from which many people were cured in the "sanitariums" she organized. While working-class Victorians, like her immediate family, couldn't afford the most harmful fashions, the fame of the sanitariums soon attracted a wealthier clientele, including at least one President of the United States. It became necessary to market the idea of "healthful dress" to those who weren't forced by budgetary concerns to stick to "plain and simple" styles.