This is Murder, Actual Murder

By Dirk Anderson, April, 2025

Ellen White Wrong about Quinine

In the 19th century, health reformers were generally opposed to the use of drug medications. For example, Dr. Russell Trall admitted that quinine could reduce fever, but argued that it left a patient "in a worse condition" than before.¹ Dr. Caleb Jackson, from whom Mrs. White received her "health message," regarded quinine as a "poison" similar to arsenic.²

Mrs. White adopted the health reformers' stance that drugs were deleterious to health. She repeatedly wrote testimonies to SDA physicians and other followers warning them: "Drug medication is to be discarded."³ As early as 1864, Mrs. White specifically called out quinine in her book Spiritual Gifts: "Mercury, calomel, and quinine have brought their amount of wretchedness, which the day of God alone will fully reveal."⁴

In 1887, Mrs. White returned from Europe and raised some concerns about an SDA health institution in Ohio. She wrote of "self-sufficient" doctors with insufficient knowledge to practice medicine. She bluntly stated that if their patients died, they would be guilty of murder:

This is murder, actual murder. He did not do this work with evil design, he had no malicious purposes; but life was sacrificed on account of his ignorance, because he was a superficial student, because he had not had that practice that would make him a safe man to be entrusted with human lives.⁵

Thus, in Ellen White's own words, if a patient dies after following the invalid medical advice of a self-sufficient and ignorant physician, that physician would be guilty of murder. Could the same also be said of Ellen White? If she told her followers that quinine was to be avoided, and they followed her advice thinking it was heaven-sent instructions from the Spirit of Prophecy, then is she not also guilty of murder according to her own standard?

In the same letter where she talked about incompetent physicians, she instructed physicians working in SDA sanitariums to avoid using quinine:

A physician who has the moral courage to peril his reputation in enlightening the understanding by plain facts, in showing the nature of disease and how to prevent it, and the dangerous practice of resorting to drugs, will have an up-hill business, but he will live and let live. He will not use his powerful drug medication, because of the knowledge he has acquired by studying books. ... Drugs are too often promised to restore health, and the poor sick are so thoroughly drugged with quinine, morphine, or some strong health-and life-destroying (word illegible), that nature may never make sufficient protest, but give up the struggle; and they may continue their wrong habits with hopeful impunity.⁶

She wrote that quinine was a "health-and life-destroying" substance. Do medical and historical facts support that assertion? Is quinine as dangerous as she makes it out to be?

The Miracle of Quinine

The discovery and widespread use of quinine, a natural compound derived from the bark of the cinchona tree, is a remarkable story of scientific advancement and its profound positive impact on human health. Its discovery was a turning point in medicine.

The indigenous people of the Andean highlands of Peru and Ecuador had long used the bark of the cinchona tree to treat fevers. In the 17th century, Spanish Jesuit missionaries learned of the cinchona bark's effectiveness against malaria. They brought the bark back to Europe. In 1820, French chemists Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou successfully isolated the active compound, quinine, from the cinchona bark.  

Quinine became the primary treatment for malaria, a devastating disease that plagued populations worldwide. It effectively reduced fever and controlled the parasitic infection. Quinine has both antipyretic (fever-reducing) and analgesic (pain-relieving) properties. It has also been used effectively to treat other conditions, including nocturnal leg cramps and certain heart rhythm disorders.

Quinine saved tens of millions of lives from malaria, a disease that has historically caused immense suffering and mortality. Quinine's widespread use contributed to significant improvements in public health, particularly in malaria-endemic areas.  

While its use has declined somewhat with the development of synthetic antimalarials, quinine remains an important drug, especially in areas where malaria parasites have developed resistance to other treatments. It is a testament to the power of natural remedies and can be considered a "miracle-drug."

Medical records from the era of Ellen White (1850-1900) reveal that quinine had a strong safety profile. Only 1% to 3% suffered life-threatening reactions, and permanent damage or death was extremely rare.⁷ Those records indicate its success at treating malaria was high (between 70% and 90%)—remarkably higher than any other alternative. If Ellen White was truly inspired by God, she would have recommended it instead of deriding it.

The Terrible Fruit of Ellen White's Radical Statements

Unfortunately, some SDA missionaries took Mrs. White's uninspired and misguided health counsel to heart and paid for it with their lives. The first SDA missionaries arrived at Solusi, Zimbabwe in 1894. They intended to work among the Ndebele people, many of whom had already been converted to Christianity by the pioneering work of Scottish missionary Robert Moffat and later, Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist missionaries.

Following Ellen White's counsel, the SDA "missionaries" refused to take quinine during a malaria outbreak in 1898. What happened to them? Did Ellen White's counsel improve their health?

A row of graves in Africa mark the site of the first SDA missionaries. They were told by authorities to take quinine, but as Adventists they got their marching orders from a higher source. They knew that quinine was valueless: they trusted Mrs. White that she had been shown this by God, and as a result they died.⁸

Of the seven original missionaries, four died. Two had to leave the mission and go to Cape Town (South Africa) to recover in a hospital. One missionary had enough intelligence to reject Ellen's reckless counsel. He took quinine and remained at the mission to convert other Christians to Seventh-day Adventism.⁹

Thus, Mrs. White's counsel contributed to the death of at least four missionaries.

In another incident, W.C. White, son of the prophetess, relates the experience of one missionary who lost his son to malaria because he followed the prophet's counsel and refused to administer quinine to the boy:

One time while we were in Australia, a brother who had been acting as a missionary on the islands, told mother of the sickness and death of his first-born son. He was seriously afflicted with malaria, and his father was advised to give him quinine, but in view of the counsel in the testimonies to avoid the use of quinine he refused to administer it, and his son died.¹⁰

This missionary later confronted Mrs. White about his son's death, asking if it would have been a sin to give the boy quinine. Caught in the vise of her false testimonies, all she could reply was, "No, we are expected to do the best we can." Apparently, the best any SDA can do is to ignore Ellen White's testimonies and follow the best science available. Her unscientific and radical counsel led directly to the deaths of her followers. This rotted fruit proves her counsel did not come from God.

Perhaps Ellen White said it best...

This is murder, actual murder. He[She] did not do this work with evil design, he[she] had no malicious purposes; but life was sacrificed on account of his[her] ignorance...

Citations

1. Russell T. Trall, Pathology of the Sexual Organs; Embracing All Forms of Sexual Disorders, (Boston: B. Leverett Emerson, 1862), 62.

2. Caleb Jackson, The Sexual Organism and its Healthful Management (Boston: B. Leverett Emerson, 1862), 119-120.

3. Ellen White, Manuscript 162, 1897. See also Letter 3, 1884; Manuscript 22, 1887; Letter 17a, 1893; Letter 82, 1897 (21MR 289), Manuscript 65, 1899; Letter 42, 1900; Letters 59 and 79, 1905; The Indiana Reporter, May 13, 1908; Manuscript 38, 1908.

4. Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 4b, (Battle Creek, MI: Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Assn., 1864), 139.

5. Ellen White, Manuscript 22, 1897. (15MR 274-276).

6. Ibid.

7. G.M. Shewan, “Quinine and Malarial Fever in India,” The Indian Medical Gazette vol. 30,6 (1895): 217. Rohan Roy, “Quinine, Mosquitoes and Empire: Reassembling Malaria in British India, 1890-1910,” South Asian History and Culture vol. 4,1 (2013): 65-86, doi:10.1080/19472498.2012.750457.

8. Gregory Hunt, Beware This Cult! An Insider Exposes Seventh-Day Adventism and Their False Prophet Ellen G. White (Belleville, Ontario, Canada: The Author, 1981), chapter 4.

9. George Knight, Reading Ellen White (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1997), 98.

10. Compilers, W.C. White letter, September 10, 1935, Counsels on Health, (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1923), 261.