WEBVTT - John Harvey Kellogg 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.200 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:14.640 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.239 I'm Tracy Wolves and I'm Holly Frying. So a note 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.959 before we begin this. Some of John Harvey Kellogg's thought 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:26.360 was about the sexual health of adults. So if you 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.200 are listening with young children, be aware there is going 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.240 to be some talk about sex and some sexual terminology 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.400 in this episode. Yeah, a little bit of anatomy that 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:36.120 you may or may not have covered yet. Can I 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:38.519 tell you a story, poor favour. I used to be 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.640 a massage therapist, like a legitimate massage therapist. I had 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.120 a license and all that, and I was getting ready 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:47.280 to start my first full time job at a spa. 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:49.680 And this was the spa was like the kind of 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:52.159 place up in the mountains where you would go and 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.080 you would get three health food meals a day and 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:57.520 in addition to your massages, there were day hikes and 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.000 nutritional counseling and uh and that sort of thing. Like 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:05.919 it was very health spa. Yeah, the kind of place 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.440 where there was such a focus on healthy eating that 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.520 people would routinely ask the maintenance guy and they could smuggle. 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:18.919 If you could smuggle some hamburgers for them. Um. So 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.240 the night before my first day of work there, I 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.399 was staying at this condo that had cable and I 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.080 hadn't had a TV at all for about four years, 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:28.760 so of course I turned it on and what was 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:33.119 on was coincidentally The Road to Wellville, which is based 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:35.240 on a book by TC Boyle. Yes, have you ever 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.039 seen this or read this? Yes? And yes, but it's 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:39.800 been quite some time on both of you. It's a 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.760 fictionalized comedy about John Harvey Kellogg, and in the movie, 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.840 everybody is at this spa to get better, and there's 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:51.440 a lot of stuff going on. It just seems really cuckoo, 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.960 from weird electrical therapies to a hyper strict focus on 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:01.760 never ever ever masturbating. It's absolutely thick schnl. But the 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.880 Battle Creek Sanitarium was a real place run by John 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.200 Harvey Kellogg, who was a real guy, and it had 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.480 its share of weirdness, which is what we're going to 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.799 talk about today. It's almost one of those things where 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.600 you're like, why did you fictionalize this funny weird as 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:18.880 it is? That's sort of like Stone Mountain, Georgia. They 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:20.959 really didn't need to make up all kinds of craziness 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.679 about Stone Mountain for thirty y rock, because it's got 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.720 its own craziness right there. Um. So also this is 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.280 you thank some part to a listener request from Palace. 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.880 We are going to talk about John Harvey Kellogg and 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.560 the sanitarium at Battle Creek today. So John hard Vee 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:42.200 Kellogg was born in Tyrone, Michigan, on February eighteen fifty two, 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.480 and his parents were John Preston and and Kellogg. He 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.399 was one of sixteen it's one six sixteen children, which 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.720 included five from his father's first marriage. They were all 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.520 devout Seventh day Adventists, and they moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:58.919 which was at that point the home of the Seventh 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.240 Day Adventist Church. When John was young. His father owned 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.919 a broom factory there and all of the children worked 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.080 in it as soon as they were of legal age 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:12.520 to do so. When John got older, he worked as 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:15.320 a printer's devil, which is kind of a gopher slash 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:19.200 apprentice type role at a Seventh Day Adventist publishing house. 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.640 His interest in medicine and health reform probably started there 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.639 because of the materials they were printing. Bell and White, 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.440 who was co founder of the Seventh day Adventists, had 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.840 begun to write extensively about health and wellness. A core 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.880 Seventh Day Adventist belief is that people's bodies are the 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.600 temples of the Holy Spirit, so they should be treated 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:42.040 well and kept healthy through clean living and healthful behaviors, 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:46.360 and people should avoid quote, unclean foods and tobacco and alcohol. 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.200 When he was sixteen, he worked for a little while 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.320 as a teacher. All There's some kind of respiratory trouble 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.440 ended his teaching work and caused him to return to studying. 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.080 John's father did not really see a lot of reason 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.280 to educate his children. He believed that the Second Coming 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.320 was imminent and that would have been a waste of time. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.760 So many of his siblings never finished high school. And 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.120 in spite of that, John got his m d. From 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.320 Bellevue Hospital Medical College in eighteen seventy five UH. For 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.120 scattered years between eighteen eighty three and nineteen eleven, he 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.320 also studied in Europe UH and continued his education in 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.080 surgery and medicine there. His goal and all the study 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.920 was really to be a good doctor and a good surgeon. 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.800 And he was. He was a successful doctor and a 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.280 very respected surgeon, and he continued to practice surgery until 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:37.080 he was in his seventies. He also founded Battle Creek College, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.919 which later became part of Andrew's University, and he served 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.279 as its first president. He was also an advocate of 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.200 health outreach for the poor and needy. He believed that 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.880 all Christian institutions should work with the poor in their 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.120 local area, and he also believed that Seventh day Adventists 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.840 were in particular called to work as medical missionaries. He 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.440 was part of the Adventists creation of a medical mission 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.800 in Chicago, the closest major city to Battle Creek at 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.000 the time. Detroit was much smaller than and that was 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.400 in eight three uh and that medical mission became a 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.520 model for other missions in Chicago and elsewhere. The goal 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:15.800 was to see to both the physical and spiritual health 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.560 of the city's poorest residence. On February twenty second, eighteen 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.760 seventy nine, he married Ella et Eaton, and they lived 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.480 in a fifty room home in Battle Creek. That sounds enormous, 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.239 it does. Indeed, they really needed all that room because 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.000 together they fostered about forty children and legally adopted seven 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:37.880 of them. They had no biological children because allegedly, as 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.440 it just seems to be a running theme with every 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:44.159 topic that I picked, their marriage was chased and never consummated. 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:46.440 You do have bad luck with that. And I don't 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.160 know if it's bad luck, it's just it's just funny 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.279 because you pick things not knowing that, and it always 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.640 comes up in the research. Yeah, I just keep picking 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:55.600 people to talk about, and then it turns out that 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.680 that person, by coincidence, has a chased marriage. Yes, sav 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.559 a chase marriage and practice celibacy for their whole life. Uh. 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.280 And although some of his children were black, John was 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:10.000 actually a proponent of the eugenics movement and founded the 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.480 Race Betterment Foundation in nineteen eleven to pursue ideas of 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.159 racial purity, which I think is a little startling because 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.680 you think about all of his sort of seeming good 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.040 works and outreach. Well, there were really a lot of 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.000 people during those years who were active in the eugenics 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:30.800 movement who uh that their activity sort of tarnishes all 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.240 of the other good works that they did by having 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:37.560 been part of this movement that is, at the time 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.200 was not looked at with quite the level of horror 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.000 as it is today like today, that whole idea really 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.919 really upsetting. Um it was that was not really the 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.120 that's the thought at the time period, and there's late 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.480 eighteen hundred, early nineteen hundred years and one of the 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.200 race betterment foundations of jectives at the time was to 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.000 start a eugenic registry so that they could ensure racial purity. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.120 So yeah, that's that's another It sounds so alien and unsettling, 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:17.080 but at the time it was a pretty common right. 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:19.880 There were a lot of people who I think otherwise 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.720 were ahead of their time and what they were thinking about, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.840 and then also participated in the eugenics movement, which becomes 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:31.040 startling to people. Yeah. Um, so that that's sort of 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:35.160 the basics of who this person was. A big part 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.040 of his life was his philosophy on health, and you 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.760 hear a lot about his very more extreme views. When 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.679 you hear about John Harvey Kellogg, it becomes really easy 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.080 to write him off as this kind of weirdo quack 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.080 since a lot of his practices were way apart from 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.600 mainstream thought at the time. They definitely don't hold up 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.440 to scientific scrutiny now, and some of them were kind 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:01.800 of scientifically questionable even at the time. Um. But in 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.600 spite of that, he was really always on the lookout 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.559 for medical evidence that his theories were actually effective, and 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.800 he did seem to question his beliefs pretty regularly. He 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.440 would he would advocate something, and then when it turned 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.000 out that that was not a good idea and he 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.600 had proof of that, he would turn away from it 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:22.880 and advocate something else. So it was kind of a 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.480 quest for the newest and best knowledge, and sometimes it 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.080 didn't pan out, and sometimes it did. Right. Uh. There's 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.400 also the context to consider in the world of medicine 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.640 at the time, pasteurization and the germ theory of disease 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.720 were really only starting to gain a mainstream acceptance. Diseases 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.720 still spread rapidly because of a lack of basic hygiene, 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.320 and a lot of quote medicines were patent medicines that 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.600 had no real medical value. Cocaine and alat in um 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.800 were being used medicinally. So Kellogg's focus on preventative care 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.960 and healthy living was really groundbreaking in a lot of ways. 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.160 As we said before, he was a trained and respected doctor, 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:01.679 and a lot of what he believed and wrote about 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.640 mesha is pretty well with common sense health beliefs today, 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:12.080 or at least mainstream natural health ideas. He advocated healthy eating, exercise, vegetarianism, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.560 and low calorie diets. Uh. Those last two you could 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.760 sort of argue either way for but in the field 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.680 of holistic health there pretty much staples at this point, 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.360 and we have all kinds of documentations of these ideas. 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.720 For almost seventy years, Kellogg edited a magazine called Good Health. 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.800 It was originally a Seventh Day hadvent This publication called 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.439 Health Reformer, and in this he would publish his philosophies. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.120 He also wrote many, many books on health and healthy living, 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.360 and much of this material is actually in public domain now, 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:46.280 so you can find a lot of his books online 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.160 for free. He was really ahead of the curve on 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.319 some of the health ideas that we take for granted today. 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.520 He was an ardent believer that the American diet included 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.600 more protein than people really needed, and that people should 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.520 bathe more often than once it. He also really wanted 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.720 people to wear less restrictive, more breathable clothing than they 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.600 generally did in the nineteenth century. He was also an 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.760 anti smoking advocate long before mainstream culture was ever thinking 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.199 of smoking is hazardous, and he correctly concluded that smoking 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.760 is bad for the heart. Uh from tobacco is m 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.880 or how tobacco kills. He says tobacco in its various 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.360 forms is one of the most mischievous of all drugs. 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.439 There is perhaps no other drug which injures the body 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.680 in so many ways and so universally as does tobacco. 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.240 Some drugs offer a small degree of compensation for the 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.240 evil effects which they produce, but tobacco has not a 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.000 single redeeming feature and gives nothing in return for the 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.559 one point five billion dollars which it costs the nation annually, 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:50.559 besides the one thousand lives which it probably destroys. So 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:57.280 that's a pretty startlingly modern for He also wrote about 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.679 the dangers of sitting, which is something that's really increasingly 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.360 present in medical literature in the past few years. From 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.560 the simple life in a nutshell, one need not to 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.680 generate physically because his occupation is sedentary. Always sit erect, 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.480 with chest held high and the small the back supported, 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.760 sit as little as possible. Standing and lying are more 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.719 natural and healthful positions than sitting. One may exercise while 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.280 sitting at work by deep breathing and by stiffening the 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.120 muscles of verse one limb a few seconds than the other, 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:31.680 all the muscles in the body may be exercised this way. Again, 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.240 still going on today, Like that's well, and I stand 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.880 up desk movements, the standing dusk thing is just yeah. 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.840 I hear more and more people talking about their standing desks, 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:43.760 and I think it's only been maybe in the last 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.319 five years that that suddenly you're seeing more and more 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.640 research about how how terrible, not just the fact that 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.720 people are not exercising, but the sedentary time they're spending 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.520 sitting yet during during the work day. Kellogg also had 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.600 a huge focus on food, and he developed or refined 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.559 a number of health foods, including peanut butter, soy milk, 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.320 substitutes for coffee and tea, and breakfast cereals, although his 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.240 brother really did a lot of the leg work on 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.040 that one. He also believed in a concept called biologic living, 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.800 which combined a near vegan diet along with other choices 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.840 in a person's lifestyle. Also from The Simple Life in 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.920 a Nutshell, he wrote about this as live out of doors, 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.800 do your work under the trees instead of behind doors. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.120 And opaque walls. Big in the garden, Explore the woods 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.880 and hills, follow the brooks, watch the squirrels and their gambles, 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.200 and learn the songs of the birds. Pick up a 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.320 sleeping portrait balcony and so taken outing all night long 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.840 and every night, and don't move inside when the frost 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.440 comes Outdoor sleeping is the best life preserver ever known. 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.600 Simple Life in a Nutshell is a good way to 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.640 get an overall sense of his health philosophies, and it 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.439 goes on to outline all kinds of dietary and lifestyle recommendations. 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:03.359 It covers food, exercise, personal hygiene, sleep, clothing, mental hygiene, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.960 and some additional suggestions. They start off pretty common sense, 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:11.400 although maybe not science based, like eating only natural foods, 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:15.400 avoiding meats, eating eggs only in moderation, avoiding cow's milk 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.880 and animal fats, emphasizes getting the fat your body needs 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.080 from olives and nuts instead. He also goes on to 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:27.640 recommend that people avoid quote poison containing foods which are coffee, tea, chocolate, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.120 and cocoa, and he recommends that people get completely rid 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.160 of all condiments and spicy foods. This is where in 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.920 that particular synopsis of sort of what his health believed, 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:43.560 where he starts to lose me at this point of it's, uh, yeah, 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.240 I'm saying I made a cup of coffee and a 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:47.920 travel cups so I could take it in the shower 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.960 with me this morning. Yes, I'm definitely going to have 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.960 a hard time embracing this cop right, even though I 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.760 recognize that this is probably it would be extremely helpful, 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.720 but it would also evolved for me at least a 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:07.640 loss of some quality of life. His mental hygiene ideas 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.920 included not worrying or becoming self centered, practicing self control, 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.000 taking a vacation when you start dreaming about work, and 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.800 avoiding patent medicines, as well as avoiding alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.880 which is all pretty common sense, uh kind of advice 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.600 to to go buy. So you know, so far we've 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.360 talked about a lot of stuff that's pretty reasonable. If 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.440 maybe a little more restrictive and bland, then we would 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.800 like um hey. He also for a while was pushing 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.960 the idea that people should fletcherize their food, which is 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:40.560 just to to it until it became sort of a 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.000 goofy mask that would go down your throat on its own. UM. 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.040 This idea came from Horace Fletcher, known as the Great masticator, 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.000 and that's where the two each bite thirty two times 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.360 rule comes from. So this is an example of where 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:55.840 when evidence started to suggest that maybe that was not 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.640 the best idea, John Harvey Kellogg changed his point of view. UM. 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.240 He moved away of recommending that people fletcherized their food 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:08.240 once he determined that that much chewing was basically pulverizing 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:13.040 the food's fiber into uselessness. So you were denying yourself 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:17.160 the benefits of fibrous foods. UH. From his New York 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.120 Times obituary, there's a quote an authority on water therapy. 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.080 He was the discoverer of the therapeutic value of the 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.520 electric light and inventor of the electric light bath. He 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.120 was also the discoverer of the sine soidal current. So 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.760 this was the point in the world of John Harvey 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.520 Killogg's health beliefs, that is, it starts to kind of 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.200 nudge into the Okay, not sure what's going on there. 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:41.440 This is clearly something that people would have known what 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.560 it was about, because it was in his obituary when 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.120 it was printed. But at this point they're far enough 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:48.800 out of the mainstream thought that I had to go 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:52.520 look up what they were. Um. The electric light bath 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:54.840 was a device that you would sit in. It enclosed 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.400 everything but your head, and inside of it were lots 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.320 and lots of light bulbs and clusters that were that 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.120 were directed at different parts of your body. He built 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:07.240 one and used it by his own counts, so who 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:11.120 knows that this number is inflated in fifty cases. He 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.520 wrote in the book Light Therapeutics about his precursors using 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.560 light to basically cure everything, but he wrote about mostly 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.400 using it in short treatments to draw blood into the skin, 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:27.560 saying that doing so would treat kidney disease, diabetes, rheumatic diseases, anemia, 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.760 and other diseases. He also advocated the use of the 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.240 light bath as a preventive measure and people who had 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:38.920 sedentary lifestyles, calling it quote the best substitute for muscular activity. 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.080 And the sinus sodal current was a high frequency, oscillating 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.120 electrical current that would make muscles contract without causing pain, 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:49.640 and he used this to make a device meant to 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:53.200 exercise the muscles without having to actually move, which is 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.440 the thing that people are still trying to do today. Right. 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.720 Both of these things have analogs that are in actual 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:03.040 medical use today, like light therapy for seasonal effective disorder 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.160 UM and electrical stimulation that's used in some physical therapies, 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:09.720 but neither of them today or in sort of the 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.080 widespread cure all everyone should do this fashion of of 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:18.159 what Kellogg was advocating. And additionally a lot of his 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.639 health practices were focused on the bowel. There were lots 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.440 and lots of enemas and colonic irrigations in his approach 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.919 to health and wellness. That all the stuff with the 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.760 enemas and the colon and all of that, it comes 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:33.600 up over and over and is one of the things 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.199 that starts to mark John Harvey Kellogg is kind of 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:41.040 maybe a little bit off base in terms of what 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.399 he advocated, and there are still people to advocate for those, 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.240 but it's not like a widespread accepted medical approach to 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:53.600 treating conditions the way that Kellogg was advocating for. Yeah, 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.640 he was probably he was pretty much giving everyone who 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:01.119 came to the sanitarium anema's all time as a course 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.360 of general health and wellness. So sometimes when you will 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.560 see in a like some kind of quack doctor in 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.560 a movie he was saying, oh, you should you need 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:14.880 an enema? That it is absolutely a call back to him. 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.840 He was also into electrical electro therapy and vibrational therapy, 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:21.760 and again both of these do have some uses today, 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.600 but he was pretty much advocating them in broad widespread 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:30.879 use on everyone often. And he had some very restrictive 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.800 views on sex. Uh. It was in his mind barely 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:39.359 acceptable even within marriage and then only very infrequently. It 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.200 was certainly unacceptable outside of marriage. And he was very, 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:47.359 very very focused on people not masturbating ever. Uh. He 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.560 blamed masturbation for everything from poor posture to cancer. He 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.359 was in favor of circumcision without anesthetic for boys, and 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.399 the application of carbolic acid to the clitter is for 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:03.359 girls as an anti master Asian tool. Yes, Yake, is 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:08.480 exactly what I was thinking. I just I'm sure listeners 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.560 like me are um feeling tense right at the moment. 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.119 So John Harvey Kellogg put all of these beliefs into 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.639 active practice at the Battle Creek Sanitarium also known as 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.399 the Sand, where he became the chief physician in eighteen 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.160 seventy six, when he was only twenty four. He also 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:29.160 opened a second sanitarium in Miami Springs, Florida, in one 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.840 The SAND had been originally opened in eighteen sixty six 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.040 as the Western Health Reform Institute, which was a health 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.000 facility based on Seventh Day Adventist beliefs in practices. The 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.160 idea was to treat illnesses naturally and to encourage people 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.040 into preventative wellness practices. So its heart was in the 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.040 right place for sure, really, especially considering the state of 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.960 medicine at the time, and it wasn't really all that 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.320 successful before John got there. There wasn't an official medical 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.240 staff and it housed only about twenty patients when John 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:00.439 came on board, so one of the first things that 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.920 he did was to hire a staff of doctors and nurses. 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.280 He set about trying to attract a clientele, and his 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.160 target market was primarily made up of people who had 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.800 things we might think of today as stress related illnesses, 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:17.960 so Harry businessmen experiencing things like exhaustion and chronic indigestion. 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:20.160 A lot of what went on at the SAND were 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:26.119 common sense wellness practices like eating healthy, if extremely bland food, exercising, 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.280 and abstaining from alcohol. And tobacco, uh, and a lot 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:30.840 of the things that you'd also think of when you 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.440 hear the word spa, like massages and nice relaxing baths. 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.399 But it also had all kinds of the electrical and 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.879 vibrational treatments that like we talked about earlier, lots and 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:44.480 lots of electric light therapies and enemas and all the 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.199 other sorts of things that are sort of regarded as 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.840 quackery today. And it ended up becoming a retreat for 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.879 the rich, and some really famous people actually visited the 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.640 Sand to take the cure, including John D. Rockefeller, Amelia 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.760 Earhart sojourn Or Truth, and Mary Todd Lincoln. A fire 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.840 destroyed part of the Sanitarium in nineteen o two, including 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:08.800 all of the main building, but it was eventually rebuilt. 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.960 In nineteen o three. John's relationship with the church became 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.399 strained after he published a book that didn't entirely mesh 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:20.000 with the Adventist doctrine. He ultimately split from the church, 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.119 and he set up the Sanitarium as an independent entity 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:28.119 with its own board, making a nondenominational institution. The Sand 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.960 reached its height of popularity in nineteen o six that year, 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.520 it received seven thousand guests and employed eighteen hundred staff. 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.080 It continued to operate until the Great Depression, when financial 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.800 circumstances forced John to sell it after sixty seven years. 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:46.640 And today's preponderance of breakfast cereals is thanks in part 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.320 to The Sand, where the biologic diet was so boring 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.920 and monotonous that John was constantly looking for alternatives that 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:58.120 fit the philosophical criteria but also offered variety. While John 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.600 was the staff position at the Sand, his brother will 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:05.560 Keith Kellogg, also known as w K. Kellogg, managed the sanitarium, 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:08.919 handling the books, the supplies, the general maintenance, all of 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:12.119 that kind of stuff. So while John was seeing to 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:15.600 the medical end of things, w K was handling pretty 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:17.480 much all of the day to day running of the place. 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.679 The administration, yes, and their relationship wasn't always on the 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.919 best of terms. John could be a taskmaster and w 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.280 K worked really long hours for very little pay, allegedly 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.119 seven days a week with no vacations for seven years, 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.440 which is interesting because it seems to contradict his brother 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.200 John's writings, which say to observe the Sabbath without working 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:41.560 at all, and he advocates for taking a vacation when 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.120 you start to dream about work, So assumably, yes, he 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:46.879 assumably if w K had been working seven days a 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:49.600 week for his taskmaster brother for seven years in a vacation, 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:55.440 he's probably dreaming about work often, probably horrible nightmares and stress. 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:58.560 So yeah, John's seemed to be like, you all should 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.200 do this unless you were me, were my brother, one 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:04.440