A Secret History of Brands

by A Secret History of Brands- The Dark

  John Harvey Kellogg was the source of one of Ellen’s ‘visions’. Ellen White came to her husband and explained that she had experienced a vision from God, which revealed to her that John Harvey Kellogg would someday be a very important part of their movement. It was from this moment forward that the Whites and the Adventist movement began to invest heavily in John Harvey’s future, something that would change his life, and the world, forever.

  In 1864 the 12-year-old John Harvey Kellogg officially began working for the Adventist church, printing and distributing propaganda pamphlets. James White took John Harvey under his wing and taught him the ins and outs of the church’s publishing venture. One of the primary subjects of the Adventist pamphlets was Ellen White’s articles on health and wellbeing. It was during this time that Kellogg would gain interest in the subject of the human body, since it was his job to set the type for the articles.

  At the age of 14 John Harvey devoted himself to becoming a vegetarian, a vow that he would sustain for the rest of his life. That same year, on 5 September 1866, the Adventists opened a convalescent home, called the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek. He didn’t know it at the time, but this moment would become integral in Kellogg’s life, because it was there that he would make his lasting mark on the world and start a whole new industry that still goes strong today.

  Medical Training

  In an effort to affirm and validate their beliefs, the Seventh Day leadership opted to begin sending select devoted young men within their movement to various schools for professional training in the medical field. The Whites personally chose John Harvey Kellogg to attend a five-month course at Dr Russell Trall’s Hygeio-Theraputic College in 1872. Russell Trall was a trained allopath (a doctor with traditional training) who advocated alternative medical practices over traditional medication. Instead of regarding the human body as a physiological system, he firmly believed that it was an entity belonging to, and governed by, God. He subscribed to the school of thought that illness would occur when the natural laws of God were broken, basically that the sickness of the body was directly connected to sickness of the spirit. Dr Trall’s Hygeio-Theraputic College wasn’t so much a medical school, but rather an institute where he started to teach the ways of homeopathy and the benefits of diet and lifestyle in health over medicine or legitimate medical practice. His college was very forward thinking for the time, as the first of its kind in America to allow women an equal chance to learn alongside men. In fact, his enrolment comprised of nearly one third women.

  Kellogg attended the course for five months, but he came away unimpressed with the alternative practices such as hydrotherapy that were being used. The practices he was taught also included having the patient consume forty to fifty glasses of water per day, and cleansing their bodies with water both inside and out.

  In the modern world it can take upwards of eight years to earn a medical degree in the United States, but in John Harvey’s day it wasn’t such a meticulous process. It took him only two years to earn his MD from Bellevue Hospital Medical School in New York in 1875. The Whites served yet again as John Harvey’s benefactors, loaning him the money to attend medical school. Dr Kellogg went on to spend time in London and Vienna after he obtained his medical degree, where he earned his surgical certification, learning the most updated techniques of the era. Surgery would remain a large part of the doctor’s career, as he would perform over 22,000 operations.

  The Battle Creek Sanitarium

  The Adventists Western Health Reform Institute wasn’t going as planned; with business failing, the Whites called upon their star protégé for help. Their decision to make John Harvey superintendent of the home in 1876 was a moment that changed history.

  Dr Kellogg returned home to Battle Creek and brought a new level of confidence and self-assurance along with him. In his first acts as superintendent he wasted no time in expanding the facilities and changing the name to the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The new staff he brought in all had proper medical training; Dr Kellogg expected nothing but excellence from his staff. It was then that he began moulding the Battle Creek Sanitarium after his own ideas about wellness, opting to offer fewer and fewer services like hydrotherapy, and introduce more ‘modern’ techniques, which were a mixture of his heightened healthy-living programme and actual medical science.

  Dr Kellogg wasn’t satisfied to simply run the Sanitarium, he sought complete control. He even began to manipulate and exploit Ellen White’s visions by implanting his own scheme, which Kellogg referred to as his ‘Battle Creek Idea’. It is said that he would implant his ideas in her mind while she was in a vulnerable trance state. Ellen would then repeat Kellogg’s ideas as though they were her own. This manipulation was one way that John Harvey moved things in the direction of his own vision. He also came to serve as editor for the Adventist Health Reformer newsletter, which had a focus on pushing the Adventist health propaganda. Kellogg would change the name of the newsletter to Good Health in 1879. Throughout his career and tenure at Battle Creek, Dr Kellogg also wrote and published more than fifty books. He was determined to get his ideas out to the world through any and all means necessary.

  It was under John Harvey’s rule that the Sanitarium became a beacon of health and well-being and the largest of its kind in the world. ‘The San’, as it was commonly known, offered cures for all things that ailed you. It served as a cross between a getaway spa and a medical clinic. Guests were immediately x-rayed, probed, and thoroughly examined upon arrival, and then assigned a regimen of baths, massages, exercise and diet.

  Life at Battle Creek

  The American diet and lifestyle in the late nineteenth century was often excessively full of fat, causing many health concerns including stomach upsets, nervousness and indigestion (neurostenia and dyspepsia). The San had a vast regime of treatments for anything and everything that may have ailed you.

  The treatments were vast and ever-developing, most of which would be considered rather odd, or even absurd, by today’s standards. One of them included covering the underweight guests with sandbags; another option was rooms that featured tubes and systems to bring in fresh air and expel germs, and a cage that would relax the patient with static electricity. They were all the latest and most innovative treatments of the era.

  Dr Kellogg did have a tendency to fixate rather passionately on a number of twisted pursuits however. One of the main focuses he had was his self-declared war on the human colon. He was obsessed to the extent that he actually wrote a 362-page book in 1915 titled Colon Hygiene, in which he explores the functions and possible treatments of the colon, up to and including removal. Kellogg felt passionately about the impurity and spiritual uncleanliness of the organ:

  in the treatment of every chronic disease, and most acute maladies, the colon must be reckoned with. That the average colon, in civilized communities, is in a desperately depraved and dangerous condition, can no longer be doubted. The colon must either be removed or reformed.

  Kellogg treated thousands of patients at The San over the years, most of them with surgery, referring to it as, ‘a hold of unclean and hateful parasites, a veritable Pandora’s box of disease and degeneracy’. He firmly believed in the unclean nature of the colon:

  That most despised and neglected portion of the body, the colon, has in recent years been made the subject of much scientific study and research, with the result that a lively controversy has been stirred up over the question as to whether this organ should be permitted to remain a part of the ‘human form divine,’ or whether it should be cast out as worse than useless and unworthy of place in the anatomy…

  Kellogg also firmly believed in the healing power of sunlight. A light machine that Kellogg invented was even showcased at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The machine utilised light bulbs to create heat and light intended to cure various diseases. He also believed that the colour white absorbed the sun, so he consistently wore all white clothing to help him absorb the full benefits that sunlight could
offer. He would often utilise an Arc lamp to the scalp or ear as another way to absorb healing light.

  Dr Kellogg invented a number of quack medical contraptions, which he was convinced would help his patients at The San. These included the electrotherapy exercise bed, medical slapping-massage machine, two and four person food vibrators, mechanical horses, the infamous Oscillomanipulator and the hot air bath. In fact, The San had an entire Vibro-Mechanical department. Kellogg also found that music inspired people to exercise and eliminated some of the boredom associated with the often tedious process. He even created early workout music recordings on phonograph to help inspire his patients.

  Seen as a ‘posh’ medical retreat, The San enjoyed a number of famous patients, including playwright George Bernard Shaw, industrialist Henry Ford, wealthy businessman John D. Rockefeller, owner of the Wall Street Journal C.W. Baron and even a visit in 1927 from famed Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. Kellogg made good use of Weissmuller’s visit and used him to create shadow-grams that would display his vision of the ideal human physique. Dr Kellogg got Weissmuller to follow a vegetarian diet while he was there and he actually broke one of his own records in the pools at The San pool, lending further legitimacy to Kellogg’s programme.

  John Harvey brought his younger brother, William Keith Kellogg, into the Battle Creek Sanitarium to help keep the books and run much of the business end, so he could fully focus on his health ideas and ambitions for The San. William had just recently completed a four-month business course and was the perfect candidate to help John Harvey, because he never really challenged his absolute authority. If you were to work at The San, then you could expect a salary of up to $9 per week. The first-year nurses were treated to room and board, but no salary. This wasn’t an uncommon practice in the nineteenth century. Dr Kellogg felt the honour of working under him was enough compensation. John Harvey boasted that he himself took no salary, assumingly a testament to his dedication to the healthy cause, but the reality is that his speeches and books alone made him wealthy. Employees were also required to forego meat. This isn’t a surprising requirement from the author of Shall We Slay To Eat? Kellogg believed that meat was the cause of many illnesses.

  Kellogg was so serious about the health benefits of committing to a life of vegetarianism that he not only required it of his staff, but also of all guests of The San. Often, the patients were unable to commit fully to the programme and snuck away to indulge themselves and eat meat at a nearby restaurant. Dr Kellogg was apparently aware that this would occur and it frustrated him endlessly. The menus at The San included carefully chosen selections such as creamed cauliflower, celery, radishes, yogurt, cheese, stewed raisins, apple pie, bananas, good health biscuits, pineapple sauce and kaffir tea. No salt and sugar were offered as they were considered to be unnecessary and impure.

  The daily menu would be printed at the Sanitarium and would include the programme for that day. Here is an example of one such programme, this specific one from 16 November 1927:

  7.00 AM Gymnasium – Chest Gymnasics

  7.20 AM Parlor – Morning Worship

  7.40 to 8.40 AM Breakfast

  8.30 to 9.00 AM Gymnasium – Special Class for Women, Folk Dances, etc.

  9.00 to 9.30 AM Gymnasium – Drill and March for Men and Women

  9.30 to 10.00 AM Gymnasium – Games, Baseball, etc., for men

  12.45 to 2.00 PM Dinner

  2.00 to 3.00 PM Lobby – Orchestra Concert

  3.00 to 4.00 PM Gymnasium – Games, Medical Gymnastics, Volley Ball, etc.

  6.00 to 6.45 PM Supper

  7.00 PM Gymnasium – Light Gymnastics and Grand March with Music

  8.00 PM Parlour – Lecture, Dr W. H. Riley

  Kellogg continued to explore his distrust of the human colon by attempting to prove that constipation was a problem that only humans experienced and that it was somehow tied to their consumption of meat. He travelled widely to study animals and found that vegetarian animals would experience frequent bowel movements, so he decided that he would help his human patients to experience the same. Dr Kellogg created the Colonic Irrigation Machine to deal with this problem, which would wash out the digestive tract of the patient with warm water. It was Kellogg’s commitment to changing the diets of his patients that would soon lead to him working to develop his own food alternatives.

  Kellogg had all kinds of ideas about not just diet, but also human sexuality, marriage, and life. In 1879, he married Ella Ervilla Eaton; it is said that he enjoyed her intelligence, which is what attracted him to her. He boasted that he and his wife never consummated their marriage, in fact he spent their honeymoon writing a book. Kellogg and his wife would never have biological children of their own; instead they adopted over forty children from all around the world.

  There were certainly medical theories in Dr Kellogg’s writing that were profound and ahead of their time, but we are also forced to acknowledge a high level of the absurd in many of the assertions he put forth. Kellogg was convinced, for example, that marriage had a physical affect on a woman. If a woman had children with her second husband, Kellogg asserted that they would more closely resemble the first husband, rather than their biological father. He also believed that if a black woman had a baby with a white man, that all of her subsequent babies would be lighter in skin tone, even if their biological father was a black male. Kellogg also had strong feelings about who should and should not be able to marry; he believed, for example, that a criminal should never marry, neither should someone who is disproportionate in size, has a gap in age between the husband and wife and, to top it all off, he was also against interracial marriage.

  The evils of sex also extended to the world of dance. Dr Kellogg was certain that ‘round dances’, like the Waltz, would lead to rampant immorality, such as late hours, fashionable dressing, midnight feats and improper dress. These violations of morality were something that he was utterly convinced would cause injury to the body, mind, and spirit.

  It was Kellogg’s views on sexuality, abstinence, and the evils of masturbation that would linger as his most ardent and resounding notions. The recurring theme in all of Kellogg’s beliefs is purity and uncleanliness, both physical and mental. He would refer to the very notion of mental sexual arousal and the indulgence of those ‘impure thoughts’, as leading down the path of an ‘immoral life’ full of ‘vicious habits’. Kellogg was so adamant about the evils of masturbation that one of his ‘treatments’ at The San included applying carbolic acid to the clitoris of female patients, and electro-shock to prevent the harmful practice of masturbation.

  The evils of masturbation, or the ‘solitary vice’, were written about extensively by Dr Kellogg in his book Plain Facts For Old And Young:

  If illicit commerce of the sexes is a heinous sin, self-pollution, or masturbation, is a crime doubly abominable. As a sin against nature, it has no parallel except in sodomy (see Gen. 19:5; Judges 19:22). It is the most dangerous of all sexual abuses because the most extensively practised. The vice consists in an excitement of the genital organs produced otherwise than in the natural way. It is known by the terms, self-pollution, self-abuse, masturbation, onanism, manustupration, voluntary pollution, and solitary or secret vice. The vice is the more extensive because there are almost no bounds to its indulgence. Its frequent repetition fastens it upon the victim with a fascination almost irresistible! It may be begun in earliest infancy, and may continue through life.

  A lot of the good doctor’s passions regarding the evils of masturbation quickly gave way to embellishments and obvious fear tactics. A great example of this is seen when he goes on in his book to discuss a specific case of a young boy who was inflicted with the unclean habit:

  Unsuspected Rottenness. — Parents who have no suspicion of the evil, who think their children the embodiment of purity, will find by careful observation and inquiry, — though personal testimony cannot be relied upon, -- that in many instances their supposed virtuous children are old in corruption. Such a reve
lation has brought dismay into many a family, in some cases only too late.

  Not long since a case came under our care which well illustrates the apathy and blindness of parents with respect to this subject. The parents of a young man whose mind seemed to be somewhat disordered, sent word to us through a friend respecting his condition, asking advice. We suspected from the symptoms described the real cause of the disease, and urged prompt attention to the case. In a short time the young man was placed under our immediate care without encouragement of a cure, and we gave the case still closer study. The characteristic symptoms of disease from self-abuse were marked, but the father was positive that no influence of that kind could have been at work. He had watched his son narrowly from infancy, and did not believe it possible for him to have been guilty. In addition, the young man had long been remarkable for his piety, and he did not believe there could be any possibility of his being guilty of so gross a crime.

  A short time sufficed, however, to secure the indisputable evidence of the fact by his being caught in the act by his nurse.

  This young man was a sad example of what havoc is made with the ‘human form divine’ by this debasing vice. Once a bright boy, kind, affectionate, active, intelligent, the pride of a loving mother and the hope of a doting father, his mind had sunken to drivelling idiocy. His vacant stare and expressionless countenance betokened almost complete imbecility. If allowed to do so, he would remain for hours in whatever position his last movement left him. If his hand was raised, it remained extended until placed in a position of rest by his attendant. Only with the utmost difficulty could he be made to rise in the morning, to eat, drink, or walk. Only by great efforts could he be aroused from his lethargy sufficiently to answer the most simple question. The instinctive demands of decency in regarding the calls of nature were not respected. In short, the distinguishing characteristics of a human being were almost wholly obliterated, leaving but a physical semblance of humanity, -- a mind completely wrecked, a body undergoing dissolution while yet alive, a blasted life, no hope for this world, no prospect for the next. In the insane asylums of the country may be seen hundreds of these poor victims in all stages of physical and mental demoralisation.