John Harvey Kellogg

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (February 26, 1852 - December 14, 1943) was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan who ran a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition, enemas and exercise. Kellogg was an advocate of vegetarianism, and is best known for the invention of the corn flake breakfast cereal with his brother.

Biography

Dr. Kellogg was born in Tyrone, New York in 1852 to John Preston Kellogg (1807-?) and Ann Janette Stanley (1824-?). The family had moved to Battle Creek, Michigan by 1860 where his father set up a broom factory. John later worked as a printer's devil in a Battle Creek publishing house.

Kellogg went to the Battle Creek public school system, then attended the Michigan State Normal School (since 1959, Eastern Michigan University), and finally New York University Medical College at Bellevue Hospital. He graduated in 1875 with a medical degree. He married Ella Ervilla Eaton (1853-1920) of Alfred Center, New York, on February 22, 1879. They did not have any children of their own, but raised over forty children, legally adopting seven of them, before Ella died in 1920. The adopted children include: Agnes Grace Kellogg; Elizabeth Kellogg; John William Kellogg; Ivaline Maud Kellogg; Paul Alfred Kellogg; Robert Moffatt Kellogg; and Newell Carey Kellogg. Kellogg died in 1943 and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Battle Creek Sanitarium

Kellogg gained fame while working at the Battle Creek Sanitarium which ran on Seventh-day Adventist Church principles. They believed in a vegetarian diet and a regimen of exercise. Kellogg was against surgery, especially to remove parts of the intestines. In the Preface to Autointoxication, he says that "it is a notorious fact that most of those who have submitted themselves to shortcircutiting and even more radical surgical operations for relief of intestinal stasis, sooner or later, usually within a year after the operation, find themselves suffering from the same distressing symptoms for the relief of which they consented to submit themselves to a mutilating surgical procedure."

Kellogg beleived that most disease is alleviated by a change in intestinal flora: bacteria that is in the intestines can either help or hinder the body. "Bad" bacteria produce toxins during the digestion of protein that poison the blood. Poor diet also favors harmful bacteria that can then infect other tissues in the body. The intestinal flora is changed by the diet of the individual, and is changed for the better, generally, with a well-balanced vegetarian diet that favors low-protein, laxative and high-fiber foods. This natural change in flora can be sped by enemas seeded with favorable bacteria, or by various regimins of specific foods designed to heal specific ailments.

Breakfast cereals

With his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, they started the Sanitas Food Company to produce their whole grain cereals around 1897. A standard breakfast then was eggs and meat eaten by the well off. The poor ate porridge, farina, gruel, and other boiled grains. John and Will eventually argued over the addition of sugar to the cereals and in 1906 Will started his own company called the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which eventually became the Kellogg Company. They never spoke to each other again. John then formed the Battle Creek Food Company to develop and market soy products. John did not invent the concept of the dry breakfast cereal. That honor belongs to Dr. James Caleb Jackson who created the first dry breakfast cereal in 1863, which he called Granula. A patient of John's, Charles William Post would eventually start his own dry cereal company selling a rival brand of corn flakes.

Anti-masturbation writings

Kellogg was a zealous campaigner against masturbation, recommending extreme methods. In his Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects he wrote:

A remedy for masturbation which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment. In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.

He also claimed that masturbation was a primary cause of acne, among other things, including atrophy of the testes. In one extreme case, at the request of a 10 year old girl's father he performed surgery to remove the girl's clitoris. Scientific advances have since shown that carbolic acid is highly dangerous and can cause mutations, irritations, burning and other unpleasant symptoms if the skin touches on it for any length of time and ingesting the substance can be fatal.

Selected publications

1877 Plain Facts For Old And Young: Embracing The Natural History And Hygiene Of Organic Life
1888 Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects, Plain Facts for Old and Young
1893 Ladies Guide in Health and Disease
1903 Rational Hydrotherapy
1910 Light Therapeutics
1914 Needed -- A New Human Race Official Proceedings: Vol. I, Proceedings of the First National Conference on Race Betterment. Battle Creek, MI: Race Betterment Foundation, 431-450.
1915 The Eugenics Registry Official Proceedings: Vol II, Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Race Betterment. Battle Creek, MI: Race Betterment Foundation.
1922 Autointoxication or Intestinal Toxemia
1923 Tobaccoism or How Tobacco Kills
1927 New Dietetics: A Guide to Scientific Feeding in Health and Disease
1929 Art of Massage: A Practical Manual for the Nurse, the Student and the Practitioner

Popular culture

T. Coraghessan Boyle's 1993 comic novel The Road to Wellville is a fictionalized story about Kellogg and his sanitarium.
A filmed version of the book, directed by Alan Parker, was released in 1994. It starred Anthony Hopkins as Kellogg.
Mel Brooks' 1995 film Dead and Loving it featured a sanitarium boss named "Dr. Jack Seward" (played by Harvey Korman), who would recommend enemas for every conceivable ailment. The character was clearly based on Kellogg, and in one scene is seen eating corn flakes. (Dr. Seward is the name of a character in the novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker.)

External links

Footnotes

John Harvey Kellogg; Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects, Plain Fact for Old and Young; F. Segner & Co.; Burlington, Iowa (1888).

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