Not only did Elder James White lead out in insisting that the physicians who were to practice as health reformers should learn all they could in the very highest medical institutions, but for a time he stood almost alone in his conviction. We can therefore understand his expressions of joy and enthusiasm when Drs. J.H. Kellogg and Kate Lindsay and other physicians at the institute had been granted diplomas by leading state medical schools, yet without losing their confidence in the hygienic principles of the denomination. He withdrew his objections to increasing the size of the Health Reform Institute buildings, and said:
Building on a Bigger Scale
"When we have been urged to build during the past three or four years, we have objected on the ground that our buildings and facilities were equal to our doctors. Now that we have men of ability, refinement, and sterling sense, educated at the best medical schools on the continent, we are ready to build. Not less than $25,000 will be laid out in building the present summer. ...
"Five years since, we became satisfied that our health institute could not rise to eminence and the full measure of usefulness without thoroughly educated physicians to stand at the head of it. We laid our plans to gain this point, and without assistance or sympathy from anyone we have pressed this matter forward. Dr. J.H. Kellogg has been as true as steel. Drs. Fairfield and Sprague, who are studying under him, will graduate at the highest medical school on the continent in the spring of 1878. It is a disgrace to Seventh-day Adventists to do a second-class job in anything. ...
"The time has come to bring up this branch of our work equal to others, so that all our institutions here shall be number one."--The Review and Herald, May 24, 1877.
In planning for the new building, Dr. Kellogg had made a careful observation and study of all the principal establishments of the kind in the United States. The plans had been submitted to experts in this line and had met with their unqualified approval. The building was to be constructed of brick on what seemed to the people of those days a "mammoth scale"--130 feet long with a rear extension for bathrooms, giving it a depth through the middle of 137 feet. The estimated cost was $50,000, to which was added $10,000 for heating and ventilating equipment. The hopeful anticipation of a bright future for the institution was thus set forth:
"Altogether, this institution is the one par excellence of its kind in America. With an efficient corps of physicians, at whose head stands a thoroughly scientific man, in the front rank of his profession--having a board of trustees of tried ability and judgment, whose president is acknowledged to be one of the best financiers in the state, and a man whose life thus far has been spent in the successful carrying forward of grand enterprises--with all the facilities that science and long experience can devise--with a wide and enviable reputation, and an ever-increasing patronage--the Medical and Surgical Sanitarium of Battle Creek, Michigan, is destined to wield a mighty influence in the world, and to be a powerful means of breaking down the old, pernicious autocracy of empirical medical practice, and of encouraging sanitary reform."--The Health Reformer, September, 1877.
New Buildings Dedicated
April 10, 1878, was the date for the formal dedication of the new buildings of the Medical and Surgical Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. It had been rechristened about a year earlier under a name "more significant of its real character." Ibid., June, 1877.
The dedicatory service began in the forenoon and continued throughout the day. Many eminent persons from abroad were in attendance, several of whom took part in the program. According to the Battle Creek Daily Journal, it was estimated that "no less than one thousand were present at the evening entertainment and during the afternoon." Ibid., May, 1878.
At the conclusion of the toasts in the afternoon a large portrait of Elder James White, which had been presented to the institution by the artist Miss Lillie Abbey of New York, was exhibited. In presenting this picture, the physician-in-chief referred to Elder White as the one chiefly instrumental in the great improvements which had been made at the sanitarium within the past year. Ibid., June, 1878.
We may believe that the words were carefully weighed and were true which spoke of the dinner given that day as "the grandest hygienic festival ever held." The dining room and gymnasium had been so planned that they could be thrown together, making a room 40 by 50 feet. About two hundred guests had been expected, and for that number the tables had been prepared. But so many persons came that it was necessary to clear and reset the tables for the third time before all were accommodated. Ibid., May, 1878.
Recognition by Medical Men
The sanitarium and the principles for which it stood had now gained favor in the eyes of the medical profession generally. "Entirely rational and 'regular'"--so agreed the physicians attending the Michigan State Medical Association who were guests of the institution in May, 1877. After a thorough examination of the institution and its methods of operation, all were agreed, we are told, in giving it "their entire endorsement." Ibid., June, 1877.
This gratifying recognition on the part of such an influential organization afforded opportunity for the medical superintendent of the sanitarium to comment upon the antagonism against the medical profession in general that had sometimes found expression in the utterances and writings of the advocates of reform, and which was not always justifiable.
"We have no quarrel with the regular profession," he said, "and there is no reason why we should be upon any other than the most friendly terms with those who are doing nearly all that is being done to conserve the public health, to investigate the causes of disease and the means by which they may be eradicated. It is the grossest injustice to charge the medical profession in general with such grievous crimes as total apathy to human suffering, and reckless, culpable tampering with human life. The regular profession embodies all there is of real science in the healing art. There may be patent errors prevalent among the rank and file of the profession, but most of these are recognized by the more scientific and progressive teachers of medicine of the modern stamp. Instead of constantly stirring up strife, and belaboring the profession in an antagonistic manner, let us take a conciliatory course. By this means we shall be enabled to disarm the prejudice of our medical friends, and thus to secure their influence in our favor rather than against us. By this conservative course we may be able to bring to the attention of our fellow workers for the relief of suffering humanity some germs of truth which they would otherwise reject through prejudice and personal bias."--Ibid., June, 1877.
The following spring the Calhoun County Medical Association held its annual meeting in Battle Creek. Opportunity was given to Dr. Kellogg to present before the large delegation of physicians in attendance the nature and objectives of the sanitarium. Many of the visiting physicians accepted his invitation to visit the institution and to see the large new building which was now rapidly nearing its completion.
The general expression of hearty approval of the sanitarium and its principles led Dr. Kellogg to say further: "We are afraid that many of our hygienic friends have failed to give the regular profession due credit for the liberality of feeling and real good sense which many of its members really possess."--Ibid., March, 1878.
Not Occasioned by Compromise
It is gratifying to be able to state that the improved friendly relationship between the exponents of health reform and of the medical profession was not occasioned by any compromise on the part of the friends of reform. During the course of the preceding decades the success attending the work of the hygienists had had its influence in leading many of the more intelligent physicians greatly to lessen their confidence in the use of drugs. Typical of this changed attitude is the following statement made by Dr. Ira Remsen, professor of chemistry in Johns Hopkins University, in an address delivered before the medical and chirurgical faculty of Maryland:
"The tendency of the present generation of physicians is, I think, to rely less and less upon the action of drugs and chemicals, and to pay more and more attention to the circumstances surrounding the patient, so the discovery of purely remedial agents is becoming day by day of less importance, and the accurate study of those substances which we all necessarily make use of--air, water, food in its various forms--is becoming the great problem in medicine."--Quoted in Good Health, July, 1879.
The sharp cleavage for a time between the health reform physician and the general practitioner had naturally led to mutual recriminations. The former was tempted to point with pride and perhaps with offensive egotism to the rationality of the methods he was using in contrast with the general practice of drugging; but the latter had some reason to regard the reformer, with perhaps only a few months of training in a medical school, as ignorant, fanatical, or quackish.
The medical staff of the sanitarium, being now made up of physicians who had been instructed during their medical course by highly trained scientific and experienced specialists in the various fields of medicine, were in a position to recognize the great value of the research and discoveries made in the laboratories by trained technicians, and to command the respect of the medical profession.
A Summary of Three Years' Work
At the twelfth annual meeting of the Health Reform Institute, held October 4, 1878, a comparative summary of three years' work was presented, clearly indicating that the year 1876 had indeed marked the beginning of a new era in the growth and progress of the institution. The report for these three consecutive years (as published in the The Review and Herald, October 17, 1878) is as follows:
From this time forward there was a constant and steady growth in the patronage of the sanitarium. A number of cottages were rented for the accommodation of patients, besides occasional additions for increasing facilities and room in the institution. By the latter part of 1883 so great was the embarrassment on account of insufficient accommodations for patients, that the board of directors authorized the construction of another one-hundred-foot five-story addition to the main building.
The managers of the institution were now able to report that the debt incurred in the erection of the former building had been paid off. So great was the faith of the friends of the enterprise in its future success that within three weeks nearly two thirds the amount of stock required for the enlargement had been subscribed.
With the completion of this addition, in 1885 the following words were written regarding the results of eighteen years of achievement:
"This institution ... has grown to be the largest institution of its kind in the world. And if one seeks for more complete appliances and facilities for treating all manner of diseases, and a more intelligent application of them to the cases in hand, he must seek them on some other planet; for here we have the best that this one affords."--Ibid., January 6, 1885.
On returning from a visit to Europe, in the summer of 1883, where he visited leading medical institutions on the continent, the medical superintendent reported that he had found nothing of the kind superior to the sanitarium, and that "while many things had suggested themselves to him for information and adoption, he had found nothing to copy."--Good Health, August, 1883.
Rapid Growth
As a member of the American Public Health Association, the American Society of Microscopists, the Association for the Advancement of Science, and other associations devoted to the development of knowledge of rational therapy, Dr. Kellogg was able not only to keep abreast of the discoveries being made, but was able to disseminate among the leaders of medical thought the principles for which the sanitarium had stood from its inception.
The work now rapidly grew to large proportions. Not only did the sanitarium number among its patients those suffering from simple disorders of digestion, or liver trouble, or minor ailments, but an increasing number of cases of a most critical surgical character. Physicians who had exhausted their skill on difficult cases sent them to the institution. In a number of cases physicians accompanied patients they sent, that they might observe the methods of treatment used. The success of the sanitarium in treating these difficult cases was watched with care and interest by members of the medical profession.
The true worth of the sanitarium, however, is to be measured not by its size, its equipment, or its success in the restoration of the sick to health. There was a strong spiritual influence that made itself felt upon helpers and patients. It was on the day following the dedication of the new building in 1878 that Elder D.M. Canright began a series of revival meetings in Battle Creek. His effort culminated in the baptism of fifty persons. Ten of these were either helpers or patients in the sanitarium. "Almost constantly," wrote Elder Canright, "persons coming here as patients go away converted to the Lord and the truth."--The Review and Herald, April 25, 1878.
The Religious Program of the Sanitarium
Of the religious program in the sanitarium, he wrote in the same connection: "All the physicians are men and women who fear God and have a deep love for the truth. They take all reasonable measures to maintain a good religious influence in the institution. Elder George Tenney, of Wisconsin, has charge of the devotional exercises at present. He is a candid, devoted man, and knows how to represent the truth judiciously. We believe this is an excellent field for his labors. Sister Lamson, the matron, ... will have a good influence in religious matters in the institution. Nearly all the helpers are now prepared to work together in this matter."--Ibid.
From another writer in 1885, soon after the completion of the later new addition, we get a further picture of the religious influence exerted by this institution. After a three-month sojourn at the sanitarium, Elder R.F. Cottrell referred to the institution as "unsurpassed by any in the wide world in its appliances and facilities for the hygienic treatment of the sick and infirm," and added:
"Not only so, but in its attitude in respect to the religion of the Bible it is decidedly unique. The prevailing influence in other health institutions, and also in colleges and institutions of learning to a great extent, is toward skepticism in regard to revealed truth. Science is exalted and brought into competition with revelation, and by it they propose to correct 'the mistakes of Moses.' The invariableness of the laws of nature is taught, while the power and providence of the Author of those laws are ignored. In contrast with this, Bible religion holds a prominence in the sanitarium. It was ordained of God to be a power for good, not only in respect to physical but also moral and religious health. It has proved so in the past, and it will in the future, if it continue faithful to its high and holy calling."--Ibid., April 14, 1885.
The morning and evening worship periods for the helpers in the institution were more than formal exercises. Frequently they were occasions for prayer and testimony. As messages from the Spirit of prophecy were received, the medical superintendent read from them to the helpers during the worship period, as also from earlier testimonies setting forth the real objects for which the institution was founded.
From the very beginning of its work the directors of the sanitarium did their best, as we have seen, to make provision for the worthy sick poor. In 1891 it was stated that the amount of charity work done during the first twenty-five years of its operation had amounted to more than double the entire sum invested by the stockholders in the institution.
In order to give more adequate care to this class of patients, a large, new building, devoted entirely to charity work and surgical cases, was erected across the street from the main building. More than one hundred beds were thus made available for the worthy poor. They were treated without charge for operations or medical attendance, a small charge only being made for board. In some cases opportunity was given to work out even this small charge. There were a number of endowed beds, some by individuals and others by groups or organizations. In the Medical Missionary magazine, frequent reports were given of the patients who were thus served. The addition of this hospital, at a cost of about $40,000, completed the building program until the time of the destruction of the institution by fire in 1902.