John Harvey Kellogg

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 flakes breakfast cereal with his brother, Will Keith Kellogg.

Personal life
Kellogg was born in Tyrone, Michigan, to John Preston Kellogg (1806–1881) and Ann Janette Stanley (1824–1893). John lived with two sisters during childhood. 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.

Battle Creek Sanitarium
Kellogg was a Seventh-day Adventist until mid-life and gained fame while operating the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which he ran on the church's health principles. They believe in a vegetarian diet, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and a regimen of exercise, among other things.

Kellogg was an especially strong proponent of nuts, which he believed would save mankind in the face of decreasing food supply. Though mainly renowned nowadays for his development of corn flakes, Kellogg also patented a process for making peanut butter and invented healthful "granose biscuits."

At the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Kellogg held classes on food preparation for homemakers. Sanitarium visitors engaged in breathing exercises and mealtime marches to promote proper digestion of food throughout the day. Because Kellogg was a staunch supporter of phototherapy, the sanitarium also made use of artificial sunbaths.

Kellogg made sure that the bowel of each and every patient was plied with water, from above and below. His favorite device was an enema machine that could rapidly instill several gallons of water in a series of enemas. Every water enema was followed by a pint of yogurt — half was eaten, the other half was administered by enema “thus planting the protective germs where they are most needed and may render most effective service”. The yogurt served to replace the intestinal flora of the bowel, creating what Kellogg claimed was a squeaky clean intestine.

Kellogg believed that most disease is alleviated by a change in intestinal flora; that bacteria that is in the intestines can either help or hinder the body; that pathogenic bacteria produce toxins during the digestion of protein that poison the blood; that poor diet also favors harmful bacteria that can then infect other tissues in the body; that 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; and that this natural change in flora could be sped by enemas seeded with favorable bacteria, or by various regimens of specific foods designed to heal specific ailments.

Kellogg was a skilled surgeon, who often donated his services to indigent patients at his clinic. Although a surgeon himself, Kellogg was against any unnecessary use of surgery to cure diseases, although he advocated circumcision.

Disagreements with Adventist leaders
In the early 1900s, Kellogg published "The Living Temple", a book whose sale was intended to raise funds for the Sanitarium. Several Adventist leaders, including A.G. Daniells and Ellen G. White, concluded that the book was pantheistic in its portrayal of the nature and work of the Holy Spirit. The theological disagreement led to a break, and in 1907 Kellogg took himself and the Sanitarium out of the denomination.

Breakfast cereals
With his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, they started the Sanitas Food Company to produce their whole grain cereals around 1897, a time when the standard breakfast for the well-to-do was eggs and meat, while the poor ate porridge, farina, gruel, and other boiled grains. John and Will later argued over the recipe for the cereals (Will wanted to add sugar to the flakes) so in 1906 Will started his own company called “the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company”, which eventually became the Kellogg Company. It was many years before they 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-sex and Anti-masturbation positions
Kellogg did a great deal to warn about the supposed dangers of sexual activity. He outlined his views on this subject in his book Plain Facts for Old and Young. He warned against nearly all sexual activity, including a large chapter about the many “excesses” couples could be guilty of within marriage. He drew on the warnings of William Acton and expressed support for the work of Anthony Comstock. He appears to have gone beyond his own advice, since though he and his wife were married for over 40 years, they never had sexual intercourse and had separate bedrooms all their lives. It has been suggested he worked on Plain Facts on their honeymoon.

He was an especially 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 [phenol] to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.

Believing that masturbation was a sensual sin of the flesh, self-abuse, and an obsessive habit common to adolescent males and others, he advocated exposing the sensitive glans, which during masturbation would be subject to friction. In addition, the removal of the protective foreskin would further reduce sensory pleasures from the habit. Reducing the sensory pleasure, it was felt, would also reduce boys' rebelliousness. He also claimed that masturbation was a primary cause of acne, extreme mental and physical debility, heart disease, atrophy of the testes, dimness of vision, epilepsy, and insanity. Kellogg also believed that one should guard one's emissions as he believed people possessed a fixed amount of "vital energy." He also recommended, to prevent children from this "solitary vice," that one could bandage or tie their hands, cover the genitalia with a patented cage structure, and even use electrical shocking.

Dr. Kellogg wrote that "neither the plague, nor war, nor small-pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of onanism." He felt that masturbation destroyed not only physical and mental health, but the moral health of individuals as well. Kellogg also believed the practice of "solitary-vice" caused cancer of the womb, urinary diseases, nocturnal emissions, impotence, epilepsy and insanity. Kellogg was the first to mention the psychological role in producing insanity. To fight the urge to practice masturbation Kellogg offered a number of remedies to the young and old. He believed that young and old should maintain an abstemious diet, eating only twice a day. They should avoid stimulating food and drinks, and very little meat if any should be consumed. Kellogg also advocated hydrotherapy and stressed the importance of keeping the colon clean through yogurt enemas.

Kellogg would live for over sixty years after writing Plain Facts. Whether he continued to teach the “facts” in it is not entirely clear, although it appears from the later books he wrote that he moved away from this subject matter. One source, taking a positive view of his nutritional and anti-smoking work, suggests he “dropped his obsession with the evils of sex” around 1920, but another, highly critical source maintains he “never retracted his claims”.

Race Betterment Center
Kellogg was also outspoken on his beliefs on race and segregation. In 1906, Kellogg founded&mdash;together with Irving Fisher and Charles Davenport&mdash;the Race Betterment Foundation, which became a major center of the new eugenics movement in America. Kellogg was in favor of racial segregation and believed that immigrants and non-whites would damage the gene pool.

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 Dracula: 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.)

Resources

 * Schwarz, Richard W. John Harvey Kellogg: Pioneering Health Reformer. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2006

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