Battle Creek Sanitarium

A sentence in the Church Heritage Manual tersely states that when John Harvey Kellogg left the Adventist faith, he took the sanitarium with him.  It is well-known that Kellogg’s pantheistic theology was considered to be unsound by more “orthodox” Adventists. In fact, when the big sanitarium burned down in 1902, Ellen White ordered the doctor to abstain from rebuilding it. Kellogg rebuilt anyway, and despite the continued ownership of the facility by the denomination, Kellogg managed to take control of the hospital board. A book he wrote in an attempt to finance the rebuilding of the sanitarium, one entitled “The Living Temple,” was severely criticized by Ellen White, and Kellogg was “dis-fellowshipped” in 1912. That was the “middle” history of the institution. Back at the beginning, the establishment of the facility was the result of a vision granted to Ellen White. It was started in 1866 as the Western Health Reform Institute. The Church Heritage Manual further notes that It was paid for by personal pledges. James White and J P Kellogg gave 500 dollars each. It was the first of what was to become one of the largest chains of medical institutions in the world. Doctor Kate Lindsay helped start a school of medicine at Battle Creek in 1883. Kellogg assumed leadership in 1876, and his brother kept the books. The large structure that contained the “sanitarium” (a freshly-coined word that was a variation on an English term that designated health resorts for soldiers) was erected in 1878. This was the building that burned in 1902. 7,006 patients were served by the sanitarium in 1906. The Great Depression hastened the demise of the historic institution. The US Army bought a portion of the complex in 1942 (a very bust time for the Army) and created a military hospital within it. The sanitarium closed in 1953, but the denomination continued to operate a psychiatric institute on the property through the 1970’s. In 1986, the main building was demolished. It had a good run, and for a season was all the rage. The sanity of the Adventist approach was somewhat obscured beneath an overlay of J.H. Kellogg’s eccentric notions.