Arts
(corresponding to “How to Make a Buck----First”) John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of Kellogg’s corn flakes, a vegetarian, and a guru of health and the mind cure movement which dominated popular culture in America of the late nineteenth century, held that clean bowels was the road to wellness. Patients to his Battlecreek Sanitarium were required to undergo a therapy of enemas. Every patient every day was plied with purgative rinses, 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. In the words of Dr. Kellogg: “Thus planting the protective germs where they are most needed and may render most effective service." Yogurt, he believed, served to replace the intestinal flora of the bowel, creating what he claimed would be squeaky-clean intestines.With these daily purgatives patients also devoted themselves to rigorous exercise and a strict diet which further purged the poisons in their bodies. Kellogg was an especially strong proponent of nuts, which he also believed would save mankind in the face of decreasing food supply.His many notable patients included: former president of the United States, William Howard Taft; the British satirist, socialist and playwright George Bernard Shaw; Olympic athlete Johnny Weissmuller (who later starred as Tarzan in the movies); Henry Ford; Thomas Edison; and actress Sarah Bernhardt. Preoccupation with bowels was common. Every magazine that posted to the American prairie home contained dozens of remedies for constipation. Children were popularly induced to gag down a ration of cod liver oil, not for its vitamins. Meat as the principle diet for these hard working folk, especially well salted and preserved meats, made for guts of steel. The man who wrote sentimental drivel for his mother in Valentines also took a spoonful of sand and shot of kerosene each morning to keep his pipes going.