Visit to the Health Institute.
By John H. Waggoner
SPENDING a few days at Battle Creek, I gladly accepted an invitation to visit the Western Health Reform Institute. I was surprised to find the work so far advanced, and, although every part of the new building is not yet completed, so much accomplished for the restoration, comfort, and pleasure of the patients. And, what is also encouraging, the number of the patients keeps well up to their increasing ability to accommodate. I found familiar faces in those of the Physicians, attendants, and among the patients; and as I passed a few pleasant hours with them, I was reminded of H. W. Beecher’s compliment to Dr. Scudder, when he said it must be pleasant to be a heathen and have such a missionary! So I could almost envy the sick who have such associations, and means of recovery. The dinner was a feast to any one whose appetite is not grossly perverted, and who is not wedded to stimulants. The efforts put forth to please, seem eminently successful; though some are there, far gone with disease, there is such an absence of every disagreeable surrounding that we have been accustomed to associate with our ideas of the “sick-room,” that the contrast is very striking. Here the sick will not only be cured, but taught how to get well, and what is most important, taught how to live after they get well. Oh, the blessing of health! Would that I, from my childhood, and my parents before me, had understood the duty to keep well, and known how to do so. The day was stormy, and as I left the truly hospitable roof, to go forth to labor and to suffer, I was strongly reminded of the “Soldier’s Dream.”