Walla Walla (Wash.) Sanitarium
By I. A. Dunlap, M. D.
Believing that our brethren and sisters in general, and those in the Walla Walla school district in particular, will be interested in the changes and work going on in Walla Walla College, we have thought best to let them know through the Review just what we are doing. When our college was built, fourteen years ago, it was the only school of importance among our people of the Northwest. We expected it to have a very large attendance, and we built accordingly. It is true that the number of our people is increasing, but it is also true that we are getting several primary and intermediate schools started in the district, which necessarily divides the attendance, so that our school has not reached the attendance that we expected, and this large excess of room has placed a burden of debt upon us that was hard to bear. It has interfered with the best workings of the school in several ways, chief among which is the fact that much money that should have been spent in supplying the institution with appliances of various kinds, and in helping worthy poor students, has been used in paying interest and debts. We have been told again and again that we should have a sanitarium in connection with each of our larger schools, both as a means of helping poor students to work their way through school, and for promulgating health principles among the students, as well as giving them an opportunity to learn how to care for the sick and afflicted. After the main building of our sanitarium in Spokane burned last year, and it was finally decided not to rebuild there, it occurred to us that now was the time to walk out in the providence of God by starting sanitarium work in connection with Walla Walla College. Inasmuch as the fourth floor of the main college building was built for rooming students, but has not been used for some years, and also in view of the fact that at least one floor of the gentlemen's dormitory has usually been unoccupied, and sometimes more room than that has been vacant, it was suggested to turn the gentlemen's dormitory into a sanitarium. The Spokane Sanitarium was a conference institution operated by the Medical Missionary Board of the conference. That board met in joint session with the college board, and a council of the Pacific Coast workers called to consider various phases of the work. At that meeting it was decided to let the gentlemen students occupy the top floor of the main building, and turn their dormitory over to sanitarium work. During the summer several thousand dollars' worth of furnishings and apparatus that had belonged to the Spokane Sanitarium was shipped here, and installed in the dormitory. Other appliances were added from the sale of real estate of the Spokane institution until we now have a nice, well-equipped sanitarium in good running order, and a larger number of patients than we had any reason to expect during the first weeks of a new institution. Thus we have a nice brick sanitarium containing thirty-five rooms, heated by steam, lighted by electricity, and supplied with hot and cold water from top to bottom. It is nicely furnished throughout, and includes among its treatment apparatus an electric-light bath cabinet, a hot-air bath outfit, a static (X-rays) machine, a vibrator for giving mechanical massage, electrical appliances for the giving of the various electrical treatments, a Russian (steam bath) room, and a good corps of trained nurses to operate these appliances. The best of it all is, we are not in debt for any of it. For six years we have had a nurses' training class as one of our college courses. For the last year Dr. W. B. Holden has been doing our surgical work in connection with that class, and we have had an excellent patronage in that line. He still operates for us in our new sanitarium. This no doubt has much to do with our present patronage, and we are glad we have a place in this section of the country where our people can have a chance to get their surgical work done, and at the same time be putting their money into the cause. In concluding, we must say that our experience is the same in this work as it has been in all God's dealings with us; when we came into close relation with him and established our sanitarium in connection with the college as he told us to years ago, he not only blessed in the sanitarium work, but the college work is prospering as it has not for years. The ladies' dormitory is now full, two in a room, except three rooms on the fourth floor. Two of those have been spoken for by students who are expected within a few days. The fourth floor of the main college building has not held the gentlemen students, as was expected, but they have filled the fourth floor of the sanitarium, and the overflow is being located in a large cottage belonging to the school. Thus with the school and the sanitarium, the college buildings have scarcely a vacant corner. All this helps to meet the running expenses as well as to pay interest and debts. And we think we can safely say that Walla Walla College has a better financial outlook than it has ever had.