THE year 1866 witnessed the establishment of our first sanitarium, called, at the time, the Health Reform Institute. The first published notice of this enterprise appeared in the REVIEW AND HERALD, June 19, 1866, and reads as follows:—
“We send out this week circulars concerning the Health Reform Institute to churches and individuals who we think have an interest in, and will be prepared to act in reference to, the health-reform question. . . . The matter as presented in the circulars has been brought before the church at Battle Creek, and by Brother Andrews before the monthly meeting at Olcott, N. Y., and the result is a subscription of $2,625, as acknowledged in the business department of this paper.”
The REVIEW of Aug. 7, 1866, gives the following outline of the object, character, location, and facilities of this institution:—
“This Institute, as indicated by its name, has been established with a two-fold object: first, as a place where disease will be treated on hygienic principles; and second, as a place where instruction will be imparted, both theoretically and practically, to patients and boarders on the important subject of so caring for the body and mind as to preserve health, or to secure the largest immunity from sickness and premature death. The health-reform movement, as we view it, contemplates the preservation of health no less than the recovery from disease. In the treatment of the sick at this institution, no drugs whatever will be administered, but only such means employed as nature can best use in her recuperative work, such as water, air, light, heat, food, sleep, rest, recreation, etc. Our tables will be furnished with a strictly healthful diet, consisting of vegetables, grains, and fruits, which are found in great abundance and variety in this State. It will be the aim of the faculty that all who spend any length of time at this Institute shall go to their homes instructed as to the right mode of living and the best methods of home treatment.”
“Our Present Facilities”
“Our institution will be open for the reception of patients and hygienic boarders on the fifth day of September, 1866. We shall be able to accommodate from the commencement from forty to fifty patients, and shall increase the number and size of our buildings as occasion may require.
“Our Location”
“We have in this respect all that could be desired.
“1. We are in a State which has chosen as its most appropriate motto, ‘If you seek a beautiful peninsula, behold it here.’
“2. We are situated about midway between the East and West, and patients from either section can reach us with equal facility.
“3. Our city is easily accessible from all parts of the country, being an important station on the Michigan Central Railway, the great thoroughfare between the celebrated cities of Detroit and Chicago, and one of the main arteries of travel between the East and the West. The cars running upon this road are the stillest, best ventilated, and nicest to be found in the country; the superintendent, conductors, and employees are gentlemanly and accommodating; and a traveling public give this road the reputation of being the best managed of any in the United States.
“4. Our buildings are located on a site of nearly six acres in the highest and driest part of the city.”
The Institute was dedicated to its glorious work Sept. 5, 1866. Elder James White, who took a prominent part in its establishment, has left us the following bit of information regarding their experiences in launching this important enterprise:—
“The Western Health Reform Institute was opened for the reception of patients and boarders, at the time appointed, September 5. The occasion was one of encouragement and good cheer. All felt that the Institute was and would be a complete success. The prospect for patients is all that could be asked. The greatest fear that the managers now have, is that they will not be able to accommodate all who may wish to come. Let those who contemplate coming by all means first correspond in relation to the matter. All the conveniences contemplated are not yet completed, but the work will be carried forward, and the capacities of the Institute enlarged as fast as possible.
“We have only to look back to our conference in May last, less than four short months ago, for the time when this matter first began to take practical shape among our people. Now we behold an elegant site secured, buildings ready for operation, a competent corps of assistants on the ground, two numbers of a health journal already issued, with a subscription list that has doubled within the past few weeks, a sum bordering on eleven thousand dollars already subscribed for stock in the enterprise, and the Institute opened and operations actually commenced. In no enterprise ever undertaken by this people, has the hand of the Lord been more evidently manifested than in this thing. We here enter our record of gratitude for the great fact accomplished, the great step taken in the right direction.
“But in this, as in other branches of this work, we may expect that the enemy will try with all his power to bring reverses, create hindrances, and block the wheels to its onward progress. But the Lord, whose the work is, is mightier than all his foes. If we all so live that he can work with us, he will carry it through. We must consecrate ourselves to him as never before. In a few years at most, our work will be finished.”
In thus making the medical missionary work a fundamental part of their gospel message and ministry, the pioneers of this cause understood full well that they were doing what no other denomination had attempted. This was expressed at that time by Elder J. N. Andrews as follows:—
“I desire to call the attention of our friends still further to this important enterprise. Its merits have been well set forth by others, and with what has been said I heartily concur. As a people, we have undertaken to do what no other religious denomination, to my knowledge, has ever attempted.”
The First Health Manual
Feeling the need of a practical manual on health, temperance, and home treatment of common ailments, the General Conference, in its session of 1867, adopted a resolution requesting the Health Reform Institute to issue a work of this character. The preparation of the volume was assigned to Elder Loughborough, who wrote a little book of two hundred pages described as “A Handbook of Health, or a brief treatise on physiology and hygiene, comprising practical instruction on the structure and functions of the human system, and rules for the preservation of the health.” This book came from the printing-house the latter part of 1867. This was the first attempt of our pioneers to treat the medical work they were inaugurating from a scientific standpoint.
I have referred at some length to the beginning of our work in medical lines to refresh your minds with the history of its rise, and also the spirit of those who were leading out in these lines at that time. The progress made was necessarily slow. In 1877 an addition was made to the Battle Creek institution at a cost of over $100,000, and later, in 1884, another large addition was erected.
It was not until the year 1879 that another institution was started for the promulgation of these principles. In that year the Rural Health Retreat, located at St. Helena, Cal., began its work. Twenty years from the opening of the medical work in Battle Creek, there were only two institutions in operation, the one in Battle Creek having, according to the statement for Sept. 30, 1886, a total investment of $237,757.90, and the one in St. Helena a net value of $14,726.13.
While it is true that the work in institutional lines progressed slowly, yet these principles were being clearly set forth by our physicians, ministers, and other workers. For this purpose a health and temperance association was formed, the work of which at this stage was a means of greatly assisting in the dissemination of these principles. The membership of our churches very largely composed the members of the associations in operation in nearly every State. In this manner was laid the broad basis for the work which has so rapidly developed in later years.
From the beginning of our work in Battle Creek to the present a little over forty years have elapsed. Attention has already been called briefly to the work of the first twenty years; the work of the last twenty years may be summarized by giving the standing at the close of each five years, as follows:—
In 1891 we had sanitariums in operation in Battle Creek, Mich.; St. Helena, Cal.; and Mount Vernon, Ohio.
In 1897 we had six sanitariums in the United States, and six in all other countries.
In 1901 there were seventeen sanitariums22in the United States, and thirteen in other countries, besides twenty-one treatment rooms.
In 1906 there were in the United States and Canada forty-seven sanitariums, and in other countries nineteen, besides about fifty treatment rooms. The total assets of all these institutions would aggregate about two million dollars.
Thus it will be seen that many institutions are now in successful operation in different parts of the world for the promulgation of the principles of health and temperance, and the successful treatment of disease by means of the facilities which have been provided by the efforts of our people. What is needed now is that the Holy Spirit of God may energize all these workers, that these facilities may be wisely employed in treating those who come to these institutions for the physical help they need, and that they may also be given spiritual help that will bring many of them to a full knowledge and acceptance of the truth. In this way our sanitarium work can be made a mighty factor in the advancement of the message for this time.