A Visitor’s Experience at One of Our Sanitariums
A CONTRIBUTOR to The Rock, a weekly paper published in London, writes two articles for that paper, telling of his experience at our sanitarium at Caterham, of which Dr. Alfred B. Olsen is the medical superintendent. The writer says:— It was a queer Easter I spent in a queer place with a queer name among queer people, who made my acquaintance in a queer fashion, yet the outcome of it all was that, after four days’ acclimatization, I realized that the queerest thing was that I had not thought of it all myself. . . . They seemed to me queer people, for not content with banning intoxicants and tobacco, they even eschewed tea and coffee as injurious stimulants, and had a substitute of their own called “caramel cereal.” They would not even permit of condiments, like pepper and mustard, curry and chutney, regarding all these things as unnatural, for which rebelling nature sooner or later exacted a penalty. Meat of all kinds—whether fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring—was anathema maranatha. In giving some account of his experience at the sanitarium the visitor writes:— In brief, we ate, we drank, we slept. Those who, like myself, had been afflicted with insomnia were particularly thankful for the last blessing. To tell how it was secured is to disclose the whole secret of the system of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and of its various branches. No doubt the dietary had a good deal to do with it, being light and digestive, though satisfying. The meals were not merely in a negative sense meatless. There were wonderful substitutes for flesh fare, made from nuts and other vegetable substances, and providing in proteids the same elements of nutrition, without the impurities possibly found in animal food. Due credit should also be given to the baths and exercises. The former treatment was of various descriptions, including massage, fomentations, salt-glow, oil rubbing, and even, where the case required, the electric-light or radiant-heat bath. I can personally testify that a little boy of about ten years of age, who had been troubled with a cough on and off the whole winter, and had swallowed dozens of bottles of ordinary doctor’s medicines with little or no effect, had this danger removed by a four days’ stay—for danger it had become. The manual Swedish movements, particularly the breathing exercises, were joined in by young, old, and middle-aged with gusto and great advantage; personal dignity counted for little, for even ridicule could not kill the enthusiasm for health-giving where the gain was momentarily so manifest. Both articles are decidedly appreciative in their spirit, and show that the impression made upon the mind of this visitor was very favorable. Thus the knowledge of the good work being done at the Caterham Sanitarium is being extended among the English people.