The Los Angeles (Cal.) Sanitarium
By F. B. Moran, M. D.
THE work of this institution began a little more than two years ago. A three-story brick building, containing two large stores on the first floor and about forty rooms on the second and third floors, was secured on Third Street, near the heart of the city. A hygienic café was opened on the first floor, medical offices and treatment rooms, together with several rooms for patients and helpers, being situated on the two floors above. From the very beginning, the work grew rapidly, and in a short time the building was altogether inadequate to accommodate the many applications from patients desiring a place in the institution. The work in the café also rapidly increased from a small beginning until it has become the largest institution of its kind in the world, serving, during the busiest season, more than a thousand meals a day. The work started with only a few laborers. At the present time there are more than fifty employees in the institution, including four physicians. A small bakery plant was started a little more than a year ago, and the demand for its products has so increased that the institution has secured a tract of twenty-four lots in a convenient location, and there is in building a three-story brick food factory, seventy-four by ninety feet, at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars. This building will be ready for use some time during the month of August. Los Angeles and vicinity is one of the most fruitful fields for medical missionary work in all the world. This section has become one of the greatest tourist resorts upon this continent, from forty to sixty thousand tourists visiting the place every year. The majority of these are seeking health and recuperation, and are greatly in need of just what we should be in a position to give them; and being people of intelligence and means, they are in a position to appreciate and support the work. These tourists coming, as they do, from all parts of the world, there is no better field than this for sowing the seeds of health and temperance reform. A strong effort has been made to educate the public with reference to these principles, not only in our sanitarium, but especially in the work of the vegetarian café, and we feel that our efforts have been crowned with unusual success. The constantly increasing patronage, and the almost universal expression of appreciation of the work, are the best evidences that our efforts have not been in vain. The great need in this field, at the present time, is increased facilities for properly caring for the thousands and the tens of thousands of invalids who are annually seeking health in the climate of Southern California. Although our work has been unusually successful, we have been able to do but a small fraction of what might have been accomplished had our facilities been sufficient to meet the demand. We trust and pray that the time may soon come when we shall have a thoroughly equipped sanitarium of sufficient size to meet the needs of this important field.