p. 864 | COLORADO SANITARIUM by Francis M. Wilcox

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 31, 1901

COLORADO SANITARIUM.

By Francis M. Wilcox

This institution is located at Boulder, Colo., thirty miles north of Denver, on the Colorado and Southern Railway. Boulder is a thriving city of seven thousand people, and is the seat of the State University. Here also the Texas-Colorado Teachers’ Chautauqua is located.

The sanitarium was opened five years ago, in July, 1896. Accommodations are provided for one hundred guests; but by the rental of rooms in the vicinity, the number of patients receiving treatment, especially during the last year, has greatly exceeded this number. The building is well equipped with all needed appliances, and perhaps, excepting the Battle Creek Sanitarium, affords as generous facilities as any institution in the sisterhood of sanitariums.

For several years there has been carried on in connection with the institution, a nurses’ training-school; hence the sanitarium possesses a corps of efficient and well-instructed nurses. At the present time the medical staff is made up of four experienced physicians, two men and two women. As comprising our staff, the names of Drs. Riley, Lindsay say, Place, and Conway will be familiar to the majority of the readers of the REVIEW.

The one unique feature of the Colorado Sanitarium which particularly distinguishes it from all the others, especially in the opportunities which it affords to the sick and suffering, is its location. The State of Colorado itself is coming to be a veritable hospital, and this is true not alone for those who are affected with pulmonary difficulties. Sufferers from many chronic diseases are learning that they can derive greater benefit from the dry, bracing atmosphere of Colorado than from any other resort to which they may go.

The Colorado Sanitarium is located at an altitude of five thousand three hundred feet. One who never enjoyed the privilege of life in a mountainous region cannot fully appreciate the exhilarating, tonic effect that this altitude has upon one’s physical powers. Every energy of life seems to be quickened. The effect is particularly seen in the increased power of assimilation and digestion. With the writer, foods, good of themselves, which were entirely indigestible in the East, are readily appropriated in this altitude.

The days are invariably mild and warm throughout the year, affording one the opportunity of outdoor life the year round. This is the reason that invalids do so well. There is hardly a day but they can walk or ride in the open air with perfect safety. Such a thing as sunstroke in the summer is unknown. But during the winter season, particularly, there is found an ideal climate. At this present writing, the days are bright and warm and beautiful. The dryness of the atmosphere robs the air of its chilliness, and yet there is in it a freshness of life which gives one new vigor. The nights are cool the year round, being thus conducive to more perfect rest and sounder sleep.

Hundreds of tourists are spending their summer months in Colorado; and when it is known by Eastern residents that this region possesses such an ideal winter climate, there will be quite as many visitors from those portions of our country during the winter months as come from the South during the summer season. During the last six months more than forty thousand tourists have spent from one to ten weeks in this State. This speaks well for its growing popularity. The sanitarium has partaken of the benefit of this tide of travel, and has enjoyed, during the last year, the largest patronage of all its history.

The Colorado Sanitarium enjoys the distinction of being the first sanitarium in this country, and perhaps in the world, to adopt a vegetarian dietary. No flesh foods of any description have been served for three years upon the tables of helpers or patients. The results of this plan have been most beneficial. This system gives much more general satisfaction to all our guests than the old method of serving meats, and the results in a physical way have been more pronounced. Some suffering from pulmonary troubles who have entirely discarded the meat diet, have gained the most in flesh and strength, and made the most improvement healthwise.

There are thousands of sufferers from chronic diseases throughout our country, who, if they were directed to this climate and to this institution, would, no doubt, have their lives greatly prolonged. Will not our friends who come in contact with those sufferers, direct their attention to the work here? We ask from none exclusive attention to this sanitarium. It would be manifestly unwise to direct a patient in the extreme East to this institution when he could receive benefit from an institution near his own home. But there are thousands of invalids who need the climatic advantages offered here, in addition to the help they can receive from sanitarium life. To those suffering from dyspepsia in its various forms, nervous troubles, Bright’s disease, dropsy, and other chronic maladies. Colorado is an ideal place in which to spend the winter.

In this connection we might state, generally, what we have oftentimes been called upon to write personally to various invalids and churches: The Colorado Sanitarium has no endowment fund. Its only resource is the money it receives from its patronage. For this reason, it cannot care gratuitously for those who are sick. Those unable to pay for their care and treatment should look to their home churches, Conferences, or friends for assistance. The sanitarium has done much in the past in the way of gratuitous work, and will gladly do in the future all within its power. But there are necessary limitations to the exercise of this generosity.

If any of our friends wish to place in the hands of the afflicted, literature regarding our work, or if they desire further information with reference to the same, the desired information or literature will be gladly furnished upon application.

FRANCIS M. WILCOX.

Colorado Sanitarium, Boulder, Colo.