PROMINENT among the enterprises undertaken in the interest of present truth among the colored people of the South, is the Nashville Colored Sanitarium, at 447 N. Cherry St., Nashville, only a little more than a block from the public square.
The building now ready for occupancy as a sanitarium and treatment rooms was secured last spring by the Southern Missionary Society, which planned the work. But in August it was turned over to a local board of five directors, and incorporated under the name of the Nashville Sanitarium Association.
This association is purely eleemosynary in character, and by its charter and by-laws all its officers, except the medical director, are prohibited from receiving any compensation whatever for their services to the institution. More than this, every one connected with the institution, from the medical director to the humblest nurse, works on a missionary basis.
MAIN HALL AND STAIRWAY.
One of the leading colored physicians of the city has become deeply interested in this work, and will give the institution his services and the influence of his name and reputation, on very liberal terms. He is one of the professors in Meharry Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical College. This physician and his wife have just returned from a visit to the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where they went to learn more about our work.
The Nashville Colored Sanitarium is, we believe, the first institution of the kind ever established for the exclusive treatment of colored patients. It is provided with colored graduate nurses from the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Our spray and our electric-light bath cabinet were also obtained from the Sanitarium; so we have as good as can be found anywhere. The electric-light bath cabinet is a personal donation by Dr. Kellogg.
DOUBLE PARLORS — USED ALSO FOR LECTURE ROOMS.
Nashville is the most important educational center for colored people in the South, or, we might say, in the world. The Fisk University, the Roger Williams University, and the Meharry Medical College, well-known colored institutions, are all in Nashville.
A large number of the most intelligent, the most highly educated and refined negroes have their homes here. Many of them are well-to-do, and some are wealthy. In no way can this class be reached so well as by means of medical missionary work. And but little can be done for the poorer and less intelligent colored people until the confidence and co-operation of the better classes have been secured. Our building has been fitted up in a way to secure the patronage of this class of colored people. By this means we hope not only to secure the influence of men who can be of help to us, but to make the institution speedily self-supporting.
A WARD FOR PATIENTS.
Connected with this institution will be different courses of instruction in medical missionary lines. It is not the intention of those in charge of this enterprise to attempt at present to develop and send out graduate nurses, but students will receive instruction in housekeeping, cookery, simple treatments, etc., things that should be understood in every home and by everybody. It is expected that this sanitarium will be a center of influence from which will go forth scores of missionary workers thoroughly competent to give simple treatments, and to teach those for whom they labor at least the simple principles of the gospel of health.
In no other way can all classes of people be reached so readily as by demonstrating to them that suffering can be relieved by simple means available in every home. From this institution the nurses in charge, and the students also, will go out into the homes of the colored people of Nashville, giving such instruction and assistance as may be needed. Thus the whole gospel will be carried to all classes.
SPRAY ROOM.
Our sanitarium building, with a large lot in the rear, was purchased a few months ago for $3,575. The duplicate of this property, standing by the side of it, was sold for $8,000 a few years ago. The property is regarded a great bargain. A payment of five hundred dollars was made at the purchase. A like amount must be paid in about sixty days, and the remainder in payments of five hundred dollars every six months. The cost of fitting the building for its work amounts to several hundred dollars. A great and good work is open before this institution if the proper support can be given it.
Thus far the Southern Missionary Society has assisted this work, but is not able to continue to carry it in addition to its several schools. The sanitarium board is under the necessity, therefore, of appealing directly to the people for means to put this worthy institution upon a solid financial basis.
This is in many respects the most promising work that has yet been undertaken for the colored people. Donations to assist it should be sent to the Nashville Sanitarium Association, 1025 Jefferson St., Nashville, Tenn. We wish to hear not alone from those who can make only small donations, but are there not several who will send us at least one hundred dollars each, between now and the first of January, 1902?
This is one of the most practical as well as most promising enterprises ever undertaken in behalf of the colored people, and it cannot fail to accomplish much good if properly supported. We confidently believe that it will, almost from the first, fully meet its own running expenses; but the payments referred to must be met by donations. Please address all communications as requested above.
