Health Department by John Harvey Kellogg

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · May 13, 1875

Health Department.

By John Harvey Kellogg

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” 3 John 2.

Light and Digestion.

VERY intimate relations exist between the sun and digestion. Digestion and assimilation become weak and imperfect if the man or animal is not daily exposed to the direct rays of the sun. Mr. P., one of our merchants, came to see me about his stomach. Dyspepsia was written all over his face, was shown in his movements, and heard in his voice. The conversation between us was essentially the following:—

“Doctor, if you will excuse a street vulgarity, I am ‘played out.’ I can’t digest, I can’t work, I have lost my courage, I fear I must stop.”

“Tell me about your diet.”

“If you will excuse me, I know that it is all right. I have studied the subject, and I know my food is all right.”

“How about your exercise?”

“I have a little gymnasium in my store, and exercise an hour or two every day. I sometimes tire myself out with these exercises.”

“How about your sleep?”

“Why, Doctor, I go to bed every night with the chickens. At any rate, I am always in bed by nine o'clock, and I rise by six o'clock in the morning, take a bath, a plain breakfast, and go to my counting-room. Once in the forenoon and once in the afternoon, I exercise in my gymnasium half an hour or so, but I am getting worse all the time. Is n't it curious? My wife thinks I must have a cancer in the stomach. Nothing seems to help me. I live the most physiological life, but my digestion grows worse and worse.”

“About your counting-room; is that light? is it sunny?”

“No, that is one nuisance we have in our store. The store is every way pleasant, only that the counting-room is so dark we have to use gas nearly all the time.”

“That's it, Mr. P., that explains your cancer.”

“Of course you do n't mean that; but I suppose it would be better if the counting-room was sunny.”

“Why, Mr. P., no plant or animal can digest in the dark. Try it. Plant a potato in your cellar. Now watch it carefully. If there is a little light the potato will sprout and try to grow. But surround it with the best manure, water it, do the best you can for it, only keep it in the dark, it cannot digest and grow. See how slender and pale it is. Now open a window in another part of the cellar and notice how the poor, hungry thing will stretch that way. Or give the stalk a little twist and see how it will lie down. It has no strength to raise itself again. No matter how much of the best food and drink you give it, it can't digest. The process of digestion, the great function of assimilation, can't go on without sunshine. Why, sir, with your excellent habits, if your counting-room were in a flood of sunlight, you would be better in a week, and well in a month. Mr. P., did you ever go into the country late in the summer? Of course you have been. Well, did you never notice where grain is growing in orchards that the part under the trees is smaller than that outside and away from the trees? The land is actually richer there. For years the leaves have fallen and decayed, but notwithstanding this, the wheat is only half sized and never fills well. Now what is the difficulty? The sun shines upon it more or less. Yes, that is true, but that under the trees does not receive as much sunshine as that away from them. That which is thus partly in the shade can't digest so well. Why, sir, if you will move your counting-room up-stairs, in front, and stand where the sun can have a chance at you, even though it is only three or four hours a day, you will begin to digest your food better within three days.

“Have you ever noticed that the only grapes that become perfectly ripe and sweet, the only peaches that take on those beautiful red cheeks, and offer that luscious sweetness, are those that are on the outside, entirely uncovered by the leaves, and perfectly exposed to the sun? God's laws are the same in the animal world. It is just as true that the only girls with red cheeks and sweet breaths, the only girls who become fully ripe and sweet, are those who baptize themselves freely in God's glorious sunshine. Do n't you see a good many pale girls in your store, girls with bloodless, half-baked sort of faces, whose walking, whose voices, whose whole expression are devoid of spirit and force? Those girls are in the green state. Look at their lips and cheeks; they are not half ripe. Send them out into the country, let them throw away their parasols, put on their little jockey hats, and live out in the sunshine three months, and I would give more for one of them in any work requiring soul and spirit than for a dozen of those pale things that live in the shade. A pale woman! She makes a very good ghost, but not much of a woman.”

—From Talks about People's Stomachs.