Dr. John Harvey Kellogg used a host of bizarre methods to prevent masturbation and cleanse his patients’ colons at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Getty ImagesAs a leading figure in the American hygiene movement , John Harvey Kellogg get hitched with a holistic approach to health and wellness , but he also believe genital mutilation was an appropriate anti - masturbation measure .
For a simple American breakfast basic , “ Kellogg ’s Corn Flakes ” has a surprisingly sordid past .
John Harvey Kellogg , who invented the cereal with his brother , was a sort of prophet of hygienics in 20th - century America . But although he championed nutrition and a holistic approach to the overall wellness of the ordinary American , Kellogg was also a staunch eugenicist and launched a violent anti - masturbation campaign that visualise the crotch of young boy and girls mutilate .
Getty ImagesAs a leading figure in the American hygiene movement, John Harvey Kellogg espoused a holistic approach to health and wellness, but he also believed genital mutilation was an appropriate anti-masturbation measure.
So how did such a controversial scientist become the mogul of breakfast in home across America ?
John Harvey Kellogg And Religious Medicine
John Harvey Kellogg was born at the oncoming of America ’s hygiene rotation on February 26 , 1852 , in Tyrone , Michigan . This was the same year that the state ’s first flushing toilet was patent and just eight years beforethe invention of Listerine , which was earlier used as an antiseptic .
At the same time , America realise a rise in sobriety groups like the Seventh - Day Adventist , whose main campaigns were against alcohol and sex . This combination of extreme hygienics and abstinence heavily influenced Kellogg ’s theories about health and wellness .
University of MichiganWill Keith Kellogg never restore his relationship with his brother John Harvey , which was irreparably damaged during their effectual battle for the rights to use their last name on their several cereal grass .
University of MichiganWill Keith Kellogg never mended his relationship with his brother John Harvey, which was irreparably damaged during their legal battle for the rights to use their last name on their respective cereals.
Kellogg was one of 11 kids in a family of devout Seventh - twenty-four hours Adventists , and his most notorious relationship would be with his younger sidekick , William Keith Kellogg , who John Harvey notoriously sidelined as his intellectual inferior .
In 1856 , the Kelloggs moved to Battle Creek , Michigan , which was the mecca for Seventh - Day Second Adventist at the sentence . Because they were so confident that Christ ’s 2d approaching — and the end of the globe — was inevitable , none of the Kellogg children were really formally educated . John Harvey Kellogg , however , voraciouslyeducated himself .
When he garner his medical point in 1875 , he had already formed a holistic model for levelheaded living that hinge on the conception of America ’s hygiene movement and his spiritual faith , which he dubbed “ biological survive : ”
Getty ImagesWomen inspect filled boxes of Corn Flakes in the Kellogg Company factory in 1934.
“ All the inventions and machine ever manufacture by the human hand or conceived by the human mind , no matter how delicate , how intricate and complicated , are dewy-eyed , childish toys compare with that most wondrously wrought chemical mechanism , the human body . ”
Kellogg deeply revered the human body , which he refer to as “ the live temple , ” and took a holistic approach to supporting it that was base as much on nutritional science as it was on spiritual extremism .
He adopt vegetarianism , prohibition , and abstinence , and he called any natural action outside of these things , “ self - pollution . ” In sum , Kellogg was invested in total cleanliness — of the consistency and the spirit — and he concocted some bizarre ways of attain it .
Getty ImagesKellogg in 1938, aged 86.
In 1877 , Kelloggtook over the Battle Creek Sanitarium , a wellness health club for Seventh - Day Adventists , and remodel the installation free-base on his ideals for optimal living .
In a country where the mean living expectancy was 41 years and city streets were literally piled with human feces , the Sanitarium emerged as a beacon of wellness . The readiness take off . Within a decade , it went from treat 300 patient per twelvemonth to almost 1,200 .
Meanwhile , Kellogg had taken a particular stake in cleaning up America ’s breakfast function .
Library of CongressJohn Harvey Kellogg ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium, pictured here, until his death in 1943. During that time, he invented peanut butter and several nut-based meat alternatives.
A Cereal So Bland It Hampers Sexual Desire
Getty ImagesWomen inspect filled boxes of Corn Flakes in the Kellogg Company factory in 1934 .
The average American breakfast in the eighties consisted mostly of meat in various forms : cold , jellify , smoked , salted , fry in remnant fat . Any non - meat option , like grains or oat , were time - ingest , which made breakfast a onerous repast both in small calorie and preparation .
In keep with his desire for full cleanliness , John Harvey Kellogg encouraged his affected role to eat sterile , healthy intellectual nourishment that he believed all primate should run through : mostly nuts and grains , and yogurt . And for years , he and his sidekick William work tirelessly to hone a low - maintenance , texture - based breakfast cereal grass .
Public DomainThis pamphlet for the Sanitarium shows some of the many treatments patients could receive there, from hydrotherapy to artificial sunlight baths.
Their first attempt was made of scorched whole graham biscuits that were then crumbled into bit . They called this “ Granola , ” but were ultimately unsatisfied with the result . Finally , they locate on a flaked wheat food grain they originally dubbed Granose . In 1902 , they remanufactured the product out of maize and call it corn whisky flakes .
But by this time , John Harvey grew disinterested in the enterprise , so William — the real business enterprise brain behind the process — bought his buddy ’s share of corn whisky flakes and opened the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906 .
He proved to be a selling brain and launched an uber - successful campaign differentiate consumers to “ wink at your grocer and see what you get , ” which resulted in a detached sample distribution of clavus snowflake .
Meanwhile , John Harvey continued to make up and sell Granose out of his own company by the name “ Kellogg ’s ” and sued his brother over who generate the rightfulness to use their last name . William sued him back .
After years of combat , during which corn flakes became all the more popular , William won the rights to use his own name for Kellogg ’s Corn Flakes in 1920 .
“ I am not after the business , ” Kellogg say of the intimacy . “ I am after the reform . ”
Getty ImagesKellogg in 1938 , aged 86 .
To his point , the saga of corn flakes , more importantly , represent to John Harvey the battle against one of life ’s deadliest frailty : onanism . As a meticulously fabricate “ fair ” nutrient , Kellogg had intended for corn flakes to disembarrass people of their fleshly desire .
Terrified and repel by sex nearly all his sprightliness — he never even consummate his own kinship with his wife — Kellogg launched a trigger-happy pseudoscientific anti - masturbation cause . He equalize fondness for savoury foods , round shoulders , and “ boldness ” with mark of a continuing masturbator . He reason out that“such a dupe literally break by his own handwriting . ”
Kellogg encouraged parents to bond their child ’s hands to their bedpost or to circumcise their teen boys . An even more aggressive manoeuvre saw the foreskin of a young world ’s penis tailor close to foreclose erections . For unseasoned missy , he recommended pour carbolic acid on their clitorises .
Of naturally , it was Kellogg ’s Bob Hope that a purer dieting , cater by his Corn Flakes , might serve as a less gruesome method acting of controlling child ’s intimate desire .
John Harvey Kellogg’s Bizarre Wellness Tips
Library of CongressJohn Harvey Kellogg launch the Battle Creek Sanitarium , image here , until his expiry in 1943 . During that time , he invented peanut butter and several nut - based meat alternatives .
In add-on to create a breakfast cereal so bereft of nip he believed it would erase any desire , Kellogg ’s big project was his wellness retreat at the Battle Creek Sanitarium , which he lead until his expiry in 1943 .
The adeptness introduced G of Americans to the grandness of exercise , bathing , and periodic douching . Kellogg even invented the mechanical horse for indoor example . At its superlative , the Sanitarium sprawled across 30 acres and was dubbed one of the “ premier health destinations ” in the United States .
To crowd of moneyed and unwell Americans learning about hygiene for the first fourth dimension , Kellogg fundamentally became one of the nation ’s first “ health gurus , ” and he managed tens of one thousand of patient . Among them were retailer J.C. Penny , Henry Ford , Thomas Edison , Amelia Earhart , and President William Howard Taft .
But Kellogg also concocted some more incongruous health methods . For instance , he encourage his affected role to get multiple enemas a day — and devise an enema motorcar that could run 15 quarts of water through the intestine in a matter of seconds . Kellogg himself received an enema at breakfast and dejeuner .
Kellogg also encourage his patient to consume a day-to-day dry pint of yoghourt — one one-half through the mouth and the other through the anus . Strange though that may vocalize , it was really an other fashion of receiving probiotics . He also patented a electric chair that shook patients so violently they involuntarily defecated .
Public DomainThis brochure for the Sanitarium shows some of the many treatments patients could receive there , from hydropathy to artificial sunlight baths .
But for all those progressive — albeit flaky — beliefs about nourishment and wellness , he had equally life-threatening ones . A unswerving eugenicist , Kellogg notify against “ racial admixture ” and instead posited a register that keep open track of masses ’s medical platter so that “ racial thoroughbred ” could be introduced to each other before marriage .
He was also in favor of the force sterilization of criminal and organize the first Race Betterment Conference , which was essentially a fair for eugenicists . The group discussion even host so - calledBetter Baby contests , during which clean infant were judged and award on the base of their “ fostering . ”
At the same sentence , however , Kellogg rejected segregation at his Sanitarium , where he trained doctors and nurse of color . And Kellogg treat legendary abolitionist Sojourner Truth at the Sanitarium , once reportedly transplant some of his own skin onto her pegleg to process an ulceration .
A Tumultuous Personal Life And Complicated Legacy
Kellogg head for the hills the Sanitarium until his death in 1943 , before which he opened a 2nd health spa in Florida . He patented four medical machine , admit an artificial sunbath political machine and a peanut - based inwardness alternative called Nuttose .
With his married woman Ella Ervilla Eaton , he fostered 42 children , seven of whom he legally adopted . They never had any biological tiddler of their own .
John Harvey Kellogg also never mended his kinship with William . On his deathbed , however , he did pen a letter of amends that was seven pages long . “ I earnestly trust to make amends for any legal injury or injustice of any sort I have done to you , ” he wrote .
But his writing table , for whatever reason , chose not to deliverthe letter . William , therefore , did n’t teach that his old brother had reached out until it was too previous .
strange though some of his wellness treatments seemed , Kellogg must have been doing something right : He died at the ripe old age of 91 .
John Harvey Kellogg ’s legacy is a complicated one . Though he contribute nutrition and hygienics to the cutting edge of American living as one of the nation ’s first wellness gurus , he also follow grievous and red mind about sexuality and race .
occupy as he was with the improvement of humanity , he in the first place focused on the blank race , but he devoted his life to progress , nonetheless . Perhaps his contentious innovation of Corn Flakes , a nutrient cereal with a dangerous idea behind it , best encapsulates his wave-particle duality .
After this look at John Harvey Kellogg , the world who invented Corn Flakes so people would finish pertain themselves , learn about another complicated Dr. , J. Marion Sims . Then , discover the terrifying yet necessary job ofmedieval plague doctors .
