Battle Creek Idea.
Nature alone can cure; this is the highest law of practical medicine and the one to which we must adhere. Nature creates and maintains; she must therefore be able to cure.--Dietl
1907--1913
Battle Creek, MI. Publisher: Good Health Publishing Co.. Editor: John Harvey Kellogg.
1/1, December 12, 1907-1913. Some version of this was published as early as 1878, and it was still being published as late as the 1960s. 8 pp., $1.00 a year.

This was the journal of the Battle Creek Sanatarium ("The San"), which had been founded as the Western Health Reform Institute of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and of its superintendent for more than 65 years, John Harvey Kellogg. Michigan in the last quarter of the nineteenth century was the frontier and drew universal reformers, proponents of peripheral cults, including spiritualism, and radicals of all stripes. In Battle Creek, Adventism and The San largely prevailed over spiritualism, and the city became heavily identified with health reform, principally as exemplified by Kellogg, although J.M. Peebles and others opened competing temples of Health. Kellogg was an allopathic physician who strove to inculcate in his profession the principles of what he called "the Battle Creek Idea"--"Natural ways are God's ways. Nature's laws are not enacted by nature they are established by the God of nature, and are only an expression of God's habits, or ways. To be in harmony with nature in its truest and simple forms is to be in harmony with the Author of nature, and that means physical righteousness; and physical righteousness is part and parcel of the divine character as well as is moral rectitude. To give voice to these grand truths is the mission of our paper . . . ." Central to this simple life of moderation was moderation in all things, including notably sex: An erection, Kellogg, emphasized was "a flagpole on the grave." He opposed spiritualism mainly for its emphasis on the spirit and neglect of the body, and mercilessly attacked Christian Science ("a quagmire of irrational thought"). The journal featured regular lectures by Kellogg (on reversing the degeneration of the human race because of "high living," for example), adulatory articles on famous advocates of "the simple life" (G.B. Shaw, Tolstoy), news of The San, and advertisements for the books of Kellogg and others. Harvard University; Columbia University; Iona College; LOC; etc.

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