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John Harvey Kellogg

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• ... that John Harvey Kellogg, the physician who invented the famous corn flakes, was both a vegetarian and strongly against caffeine in any form?

Created/expanded by Arjav Shah (talk). Nominated by ArjavS (talk) at 00:25, 10 March 2017 (UTC).

John Harvey Kellogg

Views on health

Biologic living

Synthesizing his Adventist beliefs with his scientific and medical knowledge, Kellogg created his idea of ‘biologic living.’ This was the idea that appropriate diet, exercise, and recreation was required in order to maintain a healthy body, mind, and soul. As such, the policies and therapies at the Battle Creek Sanitarium were very much in line with these principles of biologic living, such as the focus on vegetarianism or drinking 8-10 glasses of water a day. In fact, his belief that biologic living would protect his health was so strong that he did not even feel it necessary to get vaccinated against smallpox.

Kellogg’s philosophy was presented in seven textbooks that were prepared for Adventist schools and colleges. In these, Kellogg put his main emphasis on the value of fresh air, exercise, and sunshine, and the dangers of alcohol and tobacco. In terms of practice, Kellogg's biologic living was very similar to the methods of Christian physologists, requiring sexual restraint, total abstinence from drugs, and a vegetarian diet.

Views on tobacco

Kellogg was a prominent member of the anti-tobacco consumption campaign, speaking out often on the issue. He believed that consumption of tobacco not only caused physiological damage, but also pathological, nutritional, moral, and economic devastation onto society. His belief was that “tobacco has not a single redeeming feature… and is one of the most deadly of all the many poisonous plants known to the botanist.” His beliefs were very much in line with the prevailing view of the Adventists, who had become some of the most important supporters of the anti-tobacco movement.

In his 1922 book Tobaccoism, or How Tobacco Kills, Kellogg cited many studies on the negative impacts of smoking, and went so far as to attribute the longer lifespan of women to the observation that they partook in tobacco less than their male counterparts.

Kellogg also served as the president of the Michigan Anti-Cigarette Society, and after the First World War, he served as a member of the Committee of Fifty to Study the Tobacco Problem. This latter group included Henry Ford, George Peabody, and John Burroughs, and ended with the production of one of the first educational motion pictures against smoking. Kellogg’s work on several committees against smoking culminated in Utah Senator Reed Smoot introducing a bill to Congress in 1929 that aimed to put tobacco under the purview of the Pure Food and Drug Act. In the end, however, this measure failed to pass.

Views on alcohol and other beverages

Though alcoholic beverages were commonly used a stimulant by the medical community during the time that Kellogg began his medical practice, he was firm in his opposition to the practice. The usage of alcohol as a remedy to anything was "an evil of stupendous proportions."

Kellogg went against the prevailing notion of the time that alcohol was a stimulant. Citing contemporary research, Kellogg believed that alcohol could not be a stimulant because it lessened vital activity and depressed vital forces. Seeing its effects on plants, animals, and humans, he felt that alcohol was a poison. Kellogg noticed deleterious effects that alcohol had on both the brain, the digestive system, and the liver, among other organs.

In addition to the idea that alcohol was an unsuitable therapeutic tool, Kellogg also considered it to lead to mental and moral bankruptcy. Alcohol was “one of the devil’s most efficient agents for destroying the happiness of man, both for the present and the hereafter.” Even moderate drinkers were subject to these effects, as Kellogg felt that a poison was a poison in all doses.

Kellogg also opposed tea and coffee due to the caffeine content of those beverages. His view was that caffeine was a poison. Not only did he detail numerous physiological and developmental problems caused by caffeine, but he also suggested that caffeine usage could lead to moral deficiencies. He blamed the prevalence of these beverages not only on the prohibition of alcoholic beverages at the time, but also on the extensive marketing efforts organized by the producers of these products. Kellogg’s view was that “nature has supplied us with pure water, with a great variety of fruit juices and wholesome and harmless flavors quite sufficient to meet all our needs.”

As early as the 1880s, Kellogg had prepared charts and lectures on the dangers of tobacco and alcohol, which were used widely by lecturers who encouraged temperance in their students. In 1878, John Harvey Kellogg, along with Ellen White, the founder of the Seventh-Day Adventists, and several others, had organized the American Health and Temperance Organization. The goal of this organization was to expose the far-reaching dangers of tobacco, alcohol, tea, and coffee. For the 15 years that the organization persisted, Kellogg remained as its president.

Havelock Ellis

Eugenics

In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be “lower races.” Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these ‘lower races’ to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person’s 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the ‘homosexual heredity’ along.

In a debate the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as “we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are.” Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton’s leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being “misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad.”

Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.

Views on women and birth control

Ellis favored feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.

Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain ‘stocks.’ He observed that it was unfortunately the ‘superior stocks’ who had knowledge of and used birth control while the ‘inferior stocks’ propagated without checks. Ellis’ solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were ‘unfit’.

Views on sterilization

Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed ‘unfit’ and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and pedophiles were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it, were castrated. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.

However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favorable, yet still maintaining that “sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory.” His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.

Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, “the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?”