Medicine: Two Kelloggs

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At 9 years he had had no schooling because his parents, in Battle Creek, believed the world was about to come to an end and education therefore useless. But at 12, while the Civil War proceeded, he got a full winter's schooling because a local printer-preacher persuaded the parents that "if the Lord was going to come soon and end the world, He would be more pleased if He found the children in school." At 15 this boy, always on the jump, had been a broom maker, printer's devil, practically editor of the local paper. Next year he was teaching school and attending Michigan State Normal College. A brother, studying medicine, suggested his doing likewise, against an earlier disinclination. He got his M. D. from Bellevue Hospital Medical College (N. Y. University) in 1875. While studying in 1873, the old Battle Creek hydriatic establishment, a sort of water cure with a few patients, gave him the editorship of its house organ, Good Health Magazine. This the young student medic revamped, invigorated, has kept going until now it is called the oldest health magazine in existence.

Just out of school he wrote Plain Facts, supposed to be the first of the long line of popular, yet sincere, books on sex facts. At the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876 he organized a health exhibit. A few months later the Battle Creek water cure put itself under his direction. He mused for a striking, descriptive name; created "sanitarium."*

In 1879 he paused to marry her who was Ella E. Eaton, raised in Alfred Center, N. Y. Together this couple have taken into their home in Battle Creek 42 youngsters; of them have legally adopted 13; have instructed all, and sent them to universities.

In Battle Creek Dr. Kellogg once had an irritating patient, a woman who broke her false teeth on a piece of zwieback he had prescribed; wanted him to give her $10 for a new set. She irritated him into thinking up some twice-cooked food not so hard. Shortly, after letting his brain play with the idea, he boiled some whole wheat, ran the grains through a dough-rolling machine Mrs. Kellogg had in the kitchen; baked in the oven the flattened grains; got his first ready-cooked flaked cereal. (However, this was not the first "breakfast food.") This unintegrated biscuit was digestible, especially good for certain ailments. He experimented with other grains; sold the rights to some processes to his brother. In all he has devised 60 different forms of cereal, each of which he considers ideal for some human malaise. He even runs a little factory near his home where he turns out what he wants.

To return to his accomplishments, in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair he noted an inordinate number of "bummers" and down-and-outers. So he organized a mission, got it publicity, helped out the poor devils suffering from the prevalent panic. In Chicago too he organized a medical school, whose students had to pledge themselves to practice, for five years after graduation, without fee or else as medical missionaries. This school is now merged with the University of Illinois. In 1902 his Battle Creek sanitarium was burned out. He rebuilt at once, going heavily into debt.