BATTLE CREEK, Mich. - For another distinctive angle on the Kellogg legacy - one that's worlds away from the colorful glitz of Cereal City USA - the Dr. J.H. Kellogg Discovery Center offers a close-up look at a creative and eccentric man considered by some to be the father of the health food industry.
Located just a few blocks away from Cereal City, the one-room Discovery Center is housed in a portion of a welcome center on the grounds of the Historic Adventist Village, a three-block “living history” site run by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
Much of the museum is filled with photos and displays devoted to John Harvey Kellogg, founder of the renowned Battle Creek Sanitarium and an early advocate of healing through good nutrition, vigorous exercise, and strict hygiene. Several celebrities visited the sanitarium to take the cure, among them Thomas Edison, J.C. Penney, Amelia Earhart, and President William Howard Taft.
Sanitarium treatments were based on eight “divine health principles” - nutrition, exercise, water, sunlight, temperance, air, rest, and trust in God.
A 1994 movie about the famous sanitarium called The Road to Wellville made vicious fun of Kellogg and his facility. As portrayed in the film, Kellogg was every bit as much of a flake as the cereal product he invented with his brother.
Asked whether the film was accurate in its depiction of Kellogg or the sanitarium, the Discovery Center's director, Stanley Cottrell, shook his head, a look of distaste on his face. “We get that question a lot,” he said. “But that movie was just a bad caricature. It was completely inaccurate.”
A wall display gives an interesting glimpse into the state of public health knowledge more than a century ago, when “bleeding” patients to cure them was common and eating fruit and vegetables was considered hazardous. One man who dared to eat three tomatoes in a public square was assumed to be trying to commit suicide.
Kellogg was a big fan of vegetarianism, and a display on that topic lists several well-known vegetarians, including Albert Einstein, Samuel Clemens, Gandhi, TV's Mr. Rogers, and Jerry Seinfeld.
The highlight of the Discovery Center, however, is its collection of devices once used at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Along with light baths and vibrating chairs are fearsome-looking machines made of metal, wood, and leather and designed to push, pull, twist, and pummel patients.
Most of the machines are still in working condition, and visitors are encouraged to give them a try.
A mechanical horse and mechanical camel buck and sway rhythmically, while a “percussion machine” pounds repeatedly on the user's belly to “break down fatty tissue” in the body.
A massage table with a kneading machine built into it jabs at the backside in order to “stimulate sluggish bowels and tone the muscles of the buttocks.”
A rowing machine is just like the one that Kellogg designed and had placed in the gymnasium of the Titanic.
In the center of the room stands a colonic irrigator, but visitors apparently aren't expected to try out that contraption, since a few of its parts are missing.
The Dr. J.H. Kellogg Discovery center is at 411 Champion St. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Extended hours are in effect from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Suggested donation is $2, or $5 for a family. Information: 616-965-3000.
First Published April 14, 2001, 4:18 p.m.
