General Conference Bulletin, vol. 4

PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

(Stenographically reported.)

I would say that although our meetings were to have been held every two years, it was found necessary, in order to comply with legal requirements, that the meetings should be held every year, so that this report is for one year’s operations instead of two. It might be interesting if your attention were called to a few points by way of comparison. The report of this year differs very little in detail from the report of last year, but there are some improvements. The value of the real estate is practically the same this year as last. The value of personal property has increased $10,000. If you will notice the report, you will see that the notes receivable have increased $10,000, while the notes payable have diminished about $11,000. Cash on hand, $8,000 last year, $2,000 this year. Notes payable, I am glad to say, made a decrease of from $185,000 this year, as compared with $203,000 last year. So that our actual indebtedness has been decreased during the last year some $18. We have not increased our indebtedness. Year after year it has been climbing up a little, but we have been making a great struggle the last year to keep the indebtedness down. We have made no improvements, and we have made a great gain on the right side—some $18,000 decrease. And there is an increase in our present worth, so that the decrease in indebtedness has not come from disposing of property and lessening the assets, as this year the assets are $14,000, while last year we we were sorry to find that we were just coming out even. We had no profit, and our charity had eaten up all our earnings, whereas this year we have been able to do a little more charity than we did last year. Besides, we were able to make a gain of some thousands of dollars, and this has largely been by increasing the efficiency of our employees, and lessening the number of persons employed in the institution considerably during the last year. The amount paid for work done this year has been larger than the previous year, but the amount paid for salaries has been a thousand dollars less than the preceding year. We have paid a thousand dollars less in salaries, and have done more work than any previous year in the history of the Association. The average number of helpers has been 685, which is 200 less than the year before. We feel very proud of having been able to do the work with a considerable decrease in the number of persons employed. The source of income for the institution is largely from what we call “board and treatment.” But this is not the only source of income. We have also resources from surgical operations, amounting sometimes to as much as $20,000 in a year. Our farms have brought in about $6,000 in produce during the year. So we have a variety of sources of revenue. But I want to call attention especially to the fact that the food business, which has heretofore been quite a large source of revenue, has during the last two or three years been separated from the Sanitarium. The food business has turned over to the Sanitarium up to within the last three years some $30,000, and it never earned less than $12,000 to $15,000, but now the food business has been incorporated separately as a charitable institution to devote all its funds to the same objects as the Sanitarium—organized under the same statutes. The food business has not contributed anything to the Sanitarium whatever for the last two years, and during the last two years the Sanitarium has not only held its own, but this year has made a gain of some $16,000 which is far better than we expected. GCB April 9, 1901, page 140.3

A delegate: I would like to ask if the item representing the expenditure for charity represents cash expense or fees for surgical work done? GCB April 9, 1901, page 140.4

Dr. Kellogg: That is a perfectly proper question. I want to say that any patient who is able to pay a surgical fee is not considered as a charity case, although we have found that many people have come from various places recommended as charity cases, that we were not willing to accept as such, because they were able to pay their fees. Very often we have had these cases threaten that unless we did thus and so, they would leave us, and go somewhere else, where they would be compelled to pay fees. But the people included in this account are people who are too poor to pay surgical fees. A surgical fee is a fee that people generally pay last of all. A man will pay a grocer, his carpenter, and everybody else, even his butcher, before he will pay his surgeon. I think it would be perfectly right and proper to make a charge of from $25 to $50 for a serious surgical operation and to recognize it as an actual service for which there should be something paid; for whenever a surgical operation is performed, it is necessary to go to a large expense in fitting up the operating ward, and a large number of doctors and nurses are required, who spend a considerable amount of time, often half a day caring for a critical operation, and their time might have been expended in caring for some operation which would have brought in a great deal more money. But never, to my knowledge, in any sanitarium, has a surgical fee, at any price whatever, been entered up on the charity account. There has never been any fee charged to any charity case on the charity account or on any other account. I have never known of any such a thing in any of our Sanitariums. If anyone else knows of such a thing, he is at liberty to inform us of the fact. GCB April 9, 1901, page 140.5

I would state, further, in explanation of this matter, that each patient who is considered a charity patient is charged up on our charity account a sum that we consider as the actual average cost of caring for them, and that is reckoned at $10.00 a week. Now the charity patient that is so bad off that it is considered necessary for him to come to the Sanitarium to be treated, is generally a pretty desperate case. When a person is so bad off that his friends and neighbors are willing to say that they will put their hands in their pockets and pay his fare to Battle Creek, and to pay for his board at the rate of $4 a week, or $2 a week, or something, for board, such a case as that is pretty certain to be a case in which there has to be some serious operation performed, and has to have nurses, often both during the day and night,—two nurses, and these nurses have to be paid. These do not work for nothing, but must be paid a salary of $2, or $4, or $5, a week; for the critical patient must have the best nurse, whether he is a charity patient or the best paying patient in the house. This work is estimated at $5 a week. Then there is the board for the nurse. Well, $5 and $2 make $7. Then there is the board of the patient, and all the expenses connected with the case, the dressings, the antiseptics, and the surgical instruments, and other things of that sort, which easily foot up $10 or more. Then there is likely to be a nurse required at night as well as in the day, and that would make $17. And these cases are quite the majority. One third of all the cases treated at the Sanitarium this year, and the same was true last year, were charity cases. So $10 is considered to be the sum which represents the actual cost, or a little less than the actual cost for treating charity cases, and all charity cases are charged at the rate of $10 a week. That is the fact about the matter. GCB April 9, 1901, page 140.6

A Delegate: But you don’t get $10 a week from every patient? GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.1

Dr. Kellogg: No; but that is the sum that is represented on our books as the actual cost of caring for every charity case. Some of them pay only a dollar or two a week, but every case is charged up on the books as costing us $10 a week. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.2

W. H. Kynett: This $29,000 is made up of that charge of ten dollars? GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.3

J. H. Kellogg: Yes, sir. The patients have not been able to pay ten dollars, and this is the difference between what they paid and ten dollars. If they pay nothing, they are charged ten dollars; if they pay four dollars, they are charged six dollars. The difference between what they pay and what it costs is entered upon the charity account. If there are no other questions upon this point, this question is ready for you to act upon. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.4

The question was called for, the motion put, and it was voted to accept the treasurer’s report. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.5

J. H. Kellogg. I was speaking, a moment ago of the number of persons employed. The average number during last year has been 685. The average number for the two years has been 780: so the average number for the last year is one hundred less than the average number for the two years. The average number of physicians employed during the year, on regular salary in the Sanitarium, is twenty-five; the number of graduate nurses is eighty; the number of nurses at present in the training school is 207, making 287 nurses employed. The number of nurses who have been sent out into the field from the training school during the last two years is sixty-seven. The number who are now in the field, the total number who have been sent out from the Sanitarium, is 194. The number of paying patients received during the past two years is 6,496; the number of charity patients during the same period, 2,056. This is almost exactly one third, you see. The number of surgical operations was 763. Of course this is major surgical operations. It does not include a much larger number of minor operations, which would amount to many more than the number reported. The number of free surgical operations is 411; so you see the number of free surgical operations is much larger than the number of operations paid for. These free surgical operations are those which have been spoken of, for which no charge was made. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.6

The Sanitarium during this time has been carrying forward a large number of lines of work. In addition to the simple treatment of the sick,—which I am glad to say has been more successful during the last two years, and especially the last year, than ever before in the whole history of the institution, a large number of comparatively hopeless cases have been cured, and our success has been better than ever before. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.7

I attribute our increased success in medical work to an increased appreciation of the principles of the institution on the part of our physicians and nurses. I am glad to say that at the present time our doctors and nurses are all thoroughly united in the principles of the institution. They are all thoroughly united on the diet question, and in the use of remedies, and in reference to the principles of rational medicine. There is not a particle of disunion in our ranks, and I think this is true with reference to all our sanitariums. I am glad to say, too, that our doctors set a good example in all their personal practice before the nurses and the patients. I do not know of a time when the principles have been held quite so high as at the present time; and never has there been a time when the enthusiasm for the special truth which our institution represents, and for all truth, was at such a high tide as at the present time. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.8

Our patients are received from all over the world. We are often surprised to receive patients from Switzerland, from London, and from various parts of the world, who would say to us, “I met a Doctor So-and-so, and he advised me to come to the Sanitarium;” or, “I met an old patient traveling in the Alps, who told me about the Sanitarium, and advised me to come here;” or, “I met somebody while crossing the Atlantic, who advised me to come here.” All parts of the United States are represented among our patients, and I am glad to say that they are more intelligent, and more appreciative, taken altogether, than we have ever had before. There is a spirit of harmony and appreciation and confidence among our patients that is exceedingly gratifying. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.9

There have been times in the Sanitarium when it took a great deal of the doctors’ time to keep patients from going home. I remember the time when I first went into the institution, that I had a great deal of this kind of work to do. In fact, I was employed as a sort of “watch dog.” Whenever a patient became discouraged, and thought of going home, they gave me his name, and it was my duty to see that he did not go. If he had his trunk packed, I was to help him to unpack it. My apprenticeship in the institution was almost entirely spent in that kind of work. I am glad to say that we do not have to do that kind of work very much in the Sanitarium at the present time. It is the other way now; for sometimes we actually have to urge our patients to go home, when they have been there a sufficient length of time. We do not often get that sort of opportunity, but rather enjoy it when we do. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.10

But our patients are usually contented. They seem to grasp the principles better than formerly, and I think one reason is that we have been able to bring these principles before them better: for the whole thing has cleared up in a wonderful way, and the principles have become simplified. It has come to such a point that it is easy to present these principles in such a way as to win favor and to command respect. In our parlors we have lectures two or three times a week, and we have a school of health; and our doctors visit the patients in their room and are visited by the patients in their offices, and they spend a good deal of the time in educating the patients in the principles, and the principles hold them. They do not place their confidence in a particular kind of bath, or a certain diet, or something of that kind; but the principles of the institution seem to take hold of the hearts of our patients in a way that is most gratifying. If there is somebody who becomes somewhat disconcerted or discouraged, we endeavor to rally and cheer them. GCB April 9, 1901, page 141.11

A lady said to me, a day or two ago: “I thought before I came here that I would not like it, because there would be so many sick people here. But the first woman I met said to me: ‘I came here just two months ago, a skeleton; I had to be carried in. Now just look at me. I have gained half a pound a day ever since I came—just two months.’ Well, Doctor, that just inspired me with the thought that I might be benefited as she had been.” She did not find the contact with sick people very discouraging, after all. GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.1

We try to cultivate this spirit of enthusiasm and good courage and confidence; and so we have been trying to hold the principles up as sacred, and as doing the work. We tell the patients that we do not do the work, but there are principles here which, under God, are working for you. GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.2

I might say a word in reference to our charity work. As you are all doubtless aware, there has been a change made in the method of conducting our charity work. Several years ago we had what we called “endowed beds,” which were supported by the various Conferences and individuals at the rate of four dollars a week. But too often when a person got into an endowed bed, he felt that he was entitled to stay there until he wanted to go home, or until he felt disposed to go; and you know we found it very difficult, sometimes, to persuade people that it was time to go. We found that it was a great deal easier to keep the endowed beds full, than it was to empty them after we had them filled. GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.3

We found that many who came to occupy the endowed beds, were people who really did not need Sanitarium treatment. What they needed was good cheer and sunshine and a little more ambition and courage. They had sort of lost their grip in the world. Here would come a man who would say, “Doctor, I have got such an awful stomach. I have had a bad stomach all my life.” The facts were, he would have to stay at least to the end of the century before that stomach would ever be thoroughly cured. He wanted to continue to eat saleratus biscuit, and oatmeal mush with cream and sugar, and all kinds of abominations; and he expected he would not be well unless he could do that. When we put this man on a diet, and said, in two weeks, “Here’s a diet, and some simple treatments; and you can go home, and use these foods which are allowed, and give yourself these treatments, and you will get along all right,” he would say, “Well, but this is too much bother. I can not do all those things. I want to be well and entirely cured, so I can do as I have always done.” GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.4

We have had a great deal of that to deal with. I shall speak plainly this afternoon. Sometimes we have found that people have come to the endowed beds as a compliment extended them. There were people who had done something for the cause;—and the president or somebody else wanted to show them some kind of compliment, and recommended them to the endowed bed. They felt that that bed had been endowed by the Conference, and they were privileged to do as they thought best. But they had not really paid for the bed entirely. They paid only four dollars a week for it, and the Sanitarium had to stand six dollars of the expense itself. GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.5

In addition to the work of charity that has been developed here, there has been a large work done in Chicago. We have sent a large number of our nurses to the Chicago training school. A hospital is connected with the school at the Chicago Branch. Drs. Paulson, Holden, White, Mrs. Dr. Paulson, and others are working there, and many have been brought to a knowledge of the truth through the work done. But this work will be reported at another meeting in connection with the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association. I will say, however, that there has been seventy-five thousand dollars more spent in benevolence by the Sanitarium than the original investment would amount to if it had been placed out at interest from the time it was first invested up to the present time. That is a considerable sum. But in addition to that the present worth of the Sanitarium is given here as $277,000, less about thirty-five or forty thousand dollars, the total of the original investment. GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.6

A very important branch of the Sanitarium work is the training school in educational work. This educational work was organized twelve or fifteen years ago, and it was at first simply a professional nurses’ training school. Only persons were taken in who had a good moral character, and we trained them in nursing. About twelve years ago our attention was called to the necessity of paying more attention to the promulgation of our principles. We decided that our nurses should be brought to the front, and devote more energy, more time, and more money, to the promulgation of the principles of the institution. So the matter was brought before the managers, and the managers and authorities of the Health and Temperance Training School. The call was sent out to the different States for students, and they came in, one by one—until we had two, and we started our class with two. We went through a regular six-months’ course with these two students. After that, forty more came in, and we organized that class, and went through the course. The other two students went out to work in the field. After this first year the school grew until it has grown to be a training school of seventy-five students, which has been converted into a missionary school. And so we have not encouraged anybody to enter the training school for nurses who does not want to become a missionary. We will not take anybody in who does not intend to be a missionary, to give his life for the promulgation of these principles. GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.7

There was a time when it was called the Health Reform Institute. It was a water cure, and still it was something more; it was a water cure and a diet cure. But it began to grow after a while, and as things began to come in, the institution began to develop, and the Lord has given us success until it has grown up to represent all that medical science has given to the world. It represents the most advanced reform principles in diet, and in dress, and in all that pertains to physical righteousness. I am glad to say that it represents more: it represents the gospel of Christ, the gospel of salvation for the soul as well as the body. It always has represented this form the very beginning of its work. GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.8

That is a sanitarium. A sanitarium is a place where men and women can be saved, where they will find the way of salvation from sin, and the salvation from disease, where they will find salvation for soul and body. That is what a sanitarium is; and if that is not found, it is not a sanitarium. GCB April 9, 1901, page 142.9

We want to let the world know about our work. Now there are in this country about seventy-five thousand Seventh-day Adventists; and if they would rise up in their neighborhoods, and tell the people what a sanitarium is, and let their neighbors know about it, we should have to have from five to ten sanitariums in every State. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.1

Our sanitarium work has only just begun. You need not think, my friends, that it is getting too big. Some people have been thinking that this right arm is getting so big that something has got to be done with it. When a man comes to us with well-developed legs, and a little weazen body, we try to do something for his body. When a man comes to us with strong arms, and poor, weak, paralyzed legs, we go to work to make his legs strong. Suppose a man comes with weak legs, and large, strong arms, must we paralyze his arms, and thus partially destroy their power, so that they will match his legs? “O, no,” you say, “that is not the right kind of philosophy. That is working on the plan of subtraction.” We ought rather to work on the plan of addition. If you have a strong pair of arms, set them to work. And, my friends, if there is anybody in the world who is ready to help anybody in need or in trouble, it is what you call the right arm; and if you do not believe it, just give it a chance, and see whether or not it will take hold and help the weak body. If you have got one member of your body that is large and strong, why do you want to paralyze it? Why not set that one member to work to help all the rest to get large and strong? GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.2

There are a dozen large cities in the United States, every one of which is capable of supporting all the sanitariums we have in the world, and keeping them full. How many people do you suppose are sick? More than half the people in the world are sick this minute. We do not have trouble about getting on one another’s toes, because there are sick people all about us. We do not have any quarrel over territory. We can get all the people we can take care of. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.3

At the present time we have twenty buildings at the Sanitarium. In addition to that we are occupying eighty cottages, besides the south dormitory of the college. I say we are occupying eighty buildings around town, which we rent, and we own twenty buildings at the Sanitarium. And they are all crowded full. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.4

You may say, Why don’t you put up large buildings to accommodate these people? Would it not pay?—Of course it would pay. We are paying out between four and five thousand dollars every year for rent. For ten or twelve years in the past we have paid out from three to five thousand dollars a year. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.5

And it is a most inconvenient arrangements. There are helpers and patients and doctors and nurses rooming all over the town. We have had to tuck them away anywhere we could find a place for them; and nearly every summer we have to put them in tents. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.6

Another branch of the educational work has been to assist medical students. We have a medical college, as you know,—the American Medical Missionary College; and this college is supported by the Sanitarium. The Sanitarium undertook to carry it. Have you heard of any other institution anywhere that has undertaken to organize a college and support it? A medical college is the hardest kind of a college to manage. The most expensive outfit is required. It must have laboratories. Why?—Because a medical college begins where the ordinary college stops, and has to go on to a more advanced instruction. The medical college begins where the university ends, and goes on to take up special lines of science, and so must have laboratories for the students. We hope to give you an opportunity to go and visit the college, and just see something of what is being done there. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.7

The Battle Creek Sanitarium has paid for the college, and the whole thing has been fitted up and supported by it. In addition to that, many students—120 is the present attendance—are cared for at the Sanitarium. But you say. “They are all helpful and needed there.” That is all true, but they are not so helpful at the present time as they hope to be some time. You see it is unfortunate for the Sanitarium that we don’t have them when we need them. In the fall, when our patients are going home, is just the time when the Medical College opens, and the students are all coming in. There are then thirty to forty students entering a new class, who don’t know anything at all about the work; we must take them all in, and set them to work and teach them. One hundred and twenty students come in from their vacations just when the patients are going home, and we must give them all places, and get every single student to work. We give every student on opportunity to work for his board; so the American Medical Missionary College is a kind of industrial college; the students in the classes are offered a chance to pay their way; but in summer their work is closed, and a large number of these students have to be looked after personally, I know of some of my colleagues that have given to the medical students every single dollar of their earnings that they did not need for themselves, absolutely every dollar. So in one way or another, we manage to get along; and the Sanitarium is supporting the Medical Missionary College. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.8

This college is purely a missionary school, and nothing else, and it has been started by the Sanitarium as a missionary enterprise. We hope that in doing that thing we have set a good example to some other money-making institutions. I do not know any reason why the publishing house is not just as well prepared to organize a college, support a missionary training school, as the Sanitarium; and I would like to see every one of our leading publishing houses do that thing. If the publishing houses would simply take this thing up, they might do it just as any other kind of mission. They can train missionaries just as well as the Sanitarium can train them. They can be teaching the people the printers’ trade, and make missionaries of them; and when they go into a foreign field, they can have a trade with which they can earn their way, while organizing and supporting the work. There are a great many advantages in that. I know that thing can be done if people will only make up their minds to do it. Books could be printed on the subjects of the schools, and sold to help pay expenses. In my opinion, this is a thing we have neglected more than anything else. It is a thing that has been almost absolutely neglected; and if it were not for the fact, to-day, that our sanitariums are carrying on missionary training schools and the Medical Missionary College, there would not be any such thing in the denomination. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.9

I am getting waked up on that question just now, because long before we began. I made an earnest appeal to the General Conference to start a training school for nurses, but could not get any encouragement. But we made a start. We would have combined with the Battle Creek College to do part of the teaching, that we might start a missionary training school together. The brethren said it would not do,—that we must ask the General Conference for permission to do it. We asked the General Conference, and the Conference said they would have nothing to do with it; so we never had it. We might have had it for ten years just as well as not. We never would have had a training school—never would have started one—if we had not been compelled to have it. If we could have got our brethren to combine with us in a training school for the preachers, and for doctors, and for nurses, and for Bible workers, altogether,—that was what we struggled for for three years. So to have a training-school at all, we had to have one all our own. GCB April 9, 1901, page 143.10

Our doctors have to be thoroughly trained. No one should get the idea that we have a sort of cheap Seventh-day Adventist medical college here. We haven’t any such thing. In our medical college we teach science and medical training; we teach everything that any other medical college does, and much more. It is not a Seventh-day Adventist college. We do not teach Seventh-day Adventism there. We teach science and the practice of medicine. Our Sanitarium methods are taught and referred to in most other medical colleges, but they are not taught and demonstrated in a practical way, so we have to teach them that as well. We also have surgical appliances and facilities, and our doctors are furnished with just as good opportunities for a thorough medical education as if they went to any other medical school in the United States. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.1

There have gone out from the Sanitarium, into the field, in the last two years, twenty-five physicians who have been in the Sanitarium, and received their instruction there. In addition to that, twenty-five physicians have been received into the Sanitarium, who have been given short courses of instruction. These are people who were going out to engage in medical missionary work, and did not come in to stay for any great length of time, but who could do a great deal of good. Then, in addition to the nurses and doctors I have mentioned, and the medical student, there have been received for short courses of training, 153 missionaries who were going out into the field,—physicians’ or ministers’ wives, Bible readers, and various other classes of workers. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.2

Altogether, during the last two years, those who are now in training, and who have been trained and sent out, number 489. Half of these persons have entered this school within the last two years. This number lacks only eleven of being 500 persons: and I think if we scrutinized pretty closely, we might hunt up the other eleven. A good many people come in there, and get a partial training, and never become registered as regular students. This number does not include ministers’ wives, and those persons who have come for a short course in simple treatments, but who have never been asked to make a declaration. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.3

It may be a matter of interest, perhaps, to you to know that these 489 persons who have received this training, has not cost the General Conference, or any State Conference, or the Foreign Mission Board, or the International Tract Society, or any other association one cent. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.4

The Chair: But we have a little more business to do. I have not said all the things that should be talked about yet. We will have an opportunity for another meeting, when we shall speak about other matters, and let others speak about other departments. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.5

We must have a committee on Nominations, for the term of office of five persons,—G. H. Murphy, David Paulson, G. W. Thomason, A. J. Read, and J. H. Kellogg,—has expired. You must elect five persons to take their places, and therefore must have a nominating committee to name persons for the approval of the association. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.6

F. M. Wilcox: I move that the Chair be authorized to appoint the usual committee. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.7

J. O. Corliss: I second this motion. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.8

J. H. Kellogg: I should be glad to have the House appoint the committees. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.9

The question was called for, and carried. The chairman appointed as the Nominating Committee, H. W. Cottrell, A. Druillard, G. W. Reaser, A. J. Sanderson, J. M. Craig, W. R. Simmons. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.10

On motion of J. W. Collie, the association adjourned until 3 P. M., Wednesday, April 10. Benediction by Elder J. O. Corliss. GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.11

J. H. KELLOGG, Chairman.
W. H. HALL, Secretary.

“Correct thinking depends on physical health, and that depends upon correct living.” GCB April 9, 1901, page 144.12