"Plain Facts About Sexual Life" by J. H. Kellogg, M.D. Battle Creek: The Office of the Health Reformer, 1877. First edition
This book is a no frills, straightforward statement of the author’s “medical theories” on sexuality. John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (1852-1943) was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan, who is best known today for the invention of corn flakes with his brother, Will Keith Kellogg. But back in 1879, 2 years after he completed his medical degree at the age of 25, he was more famous for running the Battle Creek Sanitarium where he developed a strict regimen for health, based on his strict limitations and rules for controlling one’s sexual appetite and lifestyle. He believed a strong emphasis on vegetarianism would control and limit a person’s sexual drive. In addition he was very focused on a daily regimen of cleansing the bowels with yogurt enemas. The basis of clean living, according to the good doctor, was colonic irrigation, electrical stimulation and sexual abstinence. T. C. Boyle’s 1993 book, “The Road to Wellville,” and the 1994 comedy film adaptation of the book with Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Broderick were based on the story of the Battle Creek Sanitarium.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQviGrzIKQY
Kellogg’s “Plain Facts About Sexual Life” is exclusively devoted to his beliefs about the harms of too much sexual indulgence and, in this area, he had an abundance of specific issues to write about. He describes in great detail the almost limitless harms, diseases, melancholia, physical deteriorations, mental aberrations, addictions, social calamities, losses of specific senses, spinal irritations, womb cancers, insanity and an almost endless list of other ailments arising from sexual indulgences, most especially activity after the age of 45 and worst of all – the very harmful “solitary vice” of self abuse. He was an especially zealous campaigner against masturbation, promoting extreme measures to prevent it, even mutilation on both sexes. For instance, on page 303 of his book, he writes:
“A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision… The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.”
He also thought that diet played a huge role in masturbation and that a bland diet would decrease excitability and prevent masturbation. That’s the reason why, according to an entry in Wikipedia, he invented corn flakes breakfast cereal. He hoped that feeding children this plain cereal every morning would help to combat the urges of "self-abuse.” So, remember Dr. Kellogg the next time you pour yourself a bowl of corn flakes. The man was nutty as a fruitcake!
"Plain Facts About Sexual Life" by J. H. Kellogg, M.D. Battle Creek: The Office of the Health Reformer, 1877. First edition
This book is a no frills, straightforward statement of the author’s “medical theories” on sexuality. John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (1852-1943) was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan, who is best known today for the invention of corn flakes with his brother, Will Keith Kellogg. But back in 1879, 2 years after he completed his medical degree at the age of 25, he was more famous for running the Battle Creek Sanitarium where he developed a strict regimen for health, based on his strict limitations and rules for controlling one’s sexual appetite and lifestyle. He believed a strong emphasis on vegetarianism would control and limit a person’s sexual drive. In addition he was very focused on a daily regimen of cleansing the bowels with yogurt enemas. The basis of clean living, according to the good doctor, was colonic irrigation, electrical stimulation and sexual abstinence. T. C. Boyle’s 1993 book, “The Road to Wellville,” and the 1994 comedy film adaptation of the book with Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Broderick were based on the story of the Battle Creek Sanitarium.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQviGrzIKQY
Kellogg’s “Plain Facts About Sexual Life” is exclusively devoted to his beliefs about the harms of too much sexual indulgence and, in this area, he had an abundance of specific issues to write about. He describes in great detail the almost limitless harms, diseases, melancholia, physical deteriorations, mental aberrations, addictions, social calamities, losses of specific senses, spinal irritations, womb cancers, insanity and an almost endless list of other ailments arising from sexual indulgences, most especially activity after the age of 45 and worst of all – the very harmful “solitary vice” of self abuse. He was an especially zealous campaigner against masturbation, promoting extreme measures to prevent it, even mutilation on both sexes. For instance, on page 303 of his book, he writes:
“A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision… The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.”
He also thought that diet played a huge role in masturbation and that a bland diet would decrease excitability and prevent masturbation. That’s the reason why, according to an entry in Wikipedia, he invented corn flakes breakfast cereal. He hoped that feeding children this plain cereal every morning would help to combat the urges of "self-abuse.” So, remember Dr. Kellogg the next time you pour yourself a bowl of corn flakes. The man was nutty as a fruitcake!