The Rise of Sanatoriums

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Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's sanitarium was advertised as the largest and most elaborately equipped health resort in the world. He instructed his patients to do things like chew each bite of food 40 times before swallowing, or sit in wooden cabinets lined with light bulbs. It's been reported that Dr. Kellogg also believed an electric current applied directly to the eyeballs could treat vision disorders. People flocked to the West for exposure to fresh mountain air.

In 1911, two sisters traveled to Seattle to meet a "doctor" named Linda Hazzard. The sisters didn’t seem very sick, but when they arrived, Dr. Hazzard told them they didn’t have a moment to lose – they needed to begin her treatment right away.

A few months later, one of the sisters wrote a letter to her old governess. “I am wonderfully better in fact,” she said, “getting stronger by leaps.” But her handwriting was messier than usual, and her sentences ran together and overlapped.

You can find Gregg Olsen’s book, Starvation Heights, here.

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