The "San" is an enormous brick building like a vast summer hotel. It has an office which is utterly hotel-like, too, even to the chairs, scattered about, and the people sitting in them. Many of the people look perfectly well. Indeed, I saw one young woman who looked so well that I couldn't take my eyes off from her while she remained in view. She was in the elevator when we went up to lunch. She looked at me with a speculative eye—a most engaging eye, it was—as though saying to herself: "Now there's a promising young man. I might make it interesting for him if he would stay here for a while. But of course he'd have to show me a physician's certificate stating that he was not subject to fits." My companion said that she looked at him a long while, too, but I doubt that. He was always claiming that they looked at him.
The people who run the Sanitarium are Seventh-Day Adventists, and as we arrived on Saturday it was the Sabbath there—a rather busy day, I take it, from the bulletin which was printed upon the back of the dinner menu:
7.20 A. M. Morning Worship in the Parlor.
7.40 to 8.40 A. M. BREAKFAST.
9.45 A. M. Sabbath School in the Chapel.
11 A. M. Preaching Service in the Chapel.
12.30 to 2 P. M. DINNER.
3.30 P. M. Missionary talk.
5.30 to 6 P. M. Cashier's office open.
6 to 6.45 P. M. SUPPER.
6.45 P. M. March for guests and patients only.
8 P. M. In the Gymnasium. Basket Ball Game. Admission
25 cents.
No food to be taken from the Dining Room.
The last injunction was not disobeyed by us. We ate enough to satisfy our curiosity, and what we did not eat we left.
The menu at the Sanitarium is a curious thing. After each item are figures showing the proportion of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates contained in that article of food. Everything is weighed out exactly. There was no meat on the bill of fare, but substitutes were provided in the list of entrees: "Protose with Mayonnaise Dressing," "Nuttolene with Cranberry Sauce," and "Walnut Roast."
Suppose you had to decide between those three which would you take?
My companion took "Protose," while I elected for some reason to dally with the "Nuttolene." Then, neither of us liking what we got, we both tried "Walnut Roast." Even then we would not give up. I ordered a little "Malt Honey," while my companion called for a baked potato, saying: "I know what a potato is, anyhow!"
After that we had a little "Toasted Granose" and "Good Health Biscuit," washed down in my case by a gulp or two of "Kaffir Tea," and in his by "Hot Malted Nuts." I tried to get him to take "Kaffir Tea" with me, but, being to leeward of my cup, he declined. As nearly as we could figure it out afterward, he was far ahead of me in proteins and fats, but I was infinitely richer in carbohydrates. In our indigestions we stood absolutely even.
There are some very striking things about the Sanitarium. It is a great headquarters for Health Congresses, Race Betterment Congresses, etc., and at these congresses strange theories are frequently put forth. At one of them, recently held, Dr. J. H. Kellogg, head of the Sanitarium, read a paper in which, according to newspaper reports, he advocated "human stock shows," with blue ribbons for the most perfectly developed men and women. At the same meeting a Mrs. Holcome charged that: "Cigarette-smoking heroes in the modern magazine are, I believe, inserted into the stories by the editors of publications controlled by the big interests."