Sunday, April 6, 2014

Whack Job

Sorry about the title,but you know how hard it is for me to resist a pun. Today we are going to explore why Kellogg developed Corn Flakes,that innocent breakfast cereal that has been around forever. Kellogg was an Adventist and their belief was that a bland,meatless diet would prevent boys from masturbating (girls weren't mentioned). Dr. Kellogg believed masturbation was a sin against nature and the most dangerous of sexual abuses because it was the most practiced. Along with dietary restrictions he also recommended bandaging or tying their hands,covering their genitals with cages,sewing the foreskin shut and that old stand-by electrical shock. He also advised circumcision without anesthetic as a treatment,and the kids today think they have it rough!  Anyone want a bowl of Corn Flakes?
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes - originally developed to stop boys masturbating. Heavily influenced by Christian aversion to masturbation, Dr Kellogg argued that “if illicit commerce of the sexes is a heinous sin, self-pollution, or masturbation, is a crime doubly abominable. As a sin against nature, it has no parallel except in sodomy. It is the most dangerous of all sexual abuses because it is the most extensively practiced.” The Adventists believed that a bland, meatless diet would help prevent boys from masturbating and so Kellogg developed corn flakes while managing the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  He was influential in the development of many of the Church’s distinctive health and dietary teachings and practices, although I doubt that enemas, and the daily introduction of a pint of yogurt into one’s rectum remains Church doctrine. Kellogg devised additional remedies for masturbators, recommending that “to prevent children from this “solitary vice”, bandaging or tying their hands, covering their genitals with patented cages, sewing the foreskin shut and electrical shock. In his 1888 article ‘Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects’ he stated that: “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.”  And for females: “The author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.” Kellogg’s influence on the U.S. extended beyond breakfast cereal.  You can read more on this in “Penises, Pain and the Progressives: How America Prepared for the 20th-Century by Cutting Off Its Foreskins”
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