John Harvey Kellogg - Later Life

Later Life

Kellogg would live for over sixty years after writing Plain Facts. Whether he continued to teach the "facts" in it is not entirely clear, although it appears from the later books he wrote that he moved away from this subject matter. The studies and advances done on human sexuality by Sigmund Freud and others during those years had a strong influence on all fields of Science and may have as well reached Dr.Kellogg. One source, taking a positive view of his nutritional and anti-smoking work, suggests he "dropped his obsession with the evils of sex" around 1920, which would be consistent with the last edition of Plain Facts being apparently published in 1917, but another, highly critical source maintains he "never retracted his claims." He did continue to work on healthy eating advice and run the sanitarium, although this was hit by the Great Depression and had to be sold. He ran another institute in Florida, which was popular throughout the rest of his life, although it was a distinct step down from his Battle Creek institute.