A term popularized by Seventh-day Adventists to describe a medical institution that provides for physical therapy and other treatments. It is said that John H. Kellogg, of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, was among the first to use the term and that someone reminded him that the word was not in the dictionary, to which Kellogg is said to have replied, “If it isn’t there, it soon will be.” However, according to The Oxford English Dictionary (1933), the term was already in use with this same general meaning in England in the middle 1800s.
Seventh-day Adventists hold that the way to make the sick whole is to minister to the whole person—body, mind, and spirit; that as a therapeutic procedure, diet, as to both kind and quantity, is important; also that the best of all therapies is that which will stimulate the natural forces of the body. Hence physical medicine, in the form of hydrotherapy and electrotherapy, has been featured in the sanitariums. As modern medicine developed, surgery and other forms of therapy have become more common.
As to therapy for mind and spirit, SDA medical institutions have long put into practice the principle that a person’s relationship to God can affect both mind and body. SDA sanitariums employ chaplains to minister to the patients’ spiritual needs.
In order to give maximum value to more distinctive SDA therapies, sanitariums were rather uniformly located in rural areas, where the patient could enjoy serenity, smog-free air, and the sounds of nature.
In many instances those coming to a sanitarium have been ambulatory persons who were seeking a general rejuvenation in the context of the best of medical care.
Most denominational sanitariums have developed into general hospitals providing a broad spectrum of medical and surgical care. Although health education is part of the care given in many Seventh-day Adventist hospitals, the sanitarium concept of rejuvenation and lifestyle change for ambulatory persons has become primarily an auxiliary program in selected hospitals, although the original sanitarium concept is still practiced in some institutions operated by independent ministries.