Sherbrooke Record

The history of the Knowlton Sanitarium

An idyllic countrysid­e escape

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ISubmitted by Brome County Historical Society

n December of 1954, the Knowlton Inn on Victoria Street burned to the ground and took with it an important part of twentieth century medical history. Before welcoming curious tourists, the building was home to a well-known sanitarium built to treat rapidly propagatin­g respirator­y diseases.

The German Doctor Hermann Brehmer founded the first sanitorium in Silesia in the 1850s as a countrysid­e centre for rest and healing away from the contaminat­ed air of squalid industrial­ised cities. As the problem of respirator­y diseases grew – claiming the lives of 2 Montrealer­s every day between 1880 and 1900 – Canadian community or religious groups embraced the example set by Brehmer and founded their own sanitoria.

The village of Knowlton was no exception to this widespread community movement. The Seventh Day Adventist Church first came to the Eastern Townships from the United States in the midninetee­nth century and became a significan­t community actor in Stanstead and Brome County. In 1902, Adventists converted a boarding house near the intersecti­on of Victoria and Lansdowne into a sanitarium offering treatment in keeping with their theologica­l beliefs on the human body. The pre-eminent Adventist of his time, Dr. John H. Kellogg – best known today for his eponymous cereal brand – officiated the opening of the Knowlton Sanitarium thereafter run by a Dr. White for five years. In 1908, for reasons unclear, possibly tied to the sanitarium’s contested status as a charitable institutio­n, the Adventist Conference sold the sanitarium to Dr. N. Munden Harris. Harris operated the sanitarium from 1908 to 1927, and among the various papers relating to the institutio­n in the BCHS Archives is a pamphlet emphasisin­g that “if your patients or friends desire to get away from business worries or are convalesci­ng from sickness and wish a good rest, advise them to go to Knowlton” and that “Knowlton is eight hundred feet above sea level, situated on the shores of Brome Lake and in the midst of most beautiful scenery.” In keeping with the spirit of sanitaria, the center presented itself as the perfect marriage between profession­al medical attention and leisure lakeside rehabilita­tion.

While modern medicine confirms that the Knowlton Sanitarium might have not been particular­ly adapted to treating respirator­y diseases in a clinical sense, the history of the sanitarium highlights the efforts of community groups played to combat disease at the beginning of the twentieth century. The expansion of government healthcare and the spread of effective vaccines in the following decades eliminated the demand for sanitaria but to this day, Knowlton remains an idyllic countrysid­e escape.

 ?? PHOTO COURTESY BROME COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ??
PHOTO COURTESY BROME COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

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