history of soy yogurt, soy acidophilus milk and other ... - SoyInfo Center

in a log cabin on a farm in the small town of Ludlow Falls,
Ohio (just north of Dayton) on 2 July 1879. His father was
a school teacher. He later wrote that he delighted in working
on the family farm but found it ‘disgusting’ to have to kill
and eat the animals he had raised. When he was 12, Harry’s
parents became Seventh-day Adventists. Two years later,
after much study, at the annual camp meeting, he and a
friend decided to be baptized and become Adventist church
members.
“At age 15 Harry entered secondary school at the
Adventist-run Mt. Vernon Academy in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
He loved the strict, puritan atmosphere, the vegetarian
diet, and the teachings of the church. In 1898, at age 19, he
enrolled in medical school at the newly opened, Adventistrun
American Medical Missionary College in Battle Creek,
Michigan, which was associated with Dr. John Harvey
Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium (founded in 1866), the
largest and most progressive medical institution of its kind in
America at that time, and the birthplace of modern dietetics.
Opposing the popular cures of the day (drugs, bleeding,
etc.), the sanitarium recommended diet (especially a simple
grain-based vegetarian diet), exercise, hydrotherapy and
good mental health as the foundations of healthful living
and natural healing. These teachings had a lifelong effect on
Miller.
“Working to pay his own tuition, room, and board,
Miller led guided tours through the sanitarium and food
factory, which forced him to learn more about the various
foods (America’s fi rst meat analogs and breakfast cereals)
and how they were made. Miller was deeply infl uenced
by the personality and teachings of Dr. J.H. Kellogg, who
personally taught a number of the classes Miller attended,
treated him like a son, and helped put him through college.
One of America’s great pioneers of both nutrition and of
soyfoods, Kellogg stressed to the small class the importance
of preventive medicine, nutrition, and diet. He strongly
opposed the use of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and narcotics.
Miller later noted that almost all the students in the small
class lived past the age of 90; Kellogg lived to age 91, Miller
to 97½ and one classmate to 101.
“Miller graduated in 1902 and was married to a
classmate-doctor, Maude Thompson, the same year. During
an internship autopsy, Dr. Miller cut his fi nger badly and
suddenly contracted systemic blastomycosis, an infection
considered at the time to be fatal. With deep faith he prayed
to God, promising that if he were to be healed, he would
go anywhere in the Lord’s service. To the astonishment of
his doctors, Miller was miraculously healed. This greatly
deepened his faith. Shortly thereafter a call came from the
Adventist church for a missionary doctor in China. Miller
accepted the challenge. For the rest of his life he prayed
for his patients before all operations (minor or major), and,
according to others, apparently his great faith was rewarded
by their recovery.
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 170
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“Early Years in China (1903-1911): In October 1903,
Dr. Miller and Maude, together with another physician
couple, sailed for China, stopping briefl y in Japan. In Kobe,
at the home of fellow Adventists, Myrtle Lockwood fi rst
introduced Miller to soyfoods serving an entree called
Tofu Loaf, with which Miller was particularly impressed.
In China the couple went deep into the interior, near the
center of Honan Province, where they found great poverty
and malnutrition. They both learned Chinese, dressed like
the local people, and even adopted the hair style of a long
queue and shaved pate. They also ate Chinese foods, and
soon Miller was visiting local tofu shops, learning about and
sampling tofu, yuba, curds, soymilk, and the like. He found
that tofu was much more widely consumed than soymilk,
although the latter was quite widely used as a spicy hot
breakfast soup and a warm, sweetened beverage. Dr. Miller
later said (1961) that many Chinese and other East Asians
told him that they did not drink much soymilk since they
believed it caused them intestinal disturbances, which tofu
did not. Perhaps this was why soymilk was not generally fed
to infants-and children.
“In 1905, Dr. Miller’s beloved wife died suddenly of an
unknown disease. He was 26. 0ut of his deep sadness grew
an even deeper commitment to help the impoverished and
suffering millions of China. After a brief return to America
two years later, where he married Marie Iverson, Miller
returned to Shanghai. Two daughters were born in 1908 and
1910. Then Dr. Miller contracted a severe unknown disease
and was forced to return to America in 1911.
“Washington, D.C. (1912-1925): Miller eventually
managed to heal himself of what he later learned was a
vitamin defi ciency illness called sprue. During recovery he
taught the Bible at Mt. Vernon Academy, his former alma
mater and in 1912 his fi rst son. Harry Willis, Jr., was born.
Soon he was called to the position of medical superintendent
and surgeon of the Adventist-run Washington Sanitarium and
Hospital, which he developed into a Mecca for congressional
leaders of the day. He became consulting physician to three
U.S. presidents. In Washington he pioneered new techniques
of thyroid goiter surgery, which lowered fatalities from 50
percent to about one percent. He eventually performed over
6,000 goiter surgeries around the world. In Washington he
also met Dr. W.J. Morse and Dr. J.A. LeClerc, both soy
pioneers from the USDA. He later wrote that these men fi lled
him with ‘inspiration, enthusiasm, and information,’ and both
later made frequent visits to Miller’s soymilk plant in Ohio.
In 1915 a fourth child, Clarence, was born.
“Prior to 1917 the Sanitarium had used a lot of dairy
products on its vegetarian menus, but in that year, with
World War I under way, all milk supplies from the local dairy
were requisitioned by the Walter Reed Military Hospital. The
sanitarium bought its own herd, but the problems that Miller
found with contamination, animal disease (tuberculosis),
and the like, convinced him of the need to develop a good