Excelsior Springs, Mo. — For over four decades, the Ball Clinic stood as a prominent symbol of health and healing. Owned and operated by Dr. Samuel Ball, the clinic opened its doors in 1919 and offered mineral water therapies to thousands seeking relief from arthritis, rheumatism, and other chronic ailments. But by 1963, the clinic’s reputation had crumbled under national scrutiny, and with it, a chapter of Excelsior Springs’ medical tourism industry came to a close.
According to the Kansas City Times obituary archives, Dr. Ball received his medical degree from Keokuk, Iowa, and began practicing medicine in Creighton, Missouri. Later, he operated a medical company in Fort Scott, Kansas, namely the Ball Medical Company, which “manufactured and distributed medical preparations,” before moving to Kansas City in 1914.
For the next four years, Dr. Ball focused on his medical company before moving to Excelsior Springs in 1918 due to his interest in “the therapeutic value of mineral waters,” wrote the Kansas City Times.
Dr. Ball, who settled in the community along with his eldest son, C.D. Ball, opened their first practice in 1918 as they drilled private mineral wells to use the healing waters for their patients. At the time, his office was located on Broadway Boulevard. However, he established the iconic Ball Clinic in 1919 after obtaining a 12-room cottage in the 200 block of East Broadway. He later expanded it to include seven buildings with the addition of “hospital facilities for about ninety patients and sanitarium facilities for about 300,” according to the Times.
After drilling the wells, Dr. Ball and his son began using mineral water to treat patients suffering from arthritis, rheumatism, and blood pressure ailments. According to Missouri State Parks Hall of Waters files prepared by Deon Wolfenbarger, Dr. Ball drilled four wells in total, but once the Hall of Waters was constructed, he began using water “supplied by the city-owned system,” according to Wolfenbarger’s findings.
Along with using the mineral waters to treat patients, Dr. Ball prescribed the town’s mineral water in the form of baths and massages, claiming, “prescriptions for the baths and waters were free,” Wolfenbarger noted.
While operating the Ball Clinic in Excelsior Springs, Dr. Ball also owned and operated the Ball Health School in Colfax, Iowa. Both facilities, however, were “non-medical and non-surgical.”
In 1953, Dr. Ball finally retired from his active role within the facilities, but he passed away shortly after in 1956. It was noted in his obituary that he was 86 years old and survived by “his wife, Mrs. Rachel Dova B. Ball of the home; two sons, J.D. Ball and C.D. Ball; and two daughters, Miss W. Gladys Ball and Mrs. Wilma McDaniel.” Services were held at the Hope Funeral Home in Excelsior Springs, but he was ultimately laid to rest in Mound City, Kansas, near his hometown of Mapleton.
Shortly after Dr. Ball’s passing, in the 1960s, the Arthritis and Rheumatism Foundation began to grow “skeptical of health clinics” such as the Ball Clinic, according to Wolfenbarger. As a result, business began to decline. Additionally, legislation passed during the 1960s prohibited such clinics from advertising.
Contributing further to the decline was a man named Ralph Lee Smith, who in August of 1963 released an article in the Saturday Evening Post. Smith, working as an undercover reporter posing as a patient with fabricated symptoms, aimed to investigate the growing skepticism surrounding the medical claims being made in Excelsior Springs. The article, titled The Hucksters of Pain, focused heavily on the Ball Clinic.
In the article, Smith claimed that the Ball Clinic and others were “peddling dubious remedies” and “extracting $250 million a year from millions of arthritics who desperately search for relief.”
Before the article’s publication, Smith documented his experience posing as a patient complaining of back pain. Upon entering the Ball Clinic, he wrote, “A short, stocky man with a warm smile of confidence entered the office with a sheaf of papers on a clipboard and sat down behind a desk,” then diagnosed him with fibrositis.
Smith admitted he had no legitimate medical issues but was pretending in order to investigate what he called the “huckstering of arthritis remedies,” specifically at the Ball Clinic.
According to Smith’s article, he was drawn in by the Ball Clinic’s advertisements in newspapers and magazines. At the time, he noted, there was no established medical explanation for the root causes of arthritic pain. Yet, the Ball Clinic claimed they knew the cause: “an imbalance chemistry of the body in which the normal alkalinity of the blood and tissues is lost or lessened and in its place some degree of systemic acidity develops,” he wrote.
Inside the clinic, Smith observed patients traveling from as far as Michigan. He spoke with one patient from Indiana who said she would be under treatment for another three weeks. “They put you on a diet,” she told him. “For every acid food you eat, you have to eat two alkaline foods.”
Smith’s diagnosis was fibrosis, with a recommended two-week treatment plan. He was told the diet would “change your whole body chemistry.” His prescribed treatment included professional services, radio wave therapy, and colonics—costing him a total of $383.04, not including room and board—reinforcing his suspicions that the treatments were financially motivated rather than medically sound.
However, Smith never underwent the treatments. He returned to New York, disregarding the clinic’s orders. Once back in the city, he emphasized that while arthritis is a serious and painful condition, “the suffering is the reason for the $250-million-a-year business in dubious or ineffective remedies.”
Smith’s continued investigation into false medical claims led to the eventual downfall of the Ball Clinic. It officially closed on December 31, 1963. The building was later sold to the Midwest Arthritis and Rheumatism Clinic, which opened in 1964 under the management of Dr. McNeely, but it ultimately closed in 1974.
According to the 1991 Excelsior Springs Historical Survey, the Ball Clinic was considered a “significant structure” due to its architectural integrity and its illustration of “the extent to which the local economy depended upon the mineral waters and health industry.” Nonetheless, Smith’s article The Hucksters of Pain was a turning point that contributed to the clinic’s downfall and a broader downturn in Excelsior Springs, as “the entire town suffered the repercussions from the exposure.”
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