Qui Si Sana, Lake Crescent, Olympic Mountains, Washington, circa 1913

Louis Dechmann was born in Germany about 1865, came to Washington State from Brooklyn, New York, in 1909, and resided chiefly in Seattle until 1923. A self-proclaimed physician and biologist, between 1910 and 1919 he published a number of books and pamphlets on healing through diet and hygiene, eugenics, influenza, and other health-related topics. Dechmann founded Qui Si Sana, a naturopathic facility, about 1912 and attracted clients, many of them women, with a regimen of hydrotherapy and careful diet. He became involved in a dispute with a neighbor over water rights and was also accused of having pro-German sympathies by local residents and Seattle authorities. The resort, renamed Eugenika about 1917, was closed in 1918. The site eventually became a county park, Camp David.