Excerpts
Trop, Jack. (1961). You Don’t Have to Be Sick. New York: Julian Press.
Pg. 17
“This little I have learned, and for this I am grateful to Graham, Jennings, Trall, Alcott, Nichols, Lewis, Oswald, and the many other literate natural hygienists, including at the top of the list the great modern interpreter, Herbert M. Shelton. Natural hygiene is solidly founded on the building stones of the great pioneers who laid down the basic principles of this art of normal living. It teaches that good health is a composite of many factors, including beauty, grace, strength, and vitality. Good health is “wholeness,” and we have it only when all parts of the body, mind, and soul are “at ease.” The temptation here at this early stage of our studying together is to quote extensively in support of this natural hygienic doctrine. At this juncture I will permit myself only one, from Paracelsus: “The physician who wants to know man must look upon him as a whole, and not as a piece of patched-up work. If he finds a part of the human body diseased, he must look for the cause which produced the disease, and not merely the external effects.”
“Life is a never-ending journey. If any of us feel that we have arrived at the final goal of all truth then we have finished our lives. In the bright world of the future when we will have learned to give up our life-destroying bad habits, we will have more time and inclination to live and to develop our potentialities. There is much to be learned in the world about the arts: painting, music, literature, philosophy. In the field of ethics the study of religion is a fascinating challenge. How can one ever experience a dull or an idle moment when there is beckoning the study of man, the animals, agriculture, history and all the accumulated knowledge of mankind? What natural hygiene enables us to do is to keep this body of ours at the peak of efficiency, in a state of vigorous and vibrant health so that until our last breath we may carry on the search for truth.”
Pg. 42
“Our design for living is neither new nor the exclusive property of natural hygiene. As a matter of fact, many parts of it may be as old as the history of man. A minority in each generation has practiced its principles since the beginning of time. What Trall, Graham, Alcott, Jennings, and the others who have followed them have done is to cast the “design” in a recognizable and reproducible mold that we call natural hygiene. Of recent years many people have been accepting the general idea, although their number is still relatively small, when compared with the entire population.”
Pg. 90
Exercise, rest, and fasting
“Standing still, itself—paradoxical as the statement may seem—is little less than a species of locomotion. It is, at least, the power of moving ourselves—for we are continually moving. Could a post, six feet high, or a marble statue, placed upright, support itself even against considerable external force? Would not the very first gust of wind overthrow it? How, then, can a living individual stand?
WILLIAM A. ALCOTT, M.D.,
The Laws of Health, 1859
AIR, water, sunshine, food, are tangible things. They come to the body from the outside. Exercise and rest are intangibles. They are an intrinsic part of the processes of life. Exercise and rest should be lifelong sweethearts; they are dependent upon each other.”
Excerpt From
You Don’t Have to Be Sick
Jack Dunn Trop
This material may be protected by copyright.
Lennon, J., Taylor, S. (1996). The Natural Hygiene Handbook. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Pg. 21
“Some of the most prominent among these physicians were: Isaac Jennings, M.D. (1788-1874); William Alcott, M.D. (1798-1859) (cousin of Louisa May Alcott); James Caleb Jackson, M.D. (1811-1895); Russell Thacker Trall, M.D.(1812-1877); Thomas Low Nichols, M.D. (1815-1901); George H. Taylor, M.D. (1821-1896); Harriet Austin, M.D. (1826-1891); Susanna Way Dodds, M.D. (1830-1911); Emmett Densmore, M.D. (1837-1911); Robert Walter, M.D. (1841-1921); Felix Oswald, M.D. (1845-1906); John Tilden, M.D. (1851-1940); George S. Weger, M.D. (1874-1935); and Herbert M. Shelton, N.D. (1895-1985).
Shelton, Herbert. (1974). Fasting For Renewal of Life. Youngstown. National Health Association
Pg. 71
“In his Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders (1859) in a chapter titled “Starving Out Disease,” Dr. William A. Alcott recounts a number of cases of dyspepsia that recovered health upon diets that were very simple and abstemious. These diets, some of which resembled the Schroth diet, were of Graham crackers or dried Graham bread and water or of apples or other fruit. Three to seven ounces of whole meal bread a day were eaten for lengthy periods. Remarkable recoveries from conditions other than dyspepsia are recorded as results of this abstemious fare.”
Pg. 109
“The phrase “hunger cure,” came from Austria and seems to have been first applied to the dry diet (and occasional fast) that constituted the most prominent feature of the work of Johan Schroth. It was employed by Dr. Shew, who seems to have introduced the “Schroth cure” into America, and was occasionally employed by some of the early Hygienists, although neither Jennings, Graham, Alcott, Trall, Nichols nor Taylor used the phrase. They preferred the terms fasting and abstinence. In truth, the phrase “hunger cure” misrepresents the process, which is not a cure and is not a period of hunger.”
“Schroth was an Austrian peasant who originated a plan of feeding that became known as the Schroth cure. It consisted of feeding the invalid for several days at a time on a diet (chiefly bread) of dry foods and allowing no water to drink. The famous physician, Cantani, championed the diet and is said to have “elevated the diet to a scientific system.” Cantani followed the lead of Schroth and fed the diet in such ailments as gout, arthritis, diabetes, etc., feeding stale rolls in his care of his patients.
Morgulis, discussing the Schroth diet, says, “A diet of dry rolls is deficient in every nutritive constituent and patients on the Schroth diet are to all intents and purposes starving.” Schroth himself fed whole grain bread, and this was not as deficient as Morgulis indicated. Contrasting dogs fasting and dogs fed a Schroth diet for the same length of time, Morgulis points out that the results were all in favor of the fast.”
Excerpt From
Fasting For Renewal of Life
Herbert M. Shelton
This material may be protected by copyright.
Shelton, Herbert. (1974). Fasting For Renewal of Life. Youngstown. National Health Association
Pg. 71
“In his Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders (1859) in a chapter titled “Starving Out Disease,” Dr. William A. Alcott recounts a number of cases of dyspepsia that recovered health upon diets that were very simple and abstemious. These diets, some of which resembled the Schroth diet, were of Graham crackers or dried Graham bread and water or of apples or other fruit. Three to seven ounces of whole meal bread a day were eaten for lengthy periods. Remarkable recoveries from conditions other than dyspepsia are recorded as results of this abstemious fare.”
Pg. 109
“The phrase “hunger cure,” came from Austria and seems to have been first applied to the dry diet (and occasional fast) that constituted the most prominent feature of the work of Johan Schroth. It was employed by Dr. Shew, who seems to have introduced the “Schroth cure” into America, and was occasionally employed by some of the early Hygienists, although neither Jennings, Graham, Alcott, Trall, Nichols nor Taylor used the phrase. They preferred the terms fasting and abstinence. In truth, the phrase “hunger cure” misrepresents the process, which is not a cure and is not a period of hunger.”
“Schroth was an Austrian peasant who originated a plan of feeding that became known as the Schroth cure. It consisted of feeding the invalid for several days at a time on a diet (chiefly bread) of dry foods and allowing no water to drink. The famous physician, Cantani, championed the diet and is said to have “elevated the diet to a scientific system.” Cantani followed the lead of Schroth and fed the diet in such ailments as gout, arthritis, diabetes, etc., feeding stale rolls in his care of his patients.
Morgulis, discussing the Schroth diet, says, “A diet of dry rolls is deficient in every nutritive constituent and patients on the Schroth diet are to all intents and purposes starving.” Schroth himself fed whole grain bread, and this was not as deficient as Morgulis indicated. Contrasting dogs fasting and dogs fed a Schroth diet for the same length of time, Morgulis points out that the results were all in favor of the fast.”
Excerpt From
Fasting For Renewal of Life
Herbert M. Shelton
This material may be protected by copyright.
Shelton, Herbert. (1934). The Science and Fine Art Fasting – The Hygienic System: Volume III National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Pg 299
“WATER DRINKING DURING THE FAST
Most fasting advocates advise drinking much water while fasting. This is done on the theory that water aids in eliminating toxins from the body. Levanzin expresses this theory as follows: “as a rule, it is certainly advisable to do a good deal of water drinking during a fast—since this serves to flush out the whole system and wash through the accumulated impurities.” He also states that water “carries along with it many impurities from the blood.” Both Carrington and Macfadden advocate drinking more water than thirst calls for while fasting. Mr. Carrington advocates drinking water as a means of relieving morbid sensations in the stomach that may arise during the early part of a fast. Water-drinking for this purpose is the use of water as a palliative and not to serve any need of the body. Water taken in excess of need must be thrown out speedily lest the excess result in harm, and it does not occasion any increase in the elimination of toxins.”
“This is a mistake that the early Hygienists—Graham, Jennings, Trall, Alcott, etc.—did not make. They frowned upon much water drinking. The fact is that there is neither need for so much water, nor benefit from taking it. Drinking water as a mere matter of routine is not advisable. One may rely upon the instinct of thirst to tell him when he should drink and how much. Drink when thirsty. Do not drink when not thirsty.
Prof. Levanzin seems to have been a bit confused on this matter of water-drinking during a fast. He says that generally the faster desires “very limited quantities of water.” He tells us that in 1911 he fasted five days without taking any water; that he suffered no discomfort, and that he busied himself with his usual occupations throughout this period. He also tells us that during his experimental fast undergone in Carnegie Institute he was compelled to take a quart of water a day, which was too much for him. In spite of all this he advocates much water drinking by fasters.
Excerpt From
The Science and Fine Art of Fasting
Herbert M. Shelton
This material may be protected by copyright.
Shelton, Herbert. (1935). The Science and Fine Art of Food and Nutrition – The Hygienic System: Volume II. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Pg. 18
“These “biochemists” discovered that cabbage, lettuce, celery, tomatoes, apples, oranges, etc., are really valuable foods. Their discovery so shocked and surprised the medical world that it completely forgot that the “faddists” had been eating these foods for a long time and had declared them to be superior to white flour, salt bacon, pigs knuckles, sausage, lard pies and coffee. It was really a remarkable discovery – all they now need to do is to become “faddists” with the rest of us and make use of the things Graham, Trall, Alcott, Densmore, Page, Oswald, Kuhne, Lahmann, Berg, etc., had long taught.”
Pg. 110
Fruits
“Figs or Pigs, Fruit or Brute?” is the title of a little book on fruitarianism which I have in my possession. The question is a pertinent one and its correct answer is freighted with increased health and happiness for everyone. Dr. Alcott declared, and this at a time when the regular profession declared fruit to be practically without food value, that; “The purest food is fruit. Fruit bears the closest relation to light. The sun pours a continuous flood of light into the fruits, and they furnish the best portion of food a human being requires for sustenance of mind and body.”
Botanically, fruits are the edible parts of plants that result from the development of pollinated flowers, such as peaches, oranges, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, nuts, beans, peas, etc. Although, scientifically, beans, peas, nuts and other such articles of food, are classed as fruits, popularly such seed, because they do not possess an edible capsule (we do eat the green pods of the bean), are not considered as fruits. “Botanically, the wheat grain or other cereal is a fruit. We shall here consider under the term of fruit, however, only those foods that possess the edible capsule surrounding the seed and shall consider nuts and cereals in separate chapters.”
Pg. 155
“Dr. Lamb, of England, took the position that man is not by nature a drinking animal. Dr. Alcott and others of the vegetarian school proved by direct experiments that those who adopt an exclusively vegetable regimen and make a large proportion of their diet consist of juicy fruits and succulent vegetables can be healthfully sustained and nourished without water-drinking. Sophie Lepel, of England, also condemned the use of water.”
Excerpt From
The Science and Fine Art of Food and Nutrition
Herbert M. Shelton
This material may be protected by copyright.
Shelton, Herbert. (1934). The Science and Fine Art of Natural Hygiene – The Hygienic System: Volume I. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Pg. 8
“Graham was soon joined by Isaac Jennings, a physician of the old school, who had discovered for himself the fallacies of medical theories and futilities and the dangers of medical dosing, and William Alcott, also a regular physician who had discarded drugs and the lancet, and a little later by Russell Thacker Trall, another physician of the old school who had become convinced of the radical unsoundness of medical theory and practice. Others became a part of the advancing movement, so that it swelled to a tide that promised to sweep all before it. Victor Hugo made the sage observation that “There is no greater force in the world than an idea whose time has come.” Hygiene was more than an idea. It was a complex of ideas, principles and practices whose time had come. In a few short years it had circled the globe.
No perfumed breath of Spring, no sparkling beauty of a morning in June, no sweet melody of mocking bird or nightingale, no exquisite joy of sense can stir the center of man’s being like the grasp of a new and vital truth. His whole being is quickened, his senses are new senses, his emotions[…]”
“Personal hygiene is an old, old story, but it was not until Sylvester Graham did so, that it was ever carried to the people with the fervor of a crusader. It was not until Jennings, Graham, Alcott and Trall came upon the scene that Hygiene was systematized, its principles developed and it was offered to the people as an all-sufficient way of life. There was beginning at that time a popular protest against the bleeding and heroic dosing practiced by the “regular” medical profession. Homeopathy and physio-medicalism arose in response to the demand for milder medication; while the Hygienic System came in response to and created or increased opposition to all medication whatsoever.”
“The principles and practices of the Hygienic School are new, original and independent. They have never hitherto, been written into the books of any of the schools of so-called healing, nor taught in any of their colleges, nor recognized by the various “healing” professions. While they are each and all in direct opposition to each and all of the fundamental principles on which popular so-called healing systems are based, they are demonstrably in harmony with the laws of nature. Hygiene reverses all of their doctrines and repudiates all of their practices. The Hygienic School is the first, and thus far the only school in the world that made the laws of life and the conditions of health the leading features of its teachings and practices.”
Excerpt From
The Science and Fine Art of Natural Hygiene
Herbert M. Shelton
This material may be protected by copyright.
Pg. 11
“Trall wrote in Science of Health, July 1872, that “Doctrines which are radical in theory, revolutionary in practice, and subversive of established usages and existing interests, must of necessity be opposed by the learned and refused by the illiterate. Before they can be generally accepted, or fairly investigated, the public mind must be re-educated. And it is a thousand times more difficult to dispossess it of its engrained errors and life-long prejudices than to educate it truthfully. Health Reform has experienced the adverse influences of all progressive movements; yet it has made more rapid strides towards universal recognition than any other great reformatory movement has done in the history of the world, in the same period of time.”
“In this same editorial he pointed out that “it is less than half a century since Dr. Jennings demonstrated by actual and extensive experiment, that all diseases can be treated more successfully without medicines than with them.” Then, coming to the actual establishment of the Hygienic System as a distinct school, with its own college, he says ‘the lectures and writings of Graham and Alcott had prepared many minds for investigating the new medical system.” It is not out of place to mention at this time that the number of its periodicals was great and the flow of books on the subject was phenomenal. The movement really made great inroads upon the popular drug system, which Trall said, in this same editorial, was “divided into several schools,” and “has existed for nearly three thousand years.” A great popular following was soon recruited and it continued to grow until it threatened the very existence of the drug schools, a fact attested by medical historians.”
Pg. 36
“FAITH
Faith is listed as an element of Hygiene by Jennings, Graham, Alcott, Trall, Jackson, Walter, Page and other early Hygienists. When all is said and approved of, there remains a place in the life of man for faith. Indeed, the fact that man has the power of faith and has always exercised it, even though not always wisely, is justification for faith. All of man’s powers are good when rightly used and, as faith is native to the human mind, it is an integral and necessary part of human life. But faith without skepticism (which is also native to the human mind) tends to degenerate into credulity and this is what we see happen in the lives of most of the people around us.”
“The discovery of truth is of small importance unless it is organized in life. Faith, which certainly serves a noble role in the life of man, should be no mere passive belief, but should find its expression in all the things that we do and leave undone. When it is thus made a part of our daily lives, when it thus becomes a living faith that, like all living things, manifests itself in works, it becomes fruitful in a thousand ways. Just as your prayer, “give us this day our daily bread,” will be answered if you do enough sweating of the brow, so your prayers for health will be answered if you put enough of the right kind of work into your effort to regain health. Just as your prayer for light will be answered if you but consent to open your eyes, so your prayer for strength will be answered if you will but meet the normal conditions of strength. But prayer and indolence will not take the place of exercise.”
Pg. 183
“Graham, more than any other man of the time or in the past, shaped the career of Trall. Trall early became an intimate friend of Graham and the student of the work of these two men can easily detect the hand of Graham in much of the work of Trall. Graham’s untimely death in 1851, at the age of only fifty-four, caused many to waver in their faith in the principles and practices for which he had labored so long. A weakling at the start of life, who had spent a sickly childhood in the hands of physicians who bled and drugged him heroically, a prodigious worker who did not spare himself, a man who did not stand criticism well, he may be thought to have done well to have lived as long as he did. But, in the light of more advanced knowledge which we possess today, it seems safe to say that Graham’s death came several years before it should have. “Cold bathing, as advocated by the hydropaths, continued even after he was too weak to walk to his bath, and a predominantly cereal diet, must have brought about his demise several years ahead of the age he would have died with more intelligent care of his body.
In 1822 in the state of Connecticut, a physician abandoned the practice of medicine and adopted a Hygienic practice. This was in the days before Graham had launched his crusade for hygienic living, before Trall had entered practice. Dr. Isaac Jennings had practiced regular medicine for twenty years, growing more skeptical of its alleged virtues all the while, until in that year, he discontinued giving drugs and began to rely upon hygiene. Dr. Oswald said of him that, he “goes into first principles much deeper than Trall or Alcott,” but thought that he made a mistake when he wrote his first book in permitting his indignation to get the better of his judgement. Oswald says that some of the chapters in the book “seem to be written with boiling ink.”
Pg. 184
“The view here expressed is that enervation is disease and, while he refers to “deranged action” in disease, he still regarded all action in disease as being as lawful and orderly as the actions seen in health, and as tending towards recovery. This is what is meant by the term Orthopathy, which he coined to express his conception of the essential nature of disease.
Trall escaped from the drugging plan of treating the sick by way of hydropathy; Jennings made his escape by way of placeboes. For twenty years he satisfied the faith of his patients in the power of potions to cure them by giving them bread pills, starch powders and colored water. Prof. James Munroe used to describe how Jennings would dispense a box of bread pills with explicit directions as to when and how they should be taken, at the same time giving much good advice as to diet and hygiene. His success was phenomenal. Indeed, so great was his success, no other physician could exist in the same region.”
“Finally, his conscience got the better of him and he confessed that he had no faith in drugs and would no longer make any pretense of giving them. This cost him much of his practice and after a few years (1837) he visited the perfectionist colony at Oberlin, Ohio, where he moved in 1839. He was a trustee of Oberlin College and served the city once as mayor. His drugless practice did not meet with much response from the people of Oberlin, and several years before his death, in pneumonia, March 13, 1874, he retired from practice.”
“Among professional men of his time, Dr. Jennings made, so far as I can find any record, but one convert. Dr. William Alcott, of Boston, became an advocate of the Jennings theories and practices and rejected those of the hydropaths. His work did greatly influence Trall, Jackson and such successors as Walter, Page, Oswald, and a few other men. Dr. Jennings was not a crusader, a fact that was very unfortunate for the early days of the Hygienic movement. If he had promulgated his views and practices with greater ardor and attacked the water cure system with more force, many mistakes of the early Hygienists may conceivably have been avoided. For, it must be said in all candor, that among the early Hygienists Jennings was the only one whose practice was strictly Hygienic, unless that of Alcott became so. In fact many of Trall’s graduates used “a little medicine,” being unable to get completely away from the drugging practice.”
“I have discussed the three men who played the largest roles in the evolution of the Hygienic System. Certain of their contemporaries and immediate successors added greatly to our knowledge and assisted in eliminating some of the early mistakes. Although I shall devote less space to these men, it is thought necessary to include information about them, in order that the reader may have a comprehensive grasp of the development of Hygiene.
William A. Alcott, M.D., cousin of Bronson Alcott, and the only professional convert to Jennings theories and practices of which we have a record, was born in Wolcott, Conn., August 6, 1798. His early life was spent on the farm; at the age of eighteen he began a career as a school teacher. “A strong desire to improve and elevate the schools led him to overtask himself.” Mr. Bernard’s Journal of Education states that he exerted himself so severely in this work and practiced self-denial to such an extent that he brought on “a most violent attack of erysipelas, from the effects of which, though he escaped with his life, he never entirely recovered. About this time he began the study of medicine and in the winter of 1825-26 attended medical lectures in New Haven.
He entered upon the study of medicine “not so much with the design of making it a profession, as with the hope that it might prove an aid in fitting him to become a more thorough teacher.” In March 1826, he received a license to practice medicine and surgery, but soon thereafter “found an opportunity to engage in teaching again, and embraced it eagerly.”
“His health rapidly failed and “severe cough and great emaciation,” “followed by hectic fever, and the most exhausting and discouraging perspirations,” compelled him to give up teaching and endeavor to regain his health. The “soundest medical advice failing him, “he abandoned medicine, adopted for a time the ‘starvation system,’ or nearly that, and threw himself, by such aids as he could obtain, into the fields and woods, and wandered among the hills and mountains.” Largely regaining his health, he returned to teaching, though his struggles with ill health continued until his death Tuesday, March 28, 1859.”
“When Graham lectured in Boston in 1832 a young medical student at Dartmouth attended his lectures and, after hearing them, gave up the study of medicine and became a newspaper man. After a period of travelling over the West and South as a newsman, he became editor of the New York Evening Herald. In 1840 Mary Gove, a remarkable woman who had been the first to answer the call for women to lecture to women on Grahamism, went to New York City to study the water cure under Dr. Joel Shew. She and Thomas Low Nichols, the editor who had given up the study of medicine after hearing Graham, were both active in the movement for Woman’s Rights and a few other movements of the time. They met and married. As women were not permitted, in those days to enter medical college and there were no other schools of “healing” to attend, Nichols decided to complete his studies of medicine, and get a license to practice so he could protect Mrs. Gove in her work. “He studied medicine at the University of New York under the famous Valentine Mott and graduated with high honors. He would often laugh to himself over the thought of the revolutionary purposes to which he was going to put the reactionary knowledge they dispensed at the University.”
Pg. 186
“On September 15, 1851, Dr. Nichols and Mary Gove opened the American Hydropathic Institute in New York City. This was a “medical school … for the instruction of qualified persons of both sexes, in all branches of a thorough medical education, including the principles and practices of Water Cure, in acute or chronic disease, surgery and obstetrics.” This was the first such school in America, perhaps in the world. It was the world’s first drugless college. Although called a Hydropathic Institute, its teachings were Hygienic. Hydropathy was practiced by practically all Hygienists at that time, the only known exceptions being Jennings and Alcott. Even Graham was misled by the claims of the hydropathic school. Hydropathy was taught in Trall’s college also.”
“Hydropathy was an effort at medical reform rather than a medical revolution. It employed water in various forms from steam to ice, and at all intermediate temperatures, applied in a wide variety of ways, both locally and generally, internally and externally, to secure the same results that medical men sought to obtain with their poisonous drugs. Today it puzzles the Hygienist to account for Trall’s failure to see in the actions of the body, when subjected to hot and cold applications, the same forms of resistance that he saw when drugs were administered. That he grew gradually and slowly away from hydropathy is true, but our present thought is that, had he given more attention to Jennings he would have made a more rapid and a more complete escape from the fallacies of the Water Cure School.”
Pg. 194
“The number of books and booklets issued that delt with Hygiene in general or with some particular phase of it was great and they had wide distribution. Numerous magazines were published monthly and semi-monthly. The Graham, Journal of Health and Longevity was issued twice a month. Alcott edited and published The Journal of Health and The Library of Health. Starting as The Water Cure Journal and Herald of Reforms, and edited and published originally by Dr. Joel Shew, this monthly magazine had the widest circulation of any of the magazines devoted to the promulgation of Hygiene. Acquired by the Fowler and Wells Pub. Co., which published most of the Hygienic literature of the period, Dr. Trall was made editor. Its name was changed to The Hygienic Teacher–and then to The Herald of Health. Purchased by Dr. Trall, it continued on as the Herald of Health until he sold it to two of his graduates who changed its name to The Herald of Health and Journal of Physical Culture. Under this name it continued in publication until nearly the close of the century.”
Pg. 195
“An extensive bibliography of Hygiene is given in the text of these volumes and it is not deemed necessary to reproduce it here. The most prolific Hygienic writers have been Graham, Alcott, Trall, Nichols, Walter, Tilden and, if I may be permitted to place my own name in this list, Shelton. Jennings, Page, Dodds, Oswald, Densmore, Carrington and Weger, have contributed valuable volumes to the literature of Hygiene. Of this list, Carrington and the present author are the only ones now living. Valuable contributions to Hygiene have been made by men and women who have never been associated with the Hygienic movement and have not been Hygienists. Among these are Dewey, Tanner, Hazzard and Moras of this country, Rabagliatti (England), Berg (Sweden), Lahmann (Germany), and Reinheimer (England). It must be added that Hygiene is confirmed by every genuine discovery in physiology and biology.”
Excerpt From
The Science and Fine Art of Natural Hygiene
Herbert M. Shelton
This material may be protected by copyright.
Graham, S., Trall. R., Shelton, H. (2009) The Greatest Health Discovery. Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.
Pg. 26
“Among professional men of his time, Dr. Jennings seems to have made but one convert. Dr. William Alcott of Boston became an advocate of the Jennings’ theories and practices and rejected those of the hydropaths. Jennings’ work did greatly influence such professional men as Drs. Trall, James Jackson and successors in the field of natural hygiene such as Robert Walter, Charles Page, Felix Oswald. Dr. Jennings, unfortunately, was not a crusader, a fact that was very harmful to the early days of the Hygienic Movement. Had he promulgated his views and practices with greater ardor and attacked the water cure system with more force, many mistakes of the early Hygienists may have conceivably been avoided.
Pg. 30
“The importance attached to the work of Graham is further attested by a statement made in this same editorial that the lectures and writings of Graham and Alcott had previously prepared the public mind for the investigation of a new mode of treatment. Here reference was made to hydropathy or the water cure, which was introduced into America from Germany in the early 1840’s.
Strong opposition developed immediately upon the first promulgation of the principles of physiological reform by Graham. Not only was he opposed by medical men, but by all others—tobacconists, brewers, distillers, saloon keepers, butchers, bakers, etc.—who saw their businesses threatened by the new doctrines. Ridicule and slander, distortion and untruth, were the chief methods employed. An attempt was made to mob Graham in Boston. It will be noted that in the case of Dr. Jennings, opposition did not develop immediately, primarily because the secret of his success was unknown, and both his patients and fellow physicians thought he was treating people with drugs.
Pg. 45
“It was three men, then—Jennings, Graham and Trall—together with Alcott, Taylor and others in this country, as well as Combe and Lamb in England, that set the world to thinking on Natural Hygiene.
Although far from being alone in the creation of the modern system of Hygiene, these three men may justly be said to have contributed most to our understanding of this field of knowledge and art. By a close and careful study of nature did all these men come to their knowledge. Hygiene represents a return to that pristine mode of living that emerged with man when he first appeared on the earth; it is a revival of “something previous that had been all but lost during the course of ages.”
“The movement initiated by Graham and Alcott and measurably contributed to by Mary Gove, and which was early joined by Dr. Jennings, represents the beginning of the Hygienic movement. The American Physiological Society numbered among its members in the various cities several medical men, but it is not known how many of them actually abandoned the drugging practice and confined themselves in the care of the sick to Hygiene.
This was only the beginning, and many subsequent men added their weight and thought and their experience to the evolution of Natural Hygiene.”
“William A. Alcott, M.D. and uncle of Louisa May Alcott (author of Little Women), was born at Wolcott, Connecticut August 6, 1798. His early life was spent on a farm. At the age of eighteen he began a career as a school teacher. A strong desire to improve and elevate the schools led him to overtax himself so severely and to engage in such self-denial that he brought on a very violent attack of erysipelas, some of the effects of which stayed with him throughout his life.
In the winter of 1825-26, Alcott entered upon the study of medicine, not with the design of making it a profession, but with the hope that it might prove an aid in fitting him to become a more thorough teacher. His health, however, rapidly failed and he was compelled to give up teaching, so that he might find a way to regain his health.”
“The “soundest medical advice” failing him, “he abandoned medicine and adopted for a time the ‘starvation system’, or nearly that, and threw himself by such aid as he could obtain, into the fields and woods and wandered among the hills and mountains.” His health improved to a great extent and enabled him to lecture far and wide on Hygiene and to do a great deal of writing. He died March 28, 1859.”
Pg. 49-50
“The Evolving Natural Hygiene Philosophy
Writing on the health reform movement in December 1853, Dr. Alcott designates the physiological as distinct from the hydropathic part of the movement. He mentions also that “our periodicals and our books also repudiate as absurd the idea of curing disease”, and that “all the elements of Hygiene and these only, are the true materia medica”. It is important that we keep these distinctions in mind.
The physiological reform had its origin in this country; hydropathy had its origin in Europe. The two movements mingled and ran along together for a time, but they were separate and distinct and must be understood in this way if we are to grasp, in clear outline, the evolution of the Hygienic System.
In an editorial in the Water Cure Journal May 1858, Trall speaks of those “who do not distinguish between water treatment and hygienic treatment”, thus setting the two systems apart from each other. When in 1851, Trall’s Hydropathic Encyclopedia was published, it was offered to the public as a “complete system of practical hydropathy and hygiene”.
Pg 52
“Opposition To The Hygienic Philosophy
Graham, Alcott, Gove, Trall and the many medical men who abandoned the drugging practice and adopted Hygiene, together with the graduates of Dr. Trall’s school, all made themselves missionaries to carry the message of Hygiene to the people and from the people they commonly received a respectful hearing.
Visiting Marietta, Pa. in August of 1861 to lecture to the people of that town, Trall contrasted the Hygienic System with the various drug systems of the day. The Mariettan of September 7, 1861 said of Trall’s lectures that they “were certainly very different from anything we ever heard in Marietta. The facts propounded by Dr. Trall with regard to the nature of disease and the action of medicines were altogether new to us. It is gratifying to be able to say that Dr. Trall’s visit has aroused a spirit of inquiry on the subject of health and disease which cannot be otherwise than beneficial to the community. Our country friends were so deeply interested in the dicussion, that some of them came every night six or seven miles to hear the Doctor. “The Friday evening’s lecture on ‘The Health and Diseases of Women’ was truly a masterly effort, and such as every man and woman throughout the country ought to hear. The lectures taken as a whole, were a treat of rare excellence.”
Announcing editorially in the Water Cure Journal December 1861 that he had arranged to leave New York for the great west to lecture, Trall took advantage of the occasion to invite the medical men of Peoria, Illinois, where he was scheduled to lecture, to discuss or debate the respective merits of the medical and Hygienic systems. He offered to prove the following propositions:
“1. The Drug-Medical System which they advocate and practice is false, untrue in philosophy, absurd in science, in opposition to nature, contrary to common sense, disastrous in results, a curse to the human race.
“2. The Hygienic Medical System which we endorse and practice is true—in harmony with nature, in accordance with the laws of the vital organism, correct in science, sound in philosophy, in agreement with common sense, successful in results, and a blessing to mankind.”
“No medical man came forward to meet this challenge. Medical men found it beneath their dignity to discuss such matters with men whom they denounced as quacks. Trall pointed out that all of the professors of the college were graduates of regular schools of medicine and were all licensed to practice medicine. They had, he said, everything that the medical profession had and Hygiene, in addition.”
Pg. 57
“Physiological Approach To Overcoming Chronic Disease
Writing in the Water Cure Journal October 1853, Charles Parker, M.D. said: “To my mind and feeling the change from the lancet and diseasing ratios of poisonous drugs, in which I was engaged many years, to a cure effective not only in heroic, but in acute disease, with a means so simple, and so much in accordance with the natural laws . . .” is a radical, but meaningful revolution.
Dr. Nichols said: “In chronic disease, the patient makes such steady progress, and gets so thorough an understanding in his case, as to soon get beyond the necessity of advice.” Better even than this, he said, is that when the patient gets well, he gets with his recovery the knowledge necessary to maintain his health forever after. Thus, he said, “a patient cured is a patient lost,” and if the patient is the head of a family, “don’t count on that family’s practice to meet your current expenses.”
“To employ Alcott’s explanation, Hygiene seeks “to lead the patient into a course of life, by which he can gain physical capital.”
Excerpt From
The Greatest Health Discovery
Sylvester Graham, Russell T. Trall, and Herbert M. Shelton
This material may be protected by copyright.
Shelton, Herbert. (1968). Natural Hygiene: The Pristine Way of Life Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.
Pg. 30
“As evidence of the influence exerted by the American movement upon European thought and practice, American Hygienic journals and books had a wide distribution in England. Trall, Nichols and Gove lectured in England, while Nichols and Gove published in England a magazine entitled, the Herald of Health. An abridged edition of Graham’s Science of Human Life was also published in that country. Theobald Grieben of Berlin published in the German language the following translations of books by American Hygienists: Tea and Coffee, by Alcott; Chastity, Science of Human Life and Fruits and Vegetables, by Graham; Science of Love, by Fowler; Diseases of the Sexual Organs, by Jackson; and Sexual Abuses, by Trall. A German translation of The Curse Removed by Nichols (a book on painless childbirth) was translated by a German physician and published in Germany. The physician played fast and loose with the translation and made Nichols recommend drugs in the German edition.
Pg. 32
“Hygienic Medication at the time this editorial was penned included the use of modalities of the “Water Cure;” whereas Graham’s recovery took place before Priessnitz had originated his water cure. The importance attached to the work of Graham is further attested by a statement made in this same editorial that the lectures and writings of Graham and Alcott had previously prepared the public mind for the investigation of a new mode of treatment. Here reference was had to hydropathy or the water cure, which was introduced into America from Germany in the early forties of the last century. Also, there is the statement made by Robert Walter, M.D., in an article in the January 1874 issue of The Science of Health, that “Sylvester Graham, with ‘The Science of Human Life,’ made a great step in advance; and, though some of his theories are not what later developments would approve, he nevertheless made a valuable attempt at systematization.”
Pg. 34
“Not by divine revelation, as so many have claimed for their “discoveries,” but by a close and careful study of nature did all these men come to their knowledge. Hygiene represents a return to that pristine mode of living that emerged with man when he first appeared on the earth; it is a revival of something precious that had been all but lost during the course of ages, thanks to the corrupting and perverting influences of shaman, priest, physician and trader. These, with their false systems and false teachings, have led the race astray. When and where ignorance and superstition have prevailed with all their mind-beclouding and debasing influences, there disease and crime abound.
These three men–Jennings, Graham and Trall–together with Alcott, Taylor and others in this country and Combe and Lamb in England set the world to thinking on Hygiene. They were great men, greater by far than were Napoleon or Alexander. Any man who gives the world valid ideas and elucidates genuine principles is a man whom the world most wants and will come, ultimately, to admire.”
“The Evolution of Hygiene
CHAPTER III
Important as individual effort undoubtedly is, there is always a need for organized effort and cooperative work in the promotion of any truth. This fact was early recognized in the Hygienic movement and in 1837 a group of Graham’s students founded in Boston the world’s first physiological society–The American Physiological Society. Physiology, at that time, was in its infancy and American physiology, in particular, hardly existed. William Beaumont had only a year or two before issued his work on the physiology of digestion. Claude Benard, the great French physiologist, was still unknown, while the German school of physiology was without influence in this country. It is hardly likely that a society of professional physiologists could have been formed anywhere in the world at that time. The American Physiological Society was formed nearly 50 years before physiologic science had advanced sufficiently to permit the formation of the Physiological Society in England and before a second American Physiological Society was formed in this country.
“These followers of Graham were not so much interested in physiological research, involving experiments upon animals, as in the promotion of a knowledge of physiology among the laity and the establishment of ways of living based upon physiology. Although it is not known whether Dr. William Alcott attended the first meeting of the Society, he did attend later meetings and became a member. On February 11, 1837, an organization meeting was held at which a constitution was adopted.”
Pg. 35
“The movement initiated by Graham and Alcott and measurably contributed to by Mary Gove, and which was early joined by Dr. Jennings, represents the beginning of the Hygienic movement. The American Physiological Society numbered among its members in the various cities several medical men, but it would carry us too far afield to list the names of these and it is not known how many of them actually abandoned the drugging practice and confined themselves in the care of the sick to Hygiene. This was only the beginning and many subsequent men, especially Trall, Taylor, Nichols and Jackson, added their weight and thought and their experience to the evolution of the new but old way of life.
Writing on the health reform movement in December 1853, Dr. Alcott designates the physiological as distinct from the hydropathic part of the movement. He mentions also that “our periodicals and our books also repudiate as absurd the idea of curing disease,” and that “all the elements of hygiene, and these only, are the true materia medica.” Alcott lectured far and wide on Hygiene. It is important that we keep these distinctions in mind. “The physiological reform had its origin in this country. Hydropathy had its origin in Europe. The two movements mingled and ran along together for a time, but they were separate and distinct and must be understood in this way if we are to grasp in clear outline the evolution of the Hygienic System.”
Pg. 36
“When, in 1853, Trall wrote that “all persons … whose living is physiologically bad, may rightfully consider themselves as the particular ‘shining marks’ at which Death levels his arrows,” he wrote after the theories of Graham, not those of Priessnitz. When people discontinued the use of tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol and animal foods, they were following Graham and Alcott, not Priessnitz.
Writing on what he called “A Chapter of ‘Water-Cure,’ ” in an article published in the September 1851 issue of the Journal, E. Potter, M.D., begins by saying: “Six years ago, this past winter, I commenced the study of Dr. Graham’s ‘Lectures on the Science of Human Life.’ ” Then he tells briefly of his previous mode of living, “his suffering and his use of drugs. Immediately after reading Graham, he made several radical changes in his way of life and he says: “I never felt so well in my life.”
Potter says that sometimes he strayed from the Graham System and that when he did so, he never failed to experience a physiological impairment proportioned to his departure. He tells us also that he had ceased to use drugs and that he had no occasion to use them. If this was a chapter on “water-cure” as understood by the practitioners of the time, what justification can be offered for crediting the man’s changed way of life and changed practices to the reading of the work of Graham? Certainly, Graham’s work was not a water-cure work and was published before the water-cure was introduced into America.”
Pg. 41
“Hydropathy
CHAPTER IV
The water-cure was introduced into America in 1844 by Joel Shew, M.D., who had gone to Austria to study the water-cure under Priessnitz. He was one of a number of American physicians who did this, among whom was Edward A. Kittredge, M.D., of Boston.
The introduction of hydropathy into this country occurred 22 years after Jennings had discarded the drugging system and adopted the Hygienic practice. Its introduction occurred 14 years after Graham launched his crusade and about an equal time after Alcott began lecturing and writing; it was nearly ten years after the founding of the first Physiological Society in Boston, seven years after the publication of the first issue of The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity and five years after the publication of Graham’s Science of Human Life. The Hygienic movement was already well established and had thousands of adherents at the time of the introduction of the water-cure into this country. Its books and magazines already had a wide circulation and others besides Graham, Gove and Alcott lectured to the people on Hygienic living.”
“Great numbers of physicians had lost confidence in drugs and took advantage of the water-cure as a means of escaping from the drugging system. Even though they adopted more or less of Hygiene in connection with their water-cure practices, they called their practice hydropathy and called themselves hydropathists. Hydropathy may be justly regarded as a convenient escape-hatch, as many physicians who turned to water-cure thought of water as an agent that could be made to take the place of drugs altogether. In other words, they professed to be able to do with water everything that they had formerly sought to do with drugs. As A. J. Compton, M.D., wrote in the Journal, December ber 1858: “Some hydropathists use water as a drug, imputing all the agency to the water; but such are only following in the beaten paths of drug-venders …”
Pg. 43
“On the whole, however, the water-cure institutions seemed to have been well conducted. Visiting several water-cure institutions in 1853, Dr. Alcott reported of them: “While I am not displeased with the forms and modes, I am particularly pleased with the spirit which prevails in many of the institutions for water-cure which, during the last two years, I have visited. I have found their conductors to be men of more general information and of more liberal spirit than I had supposed … The institution at Troy, New York, formerly, for a time, under the care of Dr. Bedortha, Dr. Jennings, and others, but now under the direction of P. P. Stewart, Esq., in some of its features, please me exceedingly …”
Once raised in the mind, one has no more power to lay down or lay aside an awakening doubt than a frightened girl has to dismiss a ghost. The doubt simply will not down; it is ever present with us. When a man begins to doubt the drug system, it is difficult to stop. “ Strange, is it not, how a new idea, interpenetrating one’s brain and getting within the range of one’s consciousness, quickens his whole sensibility and forces his intellect to act in spite of his prejudices and desires to the contrary. An example of the transforming power of a new idea is supplied us by Dr. Jackson’s conversion to hydropathy.”
Pg. 75
“OXYGEN
Air is the source of oxygen. A constant supply of oxygen is essential to life. Deprived of air, man dies in a few minutes. Yet, at the time that Graham, Jennings, Alcott, Trall, Gove, Nichols, Taylor and their co-workers labored, they had to fight, not only the ignorance and superstitions of the people, but that of the medical profession as well to secure recognition of the need for fresh air. Through the furnace-heated, carpeted and curtained rooms, whose walls were lined with pictures and on whose floors were arranged fine furniture, there seldom stirred a breath of fresh air. People lived in unventilated homes, slept in unventilated bedrooms, while the sick were denied fresh air upon the order of their physician. Fear of night air, cold air, damp air and draughts was practically universal. Birds, beasts and savages might live in the open air, but civilized man required the staleness of unventilated households and workshops if he was to maintain health.”
Pg. 81-82
“Animal fats were particularly objectionable to the early Hygienists, these objections beginning with Graham and Alcott. Vegetable fats were considered superior to animal fats, but were not regarded as essential elements of the diet, except as they form natural parts of foods, such as the oil of nuts, the avocado, etc. Trall said: “Olive oil is not recommended as necessary or useful, but as preferable to lard or butter. We do not teach nor believe in the principle of greasing food in any manner, nor of shortening it in any degree.”
It is noteworthy that modern researches have fully confirmed the position of the early Hygienists on the eating of fats. These have shown that the fatty acids of fruits, nuts and other vegetable sources, by virtue of their formulae, belong to a group that are described as poly-unsaturated, while the fats of butter, milk, lard and other animal fats are heavily saturated. The saturated fats are used with difficulty by the human organism and today are accused of being partly responsible for high blood cholesterol, atherosclerosis, high blood pressure and, ultimately, heart disease. “Two striking exceptions to this rule with reference to vegetable fats are found in the oils of chocolate and the coconut. The oils of nuts, the avocado, sunflower seed, peanuts, the soybean, and of grains are much better adapted to human use than the fats of beef, sheep, pigs, dairy products, etc.”
Pg. 144-45
“Nichols said that: “In chronic disease, the patient makes such steady progress, and gets so thorough an understanding of his case, as to soon get beyond the necessity of advice.” Better even than this, he said, is that when the patient gets well, he gets with his recovery the knowledge necessary to maintain his health forever after. Thus, he said, “a patient cured is a patient lost,” and if the patient is the head of a family, “don’t count on that family’s practice to meet your current expenses.” So-called local treatment is a mere treatment of symptoms. Hygiene is constitutional in its influence, rather than local. To employ Alcott’s explanation, Hygiene seeks “to lead the patient into a course of life, by which he can gain physical capital.”
An example of the constitutional approach to the problems presented by chronic disease may be found in the Hygienic care of the patient suffering with worms in the digestive tract. The reasoning of physicians about worms in the intestines was direct and conclusive: the worms must be killed. Thereupon, they dosed their patients with vermifuges–poisonous drugs–hoping thereby to kill the worms without killing their hosts. They rarely injured[…]”
Pg. 147
“It was the conception of many Hygienists that the idea that serves as the true basis of the program of restoring health is radically different from that which seeks deliberately to produce crises. The sensibilities and powers of the living organism do not require to be wrought upon in certain cases, nor in any case by causes of extraordinary power, differing totally from the fixed conditions upon which vital activities depend. In health, the congeries of vital parts of which the organism is composed act in harmony; this harmony is not to be restored by violence when lost. In the light of Hygiene, the restoration of the adjusting powers are not promoted by disturbing causes, derived from whatever source. The chief object of remedial care should be rather to restore the disturbed harmony of consensual parts. The conditions of this harmony or health are founded in nature and are not subject to the fitful variations that our ignorance or perversity respecting these matters would seem to imply. Hygiene, theoretically at least, interdicts disturbing causes, derived from whatever source. “The resources of the prescriber are limited to just those principles and conditions as together evolve life and not sickness, only in some needful variations of their proportions. It fritters away none of the precious vital capacities for insignificant or inappropriate or useless purposes. It merely affords the proper scope and just direction while the obstacles that would circumvent the desired object are removed and health is silently and unostentatiously restored.
Jennings and Graham did not discuss crises and must have thought very little of them. Alcott, also, ignores their supposed need. I once asked Dr. Tilden what he thought of this assumed need for crises and he replied that, under rational care, they are of rare development. Trall discussed, but did not stress them. Walter and Page never stressed them. In general, I think it correct to say that Hygienists were not enamored by the doctrine that critical actions are always essential to recovery from chronic disease.”
Pg. 149
“Any influence or indulgence that further enervates and inhibits excretion will precipitate a crisis and this is as true of methods of treatment as of habits of living. The heroic use of cold application can precipitate a crisis (by inhibiting excretion) as certainly as can overeating or dissipation. In either event, while the crisis serves to free the body of a part of its load of toxins–hence, is beneficial–it does not succeed in restoring health for the reason that the enervating mode of living or treatment is continued. The thing that Dr. Taylor objected to most in his article was the practice of water-cure practitioners of deliberately seeking to induce crises. He recognized that they were doing this by reducing the functioning powers of the body and thereby increasing the toxic load it was carrying.
All of this serves to confirm our oft-repeated statement that had the early Hygienists given more attention to Jennings, Graham and Alcott and less to Priessnitz, Schrodt and Rausse, Hygiene would have fared better.”
Pg. 198
“The Evils of Drug Medication”
“Are the poisons of the physician necessary to save life, or do they destroy life? Is man so constituted that some certain and irremediable evil must be produced on him to produce in him some uncertain good? Is poisoning the sick not contrary to all the requirements of natural law; is it not abhorrent to the very nature of man, hateful to every living thing? Mothers, before you consent to poison the life-springs of your precious darlings, for whom you have suffered and worked, let us assure you that there is no need for and no good to come out of this poisoning for anyone. Hygienists have publicly protested for nearly a century and a half against the monstrous absurdity of attempting to cure disease by agents the natural effects of which upon living structures are destructive.
Dr. Alcott describes his thoughts at the bedside of a typhoid patient who had been treated allopathically. After saying that he “saw very clearly” that what the patient needed most “was rest and sleep,” he records his thoughts about the drugs at the bedside. “What does all this mean,” he asked himself. “Why all this array of war-like implements? What indication is there of the necessity of alcohol, quinine, morphine, opium, ipecac, nitre, &c.? He is burning with fever; shall we add fuel to the fire?”
Dr. Alcott reports that he discontinued the drugging and permitted the patient to have all the water desired to drink and that immediate improvement followed. If the sick individual is cared for kindly and in strict accord with the genuine needs of life under the circumstances, the illness should be of short duration; however, it is often prolonged and life destroyed by mistaken efforts to cure. The idea that disease can be cured and that it should be cured has enabled physicians to kill more people than “war, pestilence and famine combined.”
“We do not deny that the regular practices of bleeding and antiphlogistication, in dealing with fever patients, were not without apparent successes. But this did not prove that the stimulations were good per se. It only proved that it is the least of two evils. We do not hesitate to say that 95 percent of the people who die in this country each year die needlessly.”
Pg. 218
“It was noted in the Journal, April 1861, that wherever a knowledge of the laws of life and health had penetrated, the sick had occasion to rejoice. It should not surprise us, therefore, that Graham, as all innovaters that attack old dogmas and substitute vital truths in their stead, was assailed by the slaves of precedent as well as by those who profitted from old evils. The assault upon Graham became more bitter as his teachings became more popular, and although he has been dead for over a hundred years, the medical profession still, when it condescends to notice him at all, disparages him and his teachings and refuses to acknowledge that they themselves have adopted, in their own ways of life, much that he taught.”
“Graham, Alcott, Gove, Trall and the many medical men who abandoned the drugging practice and adopted Hygiene, together with the graduates of Trall’s school, all made themselves missionaries to carry the message of Hygiene to the people and from the people they commonly received a respectful hearing. Visiting Marietta, Pa., in August of 1861 to lecture to the people of that town, Trall contrasted the Hygienic System with the various drug systems of the day. The Mariettan of September 7, 1861, said of Trall’s lectures that they “were certainly very different from anything we ever heard in Marietta. The facts propounded by Dr. Trall with regard to the nature of disease and the action of medicines were altogether new to us. It is gratifying to be able to say that Dr. Trall’s visit to Marietta has aroused a spirit of inquiry on the subject of health and disease which cannot be otherwise than beneficial to the community. Our country friends were so deeply interested in the discussion, that some of them came every night six or seven miles to hear the Doctor. “The Friday evening’s lecture, on ‘The Health and Diseases of Women,’ was truly a masterly effort, and such as every man and woman throughout the country ought to hear. The lectures taken as a whole, were a treat of rare excellence.”
No one at all acquainted with the history of mankind should be surprised that lectures of this type should arouse the opposition of the medical profession of the time. In spite of their opposition, expressed in many ways, they refused to meet the issue in public discussion.”
Pg. 228
“With the exceptions of Sylvester Graham and Mary Gove, the earlier Hygienists were all medical men, coming from one or the other of the four medical schools (allopathy, homeopathy, physio-medicalism, eclecticism). Growing dissatisfied with and losing all confidence in the poisoning practices, they abandoned drugging and took up other forms of practice.
Dr. Jennings escaped from the drugging practice by way of bread pills. Dr. Trall escaped from the drugging practice by way of the water cure-hydropathy. Most of the early Hygienists found their way out of what Dr. Alcott called the wilderness of pills and powders by floating down a stream of water. All too often the escape hatch became the outer world. Hygiene and hydropathy became so intermingled and confused that it was not possible to tell where one ended and the other began. With the exception of Jennings and Alcott, physicians were content to be known as hydropathists. Not all the water-cure practitioners became Hygienists. The two movements are so confused during the forties of the last century that separation is difficult and not always possible.”
“There came a time, however, in the fifties, when Trall and a large number of men recognized the need for another and more accurately descriptive name. The call went out for a name, one that would be acceptable, alike to the profession and to the public. Many names were proposed, such as hygieotherapy, medical hygiene, etc.; but finally the simple term Hygiene was settled upon. The New York legislature chartered Trall’s college in 1857 as a college of hygieo-therapy, the term therapia being employed with the original Greek meaning “to attend” or “wait upon.”
Pg. 246-47
“The Hygienic movement cannot be all things to all men. It can be only one thing and all mankind must accept it in its purity and integrity or suffer for its lack of intelligent application of the only saving force in existence. Only the Hygienic movement, guided by its unswerving adherence to the valid principles of life and its deep sense of responsibility to the peoples of earth gives to the struggle for health freedom the importance it deserves. Only the Hygienic movement truly reveals the inner workings of the medical system.
Alcott gave it as his opinion that all systems of medicine were leading us “to one grand issue.” He said: “Within a short time–it may be five hundred years, for that in history is a short time, but it may be in 50–all sensible and truly learned medical men, as a general rule, will give no medicine at all.” By medicine, in this instance, he meant drugs. “But he was mistaken in thinking that the drugging systems can lead mankind into true practices and into a knowledge of the truth about life and living.
Although at present Hygienists represent a small minority group in our country and in the world, we are the only group with a program that represents the genuine welfare of the people. Though our times are temporarily dark and troublesome, we can hear the guardian genius, Hygiene, proclaiming as with a voice of thunder, “All will be well.”
Excerpt From
Natural Hygiene: The Pristine Way of Life
Herbert M. Shelton
This material may be protected by copyright.
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