One of the most diverting aspects of life in America these days is the unprecedented intensity and passion with which Americans appear to be pursuing the holy grail of perfect health. And this is nothing new, almost part of the cultural DNA…
—John H. Kellogg changed the world’s answer to that question when he filed for a patent for his newly invented wheat-and-grain-flaked cereal on this date in 1895.—click image for source…
Vegetarianism has deep roots in American history. At a vegetarian convention in New York in 1850, Dr. William A. Alcott, the prominent Boston physician and prolific writer on hygiene, announced from the chair that “a vegetable diet lies at the basis of all reform.” Not long afterward, Horace Greeley presided over a vegetarian feast at which the honored guests were several eminent reformers, including Lucy Stone, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas L. Nichols, a leading advocate of bloomers, spiritualism, and free love. William Alcott’s cousin, Bronson Alcott, founded a short-lived community called Fruitlands, which was run on such uncompromising vegetarian lines that when a member was discovered to have been caching butter in her bureau drawer she was summarily expelled.
—Quackery grew in fashion because its ideas reflected the spirituality of the period. While the many quack movements differed in what they advocated, all complemented America’s 19th century Romantic philosophy that the country was a chosen place with a special purpose in history, that rejuvenation of the individual would produce rejuvenation of the country, that health and happiness were available to everyone, and that the body and mind were linked. When quackery mixed with religious revivalism and social reform at mid cen- tury, it gained huge followings.
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The first popular quackery movement in America was Thomsonianism, founded by Samuel Thomson (1769– 1843). He believed disease resulted from a clogged system and was cured by purging and sweating. But unlike heroic doctors, Thomson opposed mineral purgatives like Calomel in favor of distillates of native American vegetables, and eschewed bloodletting. He received a patent for his “system” in 1813 which he promoted in Thomsonian Materia Medica and A New Guide to Health. While he was highly critical of formal medical training for doctors, in 1840 he opened his own Botanic Medical College in Columbus, Ohio. This is one of many examples of how quack movements assumed the trappings of traditional medicine to improve credibility.—click image for source…
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…One of the earliest of these so-called experts was Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Yes, that’s the same Kellogg whose name is on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and other cereals. Kellogg was a doctor who ran a “sanitarium,” or health clinic, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Large numbers of wealthy people traveled there and followed Kellogg’s nutty ideas about diet and health. Some of his advice included all-grape diets and almost hourly enemas. (An enema is a cleansing of the bowel in which . . . Oh, never mind.) He followed the enemas with doses of yogurt, applied to York Times Magazine said that carbs make you fat. Suddenly millions of Americans gave up bread and other carbohydrates and started eating mainly meat. Fifty years from now that diet might seem as crazy as Kellogg’s enemas. the digestive tract from both ends. (Half was eaten and the other half was . . . Well, you can figure it out.)…
…Around the same time, millions of Americans got caught up in the fad called “Fletcherizing.” This involved chewing each bite of food as many as one hundred times. It was named after its inventor, a man named Horace Fletcher, also known as the Great Masticator.
It’s easy to make fun of the people who paid good money to follow his advice. But are we really so much smarter today? Food fads still come and go with alarming speed: A scientific study, a new government guideline, a lone crackpot with a medical degree can change our nation’s diet overnight…Read More:http://mr.banino.net/7_Physical_Science/corecurriculum_project/
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