CHAPTER 3 TEMPERANCE AND DIET REFORMS

NOT ALONE in the field of hydrotherapy and rational methods of treatment of disease was the foundation laid for reform. The same is true in the field of temperance and of diet.SHM 38.1

In 1785 there appeared a pamphlet entitled “Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits,” penned by Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. A graduate of medical schools of Princeton, New Jersey, and Edinburgh, Scotland, the author had attained a position of eminence in the medical profession in the United States and was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania.SHM 38.2

“It is from this man, holding medals and honors from the crowned heads of Europe, whose activities covered so wide a field, whose interests were so humanitarian—it is from this man that the drinking customs of society received their first effectual rebuke. His pen, so busy on other themes also, arrested attention.”—August F. Fehlandt, A Century of Drink Reform in the United States, 25. New York: Eaton and Mains, 1905.SHM 38.3