A Campaign for Diet Reform

An active campaign in behalf of diet reform and the adoption of a vegetarian diet was waged also in the United States. In 1835 Dr. William A. Alcott, of Massachusetts, began the publication of The Moral Reformer as an organ of healthful dietetics. Dr. Milo L. North, a practitioner of Hartford, Connecticut, had become interested in the matter of diet, especially of the reported benefits of vegetarianism. He compiled a questionnaire, asking those who had discarded the use of flesh foods to state the effect upon their strength, their mental acumen, their susceptibility to colds, and any ailments they might have had. He also asked an opinion as to whether either laborers or students, or both, would be benefited by the exclusion of animal food from their diet.SHM 44.2

This questionnaire was published in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal and in The American Journal of Medical Science. Several other papers copied it. Thus it was circulated generally throughout the country. Replies were received from various parts of the United States, many of them from medical men. Dr. Alcott published various of these replies, with suitable remarks upon their almost unanimous agreement as to the benefits of the change they had made in their diet, thus building up a strong argument in favor of a vegetarian regimen. (Dr. William A. Alcott, Vegetable Diet, as Sanctioned by Medical Men, and Experience in All Ages. New York: Fowler and Wells, 1849.)SHM 44.3

At the age of thirty Sylvester Graham (1794-1849) entered the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. In his early years he had been afflicted with tuberculosis. The state of his health was a factor in arousing his interest in the temperance cause which was then coming into prominence, and he made a special study of anatomy and physiology. In 1832 he began to lecture, advocating a comprehensive system of healthful living. At first he set forth these principles as a preventive of cholera, and it is said that “thousands followed his advice with beneficial results.” He continued lecturing with great success and was always well received and very impressive. (Sylvester Graham, M.D., Lectures on the Science of Human Life, 3. New York: Fowler and Wells, 1851.) In 1833 he started a paper called The Graham Journal, which was published monthly in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1839 his lectures appeared in book form, and despite the size of the volume (650 pages) and the fact that it was printed in small type, it was widely read and discussed. (Ibid., 4.)SHM 45.1

And so the terms “Grahamites,” “Graham hotels,” “Graham bread,” and “bran eaters” were facetiously applied in reference to the followers of the popular lecturer, to the caravansaries where they might obtain the reform diet, or to the loaves made from unbolted flour. A well-selected dietary from vegetable products was set forth as an aid in maintaining health and longevity. In Graham’s Lectures on the Science of Human Life, page 9, is quoted a review of his book:SHM 45.2

“The bold originality of thought which pervades the lectures before us, and their perfect freedom from those errors into which most writers who treat on the same subject have fallen by following too implicitly the dogmas of their predecessors, constitute one of their chief recommendations.”—Bell’s Select Library and Eclectic Journal of Medical Science.SHM 46.1