Dr. Susanna Way Dodds - Excerpts - National Health Association

Dr. Susanna Way Dodds – Excerpts

Excerpts

Graham, S., Trall. R., Shelton, H. (2009) The Greatest Health Discovery. Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.

Pg 12

“The development of the philosophy of Natural Hygiene was pioneered in the 19th century mainly by medical doctors, including Sylvester Graham, Mary Gove, Isaac Jennings, Russell Thacker Trall, Robert Walter, Thomas Low Nichols, Susanna Way Dodds, James Caleb Jackson, Charles E. Page, and John Henry Tilden.

This book is about those pioneers, their work in the evolution of Natural Hygiene, and the Hygienic Movement they founded to bring this great health discovery before the people, about the 20th century Hygienic movement, and ends with a look into the future and the glorious health potential that awaits humanity through Natural Hygiene.”

Excerpt From

The Greatest Health Discovery

Sylvester Graham, Russell T. Trall, and Herbert M. Shelton

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Pg 19

“SUSANNA WAY DODDS, M.D.

The mother who sets before her children spiced and highly seasoned food, has little idea what she is doing. No mother’s son ever fell a victim to drink, or even to the tobacco habit, until the way had been well paved by stimulants in food. It is in our homes where the children are reared, that all true reforms ought to begin. The young man whose body has always been nourished with food that is free from stimulants and otherwise wholesome, will not easily fall a prey either to tobacco or alcohol. He will have no taste for them; he will positively dislike them.

Pg 64

Dr. Walter entitled his magazine The Laws of Health; later the title was changed to Health. Dr. Dodds published a magazine under the name of The Sanitarian. Albert Turner, who was for years with the Fowler and Wells Publishing Company and associated with Trall on the staff of The Science of Health, founded and published Health Culture Magazine, which during the first thirty years of its existence, at least, was a Hygienic publication. As previously mentioned, Dr. Tilden had a Hygienic publication under the various names of The Stuffed Club, Philosophy of Health, and Dr. Tilden’s Health Review and Critique.”

“Everywhere the trend was away from hydropathy and the emphasis was placed upon Hygiene and health.

The argument has been made that Dr. Trall was a hydropath and that his Encyclopedia proves it. The argument would have been true if Dr. Trall had not lived for 26 years after the book was published, during which time his philosophy and practice underwent considerable evolution to Hygiene.”

Pg 71

“Physiological Approach To Convalescence

The early Hygienists were well aware of the advantage and superiority of Hygienic care over drug treatment during the convalescent period. Dr. Susanna W. Dodds tells us that Dr. Trall, in lectures before his classes in the College, repeatedly cautioned against overtaxing their patients. Again and again, he warned them against making extra demands upon the energy and resources of their patients when there was no need for such demands. He insisted that the energy of the patient be conserved in every way possible, and extended this to the period of convalescence. For example, Dr. Dodds tells us, employing typhoid fever as an illustration, that Trall emphasized that in convalescence there is little or no need for “treatment”. When the crisis is passed in all acute diseases, even if there should be a slight recurrence of fever, he would slacken or discontinue even the little treatment, in the form of hydropathic applications, that he employed.”

“Conservation of the energy and resources of the patient was the secret of the successes of Jennings, Walter, Tilden, Weger and others who have been so outstandingly successful in their care of the sick. None of these men sought to cure disease; rather, each of them recognized that over feeding, over bathing, over sunning, over exercising and aggravating patients in any way, overtaxed them and retarded or prevented recovery.

“Many a patient,” Dodds quoted Trall as saying, “has been killed by giving treatment that was too heroic after the critical action had passed.” He insisted that “no extra demand upon the patient” be made during the post-critical stage. She adds that he applied the same rule of conservation to all feeble people, whether well or ill, reminding his students again and again that the only capital they had to work with was the vitality of the patient and to waste this was to diminish the chances of recovery. No part of the patient’s organism was ever to be taxed.

Pg 73

“The part played by Mrs. Gove, Harriet Austin, M.D., Susannah W. Dodds, M.D., and other women Hygienists in the dress reform movement, though important, must be viewed against a background of the total Hygienic movement. Dr. Austin and Dodds discarded the regular female attire and wore pants, a daring thing for a woman to do in those days, but it took daring to be a Hygienist of any kind.

Regarding the position of Hygienists on female doctors, Augusta Fairchild, M.D. said in the Water Cure Journal, October 1861: “Comets were once looked upon as omens of war. Female doctors may be viewed in very much the same light, for wherever they have made their appearance, a general uprising of the people to welcome them, and the most vigorous attempt of the regular masculine dignitaries of the ‘profession’ to quell the ‘insurrection’ have been the result.”

Pg 74

“Perhaps the most outstanding woman graduate of the Hygeio-Therapeutic College was Susannah Way Dodds, M.D. whose writings and lectures upon the subject of Hygiene constitute a valuable addition to Hygienic literature. Her monumental work is Drugless Medicine (1915). Together with her sister-in-law, Mary Dodds, M.D. she founded the Hygienic College of Physicians and Surgeons in St. Louis, Missouri in 1887.”

Pg 75-76

“The college opened by Dr. Nichols and his wife, Mary Gove, admitted both sexes to its courses. At that time, there was not a medical school in the world that admitted women as students and there was the strongest opposition in the medical profession to women becoming physicians.

Another college was founded in St. Louis, Mo. in 1887 by Susanna Way Dodds, M.D. which at first offered a three year course, but later was expanded to four years. Dr. Dodds says that the college was not endowed so that after seven years of operation it was forced to close. In addition to Hygiene, the college taught obstetrics and surgery, and sufficient theory and practice of allopathic medicine to enable its graduates to pass the medical board examinations. Unfortunately, this was the only attempt to establish a college of Hygiene after the death of Trall.

“It was not until the rise of osteopathy that any of the schools graduated its students with any degree other than that of Doctor of Medicine.

The schools founded by Nichols, that of Trall and Dodds, all conferred the degree of medicine upon their graduates. This was a very unfortunate mistake. Hygienists should have differentiated themselves from all of the schools of so-called healing (medicine) in every possible manner. They should have repudiated the term physician and the phrase Hygienic Medication.”

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).”

Pg 22

“Women in Hygiene

Women were a vital part of the Hygienic Movement. In 1852, Russell Trall, M.D., established a school based on Hygienic principles, the New York Hygeio-Therapeutic College, in New York City. Men and women were admitted on an equal basis. The first women physicians in America graduated from this school, including Harriet Austin, M.D., a close friend of Clara Barton, and Mary Walker, M.D. (1832-1919). Dr. Walker, who was a champion of women’s causes, served in the Civil War and was the first (and only) woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

“Mary Gove (1810-1884) and Susanna Way Dodds, M.D., also founded colleges that taught Hygiene and admitted both men and women. Gove and her husband, Thomas Low Nichols, M.D., established the American Hydropathic Institute in New York City in 1851. Dr. Dodds, together with her sister-in-law, Mary Dodds, M.D., founded the Hygienic College of Physicians and Surgeons in St. Louis, Mo. in 1887. Harriot Austin, M.D.”

Pg 23

“Dodds, Gove, and Austin were at the forefront of sex education for women and children, human rights, women’s rights, and clothing reform for women. The clothes worn by women of that period were horrific. Stiff whalebone corsets and long dresses inhibited breathing and greatly restricted movement. Even before the Civil War, Austin and Dodds were advocating and wearing slacks as a matter both of health and equality. (Gove wore bloomers.) Gove also spoke out against slavery and the marriage laws of the period that denied women many basic rights.”

Excerpt From

The Natural Hygiene Handbook

James Michael Lennon and Susan Taylor

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Shelton, Herbert. (1974). Fasting For Renewal of Life. Youngstown. National Health Association

Pg 36

“Observations reveal that these “poison-hunger” symptoms are most marked in heavy eaters of highly seasoned viands. The more one is addicted to salt, condiments, coffee, tea, etc., the more severe are these symptoms. The man who eats simple fare escapes them entirely. We also know that these sensations are likely to be most severe in the diseased.”

“Dr. Susanna W. Dodds insisted that “The sense of all-goneness in these cases is not from a lack of nutrient material, but owing to the absence of the habitual stimulus.” No person,” wrote Dr. Chas. E. Page, “feels faint upon passing a meal, or has a gnawing stomach, except it be occasioned by an irritated and unduly congested state of that organ. It is a sure proof of dyspepsia (using this term in its popular sense, as implying the condition of that organ). Strictly speaking, the term is a synonym for indigestion.” Dr. Page well says, “A craving appetite should be treated as a morbid symptom, and should weigh in favor of abstinence.” “False hunger,” “habit hunger,” “poison hunger,” and similar phrases are misnomers. The term hunger should be reserved for the normal demand for food and some other and more appropriate term should be employed to designate those abnormal sensations that are commonly mistaken for hunger. All efforts to define or to describe hunger in the terms of pathology, as though it were a symptom of disease or itself a disease, must mislead.”

Shelton, Herbert. (1934). The Science and Fine Art Fasting – The Hygienic System: Volume III National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.

Pg 243

“Those who feel a gnawing in the stomach, as they describe it, should know that this is not hunger but a morbid symptom. Instead of eating to palliate the symptom, they should fast until they are comfortable. Irritation of the stomach, due to indigestion, is frequently mistaken for a desire to eat. That eating affords relief from these symptoms proves that they were hunger in the same way that a shot of morphine proves that the pains of the addict are genuine demands for morphine.”

“Dr. Susanna W. Dodds had quite an extensive experience with fasting and her observations are worthy of consideration. She says that “the sense of all-goneness in these cases is not from lack of nutrient material, but owing to the absence of the habitual stimulus” (1883, p. 87). If an orthodox writer were considering these same symptoms in dealing with drug addiction, he would call them “withdrawal symptoms.” In the case of the supposedly hungry person, they are commonly due to the withdrawal of salt, pepper and other condiments, and irritants or stimulants usually taken with food. Why have physiologists consistently refused to consider the observations of those who have had greatest opportunity to observe the sensation and evidences of hunger? Why should headache be considered hunger? Why is it ever associated with hunger? It is true that eating will sometimes “relieve” a headache, just as the accustomed cup of coffee will do the same. In these cases, is it the food or the drug that is taken with the food that “relieves” the ache? So long as we refuse to separate our foods from our drugs, how can we know whether we are suffering the symptoms of the disease called hunger or the withdrawal symptoms of a poison disease—addiction? Why shall we continue to define a normal sensation of the living organism in terms of symptoms of pathology?”

Pg 264

“As pointed out before, whatever the explanation of the feeling of chilliness, it has nothing to do with the actual temperature of the body, which may really be above normal. Dodds (1901) says of it: “A curious thing in this cold paroxysm is a rise in temperature (which the fever thermometer will detect) sometime before the chilling stage begins” (p. 44).

Pg 379

“Dodds, Susanna W. The diet question. NY: Health-Culture, 1883.

Dodds, Susanna W. The liver and the kidneys. Passaic, NJ: Health-Culture, 1901.”

Excerpt From

The Science and Fine Art of Fasting

Herbert M. Shelton

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Shelton, Herbert. (1934). The Science and Fine Art of Natural Hygiene – The Hygienic System: Volume I. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.

Pg 11

“Hygiene brings with it changes and the old order ever resists the changes that are required by the new. The fundamental change that is necessary will prove revolutionary, destroying vast fortunes of invested wealth, scrapping whole libraries of medical literature, and changing our whole manner of thinking about health, disease and healing. Such a revolution will be resisted to the last drop of energy by those whose vested interests are threatened.

The set-back received by the movement from the Civil War, the panic of the seventies, the failure of the college and the death of Trall was long in being recovered from. Indeed, the movement was almost in a state of suspended animation from the eighties of the last century till the twenties of this. There were workers and publications, but no concerted effort on the part of the workers. Every man was working as a free lance. Dr. Susanna W. Dodds did establish another college a few years after the death of Trall, but it was short lived.”

Pg 180

“As Trall grew with the years he employed less and less of hydrotherapy and more and more of Hygiene, so that, starting as a hydropathic physician, he evolved into a Hygienist. Dr. Susanna W. Dodds, one of his graduates, says of him in her masterly work on Hygeieo-Therapy: “In the history of this world-wide reform the fact must ever remain, that while Hydropathy paved the way for the introduction of Hygieotherapy, it was Trall who reduced the new methods to a science. He combined in one great system the use of all the hygienic agents; though many of his best thoughts on dietetics, etc., were derived from Dr. Sylvester Graham, who was his intimate friend, and perhaps equally talented. Trall once said of Graham that he came as near discovering the truth of Hygieo-therapy as any one could, not to do it.”

“As I shall deal with Graham later, but few words may be said of him at this point. It seems necessary to point out here that when Trall added “Grahamism” to hydropathy, he added “every hygienic procedure available,” for Graham had considered all phases of hygiene. Graham missed the discovery of “Hygeiotherapy,” not so much by any omissions of hygienic factors in his program of care of the body as in certain parts of his theoretical considerations. It must be said, in all fairness to the man, also, that, not being a physician, but a preacher, he devoted more attention to the care of the healthy person, to the end that he shall remain healthy, than to the care of the sick.

Pg 181

“Dr. Dodds says of Trall that: “The mind of Trall was strictly analytical; he examined his premises carefully, and conclusions were logically drawn. The doctrines that he advanced, whether in Life Illustrated, the Water Cure Journal, or in his books, were not only interesting and instructive, but sensational. No such brilliant thinking on these subjects had ever before been done. The consequence was, that his writings, though revolutionary and schismatic, were carefully studied and often severely criticised. Trall was in the zenith of his intellectual powers. His thoughts were clean cut, his arguments forcible; and woe to the adversary who challenged him to debate. He always came out victor. The truth as he portrayed it was so self-evident, that his readers wondered why these things had not occurred to them before. “By his admirers he was loved and venerated in the highest degree; by his adversaries he was hated, and often misrepresented. But in the work to which he gave his life he was without a peer; and the principles that he has left behind him will remain as a perpetual legacy to mankind. Through his writings alone, the name of Trall will long be an honored word in this and other lands. There are thousands yet unborn, who will live to do him honor, to render that tardy justice, which, though it come late, is due to the brave and fearless pioneer of a great reform.

“Distrusting the theories and practices of his profession, Trall began an investigation of the premises of medicine and their relations to nature and finding them, as he says, “self-evident absurdities,” set himself the task of discovering the premises that must underlie a true system of caring for the well and the sick. Thus, he was both an iconoclast and a builder. Without a doubt he was one of the most prodigious workers who ever lived; and it is largely due to his untiring labors that the Hygienic movement made the progress it did in the early days of its history. He was an investigator, missionary, crusader, scholar, thinker, writer, lecturer, professor, editor and a doctor, all tied up in one dynamic bundle.

“He undertook, in the words of Dr. Dodds, “a work so extensive that it could scarcely be compassed by a single mind. First he must shake the public confidence in an institution venerable with age, its history reaching far back into the shadows of the past. Next he must place in its stead a new system, in every way unlike the old, and with scarcely a friend to defend it. The principles underlying it must also be clearly expounded, and speedily put into practice. How much of this work he actually did is next thing to marvelous; and his failures, if such they were, might rather be termed successes, judged by the immense progress that has been made in hygiene since his death. He left the work clearly defined, so clearly indeed, that those who followed had but to pick up the broken threads of the warp, splice them, and weave on; filling in woof, and completing the wonderful web whose patterns he was permitted only to design.”

“The world’s first college of Hygeio-therapy was founded in New York City in 1852, and chartered by the state of New York in 1857. It inaugurated a new era in the care of the sick. Its advent ushered in an epoch in the “healing art.” The Hygienic school was the first school in the world, and so far the only one to adopt hygienic things–that is, materials and influences that have a normal relation to life–exclusively in the care of the sick, rejecting wholly and totally, as not only unnecessary, but positively injurious, all the poisons of the materia medicas of the various schools of “medicine.” It not only introduced a Materia Hygienica to displace the Materia Medica (more appropriately, the Materia Morbus), but it also introduced a new theory and philosophy in biological science, at variance with and in opposition to all the fundamental doctrines or dogmas on which medical systems have been built. Briefly, it claims to have ignored the falsities of the old systems and to have based its philosophy and its practices on unerring and demonstrable laws of nature.”

“Trall also conducted a college of Hygiene in St. Paul, Minn., during the two years that he was located at St. Anthony’s Falls. After he returned east and moved to Florence Heights, N. J., the college was moved to this latter place, where it continued to operate until financial difficulties forced its closing a year or two before the death of Trall. Graduates of Trall’s college served as surgeons in the northern Armies during the Civil War and made an excellent record for themselves. Dr. Dodds says that for more than twenty years, “from different states in the Union, from the Canadas and even from abroad, there came to him men and women to learn those great principles which he was expounding in his books, and also teaching year after year to his medical classes.”

“It was not until the rise of osteopathy that any of the schools graduated its students with any degree other than that of “Doctor of Medicine.” The school founded by Nichols, that of Trall and, later the one founded by Dodds, all conferred the degree in medicine upon their graduates. In the writer’s opinion, this was a very unfortunate mistake. Hygienists should have differentiated themselves from all of the schools of “o-called healing (medicine) in every possible manner. They should have repudiated the term physician and the phrase “Hygienic medication.” Even the title doctor, a reactionary term adopted by the schoolmen to set themselves apart from and above the “laity,” might well have been left behind. They should have called themselves simply, Hygienists. But if they wanted to retain the title doctor, they should have been Doctors of Hygiene.”

“Trall’s death on September 23, 1877 left the movement practically leaderless. With the college closed, Trall gone, and no one ready and willing to take the helm the movement lagged. There were men who could have led, but they seem to have been reluctant to do so. Indeed, a certain amount of disagreement broke out among them that tended to further paralyze action. In this writer’s opinion, Dr. Walter was the man preeminently qualified for the position of leadership. Unfortunately he spoiled his opportunity to do so by publishing an ill-advised attack upon the dead leader. A few years later Dr. Dodds did make an effort to start the movement going again. Her establishment of another college was a big move in this direction. Had it succeeded, a revival of the movement would have followed. But with the adoption of a part of the Hygienic program by the “regular” profession there was a tendency to sit back and let the medical profession “do it.” Hygienists permitted themselves to be misled. I have seen the same mistake made by others within my own lifetime. We seem never to learn that “medicine” will not reform.”

Pg 182

“Sussanna W. Dodds

Dr. Dodds correctly observes that, in trying to profit by the principles laid down and the practices developed by all of these men (she refers to them as “health reformers”) “it is well to avoid copying their faults and mistakes.” None of these men, she said, was perfect. She likened the selection process that must be made to that of going to a first class hotel, the table of which is loaded with many kinds of food. It is not meet for us to partake of everything on the table, but to make selections according to our needs. In making our selections from among the theories and practices that were developed by the early Hygienists we must be guided by fixed principles and make full use of much knowledge that has accrued since their deaths.

“It will be noted that the college opened by Dr. Nichols and Mary Gove, his wife, admitted both sexes to its courses. When Trall’s school was opened the following year, women were also admitted to its courses. At that time there was not a medical “school in the world that admitted women to its courses and there was the strongest opposition in the medical profession to women becoming physicians. Here, again, the Hygienic school was far ahead of the other schools. Women found the strongest champions of “woman’s rights” among the Hygienists. Indeed, Hygienists, took a leading role in all of the reform movements of the time. They left a deeper mark on their age and, consequently, upon the present, than the average person is aware of. If ever a complete history of the nineteenth century is written, the part played by Hygienists in its progress will receive a prominent place.”

“Another college was founded in St. Louis, Mo., in 1887 by Susanna W. Dodds, M.D., one of Trall’s most brilliant students, her sister-in-law, Mary Dodds, M.D., and Alexander Milton Ross, M.D. At first this college offered a three year’s course, but after the first year, the course was expanded to four years. Dr. Dodds says that the college was not endowed, so that after seven years of operation, they were forced to close it. In addition to Hygiene the college taught obstetrics and surgery. It also taught sufficient theory and practice of allopathic medicine to enable its graduates to pass the medical board examinations. The college was well liked by many regular medical men who had lost their faith in the stupidities of the drugging schools and Wilder’s History of Medicine commends the school as a very excellent one. Unfortunately, hers was the only attempt to establish a college of Hygiene after the death of Trall, his own school having been forced to close by financial difficulties, but a year or two before his death.

Pg 182

“Other men and women of the past, deserving of mention, but who cannot be considered in detail at this place, are Harriet Austin, M.D., long associated with Dr. Jackson; Augusta Fairchild, M.D., a graduate of Trall’s college; Russell Trall, Jr. M.D., who practiced in Philadelphia; his sister, Rebecca Trall, M.D., who practiced in Brooklyn, and Helen and Emmet Densmore, M.D., Edward Hooker Dewey, M.D., who greatly added to our knowledge of fasting, although he was not a Hygienist. Dr. Dodds says of him: “He was certainly not a Hygienist.” She enumerates the following practices of his that excluded him from Hygienic ranks: he “drank coffee, ate meat, white bread … indulged in hearty suppers … and some of his ideas on bathing seem to be very extreme … he discarded fruits, especially the acid varieties, almost entirely.” I may add that he never entirely discarded drugs.

Pg 189 – 190

“Sussanna W. Dodds

It will be noted that the college opened by Dr. Nichols and Mary Gove, his wife, admitted both sexes to its courses. When Trall’s school was opened the following year, women were also admitted to its courses. At that time there was not a medical “school in the world that admitted women to its courses and there was the strongest opposition in the medical profession to women becoming physicians. Here, again, the Hygienic school was far ahead of the other schools. Women found the strongest champions of “woman’s rights” among the Hygienists. Indeed, Hygienists, took a leading role in all of the reform movements of the time. They left a deeper mark on their age and, consequently, upon the present, than the average person is aware of. If ever a complete history of the nineteenth century is written, the part played by Hygienists in its progress will receive a prominent place.”

Pg 197

“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.

Shelton, Herbert. (1968). Natural Hygiene: The Pristine Way of Life Youngstown, OH. National Health Association

Pg 47

“In 1915 the Health-Culture Company published a monumental work entitled Hygeiotherapeutics by Susanna Way Dodds, A.M., M.D., who was a graduate of the College of Hygeio-Therapy. The foregoing should constitute sufficient evidence that the American physicians who abandoned drugs and took up the practice of Hygiene recognized a distinction between Hygienic and hydropathic practice and chose a name to designate the Hygienic practice. The mistake they made was in trying to designate the new mode of practice by old medical terms. It is quite true that the Latin word cura was originally synonymous with our word care and the Greek word therapia originally meant to wait upon, while the word medicine originally meant healing. But words undergo changes of meaning and the word medicine had become indeliby associated in the public mind with the drugging system, while cure was used to designate any means of treating disease that was applied to the patient with the idea of producing health by artificial measures. The word therapeutics, as defined at the time, was “that part of medicine which treats of the application of remedies to the cure of disease.” ”

“All efforts to return to primitive meanings in the use of words are unavailing. When the word therapeutics is used today, it is invariably understood in its modern meaning and nobody knows anything of its ancient meaning. Benarr Macfadden made the same mistake when he had the college which he established in Chicago confer upon its graduates the degree, Dr. of Physiological Therapeutics. People did not understand it to mean physiological care, which would have been a return to Graham, but a system of treating disease by external appliances of one kind or another. To call the system hygienic medication or hygienic medicine is to associate it in the public mind with the drugging system. It is quite true that drugs do not heal; hence, as Trall pointed out, the use of the term medicine in connection with drugs is a misnomer; but it is impossible to secure public recognition of this fact.

“For these reasons, present-day Hygienists prefer to call this system the Hygienic System and refrain from attempting to restore the original meaning to the Greek term therapia. Inasmuch as a spurious system of hygiene is promoted by the medical profession–one that accepts processed and refined foods, haphazard eating, so-called moderation in tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, etc.–and rejects most of the genuine program of Hygiene, we prefixed, several years ago, the descriptive adjective, natural, to the name, thus giving us Natural Hygiene. Today most Hygienists prefer to be known as Natural Hygienists in order to distinguish them from the spurious hygienists who accept the make-believe hygiene promoted by the drugging system.”

“As further evidence of the determination of the early Hygienists to be known as such and to escape from the designation hydropathists, I point out that Dr. Trall’s Hydropathic Encyclopedia, published in 1851, carried as its sub-title these words, A Complete System of Hydropathy and Hygiene. The book was published by Fowler and Wells of New York, who also published the Journal. In the first advertisement they ran of the book, they carried pictures of Sylvester Graham, Andrew “Combe and Vincent Priessnitz. Above the head of Graham was a banner inscribed “Science of Human Life;” above that of Combe was a banner inscribed “Constitution of Man;” above the head of Priessnitz there was no banner, but just the phrase water-cure.”

Pg 50

“Other evidences of the emphasis upon Hygiene and the trek away from hydropathy are found in the titles as well as the subject matter of other Hygienic magazines of the time. Dr. Jackson called his magazine The Laws of Life. Mrs. White, leader of the Seventh Day Adventists, who embraced Hygiene and propogated it among her religious followers, entitled her magazine Health Reform. Dr. Walter entitled his magazine The Laws of Health; later the title was changed to Health. Dr. Dodds published a magazine under the title of The Sanitarian. Mr. Albert Turner, who was for years with the Fowler and Wells Publishing Company and associated with Trall on the staff of The Science of Health, founded and published Health Culture Magazine, which, during the first 30 years of its existence, at least, was a Hygienic publication. Tilden’s magazine, at first known as The Stuffed Club, then changed to Philosophy of Health and later to Dr. Tilden’s Health Review and Critique, was published as a Hygienic magazine. Everywhere the trend was away from hydropathy and the emphasis was placed upon Hygiene and health.

“The argument has been offered that Dr. Trall was a hydropath and that his Encyclopedia proves it. The argument is quite true if we permit Dr. Trall to die in 1851. But as he lived some 26 years longer and his philosophy and practice underwent considerable evolution during that period, it is as inaccurate to judge him by the title of the Encyclopedia as it would be to judge him by his degree, Doctor of Medicine. Such an argument would cause one to say that Martin Luther was a catholic priest, for he certainly was before he became the leader of the German reformation movement. Just as Luther became a protestant, so Trall became a Hygienist.”

Pg 142

“The advantages and superiority of Hygienic care over drug treatment are shown as much by the rapid convalescence as by the speed of recovery. Proper care of the invalid is Hygienic care and calls for no resort to drugging or forcing measures. Any attempt to hasten convalescence by forcing measures will only delay full recovery.

Dr. Susanna W. Dodds tells us that, in lectures before his classes in the college, Trall repeatedly cautioned his students against overtaxing their patients. Again and again, she says, he warned them against making extra demands upon the energy and resources of their patients when there was no need for such demands. He insisted that the energy of the patient be conserved in every way possible and extended this to the period of convalescence. For example, Dodds tells us, employing typhoid fever as an illustration, that Trall emphasized that in convalescence there is little or no need for “treatment.” When the crisis is passed in all acute diseases, even if there should be a slight recurrence of fever, he would slacken or discontinue even the little treatment, in the form of hydropathic applications, that he employed.”

“Conservation of the energy and resources of the patient was the secret of the successes of Jennings, Walter, Tilden, Weger and others who have been so outstandingly successful in their care of the sick. None of these men sought to cure disease; rather, each of them recognized that over feeding, over bathing, over sunning, over exercising and aggravating patients in any way overtaxed them and retarded or prevented recovery.

“Many a patient,” Dodds quotes Trall as saying, “has been killed by giving treatment that was too heroic after the critical action had passed.” He insisted that “no extra demand upon the patient” be made during the post-critical stage. She adds that he applied this same rule of conservation to all feeble people, whether well or ill, reminding his students again and again that the only capital they had to work with was the vitality of the patient and to waste this was to diminish the chances of recovery. No part of the patient’s organism was ever to be taxed.”

“Sickness is a virtual surrender of individuality; but what a beautiful, instinctive trait of human nature it is which causes the strong and well to serve every whim of the invalid who no longer has power to enforce a preference, but whose will–if he has any–is regarded as a hundred fold more imperative, now that he is helpless, than it was when he had strength to command. We will seek to find what a sick person wants, though we may be indifferent to his wishes in health. This willing “ness to cater to the whims as well as to the actual needs of the sick, commendable though it is, is a source of danger.

On the other hand, those nurses who neglect their charges and who take every opportunity to gossip outside the sick room, or when within it, of telling long irrelevant stories to any visitor whom they can catch as a listener, may do their patients as much injury by their careless neglect as others may do by pampering them.”

Pg 224

“n 1853 the first term of the New York Hydropathic and Physiological College, founded by Trall, was started. A few years later, when the college was chartered by the state of New York, it was chartered as a college of Hygeio-Therapy, although it gave the degree Doctor of Medicine.

Wilder’s History of Medicine, 1899, says: “Colleges of Hygiene for the instruction of students have been established in St. Louis, Cincinnatti, and other places, beginning their career with encouraging prospects. The founder at St. Louis was Miss Susanna W. Dodds, a physician of merit and intelligence, abundantly capable of bringing her views into successful realization. The courses of study include the branches of knowledge usually taught in medical colleges, together with Hygiene, Sanitary Engineering and Physical Culture. But the professional hostility encountered, and the general indifference stood in the way of success, and most of these institutions now confine their operations to professional service.”

“The college established in St. Louis by Dr. Dodds lasted only about three years. After its closing, Dr. Robert Walter made an effort to establish a college in Pennsylvania. The effort failed. One of the greatest needs of the present is a college of Natural Hygiene. At the present time no adequate means are available for training new Hygienic practitioners. The field is ripe and ready for the reapers. There is a growing demand for Hygienists and there is need to make Hygiene available to everybody.”

“We would urge all those who have a love for Natural Hygiene to unite in establishing a college to equip men and women to serve our people in a truly Hygienic way. Natural Hygiene is everything that it pretends to be and, in spite of the lies about it and is spite of its enemies and the wickedness and ignorance of the wolves in sheep’s clothing, who prowl upon its friends, let us show the world that we are united and that we are determined. All of you who have been snatched from the brink of death by the adoption of Natural Hygiene should be anxious to assist in the establishment of such a college. Help make it possible for your friends and relatives to secure Hygienic care and instruction. All that we ask of those who firmly believe in Natural Hygiene is that they help us establish and maintain a college for the dissemination of the principles and practices of a true Hygiene.”

Pg 226

“Hygienists espoused many causes, but the Hygienic movement was no mere loose collection of reform movements and measures such as vegetarianism, temperance, clothing reform, sex education of the young, the teaching of physiology and Hygiene in the public schools, etc. But, these things were espoused only to the extent that they could be integrated with the more fundamental problem of creating a radically different and total way of life. The part played by Mrs. Gove, Harriet N. Austin, M.D., Susannah W. Dodds, M.D., and other women Hygienists in the dress reform movement, though important, must be viewed against a background of the total Hygienic movement. Drs. Austin and Dodds discarded the regular female attire and wore pants, a daring thing for a woman to do in those days; but it took daring to be a Hygienist of any kind. Coming to the position of Hygienists on female doctors, let me quote the following from the Journal of October 1861, where M. Augusta Fairchild, M.D., says: “Comets were once looked upon as omens of war. Female doctors may be viewed in very much the same light; for wherever they have made their appearance, a general uprising of the people to welcome them, and the most vigorous attempt of the regular masculine dignitaries of the ‘profession’ to quell the ‘insurrection’ have been the result.”

Pg 227-8

“Susanna W. Dodds, M.D.

Perhaps the most outstanding woman graduate of the Hygeo-Therapeutic College was Susannah Way Dodds, M.D., whose writings and lectures upon the subject of Hygiene constitute a valuable addition to Hygienic literature. Dr. Dodds and her sister-in-law, Mary Way, M.D., established a college of Hygienic medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Dodds lived into the present century and continued to shock the prudish of her era by wearing pants instead of dresses.”

Pg 247

“Dodds SW. Drugless Medicine. New York, N.Y.: The Health Culture Co.; 1915 p.116.”

Excerpt From

Natural Hygiene: The Pristine Way of Life

Herbert M. Shelton

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