Dr. William Alcott - Biography - (1798-1859) - National Health Association

Dr. William Alcott – Biography – (1798-1859)

About

William Alcott was born to a farming family in Wolcott, Connecticut, on August 6th, 1798. As a young man, he had suffered from several ailments, including consumption, but managed to earn a medical degree from Yale University.

At 18, Alcott began teaching in a school next to his father’s house and would teach there over the next nine years. His experiences as a school teacher would become the subject of many of his publications to create a better school classroom with improved desks, heating, ventilation, and intellectual content.

Erysipelas, a bacterial skin infection (upper dermis) extending to the lymphatic vessels. It is characterized by a bright red rash on the face or legs (but could occur anywhere).
**Photo: Frederick Magee Rossiter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons**

In 1824, William suffered an attack of Erysipelas and was also diagnosed with tuberculosis, an infectious disease usually caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) bacteria, historically known as consumption. His health rapidly failed, with severe bouts of persistent coughing, fever, and considerable weight loss. His failing health forced him to give up teaching and try to regain his health. He fasted, restored his health, and returned to teaching.

Like most other hygienic pioneers, William studied medicine to learn about his illnesses. He entered the study of medicine not to make it a profession but to restore and improve his health. He had suffered from the horrible side effects of the medicine that had been prescribed to him. Allopathic physicians in the 1800s used bloodletting, purging, and drugs such as calomel (a mercury-based chloride). However, Alcott took a different path, focusing primarily on a vegetarian diet.

After receiving his medical degree, he was expected to use the poisons, burning, purging, and other methods of physicians of this period. However, after gaining experience as a doctor, he decided those methods harmed his patients. At this point, he began emphasizing the body’s healing ability, brought on by proper health habits, including omitting meat from the diet.

Alcott’s road to vegetarian advocacy started in the late 1820s when he decided to focus on his health. By 1830, Alcott was 100% vegetarian and, in reality, shunned all foods derived from animals. Among Alcott’s reasons for advocating vegetarianism was his belief that in the bible, in the Book of Genesis, God provided foods from the plant kingdom.

Alcott met William Channing Woodbridge, who was an author on geography. He began to work for him, checking facts and helping him improve his maps. In 1831, Woodbridge purchased the American Journal of Education and renamed it the American Annals of Education and Instruction. Both Woodbridge and Alcott moved to Boston, and Alcott wrote many articles for the journal, mainly focusing on school design and physical education. In 1837, Alcott became the editor of the American Annals of Education and Instruction. Woodbridge and Alcott became and remained friends throughout their lives, and William wrote a tribute and memoir of Woodbridge’s life.

Isothermal chart — The isothermal chart of the world was created in 1823 by Woodbridge using the work of Alexander von Humboldt. This image is available from the New York Public Library’s Digital Library under the digital ID 465012. **Photo William Channing Woodbridge (Cartographer), Alexander von Humboldt (Author). Restoration by Jujutacular and Durova., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons**

In 1837, William Alcott and Sylvester Graham co-founded The American Physiological Society (APS). The APS shared similar goals with Grahamism but emphasized scientific knowledge and the members’ collective ideas. The APS was established to teach physiology and anatomy, focusing on a vegetarian diet’s health benefits. The formation of the APS was a milestone for the vegetarian movement as it was not attached to a religion, as was the Bible-Christians. The APS was likely the first exclusively vegetarian organization and the nation’s first natural hygiene organization. The Society held its first meeting in Boston on March 7, 1837. During the first meeting, Alcott was named the first president, John Benson as vice president, David Campbell as secretary, and Nathaniel Perry as treasurer. The APS hired Mary Gove Nichols, a converted Grahamite, to present lectures to women on physiology and anatomy.

Many members of the APS became a localized community within Boston. They opened the organization’s Provision Store, the nation’s first natural vegetarian marketplace. The store, located close to the Boston common, sold a variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains such as rye, rice, oats, and corn. Of course, Graham flour was always on hand. Boston became a center of the vegetarian movement, and Dr. Alcott’s office was right in the middle.

Graham Crackers — Graham crackers and graham bread were named after
Sylvester Graham, one of the earliest 19th-century health
reformers or Hygienists. Bread was made precisely,
as described in his **Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making.**
**Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons**

In 1838, Alcott published “Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men and By Experience in All Ages.“ It is his best-known work and is significant in the medical literature, as well as focusing on a vegetarian diet. Other editions were published in 1849 through 1859 with a cookbook and additional medical testimonies supporting this lifestyle. It was America’s first vegetarian/vegan cookbook. The book contains letters from physicians, including Horace A. Barrows, about the benefits of a vegetarian diet. Click here for a version with recipes from 1853.

Dr. William Alcott, William Metcalfe (pastor of the Bible-Christian Church, founded 1817 in Philadelphia), Dr. Russell Thacker Trall, and Sylvester Graham united in 1850 to create the American Vegetarian Society (AVS). Following the founding convention in New York City, the society’s first official meeting occurred in Philadelphia’s Bible-Christian Church on September 4, 1850. The first meeting would also elect Dr. William Alcott as the AVS president, a title he held until he died in 1859. Metcalfe and Graham were elected vice presidents, and Trall was the recording secretary. The society promoted vegetarian precepts (intertwined with women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery) across the nation. By the time of the Civil War, the group’s membership and influence waned, partially because the fight for abolition had turned to military violence.

The **American Vegetarian and Health Journal** (1851-1854) helped to inform vegetarians across the nation of the developments within the movement.

A year after the American Vegetarian Society‘s founding, the American Vegetarian and Health Journal (1851-1854) became the organization’s national publication, with Dr. Alcott as editor. During its production, the journal helped to inform vegetarians across the nation of different developments within the movement, advocated vegetarianism as the most natural diet, and connected this movement with others directed at social reforms. The publication also included columns that provided advice and tips on topics such as preparing animal-free meals.

Alcott was noted for his endless energy and his strong physical constitution. It was typical for Alcott to rise at 4:00 a.m., bathe in cold water, work in his garden, and throughout the day and late into the evening, treating his patients and writing his books.

Quote

There is no slavery in this world like the slavery to a man of his appetite. Let man but abstain from the use of flesh and fish, and slavery of one man to another cannot long exist.
— William A. Alcott, MD

Life in the 1800s

It was in an era of “hog, hominy, and homespun.” Grains, bread, pork, and lard pies predominated in the people’s diet—vegetables and fruits were neglected and considered contraband. When Dr. John H. Tilden initiated the daily salad habit, the practice was vigorously condemned by the medical profession as it was believed that this caused cholera.

Nobody took baths; a strong body odor was considered a badge of merit. Fresh air was feared. Cold air, damp air, night air, and draughts were especially feared. Houses were unventilated and foul; no sunlight was permitted to enter lest it fade the rugs, carpets, and upholstering.

Sanitation was neglected; tobacco was chewed, smoked, and snuffed almost universally; alcohol was the favorite beverage, and disease was common.

Bloodletting in the 1800s was a very common practice.
‘**Photo: The Burns Archive, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons**‘

The people suffered from typhus and typhoid fevers, malaria, cholera, yellow fever, diarrhea, dysentery, diphtheria, scrofula, meningitis, tuberculosis, and pneumonia. The general death rate was high, but the death rate among infants and children was appalling; many mothers died in childbirth of child-bed fever.

It was a day of frequent and heroic dosages of toxic drugs and frequent bleeding. In the South, there was a cry of fever during the summer, and calomel (a mercury chloride mineral) was used. By the 19th century, calomel was viewed as a miracle drug. It was used against almost every disease, including syphilis, bronchitis, cholera, ingrown toenails, teething, gout, tuberculosis, influenza, and cancer, along with quinine (medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis). These were administered lavishly, thus adding to the horror.
During this time, a popular protest against the bleeding and heroic drug dosing practiced by the “regular” medical profession began. Homeopathy and physio-medicalism arose in response to the demand for milder medication, while the Hygienic System came into being and created opposition to all medication whatsoever.”

People traveled primarily by buggy or foot during this time.
Yet **Rev. Dr. Sylvester Graham** attracted large audiences
and created a growing following.
**Photo: Georges Jansoone (JoJan), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons**

Teachings

Quote
The best preventative of disease is good health.

William A. Alcott, MD

By 1830, Alcott was 100% vegetarian and, in reality, shunned all foods derived from animals. Among Alcott’s reasons for advocating vegetarianism was his belief that in the bible, in the book of Genesis, God provided foods from the plant kingdom for food.

Alcott opposed consuming alcohol, coffee, meat, spices, and tea. He argued against condiments, which he believed were “stimulating” substances. He rejected using ginger, fennel, cardamom, mace, nutmeg, and coriander. He believed that garlic, horseradish, molasses, and sauces were on the same level as “drugs.”

Issac Jennings — **Dr. Isaac Jennings**
**Photo: Nallett, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons**

It was through the work of Dr. Isaac Jennings that Dr. William Alcott converted to a holistic lifestyle. He advocated for Jennings’s theories and practices and rejected those of the hydropaths. His work greatly influenced Dr. Russell Thacker Trall, Dr. James Jackson, and such successors as Dr. Robert Walter, Dr. Charles E. Page, and Dr. Felix Oswald.

The movement was initiated by Sylvester Graham and Dr. William Alcott and was contributed to by Mary Gove Nichols. It was shortly joined by Dr. Isaac Jennings and this represented the beginning of the Hygienic movement.

Hygienists have publicly protested against the absurdity of attempting to cure disease by various agents. The effects on living structures were thought to be destructive. Dr. Alcott described his thoughts at the bedside of a typhoid patient who had been treated allopathically. After noting that the patient most needed rest and sleep, he recorded his thoughts about the drugs displayed on the patient’s bedside table. “What does all this mean,” he asked himself. “Why this array of war-like implements? What indication is there of the necessity of alcohol, quinine, morphine, opium, ipecac, etc? If a patient is burning with fever, shall we add fuel to the fire?”

Dr. Alcott shares that he discontinued drugging in his medical practice and permitted patients to have all the water desired when ill. During this time, allopathic practices withheld all fluids. He noted that immediate improvement was always followed by hydration. He believed that if the sick were cared for with the genuine needs of the patient, then the illness should be of short duration. However, it was prolonged or life destroyed by the mistaken efforts to provide “a 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.”

Vegetable-diet-bread-recipe — Recipe (or receipts as they were called) from the **Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men and By Experience in All Ages.**

Animal fats were particularly objectionable to the early Hygienists, beginning with Sylvester Graham and William Alcott. Vegetable fats were considered superior to animal fats. Still, they were not regarded as essential elements of the diet, except as they were found in natural parts of foods (e.g., an olive).

Alcott believed that all systems of medicine were leading us “to one grand issue.” He said: “Within a short time–it may be five hundred or fifty years–all sensible and truly learned medical men, as a general rule, will give no medicine at all.” By medicine, in this instance, he meant the practice of drugging.

Sylvester Graham, Dr. William Alcott, Mary Gove Nicholds, Dr. Russell Thacker Trall, and the many practitioners who abandoned the drugging practice and adopted Hygiene, along with the graduates of Trall’s College, all made themselves missionaries to carry the message of Hygiene to the people and from the people they commonly received a respectful hearing.

Quote

Although, at present, Hygienists represent a small minority group in our country and 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, with a voice of thunder, “All will be well.”
— Dr. William Alcott

Notable Achievements

Quote

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.”
–Dr. William Alcott

Vegetable diet — Alcott’s best-known work, **Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men and By Experience in All Ages** is significant in the medical literature and
for supporting a vegetarian lifestyle.

William A. Alcott (1798-1859) was a prolific 19th-century writer and proponent of vegetarianism with a keen interest in civil, social, moral, and religious reform, writing over 100 books (at a time when he was writing with a quill!). He wrote numerous manuals and guides addressing marital, domestic, cultural, financial, health, and dietary matters.

William Alcott and Sylvester Graham co-founded the American Physiological Society (APS) in 1837. The APS shared similar goals with Grahamism but emphasized scientific knowledge and members’ collective work. The APS was established to teach physiology and anatomy while focusing on a vegetarian diet. The formation of the APS was a milestone for the vegetarian movement as it was not attached to a religion, as was the Bible-Christians. The APS was likely the first exclusively vegetarian institution and the nation’s first natural hygiene organization. The Society held its first meeting in Boston, naming Alcott as the first president, David Campbell as the secretary, and Nathaniel Perry as treasurer. John Benson served as vice president. The APS hired Mary Nichols to present lectures to women.

Alcott’s best-known work, “Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men and By Experience in All Ages, ” is significant in the medical literature and for supporting a vegetarian lifestyle. His book focuses on the superiority of a vegetable diet for recovering and supporting health. It contains dozens of letters testifying to that belief by various medical experts and many citizens who report in great detail the benefits of the vegetable diet for their health and lifestyle.

Other editions published from 1849 through 1858 had an added cookbook and additional medical testimonies supporting a vegetarian/vegan diet. Alcott himself promoted the health benefits of a lifestyle without using animal products. It was America’s first vegetarian cookbook, with many vegan recipes. The book contains letters from physicians, including Horace A. Barrows, about the benefits of a vegetarian diet. Click here for the 1853 edition.

The **American Vegetarian and Health Journal** (1851-1854) became the organization’s national publication, with **Dr. Alcott** as editor.

In 1850, Dr. William Alcott, William Metcalfe (pastor of the Bible-Christian Church, founded 1817 in Philadelphia), Dr. Russell Thacker Trall, and Sylvester Graham united to create the American Vegetarian Society (AVS). Following the founding convention in New York City, the society’s first official meeting occurred in Philadelphia’s Bible-Christian Church on September 4, 1850. The first meeting would also elect Dr. William Alcott as the AVS president, a title he held until he died in 1859. Metcalfe and Graham were elected vice presidents, and Trall was the recording secretary. The society promoted vegetarian precepts (intertwined with women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery) across the nation. By the time of the Civil War, the group’s membership and influence waned, partially because the fight for abolition had turned to military violence.

A year after the American Vegetarian Society’s founding, the American Vegetarian and Health Journal (1851-1854) became the organization’s national publication, with Dr. Alcott as editor. During its production, the journal helped to inform vegetarians across the nation of different developments within the movement, advocated vegetarianism as the most natural diet, and connected this movement with others directed at social reforms. The publication also included columns that provided advice and tips on topics such as preparing animal-free meals.

He wrote many books on health and wellness and was an editor and author in many publications. You can find descriptions of these books on health and wellness and a listing of the other books he wrote throughout his life on the publication page.

Advice manuals as a distinct form of literature began appearing early in the 17th century. Alcott wrote numerous manuals and guides addressing marital, domestic, cultural, and financial matters.

**From the Journal of Natural Hygiene – Nov 1956**

From Our Hygienic Roots

Wisdom for the 80s on the need for schools and families to know and teach the natural laws that govern human life – from the pen of William A. Alcott, MD (1798-1859).

Published in the magazine Health Science – June/July 1980

William A. Alcott, M.D. was one of a group of 19th-century medical doctors who pioneered the Natural Hygiene system of health care. He wrote prolifically in his crusade to improve the health of the American people. Many of his writings were directed toward young people as the torchbearers of the nation’s future strength. His keen mind creatively perceived the body as “the house we live in,” and it was the title he gave to one of his books.

Not the least of Dr. Alcott’s indirect claims to fame comes from a member of his own family: his niece, Louisa May Alcott, the author of that immortal contribution to 19th-century Americana: Little Women. The following preface was written for The Laws of Health, published in 1859 by John P. Jewett and Company, Boston.

The knowledge of ourselves, physically, until within a comparatively recent period, has been practically overlooked and neglected. But, during the last 25 years, a new era has dawned upon our race. Books of anatomy and physiology have been written for families and schools, and the study of ‘the house we live in” has become, at least in theory, the order of the day.

And yet, in the meantime, experience has shown that it is not anatomy, or the laws of structure, nor physiology, or the curious laws of living organs, which is so much needed by the mass of our citizens, as a knowledge of our relations to the things around us; or, in other words, HYGIENE. It is not so much a particular knowledge of bones, muscles, nerves, skin, etc., as an acquaintance with the laws by which these, and all other parts and organs of our bodies, perform their offices or functions and knowledge of the specific penalties which God, in his providence, has annexed to their violation.

Or, if a more e thorough and scientific course is needed in our colleges and universities, it is only the practical part of the subject which is required by at least nine in ten of our citizens, such as we find them in our academies, public schools, and families. But this practical knowledge is indispensable to all. The yearly public loss in health and happiness—nay, in virtue, too—which our citizens sustain for want of such information concerning themselves is incalculable.

Now, although we have many excellent works of anatomy and physiology, accompanied with occasional and incidental remarks on Hygiene, yet, for this specific purpose, we have nothing that is happily adapted to the immediate wants of schools and families. At least, we have no work of hygiene, which is suitable for use as a class book in the district schools.

The object of this book is to fill the vacancy. It does, indeed, contain anatomy and physiology, but they are only introduced as a means of explanation, illustration, or argument.

My aim is to take men and women and children as they are and teach them, first, how to keep what health they already possess and, secondly, how daily and hourly to manufacture more.

In regard to style in manner, it has been my object to make myself intelligible to every child of 10 years of age.

What We Believe

The group I belong to believes that God has established certain laws within the organic domain, as well as without it, which are as fixed and immutable as those given at Sinai. They believe that obedience to all law, whether natural or moral, has its appropriate reward, here or hereafter, or both. They also believe that disobedience to all law, whether natural or moral, has its fixed, and, except in the case of special remission by a special provision, has its appropriate and irrevocable penalty. In one word, they regard man as, under God, the artificer of his health and happiness.

To express their views in other words, and very briefly, they believe that, as a whole, disease is the product of manufacture, just as truly and indeed as cloth, paper, or pins; and that the world has been, unwittingly or otherwise, engaged in this manufacture for nearly six thousand years. And it is time, they think, to “turn the tables,” and manufacture health.

William A. Alcott, M.D.—1858 – From the Journal of Natural Hygiene – Feb/Mar – 1955

Learn more from: (Read direct excerpts)

Shelton, Herbert. (1934). The Science and Fine Art Fasting – The Hygienic System: Volume III National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Shelton, Herbert. (1934). The Science and Fine Art of Natural Hygiene – The Hygienic System: Volume I. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Shelton, Herbert. (1935). The Science and Fine Art of Food and Nutrition – The Hygienic System: Volume II. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Trop, Jack. (1961). You Don’t Have to Be Sick. New York: Julian Press.
Shelton, Herbert. (1968). Natural Hygiene: The Pristine Way of Life. Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.
Shelton, Herbert. (1974). Fasting For Renewal of Life. Youngstown. National Health Association
Lennon, J., Taylor, S. (1996). The Natural Hygiene Handbook. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Graham, S., Trall. R., Shelton, H. (2009). The Greatest Health Discovery. Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.

The NHA wishes to remind the readers that nothing in this or other publications is intended to constitute medical treatment or advice. Readers should further be aware that in several areas, previous publications do not reflect the NHA’s current teachings or health approaches.

Our Mission

The mission of the National Health Association is to educate and empower individuals to understand that health results from healthy living. We recognize the integration of all aspects of health: personal, environmental, and social.

We communicate the benefits of a plant-based diet, exercise and rest, a healthy environment, psychological well-being, and fasting when indicated.

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