The Greatest Health Discovery
Graham, S., Trall. R., Shelton, H. (2009) The Greatest Health Discovery. Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.
Many ladies of the Society were of the opinion that the subjects discussed were of too delicate a nature for a mixed audience and thought there was a need for a woman to lecture to ladies alone. Mary Gove, who had opened a Graham Boarding School at Lynn, Massachusetts, a short time before, came forward and offered to fill this position.
A Women’s Physiological Society was formed, and lectures were given to women, often separate lectures for married and unmarried women. Mrs. Gove’s lectures were a great success and continued to be carried on for several years, even after the Physiological Society ceased to exist. In 1846, these lectures were published in book form.
The movement initiated by Graham and Alcott and measurably contributed to by Mary Gove, which Dr. Jennings joined early, represents the beginning of the hygienic movement. The American Physiological Society numbered several medical men among its members in the various cities. Still, it is yet to be known how many of them abandoned the drugging practice and confined themselves in the care of the sick to Hygiene.
After hearing Graham’s lecture in Boston in 1832, Thomas Low Nichols, a young medical student at Dartmouth, gave up the study of medicine and became a newspaperman. After traveling over the West and South as a newsman, he became the New York Evening Herald editor. He was active in several movements, including women’s rights, and while in this work, he met Mary Gove, who had been the first to answer the call for women to lecture to women on Grahamism. The two were married.
As women were not permitted in those days to enter medical college and there were no other schools of “healing” to attend, Nichols decided to complete his studies of medicine and get a license to practice so he could protect his wife in her work. He studied medicine at the University of New York under the famous Valentine Mott and graduated with high honors.
On September 15, 1851, Dr. Nichols and his wife opened The American Hydropathic Institute in New York City, a “medical school for the instruction of qualified persons of both sexes in all branches of a thorough medical education, including the principles and practices of Water Cure, in acute or chronic disease, surgery and obstetrics”. This was the first such school in America and the world’s first drugless college. Although called a hydropathic institute, its teachings were Hygienic.
Dr. Nichols edited and published The Nichols Journal and both he and Mary Gove wrote books. When the Civil War broke out, the two left New York and sailed to England because they were opposed to the war. There they opened an institution and carried on their work for many years. Dr. Nichols was engaged in publishing health knowledge until he retired in the 1890’s and then went to live in France where he died in 1901 at the age of 85. Mrs. Nichols had passed on several years before that time.
It will be remembered that when Graham began his lectures, So great was the public opposition to lectures by a man on subjects of anatomy and physiology, either to mixed audiences or to female audiences, that a call was issued for women lecturers to do this work. Among those who responded to the call was Mary Gove, who not only championed the work of Graham but was at the forefront of the battle for women’s rights, dress reform, and other reforms of her time. In common with all those who opposed established institutions and proposed new and improved ones, she underwent persecution at the hands of the defenders of the old order.
In the April 1853 issue of Nichols Journal, Mary Gove says: “I acknowledge I have been mobbed on account of my dress. Fourteen years ago several persons determined to tar and feather me if I dared to lecture in a certain small city. I thought I was needed there and I went, with solemn conviction, and God gave me favor with the people. I outlived all this ignorance. Still, prejudice was indeed bitter and cruel in those days. . . . Years have greatly mended the manner of the mobs, but more than one scamp has felt the weight of my husband’s cane in this city.
Mary Gove further stated: “Women have so long acted, and almost existed by leave granted by the majority, that they have little idea of independent action. The public puts its mold upon us, and we come out as nearly alike as peas. Our wrists and feet are just so small and delicate, our minds just so dull and stupid, our bodies bagged, and our whole lives belittled into feminine propriety. Mind, health, beauty, and happiness are all sacrificed to the processes of mold; but, then, a woman has the comfort of keeping in her sphere, till her brief and terrible misery is over and she dies out of it.
She continued: “My remedy for all this slavery of women is for her to begin to judge and act for herself. God made her for herself, as much as man was made for himself. She is not to be the victim of man, or false public opinion.
As an example of the demands of women for increased liberty, the move for more healthful and less hampering female attire excited their attention even more than did the demand for the ballot. In 1849, the feminine costume that came to be known as bloomers was designed or invented by Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller. The original bloomer reached down to the ankles and was accompanied by a short skirt that reached almost to the knees. The attire was devoid of beauty and never became popular with the women of the period, although many women adopted it and suffered at the hands of the mob for doing so. In their “modesty” the early advocates of women’s rights never dared dream of the short skirts and halters, one piece bathing suits, and bikinis that became regular features of women’s attire, during the 20th century.
The bloomer covered the woman’s body as thoroughly as did her long skirts but provided for greater freedom of movement. Mrs. Miller showed a working model of her new dress to Amelia J. Bloomer, a famous advocate of women’s rights. Mrs. Bloomer was so fascinated by the idea of new garments for women that were both “modest” and convenient that she promptly sponsored them. They came to be known by her name rather than that of their inventor.
Almost as active in the demand for women’s rights and in the dress reform movement as Mary Gove, was Harriet Austin, M.D., adopted daughter and associate of Dr. James C. Jackson, who was born in Connecticut in 1826. Dr. Austin, who edited The Laws of Life for several years, was one of the early graduates of the American Physiological and Hydropathic College. She was among the first women in the world to receive the degree of Doctor of Medicine, having received it a few years before the women’s medical college was established.
Dr. Austin was a close personal friend of Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, who left in her handwriting, a stirring tribute to the sterling qualities and professional abilities of the doctor. Dr. Austin retired from active practice in 1822 and died in North Adams, Mass. in 1891.
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 public schools, etc. These elements 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 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.
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.
The Natural Hygiene Handbook
Lennon, J., Taylor, S. (1996). The Natural Hygiene Handbook. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
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.
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.
The Science of the Fine Art of Natural Hygiene – Vol. I
Shelton, H. (1934). The Science and Fine Art of Natural Hygiene – The Hygeientic System: Volume I. National Health Association, Youngstown, OH.
Women displayed marked interest in Graham’s message and special pleas were made to them. “Ladies Physiological Reform Societies” were formed and held meetings where they discussed “Grahamism” and worked for the advancement of the cause. There was some opposition to having a man lecture to women on such delicate subjects as their stomachs, bowels, kidneys, etc., so a plea was made for women to equip themselves to lecture to women. Mary Gove and Paulina Wright were among the first women to answer the call and, a daring thing for the period began to lecture to female audiences on hygiene and dress reform. It was regarded as a brazen thing for them to do, but they dared to lecture on anatomy and physiology, and Mrs. Gove wrote a splendid book on Anatomy and Physiology for Women which passed through several editions. It is reported that their talks on physiology and anatomy caused consternation among the fair Victorians in their audiences and that these shocked ladies often enlivened the meetings by a frantic search for smelling salts and by fainting.
When Graham lectured in Boston in 1832 a young medical student at Dartmouth attended his lectures and, after hearing them, gave up the study of medicine and became a newspaperman. After a period of traveling over the West and South as a newsman, he became editor of the New York Evening Herald. In 1840 Mary Gove, a remarkable woman who had been the first to answer the call for women to lecture to women on Grahamism, went to New York City to study the water cure under Dr. Joel Shew. She and Thomas Low Nichols, the editor who had given up the study of medicine after hearing Graham, were both active in the movement for Woman’s Rights and a few other movements of the time. They met and married.
As women were not permitted, in those days to enter medical college and there were no other schools of “healing” to attend, Nichols decided to complete his studies of medicine and get a license to practice so he could protect Mrs. Gove in her work. He studied medicine at the University of New York under the famous Valentine Mott and graduated with high honors. He would often laugh to himself over the thought of the revolutionary purposes to which he was going to put the reactionary knowledge they dispensed at the University.
Thomas Low Nichols
In 1850 they opened an establishment in New York City, where they dispensed more Hygiene, giving special attention to the emotional and love life of their patients, than they did of water cure. They beat Freud to an understanding of the importance of sex life by many years. Mrs. Nichols used to call their work the “Love Cure.” Nichols and Gove each wrote books and he edited and published in this country the Nichols Journal and The Esoteric. When the North declared war on the seceded Southern states, these two New England Yankees, who were opposed to the war and who thought the South had every right to secede, slipped out of New York and sailed to England where they opened an institution and carried on for many years.
In England, Dr. Nichols founded and edited The Herald of Health, until he retired in the 1890’s when he went to France where he remained until his death at the age of 85 in 1901, Mrs. Nichols having died in England several years prior thereto.
The Herald of Health edited by Dr. Nichols was avowedly a Hygienic publication, although Dr. Nichols never abandoned the cold water treatments of Preissnitz. There were other Hygienic institutions in England headed by other men and there was one magazine published under the title The Journal of Hygeio-Therapy. This Journal was edited by T. V. Gifford, M.D., who asserted that the founding of the College of Hygeio-Therapy in New York was the “great if not the greatest deed” of Trall’s life.
On September 15, 1851, Dr. Nichols and Mary Gove opened the American Hydropathic Institute in New York City. This was a “medical school … for the instruction of qualified persons of both sexes, in all branches of a thorough medical education, including the principles and practices of Water Cure, in acute or chronic disease, surgery, and obstetrics.” This was the first such school in America, perhaps in the world. It was the world’s first drugless college. Although called a Hydropathic Institute, its teachings were Hygienic. Hydropathy was practiced by practically all Hygienists at that time, the only known exceptions being Jennings and Alcott. Even Graham was misled by the claims of the hydropathic school. Hydropathy was taught in Trall’s college also.
Hydropathy was an effort at medical reform rather than a medical revolution. It employed water in various forms from steam to ice, and at all intermediate temperatures, applied in a wide variety of ways, both locally and generally, internally and externally, to secure the same results that medical men sought to obtain with their poisonous drugs. Today it puzzles the Hygienist to account for Trall’s failure to see in the actions of the body, when subjected to hot and cold applications, the same forms of resistance that he saw when drugs were administered. That he grew gradually and slowly away from hydropathy is true, but our present thought is that, had he given more attention to Jennings he would have made a more rapid and a more complete escape from the fallacies of the Water Cure School.
There was one part of his theory of disease, however, that left the door open to the use of temperature as a “therapeutic” measure and, with some of his students, the use of drugs. He held that disease (remedial effort) is the action of blind impulses and that unless they are directed intelligently, they may lead to a fatal termination. To direct them, his first rule in caring for the sick was to “balance the circulation.” To balance the circulation he employed temperature in the form of hydropathic applications. Some of his students thought they could direct the remedial action by the limited use of drugs. Indeed, some years after his death, a medical man, William A. Dunham, M.D., took a large part of Trall’s theory of disease and built a whole system of drug medication upon it, using drugs to direct the remedial efforts. A similar effort is now being made in Russia by the Speransky School.
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 were 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.
Natural Hygiene: The Pristine Way of Life
Shelton, H. (1968). Natural Hygiene: The Pristine Way of Life Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.
Writing in the May 1853 issue of Nichols’ Journal, Mary Gove said: “Man has cultivated what is about him and neglected his nature. He has been careful for the earth and animals. He loves a beautiful garden and is proud of a noble horse. He builds hospitals for the sick and prisons for the criminal. But he digs not up the evil root of ignorance that bears a fruitful crop of disease and crime.” At present, we can only deplore facts like these and labor to put forth light everywhere upon the earth’s darkness.
These followers of Graham were not so much interested in physiological research, involving experiments on animals, as in the promotion of a knowledge of physiology among the laity and the establishment of ways of living based upon physiology. Although it is not known whether Dr. William Alcott attended the first meeting of the Society, he did attend later meetings and became a member. On February 11, 1837, an organization meeting was held at which a constitution was adopted.
Many ladies of the Society were of the opinion that the subjects discussed were of too delicate a nature for a mixed audience and thought there was a need for a woman to lecture to ladies alone.
Mary Gove, who had but a short time before opened a Graham Boarding School at Lynn, Massachusettes, came forward and offered to fill this position.
A Woman’s Physiological Society was formed and lectures were given to women, often separate lectures for married and unmarried women. Mrs. Gove’s lectures were a great success and continued to be carried on for several years, even after the Physiological Society ceased to exist. In 1846 these lectures were published in book form.
The movement initiated by Graham and Alcott and measurably contributed to by Mary Gove, and which was early joined by Dr. Jennings, represents the beginning of the Hygienic movement. The American Physiological Society numbered among its members in the various cities several medical men, but it would carry us too far afield to list the names of these and it is not known how many of them abandoned the drugging practice and confined themselves in the care of the sick to Hygiene. This was only the beginning and many subsequent men, especially Trall, Taylor, Nichols, and Jackson, added their weight and thought and their experience to the evolution of the new but old way of life.
One of the most trying problems of the Hygienist, in dealing with the sick, and this is particularly true of chronic sufferers, is the demand for speedy results. Everybody wants to get well in a hurry. As Mary Gove so well put it: “The great trouble with Americans is they are in too great a hurry. They are in a hurry to eat and drink and to get rich. They get sick as fast as they can, and they want a shortcut to health. Chronic diseases that have been inherited, or induced by wrongdoing through half a lifetime, cannot be cured in a day by any process now known to the world.
Women and Hygiene
CHAPTER LII
The practice of medicine was a male monopoly. Medical colleges would not admit female students. Practicing physicians rejected all applications from females who wished to serve an apprenticeship in medicine. Examining and licensing boards would not examine and license females. Not until a woman’s medical college was established were women admitted to the study of medicine. These facts were true of the allopathic, homeopathic, physio-medical, and eclectic schools of medicine in the United States.
The newer school, represented by that established by Nichols and the one established by Trall, admitted female students to their first classes and did not hesitate to graduate women with the degree, of Doctor of Medicine. What is more, these women doctors were eagerly received by the people and made an excellent name for themselves. You will not find them listed among the early medical practitioners and, although a number of them graduated with the degree, Doctor of Medicine, before the first woman graduated from the first woman’s medical college, no medical historian has yet included them among the first female doctors.
When Graham began his lectures, so great was the public opposition to lectures by a man on subjects of anatomy and physiology, either to mixed audiences or to female audiences, that a call was issued for women lecturers to do this work. Among those who responded to the call was Mrs. Mary Gove. Mrs. Gove not only championed the work of Graham but was in the forefront of the battle for women’s rights, dress reform, and other reforms of her time. In common with all those who opposed established institutions and proposed new and improved ones, she underwent persecution at the hands of the defenders of the old order.
In the April 1853 issue of Nichols’ Journal, Mary Gove says: “I acknowledge I have been mobbed on account of my dress. Fourteen years ago several persons determined to tar and feather me if I dared to lecture in a certain small city. I thought I was needed there and I went, with solemn conviction, and God gave me favor with the people. I outlived all this ignorance. Still prejudice was indeed bitter and cruel in those days … Years have greatly mended the manner of the mobs, but more than one scamp has felt the weight of my husband’s cane in this city.
Mary said: “Women have so long acted, and almost existed, by leave granted by the majority, that they have little idea of independent action. The public puts its mold upon us, and we come out as nearly alike as peas. Our wrists and feet are just so small and ‘delicate,’ our minds just so dull and stupid, our bodies bagged, and our whole lives belittled into ‘feminine propriety.’ Mind, health, beauty, and happiness are all sacrificed to the processes of mold; but, then, a woman has the comfort of keeping in her ‘sphere,’ till her brief and terrible misery is over and she dies out of it.”
Mary wrote: “My remedy for all this slavery of women is for her to begin to judge and act for herself. God made her for herself, as much as man was made for himself. She is not to be the victim of man, or false public opinion.”
We must indeed learn to think for ourselves and to stand on our own two feet. Unfortunately, as she said, “it has been the habit of Americans to carry everything by force of majorities. In the immaturity of man, this must be. Those who are not men and women enough to stand alone must be bolstered up by their fellows and if very weak, by a majority of their fellows. We have become so used to the doctrine that the majority must rule that we forget that it may be a great wrong. Are a thousand tyrants better than one? We seem to forget minority rights altogether.
It is strange that in America, where more people become protestants, at least as far as civil rights are concerned, by the very air they breathe, there was the beginning of a new and ultra-Protestantism–the protest universal–that is, the protest against custom and authority in all things, that there should have existed such violent opposition to the demands made by women that they be permitted to join the human race. What wonder, then, that Mary could ask: “Why is my friend or my neighbor, my ruler, my king or my tyrant? If I must wear the same fashion garments that another wears, if my taste, my convenience, and my occupation are not to determine for me this question of clothing, what am I but a slave? If I must eat, drink, walk, and talk according to the will of others, where is my freedom? My country may have emancipated itself from political interference and rule, but where is individual freedom? The recognition of the right of every human being to individual liberty is the foundation fact of all true human culture.
It is said that fools can ask questions that it takes wise men to answer. It is also true that close upon questionings come answers and, often, the ability to ask a question implies the ability to answer it. When the people boldly put the question: “Why are we to maintain kings and nobles; why are we to give tithes of all we possess; why are we to allow others to think for us, to control our thoughts and actions?” the answer is not far from their lips. In like manner, when the women of the middle of the last century asked why they had to be slaves of fashion and why they should be denied access to the professions, the answers to these questions were already in their possession.
As an example of the demands of women for increased liberty, the move for more healthful and less hampering female attire excited their attention even more than did the demand for the ballot. In 1849 the feminine costume that came to be known as bloomers was designed or invented by Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller. The original bloomer reached down to the ankles and was accompanied by a short skirt that reached almost to the knees. The attire was devoid of beauty and never became popular with the women of the period, although many women adopted it and suffered at the hands of the mob for doing so. In their “modesty” the early advocates of women’s rights never dared dream of the short skirts and halters, one-piece bathing suits, bikinis, and nudity that are now regular features of women’s attire. The bloomer covered the woman’s body as thoroughly as did her long skirts but provided for greater freedom of movement. Mrs. Miller showed a working model of her new dress to Amelia J. Bloomer, a famous advocate of women’s rights. Mrs. Bloomer was so fascinated by the idea of new garments for women that were both “modest” and convenient that she promptly sponsored them. They came to be known by her name rather than that of their inventor.
Almost as active in the demand for women’s rights and in the dress reform movement as Mary Gove, was Harriet N. Austin, M.D., adopted daughter and associate of Dr. James C. Jackson. Dr. Austin, who edited The Laws of Life for several years, was one of the early graduates of the American Physiological and Hydropathic College. She was among the first women in the world to receive the degree of Doctor of Medicine, having received this degree a few years before the women’s medical college was established. Dr. Austin was a close personal friend of Clara Barton and Mrs. Barton left, in her handwriting, a stirring tribute to the sterling qualities and professional abilities of Dr. Austin. Harriet N. Austin was born in Connecticut on August 31, 1826; she retired from active practice in 1882 and died in North Adams, Mass., on April 27, 1891.
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 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.
New-fangled notions were few and just emerging, but they attained great popularity in a short time. Many Hygienists became converts to spiritualism. Among those who adopted spiritualism, magnetism, and hypnotism were Mary Gove and Dr. Thomas Low Nichols. The most difficult obstacle Hygiene had to overcome then, as now, is its simple naturalness. Few people are content with nature or with simplicity. They prefer the mysterious, the incomprehensible, the complex, and the artificial.
Religion still had a strong hold upon the imagination of the people and we should not be surprised to learn that many Hygienists, including Dr. Jackson, who was a minister, Dr. Nichols, and Mary Gove, believed also in divine healing. These, with others, resorted to prayer in their care of the sick. The correct Hygienic attitude in this matter is that all things are rightly related to all things else and it is sheer folly to think that good can come from violating these relations or that God will, upon appeal from us, violate the eternal relations of nature. The intelligent man would expect an intelligent God to permit the lawful processes of nature to pursue uninterruptedly their lawful courses.
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