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Rev. William Metcalfe, M.D.
June 6, 2024
Rev. William Metcalfe, M.D.

(1788-1854)

Thomas Metcalfe, a prominent leader of the Bible-Christian Church, was ordained as a minister in 1811 and led a small group to Philadelphia in 1817. His life’s work focused on establishing the Church in the United States and promoting temperance and vegetarianism. The Church advocated abstinence from alcohol and animal flesh, principles strongly supported by Metcalfe. What is particularly notable is during the cholera plague of 1832, no one in the Bible-Christian Church died from it.   This fact made a deep and lasting impression on Rev. Sylvester Graham and caused him to turn his attention to the study of a vegetarian diet.

Metcalfe, together with Rev. Sylvester Graham, Dr. William Alcott, and Dr. Russell Thacker Trall became the founding members of the American “Vegetarian Society.” Metcalfe was subsequently elected as its president in 1859.

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Russell Thacker Trall, M.D.
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William Alcott, M.D.
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