Antebellum Health Reformers
 

Mrs. M.L. Shew

In 1844,  Mrs. M.L. Shew published the third edition of an 156-page book on health reform entitled Water Cure for Ladies: a Popular Work on the Health, Diet, and Regimen of Females and Children, and the Prevention and Care of Diseases. In it she teaches:

• Alcohol is a deadly poison
• Drug medicines are "most pernicious"
• Get rid of salt in the diet
• Spices, such as mustard, pepper, and vinegar are "pernicious"
• Tea is "one of the most destructive poisons"
• Tobacco is a very powerful poison
• Daily bathing, exercise, and fresh air are important for good health
• Use cream instead of butter
• A vegetarian diet will promote health
• Cheese is hard for the body to digest
• Meals should be six hours apart. Two meals a day is "better for sedentary persons"
• Bread is the "staff of life." Fresh bread should not be eaten while still warm.

Joseph Smith

In 1833,  the LDS Church founder, Joseph Smith received his health reform vision. In Doctrine and Covenants (section 89, verses 5-17) Smith reveals the following health reforms:

• Use of "wine" and "strong" alcoholic drinks is proscribed.
• Tobacco is forbidden.
• "Hot drinks [coffee and tea] are not for the body".
• Fruits, vegetables, and grains will bring health to the body.
• Meat is allowed, but should be eaten "sparingly".

Sylvester Graham

Sylvester Graham, in his Lectures on the Science of Human Life, (published in 1849) expounded on the following:

• Avoid all simulating and unnatural foods, living "entirely on the products of the vegetable kingdom and pure water."
• Butter should be used "very sparingly."
• Fresh milk and eggs were frowned upon but not proscribed.
• Cheese was permitted only if mild and unaged.
• Condiments and spices, such as pepper, mustard, and cinnamon, were banned as being "all highly exciting and exhausting."
• Tea and coffee, like alcohol and tobacco, poisoned the system.
• Pastries, with the exception of fruit pies, were "among the most pernicious articles of human ailment."
• Sleep was preferable before midnight.
• Sleep should be taken in a well-ventilated room.
• A sponge bath every morning was desirable.
• Clothing should not be restrictive.
• "All medicine, as such, is itself an evil."

Furthermore, Graham was opposed to both marital excess and self-abuse (masturbation). Graham believed that stimulating foods aroused the sexual passions. Therefore, he concluded that one of the best ways to control sexual urges was to adopt a vegetarian diet and forsake condiments, spices, alcohol, tea, and coffee (Lecture to Young Men on Chastity).

Dio Lewis

In the 1850's Dio Lewis became a nationally known lecturer on health reform. He taught many of the same things as Graham, but he added the reform of eating only two meals a day. He also discouraged the use of tobacco, tea, and coffee.

Larkin Coles

Larkin B. Coles was less known than Graham or Lewis. He was a preacher-physician and a follower of William Miller. Miller,  a Baptist layman, started the movement known as Adventism in the 1830s in New York. He became convinced that the end of the world was near and that he must tell the world. He was welcomed at different churches as a speaker and the principles he taught continue to be held by many.   

Before his death in 1856, Coles authored two books on health. In his books he advocated fresh air, exercise, a vegetarian diet, non-use of stimulants, reform in dress, sexual purity, and drugless medicine.

Coles not only warned against meat eating because it increased the animal propensities, but he also discussed the connection between meat-eating and disease. He was notable for sounding a warning (which others health reformers had already voiced) that there was a relationship between tobacco use and carcinomas. (The Beauties and Deformities of Tobacco-Using)

(Some information from http://www.ellenwhite.org/health1.htm)