Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers

James Whorton is (was?) a professor of Biomedical History at the University of Washington. This 1982 Princeton University Press book provides a history (primarily focused on the period of 1830-1920) of the earliest health reform movements in this country. Unlike many similar histories, the book places these health movements to their broader social context (e.g., the Jacksonian and Progressivism reform movements). Whorton recognizes the religious motivations in some of these health movements, in chapters such as "Christian Physiology," where Whorton covers figures such as Reverend Sylvester Graham (now known mostly as a vegetarian and inventor of the "graham cracker") Whorton's own observations are reserved, but often incisive: e.g., "It would be easy to overstate the impact of Grahamism on vegetarianism, as there is a strong temptation to say that before the 1830s the concern of vegetarians was to save animals, and that afterward it was to save people. There was indeed a reordering of priorities, but it was less abrupt and well-defined than the generalization would suggest." This book would be of great interest to anyone interested in the history of alternative medicine, particularly as it has been practiced in this country.