Elmer Lee | |
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 Portrait fromEmpire State Notables, 1914 | |
| Born | (1856-03-12)March 12, 1856 Piqua, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | June 13, 1945(1945-06-13) (aged 89) College Hill, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Education |
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| Occupation(s) | Physician,natural hygiene andvegetarianism advocate |
Elmer Lee (March 12, 1856 – June 13, 1945) was an American physician and advocate ofnatural hygiene andvegetarianism. He was the founder and editor of the health magazineHealth Culture.
Elmer Lee was born in Ohio in 1856;[1] he graduated fromOhio Wesleyan University, in 1877, with anA.B.; Lee received hisA.M. in 1880.[2] He then moved to St. Louis, where he taught in public schools and worked in newspapers.[3] Lee earned hisM.D. from the Missouri Medical College (now theWashington University School of Medicine) in 1880 and hisPh.D. fromSaint Louis University in 1886.[2] He then moved to Chicago, where he lived for ten years.[3] Lee studiedcholera in Germany and Russia, living for a time inSaint Petersburg.[4]
Lee started the healthy living magazineHealth Culture in 1894;[5] it heavily promoted aplant-based diet.[6] Lee remained as editor for 23 years,[3] before being succeeded by Arthur Vos;[7] the magazine continued publishing until 1964.[8]: 504 Lee moved to New York City in 1898.[3] He was actingAssistant Surgeon in theSpanish–American War.[1] On November 23, 1898, he testified before a commission investigating conduct in the war.[9] In 1902, Lee patented a reservoir for dispensing liquid soap.[10]
In 1908, Lee authored an article inThe New York Times about the founding of a "Hospital of Hygiene".[11] Lee started working as a naturopath in 1910 and developed a health movement known as the "hygienic system", inspired byRussel Trall.[12] In the same year, Lee was the subject of an article byThe New York Times, entitled "Dr. Lee pleads for better foods", in which he advocated for curing disease through a diet of "live organic plant-foods" and asserted that societal maladies, such as drunkenness, were due to people not following a sufficiently nutritious diet;[13] this article has been described as the first known use of the phrase "plant-foods" to describe a vegetarian diet.[14]
In 1910, Lee reprintedRupert H. Wheldon'sNo Animal Food and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes, one of the first Britishvegan recipe books; it included a quote from Lee, stating that a "Plant diet with butter, cream, milk, cheese, eggs, lard, fat, suet, or tallow added to it, is not vegetarian; it is mixed diet; the same in effect as if meat were used."[14] Around 1921, Lee invented aplant milk, derived from oats and peanut meal.[8]: 236
Lee served as the Vice-President of the American Academy of Medicine[15] and held offices in theAmerican Medical Association and theAmerican Social Science Association;[4] he was on the advisory committee of the American Super-Race Foundation[16] and worked as a lecturer for the New York Board of Education.[17]
Lee retired around 1935 and donated his medical books to Ohio Wesleyan University.[4] He died at Cincinnati Sanitarium,College Hill, Cincinnati, on June 13, 1945.[18]
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