Andrea Rabagliati

Andrea Carlo Francisco Rabagliati (22 May 1843 – 7 December 1930) was a Scottish physician, naturopath and author of books on dietary practice.

Career

Rabagliati was born in Edinburgh in 1843. He was the son of Giacomo Rabagliati, a political refugee from Italy, and Caroline Kinnison. Giacomo first appeared in an article in the Scotsman newspaper in December 1827, offering his services as a teacher of French, Italian, and Spanish. The Scotsman stated, "suffice it to say, that he (Giacomo) is expatriated from Italy for having carried arms in defence of the liberties of his country, and seeks an asylum and a field for the exercise of his talents in the city."

In 1860, Rabagliati spent two years in British Guiana with his uncle. They had five children including Euan Rabagliati, Duncan Silvestro Rabagliati OBE, Catherine Rabagliati MBE (Mayor of Paddington) and Herman Victor Rabagliati.

He was a member of the Yorkshire branch of the British Medical Association from 1888 to 1892 and was president of the branch from 1893 to 1894.

Beliefs Rabagliati has been described as an advocate of alternative medicine and the "nature cure". Biographer Carole Seymour-Jones has noted that in his book Air, Food and Exercise, Rabagliati described how "cancer, influenza, pneumonia and almost all modern diseases could be cured by diet."

Rabagliati was a convinced vegetarian, who favoured two meals a day, with eight hours between them. One of his notable patients was Beatrice Webb. She was prescribed a milk and soup diet with two ounces of rice for a few weeks. She was influenced by this diet and in 1902 converted to vegetarianism. Rabagliati believed that people could add fifteen years to their lives by following his diet.

Rabagliati held some unorthodox ideas, for example he believed that bodily energy and heat do not come from any food source. Instead he speculated that humans obtain "vital energy" from sleeping. He authored a book about this in 1907 titled The Functions Of Food In The Body and wrote the introduction to Hereward Carrington's Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition, which expounded on these ideas. His 1907 book was mocked in the Scottish Medical and Surgical Journal, which commented "we are in doubt as to whether to take this book seriously or not. If the latter, it is one of the best scientific jokes perpetrated for many a day." A review in The British Medical Journal described Rabagliati's ideas on the origin of bodily energy as "interesting philosophical speculations" but noted they lacked scientific evidence. The technique entailed "lifting pressure" off nerves by using pressure movements to the muscles and their surrounding connective tissues to reduce congestion. Naturopath Stanley Lief was influenced by Rabagliati's method and combined it with ayurveda techniques to form Neuromuscular Therapy.

Publications

Aphorisms, Definitions, Reflections, and Paradoxes, Medical, Surgical and Dietetic (1901), Bailliere, Tindall and Cox, 291p Air, Food and Exercises: An Essay on the Predisposing Causes of Disease (1904, 3rd Edition) The Functions of Food in the Body: Does Either Bodily Energy or Bodily Heat Come From the Food? (1907), Elliot Stock, London, 46p Conversations With Women Regarding their Health and that of their Children (1912), C. W .Daniel Company, London, 318p Human Life and the Body: An Essay on the Force of Man-Life (1920), Stockwell, London Initis Or Nutrition and Exercises (1930, 2nd Edition), C. W. Daniel Company, London, 200p Towards Life: Happy, Healthy, Efficient (1923), C. W. Daniel Company, London, 224p, A Catechism of Health (1928) C. W. Daniel Company, London. A New Theory of Energy (Paperback) (2005 reprint), Kessinger Publishing, 48p,