Caleb Saleeby

Caleb Williams Saleeby (1878 – 9 December 1940) was an English physician, writer, and journalist known for his support of eugenics. During World War I, he was an adviser to the Minister of Food and advocated the establishment of a Ministry of Health.

Life Saleeby was born in Sussex to a Lebanese Christian father and an English mother. His father, Elias G. Saleeby, was a founder and head of schools in Mount Lebanon. From his mother's side he was the grandson of the famous psychiatrist Caleb Williams of York. He was educated by his mother and at the Royal High School in Edinburgh.

At Edinburgh University, he took First Class Honours and was an Ettles Scholar and Scott Scholar in Obstetrics. In 1904, he received his Doctor of Medicine degree. He was a resident at the Maternity Hospital and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and briefly at the York City Dispensary.

In 1906 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Alexander Russell Simpson, Sir Thomas Clouston, Sir William Turner and Daniel John Cunningham.

He became a prolific freelance writer and journalist, with strong views on many subjects. Saleeby founded a nudist club in Britain in the 1920s exhorting the nudist lifestyle in his book Sunlight and Health.

He died on 9 December 1940 from heart failure at Apple Tree, Aldbury, near Tring.

Family

He married Monica Meynell, daughter of Alice Meynell and Wilfrid Meynell, in June 1903. They had two daughters, Mary and Cordelia.

In 1910, his marriage fell apart after his wife had a nervous breakdown. During this time, their daughter Mary, was sent to live with Viola Meynell. D.H. Lawrence was living at her family's cottage in Sussex. He became Mary's tutor.

In 1930 he married Muriel Gordon Billings.

Selected works

Cycle of Life According to Modern Science (1904) The Conquest of Cancer (1907) Worry the Disease of the Age (1907) Health, Strength and Happiness (1908) Parenthood and Race Culture (1909) The Methods of Race-Regeneration (1911) Woman and Womanhood (1911) The Progress of Eugenics (1914) Sunlight and Health (1st ed 1923. 5th ed 1929)]