Martin Luther Holbrook

Martin Luther Holbrook (February 3, 1831 - August 12, 1902) was an American physician and vegetarianism activist associated with the natural hygiene and physical culture movements.

Biography

Holbrook was born in Mantua Township, Portage County, Ohio. Holbrook graduated from Ohio Agricultural College and edited the Ohio Farmer (1859-1861). During 1861–1863, Holbrook worked with Dio Lewis in Boston to promote physical culture and hygiene.

Holbrook was coproprietor of the New Hygienic Institute at Laight Street in New York City, the property was previously Russell Trall's water-cure institution. He was a founder of Miller, Wood and Holbrook firm and Miller, Wood & Co publishers of medical books. He later published under his own name, M. L. Holbrook and was an important publisher of medical and hygienic literature up until the 1890s.

Holbrook was a vegetarian and promoted abstinence from alcohol, coffee, meat, tea, and tobacco. He translated the German raw food book Fruit and Bread by Gustav Schlickeysen. The book promoted a fruitarian diet of uncooked fruits, grains and nuts.

The Herald of Health

From 1866, Holbrook was a long-term editor for Russell Trall's The Herald of Health (it became the Journal of Hygiene in 1893). He edited the journal until 1898.

In 1898, the journal was renamed Omega and was edited by Holbrook and Charles Alfred Tyrrell. It merged with Physical Culture.

Parturition without Pain: A Code of Directions for Escaping the Primal Curse (1874) Hygiene of the Brain and Nerves and the Cure of Nervousness (1878) How to Strengthen the Memory (1886) Dr. Holbrook's American Cookery (1888) Eating for Strength (1888) Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Advantages of Chastity (1894) Stirpiculture: Or, the Improvement of Offspring Through Wiser Generation (1897) Homo-Culture: Or, the Improvement of Offspring Through Wiser Generation (1899)