International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals

   

Periodical: Herald of Health (M. L. Holbrook)

Summary: From Pat Deveney's database:

Herald of Health and Journal of Physical Culture.
Devoted to Hygienic Medication, Bodily Development and Laws of Life.
1863--1881 Monthly
New York, NY.
Language: English.
Editor: M.L. (Martin Luther) Holbrook, M.D.
Publisher: Miller and Wood.
Succeeds: Water Cure Journal and Herald of Reform-->The Water Cure Journal: A Guide to Health Devoted to Physiology, Hydropathy and the Laws of Life-->The Hygienic Teacher and Water Cure Journal-->The Herald of Health and Water Cure Journal-->The Herald of Health
Succeeded by: The Herald of Health: Devoted to the Culture of Body and Mind-->Journal of Hygiene and Herald of Health
1/1, 1863-April 1881.

This has a long and complicated history in the fringe movements of the later nineteenth century. It began in 1845 as Fowler & Wells' Water Cure Journal and Herald of Reforms; it then became The Water Cure Journal: A Guide to Health Devoted to Physiology, Hydropathy and the Laws of Life; then The Hygienic Teacher and Water Cure Journal; and then, after Fowler & Wells sold the journal to Russell T. Trall, it became The Herald of Health and Water Cure Journal in 1863, then simply the Herald of Health. In 1866 it took the titles given above and then ended up as The Herald of Health: Devoted to the Culture of Body and Mind in 1873. Holbrook (1831-1902) was the cornerstone of much of the hygiene, health and physical culture fads of the time and his ideas easily made the transition to New Thought, "Natural Living" and eugenics. The name of the journal was adopted by T.L. Nichols for his very similarly intentioned journal in London. Advertised in "Spiritual and Miscellaneous Periodicals for Sale at this Office," Banner of Light (August 22, 1874): 5. The journal advocated something called "Physiological Christianity" but in a form easily congenial to spiritualists. Columbia University microfilm.

Other Sources:
Issues:Herald Of Health V1 Jan-jun 1863
Herald Of Health V2 Jul-dec 1863
Herald Of Health V7 Jan-jun 1866
Herald Of Health V8 Jul-dec 1866
Herald Of Health V9 Jan-jun 1867
Herald Of Health V10 Jul-dec 1867
Herald Of Health V13 Jan-jun 1869
Herald Of Health V14 Jul-dec 1869
Herald Of Health V15 Jan-jun 1870
Herald Of Health V16 Jul-dec 1870
Herald Of Health V17 Jan-jun 1871
Herald Of Health V18 Jul-dec 1871
Herald Of Health V19 Jan-jun 1872
Herald Of Health V20 Jul-dec 1872
Herald Of Health V21 Jan-jun 1873
Herald Of Health V22 Jul-dec 1873 Partial
Herald Of Health V23 Jan-jun 1874
Herald Of Health V24 Jul-dec 1874
Herald Of Health V25 Jan-jun 1875
Herald Of Health V26 Jul-dec 1875
Herald Of Health V27 Jan-jun 1876
Herald Of Health V28 Jul-dec 1876 Partial
Herald Of Health V29 Jan-jun 1877 Partial
Herald Of Health V31 N1 Jan 1878
Herald Of Health V31 N2 Feb 1878
Herald Of Health V33 Jan-jun 1879
Herald Of Health V34 Jul-dec 1879
Herald Of Health V35 Jan-jun 1880-partial
Herald Of Health V36 Jul-dec 1880
Herald Of Health V37 Jan-jun 1881
Herald Of Health V38 Jul-dec 1881
Claude-Generated Themes:   The Herald of Health was Dr. M. L. Holbrook's New York hygiene magazine, a direct descendant of the water-cure and health-reform press, and its content is squarely that of nineteenth-century hygienic medicine: diet and vegetarian reform, physical culture, breathing, ventilation, and sanitary living. It carries a strong companion thread of phrenology drawn from the same Fowlers-adjacent reform world of benevolence and the 'faculties.' Its scattered talk of 'success' and 'control' belongs to health-reform self-help and bodily self-regulation rather than to New Thought or spiritualism. It reads as a mainstream organ of the American hygiene and diet-reform movement.

Generated by Claude from the periodical's digitized text; a thematic reading, not a bibliographic description.
Topics:Health Reform and Alternative Medicine | New Thought | Spiritualism