Author Bibliography (in progress)
Mussey, Reuben Dimond (1780-1866)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Reuben Dimond Mussey was born on 23 June 1780 in Rockingham County, New Hampshire and died on 21 June 1866 in Boston. In his professional capacity as a physician, surgeon, and Professor of Medicine at numerous prestigious universities in the US, he prescribed abstinence from meat-eating to many of his patients. He was a Temperance advocate, opposing the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Mussey insists that meat is not necessary for good human health but rather sees humanity as a plant-eating species. In Health: Its Friends and Foes (1862), he describes how, in 1832, "I gave up the eating of flesh as an experiment, without determining how long I would continue it. I was then actively engaged in professional labor, and was unable at any subsequent period to decide that I had lost anything either in strength or activity. The state of my nerves was in a few weeks so much improved, that I determined to persevere. I soon lost my relish for the flesh of land animals, but never wholly for fresh fish, although I tasted it but once for sixteen years" (340-341). He was a founding member and Vice-President of the American Vegetarian Society, established by William Alcott, Sylvester Graham, William Metcalfe, and Russell Trall in 1850, and a frequent contributor to William Alcott's journal Library of Health. IMAGE: Rueben Dimond Mussey. Engraved by J. B. Hunt.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
PUBLICATIONS
Health: Its Friends and Its Foes. Gould and Lincoln; New York: Sheldon and company; [etc., etc.], 1862.
https://archive.org/details/healthitsfriend00mussgoog
Last updated on July 12th, 2024
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