Nichols, Thomas Low (1815-1901)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Thomas Low Nichols was born on 13 December 1815 in Orford, New Hampshire, and died on 8 July 1901 in Chaumont-en-Vexin, France. He was a physician, dietitian, journalist, novelist, writer, reformer and activist who advocated for hydropathy, Temperance, Spiritualism, universal suffrage, free love, and women's rights and campaigned against military conscription, vivisection, vaccination, and capital punishment. His work on health and dietary reform intersect in his promotion of in hydrotherapy; he was secretary of the American Hygienic and Hydropathic Association and the Society of Public Health and a frequent contributor to Joel Shew's publication The Water-Cure Journal. Nichols was active in the creation of the American Vegetarian Society, with William Alcott, Sylvester Graham, and Russell Thacher Trall, attending the inaugural meeting of the Society, contributing as a member of the committee charged with nominating officers, and publishing a report on the first convention. He established the periodicals Nichols' Monthly: A Magazine of Social Science and Progressive Literature and Nichol’s Journal of Health, Water-Cure, and Human Progress and was an editor of The Herald of Health.
With his wife Mary Sargeant Gove Nichols, he trained hydropathic physicians and in 1851 they established the American Hydropathic Institute in New York City, where the water cure was practised. They were involved in Josiah Warren's utopian socialist community named Modern Times in what is now Brentwood, New York. Later they were involved in the creation of the vegan Memnonia Institute in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Mary and Thomas Nichols were considered by their contemporaries to be exponents of "free love"; this did not signify sexual licentiousness but rather the right of women to refuse sex, even within marriage, and a woman's right to decide whether and when she would bear children. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War they moved to England where, in 1879, they opened the Alpha Restaurant, which is regarded as the first "vegetarian" restaurant in London. Following his wife's death in 1884, Nichols remained in England, settling in Surrey before moving to Northern France.
IMAGE: Thomas Low Nichols. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
PUBLICATIONS
“American Vegetarian Society.” The Water-Cure Journal Vol. X no. 4 (October 1850): 157-158.
“Catechism of Water-Cure.” The Water-Cure Journal Vol. XV no. 1 (January 1852): 5-6.
“Dietetics.” The Water-Cure Journal Vol. X no. 2 (August 1850): 61-63.
“Dietetics.” The Water-Cure Journal Vol. X no. 3 (September 1850): 89-90.
“The Diseases of Women.” The Water-Cure Journal Vol. XI no. 5 (May 1851): 122-124.
“Dr. and Mrs. Nichols's Circular." The Water-Cure Journal Vol. XIII no. 4 (April 1852): 76-77.
Dr. Nichols' Penny Vegetarian Cookery: The Science and the Art of Selecting and Preparing a Pure, Healthful, and Sufficient Diet: Illustrated by Food Diagrams and Portraits of Distinguished Vegetarians. London: Franks & Co., 1888.
[Eating to Live] The Diet Cure: An Essay on the Relations of Food and Drink. Health, Disease and Cure. New York: M. L. Holbrook, 1877.
https://www.google.de/books/edition/The_Diet_cure/3nLHmvoktz4C
Esoteric Anthropology (the Mysteries of Man): A comprehensive and confidential treatise on the structure, functions, passional attractions, and perversions, true and false physical and social conditions, and the most intimate relations of men and women. Anatomical, physiological, pathological, therapeutical, and obstetrical; hygienic and hydropathic. London: Nichols & Co., 1873.
Esperanza: My Journey Thither and What I Found There. Cincinnati: Valentine Nicholson, 1860.
How to Behave: A Manual of Manners and Morals. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1873.
“Health Maxims.” The Water-Cure Journal Vol. XIV no. 1 (July 1852): 15.
How to Live on a Dime and A-Half A-Day. New York: J. S. Redfield, 1872.
Human Physiology. The Basis of Sanitary and Social Science. London: Nichols & Co., 1893.
An Introduction to the Water-Cure: a concise exposition of the human constitution; the conditions of health; the nature and causes of disease; the leading systems of medicine; and the principles, practice, adaptations, and results of hydropathy or the water-cure; showing it to be a scientific and comprehensive system for the preservation and restoration of health; Founded in Nature, and Adapted to the Wants of Man. New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1850.
“Practice in Water-Cure.” The Water-Cure Journal Vol. IX (June 1850): 186-188.
“The Staff of Life.” The Water-Cure Journal Vol. XI no. 6 (June 1851): 148.