M. L. 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. He graduated from Lewis's Normal School of Physical Culture. He moved to New York City and obtained his medical degree from the Hygeio-Therapeutic College in 1864.

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. The printing press was located at Laight Street in New York City. It shared the same address as Russell Trall's New York Hygeio-Therapeutic College. Also at the same address, in 1865 the three directors opened the first Victorian Turkish baths in Manhattan, barely two years after the first such bath was opened in the US.

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.