Elmer Lee

Elmer Lee was born in Ohio in 1856;^[1] he graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, in 1877, with an A.B.; Lee received his A.M. in 1880.^[2] He then moved to St. Louis, where he taught in public schools and worked in newspapers.^[3] Lee earned his M.D. from the Missouri Medical College (now the Washington University School of Medicine) in 1880 and his Ph.D. from Saint Louis University in 1886.^[2] He then moved to Chicago, where he lived for ten years.^[3] Lee studied cholera in Germany and Russia, living for a time in Saint Petersburg.^[4]

Lee started the healthy living magazine Health Culture in 1894;^[5] it heavily promoted a plant-based diet.^[6] Lee remained as editor for 23 years,^[3] before being succeeded by Arthur Vos;^[7] the magazine continued publishing until 1964.^[8]: 504 Lee moved to New York City in 1898.^[3] He was acting Assistant Surgeon in the Spanish–American War.^[1] On November 23, 1898, he testified before a commission investigating conduct in the war.^[9] In 1902, Lee patented a reservoir for dispensing liquid soap.^[10]

In 1908, Lee authored an article in The New York Times about the founding of a "Hospital of Hygiene".^[11] Lee started working as a naturopath in 1910 and developed a health movement known as the "hygienic system", inspired by Russel Trall.^[12] In the same year, Lee was the subject of an article by The New York Times, entitled "Dr. Lee pleads for better foods", in which he advocated for curing disease through a diet of "live organic plant-foods" and asserted that societal maladies, such as drunkenness, were due to people not following a sufficiently nutritious diet;^[13] this article has been described as the first known use of the phrase "plant-foods" to describe a vegetarian diet.^[14]

In 1910, Lee reprinted Rupert H. Wheldon's No Animal Food and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes, one of the first British vegan recipe books; it included a quote from Lee, stating that a "Plant diet with butter, cream, milk, cheese, eggs, lard, fat, suet, or tallow added to it, is not vegetarian; it is mixed diet; the same in effect as if meat were used."^[14] Around 1921, Lee invented a plant milk, derived from oats and peanut meal.^[8]: 236

Lee served as the Vice-President of the American Academy of Medicine^[15] and held offices in the American Medical Association and the American Social Science Association;^[4] he was on the advisory committee of the American Super-Race Foundation^[16] and worked as a lecturer for the New York Board of Education.^[17]

Lee retired around 1935 and donated his medical books to Ohio Wesleyan University.^[4] He died at Cincinnati Sanitarium, College Hill, Cincinnati, on June 13, 1945.^[18]

• "Hydro-therapeutic Principles in the Treatment of Typhoid Fever". Medical Record. 53 (9). New York. 1891-02-26.
• Lee, E. (September 1894). "The Treatment of Typhoid Fever". The American Journal of Dental Science. 28 (5): 223–228. PMC 6115018. PMID 30757396.
• Lee, E. (October 1895). "Treatment of Asiatic Cholera". The American Journal of Dental Science. 29 (6): 250–258. PMC 6118763. PMID 30757708.
• "Diphtheria and its antitoxin". The Laryngoscope. 1 (2): 105–106. August 1896. doi:10.1288/00005537-189608000-00011. S2CID 221920462.
• Lee, Elmer (1900-02-24). "Food and Drink" (PDF). JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. XXXIV (8): 465. doi:10.1001/jama.1900.24610080017001g. ISSN 0098-7484.

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  Elmer Lee in his laboratory making plant milk made from chopped oats, ground peanuts and water
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  Elmer Lee Health Culture magazine advert
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  Elmer Lee promoting a vegan diet in 1911