Ohio History Journal




DR

DR. JAMES H. SALISBURY AND THE SALISBURY DIET

by CLYDE L. CUMMER, M.D.

The life of James H. Salisbury should be of interest to the

historically minded for three reasons. The first and least is that

he devised and popularized a dietary regimen still remembered al-

most half a century after his death. The second is that he was a

pioneer exponent of the germ theory of disease and carried out

laborious and painstaking investigations. The third and tragic

one is that had he persisted in his researches for another decade

after he abandoned them, he might have found some of the right

answers and thereby achieved everlasting fame. To us Ohioans

there is added interest in his residence in Cleveland during his

most active years.

Several biographic sketches furnish substantially the same

facts.1 The son of Nathan and Lucretia (Babcock) Salisbury, he

was born October 13, 1823, in Scott, a tiny village in Cortland

County, New York, less than ten miles south of the southerly

end of Lake Skaneateles. Young Salisbury attended Homer

Academy near his birthplace, a school presided over by Pro-

fessor Samuel Woolworth, later secretary of the Board of Regents

of the University of the State of New York. Then he went to

the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York, founded

in 1824 and credited with being the oldest school of science in

this country. Here he received the degree of bachelor of natural

science in 1846. His medical degree was obtained from Albany

Medical College in 1850, and in 1852 Union College made him

a master of arts. Inasmuch as he had been appointed assistant

chemist to the New York State Geological Survey in 1846 and

chief chemist in 1849, his medical studies must have been carried

 

1 National Cyclopedia of American Biography; Dictionary of American

Biography; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, American Medical Biographies (New

York, 1920); Who Was Who in America; Albany Medical Annals, XXVI (1905),

777; Journal of the American Medical Association, XLV (1905), 729; Historical

and Biographical Cyclopedia of Ohio.

352



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury              353

on while he was in the service of the state. He served as chief

chemist until 1852. At this time he also had an office in Albany

for the practice of medicine.

It is pertinent to consider the Albany Medical College briefly.

In Salisbury's class there were twenty-four graduates, all but

three of whom were from New York state. The faculty was

unusually large for the time, comprising eight excellent teachers.

The best known member was Alden March, the professor of sur-

gery, who had been graduated from the medical department of

Brown University in 1820 and had served as professor of anatomy

and physiology at the Vermont Academy of Medicine (later

Castleton Medical College) from 1825 to 1835. President of

the New York State Medical Society in 1857, he was one of the

founders of the American Medical Association and in 1863

became its president. He and James H. Armsby, professor of

anatomy and physiology, founded the Albany Medical College in

1839. Salisbury's facilities for learning chemistry were espe-

cially favorable, because the professor of chemistry was Lewis

C. Beck, an outstanding teacher and author of a textbook on the

subject which was widely used and went through three editions.2

Obviously Salisbury had the benefit of excellent scientific train-

ing in high-grade educational institutions.

He lectured on elementary and applied chemistry at the

state normal school in 1851-52 and published papers on the

anatomy and histology of plants in 1848 and on the history and

chemical investigation of maize in 1849. The latter was issued

by the New York State Agricultural Society, and for it the author

received a prize of three hundred dollars.

One of his publications shows that he began his studies in

"microscopic medicine" in 1849 and his investigations into

"healthy and unhealthy alimentation" in 1858. The latter was

carried on by microscopic work on healthy living animals under

the influence of chloroform. After "long, tedious, persistent and

 

2 Frederick C. Waite, "Early Institutional Training in New York State," The

Pharos of Alpha Omega Alpha, XIII (1950), 32; Frederick C. Waite, personal

communications.



354 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

354 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

painstaking labor, during which several hundred animals had

fallen sacrifice to the work, the mystery was solved, and the great

blood gland was found to be the spleen, and the smaller ones

the mesenteric and the lymphatic." As we of today know, this

hardly solved the problem.

The period from 1843 to 1863 was marked by several pub-

lications reporting numerous chemical and microscopic studies

of fruits, vegetables, and grains and researches which "resulted in

the discovery of what appears to be the cause of the so-called

'blight' in apple, pear and quince trees, and the decay of their

fruit; and the discovery of the so-called 'blister and curl' in the

leaves of the peach trees." This appeared as an Ohio State

Agricultural Report in 1863. From 1849 to 1865 he wrote many

articles in which he attempted to demonstrate that various infec-

tious and contagious diseases were produced by specific germs,

each kind causing its special disease.

The leading article in the July 1862 issue of the American

Journal of Medical Sciences was a contribution by him on certain

fungi found in decaying straw as the cause of camp measles,

claiming that inoculations had produced a similar exanthem.3

A later article stated that inoculation had been used to prevent

infection. However, Pepper inoculated twenty-two persons who

had not had measles with this fungus without results.4

In 1866 the same journal published his article on the cause

of intermittent and remittent fevers "with investigations which

tend to prove that these affections are caused by certain species

of palmellae."5 He stated that in the valleys of the Ohio and

Mississippi the sputa of the sick contained small elongated cells

presenting themselves singly and in rows which he considered

 

3 J. H. Salisbury, "Remarks on Fungi, with an Account of Experiments Show-

ing the Influence of the Fungi of Wheat Straw on the Human System; and Some

Observations Which Point to Them As the Probable Source of 'Camp Measles,'

and Perhaps of Measles Generally," American Journal of Medical Sciences, XLIV

(1862), 17.

4 H. von Ziemssen, Cyclopedia of Medical Practice, translated by R. H. Fitz

and others (20 vols., New York, 1874).

5 J. H. Salisbury, "On the Cause of Intermittent and Remittent Fevers, with

Investigations Which Tend to Prove That These Affections Are Caused by Certain

Species of Palmellae," American Journal of Medical Sciences, LI (1866), 51.



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury                   355

to be alga cells of the species palmella. These were collected

on glass plates set over marshy ground and also in great quanti-

ties on the clods of upturned marshy soil. Salisbury asserted

that he was able to produce the most intense attacks of intermit-

tent fever by means of fresh clods of earth if placed within the

open windows of a sleeping room. The attacks in four persons,

the subjects of two experiments, followed in ten, twelve, and

fourteen days and were broken by quinine. This article, also

published in France in the Revue Scientifique, probably attracted

more attention than any of his other publications, and for it he

received the McNaughton prize awarded by the Albany Medical

College Alumni Association.

The American Journal of Medical Sciences also printed as

its first article in its January issue of 1868 the description, with

cuts, of algoid vegetations, one of which appeared to be the

specific cause of syphilis and the other of gonorrhea.6 The first

he classified as of the genus Crypta (Salisbury); species, C.

syphilitica  (Salisbury).  These filaments were described      as

straight, coiled, or arranged in curves, while in gonorrhea he

found spores. His illustrations show them as small spherical

bodies in pairs, and there were tiny circular dots within the cyto-

plasm of an epithelial cell. Was it possible that he actually saw

the gonococci in these fresh specimens without benefit of staining?

In 1868 appeared a volume of about sixty-five pages entitled

Microscopic Examination of the Blood.7 These studies were based

on fresh preparations on a slide which had been covered quickly

with thin glass. He noted fibrin filaments to which he correctly

attributed a role in clotting, and in Figure 2, immeshed in fibrin

network, are tiny bodies described by the author as "spores,

granules, colorless corpuscles and crystals." Some of these are

doubtless platelets, the true nature of which awaited many years

 

6 J. H. Salisbury, "Description of Two New Algoid Vegetations, One of

Which Appears to Be the Specific Cause of Syphilis, and the Other of Gonorrhoea,"

American Journal of Medical Sciences, XVII (1868), 17.

7 J. H. Salisbury, Microscopic Examination of the Blood; and Vegetations

Found in Variola, Vaccinia and Typhoid Fever (New York, 1868). A copy in the

Cleveland Medical Library was a presentation copy to Dr. Jared Kirtland, the

famous naturalist.



356 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

356 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

for Osler's recognition. The interpretations of the significance

of these bodies, as based on studies of fresh blood smears allowed

to stand many hours, are all erroneous.

In the late sixties there were three minor papers of interest,

especially to dermatologists and mycologists. One was entitled

"A Brief Description of What Appears to Be Two Newly-Dis-

covered Skin Diseases, One Originating in the Cat and the

Other in the Dog, Both Crytogamic and Contagious, and Both

Capable of Being Transmitted from the Animal to the Human

Body."8 He called the disease in the cat trichosis felinus. It

developed on nursing kittens around the lips, nose, face, and

eyes, spreading more rapidly on the hairy parts, attacking the

hair follicles. The spores and hairs resembled trichosis fur-

furacea. To prove the transmissability of this infestation to

humans, he made presents of infected kittens to families where

there was no disease and found that children playing with them

commenced to break out in five to ten days. Parenthetically, no

mention is made of the opinions of the children's parents if and

when they found that their children had been subjected to this

interesting scientific experiment.  At any rate Salisbury was

consistent about the matter, for he inoculated himself and pro-

duced the disease on his own skin. This is one of the early, if not

the earliest, description of the Microsporon lanosum in the Ameri-

can literature.

In 1868 he described a case of chloasma produced by

Microsporon furfur and also a parasitic disease of the conjunc-

tival membranes.9 In the first instance treatment included local

applications on alternating days of diluted aromatic sulfuric

acid and bisulphite of soda, with "a good substantial diet of rare

beef and bread." Both articles were illustrated with good cuts of

the fungus elements.

The Steatozoon folliculorum, "the little animals that infect

the fat follicles of the human face," were described as having

 

8 American Journal of Medical Sciences, LIII (1867), 379.

9 J. H. Salisbury, "Brief Mention of Two Interesting Parasitic Diseases, with

Their Treatment," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, LXXVIII (1868), 78.



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury                   357

been found in the skin and surface adipose of butchered hogs as

small opaque masses the size of wheat kernels.10

An evaluation of Salisbury's efforts is found in Baas's

History of Medicine, translated into English with editorial addi-

tions by Henry A. Handerson: "Historically too the papers of

Dr. J. H. Salisbury on the contagium of various diseases are

likewise of interest," and later:

In the United States a theory of infection by cryptogamic vegetation

was advanced by Dr. J.K. Mitchel of Philadelphia as early as 1849. Dr.

J. H. Salisbury (now best known for his theory of the therapeutic effects

of large draughts of hot water) also in the sixties believed that he had

discovered the cause of syphilis, gonorrhoea, malaria, measles and

rheumatism in certain microscopic algoid vegetations. His observations,

however, were not confirmed by subsequent observers, and the whole

subject had fallen into comparative obscurity until reviewed by the

publication of an English translation of Ziemssen's Encyclopedia about

1874. Bacteriology became at once the chief subject of medical discus-

sion in the journals and societies, and has been pursued with never

waning interest.11

In examining this encyclopedia we find scattered through its

twenty volumes numerous references to Salisbury's researches,

the most lengthy dealing with the causation of malaria.12

This partial recountal of Salisbury's researches bespeaks

his energy, his powers as an objective observer, and his genuine

investigative zeal. Obviously he reached many wrong conclusions,

but surely it was better to have labored and reached the wrong

conclusions than never to have struggled at all, especially if

the efforts stimulated others, as undeniably they did.

For chronological perspective we must remind ourselves

that the late fifties and early sixties, during which Salisbury did

most of his apparently futile and well-nigh forgotten work on the

germ theory of disease, might be likened to the early dawn.

 

10 J. H. Salisbury, "Probable Source of the Steatozoon Folliculorum," St. Louis

Medical Reporter, III (1868-69), 693.

11 J. H. Baas, Outlines of the History of Medicine, translated by H. E.

Handerson (New York, 1889), 844, 1010.

12 See footnote 4, above, for bibliographical data.



358 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

358 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

Daybreak came in the seventies when Koch and Pasteur founded

bacteriology.   Had Salisburg persisted doggedly and availed

himself of bacterial staining as developed by Weigert in 1871-75

and the methods Koch published in 1877 for fixing and drying

bacterial films on coverslips and staining them with Weigert's

anilin stains, the probabilities are that he might have "struck pay

dirt," but when the seventies came, his interests were entirely

elsewhere and the discoveries which might have been his were

made by others.

Exactly where Salisbury carried on his investigative work

is not entirely clear. That he started in the practice of medicine

in Albany, New York, is shown by the Albany city directories, in

which he is listed as a physician at the corner of Lodge and State

streets from 1850 to 1854. He is said to have settled in Newark,

Ohio, for practice but the date is uncertain. On June 28, 1860,

he was married to Clara Brasee, the daughter of the Hon. John

Brasee of nearby Lancaster.13 That he was active in this part

of Ohio is evidenced by the article on measles,14 which gives his

address as Newark. In another article15 he thanks Dr. S.

Boerstler and Dr. Effinger of Lancaster for valuable material.

In the early years of the Civil War he served as a con-

sultant for the medical service of the Northern army.         This

experience was probably a determining influence in his life and

served to deflect his interest to the study of diets. Camp Den-

nison, located in southern Ohio on the Little Miami River about

ten miles north of Cincinnati, was the site of a painstaking study.

The results were reported to the surgeon general of Ohio in 1863

and appeared as a lengthy article in the latter's published reports

in 1864.16 In this Salisbury stated that he was greatly surprised

to find that camp diarrhea essentially was "consumption of the

 

13 The Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery with an Historical Sketch

of the State of Ohio (6 vols., Cincinnati, 1883-95) states that Brasee served two

terms in the Ohio senate, practiced law, and "accumulated a large estate."

14 Footnote 3, above.

15 J. H. Salisbury, "Experiments Connected with the Discovery of Cholesterine

and Seroline, as Secretions in Health, of Salivary, Tear, Mammary and Sudorific

Glands," American Journal of Medical Sciences, XLV (1863), 19.

16 Annual Report of the Surgeon General, to the Governor of the State of

Ohio for the Year 1864 (Columbus, 1865), 87.



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury               359

bowels" and was the same as so-called "hog cholera" and that

it was caused by the too exclusive use of amylaceous food.

All cases were put on broiled beefsteak and coffee with anti-

fermentative medicines. In an appendix to one of his books it

is stated that the army authorities were so pleased with his favor-

able results that they asked him to devise an army ration, so he

went to Cincinnati, hired six laboring men to "board with him,"

living on army biscuit and coffee.17 In eighteen days all had

"consumption of the bowels," or chronic diarrhea, and so did the

doctor, who had lived on the same diet. Each had from six to

thirty stools per day. Then all were dieted on beefsteak and

coffee and were soon well.

After this he proceeded to set up an establishment in New

York for manufacturing desicated food to see what processes

could be used. Report was made to the surgeon general in

Washington, who ordered supplies of the rations suggested.

Arrangements were nearly completed when Richmond fell. With

the end of the war the new army ration was abandoned. At the

same time Professor Horsford of Cambridge was engaged on the

same problem, working by himself and in his own way in Wash-

ington, but when he saw Dr. Salisbury's report he wrote, "You

have hit the nail on the head," gave up his researches, and went

home. At least that is what Salisbury's book says!

The first trace we find of Salisbury in Cleveland was his

connection with the Charity Hospital Medical College.18 In its

organization he assisted Dr. Gustave C. E. Weber and on the

faculty he became the first professor of physiology, histology,

and pathology in 1864, giving two courses of lectures. For this

post he was thoroughly qualified through superior talents and

training. It seems entirely likely that his coming to Cleveland

was another by-product of his army experience, for Dr. Weber

was the surgeon general of Ohio in 1861-63 and in that capacity

had doubtless been acquainted with Salisbury.

 

17 J. H. Salisbury, Brief Statement of the So-called "Salisbury Plans" of

Treating by Alimentation, the Various Diseases Produced by Unhealthy and Indiscreet

Feeding (London, 1887).

18 Charity Hospital Medical College, Annual Catalogue, Session 1864-5.



360 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

360 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

Instruction began with a class of seventy-three in the Hoff-

man Block, a business building on the southeast corner of the

Public Square and Superior Street on the site now occupied by

the Cuyahoga Building. Salisbury also had his own office for

the private practice of medicine in the same building. According

to F. C. Waite, Salisbury resigned after four years following a

disagreement with Weber, a fact which should not be regarded

as a reflection on him, because Weber was notoriously difficult and

consequently had many resignations to deal with.19

We have noted that Salisbury's interests and place of resi-

dence seemed to have been influenced by his army days. Con-

sistent with this observation is the definite statement in the sketch

of his life from which we have quoted before that in January

1864 he devoted himself to treating chronic diseases, especially

those which had hitherto been considered fatal, and that "his

success in this field is widely known." There appeared two pub-

lications by him on his dietary theories which were widely cir-

culated. One was a thin octavo of sixty-four pages published in

England,20 while the second was published in New York and in the

third edition comprised 332 pages.2l These volumes set forth in

great detail the rationale of his method of dieting. The regimen

was adapted with some variations and a plethora of repetitious

detail for such unrelated conditions as Bright's disease, diabetes

mellitus, obesity, rheumatism, uterine fibroids, consumption, loco-

motor ataxia, and so forth.

Minute directions are given for the preparation of the beef,

which was to be entirely muscle pulp of lean meat made into

cakes. Connective and "glue" tissue was to be avoided as well

as fat and cartilage. The beef was to be scraped or chopped and

the resulting pulp patted into cakes with just enough pressure

to make them hold together during cooking. When a patient was

started on the diet, it was to consist entirely of animal food: lean

 

19 Frederick C. Waite, Western Reserve University; Centennial History of the

School of Medicine (Cleveland, 1946).

20 See footnote 17, above.

21 J. H. Salisbury, The Relation of Alimentation and Disease (3d ed., New

York, 1895).



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury               361

beef, chiefly minced, with a little toasted bread in some cases,

broiled lamb, or mutton. As side dishes Salisbury allowed

oysters, raw or roasted; fish, broiled or boiled; chicken, turkey,

or game, broiled or roasted. All meats were to be cooked. Grad-

ually other foods were added. The reason given for this sort of

diet was that since men and women are about two-thirds car-

nivorous and one-third herbivorous, their diet should be two-

thirds lean meat and one-third vegetable. "By such a natural diet

we can maintain healthy bodies and minds and live long," he

contended. Comment is made on the fact that the Salisbury diet

did not include eating raw meat, as some had stated, and that it

never had, because raw meat did not digest well and led to the

possibility of tapeworms.

Salisbury had a strong predilection for a fibrous theory of

the causation of many diseases and stated that it took from one to

three years of rigid dieting to remove fibrous diseases thoroughly

and break up the diseased cravings which "have been at the bot-

tom of the conspiracy in producing such pathological states.

Extirpating a growth never removes the cause and never results

in a radical cure. The same old alimentation may develop still

further and other growths." To prove his point he stated that

fibraemia or hemofibrosis could lead to the excessive development

of glue or connective tissue in skeins in the blood vessels and

blood stream and had illustrations to show fibrin in blood films.

This we would have difficulty in admitting as abnormal, since the

specimens were prepared from fresh blood allowed to stand, and

of course fibrin would appear in normal individuals. Among

the fibroid diseases he included locomotor ataxia, ovarian tumors,

goitre, and all "sclerotic states." Copious and frequent drinking

of hot water was an essential part of the treatment for the pur-

pose of washing out the alimentary tract. A pint of hot water

from 100 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit was to be sipped slowly an

hour or so before each meal and again before bedtime. Lemon

juice could be added if desired.

In addition to his own publications there were two others

which give us an inkling of the way in which Salisbury was



362 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

362 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

publicized. One was a small pamphlet of fourteen pages pub-

lished in Toronto in 1894 entitled Who Is Dr. Salisbury and

What Is His Treatment?22 The title page stated that it was

by a grateful Canadian, with testimonials from prominent pa-

tients. This effective piece of international publicity was pub-

lished so that "an intelligent public may see that Dr. Salisbury

is neither quack, fanatic, nor cure-all, but a clever, modern phys-

ician with a practical method."

There is no way of knowing whether Dr. Salisbury himself

countenanced this publication. It is a concise distillate of ideas

which appeared in the larger and more verbose works under his

own name. After a biographical sketch referring to his English

ancestry, it summarizes his investigative work, especially on the

germ theory of disease, and then states one of his principle con-

tentions as follows: "Certain foods taken in too large proportions,

or exclusively, did not digest, but fermented, filling the digestive

organs with yeast, carbonic acid gas, alcohol, vinegar-not only

giving no nourishment to the body but rather establishing diseased

conditions therein." Dietary experiments are noted and finally

his conclusion that the aliment most sustaining and most easily

digested is beef, after which come mutton and turkey, curing

many whose diseases were long established by feeding on lobsters,

fish, and vegetables.

This exposition is followed by an outline of his system and

by a recital of case histories contributed by those who had had

rheumatism, obesity, nervous disability and loss of sleep, catarrh

of the stomach, painful irritation of the skin, and so forth. These

reports lose nothing in human interest and convincing quality

from the inclusion of names and addresses and, in some instances,

fervent praise.

The eloquently grateful patients included those prominent

in public life: an underwriter, the governor of Manitoba--who

wrote, "I have been trying the treatment, not so rigidly, perhaps,

as you yourself have done, but with, I think, much benefit"--a

 

22 Who Is Dr. Salisbury and What Is His Treatment, by a Grateful Canadian,

with Testimonials from Prominent Patients.



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury                  363

bank president, the speaker of the senate, Sir this and the Hon-

orable that; and a magnificent climax came from across the

Atlantic Ocean and was signed, "Yours very truly and gratefully,

Argyll."

A telling paragraph immediately preceding the Duke's let-

ter states that it was an additional satisfaction to be able to say

of the doctor that his charges were reasonable and his society

that of a cultivated English gentleman. And to make everything

clear, the Duke's testimonial is followed by a footnote telling

where the doctor's published works might be purchased and fin-

ally by his New York address.

The Salisbury gospel was spread in the British Isles by a

disciple in England, Mrs. Elma Stuart, who told how she had

been restored by the Salisbury treatment from an unhappy

invalid, crippled with gout and rheumatism, miserable from

dyspepsia and insomnia, to such buoyant health that she was able

to gallop on horseback and ride about in a tricycle.23 The second

edition of this work was a small octavo of about 150 pages bound

in blue cloth. Stamped in the center of the front cover in gold

was the title What Must I Do to Get Well? And How Can I Keep

So? while in the upper left-hand corner is a steaming tea kettle.

That Salisbury countenanced this publication is shown by the

author's statement that she had begged and obtained his per-

mission to make copious extracts from his work The Relation of

Alimentation and Disease.

Here are a few excerpts:

Let us then pay a tribute of praise and gratefulness to his genius,

solicitude, and unvarying perseverance that so long and carefully

thought out and discovered for us this simple, efficacious and safe means

of the prevention and cure of disease-Dr. Salisbury's treatment.

I believe that you can send a telegram from London to New York,

and be answered within 3 hours, and receive a reply to a letter within

sixteen days. His telegraph address is 9, West 29th Street, New York

City, a letter describing your case would meet with his prompt attention,

as would also a telegram.

23 E. Stuart, What Must I Do to Get Well? And How Can I Keep So? By

One Who Has Done It. An Exposition of the Salisbury Treatment (London, 1889).



364 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

364 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

It is my earnest hope that, through the influence of this little book,

I too may have my share in forwarding far and wide the mission of the

powerful beneficent Salisbury Treatment.

After the lapse of the years it is interesting to speculate

about the actual value of Salisbury's diet. Obviously no single

dietary system could be suitable for all of the numerous and

diverse maladies in which Salisbury claimed improvement. How-

ever, we must attempt to place ourselves back in the days of its

popularity and to realize that dentistry had not yet provided

adequate apparatus for proper mastication to the large number

with poor teeth or no teeth, and that finely minced and properly

cooked meat gave them an easily digested source of protein, whose

value in keeping up the health of the aged and aging is only now

being generally appreciated. Also food was relatively abundant

and cheap, general knowledge of nutritional and caloric values

practically nihil, and trenchermen abounded around groaning

tables. Even the fashions of the day favored the fat. Salisbury's

diet was undoubtedly effective in reducing the corpulent, and it

is reasonable to assume that it was really helpful in many

stomach disorders then broadly grouped as dyspepsia. In many

instances the dyspeptics had become so by living on the hearty

food of the type provided at the Yankee farmer's breakfast or on

the greasy articles and hot breads commonly associated with so-

called Southern cooking. For all these people Salisbury's regimen

with its simple and digestible food would have served as a

wholesome corrective. We are curious about whether those who

adhered strictly to its rules for the dieting in the early stage

obtained the necessary supply of vitamins A, C, and D, and

whether many were the victims of scurvy. Nevertheless, I learned

recently of an elderly couple, a woman physician and her hus-

band, who lived on the Salisbury diet for many years and became

octogenarians.24 Salisbury himself lived to be 81 and his partner

Dr. Lewis to be 92. Undeniably the diet was famous and

extremely popular and Salisbury had many adherents here and

abroad.

 

24 Personal communication, Mrs. Richard Stifel, Shaker Heights, Ohio.



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury                     365

Salisbury's later published works and the pamphlet and

book written for the general public give his address as New

York City. On the other hand, older Clevelanders remember his

name in association with this city, so I determined to ascertain

exactly where he lived and practiced after severing his connection

with the Charity Hospital Medical College. The statement in one

of the biographical encyclopedias that he lived in New York City

from about 1880 is only partially correct. Old city directories

of the two cities were helpful in supplying the answer. Until

1875 he remained in the Hoffman Block at the corner of the

Public Square. After that we find him at various addresses on

lower Euclid Avenue between the Public Square and what is now

East 6th Street. In 1897 and thereafter his name is not found

in the Cleveland directories.

His name first appeared in the New York City directory in

the issue of 1882-83 at 32 West 26th Street, in 1883-84 at 9

West 29th Street, and in 1890-91 at 170 West 59th Street. Polk's

Medical Directory lists both him and his son Trafford B. Salis-

bury, M.D., at 250 West 57th Street in 1902 and 1904.

It was difficult for me to explain the dual locations from 1882

to 1894 and to understand how he divided his time between his

two offices until a former near neighbor in Bratenahl25 informed

me that Salisbury spent about eight months including the winter

in New York, caring for a large practice of wealthy and socially

prominent patients, and four months including the summer in

Cleveland, where he also had an extensive following. The rea-

son for being able to carry on in the two cities during the last

ten or twelve years of his Cleveland career was that he had a

partner, Dr. Joseph Morgan Lewis.26 Indeed in Cleveland the

25 Mrs. Benjamin P. Bole (Roberta Holden) of Cleveland, who aided me with

personal recollections.

26 Dr. Lewis (1839-1930) had been one of Salisbury's students at the Charity

Hospital Medical College. For many years he served as superintendent of the

Newburg State Hospital for the Insane. His daughter, Mrs. Fred Cushman,

Cleveland, informed me that the partners weighed all food intake and excreta

and performed blood tests routinely on their patients. After improvement on the

first rigid diet, tea, toast, rice, and so forth were added. After the partnership

was dissolved, Dr. Lewis maintained two diet homes, staffed with trained cooks,

where patients could live on selected diets. Lewis' name was not linked with

Salisbury's in any of the latter's publications. He was a member of the local

medical societies and the American Medical Association.



366 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

366 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

treatment was often referred to as the Salisbury-Lewis cure. The

office addresses of the two partners were identical from 1881 on,

although the actual partnership is not shown in the directories

until 1884, when the entry is Salisbury and Lewis. This con-

tinued until 1893, when the partners fell out with each other and

were listed at different Euclid Avenue addresses. To prevent any

possibility of mistake a card appeared in a box in the alphabetical

list in bold type reading as follows:

"Salisbury Plan of Treatment"

The Relationship of Alimentation and Disease.

by Dr J. H. Salisbury

Second edition, 322 pages, 19 full page plates.

Price, $4.00

Suite 37, No. 89, Euclid Avenue

The above address was the same as for Salisbury's office,

where he remained until 1896, after which he apparently dis-

continued practicing in Cleveland. By that time he was seventy-

four years old.

There was also an associate or assistant whose name did not

appear as such in the directories but whose office addresses,

including the room numbers, were identical with Salisbury's from

1884 to 1896. This was Quincy J. Winsor (1863-1903), a

nephew of Salisbury's. He had come to Cleveland for his medical

education and received the M.D. degree from the medical school

of Western Reserve University in 1884. Winsor carried on with

the Salisbury system until his death in 1903.

Evidence that Salisbury maintained a residence as well as

an office in Cleveland was furnished by old residents as well as

by the local directories. In 1867 his home address is given as

East Cleveland, which could have been anywhere east of the

present East 55th Street, but in 1872 we find him living on the

lake shore. This is probably the same location as was listed in

1874-75 and later as Glenville in an unusually choice portion

which has maintained its exclusive and suburban character even

to this day by incorporating in 1904 as the village of Bratenahl.



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury                367

If you were to drive east today from Gordon Park and cross the

easterly line of Cleveland into Bratenahl by following Lake Shore

Boulevard, you would go between a double row of splendid tall

trees arching high overhead and would find, on your left, the

former estate of Liberty E. Holden facing Lake Erie and, on

your right, away from the lake, heavily wooded grounds like a

small park with a long driveway running back to Salisbury's old

home, which is not visible from the highway. This section of

Lake Shore Boulevard from Gordon Park to the first sharp left

turn was at one time called Salisbury Avenue.

In Salisbury's time this lake shore district was served by the

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad, which with a Glen-

ville station almost immediately south and east of Salisbury's

property and another station at Coit's about a mile east really

furnished commuter service to the old Union Station in the city

of Cleveland, about four miles away.

A detailed atlas of Cleveland gives much information about

the local setting in 1874.27 Several large pieces of property in

this section were listed in the name of C. B. Salisbury, probably

Salisbury's wife. All told there were approximately thirty-five

acres, two lots of about four acres each on the lake front and the

remainder on the other (south) side of the boulevard.

That Salisbury may have had some ambitions as a real-

estate promoter is shown by a later atlas,28 for on a part of the

property north and west of the boulevard the diagram indicates

a north and south street with building lots, while the southerly

section also showed locations for more streets and building lots,

about fifty-eight all told in the two parcels. This subdivision is

still on paper.

Later Salisbury increased his land holdings, as shown by

still another map.29 On part of the site of the Northern Ohio

Fair Grounds (which came to an end in the winter of 1880-81)

 

27 D. J. Lake, Atlas of Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Philadelphia, 1874).

28 C. M. Hopkins, City Atlas of Cleveland (Philadelphia, 1881).

29 H. B. Stranahan Co., Maps of Cuyahoga County, Outside of Cleveland

(Cleveland, 1903).



368 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

368 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

and directly south of the land which we have just described there

was laid out a subdivision with two streets running north and

south called Lewis and Trafford Avenues. Trafford was a family

name in Mrs. Salisbury's family. These are now East 96th and

97th streets respectively. This subdivision comprised thirty-seven

lots.

With its lake shore situation, rustic character, and world-

famed trotting track, Glenville was a gay community, probably

the gayest in the Cleveland environs for almost four decades.30

Whether Salisbury took any part in this gay life, we are not

informed, but we do know that his only daughter married William

G. Pollock, a well-known sportsman and horseman and a leading

member of the old Roadside Club, which adjoined the race track.

Salisbury had a large income and he and his family lived well,

enjoying the luxuries of servants, horses and carriages, and so

forth. Curious to know whether he continued his interest in

horticulture, I made enquiry and found that he had had large

apple orchards and grew many kinds of plants, finding in this

activity much in common with W. J. Gordon, whose nearby large

estate was willed to the city and given his name.31

That Dr. Salisbury participated to some extent in the cultural

life of Cleveland is shown by his election in 1876 as one of the

vice presidents of the Western Reserve Historical Society, of

which he was a life member. Other officers at the time were out-

standing Clevelanders, including Col. Charles Whittlesey, Dr.

Elisha Sterling, Judge C. C. Baldwin, and Samuel Williamson,

all deeply interested in historical matters.32 In fact he had been

associated with this distinguished group in systematically survey-

 

30 William Ganson Rose, Cleveland, The Making of a City (Cleveland and

New York, 1950).

31 After Dr. Salisbury left Cleveland, his home was purchased by Liberty E.

Holden. It was occupied by Mr. Holden's daughter, Mrs. Benjamin P. Bole, who

remodeled it by removing a conspicuous tower, from which those who had the

breath and strength to make the climb had been able to obtain a view of Lake

Erie. The present street number is 8910 Lake Shore Boulevard.

32 Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society, Tract 31 (May

1876).



Dr

Dr. James H. Salisbury                369

ing the numerous forts and embankments in the river valley to

the south of the city.33

That his aid had been sought in this scholarly investigation

was entirely natural, since he and his brother, Charles B. Salis-

bury, had conducted earlier extensive research into ancient rock

and earth writing and the inscriptions of the mound builders and

had published a description of their fortifications, enclosures,

mounds, and other earthworks. This report is said to be in the

hands of the American Antiquarian Society and was only par-

tially published in their transactions and in the Ohio centennial

report in 1863.

There is no evidence to show that Salisbury was a member

of the Cuyahoga County Medical Society or that he participated

in the work of the local medical societies. His name was not

to be found in the 1877 list or the rosters of 1884, 1889, 1893, or

1894. However, he belonged to many learned societies, including

the Philosophical Society of Great Britain, the American Anti-

quarian Society, the Natural History Society of Montreal, and

the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In

1878 he was elected president of the Institute of Micrology, an

office he retained for many years. He was given an L.L.D.

degree by Union College in 1881 and also by Amity College in

Illinois.34

Today the perpetuation of his name depends on his diet,

but even more upon Salisbury steak. This is defined in one

edition of Webster's dictionary as Hamburg steak and that in

turn as (a) finely ground or chopped beef and (b) this meat when

cooked.35 In Cancel's Culinary Encyclopedia of Modern Cook-

ing36 it appears under the heading of Beef--Mignon as "fillet,

scraped, not seasoned, broiled, for invalids." Today it is listed

regularly on the menus of many of the best hotels, clubs, and

 

33 Samuel P. Orth, History of Cleveland (3 vols., Chicago and Cleveland,

1910), 74.

34 Waite, Western Reserve University.

35 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (5th ed., Springfield, Mass., 1947).

36 I. Gancel, Culinary Encyclopedia of Modern Cooking (7th ed., New

York, 1920).



370 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

370 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

restaurants. That classic household authority, The Boston Cook-

ing-School Cook Book, includes a recipe for Salisbury steak which

is definitely a variant since it calls for one-half a cup of cream

with seasonings to be mixed with a pound of ground beef and

covered with bread crumbs and then broiled.37

Salisbury died at the age of eighty-one from cerebral hemor-

rhage at his country home at Dobb's Ferry, New York, August 28,

1905, after an illness of four years. His survivors were his wife,

his son, and his daughter, all now deceased. There were no direct

descendants. His body was brought back to Cleveland and buried

in a family plot in Lakeview Cemetery.

On a sunny October day I visited this historic and naturally

scenic cemetery, the burial place of many Clevelanders, the world

famed, the nearly great, and the humble and obscure alike. On

a gentle hillside covered with leaves gorgeous in their autumn

coloring Salisbury's grave was found marked by a huge rugged

boulder. The thought came to me--as it probably would have

to any physician--that this might have been a memorable spot,

the grave of one of medicine's very great. Long ahead of his

time, with vision to accept the theory of the specific germ causa-

tion of disease and courage to advance it to a skeptical and often

scoffing world, possessed of technical ability to pursue research

almost beyond all of his contemporaries, and on the verge of

lifting the veil, he failed and actually staked out only a slender

claim to a place in medical history by lending his name to a

steak.

 

37 Fannie Merritt Farmer, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (6th ed.,

Indianapolis and New York, 1943).