Human Physiology: The Basis of Sanitary and Social Science

xvi, 480, 8 pp. Includes illustrations. Originally published in 1867, this foundational text on human physiology remains a classic of medical literature. Thomas L. Nichols offers a detailed survey of the human body and the physiological processes that underpin health and disease. Drawing on examples from public health and social science, he demonstrates the practical applications of physiological knowledge to everyday life. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of medicine and the interplay between science and society. Thomas Low Nichols (December 13, 1815 – July 8, 1901) was an American physician, journalist, writer and advocate for a number of causes including free love, hydrotherapy, food and health reform, vegetarianism and spiritualism. Born in Orford, New Hampshire, Nichols initially studied medicine at Dartmouth College but dropped out and became a radical journalist, working for newspapers in Lowell and New York. His tenure as an editor and proprietor of the Buffalonian led to a brief prison sentence for libel, documented in his work Journal in Jail (1840). Nichols married Mary Gove in 1848 and completed his M.D. at New York University in 1850. Together, they established a school for water-cure therapists and authored books on health and reform. Nichols actively participated in associations promoting hygienic practices, vegetarianism, and public health. He founded journals like Nichols' Monthly and Nichols' Journal to advocate for his beliefs, which included free love, universal suffrage, and libertarianism. Nichols and his wife were associated with Josiah Warren's Modern Times community before founding the Memnonia Institute in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which eventually failed. After converting to Roman Catholicism, the couple moved to London to escape the American Civil War, where Nichols continued writing, founded the Co-operative Sanitary Company, and advocated for various causes including temperance, dress reform, and vegetarianism. Following Mary's death in 1884, Nichols relocated to Sutton, Surrey, before his death in Chaumont-en-Vexin, France, in 1901.