Diocletian Lewis

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Diocletian Lewis (1823-1886), commonly known as Dr. Dio Lewis, was a temperance leader who practiced homeopathy. He studied at the Harvard medical school[1] and at the [Homeopathic Hospital College of Cleveland, Ohio][2],and he practised for several years in Buffalo, New York. Hoewever, because he only received a degree in homeopathic studies and no M.D., his use of the title doctor was fraudulent and his practice of medicine was illegal.

In 1841 at the age of 19, he worked at a school in [Freemont], and so impressed the townsfolk when he extended the curriculum to include algebra, geometry and Latin, they named the school the Diocletian Institute in his honour[3].

Lewis claimed to have used homeopathy to cure his wife Helen’s TB, and from that day his so-called "Consumption Cure"[4] became well-known and profitable. Helen worked with Lewis on his publications, writing her own column on dress reform and woman’s health.

From 1852 till 1863 Lewis was engaged in lecturing on hygiene and physiology, and at the latter date he settled in Boston and founded the [Boston Normal Physical Training School], at which, in seven years, five hundred pupils were graduated. His influence had much to do with the establishment of the present system of physical culture in most of the institutions of learning in the United States[5].

Dio used oratorical gift to good effect in promoting temperance.

In the 1880’s, Lewis and his mother began leading groups of followers into saloons to pray for their closure. He later lectured in churches claiming miraculous results from conducting such "Visitation Bands." Lewis’ actions and lectures inspired others to similar action, thus initiating the Women’s Crusade against alcohol.

Lewis, a professional lecturer, gave a public address on his fall tour through Ohio called “Our Girls,” that advocated physical exercise and an active life for women. On Sundays he spoke on “The Duty of Christian Women in the Cause of Temperance.”

In these lectures he instructed women to ask local dispensers of alcoholic beverages to sign pledges that they would cease to sell. Upon refusal, the women should begin prayer and song services in these establishments. He urged women to be the sole participants in these acts, in order to aggrandize the emotional force of the movement.

Women took to the snowy streets, and within three months of their first march, they had driven the liquor business out of 250 towns. By the time the marches ended, over 912 communities in 31 states and territories had experienced the crusades.

It was and is still the largest mass movement of women to date…. [Frances Willard], the second national president of the [Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], wrote later in her memoirs, that the crusade “was like the fires we used to kindle on the western prairies, a match and a wisp of grass were all that was needed, and behold the spectacle of a prairie on fire sweeping across the landscape, swift as a thousand untrained steeds and no more to be captured than a hurricane.[6]

Lewis claimed that, as a result of them, more than 17,000 drinking establishments were abandoned in Ohio alone in a period of two months. Most of the saloons that closed as a result of prayer vigils opened again a few days later to meet the public demand for alcoholic beverages.[7]

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  1. ^ Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purposive Exercise in the Lives of .. By Jan Todd page 214
  2. ^ Dr Diocletian LEWIS (1823-1886) - PHOTOTHÈQUE HOMÉOPATHIQUE présentée par Homéopathe International
  3. ^ Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purposive Exercise in the Lives of ... By Jan Todd page 214
  4. ^ Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purposive Exercise in the Lives of ... By Jan Todd page 6
  5. ^ International handbook of science education By Barry J. Fraser, Kenneth George Tobin page 104
  6. ^ Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) web site
  7. ^ National Association for the Children of Alcoholics web site