Word: macfadden
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...Second Reformation. By then, Mary and Bernarr were beginning to drift apart. It was all very well for him to dream, as he slept on the floor encased in "The Macfadden Body-Free Blanket Rib," of becoming the "first Physical Culture President of the United States," but Mary blanched at the thought of becoming known as the "Constantly Pregnant First Lady." She had borne him four daughters under the "no-doctors" rules of Macfadden birthmanship, and now he felt that four sons (conceived by following the Macfadden rules of sex determination) would nicely round off "The Perfect Family." Mary obliged...
...active day began with the "Macfadden Bed Exercise," in which each mate turned outward on the double bed and put the limbs through slashing, scissor movements, meanwhile straining the torsos inward. There followed calisthenics before the open window, dumbbell exercises, headstands and one-legged squatting exercises. The body was by then sufficiently limbered up for a "ten-mile jog trot." Mary was excused from some of the more rigorous exercises when she was pregnant, so she could sometimes lie abed watching her husband. Physically, he was a striking specimen. His perfectly muscled body was only 5 ft. 6 in. high...
...only after they settled down in the U.S., Bernarr's homeland, that Mary awakened to the full range of his genius as health philosopher, promoter and publisher. At his editorial peak, Macfadden published such sure sellers as Liberty, True Story and Physical Culture, plus some 20 other magazines, with a combined circulation of 16 million a month. His employees included the fabulous John Russell coryell, creator of Nick Carter and author of romantic novels signed "Bertha M. Clay" and articles on "the benefits of fasting" under the name "H. Mitchell Whatchet." Another great Macfadden ally was Mother Teats...
...simpler Macfadden tenets included the harem skirt, grass-eating, boxing with the feet, having babies without doctors standing on your head to make your hair grow." But all these techniques were useless unless the patient practiced the Master's main belief-"that . . . there is but one disease: impurity of the blood" for which there was but one cure-to stop eating and give the famished body a chance to consume its own diseased tissues. Not that the Master objected to patients purchasing his "Isham's California Waters of Life" for "dissolving and washing away cancer, and curing paralysis...
...even the most advanced Macfadden theories seemed trite compared to the revolutionary Macfadden inventions. Most sensible of these was the "physical culture watch"-a turnip-size timepiece whose dial showed what exercises should be performed and what food eaten at given hours (e.g., "8 a.m. No breakfast. Take glass cool water. Walk to work. Identify the birds . . ."). Others included an apparatus for sluicing "pure Macfadden air" over the skins of fully dressed businessmen while they sat working at their desks, and a narrow-gauge railroad with open flatcars for the use of customers in department stores. ("It will revolutionize Macy...