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(More customer reviews)Why write a review about a book long out of print, hard-to-find, and of interest mainly to collectors of obscure medical literature? Because it is a most amazing, eye opening, unabashedly progressive, opinionated, thoroughly engrossing, informative read. I own the 1888 version of this book, and echo Dr. Foote's resounding epithet as put forth in his preface : "To uproot error and do good should be the first and paramount aspiration of every intelligent being." Down with, as he put it so eloquently, "old fogyism." And though Foote might be assigned to a corner of the dustbin of medical history, he did indeed write "in candor, and with an honest intention of enlightening and benefiting humanity."
Whoever this Dr. Foote was, apparently he was unafraid of controversy. Among other things, this Victorian medical man espoused divorce, childbearing for unmarried women (to alleviate loneliness and serve the practical purposes of companionship, additional income when of working age, and assistance in household chores), a vegetarian diet, abstaining entirely from alcohol and tobacco, a happy sex life complete with experimentation and wide elbow room, fresh air and exercise, the ethical treatment of prisoners, a please-spare-the-rod and why-not-kind-of-spoil-the-child method of childrearing, women in business and medicine, the vote for women, and a style of dress (if one must indeed dress at all) free of encumberments such as corsets and foundations. Apparently he not only escaped the lynch mob, but managed to write several volumes of variations on this theme and build a loyal following.
What becomes most prominent as one reads into Foote's work is the fact he was absolutely convinced that society would one day shed its anachronistic constraints and quaint conventions and come around to his way of thinking. He had only to write convincingly enough and argue forcibly enough and out the window would go all those stultifying mores and manners. Funny thing. Foote remains hardly a footnote (who has heard of him?) yet he must have been, on top of everything, a touch psychic.
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