Beyond that we know nothing at all about Herr Schlickeysen. We don’t even know if he was German, Swiss or Austrian – if anyone knows more please get in contact!

The book (now on archive.org) follows very directly from the discoveries of Charles Darwin, his ‘On the Origin of Species’ first appeared in 1859; and ‘Descent of Man’ in 1871.

Schlickeysen lists only the later volume in his short bibliography and in his section on ‘Application of the Theory of Evolution to Dietetics’ – he claims to be the first to follow through on Darwin’s own suggestion that the earliest humans appear to have been frugivores, like the apes, which means they preferred to eat fruit, but not quite exclusively.

He gives a very detailed account of comparative physiology of human and non-human animals – teeth, digestive systems, embryo/placenta etc., but also goes on to morals/ethics and of course diet.

Schlickeysen concludes that humans are naturally frugivorous (fruit, grains and nuts in his interpretation) – some of the details in his own words:

p.113: “Beans and lentils also are an exceedingly concentrated form of food . . . by the use of both fruits and grains in the right proportion, the body is supplied with all the elements of nutrition.” (this was before the knowledge of vitamins, especially B12…)

p.114: “The present custom of cooking our food seems necessary only because it is customary.”

p.125: “Among animal products much consumed by vegetarians, milk is one of the most common. This however, is not only entirely unnecessary, but in many cases, positively injurious.” – he continues by stating that milk is just for the new-born, only humans use it as adults, and he describes butter and cheese as an ‘excess of fat’.

p.127: “Eggs, also, are unnatural food. They are designed by nature only for the nourishment of the germ within it.”

p.128: [referring to all the above] “… no one who is provided with an abundance of man’s genuine food, namely, fruits, grains and nuts, will ever need to resort to them…”

p.180: “Of other articles injuriously added to our food, honey and sugar are as objectionable as they are popular.”

- he also argues against pastry, tea, coffee, chocolate, alcohol, tobacco, as well as all flesh foods.

p.149: “… in a hundred cases of disease, over ninety will be found to originate in the consumption of improper foods.”

The only exception to the ban on cooking was whole-wheat bread made solely with unrefined flour and water, well kneaded, then baked.

Rather oddly, throughout the entire book, Schlickeysen makes no mention at all of vegetables. The question of whether to eat roots, greens and other vegetables are just avoided, even though many of them are fine eaten raw – salads were nothing new, even then.

Schlickeysen’s book had a considerable impact around the world, the English translation crops up in veg histories of England, Australia and California. The President of the Vegetarian Society in the UK, Francis Newman, wrote a scathing review in 1877, saying it was too extreme. But the real problem for the brother of Cardinal Newman was of course the promotion of Darwin and evolution…

Among his fellow German speakers, some notable individuals adapted his ideas within more of their own, including August Engelhardt (1875-1919), Arnold Ehret (1866-1922), and Edmond Szekely (Hungary, 1905–1979) and many other raw-foodists and fruitarians soon followed worldwide

One of the most significant was Maximillian Bircher-Benner, who adopted a raw-food regime at his clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, though he did include raw vegetables and even small amounts of milk products.

In 1900 he invented a new breakfast of fruits, nuts, and grains – the perfect Schlickeysen combination - what we now know as muesli. The original had a lot more fruit and a lot less grains than the supermarket versions we get today, and there are some claims that it was originally eaten with orange juice, not cow’s milk (though today there are of course plenty of plant milks available).

So next time you’re munching your breakfast muesli, spare a thought for Gustav Schlickeysen who started it all way back in 1875.

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Added later,,,, I received this from Vegetarier Bund Deutschland (VEBU) about Herr Schlickeysen::

He was born on the 9th of September 1843 in Berlin, therefore he was German. He was born as the seventh child of the family, of premature birth, and was always weak and often ill. Only thanks to his vegetarian diet he was able to survive and lead a rather normal life. He published two books, besides "Obst und Brod" he wrote "Blut oder Frucht", in English: Blood or Fruit. We have both books in the VEBU library.

Schlickeyen emigrated to the US, where he hoped to find find a paradise of liberty, but he had to work very hard, 10-12 hours daily, to earn a minumum of money for a rather miserable/poor life, and in the nights he wrote his books. As philosopher and sensitive man he felt very unhappy in the materialistic world of North America, and always hoped to be able to return to Germany, but in vain.

In 1893 (no exact date known) he died in Jersey City, New York.

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In the western world the time after the fall of the Roman Empire - ‘the dark ages’, or Middle Ages or Medieval period, usually defined as about 500-1500CE. - was dominated by religion in both Europe and Asia, and many of those religions demanded various levels of abstinence and self-denial, even self-punishment.

For some this meant abstaining from eating flesh, not because they thought it was bad, but because it was good, so they would suffer by denying themselves. Inevitably some took this further than others, trying to eat almost nothing in order to feel more holy – they abstained from sex for the same reason, and some in the West wore hair-shirts which were deliberately itchy, while some Asian monks whipped their own backs.

It is difficult to see this as having much to do with what we now call veganism. They kept their milk and honey (and usually fish) and, especially in Europe, there was rarely any concern for animals, or for human health.  

Some monasteries demanded inverted thinking of flesh as a ‘health food’, and ‘mercy’ that didn’t extend to animals:

“[in English monasteries] Meat, once provided only for the sick, was now enjoyed by all in the infirmary; and when this was forbidden by papal statute, a ‘misericorde’, ‘the chamber of mercy’, between the infirmary and the refectory, where meat was freely allowed on the table. This, too, was prohibited by papal statute; but in 1339 the pope, recognizing that the prohibition was unenforceable, conceded that the monks might continue to relish their meat in the ‘misericorde’ provided that only half their number did so at a time, the other half maintaining the vegetarian rule elsewhere. [C. Hibbert, The English, a social history, 1989]

Most of these abstainers continued to eat fish, so Mr. Hibbert was misusing the term ‘vegetarian’.

We’ve also seen some claims that the Japanese Samurai, from the 11^th century, were ‘vegan’, but again all available references show them as routinely eating fish.

In 1655 Roger Crab published his ‘English Hermit’, an account of his life in a cottage near London.  In the introduction he specifically mentions not eating butter or cheese leading some to see him as ‘vegan’. But he also mentions his only clothing as sack cloth, and before long he is claiming to extend his self-punishment by living entirely on dock leaves and grass . . . [the picture is from his book]

In the USA in the 18^th century there were some groups such as the Ephrata Cloister and Dorrelites, which have also been claimed as ‘vegan’. But these too were based entirely on self-deprivation to feel holier.

Howard Williams, The Ethics of Diet, 1883, on Medieval Europe:

". . . we look in vain for traces of anything like the humanitarian feeling of Plutarch or Porphyry [late Greek philosophers].. . .  In those terrible [medieval European] ages of gross ignorance, of superstition, of violence, and of injustice - in which human rights were seldom regarded - it would have been surprising indeed if any sort of regard had been displayed for the non-human slaves. . .   Chrysostom [347-407CE] seems to have been one of the last of Christian writers who manifested any sort of consciousness of the inhuman, as well as unspiritual nature of the ordinary gross foods . . . in the days of expiring Greek philosophy, Olympiodorous [5^th century] and six other Pythagoreans determined, if possible, to maintain their doctrines elsewhere; and they sought refuge with the Persian Magi . . ."

Their refuge didn’t work out and they returned to Greece, but it is in the Middle East that we find an unexpected example of humanitarian thinking. During the time many call the ‘Islamic Golden Age’ (c.750CE-c.1258CE) philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, and this was all based in Baghdad where Greek philosophy and science survived. The Europeans re- ‘discovered’ it from the Arabs centuries later.

An unusual poet, Al-Ma’arri (973-1057CE) arrived in Baghdad from Syria. He wrote:

Thou art diseased in understanding and religion.  Come to me, that thou mayst hear the tidings of sound truth.
Do not unjustly eat what the water has given up, [i.e. fish] and do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals,
Or the white (milk) of mothers who intended its pure draught for their young, not noble ladies.
And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking their eggs; for injustice is the worst of crimes.
And spare the honey which the bees get betimes by their industry from the flowers of fragrant plants;
For they did not store it that it might belong to others, nor did they gather it for bounty and gifts.
I washed my hands of all this; and would that I had perceived my way ere my temples grew hoar!  [i.e. hair became grey – the poem continues on injustice…]  

From: ‘Studies in Islamic Poetry’ by R.A. Nicholson, 1921 (on archive.org). Mr. Nicholson says there are ‘many passages’ of a similar nature, and discusses how Al-Ma’arri says he adopted what we now call veganism at the age of 30 (early grey hair…).

We have books about Al-Ma’arri, but there is some debate about where he got these ideas, and whether there were more like him. Various religious sources are suggested, but he objected to all organised religion, and left us guessing. A few more of his lines, converted into poetic English in 1904, but written almost 1,000 years ago:

Hunt not the beast; O, be thou more humane,
Since hunter here nor hunted long remain;
The smallest grub a life has in it which
Thou canst not take without inflicting pain.

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The wooden shoes I do like best because
That skin did once live, aye, and even think.

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