Russell Thacher Trall
Born in 1812, Russell Trall grew up on a farm in western New York, then studied medicine and settled in New York City, where he became a hydropathist. In 1843 he opened a water-cure establishment and later expanded it to a medical school, The New York Hydropathic and Physiological School. Trall was recording secretary for the first American Vegetarian Society launched in New York. Although his earliest works included small numbers of recipes for meat and animal products (he did describe them as a “compromise”), by 1863 Trall changed the food at his establishment to consist entirely of plant foods and water, and later wrote The Hygeian Home Cook-Book (1874), the first known vegan cookbook.
