Samuel Rowbotham

Samuel Birley Rowbotham (AKA Parallax) (1816 – 1884), was an English medical doctor and inventor who wrote Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe, based on his decades-long scientific studies of the earth, published a 16-page pamphlet (1849), which he later expanded into a 430 page book (1881) expounding his views. According to Rowbotham's scientific method, which he called Zetetic Astronomy, the earth is a flat disk centered at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice, with the sun, moon, planets, and stars only a few thousand miles above the surface of the earth.

Rowbotham and his followers gained notoriety by engaging in raucous public debates with leading scientists of the day. One such clash, involving the prominent naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, led to several lawsuits for fraud and libel.

After Rowbotham's death, his thousands of followers established the Universal Zetetic Society, published a magazine entitled The Earth Not a Globe Review and remained active well into the early part of the 20th century.

=Flat Earth Lectures=

Over the period of several decades Samuel Birley Rowbotham toured the islands of Britian, giving lectures at prominent universities and institutions of the day. At the conclusion of his lectures he would debate with the brightest minds present over the shape of the earth. Dr. Rowbotham was successful in swaying many members of the audience over to his position. From his efforts a widespread Zetetic movement began, spawning several Zetetic societies, which demanded that the government look into the sphere issue.

The following quotes were published by the press on Rowbotham's lectures:

See: Parallax and His Teachings: Opinions of the Press

=Obituary=

The American Association for the Advancement of Science lists him as Dr. Samuel Rowbotham in his 1885 obituary, as does the obituary in Engligh Mechanic and World of Science. The Bookseller obituary confirms he was a practicing doctor of medicine who exercised his "legitimate profession with immense success" (Archive).

From English Mechanic and the World of Science (Jan 2, 1885) (Archive):



Tombstone
Forum member Thork was able to find Dr. Rowbotham's tombstone at findagrave.com:



=Inventions=

Fire Resistant Starch
A patent acceptance shows that Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham was granted a patent for inflammable starch for use in fabrics and other substances (Archive):

Caustic Soda
Rowbotham was granted a patent for making Caustic Soda (Archive):

Composite Soap
Samuel Rowbotham is co-inventor of a composite soap (Archive):

Life Preserving Railway Carriage
Rowbotham is also inventor of the Life Preserving Cylindrical Railway Carriage.



=Medical Career=

Like other doctors and medical researchers at the time, Rowbotham studied and promoted phosphorous due to its apparent medical benefits.

Asthma
Rowbotham's work is cited in several medical texts:

From Consumption and Tuberculosis (Archive) by John Francis Churchill, M.D., we see:



The above suggests that other medical professionals considered Rowbotham's work to be a 'medicinal fact upon record'.

In Materia Medica and Therapeutics (Archive) by Thomas D. Mitchell, M.D., we find:



Indeed, Rowbotham's asthma treatment has survived the test of time and is still in use. A 2006 copyrighted work by Thomas John Graham promotes and shares Rowbotham's asthma treatment for his readers. On p.103 of Ayurvedic materia medica for domestic use (Archive) we see:



Phosphorous Studies
It is thought that Rowbotham was one of the leading proponents of the phosphorous revolution in the 1800's. Beginning in the early 1840's, Rowbotham published numerous articles and works on the subject.

References and advertisements:


 * "In the year 1842, Dr. Birley drew public attention to the value of Phosphorus as an article of Diet and Medicine" (Archive)
 * Rowbotham describes the discovery, benefits and workings of Phosphorous here in The Harmsworth (Archive)
 * Brain Power: Its Attainment and Preservation (Archive)
 * Book: Phosphorus, as discovered and prepared by Dr. Birley
 * Reference to the "Birley Treatment" (Archive)
 * T.P.'s Weekly "The Wonders of Phosphorous" (Archive)
 * Studying a Subject Fifty Years (Archive)
 * Dr. Birley's Phosphorous in Womanhood Vol. 14 (Archive)
 * Extracts from the essays of S.Rowbotham (Archive)
 * Dr. Birley's Compounds of Free (or Unoxidised) Phosphorus : Fifteen Standard Combinations. A Special Remedy For Each Disease.

Rowbotham mixed phosphorous with other medicaments (Archive) to enhance their helpful qualities:

Phosphorous Medical Drinks
Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham was a pioneer of the phosphate medical drink industry of the 1800's, which offered phosphorous and phosphate-based medical drinks that were reputed to be beneficial for a number of health ailments. He marketed a drink called "Birley's Phosphorous":



See Also:

Phosphorous Revolution
After Rowotham's championing of the medicinal benefits of phosphorus and the sale of his phosphorous medical beverage through the mid 1800's, the phosphate soda industry is launched in the late 1870's:

http://www.answers.com/topic/soft-drink

Phosphate soda A variant of soda in the United States called "phosphate soda" appeared in the late 1870s. It became one of the most popular soda fountain drinks from 1900 through the 1930s, with the lime or orange phosphate being the most basic. The drink consists of 1 US fl oz (30 ml) fruit syrup, 1/2 teaspoon of phosphoric acid, and enough carbonated water and ice to fill a glass. This drink was commonly served in pharmacies.

https://delishably.com/beverages/SodaPops-of-the-1800s-1900s-20s-30s-40s-50s-and-60s (Archive)

The Early Days of Soda Pop and Soft Drinks

The earliest types of carbonated soft drinks were waters found in natural mineral springs. In the 13th century, fruits, herbs, flowers and vegetation (such as dandelions) were used to ferment and flavor carbonated waters. Non-carbonated soft drinks made up of water, honey, and lemon juice appeared in the late 1600s. In 1767, Englishman Joseph Priestley mixed water and carbon dioxide, the result was soda (carbonated) water. Juices, wines, and spices were added to the soda water; the products were sold in English pharmacies.

Phosphate soda was introduced in the United States in the late 19th century. Soda fountain drinks with fruit juice, phosphoric acid, and carbonated water became very popular and by the early 1920s, most drugstores featured soda fountains.

Competitors
Dr. Rowbotham had a number of competitors in the phosphate medical drink industry, including Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola. These carbonated drinks were commonly thought to be healthy by the medical profession at the time. Coca-Cola was sold as a patent medicine. Both it and Dr. Pepper were started by pharmacists. Indeed, Dr. Rowbotham preceded them in history.



Allegations of Intellectual Theft
These later phosphate medical drink industry competitors had a number of similarities to Rowbotham's phosphorous drink. So much so that some in the Flat Earth community investigating this have suggested an intellectual theft of Rowbotham's product by the soda brands.

Nerve Tonic
In Rowbotham's advertisements it was seen that Birley's Phosphorous was sold as a nerve tonic, which brought benefit to the brain and nervous system. According to the New York Times, the soda product by Coca-Cola, Hires, and Dr. Pepper were also sold as nerve tonics. From an article Where Are the Elixirs of Yesteryear:

The Royal Society of Chemistry explains that Coca Cola was marketed as a brain tonic owing to its phosphoric acid content:

Base Ingredients
While companies appear to have expanded the ingredient list beyond Rowbotham's initial product, compare the base ingredients of Rowbotham's phosphorus drink to ingredients in modern Coca-Cola:

Birley's Phosphorous Drink -

http://www.bmj.com/content/2/2495/1286.full.pdf (Archive)

Analysis showed the presence of: Sugar (partly as " invert sugar ") ... 74 parts Tartaric acid ... ... ... ... 1.15 Phosphoric acid ... ... ... 0.07 part

Birley's Phosphorous contained Tartaric acid and high amounts of sugar to disguise the nauseous taste of phosphorous. From a description of Rowbotham's medical product we saw: "The plain syrup is an elegant preparation of free phosphorus in which the nauseous taste is fully disguised." Coca-Cola and other soda brands are well known to contain high amounts of sugar. It is seen that they also employ sugar and Tartaric acid, along with the same Phosphoric acid compound.

From the Coca-Cola Ingredient List -

http://productnutrition.thecoca-colacompany.com/ingredients

Phosphoric Acid Phosphoric acid is a used in certain soft drinks, including Coca-Cola, to add tartness to the beverage. Phosphoric acid contains phosphorus, one of the basic elements of nature and an essential nutrient. Phosphorus is a major component of bones.

Tartaric Acid Tartaric Acid is used to provide a tart taste. It can also be found in some foods, such as grapes.

Sugar Sugar, also known as table sugar, is made from sugar cane or sugar beets. Sucrose is the technical name for table sugar.

Hence, this may be an explanation for why sodas must contain a high amount of sugar additives, as compared to other products. The addition of sugar and Tartaric acid was originally called for in Birley's Phosphorus to disguise the unpleasant taste of phosphorous. Even the modern zero-sugar "healthy" variants of sodas employ high amounts of artificial sweeteners such as sucralose or aspartame, which act to serve the same purpose as sugar, but does not raise blood-sugar levels. Excessive sugar or sweeteners are needed to disguise the unpleasant taste of compounds like phosphorus.

Phosphoric acid is still present in modern soda brands, handed down from Samuel Birley's phosphorous drink from which they originated. While no longer sold as nerve or brain tonics to treat specific medical afflictions, largely due to evolving medical advertising laws in the mid-20th century, the soda brands still advertise the products as a "pick me up" or with a vague reference to the product bringing "joy" or "happiness".

=Phosphorous Medical Research=

Today, according to modern sources, Phosphorous is agreed to be one of the most important elements in the human body:

http://www.ehow.com/about_5410083_phosphorus.html

Phosphorus in the human body

Despite the fact that it is a highly poisonous substance, phosphorus is one of the most important elements for human beings. It is said to be the second most abundant substance in the body. It is found in the bones, blood and bodily fluids. It is also found in various body organs such as the heart, the brain and the kidneys, where it plays a very important role in organ function. The main function of phosphorus is the production of bones and teeth. This makes phosphorus an essential nutrient for life to be normal.

How phosphorus works in the body

Almost all physiological chemical processes and reactions in the body are regulated by the presence of phosphorus. For phosphorus to function properly in the body, there should be Vitamin D and calcium available. It is essential in the strengthening and protection of cell membranes; it assists the other nutrients, chemicals and hormones to function properly. It is essential for good nerve impulses, normal functioning of the kidneys and the way fats, proteins and carbohydrates are synthesized for growth. It is also a part of DNA and RNA.

Phosphorous has a rich history. Throughout the 1800's higher doses of phosphorous was closely studied by the medical community for its medicinal benefits. Phosphorous was said to be beneficial and curative for a number of ailments.

Neuralgia
From a medical text: Phosphorous in the Treatment of Nerualgia (1875) (Archive) in Transactions of the American Neurological Association, Volume 1, we find that Phosphorous was highly beneficial for treating Neuralgia:

A list of cases appears here (Archive)

Cholera
Phosphorous has also been used to treat Cholera, producing success in even "advanced stages of Cholara, usually regarded as hopeless". From Materia Medica and Therapeutics (1857) on p.649 we see (Archive):

Fevers, Delerium, Tremors
In Materia Medica and Therapeutics (Archive) Dr. Mitchell relays the following accounts:

Overdose Risk
Phosphorous research by the medical community was possibly discontinued because of its poisonous effects when abused:

From the Materia Medica and Therapeutics section titled Phospherous A Poison (Archive) we see:

Cancer-Nervous System Association
One position held by his modern supporters is that Rowbotham was ahead of his time in not only Earth Science, but Medical Science as well. Interestingly, there is modern evidence which suggests an association with cancer and the nervous system, in line with Rowbotham's theory that such diseases were caused by nervous system degradation. Products that are known to cause cancer are also known to cause damage to the nervous system. Different types of cancer are also associated with specific types of nervous system disorders.

Smoking is known to cause cancer, for example, but it is also seen to cause neurological damage:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090623090400.htm (Archive)

Radiation is known to cause cancer, and is also known to cause nervous system damage:

https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull3-4/03405800607.pdf (Archive)

There is an association with nervous system disorders and cancer. Vulnerability to stress and the nervous system disorder Schizophrenia are associated with increased risk of Breast Cancer, the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18492-8 (Archive)

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women worldwide1. Some evidence suggests that vulnerability to stress2,3,4, particularly indicated by the presence of psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia5,6, may be associated with increased risk of subsequent breast cancer.

Schizophrenia was associated with a 49% increased risk of subsequent invasive breast cancer (95% confidence interval (CI), 37-63%, P &#x3d; 1.72 × 10−19; Table 1).

Despite lower screening attendance19, it has recently been recognized that patients with schizophrenia are at increased risk of breast cancer6 but not of cancer overall30,31.

The most common type of skin cancer is Melanoma, and it is "surprising" that it is associated with the nervous system disorder Parkinson's Disease.

https://parkinsonsdisease.net/clinical/melanoma-skin-cancer-link (Archive)

A Surprising Relationship: Parkinson’s Disease & Melanoma

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that develops from melanocytes, and Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive movement disorder that affects the nervous system.

The link between melanoma & Parkinson’s

The relationship between melanoma and PD runs both ways: Specifically, people with PD are 4x more likely to develop melanoma, and people with melanoma have 4x the risk of developing PD.1

This association may be surprising to the parkinsonsdisease.net medical editors, but Rowbotham would not be surprised. The association with nervous system degradation and cancer was long predicted by Dr. Samuel Birley Rowbotham in the Victorian Era.

Dr. Rowbtham's medical work has been lost to history, and medical researchers are only recently rediscovering his association between the nervous system and cancer. From a 2018 paper in the Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research:

https://jeccr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13046-018-0674-x (Archive)

=Investigation into Premature Death=

During his life Samuel Rowbotham was also interested in the cause of aging and natural death, and devoted time into investigating its causes. He looked into topics such as why some people develop serious diseases early, why some people seem to age faster than others, and why it is claimed that some people have lived unusually long lives. Rowbotham theorizes that premature death is chiefly related to nutrition and points out nutritional differences between diets in Victorian England and some less-modern cultures where unconfirmed claims to have lived more than 100 years was more common. Specifically, it is pointed out that bread and common table salt are relatively recent additions to human nutrition which may be related to the cause of premature death.

Paleo Diet
Rowbotham's work may have been an original inspiration for, or at least preceded and influenced, what is now known as the Paleolithic diet. In this diet it is suggested that healthier outcomes to life are achieved by cutting out modern foods from our diet and returning to the way our early hunter-gatherer ancestors ate. This benefits of this diet are reputed to have reduced conditions such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

Credit for this diet is usually given to Emmet Densmore M.D., (bio), but it is seen in his main work on the topic, How Nature Cures (1892), that Densmore describes and quotes Rowbotham's theories at length as a prior work:

In the proceeding pages of his book Dr. Densmore continues to quote Rowbotham's work at length on his investigation into death and aging, championing Rowbotham's investigation, theories, and recommendations with a personal awe and fascination.

Breads
It is even seen that in later years Dr. Densmore has been attributed to be the author of one of Rowbotham's dietary nutrition catchphrases verbatim. Bread is given the label of the "staff of death", and this can be found to have been attributed to both Densmore and Rowbotham:

Emmet Densmore Attributions

The Easy Recipe Depot describes the Paleo Diet as the child of Dr. Emmet Densmore:

https://easyrecipedepot.com/paleo-diet-food-list/ (Archive)

From Chapter 1 of Kill the Killer with Paleo Diet by Susan Zeppieri on the history of the Paleo Diet:

History of the Paleo Diet

The same history of the Paleo Diet is given at nutrition-information.net:

https://www.nutrition-information.net/index.php/the-paleo-diet (Archive)

Samuel Rowbotham Attributions

In Chapter 2 of More things in Heaven and Earth by Patrick Moore and Bob Forrest, an anti-Flat Earth history chapter, we read about Samuel Rowbotham's work (Archive):

In this work these authors also declare that Rowbotham was a quack, and after the above quote states that "No-one today remembers Rowbotham’s quasi-medical ideas", despite the "Staff of Death" quote given almost immediately prior being a part of the very inspiration and basis of the popular Paleo Diet with its identical nutritional catchphrase. This may be a fault of the authors for failing to perform a basic Google search on this phrase in their research.

On page 253 of How Nature Cures (1892) the Paleo Diet father Dr. Densmore even directly cites and attributes Rowbotham on the "staff of death" quote, which somehow later became attributed to Dr. Densmore. On the fourth page into continuous Rowbotham quotes he cites the following from a 1845 work from Rowbotham:

On a page 4 editorial of an archived issue of the June 11, 1901, edition of The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, we see that Rowbotham was still known as the author of the phrase:

https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/3ba5b4fb-6388-4ca7-bed3-fe1be837453c/content (Archive)

Cereals
Additional parallels to the nutritional teachings of Rowbotham and the Paleo Diet appear in the diet's mantra that cereals are bad for health.

Paleo Diet

From the Living the Low Carb Life chapter on the Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain, Ph.D. we read that the Paleo Diet is against the consumption of cereals:

In Paleo Health Book: Get Healthy With the Paleo Diet and Live Longer by Joy Renkins we again read that cereals run against the Paleo Diet:

Samuel Rowbotham Attributions

In the Paleo Diet father Emmet Densmore's 1892 book How nature cures, comprising a new system of hygiene, he again quotes Rowbotham as a foundation for his beliefs:

Table Salt
Yet another parallel between the Paleo Diet and the teachings of Rowbotham is the avoidance of table salt.

Paleo Diet

According to Paleo advocates on salt:

https://panlasangpinoy.com/paleo-diet-is-salt-healthy-for-you/ (Archive)

Samuel Rowbotham Attributions

On p.252 of Paleo Diet father Emmet Densmore's 1892 book How nature cures, comprising a new system of hygiene, he cites Rowbotham on the dangers of salt in a section titled Why Common Salt is Harmful within the chapter Chapter V - Confirmatory Proofs—Rowbotham:

=Religion=

On the topic of religion, Rowbotham describes that it is a fallacy to push religion based on belief alone, and holds that those who champion the teachings of Scripture should seek to demonstrate its teachings. As an example, the Scriptures describe an Earth which is flat and the central body of the universe. If it is discovered that this cosmology is true, then it is only logical that this evidence stands in favor of Scripture.

In the closing chapter of Earth Not a Globe Rowbotham states:

He continues:

Rowbotham says that facts trump belief, and encourages the religious to engage in a collection of evidence to back up belief. Those religious proponents should seek to collect evidence to demonstrate the Scriptures to be true, which provides better argument than faith alone.

In essence, the Flat Earth investigation represents, not only the truth of our world, but may also represent physical evidence for the Bible. In the final chapter of his work Rowbotham answers a frequently asked question of "Who cares?" and "What does it matter if the earth is flat?", a question which has been asked on this subject on countless occasions. If the earth is flat, central, with a moving sun, which exists over a void, with small stars, etc., and the world in which we live happens to be exactly as the ancients depicted it in their religious texts, it would matter quite a lot. It might suggest that someone or something gave them that knowledge.

See: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za66.htm Chapter XV. General Summary--Application--Cui Bono]