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 as a "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":



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

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

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.



=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




 * 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)



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)



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 claims to have lived older 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 return to the way our early hunter-gatherer ancestors ate. This benefits of this diet is 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 seven years after his 1884 death, Rowbotham was 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.

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

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

=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]