15 Facts About Diocletian Lewis

Diocletian Lewis, commonly known as Dr Dio Lewis, was a prominent temperance leader and physical culture advocate who practiced homeopathy.

Diocletian Lewis was born on a farm near Auburn, New York.

Diocletian Lewis left school at 12 to work in a cotton factory.

Diocletian Lewis later worked at a hoe, axe and scythe factory and returned to school.

Diocletian Lewis extended the curriculum to include algebra, geometry, Greek and Latin.

Diocletian Lewis had to work hard at his own studies to stay ahead of his pupils.

Diocletian Lewis decided to go into medicine, and worked for three years in the office of the physician for the Auburn State Prison.

Diocletian Lewis claimed to have used homeopathy to cure his wife Helen's TB, and from that day his so-called "Consumption Cure" became well-known and profitable.

From 1852 till 1860 Diocletian Lewis was engaged in lecturing on hygiene, temperance and physiology.

Diocletian Lewis felt that, although athletic young men could succeed in the feats required by German gymnastics then prevalent, these exercises did not meet the needs of those who most needed the benefit: boys; old, fat or feeble men; and girls and women.

Diocletian Lewis's influence had much to do with the establishment of the present system of physical culture in most of the institutions of learning in the United States.

Diocletian Lewis later lectured in churches claiming miraculous results from conducting such "Visitation Bands".

Diocletian Lewis gave a public address in Hillsboro, Ohio, on his fall tour through Ohio called "Our Girls", that advocated physical exercise and an active life for women.

Diocletian Lewis urged women to be the sole participants in these acts, in order to aggrandize the emotional force of the movement.

Diocletian Lewis claimed that, as a result of them, more than 17,000 drinking establishments were abandoned in Ohio alone in a period of two months.