| Robert Walter | |
| Birth Date: | 14 February 1841 |
| Birth Place: | Acton, Canada West |
| Death Place: | Reading, Pennsylvania |
| Occupation: | Physician, writer |
| Signature: | Signature of Robert Walter (1841–1921).png |
Robert Walter (February 14, 1841 – October 26, 1921) was a Canadian American physician and natural hygiene proponent.
Walter was born in Acton, Canada West. As a young man he moved to Danville, New York, where he studiedmedicine.[1] He graduated from the Hygeio-Therapeutic College of New York in 1873 and the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1888.[2] He worked as a homeopath and hydrotherapist for twenty-five years.[3] He married Eunice C. Lippincott in 1872. They had three daughters and two sons.[1] In 1876, he established the Walter Sanitarium in Walter's Park, Pennsylvania.[4] His book Vital Science makes frequent reference to Biblical literature. Walter was a member of the Society of Friends.[1]
Walter authored the natural hygiene book The Exact Science of Health, in 1903.[5] It was negatively reviewed in medical journals.[5] [6] [7] [8] The book espoused fasting, homeopathic medicine and vitalism.[5] Walter opposed conventional medicine and believed that disease could be cured by people avoiding food and flushing the bowel several times a day. He was an early advocate of colon cleansing. A review in the International Medical Magazine commented that "there are some valuable hygienic suggestions in the book, but they are buried among a mass of platitudes and other unscientific extraneous matter."[5] A review in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences noted that it "bristles with scientific inaccuracies and still more mischievous perversions and misinterpretations of facts."[7] Walter was criticized for not keeping up to date with the progress of modern medical science.[9]
Walter died on October 26, 1921, in Reading, Pennsylvania.[10]