Walt Whitman: Healthy Living Adviser?

The famous American poet wrote a 47,000 word health series, a manifesto really, called "Manly Health and Training." Published in an obscure newspaper, it was lost and forgotten for 150 years. His series offers advice not too different from today's doctors when it comes to exercise: "To you, clerk, literary man, sedentary person, man of fortune, idler, the same advice: up!" He also recommended that basketball shoes, today's sneakers, be put into general usage. Presumably comfortable footwear would make it easier for everyone to get that exercise.

In other instances Walt Whitman sounds almost like the modern paleo diet fad enthusiasts: "Let the main part of the diet be meat, to the exclusion of all else." He also explains bodily humors, and how to keep them in balance, and "the great American evil -- indigestion."