M. E. Lazarus

Marx Edgeworth Lazarus (February 6, 18221896) was an American individualist anarchist, Fourierist, and free-thinker. Lazarus was a practicing doctor of homeopathy who also wrote a number of books and articles, some under the pseudonym "Edgeworth". His works include Love vs. Marriage (1852) and Land Tenure: Anarchist View (1889). He was the only son of Rachel Mordecai Lazarus, who had an extensive correspondence with the Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth. Early life and education Marx Lazarus was born in 1822 in Wilmington, North Carolina, the son of teacher Rachel Mordecai Lazarus and her husband Aaron Lazarus (1777–1841), a Jewish widower and merchant. He was named for his grandfather, "Marks" [sic] and for Maria Edgeworth. Educated by his mother, Lazarus was enrolled by his father, over his mother's objections, at Georgetown College in Washington, D.C. in 1834. He became the first self-identified Jewish student to enroll at that school, later to become Georgetown University, the nation's largest and oldest Jesuit university. After Georgetown, Lazarus enrolled in the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and completed his degree at New York University, becoming a doctor of homeopathic medicine. Career and activism Even before obtaining his medical degree, Lazarus was interested in alternative approaches to health, personal relations, and social structures. Setting up practice in New York City, Lazarus practiced homeopathy and pursued "hydropathy," a "water-cure" for illness involving cold baths and wrapping in wet sheets, bland vegetarian meals, and exercise. Even while a student, Lazarus had visited the water-cure boarding house of Dr. Joel Shew and his wife Mary, major proponents of hydropathy and "natural hygiene." The Shews introduced Lazarus to Mary Gove, who lectured to female audiences on anatomy, health, and hygiene, as well as treating patients. In turn, Gove took an interest in mentoring Lazarus's younger sister, Ellen. In 1846, Lazarus partnered with Gove, arranging for her and her daughter (from her first marriage) to live with him in a large house on Tenth Street in lower Manhattan, where she could lecture and work with patients, some of whom also lived in the house as paying guests. Although this mix of married and unmarried women and men was unorthodox if not scandalous, the relationship between Gove and Lazarus was likely a purely asectic one.