http://www.bernarrmacfadden.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Mr-America-Millionaire-Transformed-Starvation/dp/0060594764/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268797904&sr=1-1
Mr. America is the bio on him, pivotal figure. Born in Missouri,
His cohort according to the book helped establish Champney's in Brighton.
Besides early bodybuilding, Macfadden seemed to be an early health fanatic, fasting to detoxify and to give the organs like the kidneys a break seemed important to him.
In his personal life, I was disappointed with him about some things.
In about 1922, Charles Atlas/Angel Siciliano by his real name won the "most perfect male" contest.
Macfadden ran a "Britain's most perfect woman" and Mary won it http://www.bernarrmacfadden.com/mary.html and he eventually married her when Bernarr was about 45 and she was about 19. So, to me, he lived his life a bit as a womaniser, had a number of wives, was not that faithful.
I don't judge Macfadden except to say, it seems he ran into some problems with the authorities and may have even fled the USA a time or two because of that.
The author Mark Adams tries some of Macfadden's fasting in the appendix of the book with mixed results, interesting reading. I think Macfadden was probably largely correct in his thoughts about fasting but otoh, on the other hand, in the final year of his life, with an illness at about 87 years old, he fell back on the fasting once again and it taxed his system and probably accelerated his illness.
Grayfox and others might find this book of interest, I say that because it kind of sounds like Macfadden might have come from the general area Grayfox writes from.
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