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Russell Thacher Trall was an American healther reformer and physician, born in Vernon, Tolland County, Connecticut, 5 August, 1812; died in Florence, New Jersey, 23 September, 1877.

Photo of Photograph portrait of Russell Trall, believed to have been taken in the 1850's

When Trall was a child, his parents moved from Vernon to settle in western New York. For several years he was sent to work on a farm. He then studied medicine,^{[citation needed]} and at the age of 37 began his own practice. He settled in New York City in 1840, where he became a convert to the Priessnitz-style hydroptherapy in Europe that relied exclusively on the application of water for the treatment of disease. In 1843 he founded a water-cure center, and in connection with it he opened a school (1853), chartered in 1857 under the title of the New York Hygeio-Therapeutic Medical College and relocated to New Jersey. Like many similar American reformers, Trall supported the education of women and his school was one of the earlier educational institutions in America to admit women as well as men.

Russell Trall, M.D., was also a leading advocate of vegetarianism. Like many others who employed holistic, drugless, natural medicine he was convinced that flesh foods had no place on the menu. His views were influenced by Sylvester Graham and Isaac Jennings, who taught that the body is governed by natural laws originating from God and verified by observation.

Although trained as an allopath, Trall had observed patients who had become well without drug intervention and those who had been made sicker by drugs. He noticed how the body was helped when patients were prescribed rest, "vegetable diets", treatments such as massage and hydrotherapy (the "water cure"), and directions to fill the mind with higher thoughts.

Dr. Trall contended that when these laws were broken, sickness and death could result. A frugivorous diet—as mandated in Genesis and verified as natural for human beings by 19th-century studies of human anatomy^{[citation needed]} —was one of the laws. When illness developed, rather than suppressing symptoms he and other drugless doctors sought to remove the causes. Once the causes were removed, the body was expected to heal itself. Trall maintained that drugs harmed the body; for example, a laxative drug appears to work only because the body rejects it--the drug itself did not cause the bowels to work.

Trall was a sought-after doctor who even lectured at the Smithsonian Institution during the American Civil War on behalf of soldiers.^{[citation needed]} The doctor published more than a dozen books, which found an audience hungry to help themselves and to avoid what they thought to be the horrors and the sometimes fatal results of the regular doctors’ medicine.

Dr. Trall told his students that his practice was not lucrative, and the only reason they should become physicians was that they wanted to help the sick and teach them how to avoid sickness in the future.

Trall’s views about medicine led to his vegetarianism and a vice presidency of the American Vegetarian Society. Like other vegetarians of his time, he abhorred cruelty to animals.

In the 20th century, Herbert Shelton studied and then expanded Trall’s work, which is today known as natural hygiene.

• John Harvey Kellogg
• William C. White

Seventh-day Adventist health reformers came into contact with Trall during the 1860s. Ellen G. White utilized writings by Trall in helping to promote health education among Adventists. After Trall's health institute began to go into decline, Trall directed people to Adventist health institutions, especially the Battle Creek Sanitarium.