{{short description|American physician}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Edward Bliss Foote | image = Edward Bliss Foote.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1829|02|20}} | birth_place = Cleveland, Ohio | death_date = {{Death date and age|1906|10|05|1829|02|20}} | death_place = Larchmont, New York | other_names = | known_for = Free Speech League | occupation = Author }}
'''Edward Bliss Foote''' (February 20, 1829 – October 5, 1906) was an American medical doctor, writer, and advocate for birth control.<ref>Cirillo VJ. (1973) Edward Bliss Foote: pioneer American advocate of birth control. Bull Hist Med. 1973 Sep-Oct;47(5):471-9.</ref><ref>Foote, Edward Bliss. American national biography. v. 8 (1999)</ref><ref>Wood, Janice Ruth (2008) The struggle for free speech in the United States, 1872-1915 : Edward Bliss Foote, Edward Bond Foote, and anti-Comstock operations, Routledge</ref>
==Biography== Edward Bliss Foote was born in Cleveland on February 20, 1829.<ref name=Twentieth>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/biographicaldict04johnuoft/page/n155/mode/1up |title=The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans |volume=IV |editor1-first=Rossiter |editor1-last=Johnson |editor2-first=John Howard |editor2-last=Brown |publisher=American Biographical Society |location=Boston |page=<!-- no page numbers --> |year=1906 |access-date=2022-03-23 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
In 1858, he published ''Medical Common Sense'', which contained frank discussion of sexual health for the general public.<ref name="rabban1992">{{cite journal|vauthors=Rabban DM|title=The Free Speech League, the ACLU, and Changing Conceptions of Free Speech in American History|journal=Stanford Law Review|date=1992|volume=45|issue=1|pages=67–68|doi=10.2307/1228985|jstor=1228985}}</ref> He was subsequently convicted under the Comstock Act of 1873 and forced to remove information about birth control from the book.<ref name="rabban1992" /> He was a co-founder of the Free Speech League.
He died in Larchmont, New York on October 5, 1906.<ref>{{cite news | date = October 6, 1906 | title = Died. | work = The New York Times |page=9 | url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/10/06/101800721.pdf |access-date=2022-03-23}}</ref>
==Select bibliography== thumbnail|''Plain home talk about the human system'', 1896
*''Medical Common Sense: Applied to the Causes, Prevention and Cure of Chronic Diseases and Unhappiness in Marriage'' (1864) *''Science in story : Sammy Tubbs, the boy doctor, and "Sponsie," the troublesome monkey'' (1874) *''Plain Home Talk, Embracing Medical Common Sense'' (1880) *''A Fable of the spider and the bees : verified by the facts and press and pulpit comments which should command the serious attention of every American citizen'' (1881) *''Dr. Foote's replies to the Alphites : giving some cogent reasons for believing that sexual continence is not conducive to health'' (1883) *''The radical remedy in social science, or, Borning better babies through regulating reproduction by controlling conception : an earnest essay on pressing problems'' (1886) - Written by his son, E.B. Foote Junior. *''Dr. Foote's Hand-Book of Health-Hints and Ready Recipes'' (1888) *''Dr. Foote's Sexual physiology for the young'' (1892) *''Dr. Foote's new book on health and disease : with recipes, including sexology'' (1903) *''Dr. Foote's new plain home talk on love, marriage, and parentage. A fair and earnest discussion of human, social, and marital relations'' (1904) *''Dr. Foote's home cyclopedia of popular medical, social and sexual science : embracing his new book on health and disease ... also embracing Plain home talk, on love, marriage, and parentage ...'' (1906) *''Human Wonders Freaks and Diseases'' (1892)
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foote, Edward}} Category:American medical writers Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:1829 births Category:1906 deaths Category:19th-century American medical doctors