[f. LOCAL a. + -IST.] One who inclines to treat or regard things as local, to subject them to local conditions, etc.; a student of what is local; one who assigns a local origin to (diseases).
1683. O. U., Parish Churches no Conventicles, 16. The Legislators had more regard to the Duty, than to the Place of it, and had more respect to the Discretion of the Priest, than this Localist hath; he labouring more for the Circumstance of Place, to gratify his own Humour, then the Intention of the Thing to edify the Congregation.
1833. Cycl. Pract. Med., II. 163. In our opinion, both essentialists and localists have taken a much too limited view of the etiology of fever.
1860. Berkeley, Brit. Fungol., 55. Where species are very difficult to distinguish, it is in general because forms are separated which are too closely allied, an evil which is familiar enough to every practical botanist, though apt to be overlooked or completely ignored by the inexperienced or mere localists.
1901. Q. Rev., Oct., 542. The ‘Localists’ attributed the epidemics to local conditions, atmospheric changes, uncleanliness, and so forth.
