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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30478-0.txt b/30478-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d55f19c --- /dev/null +++ b/30478-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10742 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30478 *** + +VEGETABLE DIET: + +AS SANCTIONED BY + +MEDICAL MEN, + +AND BY + +EXPERIENCE IN ALL AGES. + +INCLUDING A + +SYSTEM OF VEGETABLE COOKERY. + +BY DR. WM. A. ALCOTT, + +AUTHOR OF THE YOUNG MAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG WOMAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG MOTHER, +YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER, AND LATE EDITOR OF THE LIBRARY OF HEALTH. + +SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. + +NEW YORK: +FOWLER AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS, +No. 308 BROADWAY +1859. + +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, +BY FOWLERS & WELLS, +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of +New York. + +BANES & PALMER, STEREOTYPERS, +201 William st. corner Frankfort, N. Y. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The following volume embraces the testimony, direct or indirect, of more +than a HUNDRED individuals--besides that of societies and +communities--on the subject of vegetable diet. Most of this one hundred +persons are, or were, persons of considerable distinction in society; +and more than FIFTY of them were either medical men, or such as have +made physiology, hygiene, anatomy, pathology, medicine, or surgery a +leading or favorite study. + +As I have written other works besides this--especially the "Young +House-Keeper"--which treat, more or less, of diet, it may possibly be +objected, that I sometimes repeat the same idea. But how is it to be +avoided? In writing for various classes of the community, and presenting +my views in various connections and aspects, it is almost necessary to +do so. Writers on theology, or education, or any other important topic, +do the same--probably to a far greater extent, in many instances, than I +have yet done. I repeat no idea for the _sake_ of repeating it. Not a +word is inserted but what seems to me necessary, in order that I may be +intelligible. Moreover, like the preacher of truth on many other +subjects, it is not so much my object to produce something new in every +paragraph, as to explain, illustrate, and enforce what is already known. + +It may also be thought that I make too many books. But, as I do not +claim to be so much an originator of _new_ things as an instrument for +diffusing the _old_, it will not be expected that I should be twenty +years on a volume, like Bishop Butler. I had, however, been collecting +my stock of materials for this and other works--published or +unpublished--more than twenty-five years. Besides, it might be safely +and truly said that the study and reading and writing, in the +preparation of this volume, the "House I Live In," and the "Young +House-Keeper," have consumed at least three of the best years of my +life, at fourteen or fifteen hours a day. Several of my other works, as +the "Young Mother," the "Mother's Medical Guide," and the "Young Wife," +have also been the fruit of years of toil and investigation and +observation, of which those who think only of the labor of merely +_writing them out_, know nothing. Even the "Mother in her Family"--at +least some parts of it--though in general a lighter work, has been the +result of much care and labor. The circumstance of publishing several +books at the same, or nearly the same time, has little or nothing to do +with their preparation. + +When I commenced putting together the materials of this little treatise +on diet--thirteen years ago--it was my intention simply to show the +SAFETY of a vegetable and fruit diet, both for those who are afflicted +with many forms of chronic disease, and for the healthy. But I soon +became convinced that I ought to go farther, and show its SUPERIORITY +over every other. This I have attempted to do--with what success, the +reader must and will judge for himself. + +I have said, it was not my original intention to prove a vegetable and +fruit diet to be any thing more than _safe_. But I wish not to be +understood as entertaining, even at that time, any doubts in regard to +the superiority of such a diet: the only questions with me were, Whether +the public mind was ready to hear and weigh the proofs, and whether this +volume was the place in which to present them. Both these questions, +however, as I went on, were settled, in the affirmative. I believed--and +still believe--that the public mind, in this country, is prepared for +the free discussion of all topics--provided they are discussed +candidly--which have a manifest bearing on the well-being of man; and I +have governed myself accordingly. + +An apology may be necessary for retaining, unexplained, a few medical +terms. But I did not feel at liberty to change them, in the +correspondence of Dr. North, for more popular language; and, having +retained them thus far, it did not seem desirable to explain them +elsewhere. Nor was I willing to deface the pages of the work with +explanatory notes. The fact is, the technical terms alluded to, are, +after all, very few in number, and may be generally understood by the +connection in which they appear. + + THE AUTHOR. + WEST NEWTON Mass. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + +TO THE SECOND EDITION. + + +The great question in regard to diet, viz., whether any food of the +animal kind is absolutely necessary to the most full and perfect +development of man's whole nature, being fairly up, both in Europe and +America, and there being no practical, matter-of-fact volume on the +subject, of moderate size, in the market, numerous friends have been for +some time urging me to get up a new and revised edition of a work which, +though imperfect, has been useful to many, while it has been for some +time out of print. Such an edition I have at length found time to +prepare--to which I have added, in various ways, especially in the form +of new facts, nearly fifty pages of new and original matter. + + WEST NEWTON, Mass., 1849. + + + + +CONTENTS + Page + +CHAPTER I. + +ORIGIN OF THIS WORK. + + Experience of the Author, and his Studies.--Pamphlet in + 1832.--Prize-Question of the Boylston Medical + Committee.--Collection of Materials for an Essay.--Dr. + North.--His Letter and Questions.--Results, 13-20 + + +CHAPTER II. + +LETTERS TO DR. NORTH. + + Letter of Dr. Parmly.--Dr. W. A. Alcott.--Dr. D. S. + Wright.--Dr. H. N. Preston.--Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. Caleb + Bannister.--Dr. Lyman Tenny.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Joseph + Ricketson, Esq.--Joseph Congdon, Esq.--George W. Baker, + Esq.--John Howland, Jr., Esq.--Dr. Wm. H. Webster.--Josiah + Bennet, Esq.--Wm. Vincent, Esq.--Dr. George H. Perry.--Dr. L. + W. Sherman, 21-55 + + +CHAPTER III. + +REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS. + + Correspondence.--The "prescribed course of Regimen."--How many + victims to it?--Not one.--Case of Dr. Harden considered.--Case + of Dr. Preston.--Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the + treatment of Scrofula.--No reports of Injury from the + prescribed System.--Case of Dr. Bannister.--Singular testimony + of Dr. Wright.--Vegetable food for Laborers.--Testimony, on the + whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could + reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances 56-66 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE. + + Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Dr. J. + Porter.--Dr. N. J. Knight.--Dr. Lester Keep.--Second letter + from Dr. Keep.--Dr. Henry H. Brown.--Dr. Franklin Knox.--From a + Physician.--Additional statements by the Author. 66-91 + + +CHAPTER V. + +TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.--Dr. + Geoffroy.--Vauquelin and Percy.--Dr. Pemberton.--Sir John + Sinclair.--Dr. James.--Dr. Cranstoun.--Dr. Taylor.--Drs. + Hufeland and Abernethy.--Sir Gilbert Blane.--Dr. Gregory.--Dr. + Cullen.--Dr. Rush.--Dr. Lambe.--Prof. Lawrence.--Dr. + Salgues.--Author of "Sure Methods."--Baron Cuvier.--Dr. Luther + V. Bell.--Dr. Buchan.--Dr. Whitlaw.--Dr. Clark.--Prof. + Mussey.--Drs. Bell and Condie.--Dr. J. V. C. Smith.--Mr. + Graham.--Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.--Dr. Sweetser.--Dr. + Pierson.--Physician in New York.--Females' Encyclopedia.--Dr. + Van Cooth.--Dr. Beaumont.--Sir Everard Home.--Dr. + Jennings.--Dr. Jarvis.--Dr. Ticknor.--Dr. Coles.--Dr. + Shew.--Dr. Morrill.--Dr. Bell.--Dr. Jackson.--Dr. + Stephenson.--Dr. J. Burdell.--Dr. Smethurst.--Dr. + Schlemmer.--Dr. Curtis.--Dr. Porter, 92-175 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of + Plautus.--Plutarch.--Porphyry.--Lord Bacon.--Sir William + Temple.--Cicero.--Cyrus the Great.--Gassendi.--Prof. + Hitchcock.--Lord Kaims.--Dr. Thomas Dick.--Prof. Bush.--Thomas + Shillitoe.--Alexander Pope.--Sir Richard Phillips.--Sir Isaac + Newton.--The Abbé Gallani.--Homer.--Dr. Franklin.--Mr. + Newton.--O. S. Fowler.--Rev. Mr. Johnston.--John H. + Chandler.--Rev. J. Caswell.--Mr. Chinn.--Father + Sewall.--Magliabecchi.--Oberlin and Swartz.--James + Haughton.--John Bailies.--Francis Hupazoli.--Prof. + Ferguson.--Howard, the Philanthropist.--Gen. + Elliot.--Encyclopedia Americana.--Thomas Bell, of + London.--Linnæus, the Naturalist.--Shelley, the Poet.--Rev. + Mr. Rich.--Rev. John Wesley.--Lamartine, 176-222 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM. + + The Pythagoreans.--The Essenes.--The Bramins.--Society of Bible + Christians.--Orphan Asylum of Albany.--The Mexican + Indians.--School in Germany.--American Physiological + Society, 223-235 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED. + + General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument.--1. The + Anatomical Argument.--2. The Physiological Argument.--3. The + Medical Argument.--4. The Political Argument.--5. The + Economical Argument.--6. The Argument from Experience.--7. The + Moral Argument.--Conclusion, 236-296 + + * * * * * + +VEGETABLE COOKERY. + + +CLASS I. + +FARINACEOUS OR MEALY SUBSTANCES. + + Bread of the first order.--Bread of the second order.--Bread of + the third kind.--Boiled Grains.--Grains in other forms--baked, + parched, roasted, or torrefied.--Hominy.--Puddings proper, + 291-308 + + +CLASS II. + +FRUITS. + + The large fruits--Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc.--The smaller + fruits--Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, Currant, Whortleberry, + Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc., 308-309 + + +CLASS III. + +ROOTS. + + The Common Potato.--The Sweet Potato, 309-311 + + +CLASS IV. + +MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD. + + Buds and Young Shoots.--Leaves and Leaf Stalks.--Cucurbitaceous + Fruits.--Oily Seeds, etc., 311-312 + + + + +VEGETABLE DIET. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +ORIGIN OF THIS WORK. + + Experience of the Author, and his Studies.--Pamphlet in + 1832.--Prize Question of the Boylston Medical + Committee.--Collection of Materials for an Essay.--Dr. + North.--His Letter and Questions.--Results. + + +Twenty-three years ago, the present season, I was in the first stage of +tuberculous consumption, and evidently advancing rapidly to the second. +The most judicious physicians were consulted, and their advice at length +followed. I commenced the practice of medicine, traveling chiefly on +horseback; and, though unable to do but little at first, I soon gained +strength enough to perform a moderate business, and to combine with it a +little gardening and farming. At the time, or nearly at the time, of +commencing the practice of medicine, I laid aside my feather bed, and +slept on straw; and in December, of the same year, I abandoned spirits, +and most kinds of stimulating food. It was not, however, until nineteen +years ago, the present season, that I abandoned all drinks but water, +and all flesh, fish, and other highly stimulating and concentrated +aliments, and confined myself to a diet of milk, fruits, and +vegetables. + +In the meantime, the duties of my profession, and the nature of my +studies led me to prosecute, more diligently than ever, a subject which +I had been studying, more or less, from my very childhood--the laws of +Human Health. Among other things, I collected facts on this subject from +books which came in my way; so that when I went to Boston, in January, +1832, I had already obtained, from various writers, on materia medica, +physiology, disease, and dietetics, quite a large parcel. The results of +my reflections on these, and of my own observation and experience, were, +in part--but in part only--developed in July, of the same year, in an +anonymous pamphlet, entitled, "Rational View of the Spasmodic Cholera;" +published by Messrs. Clapp & Hull, of Boston. + +In the summer of 1833, the Boylston Medical Committee of Harvard +University offered a prize of fifty dollars, or a gold medal of that +value, to the author of the best dissertation on the following question: +"What diet can be selected which will ensure the greatest health and +strength to the laborer in the climate of New England--quality and +quantity, and the time and manner of taking it, to be considered?" + +At first, I had thoughts of attempting an essay on the subject; for it +seemed to me an important one. Circumstances, however, did not permit me +to prosecute the undertaking; though I was excited by the question of +the Boylston Medical Committee to renewed efforts to increase my stock +of information and of facts. + +In 1834, I accidentally learned that Dr. Milo L. North, a distinguished +practitioner of medicine in Hartford, Connecticut, was pursuing a course +of inquiry not unlike my own, and collecting facts and materials for a +similar purpose. In correspondence with Dr. North, a proposition was +made to unite our stock of materials; but nothing for the present was +actually done. However, I agreed to furnish Dr. North with a statement +of my own experience, and such other important facts as came within the +range of my own observations; and a statement of my experience was +subsequently intrusted to his care, as will be seen in its place, in the +body of this work. + +In February, 1835, Dr. North, in the prosecution of his efforts, +addressed the following circular, or LETTER and QUESTIONS, to the editor +of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, which were accordingly +inserted in a subsequent number of that work. They were also published +in the American Journal of Medical Science, of Philadelphia, and copied +into numerous papers, so that they were pretty generally circulated +throughout our country. + + +"To the Editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. + +"SIR,--Reports not unfrequently reach us of certain individuals who have +fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. Those persons are +said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest confidence, to have +pertinaciously followed the course, till they reached a point of +reduction from which there was no recovery. If these are facts, they +ought to be collected and published. And I beg leave, through your +Journal, to request my medical brethren, if they have been called to +advise in such cases, that they will have the kindness to answer, +briefly, the following interrogatories, by mail, as early as convenient. + +"Should the substance of their replies ever be embodied in a small +volume, they will not only receive a copy and the thanks of the author, +but will have the pleasure to know they are assisting in the settlement +of a question of great interest to the country. If it should appear +probable that their patient was laboring under a decline at the +commencement of the change of diet, this ought, in candor, to be fully +disclosed. + +"It will be perceived, by the tenor of the questions, that they are +designed to embrace not only unfortunate results of a change of diet, +but such as are favorable. There are, in our community, considerable +numbers who have entirely excluded animal food from their diet. It is +exceedingly desirable that the results of such experiments, so difficult +to be found in this land of plenty, should be ascertained and thrown +before the profession and the community. Will physicians, then, have the +kindness, if they know of any persons in their vicinity who have +excluded animal food from their diet for a year or over, to lend them +this number of the Journal, and ask them to forward to Milo L. North, +Hartford, Connecticut, as early as convenient, the result of this change +of diet on their health and constitution, in accordance with the +following inquiries? + +"1. Was your bodily strength either increased or diminished by excluding +all animal food from your diet? + +"2. Were the animal sensations, connected with the process of digestion, +more--or less agreeable? + +"3. Was the mind clearer; and could it continue a laborious +investigation longer than when you subsisted on mixed diet? + +"4. What constitutional infirmities were aggravated or removed? + +"5. Had you fewer colds or other febrile attacks--or the reverse? + +"6. What length of time, the trial? + +"7. Was the change to a vegetable diet, in your case, preceded by the +use of an uncommon proportion of animal food, or of high seasoning, or +of stimulants? + +"8. Was this change accompanied by a substitution of cold water for tea +and coffee, during the experiment? + +"9. Is a vegetable diet more--or less aperient than mixed? + +"10. Do you believe, from your experience, that the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet? + +"11. Have you selected, from your own observation, any articles in the +vegetable kingdom, as particularly healthy, or otherwise? + +"N.B.--Short answers to these inquiries are all that is necessary; and +as a copy of the latter is retained by the writer, it will be sufficient +to refer to them numerically, without the trouble of transcribing each +question. + + "HARTFORD, February 25, 1835." + +This circular, or letter, drew forth numerous replies from various parts +of the United States, and chiefly from medical men. In the meantime, the +prize of the Boylston Medical Committee was awarded to Luther V. Bell, +M.D., of Derry, New Hampshire, and was published in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal, and elsewhere, and read with considerable +interest. + +In the year 1836, while many were waiting--some with a degree of +impatience--to hear from Dr. North, his health so far failed him, that +he concluded to relinquish, for the present, his inquiries; and, at his +particular request, I consented to have the following card inserted in +the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: + + "DR. NORTH, of Hartford, Connecticut, tenders his grateful + acknowledgments to the numerous individuals, who were so kind + as to forward to him a statement of the effects of vegetable + diet on their own persons, in reply to some specific inquiries + inserted in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of March + 11, 1835, and in the Philadelphia Journal of the same year. + Although many months elapsed before the answers were all + received, yet the writer is fully aware that these + communications ought to have been published before this. His + apology is a prolonged state of ill health, which has now + become so serious as to threaten to drive him to a southern + climate for the winter. In this exigency, he has solicited Dr. + W. A. Alcott, of Boston, to receive the papers and give them to + the public as soon as his numerous engagements will permit. + This arrangement will doubtless be fully satisfactory, both to + the writers of the communications and to the public. + + "HARTFORD, November 4, 1836." + + + +Various circumstances, beyond my control, united to defer the +publication of the contemplated work to the year 1838. It is hoped, +however, that nothing was lost by delay. It gave further opportunity for +reflection, as well as for observation and experiment; and if the work +is of any value at all to the community, it owes much of that value to +the fact that what the public may be disposed to regard as unnecessary, +afforded another year for investigation. Not that any new discoveries +were made in that time, but I was, at least, enabled to verify and +confirm my former conclusions, and to review, more carefully than ever, +the whole argument. It is hoped that the work will at least serve as a +pioneer to a more extensive as well as more scientific volume, by some +individual who is better able to do the subject justice. + +It will be my object to present the facts and arguments of the following +volume, not in a distorted or one-sided manner, but according to truth. +I have no private interests to subserve, which would lead me to +suppress, or falsely color, or exaggerate. If vegetable food is not +preferable to animal, I certainly do not wish to have it so regarded. +This profession of a sincere desire to know and teach the truth may be +an apology for placing the letters in the order in which they +appear--which certainly is such as to give no unfair advantages to those +who believe in the superiority of the vegetable system--and for the +faithfulness with which their whole contents, whether favoring one side +or other of the argument, have been transcribed. + +The title of the work requires a word of explanation. It is not +intended, or even intimated, that there are no facts here but what rest +on medical authority; but rather, that the work originated with the +medical profession, and contains, for the most part, testimony which is +exclusively medical--either given by medical men, or under their +sanction. In fact, though designed chiefly for popular reading, it is in +a good degree a medical work; and will probably stand or fall, according +to the sentence of approbation or disapprobation which shall be +pronounced by the medical profession. + +The following chapter will contain the letters addressed to Dr. North. +They are inserted, with a single exception, in the precise order of +their date. The first, however, does not appear to have been elicited by +Dr. North's circular; but rather by a request in some previous letter. +It will be observed that several of the letters include more than one +case or experiment; and a few of them many. Thus the whole series +embraces, at the least calculation, from thirty to forty experiments. + +The replies of nearly every individual are numbered to correspond with +the questions, as suggested by Dr. North; so that, if there should +remain a doubt, in any case, in regard to the precise point referred to +by the writer of the letter, the reader has only to turn to the circular +in the present chapter, and read the question there, which corresponds +to the number of the doubtful one. Thus, for example, the various +replies marked 6, refer to the length or duration of the experiment or +experiments which had been made; and those marked 9, to the aperient +effects of a diet exclusively vegetable. And so of all the rest. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LETTERS TO DR. NORTH. + + Letter of Dr. Parmly.--Dr. W. A. Alcott.--Dr. D. S. + Wright.--Dr. H. N. Preston.--Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. Caleb + Bannister.--Dr. Lyman Tenny.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Joseph + Ricketson, Esq.--Joseph Congdon, Esq.--George W. Baker, + Esq.--John Howland, Jr., Esq.--Dr. Wm. H. Webster.--Josiah + Bennet, Esq.--Wm. Vincent, Esq.--Dr. Geo. H. Perry.--Dr. L. W. + Sherman. + + +LETTER I.--FROM DR. PARMLY, DENTIST. + +To Dr. North. + +MY DEAR SIR,--For two years past, I have abstained from the use of all +the diffusible stimulants, using no animal food, either flesh, fish, or +fowl; nor any alcoholic or vinous spirits; no form of ale, beer, or +porter; no cider, tea, or coffee; but using milk and water as my only +liquid aliment, and feeding sparingly, or rather, moderately, upon +farinaceous food, vegetables, and fruit, seasoned with unmelted butter, +slightly boiled eggs, and sugar or molasses; with no condiment but +common salt. + +I adopted this regimen in company with several friends, male and female, +some of whom had been afflicted either with dyspepsia or some other +chronic malady. In every instance within the circle of my acquaintance, +the _symptoms_ of disease disappeared before this system of diet; and I +have every reason to believe that the disease itself was wholly or in +part eradicated. + +In answer to your inquiry, whether I ascribe the cure, in the cases +alleged, to the abstinence from animal food or from stimulating drinks, +or from both, I cannot but give it as my confident opinion that the +result is to be attributed to a general abandonment of the _diffusive +stimuli_, under every shape and form. + +An increase of flesh was one of the earliest effects of the +_anti-stimulating_ regimen, in those cures in which the system was in +low condition. The animal spirits became more cheerful, buoyant, and +uniformly pleasurable. Mental and bodily labor was endured with much +less fatigue, and both intellectual and corporeal exertion was more +vigorous and efficient. + +In the language of Addison, this system of ultra temperance has had the +happy effect of "filling the mind with inward joy, and spreading delight +through all its faculties." + +But, although I have thus made the experiment of abstaining wholly from +the use of liquid and solid stimulants, and from every form of animal +food, I am not fully convinced that it should be deemed improper, on any +account, to use the more slightly stimulating forms of animal food. +Perhaps fish and fowl, with the exception of ducks and geese, turtle and +lobster, may be taken without detriment, in moderate quantities. And I +regard good mutton as being the lightest, and, at the same time, the +most nutritious of all meats, and as producing less inconvenience than +any other kind, where the energies of the stomach are enfeebled. And yet +there are unquestionably many constitutions which would be benefited by +living, as I and others have done, on purely vegetable diet and ripe +fruits. + +In relation to many of the grosser kinds of animal food, all alcoholic +spirits, all distilled and fermented liquors, tea and coffee, opium and +tobacco,--I feel confident in pronouncing them not only useless, but +noxious to the animal machine. + + Yours, etc., + ELEAZER PARMLY + + NEW YORK, January 31, 1835. + + +LETTER II--FROM DR. W. A. ALCOTT. + + BOSTON, December 19, 1834. + +DEAR SIR,--I received your communication, and hasten to reply to as many +of your inquiries as I can. Allow me to take them up in the very order +in which you have presented them. + +Answer to question 1. I was bred to a very active life, from my earliest +childhood. This active course was continued till about the time of my +leaving off the use of flesh and fish; since which period my habits +have, unfortunately, been more sedentary. I think my muscular strength +is somewhat less now than it was before I omitted flesh meat, but in +what proportion I am unable to say; for indeed it varies greatly. When +more exercise is used, my strength increases--sometimes almost +immediately; when less exercise is used, my strength again diminishes, +but not so rapidly. These last circumstances indicate a more direct +connection between my loss of muscular strength and my neglect of +exercise than between the former and my food. + +2. Rather more agreeable; unless I use too large a quantity of food; to +which however I am rather more inclined than formerly, as my appetite is +keener, and food relishes far better. A sedentary life, moreover, as I +am well satisfied, tends to bring my moral powers into subjection to the +physical. + +3. My mind has been clearer, since I commenced the experiment to which +you allude, than before; but I doubt whether I can better endure a +"laborious investigation." A little rest or exercise, perhaps less than +formerly, restores vigor. I am sometimes tempted to _break my day into +two_, by sleeping at noon. But I am not so apt to be cloyed with study, +or reflection, as formerly. + +4. Several. 1. An eruptive complaint, sometimes, at one period of my +life, very severe. 2. Irritation of the lungs; probably, indeed most +certainly, incipient phthisis. 3. Rheumatic attacks, though they had +never been very severe. + +The eruptive disease, however, and the rheumatic attacks, are not wholly +removed; but they are greatly diminished. The irritation at the lungs +has nearly left me. This is the more remarkable from the fact that I +have been, during almost the whole period of my experiment, in or about +Boston. I was formerly somewhat subject to palpitations; these are now +less frequent. I am also less exposed to epidemics. Formerly, like other +scrofulous persons, I had nearly all that appeared; now I have very few. + +You will observe that I merely state the facts, without affirming, +positively, that my change of diet has been the cause, though I am quite +of opinion that this has not been without its influence. Mental quiet +and total abstinence from all drinks but water, may also have had much +influence, as well as other causes. + +5. Very few colds. Last winter I had a violent inflammation of the ear, +which was attended with some fever; but abstinence and emollient +applications soon restored me. In July last, I had a severe attack of +diarrhoea unattended with much fever, which I attributed to drinking +too much water impregnated with earthy salts, and to which I had been +unaccustomed. When I have a cold, of late, it affects, principally, the +nasal membrane; and, if I practice abstinence, soon disappears. In this +respect, more than in any other, I am confident that since I commenced +the use of a vegetable diet I have been a very great gainer. + +6. The experiment was fully begun four years ago last summer; though I +had been making great changes in my physical habits for four years +before. For about three years, I used neither flesh nor fish, nor even +eggs more than two or three times a year. The only animal food I used +was milk; and for some long periods, not even that. But at the end of +three years I ate a very small quantity of flesh meat once a day, for +three or four weeks, and then laid it aside. This was in the time of the +cholera. The only effect I perceived from its use was a slight increase +of peristaltic action. In March last, I used a little dried fish once or +twice a day, for a few days; but with no peculiar effects. After my +attack of diarrhoea, in July last, I used a little flesh several +times; but for some months past I have laid it aside entirely, with no +intention of resuming it. Nothing peculiar was observed, as to its +effects, during the last autumn. + +7. I never used a large proportion of animal food, except milk, since I +was a child; but I have been in the habit, at various periods of my +life, of drinking considerable cider. For some months before I laid +aside flesh and fish, I had been accustomed to the use of more animal +food than usual, but less cider; though, for a part of the time, I made +up the deficiency of cider with ale and coffee. For several months +previous to the beginning of the experiment, I had drank nothing but +water. + +8. Rather less. But here, again, I fear I am in danger of attributing to +one cause what is the effect of another. My neglect of exercise may be +more in fault than the rice and bread and milk which I use. Still I must +think that vegetable food is, in my own case, less aperient than animal. + +9. In regard to students, my reply is, Yes, most certainly. So I think +in regard to laborers, were they trained to it. But how far _early +habits_ may create a demand for the continuance of animal food through +life, I am quite at a loss for an opinion. Were I a hard laborer, I +should use no animal food. When I travel on foot forty or fifty miles a +day, I use vegetable food, and in less than the usual quantity. This I +used to do before I commenced my experiment. + +10. I use bread made of unbolted wheat meal, in moderate quantity, when +I can get it; plain Indian cakes once a day; milk once a day; rice once +a day. My plan is to use as few things as possible at the same meal, but +to have considerable variety at different meals. I use no new bread or +pastry, no cheese, and but little butter; and very little fruit, except +apples in moderate quantity. + +11. The answer to this question, though I think it would be important +and interesting, with many other particulars, I must defer for the +present. The experiments of Dr. F., a young man in this neighborhood, +and of several other individuals, would, I know be in point; but I have +not at my command the time necessary to present them. + + +LETTER III.--FROM DR. D. S. WRIGHT. + + WHITEHALL, Washington Co., N. Y., March 17, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--I noticed a communication from you in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal of the 5th instant, in which you signify a wish to +collect facts in relation to the effects of a vegetable diet upon the +human system, etc. I submit for your consideration my own experience; +premising, however, that I am a practicing physician in this place--am +thirty-three years old--of a sanguine, bilious temperament--have from +youth up usually enjoyed good health--am not generally subject to +fevers, etc. + +I made a radical change in my diet three years ago this present month, +from a mixed course of animal and vegetable food, to a strictly +vegetable diet, on which I subsisted pretty uniformly for the most part +of one year. I renewed it again about ten moths ago. + +My reasons for adopting it were: 1st. I had experienced the beneficial +effects of it for several years before, during the warm weather, in +obviating a dull cephalalgic pain, and oppression in the epigastrium. +2dly. I had recently left the salubrious atmosphere of the mountains in +Essex county, in this state, for this place of _musquitoes_ and +_miasmata_. 3dly, and prominently. I had frequent exposures to the +variolous infection, and I had a _dreadful_ apprehension that I might +have an attack of the varioloid, as at that time I had never +experimentally tried the protective powers of the vaccine virus, and +had _too_ little confidence in those who recommended its prophylactic +powers. The results I submit you, in reply to your interrogatories. + +1. I think each time I tried living on vegetable food exclusively, that +for the first month I could not endure fatigue _as well_. Afterward I +could. + +2. The digestive organs were always more agreeably excited. + +3. The mind uniformly clearer, and could endure laborious investigations +longer, and with less effort. + +4. I am constitutionally healthy and robust. + +5. I believe I have more colds, principally seated on the mucous +membranes of the lungs, fauces, and cavities of the head. (I do not, +however, attribute it to diet.) + +6. The first trial was one year. I am now ten months on the same plan, +and shall continue it. + +7. I never used a large quantity of animal food or stimulants, of any +description. + +8. I have for several years used tea and coffee, usually once a +day--believe them healthy. + +9. Vegetable diet is less aperient than a mixed diet, if we except +_Indian corn_. + +10. I do not think that common laborers, in health, could do as well +without animal food; but I think students might. + +11. I have selected _potatoes_, when _baked_ or _roasted_, and all +articles of food usually prepared from _Indian meal_, as the most +healthy articles on which I subsist; particularly the latter, whose +aperient and nutritive qualities render it, in my estimation, an +invaluable article for common use. + + Yours, etc., + D. S. WRIGHT. + + +LETTER IV.--FROM DR. H. N. PRESTON.[1] + + PLYMOUTH, Mass., March 26, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--When I observed your questions in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal, of the 11th of March, I determined to give you +personal experience, in reply to your valuable queries. + +In the spring of 1832, while engaged in more than usual professional +labor, I began to suffer from indigestion, which gradually increased, +unabated by any medicinal or dietetic course, until I was reduced to the +very confines of the grave. The disease became complicated, for a time, +with chronic bronchitis. I would remark, that, at the time of my +commencing a severe course of diet, I was able to attend to my practice +daily. + +In answer to your inquiries, I would say to the 1st--very much +diminished, and rapidly. + +2. Rather less; distinct local uneasiness--less disposition to +drowsiness; but decidedly more troubled with cardialgia, and +eructations. + +3. I think not. + +4. My disease was decidedly increased; as cough, headache, and +emaciation; and being of a scrofulous diathesis, was lessening my +prospect of eventual recovery. + +5. My febrile attacks increased with my increased debility. + +6. Almost four months; when I became convinced death would be the +result, unless I altered my course. + +7. I had taken animal food moderately, morning and noon--very little +high seasoning--no stimulants, except tea and coffee. The latter was my +favorite beverage; and I usually drank two cups with my breakfast and +dinner, and black tea with my supper. + +8. I drank but one cup of weak coffee with my breakfast, none with +dinner, and generally a cup of milk and water with supper. + +9. With me _much less aperient_; indeed, costiveness became a very +serious and distressing accompaniment. + +10. From somewhat extensive observation, for the last seven years, I +should say, of laborers never; students seldom. + +11. Among dyspeptics, potatoes nearly boiled, then mashed together, +rolled into balls, and laid over hot coals, until a second time cooked, +as easy as any vegetable. If any of the luxuries of the table have been +noticed as particularly injurious, it has been cranberries, prepared in +any form, as stewed in sauce, tarts, pies, etc. + +Crude as these answers are, they are at your service; and I am prompted +to give them from the fact, that very few persons, I presume, have been +so far reduced as myself, with dyspepsia and its concomitants. In fact, +I was pronounced, by some of the most scientific physicians of Boston, +as past all prospect of cure, or even much relief, from medicine, diet, +or regimen. My attention has naturally been turned with anxious +solicitude to the subject of diet, in all its forms. Since my unexpected +restoration to health, my opportunities for observation among dyspeptics +have been much enlarged; and I most unhesitatingly say, that my success +is much more encouraging, in the management of such cases, since +pursuing a more liberal diet, than before. Plain animal diet, avoiding +condiments and tea, using mucilaginous drink, as the Irish Moss, is +preferable to "absolute diet,"--cases of decided chronic gastritis +excepted. + + Yours, etc., + H. N. PRESTON. + + +LETTER V.--FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS. + + PHILLIPS, Somerset Co., Me., April 28, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--I have a brother-in-law, who owes his life to abstinence from +animal food, and strict adherence to the simplest vegetable diet. My own +existence is prolonged, only (according to human probabilities) by +entire abstinence from flesh-meat of every description, and feeding +principally upon the coarsest farinacea. + +Numberless other instances have come under my observation within the +last three years, in which a strict adherence to a simple vegetable diet +has done for the wretched invalid what the best medical treatment had +utterly failed to do; and in no one instance have I known permanently +injurious results to follow from this course, but in many instances have +had to lament the want of firmness and decision, and a gradual return to +the "_flesh-pots of Egypt_." + +With these views, I very cheerfully comply with your general invitation, +on page 77, volume 12, of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. The +answers to your interrogatories will apply to the case first referred +to, to my own case, and to nearly every one which has occurred within my +notice. + +1. Increased, uniformly; and in nearly every instance, without even the +usual debility consequent upon withdrawing the stimulus of animal food. + +2. More agreeable in every instance. + +3. Affirmative, _in toto_. + +4. None aggravated, except flatulence in one or two instances. All the +horrid train of dyspeptic symptoms uniformly mitigated, and obstinate +constipation removed. + +5. Fewer colds and febrile attacks. + +6. Three years, with my brother; with myself, eighteen months partially, +and three months wholly; the others, from one to six months. + +7. Negative. + +8. Cold water--my brother and myself; others, hot and cold water +alternately. + +9. More aperient,--no exceptions. + +10. I believe the health of _students_ would uniformly be promoted--and +the days of the laborer, to say the least, would be lengthened. + +11. I have; and that is, simple bread made of wheat meal, ground in +corn-stones, and mixed up precisely as it comes from the mill--with the +substitution of fine flour when the bowels become too active. + + Yours, etc., + HORACE A. BARROWS. + + +LETTER VI.--FROM DR. CALEB BANNISTER. + + PHELPS, N. Y., May 4, 1835. + +SIR,--My age is fifty-three. My ancestors had all melted away with +hereditary consumption. At the age of twenty, I began to be afflicted +with pain in different parts of the thorax, and other premonitory +symptoms of phthisis pulmonalis. Soon after this, my mother and eldest +sister died with the disease. For myself, having a severe attack of ague +and fever, all my consumptive symptoms became greatly aggravated; the +pain was shifting--sometimes between the shoulders, sometimes in the +side, or breast, etc. System extremely irritable, pulse hard and easily +excited, from about ninety to one hundred and fifty, by the stimulus of +a very small quantity of food; and, to be short, I was given up, on all +hands, as lost. + +From reading "Rush" I was induced to try a milk diet, and succeeded in +regaining my health, so that for twenty-four years I have been entirely +free from any symptom of phthisis; and although subject, during that +time, to many attacks of fever and other epidemics, have steadily +followed the business of a country physician. + +I would further remark, before proceeding to the direct answer to your +questions, that soon perceiving the benefit resulting from the course I +had commenced, and finding the irritation to diminish in proportion as I +diminished not only the quality, but quantity of my food, I took less +than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to +about the quantity of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen +arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking only my usual +quantity in _bulk_. + +A seton was worn in the side, and a little exercise on horseback taken +three times every day, as strength would allow, during the whole +progress. The appetite was, at all times, not only _craving_, it was +_voracious_; insomuch that all my sufferings from all other sources, +dwindled to a point when compared with it. + +The quantity that I ate at a time so far from satisfying my appetite, +only served to increase it; and this inconvenience continued during the +whole term, without the least abatement;--and the only means by which I +could resist its cravings, was to live entirely by myself, and keep out +of sight of all kinds of food except the scanty pittance on which I +subsisted. And now to the proposed questions. + +1. Increased. + +2. More agreeable, hunger excepted. + +3. To the first part of this question, I should say evidently clearer; +to the latter part, such was the state of debility when I commenced, and +such was it through the whole course, I am not able to give a decisive +answer. + +4. This question, you will perceive, is already answered in my +preliminary remarks. + +5. Fewer, insomuch that I had none. + +6. Two full years. + +7. My living, from early life, had been conformable to the habits of the +farmers of New England, from which place I emigrated, and my habits in +regard to stimulating drinks were always moderate; but I occasionally +took them, in conformity to the customs of those "_times of ignorance_." + +8. I literally drank _nothing_; the milk wholly supplying the place of +all liquids. + +9. State of the bowels good before adopting the course, and after. + +10. I do not. + +11. I have not. + + CALEB BANNISTER. + + +LETTER VII.--FROM DR. LYMAN TENNY. + + FRANKLIN, Vermont, June 22, 1835. + +SIR,--In answer to your inquiries, in the Boston Medical and Surgical +Journal, vol. xii., page 78, I can say that I have lived entirely upon a +bread and milk diet, without using any animal food other than the milk. + +1. At first, my bodily strength was diminished to a certain degree, and +required a greater quantity of food, and rather oftener, than when upon +a mixed diet of animal food (strictly so called) and vegetables. + +2. The animal sensations, attending upon the process of digestion, were +rather more agreeable than when upon a mixed diet. + +3. My mind was more clear, but I could not continue a laborious +investigation as long as when I used animal food more plentifully. + +4. At this time there were no constitutional infirmities which I was +laboring under, except those which more or less accompany the rapid +growth of the body; such as a general lassitude, impaired digestion, +etc., which were neither removed nor aggravated, but kept about so, +until I ate just what I pleased, without any regard to my indigestion, +etc., when I began to improve in the strength of my whole system. + +5. I do not recollect whether I was subject to more or fewer colds; but +I can say I was perfectly free from all febrile attacks, although +febrile diseases often prevailed in my vicinity. But since that time, a +period of six years, I have had three attacks of fever. + +6. The length of time I was upon this diet was about two years. + +7. Before entering upon this diet, I was in the habit of taking a +moderate quantity of animal food, but without very high seasoning or +stimulants. + +8. While using this diet, I confined myself entirely and exclusively to +cold water as a drink--using neither tea, coffee, nor spirits of any +kind whatever. + +9. I am inclined to think that a vegetable diet is more aperient than an +animal one; indeed, I may say I know it to be a fact. + +10. From what I have experienced, I do not think that laborers would be +any more healthy by excluding animal food from their diet entirely; but +I believe it would be much getter if they would use less. As to +students, I believe their health would be promoted if they were to +exclude it almost, if not entirely. + +11. I never have selected any vegetables which I thought to be more +healthy than others: nor indeed do I believe there is any one that is +more healthy than another; but believe that all those vegetables which +we use in the season of them, are adapted to supply and satisfy the +wants of the system. + +We are carnivorous, as well as granivorous animals, having systems +requiring animal, as well as vegetable food, to keep all the organs of +the body in tune; and perhaps we need a greater variety than other +animals. + + Yours, etc., + LYMAN TENNY. + + +LETTER VIII.--FROM DR. J. M. B. HARDEN. + + LIBERTY COUNTY, Georgia, July 15, 1835. + +SIR,--Having observed, in the May number of the "American Journal of the +Medical Sciences," certain inquiries in relation to diet, proposed by +you to the physicians of the United States, I herewith transmit to you +an account of a case exactly in point, which I hope may prove +interesting to yourself, and in some degree "assist in the settlement of +a question of _great interest_ to the _country_." + +The case, to which allusion is made, occurred in the person of a very +intelligent and truly scientific gentleman of this county, whose regular +habits, both of mind and body, added to his sound and discriminating +judgment, will tend to heighten the value and importance of the +experiment involved in the case I am about to detail. + +Before proceeding to give his answers to your interrogatories, it may be +well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was +forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his +business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great +deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he himself declares, +to walk seldom less than ten miles a day, and frequently more; and this +exercise was continued during the whole period of the experiment. His +health for two years previously had been very feeble, arising, as he +supposed, from a diseased _spleen_; which organ is at this time +enlarged, and somewhat indurated. His digestive powers have _always_ +been _good_, and he had been in the habit of making his meals at times +entirely of _animal food_. His bowels have always been regular, and +rather inclined to looseness, but never disordered. He is five feet +eight inches high, of a very thin and spare habit of body, with thin +dark hair, inclining to baldness; complexion rather dark than fair; eyes +dark hazel; of _very studious_ habits when free from active engagements; +with great powers of mental abstraction and attention, and of a temper +_remarkably even_. + +In answer to your interrogatories, he replies,-- + +1. That his bodily strength was increased, and general health became +better. + +2. He perceived no difference. + +3. He is assured of the affirmative. + +4. His spleen was diminished in size, and frequent and long-continued +attacks of _lumbago_ were rendered _much milder_, and have so continued. + +5. Had fewer colds and febrile attacks. + +6. Three years. + +7. No; with the slight exception mentioned above. + +8. No. + +9. In his case rather less. + +10. Undoubtedly. + +11. No; has made his meals of cabbages entirely, and found them as +easily digested as any other article of diet. I may remark, that _honey_ +to him is a poison, producing, _invariably_, symptoms of cholera. + +After three years' trial of this diet, without having any previous +apparent disease, but on the contrary as strong as usual, he was taken, +somewhat suddenly, in the winter of 1832 and 3, with symptoms of extreme +debility, attended with oedematous swellings of the lower extremities, +and painful cramps, at night confined to the gastrocnemii of both legs, +and some feverishness, indicated more by the beatings of the _carotids_ +than by any other symptom. His countenance became very pallid, and +indeed he had every appearance of a man in a very low state of health. +Yet, during the whole period of this apparent state of disease, there +were no symptoms indicative of disorder in any function, save the +general function of innervation, and perhaps that of the lymphatics or +absorbents of the lower extremities. Nor was there any manifest disease +of any organ, unless it was the spleen, which was not then remarkably +enlarged. I was myself disposed to attribute his symptoms to the spleen, +and possibly to the want of animal food; but he himself attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of the vapor of +arseniuretted and sulphuretted hydrogen gases, to which he was +subjected during some chemical experiments on the ores of cobalt, to +which he has been for a long time turning his attention; a circumstance +which I had not known until lately. + +However it may be, he again returned to a mixed diet (to which however +he ascribes no agency in his recovery), and, after six months' +continuance in this state, he rapidly recovered his usual health and +strength, which, up to this day--two full years after the expiration of +six months--have continued good. In the treatment of his case no +medicine of any kind was given, to which any good effect can be +attributed; and indeed he may be said to have undergone no medical +treatment at all. + + Yours, etc., + J. M. B. HARDEN. + + +LETTER IX.--FROM JOSEPH RICKETSON, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, 8th month, 26th, 1835. + +RESPECTED FRIEND,--Perhaps before giving answers to thy queries in the +American Journal of Medical Science, it may not be amiss to give thee +some account of my family and manner of living, to enable thee to judge +of the effect of a vegetable diet on the constitution. + +I have a wife, a mother aged eighty-eight, and two female domestics. It +is now near three years since we adopted what is called the Graham or +vegetable diet, though not in its fullest extent. We exclude animal food +from our diet, but sometimes we indulge in shell and other fish. We use +no kind of stimulating liquors, either as drink or in cookery, nor any +other stimulants except occasionally a little spice. We do not, as +Professor Hitchcock would recommend, nor as I believe would be most +conducive to good health, live entirely simple; sometimes, however, for +an experiment, I have eaten only rice and milk; at other times only +potatoes and milk for my dinner; and have uniformly found I could endure +as much fatigue, and walk as far without inconvenience, as when I have +eaten a greater variety. We, however, endeavor to make our varieties +mostly at different meals. + +For breakfast and tea we have some hot water poured upon milk, to which +we add a little sugar, and cold bread and butter; but in cold weather we +toast the bread, and prefer having it so cool as not to melt the butter. +We seldom eat a meal without some kind of dried or preserved fruit, such +as peaches, plums, quinces, or apples; and in the season, when easily to +be procured, we use, freely, baked apples, also berries, particularly +blackberries stewed, which, while cooking, are sweetened and thickened a +little. Our dinners are nearly the same as our other meals, except that +we use cold milk, without any water. We have puddings sometimes made of +stale bread, at others of Graham or other flour, or rice, or ground +rice, usually baked; we have also hasty puddings, made of Indian meal, +or Graham flour, which we eat with milk or melted sugar and cream; +occasionally we have other simple puddings, such as tapioca, etc. +Custards, with or without a crust, pies made of apple, and other fruits +either green or preserved; but we have no more shortening in the crust +than just to make it a little tender. + +I have two sons; one lived with us about fifteen months after we adapted +this mode of living; it agreed remarkably well with him; he grew strong +and fleshy. He married since that time, and, in some measure, returned +to the usual manner of living; but he is satisfied it does not agree so +well with him as the Graham diet. The coarse bread he cannot well do +without. My other son was absent when we commenced this way of living; +he has been at home about six weeks, and has not eaten any animal food +except when he dined out. He has evidently _lost_ flesh, and is not very +well; _he_ thinks he shall not be able to live without animal food, but +I think his indisposition is more owing to the season of the year than +diet. He never drank any tea or coffee until about four years since, +when he took some coffee for a while, but no tea. For the last two years +he has not drank either, when he could get milk. He is generally +healthy, and so is his brother: both were literally brought up on +gingerbread and milk, never taking animal food of choice, until they +were fifteen or sixteen years of age. + +Dr. Keep, of Fairhaven, Connecticut, was here about a year since, in +very bad health, since which I learn he has recovered by abstaining from +animal food and other injurious diet. As he is a scientific man, I think +he can give thee some useful information. + +1. The strength of both myself and wife has very materially increased, +so that we can now walk ten miles as easily as we could five before; +possibly it may in part be attributed to practice. Our health is, in +every respect, much improved. One of our women enjoys perfect health; +the other was feeble when we commenced this way of living, and she has +not gained much if any in the time; but this may be owing to her +attendance on my mother, both day and night, who, being blind and +feeble, takes no exercise except to walk across the room; but we are +very sure she would not have lived to this time had she not adopted this +way of living. + +2. The process of digestion is much more agreeable, if we do not indulge +in eating too much. We seldom have occasion to think of it after rising +from the table. + +3. I do not perceive much effect on the mind, other than what would +naturally be produced by the restoration of health; but have no doubt a +laborious investigation might be continued as long, if not longer, on +this than any other diet. + +4. I was formerly very much afflicted with the headache, and sometimes +was troubled with rheumatism. I have very seldom, for the last two years +especially, been troubled with either; and when I have had a turn of +headache, it is light indeed compared with what it was before we adopted +this system of living. My wife was very dyspeptic, and often had severe +turns of palpitation of the heart; the latter is entirely removed, and +she seldom experiences any inconvenience from the former. Our nurse was +formerly, and still is, troubled with severe turns of headache, though +not so bad as formerly; and I think she would have much less of it if +she were placed in a different situation. + +5. We scarcely know what it is to have a cold; my wife in particular. +Previously to our change of diet, I was very subject to severe colds, +attended with a hard cough, which lasted, sometimes, for several weeks. + +6. As before stated, we exclude animal food from our diet, as well as +tea and coffee. + +7. Before we adopted a vegetable diet, we always had meat for dinner, +and generally with breakfast; and not unfrequently with tea. Tea and +coffee we drank very strong. + +8. We have substituted milk and water sweetened, for tea and coffee. + +9. Most vegetables I find have a tendency (especially when Graham or +unbolted wheaten flour is used) to keep the bowels open; to counteract +which, we use rice once or twice a week. Potatoes, when eaten freely, +are flatulent, but not inconvenient when eaten moderately. + +10. I think the health of students, by the exclusion of animal food from +their diet, would be promoted, especially if they excluded tea and +coffee also; and I can see no good reason why it should not be +beneficial to laboring people. I have conversed with two or three +mechanics, who confirm me in this belief. + +11. Graham bread, as we call it, eaten with milk, or baked potatoes and +milk, for most people, I think would be healthy; to which should be +added such a proportion of rice as may be found necessary. + + Thy friend, + JOSEPH RICKETSON. + + +LETTER X.--FROM JOSEPH CONGDON, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, Sept., 1835. + +ANSWERS to Dr. North's inquiries on diet. + +1. Increase of strength and activity, connected with, and perhaps in +some good degree a consequence of, an increase of daily exercise. + +2. Process of digestion more regular and agreeable. + +3. Mental activity greater; no decisive experiments on the ability to +_continue_ a laborious investigation. + +4. Dyspepsia of long continuance, and also difficult breathing; +inflammation of the eyes. + +5. Fewer colds; febrile attacks very slight; great elasticity in +recovering from disease. Some part of the effect should undoubtedly be +ascribed to greater attention to the skin by bathing and friction. + +6. Twenty-six months of _entire abstinence_ from all animal substances, +excepting butter and milk. Salt is used regularly. + +7. Through life inclined to a vegetable diet, with few stimulants. + +8. Drinks have been milk, milk and water, or cold water. + +9. A _well-selected_ vegetable diet appears to produce a very regular +action of the stomach and bowels. + +10. I think the health of laborers and students would be promoted by a +_great_ reduction of the usual quantity of animal food, and perhaps by +discontinuing its use entirely. I feel no want. + +11. From my experience, I can very highly recommend bread made of coarse +wheat flour. Among fruits, the blackberry, as peculiarly adapted to the +state of the body, at the time of the year when it is in season. My +range of food has been confined. I avoid green vegetables. Age 35. + + JOSEPH CONGDON. + + +LETTER XI.--FROM GEORGE W. BAKER, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, 9th month, 10, 1835. + +DR. M. L. NORTH,--Agreeably to request, the following answers are +forwarded, which I believe to be correct as far as my experience has +tested. + +1. At first it was diminished; but after a few months it was restored, +and I think increased. + +2. More. + +3. It could. + +4. Pretty free from constitutional infirmities before the change, and no +increase since. + +5. I have had no cold, of any consequence, for the last three years; at +which time I substituted cold water for tea and coffee, and commenced +using cold water for washing about my head and neck and for shaving, +which I continued through the year. + +6. I have not eaten animal food for about eighteen months. + +7. Two years previous to the entire change the quantity was great, but +there had been a gradual diminution. + +8. It was. (See fifth answer.) + +9. More so, in my case. + +10. I believe the health of both laborers and students would be +improved. + +11. I have generally avoided eating cucumbers; otherwise I have not. + + Thy assured friend, + GEO. W. BAKER. + + +LETTER XII--FROM JOHN HOWLAND, JR., ESQ. + + NEW BEFORD, 9th month, 10th day, 1835. + +FRIEND,--As I have lived nearly three years upon a vegetable diet, I +cheerfully comply with thy request. + +1. My bodily strength has been increased; and I can now endure much more +exercise than formerly, without fatigue. + +2. They are more agreeable; and I am now free from that dull, heavy +feeling, which I used to experience after my meals. + +3. My mind is much clearer; and I am free from that depression of +spirits, to which I was formerly subject. + +4. I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed. +I had frequent and severe attacks of headache, which I now rarely have; +and when they do occur they are very light, compared with what they +formerly were. + +5. I have had fewer colds, and those much lighter than formerly. + +6. About three years. + +7. I used to eat animal food for breakfast and dinner, with coffee for +drink, at those meals; and tea for my third meal, with bread and butter. + +8. Milk for breakfast, and cold water for the other two meals. + +9. I have found it more so; inasmuch as the use of it, with the +substitution of bread, made from _coarse, unbolted wheat flour_, instead +of superfine, has removed my costiveness entirely. + +10. I do. + +11. I consider potatoes and rice as the most healthy, and confine myself +principally to the former. + +I would remark that during the season of fruits, I eat freely of them, +with milk; and consider them to be healthy. + + JOHN HOWLAND, JR. + + +LETTER XIII.--FROM DR. W. H. WEBSTER. + + BATAVIA, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835. + +SIR,--Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical +Sciences, Philadelphia. + +I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case +somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my +own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my +health, as a kind of key to my answers. + +It is about fifteen years since I was called a _dyspeptic_; this was +while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my +medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely +swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next +month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left +college more dead than alive--a confirmed dyspeptic. + +In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the +winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my +indulgence in the luxuries of the table--especially in animal food, and +distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of +the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became +very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to +extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon +the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, +which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the +greatest share of that time, with the most excruciating torture. On +getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition +indeed--reduced to a skeleton--a voracious appetite, which could not be +indulged, and which had scarcely deserted me through the whole eight +months. I could not regain my flesh or strength but by almost +imperceptible degrees; indeed, loaf-sugar and crackers were almost the +only food I could use with impunity for the first year. + +It is now nearly four years since I have eaten animal food, unless it be +here and there a little, as an experiment, with the sole exception of +oysters, in which I can indulge, but with all due deference to the +stricter rules of temperance. Still my appetite for animal food seems +unabated. I have ever been a man unusually temperate in the use of +intoxicating drinks; and by no means intemperate in the luxuries of the +table. I take no meat, no alcoholic or fermented drinks, not even cider; +and, for a year past, my health has been better than for three years +previous; and I think that about one third the amount of nourishment +usually taken by men of my age, might subserve the purposes of food for +_me_ better than a larger quantity. The more I eat, the more I desire to +eat; and abstinence is my best medicine. + +But I have already surpassed my limits, and here are my answers. + +1. My strength is invariably diminished by animal food, and in almost +direct proportion to the quantity, with the exception named above. + +2. Pain has been the uniform attendant upon the digestion of an animal +diet, with feverish restlessness and constipation. + +3. Decidedly more fit for energetic action. + +4. An irritation, or subacute inflammation of the digestive apparatus, +which is aggravated by animal food. + +5. Can endure hardship, exposure, and fatigue, much better without meat. + +6. About four years, with the exception stated above. + +7. It was not. + +8. Partially at the commencement; but not of late, if not taken hot. + +9. Much more aperient. + +10. Both classes take too much; and students and sedentaries should take +little or none. + +11. For myself farinaceous articles first, then the succulent sub-acid +ripe fruits, then the less oily nuts are most healthful--and animal +food, strong coffee and tea, and unripe or hard fruits, in any +considerable quantities, are most pernicious. + + Yours, etc., + W. H. WEBSTER. + + +LETTER XIV.--FROM JOSIAH BENNET, ESQ. + + MOUNT-JOY, Pa., Oct. 27, 1835. + +SIR,--I hereby transmit to you, answers to a series of dietetic queries +which you have recently submitted. + +1. My physical strength was at least equal (I am rather inclined to +think greater) after abstaining from animal food. I was, I am certain, +not subject to such general debility and lassitude of the system, after +considerable bodily exercise. + +2. More agreeable--not being subject to a sense of vertigo, which +frequently (with me) followed the use of animal food. There is, +generally, more cheerfulness and vivacity. + +3. The mind is more clear, and is not so liable to be confused when +intent upon any intricate subject; and, of course, "can continue a +laborious investigation longer." There is at no time such a propensity +to incogitancy. + +4. I am not aware of being the subject of any "constitutional +infirmities;" yet, that the change of diet had a very great effect upon +the system, is obvious, from the fact of my having been, formerly, +subject to an eruptive disease of the skin, principally on the shoulders +and upper part of the back, for a number of years, which is not the case +at present, nor do I think will be, as long as I continue my present +mode of living. + +5. I think I have not had as many colds and febrile attacks as before, +nor have they been so severe; yet I cannot be very decisive on this +point, on account of the length of time in the trial not being fully +sufficient. + +6. Between seven and eight months. I must here state that animal food +was not _entirely_ excluded. I probably partook, in very moderate +quantities, once or twice a week. + +7. The quantity of animal food which would be considered "an uncommon +proportion," I am unable to determine; but I was accustomed to make use +of it, not _less_ than twice, and sometimes three times a day, +moderately seasoned. No other stimulants, of any account. + +8. Cold water has been the only substitute for tea and coffee, with the +exception of an occasional cup; probably as often as once or twice a +week. I was, on several occasions, by personal experience, induced to +believe that the use of strong coffee retarded the process of +digestion. + +9. More aperient. Previous to the general exclusion of animal food from +my diet, I was subject to inveterate costiveness; cases of which are now +neither frequent nor severe. + +10. I do firmly believe it would. + +11. My diet, principally, during the trial, consisted of wheat bread, of +the proper age, with a moderate quantity of fresh butter. Potatoes, +beans, and some other esculent roots, etc., I found to be nutritious and +healthy. The following substances I found to produce a contrary effect, +or to possess different qualities: cabbage, when not well boiled; +cucumbers, raw or pickled; radishes, beets, and the whole catalogue of +preserves. Fresh bread was particularly hurtful to me. + + Yours, etc., + JOSIAH BENNETT. + + +LETTER XV.--FROM WILLIAM VINCENT, ESQ.[2] + + HOPKINTON, R. I., Dec. 23, 1835. + +SIR,--The following answer to the interrogations in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal of March 1835, on diet, etc., as proposed by +yourself, has been through the press of business, neglected until this +late period. Trusting they may be of some use, I now forward them. + +1. Rather increased, if any change. + +2. ---- + +3. I think I have retained the vigor of my mind more, in consequence of +an abstemious diet. + +4. I thought I had the appearance of scurvy, which gradually +disappeared. + +5. ---- + +6. From May 20, 1811, (more than twenty-four years.) + +7. Small in quantity, and dressed and cooked simply. + +8. I have drank nothing but warm tea, for seven years. + +9. Bowels uniformly open. + +10. I should not think it would. + +11. I have lived principally on bread, butter, and cheese, and a few +dried vegetables. + +I was born March 31, 1764. In 1833, when mowing, to quench thirst, I +drank about a gill of cold water, _after_ about as much milk and water; +and the same year, some molasses and water; but they did not answer the +purpose. But when I rinsed my mouth with cold water, it allayed my +thirst. + + (Signed) + WM. VINCENT. + + +LETTER XVI.--FROM L. R. BRADLEY, BY DR. GEO. H. PERRY. + + HOPKINTON, R. I., Dec. 23, 1835. + +SIR,--I deem it necessary, first, to mention the situation of my health, +at the time of commencing abstinence from animal food. I was recovering +from an illness of a _nervous fever_. A sudden change respecting my food +not sitting well, rendered it necessary for me to abstain from all +kinds, excepting dry wheat bread and gruel, for several weeks. By +degrees I returned to my former course of diet, but as yet not to its +full extent, as I cannot partake of animal food of any kind whatever, +nor of vegetables cooked therewith. + +1. Diminished. + +2. ---- + +3. I do not perceive the mind to be clearer, and the power of +investigation less. + +4. Distress in the stomach and pain in the head removed. + +5. ---- + +6. Six years and ten months. + +7. Unusual proportion of animal food. + +8. The first year, I drank only warm water, sweetened; since that, tea. + +9. ---- + +10. I do not. + +11. I find _beets_ particularly hard to digest. + + L. R. B. + +The foregoing statements and answers are in her own way and manner. + + Yours, etc., + GEO. H. PERRY. + + +LETTER XVII.--FROM DR. L. W. SHERMAN. + + FALMOUTH, Mass., March 28, 1835. + +SIR,--In compliance with the request you recently made in the Medical +Journal, I inclose the following answers to the queries relative to +regimen you have propounded. They are given by a lady, whose experience, +intelligence, and discernment, have eminently qualified her to answer +them. She, with myself, is equally interested with you in having this +important question settled, and is extremely happy that you have +undertaken to do it. This lady is now fifty years of age; her +constitution naturally is good; her early habits were active, and her +diet simple, until twenty years of age. After that, until within a few +years, her living consisted of all kinds of meats and delicacies, with +wine after dinners, etc., etc. + +1. Her bodily strength was greatly increased by excluding animal food +from her diet. + +2. The animal sensations connected with the process of digestion have +been decidedly more agreeable. + +3. The mind is much clearer, the spirits much better, the temper more +even, and "less irritability pervades the system." The mind can continue +a laborious investigation longer than when she subsisted on a mixed +diet. + +4. Her health, which was before feeble, has, by the change, been +decidedly improved. + +5. She has certainly had fewer colds, and no febrile attacks of any +consequence, since she has practiced rigid abstinence from meats. + +6. She has abstained entirely for three years, and has taken but little +for seven or eight years; and whenever she has, from necessity (in being +from home, where she could procure nothing else), indulged in eating +meat, she has universally suffered severely in consequence. + +7. The change to a vegetable diet was preceded, in her case, by the use +of an uncommon proportion of animal food, highly seasoned with +stimulants. + +8. Tea and coffee she has not used for thirteen years. She has used, for +substitutes, water, milk and water, barley water, and gruel. She found +tea and coffee to have an exceedingly pernicious effect upon her nervous +and digestive system. + +9. A vegetable diet is more aperient than a mixed. Habitual constipation +has been entirely removed by the change. + +10. She sincerely believes, from her experience, that the health of +laborers and students would be generally promoted by the exclusion of +animal food from their diet. + +11. She considers _hominy_, as prepared at the South, particularly +healthy; and subsists upon this, with bread made from coarse flour, with +broccoli, cauliflower, and all kinds of vegetables in their season. + +Be assured, dear sir, that these answers have come from a high source, +to which private reference may at any time be made, and consequently are +entitled to the highest consideration. + + Yours, etc., + L. W. SHERMAN. + +NOTE.--If I have not been minute enough in the relation of this case, I +shall hereafter be happy to answer any questions you may think proper to +propose. It is a very interesting and important case, in my opinion. The +lady has been under my care a number of times, while laboring under +slight indisposition. She has always been very regular and systematic in +all her habits. She is healthy and robust in appearance, and looks as +though she might not be more than forty. This is the only case of the +kind within my knowledge. I have practiced on her plan for a few weeks +at a time, and, so far as my experience goes, it precisely comports with +hers. But I love the "good things" of this world too well to abstain +from their use, until some formidable disease demands their prohibition. + + Yours, etc., + L. W. S. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Dr. Preston has since deceased. + +[2] Mr. Vincent is of Stonington, Ct. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS. + + Correspondence.--The "prescribed course of Regimen."--How many + victims to it?--Not one.--Case of Dr. Harden considered.--Case + of Dr. Preston.--Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the + treatment of Scrofula.--No reports of Injury from the + prescribed System.--Case of Dr. Bannister.--Singular testimony + of Dr. Wright.--Vegetable food for Laborers.--Testimony, on the + whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could + reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances. + + +"Reports not unfrequently reach us," says Dr. North, "of certain +individuals who have fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. +These persons are said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest +confidence, to have pertinaciously followed the course, till they +reached a point of reduction from which there was no recovery." "If +these are facts," he adds, "they ought to be known and published." + +It was in this view, that Dr. North, himself a medical practitioner of +high respectability, sent forth to every corner of the land, through +standard and orthodox medical journals, to regular and experienced +physicians--his "medical brethren"--his list of inquiries. These +inquiries, designed to elicit truth, were couched in just such language +as was calculated to give free scope and an acceptable channel for the +communication of every fact which seemed to be opposed to the VEGETABLE +SYSTEM; for this, we believe, was distinctly understood, by every +medical man, to be the "prescribed course of regimen" alluded to. + +The results of Dr. North's inquiries, and of an opportunity so favorable +for "putting down," by the exhibition of sober facts, the vegetable +system, are fully presented in the foregoing chapter. Let it not be said +by any, that the attempt was a partial or unfair one. Let it be +remembered that every effort was made to obtain _truth in facts_, +without partiality, favor, or affection. Let it be remembered, too, that +nearly two years elapsed before Dr. North gave up his papers to the +author; during which time, and indeed up to the present hour--a period, +in the whole, of more than fourteen years--a door has been opened to +every individual who had any thing to say, bearing upon the subject. + +Let us now review the contents of the foregoing chapter. Let us see, in +the first place, what number of persons have here been reported, by +medical men, as having fallen victims to the said "prescribed course of +regimen." + +The matter is soon disposed of. Not a case of the description is found +in the whole catalogue of returns to Dr. N. This is a triumph which the +friends of the vegetable system did not expect. From the medical +profession of this country, hostile as many of them are known to be to +the "prescribed course of regimen," they must naturally have expected to +hear of at least a few persons who were supposed to have fallen victims +to it. But, I say again, not one appears. + +It is true that Dr. Preston, of Plymouth, Mass., thinks he should have +fallen a victim to his abstinence from flesh meat, had he not altered +his course; and Dr. Harden, of Georgia, relates a case of sudden loss of +strength, and great debility, which he thought, _at the time_, might +"possibly" be ascribed to the want of animal food: though the +individual himself attributed it to quite another cause. These are the +only two, of a list of thirty or forty, which were detailed, that bear +the slightest resemblance to those which report had brought to the ear +of Dr. N., and about which he so anxiously and earnestly solicited +inquiry of his medical brethren. + +As to the case mentioned by Dr. Harden, no one who examined it with +care, will believe for a moment, that it affords the slightest evidence +against a diet exclusively vegetable. The gentleman who made the +experiment had pursued it faithfully three years, without the slightest +loss of strength, but with many advantages, when, of a sudden, extreme +debility came on. Is it likely that a diet on which he had so long been +doing well, should produce such a sudden falling off? The gentleman +himself appears not to have had the slightest suspicion that the +debility had any connection with the diet. He attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of poisonous +gases, to which he was subjected in the process of some chemical +experiments. + +But why, then, it may be asked, did he return to a mixed diet, if he had +imbibed no doubts in regard to a diet exclusively vegetable; and, above +all, how happened he to recover on it? To this it may be replied, that +there is every reason to believe, from the tenor of the letter, that he +acted against his own inclination, and contrary to his own views, at the +request of his friends, and of Dr. Harden, his physician; though Dr. +Harden does not expressly say so. Besides, it does not appear that under +his mixed diet there was any favorable change, till something like six +months had elapsed. This was a period, in all probability, just +sufficient to allow the poison of the gases to disappear; after which +he might have been expected to recover on any diet not positively bad. +If this is not a true solution of the case, how happens it that there +was no disease of any organ or function, except the nervous function? +There is every reason for believing that Dr. Harden, at the date of his +letter, had undergone a change of opinion, and was himself beginning to +doubt whether the regimen had any agency in producing the debility.[3] + +The case of Dr. Preston is somewhat more difficult. At first view, it +seems to sustain the old notion of medical men, that, with a scrofulous +habit, a diet exclusively vegetable cannot be made to agree. This, I +say, seems to be a natural conclusion, _at first view_. But, on looking +a little farther, we may find some facts that justify a different +opinion. + +Dr. Preston was evidently timid and fearful--foreboding ill--during the +whole progress of his experiment. We think his story fully justifies +this conclusion. In such circumstances, what could have been expected? +There is no course of regimen in the world which will succeed happily in +a state of mind like this. + +It should be carefully observed by the reader, that Dr. Preston speaks +of entering upon a "severe course of diet;" and also, that, in +attempting to give an opinion as to the best kind of vegetable food, he +speaks of potatoes, prepared in a certain specified manner, as being +preferable to any other. Now, I think it obvious, that Dr. Preston's +"severe course" partook largely of _crude_ vegetables, instead of the +richer and better farinaceous articles--as the various sorts of bread, +rice, pulse, etc.--and, if so, it is not to be wondered at that it was +so unsuccessful. In short, I do not think he made any thing like a fair +experiment in vegetable diet. His testimony, therefore, though +interesting, seems to be entitled to very little weight. + +This conclusion is stated with the more confidence, from the fact that +some of the best medical writers, not only of ancient times, but of the +present day, appear to entertain serious doubts in regard to the +soundness of the popular opinion in favor of the "beef-steak-and-porter" +system of curing scrofulous patients. Dr. Clark, in the progress of his +"Treatise on Consumption," almost expresses a belief that a judicious +vegetable diet is preferable even for the scrofulous. He would not, of +course, recommend a diet of _crude_ vegetables, but one, rather, which +would partake largely of farinaceous grains and fruits. Nor do I suppose +he would, in every case, entirely exclude milk. + +Dr. Cheyne, in his writings, not only gives it as his opinion that a +milk diet, long continued, or a milk and vegetable diet and mild +mercurials, are the best means of curing scrofula; but he also says, +expressly, that "in all countries where animal food and strong fermented +liquors are too freely used, there is scarcely an individual that hath +not scrofulous glands." A sad story to relate, or to read! But, Dr. +Lambe, of London, and other British physicians, entertain similar +sentiments; and Dr. Lambe practices medicine largely, while entertaining +these sentiments. I could mention more than one distinguished physician, +in Boston and elsewhere, who prescribes a vegetable and milk diet in +scrofula. + +But, granting even the most that the friends of animal food can claim, +what would the case of Dr. Preston prove? That the healthy are ever +injured by the vegetable system? By no means. That the sickly would +generally be? Certainly not. Dr. Preston himself even specifies one +disease, in which he thinks a vegetable diet would be useful. What, +then, is the bearing of _this single and singular case_? Why, at the +most, it only shows that there are some forms of dyspepsia which require +animal food. Dr. Preston does not produce a single fact unfavorable to a +diet exclusively vegetable for the healthy.[4] + +It is also worthy of particular notice, that not a fact is brought, or +an experiment related, in a list of from thirty to forty cases, reported +too by medical men, which goes to prove that any injury has arisen to +the healthy, from laying aside the use of animal food. This kind of +information, though not the principal thing, was at least a secondary +object with Dr. North; as we see by his questions, which were intended +to be put to those who had excluded animal food from their diet for a +year or more. + +But, let us take a general view of the replies to the inquiries of Dr. +North. The sum of his first three questions, was,--What were the effects +of excluding animal food from your diet on your bodily strength, your +mental faculties, and your appetite and animal spirits? + +The answers to the three questions, of which this is the same, are, as +will be seen, remarkable. In almost every instance the reply indicates +that bodily and mental labor was endured with less fatigue than before, +and that an increased activity of mind and body was accompanied with +increased cheerfulness and animal enjoyment. In nearly every instance, +strength of body was actually increased; especially after the first +month. A result so uniformly in favor of the vegetable system is +certainly more than could have been expected. + +One physician who made the experiment, indeed, says, that though his +mind was clearer than before, he could not endure, so long, a laborious +investigation. Another individual says, he perceived no difference in +this respect. A third says, she found her bodily strength and powers of +investigation somewhat diminished, though her disease was removed. With +these exceptions, the testimony on this point is, as I have already +said, most decidedly--I might say most overwhelmingly--in favor of the +disuse of animal food. + +To the question, whether any constitutional infirmities were aggravated +or removed by the new course of regimen, the replies are almost equally +favorable to the vegetable system. It is true that one of the +physicians, Dr. Parmly, thinks the beneficial effects which appeared in +the circle of his observation were the results of a simultaneous +discontinuance of fermented drinks, tea and coffee, and condiments. But +I believe every one who reads his letter will be surprised at his +conclusions. No matter, however; we have his facts, and we are quite +willing they should be carefully considered. The singular case of Dr. +Preston, I now leave wholly out of the account. It was, as I have since +learned, the story of a _very singular man_. + +Among the diseases and difficulties which were removed, or supposed to +be removed, by the new diet, were dyspepsia, with the constipation which +usually attends it, general lassitude, rheumatism, periodical headache, +palpitations, irritation of the first passages, eruptive diseases of the +skin, scurvy, and consumption. + +The case of Dr. Bannister, who was, in early life, decidedly +consumptive, is one of the most remarkable on record. Though evidently +consumptive, and near the borders of the grave, between the ages of +twenty and twenty-nine, he so far recovered as to be, at the age of +fifty-three, entirely free from every symptom of phthisis for +twenty-four years; during which whole period, he was sufficiently +vigorous to follow the laborious business of a country physician. + +The confidence of Dr. Wright in the prophylactic powers of a diet +exclusively vegetable, so far as the mere opinion of one medical man is +to be received as testimony in the case, is also remarkable. He not only +regards the vegetable system as a defence against the diseases of +miasmatic regions, but also against the varioloid disease. On the latter +point, he goes, it seems, almost as far as Mr. Graham, who appears to +regard it not only as, in some measure, a preventive of epidemic +diseases generally, in which he is most undoubtedly correct, but also of +the small-pox. + +The testimony on another point which is presented in the replies to Dr. +North's questions, is almost equally uniform. In nearly every instance, +the individuals who have abandoned animal food have found themselves +less subject to colds than before; and some appear to have fallen into +the habit of escaping them altogether. When it is considered how serious +are the consequences of taking cold--when it is remembered that +something like one half of the diseases of our climate have their origin +in this source--it is certainly no trifling evidence in favor of a +course of regimen, that, besides being highly favorable in every other +respect, it should prove the means of freeing mankind from exposure to a +malady at once troublesome in itself and disastrous in its +consequences. + +In reply to the question,--Is a vegetable diet more or less aperient +than a mixed one,--the answers have been the same, in nearly every +instance, that it is more so. + +The answers to the question whether it was believed the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet, are rather various. It will be observed, however, that +many of the replies, in this case, are medical _opinions_, and come from +men who, though they felt themselves bound to state facts, were +doubtless, with very few exceptions, prejudiced against an exclusively +vegetable regimen for the healthy. It is, therefore, to me, a matter of +surprise, to find some of them in favor of the said prescribed course of +regimen, both for students and laborers, and many of them in favor of +the discontinuance of animal food by students. Those who have themselves +made the experiment, with hardly an exception, are decidedly in favor of +a vegetable regimen for all classes of mankind, particularly the +sedentary. And in regard to the necessity of diminishing the proportion +of animal food consumed by all classes, there seems to be but one voice. + +On one more important point there is a very general concurrence of +opinion. I allude to the choice of articles from the vegetable kingdom. +The farinacea are considered as the best; especially wheat, ground +without bolting. The preference of Dr. Preston is an exception; and +there are one or two others. + +On the whole--I repeat it--the testimony is far more favorable to the +"prescribed course of regimen," both for the healthy and diseased than +under the circumstances connected with the inquiry the most +thorough-going vegetable eater could possibly have anticipated. If this +is a fair specimen--and I know no reason why it may not be regarded as +such--of the results of similar experiments and similar observations +among medical men throughout our country, could their observations and +experiments be collected, it certainly confirms the views which some +among us have long entertained on this subject, and which will be still +more strongly confirmed by evidence which will be produced in the +following chapters. Had similar efforts been made forty or fifty years +ago, to ascertain the views of physicians and others respecting the +benefits or safety of excluding wine and other fermented drinks in the +treatment of several diseases, in which not one in ten of our modern +practitioners would now venture to use them, as well as among the +healthy, I believe the results would have been of a very different +character. The opinions, at least, of the physicians themselves, would +most certainly have been, nearly without a dissenting voice, that the +entire rejection of wine and fermented liquors was dangerous to the +sick, and unsafe to many of the healthy, especially the hard laborer. +And there is quite as much reason to believe that animal food will be +discarded from our tables in the progress of a century to come, as there +was, in 1800, for believing that all drinks but water would be laid +aside in the progress of the century which is now passing. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] See a more recent letter from Dr. Harden, in the next chapter. + +[4] Besides, it is worthy of notice, that Dr. Preston did not long +survive on his own plan. He died about the year 1840. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE. + + Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Dr. J. + Porter.--Dr. N. J. Knight.--Dr. Lester Keep.--Second letter + from Dr. Keep.--Dr. Henry H. Brown.--Dr. Franklin Knox.--From a + Physician.--Additional statements by the Author. + + +During the years 1837 and 1838 I wrote to several of the physicians +whose names, experiments, and facts appear in Chapter II. Their answers, +so far as received, are now to be presented. + +I have also received interesting letters from several other physicians +in New England and elsewhere--but particularly in New England--on the +same general subject, which, with an additional statement of my own +case, I have added to the foregoing. I might have added a hundred +authentic cases, of similar import. I might also have obtained an +additional amount of the same sort of intelligence, had it not been for +the want of time, amid numerous other pressing avocations, for +correspondence of this kind. Besides, if what I have obtained is not +satisfactory, I have many doubts whether more would be so. + +The first letter I shall insert is from Dr. H. A. Barrows, of Phillips, +in Maine. It is dated October 10, 1837, and may be considered as a +sequel to that written by him to Dr. North, though it is addressed to +the author of this volume. + + +LETTER I.--FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS. + +DEAR SIR,--As to food, my course of living has been quite uniform for +the last two or three years--principally as follows. Wheat meal bread, +potatoes, butter, and baked sweet apples for breakfast and dinners; for +suppers, old dry flour bread, which, eaten very leisurely without +butter, sauce, or drink, sits the lightest and best of any thing I eat. +But I cannot make this my principal diet, because the bowels will not +act (_without physic_) unless they have the spur of wheat bran two +thirds of the time. I have at times practiced going to bed without any +third meal; and have found myself amply rewarded for this kind of +fasting, and the consequent respite thereby afforded the stomach, in +quiet sleep and improved condition the next day. And as to drink, I +still use cold water, which I take with as great a zest, and as keen a +relish, as the inebriate does his stimulus. I seldom drink any thing +with my meals; and if I could live without drinking any thing between +meals, I think I should be rid of the principal "thorn in my side," the +acetous fermentation so constantly going on in my epigastric storehouse. + +As to exercise, I take abundance; perform all my practice (except in the +winter) on horseback, and find this the very best kind of exercise for +me. I seldom eat oftener than at intervals of six hours, and am apt to +eat too much--have at various times attempted Don Cornaro's method of +weighing food, but have found it rather dry business, probably on +account of its conflicting with my appetite; but I actually find that my +stomach does not bear watching at all well. + +My brother continues to practice nearly total abstinence from animal +food. I have seen him but once in two and a half years, but learn his +health has greatly improved, so that he was able to take charge of a +high school in the fall of 1836, of an academy in the spring of the +present year, and also again this fall. During his vacation last July, +he took a tour into the interior of Worcester county, Mass., and came +home entirely on foot by way of the Notch of the White Hills, traveling +nearly three hundred miles. This speaks something in favor of rigid +abstinence--as when he commenced this regimen he was extremely low. + + Yours sincerely, + H. A. BARROWS. + + +LETTER II.--FROM DR. JOHN M. B. HARDEN. + + GEORGIA, Liberty Co., Oct. 19, 1837. + +DEAR SIR,--I stated in my letter to Dr. North, if I recollect correctly, +that the use of animal food was resumed in consequence of a protracted +indisposition brought on, _as was supposed_, by the inhalation of +arseniuretted hydrogen gas. The gentleman had begun to recover some time +previously; and in a short time after he commenced the use of the animal +food, he was restored to his usual health. He has continued the use of +it ever since to the same extent as in the former part of his life. He +has lately passed his fifty-fifth year, and is now in the enjoyment of +as good health as he has ever known. + +I know of a gentleman in an adjoining county, who with his lady has been +living for some time past on a purely vegetable diet. They have not +continued it long enough, however, to make the experiment a fair one. + +No case of injury from the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen has come +under my own personal observation, if we except the one above alluded +to. I find, however, that Gehlen, a celebrated French chemist, fell a +victim to it in the year 1815. His death is thus announced in the +"Philosophical Magazine" for that year. "We lament to have to announce +the death of Gehlen, many years the editor of an excellent Journal on +Chemistry and other sciences, and a profound chemist. He fell a victim +to his ardent desire to promote the advancement of chemical knowledge. +He was preparing, in company with Mr. Rehland, his colleague, some +arsenated hydrogen gas, and while watching for the full development of +this air from its acid solution, trying every moment to judge from its +particular smell when that operation would be completed, he inhaled the +fatal poison which has robbed science of his valuable services." Vide +Tillock's Phil. Mag., vol. 46, p. 316. Some further notice is taken of +his death in a paper extracted from the "Annales de Chimie et de +Physique," and published in a subsequent volume of the same Magazine. +Vide vol. 49, p. 280, in which are given his last experiments on that +subject, by M. Gay Lussac. I regret that no account is given in the same +work of the symptoms arising from the poison in his case. I presume, +however, they are on record. + +In the subject of the case I mention, the general and prominent symptoms +were an immediate and great diminution of muscular strength, with pallor +of countenance and constant febricula, the arteries of the head beating +with violence, particularly when lying down at night, the pulse always +moderately increased in frequency, and full, but not tense; and +digestion for the most part good. This state continued for about three +months, during which time he was attending to his usual business, +although not able to take as much exercise as before. At the end of this +time he began to recover slowly, but it was six months before he was +restored entirely. + + Yours, etc., + JOHN M. B. HARDEN. + + +LETTER III.--FROM DR. JOSHUA PORTER. + + NORTH BROOKFIELD, Oct. 26, 1827. + +Though I would by no means favor the propensity for book-making, so +prevalent in our day, yet I have been long of the opinion that a work on +vegetable diet for general readers was greatly needed. I need it in my +family; and there are many others in this vicinity who would be +materially benefited by such a work. + +I have had no means of ascertaining the good or bad effects of a "diet +exclusively vegetable in cases of phthisis, scrofula, and dyspepsia," +for I have had none of the above diseases to contend with. But, since +your letter was received, I have been called to prescribe for a man who +has been a flesh eater for more than half a century. He was confined to +his house, had been losing strength for several months, still keeping up +his old habits. The disease which was preying upon him was chronic +inflammation of the right leg; the flesh had been so long swollen and +inflamed that it had become hard to the touch. There were ulcers on his +thigh, and some had made their appearance on the hip. This disease had +been of _seven months'_ standing, though not in so aggravated a form as +it now appeared. During this time, all the local applications had been +made that could be thought of by the good ladies in the neighborhood; +and after every thing of the kind had failed, they concluded to send for +"the doctor." + +After examining the patient attentively, I became convinced that the +disease, which developed itself locally, was of a constitutional origin, +and of course could not be cured by local remedies. All local +applications were discontinued; the patient was put on a vegetable diet +after the alimentary canal was freely evacuated. I saw this man three +days afterward. The dark purple appearance of the leg had somewhat +subsided; the red and angry appearance about the base of the ulcers was +gone, his strength improved, etc. Three days after I called, I found him +in his garden at work. + +He is now--two weeks since my first prescription--almost well. All the +ulcers have healed, with the exception of one or two. This man, who +thinks it wicked not to use the good things God has given us--such as +meat, cider, tobacco, etc.--is very willing to subsist, for the present, +on vegetable food, because he finds it the only remedy for his disease. + +Early in the spring of 1830, while a student at Amherst College, I was +attacked with dyspepsia, which rendered my life wretched for more than a +year, and finally drove me from college; but it had now so completely +gained the mastery, that no means I resorted to for relief afforded even +a palliation of my sufferings. After I had suffered nearly two years in +this way, I was made more wretched, if possible, by frequent attacks of +colic, with pains and cramps extending to my back; and so severe had +these pains become, that the prescriptions of the most eminent +physicians afforded only partial relief. + +On the 13th of February, 1833, after suffering from the most violent +paroxysm I had ever endured, I left my home for Brunswick, Maine, to +attend a course of medical lectures. For several days I boarded at a +public house, and ate freely of several substantial dishes that were +before me. The consequence was a fresh attack of colic. From some +circumstances that came up at this time, I was convinced that flesh +meats had much to do with my sufferings, and the resolution was formed +at once to change my diet and "starve" out dyspepsia. + +I took a room by myself, and made arrangements for receiving a pint of +milk per day; this, with coarse rye and Indian bread, constituted my +only food. After living in this way a week or two, I had a free and +natural evacuation. Thus nature began to effect what medicine alone had +done for nearly three years. The skin became moist, and my voracious +appetite began to subside. I returned home to my friends at the close of +the term well, and have been well ever since--have never had a colic +pain or any costiveness since that time. My powers of digestion are +good, and though I do not live so rigidly now as when at Brunswick, I +always feel best when my food is vegetables and milk. I can endure +fatigue and exposure as well as any man. On this mild diet, too, my +muscular strength has considerably increased; and every day is adding +new vigor to my constitution. + +Having experienced so much benefit from a mild diet, and being +rationally convinced that man was a fruit-eating animal naturally, I +made my views public by a course of lectures on physiology, which I +delivered in the Lyceum soon after I came to this place (three years +ago). The consequence was, that quite a number of those who heard my +lectures commenced training their families as well as themselves to the +use of vegetables, etc., and I am happy to inform you that, at this day, +many of our most active influential business-doing men are living in the +plainest and most simple manner. + +One of my neighbors has taken no flesh for more than three years. He is +of the ordinary height, and sanguine temperament, and usually weighed, +when he ate flesh, one hundred and eighty pounds. After he changed his +diet, his countenance began to change, and his cheeks fell in; and his +meat-eating friends had serious apprehensions that he would survive but +a short time, unless he returned to his former habits. But he +persevered, and is now more vigorous and more athletic than any man in +the region, or than he himself has ever been before. + +His muscular strength is very great. A few days since, a number of the +most athletic young men in our village were trying their strength at +lifting a cask of lime, weighing five hundred pounds. All failed to do +it, with the exception of one, who partly raised it from the ground. +After they were gone, this vegetable eater without any difficulty raised +the cask four or five times. More than three years ago this man lost his +daughter, who fell a prey to cholera infantum; he has now a daughter +rather more than a year old, whom he has trained on strictly +physiological principles; and though very feeble at birth, and for three +months subsequently, she is now the most healthy child in the town. This +child had some of the first symptoms of consumption last August, owing +to the too free indulgence of the mother in improper articles of food; +but being treated with demulcents, at the same time correcting the +mother's system, she recovered, and is now the "picture of health." + +I was conversing with this gentleman the other day respecting his +health--says he is perfectly well, weighs one hundred and sixty-five +pounds; and though he was called well when eating flesh, he was not so +in reality; for every few weeks he was troubled with headache and a +sense of fullness in the region of the stomach, for which he was obliged +to take an active cathartic. For a few months before he adopted the +vegetable system, he had decided symptoms of congestion in the head, +such as precede apoplexy. I questioned him as to his appetite. He +informed me, that when he ate meat he had such an unconquerable desire +for food about eleven o'clock, that he could not wait till noon. This he +calls "meat hunger," for it disappeared soon after he came to the +present style of living. He has no craving now; but when he begins to +eat, the zest is exquisite. + + Yours, + JOSHUA PORTER. + + +LETTER IV.--FROM DR. N. J. KNIGHT, OF TRURO. + + Dated at TRURO, October, 1837. + +DR. ALCOTT: SIR,--I hasten to comply so far with your request as to show +my decided approbation of a fruit and farinaceous diet, both in health +and sickness. The manner in which nutritious vegetables are presented to +us for our consumption and support, evince to a demonstration the +simplicity of our corporeal systems. Through every medium of correct +information, we learn that the most distinguished men, both in ancient +and modern times, were pre-eminently distinguished for their +abstemiousness, and the simplicity of their diet. + +It was not, however, a consideration of this kind that first induced me +to relinquish flesh meat and fish. Some three years previous to my +forming a determination to subsist upon farinacea, I had been laboring +under an aggravated case of dyspepsia; and about six months previous, +also, an attack of acute rheumatism. + +I was harassed with constant constipation of the bowels, and ejection of +food after eating, together with occasional pain in the head. + +Under all these circumstances, I came to this determination, which I +committed to paper: "November 9, 1831. This day ceased from +strengthening this mortal body by any part of that which ever drew +breath." To the above I rigidly adhered until last November, when my +health had become so perfect that I thought myself invincible, so far as +disease was concerned. All pains and aches had left me, and all the +functions of the body seemed to be performed in a healthy manner. + +My diet had consisted of rye and Indian bread, stale flour bread, sweet +bread without shortening, milk, some ripe fruit, and occasionally a +little butter. + +During this time, while I devoted myself to considerable laborious +practice and hard study, there was no deficiency of muscular strength or +mental energy. I am fully satisfied my mind was never so active and +strong. + +Since last November I have, at times, taken animal food, in order that I +might be absolutely satisfied that my mode of living acted decidedly in +favor of my perfect health, and that a different course would produce +organic derangement. + +I had only taken animal food about two months after the usual custom, +before I had a severe attack, and only escaped an inflammatory fever by +the most rigid antiphlogistic treatment. + +I again lived as I ought, and felt well; and having continued so some +time, I resorted the second time to an animal diet. + +In two months' time, I was taken with the urticaria febrilis, of +Bateman, which lasted me more than two weeks, and my suffering was +sufficient to forever exclude from my stomach every kind of animal food. + +I am now satisfied, to all intents and purposes, that mankind would live +longer, and enjoy more perfectly the "sane mind in a sound body," should +they never taste flesh meat or fish. + +A simple farinaceous diet I have ever found more efficient in the cure +of chronic complaints, where there was not much organic lesion, than +every other medical agent. + +Mrs. A., infected with scrofula of the left breast, and in a state of +ulceration, applied to me two years since. The ulcer was then the size +of a half-dollar, and discharged a considerable quantity of imperfect +pus. The axillary glands were much enlarged, and, doubting the +practicability of operating with the knife in such cases, I told her the +danger of her disease, and ordered her to subsist upon bread and milk +and some fruit, drink water, and keep the body of as uniform temperature +as possible. I ordered the sore to be kept clean by ablutions of tepid +water. In less than three months, the ulcer was all healed, and her +general health much improved. The axillary glands are still enlarged, +though less so than formerly. + +She still lives simply, and enjoys good health; but she tells me if she +tastes flesh meat, it produces a twinging in the breast. + +Many cases, like the above, have come under my observation and immediate +attention, and suffice it to say, I have never failed to ameliorate the +condition of every individual that has applied to me, who was suffering +under chronic affections, if they would follow my prescriptions--unless +the system was incapable of reaction. + + Yours, truly, + N. J. KNIGHT. + + +LETTER V.--FROM DR. LESTER KEEP. + + FAIR HAVEN, Jan. 22, 1838. + +DEAR SIR,--Agreeably to your request, I will inform you that from +September, 1834, to June, 1836, I used no meat at all, except +occasionally in my intercourse with society, I used a little to avoid +attracting notice. + +When I commenced my studies, life was burdensome. I knew not, for +months, and I may say years, what enjoyment comfortable health affords. +In a great many ways I can now see that I very greatly erred in my +course of living. I am surprised that the system will hold out in its +powers during so long a process in the use of what I should now consider +the means best calculated to break it down. + +I cannot now particularize. But in college, and during my professional +studies, and since, during six or eight years of practice in an arduous +profession, I have been greatly guilty, and neglected those means best +calculated to promote and preserve health; and used those means best +fitted to destroy it. The summers of 1832, 1833, and 1834, were pretty +much lost, from wretched health. I was growing worse every year, and no +medicines that I could prepare for myself, or that were prescribed by +various brother physicians, had any thing more than a temporary effect +to relieve me. All of the year 1834, until September, I used opium for +relief; and I used three and four grains of sulphate of morphine per +day, equal to about sixteen grains of opium. Spirit, wine, and ale I had +tried, and journeys through many portions of the State of Maine, with +the hope that a more northern climate would invigorate and restore a +system that I feared was broken down forever, and that at the age of +thirty-seven. But, without further preamble, I will say, I omitted at +once and entirely the use of tea, coffee, meat, butter, grease of all +sorts, cakes, pies, etc., wine, cider, spirits, opium (which I feared I +must use as long as I lived), and tobacco, the use of which I learned in +college. Of course, from so sudden and so great a change, a most horrid +condition must ensue for many days, for the relief of which I used the +warm bath at first several times a day. I had set no time to omit these +articles, and made no resolutions, except to give this course a trial, +to find out whether I had many native powers of system left, and what +was their character and condition when unaffected by the list of agents +mentioned. + +I pursued this plan of living faithfully for one year and a half, and +with unspeakable joy I found a gradual return of original vigor and +health. Now, I cannot say that the omission of meat of all kinds, for a +year and a half, caused this improvement in health; it is possible that +it had but little to do with it. I know I was guilty of many bad habits; +and probably all combined caused my bad condition. + +At the close of the year and a half, I married my present second wife, +and then commenced living as do others, in most respects, and continued +this course most of the time until I received your letter. I then again +omitted the use of all animal food, tea, coffee, and tobacco; and for +the last month, it is a clear case, my health is better; that is, more +vigorous to bear cold. I also bear labor and care better. + +I have not investigated the subject of dietetics very much, but I have +no doubt that the inhabitants of our whole land make too much use of +animal food. No doubt it obstructs the vital powers, and tends to +unbalance the healthful play and harmony of the various organs and their +functions. There is too much nutriment in a small space. An unexpected +quantity is taken; for with most people a sense of fullness is the test +of a sufficient quantity. + +I am satisfied that I am better without animal food than with the +quantity I ordinarily use. If I should use but a small quantity once or +twice a day, it is possible it would not be injurious. This I have not +tried; for I am so excessively fond of meat, that I always eat _more_ +than a small quantity, when I eat it at all. Healthy, vigorous men, day +laborers in the field, or forest, may perhaps require some meat to +sustain the system, during hard and exhausting labor. Of this I cannot +say. + +I am now pretty well convinced, from two or three years' observation, +that a large portion of my business, as a physician, arises from +intemperance in the use of food. Too much and too rich nutriment is +used, and my constant business is, to counteract its bad effects. + +Two cases are now in mind of the great benefit of dieting for the +recovery of health, the particulars of which I cannot now give you. One +of them I think would be willing to speak for himself on the subject. + + I am, sir, yours, etc., + LESTER KEEP. + + +LETTER VI.--SECOND LETTER FROM DR. KEEP. + + FAIR HAVEN, Ct., Jan. 26, 1838. + +SIR,--Since I wrote you, a few days ago, I have learned of several +individuals who have, for some length of time, used no flesh meat at +all. + +Amos Townsend, Cashier of the New Haven Bank, has, as I am told, lived +almost entirely upon bread, crackers, or something of that kind, and but +little of that. He can dictate a letter, count money, and hold +conversation with an individual, all at the same time, with no +embarrassment; and I know him to have firm health. + +Our minister, Rev. B. L. Swan, during the whole of two years of his +theological studies at Princeton, made crackers and water his only food, +and was in good health. + +Mr. Hanover Bradley, of this village, who has been several years a +missionary among the Indians, has, for I think, eight or ten years, +lived entirely on vegetable food. He had been long a dyspeptic. + +There are some other cases of less importance, and probably very many in +New Haven; but I am situated a mile from the city, and have never +inquired for vegetable livers. + + Yours, etc., + LESTER KEEP. + + +LETTER VII.--FROM DR. HENRY H. BROWN + + WEST RANDOLPH, Vt., Feb. 3, 1838. + +DEAR SIR,--It has been about two years and a half since I adopted an +exclusively vegetable diet, with no drink but water; and my food has +been chiefly prepared by the most simple forms of cookery. Previously to +this, I used a large proportion of flesh meat, and drank tea and coffee. +I had much impaired my health by such indulgences. I hardly need to say +that my health has greatly improved, and is now quite good and uniform. + +I think that physicians, in prescribing for the removal of disease, +should pay much more regard to the diet of their patients, and +administer less of powerful medicine, than is customary with gentlemen +of this profession at large. + + Yours, etc., + HENRY H. BROWN. + + +LETTER VIII.--FROM DR. FRANKLIN KNOX. + + KINSTON,[5] N. C., June 23, 1837. + +DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 22d July has been hitherto unanswered, +through press of business. + +I consider an exclusive vegetable diet as of the utmost consequence in +most diseases, especially in those chronic affections or morbid states +of the system which are not commonly considered as diseases; and I think +that, in these cases, such a diet is too often overlooked, even by +physicians. + + Yours, truly, + F. KNOX. + + +LETTER IX.--FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE PHYSICIAN. + +[The following letter, received last autumn, is from a medical +gentleman, in a distant part of the country, whose name, for particular +reasons, we stand pledged not to give to the world. The facts, however, +may be relied on; and they are exceedingly important and interesting.] + +DEAR SIR,--Your letter was duly received. I proceed to say that, since I +settled in this town, my attacks of epilepsy[6] have occurred in the +following order: + + 1833. + Nov. 18. One at 11 P. M. Severe. + " 19. " " " + " 24. Nineteen, from 4 A. M. to 3 P. M. Frightful. + + 1835. + Jan. 13. One at 4 A. M. } + " 15. " " } Milder. + " 16. Two at 2 and 4 A. M. } + +Thus it appears that I have enjoyed a longer immunity since the last, +than for some years prior. I have maintained total abstinence from +flesh, fish, or fowl, for two and a half years, namely, from March 1835 +to the present time. That this happy immunity from a most obstinate +disease is to be attributed solely to my abstinence from animal food, I +do not feel prepared to assert; but that my general health has been +better, my attacks of disease far milder, my vigor of mind and body +greater, my mental perceptions clearer and more acute, and my enjoyment +of life, on the whole, very essentially increased, I am fully prepared +to prove. + +I have, however, found it nearly as essential for me to abstain from +many kinds of vegetable food as from animal, namely, from all kinds of +flatulent vegetables; from all kinds of fruits and berries, except the +very mildest--as, perfectly ripe and well baked sweet apples--and from +all kinds of pies, sauces, and preserves. Of these, however, I am not +able to say, as I do of the animal varieties, that I have practiced +total abstinence; by no means. I have often ventured to indulge, and +generally suffer more or less for my temerity. My severest sufferings +for the last two years have been in the form of colic, of which I have +had frequent slight attacks; but none to confine me over twenty-four +hours. + + * * * * * + +ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS.--BY THE AUTHOR.[7] + +From the age of five or six months to that of two years, I was literally +crammed with flesh meat; usually of the most gross kind. Such a course +was believed, by the fond parents and others, as likely to be productive +of the most healthful and happy consequences. The result was an +accumulation of adipose substance, that rendered me one of the most +unsightly, not to say monstrous productions of nature. I ought not to +say _nature_, perhaps; for, if not perverted, she produces no such +monsters. At the age of six months, my weight was twenty-five pounds; +and it rose soon after to thirty or more. + +When I was about two years of age, I had the whooping-cough, and, having +been brought up to the height, and more than the height of my condition, +by over-feeding with fat meat, I suffered exceedingly. I? recovered, at +length, but I had lost my relish, as I am informed, for flesh meat; and +from this time till the age of fourteen, I seldom ate any but the +leanest muscle. I was tolerably healthy, but, from the age of two years, +was slender; so much so that, at five or six, I only weighed fifty +pounds; and was constantly either found fault with, or pitied, because I +did not eat meat in quality and quantity like other people. Nor was it +without much effort, even at the age of fourteen, that I could bring +myself to be reconciled to it. I was also trained to the early use of +much cider, and to the moderate use of tea and spirits. I have spoken of +my slender constitution;--I believe this was in part the result of +excessive early labor, and that it was not wholly owing to a premature +use of flesh meat. + +I had suffered so much, however, from the belief that I was feeble from +the latter cause, that I had no sooner become reconciled to the use of +flesh and fish--which was at the age of fourteen--than I indulged in it +quite freely. About this time I had a severe attack of measles, which +came very near carrying me off. I was left with anasarca, or general +dropsy, and with weak eyes. To cure the former the physicians plied me, +for a long time, with blue pill, and with mercurial medicine in other +forms, and also with digitalis; and finally filled my stomach to +overflowing with diuretic drinks. However, in spite of them all, I +recovered during the next year; except that a foundation was laid for +premature decay of the teeth, and for a severe eruptive disease. This +last, and the weakness of the eyes, were, for some time, very +troublesome. + +The eruptive complaint was soon discovered to be less severe, even in +hot weather, and while I was using a great deal of exercise, in +proportion as I abstained from all drinks but water, and ate none but +mild food. Owing to the discovery of this fact and to other causes, I +chiefly discontinued the use of stimulating food and drink, during the +hottest part of the season; though I committed much error in regard to +the quantity of my food, and drank quite too freely of cold water. Still +I always found my health best, and my body and mind most vigorous at the +end of summer, or the beginning of autumn, notwithstanding the very hard +labor to which I was subjected on the farm. This increase of vigor was, +at that time, attributed chiefly to a free use of summer fruits; for, so +deeply had the belief been infixed by early education, that highly +stimulating food and drink were indispensable to the full health and +strength of mankind, and especially to people who were laboring hard, +that, though I sometimes suspected they were not true friends to the +human system, my conscience always condemned the suspicion, and +pronounced me guilty of a species of high treason for harboring it. + +This brings up my dietetic history, to the period at which it commences, +in the letter to Dr. North. The study of medicine, however, from the age +of twenty-four to twenty-seven, and the subsequent study and practice of +it for a few years, joined to the changes I made at the same time in my +physical habits, and my observations on their effects, led me to reject, +one after another, and one group after another, the whole tribe of extra +stimulants--solid and fluid. + +The sequel of my story remains to be told. It is now nearly fifteen +years since I wrote the letter, which is found at page 23d, to Dr. +North. During this long period, and for several years before, amounting, +in all, to about nineteen years, I have not only abstained entirely from +flesh, fish, and fowl--not having eaten a pound of any one of these +during the whole time, except the very few pounds I used in the time of +the first visitation of our country with cholera, as before +mentioned--but I have almost entirely abstained from butter, cheese, +eggs, and milk. Butter, especially, I _never_ taste at all. The +occasional use of milk, in very small quantities, once a day, has, +however, been resorted to; not from necessity, indeed, or to gratify any +strong desire or inclination for it, but from a conviction of its happy +medicinal effects on my much-injured frame. Hot food of every kind, and +liquids, with the exception just made, I rarely touch. Nearly every +thing is taken in as solid a form and in as simple a state as possible; +with no condiments, except a very little salt, and with no sweets, +sauces, gravies, jellies, preserves, etc. I seldom use more than one +sort of food at a time, unless it be to add fruit as a second article; +and this is rarely done, except in the morning. I have for ten or twelve +years used no drinks with my meals; and sometimes for months together +have had very little thirst at all.[8] + +And as to the effects, they are such, and have all along been such, as +to make me wonder at myself, whenever I think of it. Instead of being +constantly subject to cold, and nearly dying with consumption in the +spring, I am almost free from any tendency to take cold at all. During +the winter of 1837-8, by neglecting to keep the temperature of my room +low enough, and by neglecting also to take sufficient exercise in the +open air, I became unusually tender, and suffered to some extent from +colds. But I was well again during the spring, and felt as if I had +recovered or nearly recovered my former hardihood. + +In regard to other complaints, I may say still more. Of rheumatism, I +have scarcely had a twinge in twelve or fourteen years. My eruptive +complaint is, I believe, _entirely_ gone. The weakness of my eyes has +been wholly gone for many years. Indeed, the strength and perfection of +my sight and of all my senses, till nearly fifty years of age--hearing +perhaps excepted, in which I perceive no alteration--appeared to be +constantly improving. My stomach and intestines perform their respective +duties in the most appropriate, correct, and healthful manner. My +appetite is constantly good, and as constantly improving;--that is, +going on toward perfection. I can detect, especially by taste, almost +any thing which is in the least offensive or deleterious in food or +drink; and yet I can receive, without immediate apparent disturbance, +and readily digest, almost any thing which ever entered a human +stomach--knives, pencils, clay, chalk, etc., perhaps excepted. I can eat +a full meal of cabbage, or any other very objectionable crude aliment, +or even cheese or pastry--a single meal, I mean--with apparent impunity; +not when fatigued, of course, or in any way debilitated, but in the +morning and when in full strength. It is true, I make no experiments of +this sort, except occasionally _as_ experiments. + +In my former statements I gave it as my opinion that vegetable food was +less aperient than animal. My opinion now is, that if we were trained on +vegetable food, and had never received substances into the stomach which +were unduly stimulating, we should find the intestinal or peristaltic +action quite sufficient. The apparent sluggishness of the bowels, when +we first exchange an animal diet for a vegetable one, is probably owing +to our former abuses. At present, I find my plain vegetable food, in +moderate and reasonable quantity, quite as aperient as it ought to be, +and, if I exceed a proper quantity, too much so. + +I have now no remaining doubts of the vast importance that would result +to mankind, from an universal training from childhood, to the exclusive +use of vegetable food. I believe such a course of training, along with a +due attention to air, exercise, cleanliness, etc., would be the means of +improving our race, physically, intellectually, and morally, beyond any +thing of which the world has yet conceived. But my reasons for this +belief will be seen more fully in another place. They are founded in +science and the observation of facts around me, much more than on a +narrow individual experience. + +There is one circumstance which I must not omit, because it is full of +admonition and instruction. I have elsewhere stated that, twenty-three +years ago, I had incipient phthisis. Of this fact, and of the fact that +there were considerable inroads made by disease on the upper lobe of +the right lung, I have not the slightest doubt. The symptoms were such +at the time, and subsequently, as could not have been mistaken. Besides, +what was, as I conceive, pretty fully established by the symptoms which +existed, is rendered still more certain by auscultation. The sounds +which are heard during respiration, in the region to which I have +alluded, leave no doubt on the minds of skillful medical men, of their +origin. Still I doubt whether the disease has made any considerable +progress for many years. + +But, during the winter of 1837-8, my employments became excessively +laborious; and, for the whole winter and spring, were sufficient for at +least two healthy and strong men. They were also almost wholly +sedentary. At the end of May, I took a long and rather fatiguing journey +through a country by no means the most healthy, and came home somewhat +depressed in mind and body, especially the former. I was also unusually +emaciated, and I began to have fears of a decline. Still, however, my +appetite was good, and I had a good share of bodily strength. The more I +directed my attention to myself, the worse I became; and I actually soon +began to experience darting pains in the chest, together with other +symptoms of a renewal of pulmonary disease. Perceiving my danger, +however, from the state of my mind, I at length made a powerful effort +to shake off the mental disturbance--which succeeded. This, together +with moderate labor and rather more exercise than before, seemed +gradually to set me right. + +Again, in the spring of 1848, after lecturing for weeks and +months--often in bad and unventilated rooms and subjecting myself, +unavoidably, to many of those abuses which exist every where in +society, I was attacked with a cough, followed by great debility, from +which it cost me some three months or more of labor with the spade and +hoe, to recover. With this and the exceptions before named, I have now, +for about twenty years, been as healthy as ever I was in my life, except +the slight tendency to cold during the winter of which I have already +taken notice. I never was more cheerful or more happy; never saw the +world in a brighter aspect; never before was it more truly "morning all +day" with me. I have paid, in part, the penalty of my transgressions; +and may, perhaps, go on, in life, many years longer. + +I now fear nothing in the future, so far as health and disease are +concerned, so much as excessive alimentation. To this evil--and it is a +most serious and common one in this land of abundance and busy +activity--I am much exposed, both from the keenness of my appetite, and +the exceeding richness of the simple vegetables and fruits of which I +partake. But, within a few years past, I seem to have gotten the +victory, in a good measure, even in this respect. By eating only a few +simple dishes at a time, and by measuring or weighing them with the +eye--for I weigh them in no other way--I am usually able to confine +myself to nearly the proper limits. + +This caution, and these efforts at self-government, are not needed +because their neglect involves any immediate suffering; for, as I have +already stated, there was never a period in my life before, when I was +so completely independent--apparently so, I mean--of external +circumstances. I can eat what I please, and as much or as little as I +please. I can observe set hours, or be very irregular. I can use a +pretty extensive variety at the same meal, and a still greater variety +at different meals, or I can live perpetually on a single article--nay, +on almost any thing which could be named in the animal or vegetable +kingdom--and be perfectly contented and happy in the use of it. I could +in short, eat, work, think, sleep, converse, or play almost all the +while; or I could abstain from any or all of these, almost all the +while. Let me be understood, however. I do not mean to say that either +of these courses would be best for me, in the end; but only that I have +so far attained to independence of external circumstances that, for a +time, I believe I should be able to do or bear all I have mentioned. + +One thing more, in this connection, and I shall have finished my +remarks. I sleep too little; but it is because I allow my mind to run +over the world so much, and lay so many schemes for human improvement or +for human happiness; and because I allow my sympathies to become so +deeply enlisted in human suffering and human woe. I should be most +healthy, in the end, by spending six hours or more in sleep; whereas I +do not probably exceed four or five. I have indeed obtained a respite +from the grave of twenty-three years, through a partial repentance and +amendment of life, and the mercy of God; but did I obey all his laws as +well as I do a part of them, I know of no reason why my life might not +be lengthened, not merely fifteen years, as was Hezekiah's, or +twenty-three merely, but forty or fifty. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] Dr. Knox has since removed to St. Louis, Missouri. + +[6] The reader will find another remarkable cure of epilepsy in a +subsequent chapter of this volume. The case was that of Dr. Taylor, of +England. + +[7] See pages 13 and 23. + +[8] This fact, and certain discussions on the subject of temperance, led +me to abstain, about the years 1841 and 1842, entirely from all drink +for a long time. Indeed, I made two of these experiments; in one of +which I abstained nine months and nineteen days, and in the other +fourteen months and one or two days; except that in the latter case I +ate, literally, for one or two successive days, while working hard at +haying, one or two bowls a day of bread and water. But these were +experiments _merely_--the experiments made by a medical man who +preferred making experiments on himself to making them on others; and +they never deserved the misconstruction which was put upon them by +several persons, who, in other respects, were very sensible men. "The +author" never believed with Dr. Lambe, of London, that man is not a +drinking animal. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.--Dr. + Geoffroy.--Vanquelin and Percy.--Dr. Pemberton.--Sir John + Sinclair.--Dr. James.--Dr. Cranstoun.--Dr. Taylor.--Drs. + Hufeland and Abernethy.--Sir Gilbert Blane.--Dr. Gregory.--Dr. + Cullen.--Dr. Rush.--Dr. Lambe.--Prof. Lawrence.--Dr. + Salgues.--Author of "Sure Methods."--Baron Cuvier.--Dr. Luther + V. Bell.--Dr. Buchan.--Dr. Whitlaw.--Dr. Clark.--Prof. + Mussey.--Drs. Bell and Condie.--Dr. J. V. C. Smith.--Mr. + Graham.--Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.--Dr. Sweetser.--Dr. + Pierson.--Physician in New York.--Females' Encyclopedia.--Dr. + Van Cooth.--Dr. Beaumont.--Sir Everard Home.--Dr. + Jennings.--Dr. Jarvis.--Dr. Ticknor.--Dr. Coles.--Dr. + Shew.--Dr. Morrill.--Dr. Bell.--Dr. Jackson.--Dr. + Stephenson.--Dr. J. Burdell.--Dr. Smethurst.--Dr. + Schlemmer.--Dr. Curtis.--Dr. Porter. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +The number of physicians, and surgeons, and medical men, whose testimony +is brought to bear on the subject of diet, in the chapter which follows, +is by no means as great as it might have been. There are few writers on +anatomy, physiology, materia medica, or disease, who have not, either +directly or indirectly, given their testimony in favor of a mild and +vegetable diet for persons affected with certain chronic diseases. And +there is scarcely a writer on hygiene, or even on diet, who has not done +much more than this, and at times hinted at the safety of such a diet +for those who are in health; particularly the studious and sedentary. +But my object has been, not so much to collect all the evidence I could, +as to make a judicious selection--a selection which should present the +subject upon which it bears, in as many aspects as possible. I have +aimed in general, also, to procure the testimony of intelligent and +philanthropic men; or, at least of men whose names have by some means or +other been already brought before the public. If there are a few +exceptions to this rule, if a few are men whose names have been hitherto +unknown, it is on account of the _aspect_, as I have already said, of +their testimony, or on account of their peculiar position, as regards +country, age of the world, etc., or to secure their authority for +certain anecdotes or facts. + +In the arrangement of the testimony, I have been guided by no particular +rule, unless it has been to present first that of some of the older and +most accredited writers, such as Cheyne, Cullen, and Rush. The testimony +of certain living men and authors, particularly of our own country, has +been presented toward the close of the chapter, and in a very brief and +condensed form, from design. The propriety of inserting their names at +all was for a time considered doubtful. It is believed, however, that +they could not, in strict justice, have been entirely omitted. But let +not the meagre sketch of their views I have given, satisfy us. We want a +full development of their principles from their own pens--such a +development as, I hope, will not long be withheld from a world which is +famishing for the want of it. But now to the testimony. + + +DR. GEORGE CHEYNE. + +This distinguished physician, and somewhat voluminous writer, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. He may justly be esteemed the father of +what is now called the "vegetable system" of living; although it is +evident he did not see every thing clearly. "In the early part of his +life," says Prof. Hitchcock, in his work on Dyspepsia, "he was a +voluptuary; and before he attained to middle age, was so corpulent that +it was necessary to open the whole side of his carriage that he might +enter; and he saw death inevitable, without a change of his course. He +immediately abandoned all ardent spirits, wine, and fermented liquors, +and confined himself wholly to milk, vegetables, and water. This course, +with active exercise, reduced him from the enormous weight of four +hundred and forty-eight pounds, to one hundred and forty; and restored +his health and the vigor of his mind. After a few years, he ventured to +change his abstemious diet for one more rich and stimulating. But the +effect was a recurrence of his former corpulence and ill health. A +return to milk, water, and vegetables restored him again; and he +continued in uninterrupted health to the age of seventy-two." + +The following is his account of himself, at the age of about seventy: + +"It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered upon +a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, I took this +light food as my appetite directed, without any measure, and found +myself easy under it. After some time, I found it became necessary to +lessen the quantity; and I have latterly reduced it to one half, at +most, of what I at first seemed to bear. And if it shall please God to +spare me a few years longer, in order, in that case, to preserve that +freedom and clearness which, by his, blessing, I now enjoy, I shall +probably find myself obliged to deny myself one half of my present daily +substance--which is precisely three Winchester pints of new cows' milk, +and six ounces of biscuit made of fine flour, without salt or yeast, and +baked in a quick oven." + +It is exceedingly interesting to find an aged physician, especially one +who had formerly been in the habit of using six pints of milk, and +twelve ounces of unfermented biscuit, and of regarding that as a low +diet, reducing himself to one half this quantity in his old age, with +evident advantages; and cheerfully looking forward to a period, as not +many years distant, when he should be obliged to restrict himself to +half even of that quantity. How far he finally carried his temperance, +we do not exactly know. We only know that, after thirty years of health +and successful medical practice, he strenuously contended for the +superiority of a vegetable and milk diet over any other, whether for the +feeble or the healthy. But his numerous works abound with the most +earnest exhortations to temperance in all things, and with the most +interesting facts and cogent reasonings; and--I repeat it--if there be +any individual, since the days of Pythagoras, whose name ought to be +handed down to posterity as the father of the vegetable system of +living, it is that of Dr. Cheyne. + +Among his works are, a work on Fevers; an Essay on the true Nature and +proper Method of treating the Gout; a work on the Philosophical +Principles of Religion; an Essay of Health and Long Life; a work called +the English Malady; and another entitled the Natural Method of Cure in +the Diseases of the Body, and the Distempers of the Mind depending +thereon. The latter, and his Essay of Long Life are, in my view, his +greatest works; though the history of his own experience is chiefly +contained in his English Malady. + +I shall now proceed to make such extracts from his works, as seem to me +most striking and important to the general reader. They are somewhat +numerous, and there may be a few repetitions; but I was more anxious to +preserve his exact language--which is rather prolix--than to abridge too +much, at the risk of misrepresenting his sentiments. + +"When I see milk, oil, emulsion, mild watery fluids, and such like soft +liquors run through leathern tubes or pipes (for such animal veins and +arteries indeed are) for years, without destroying them, and observe on +the other hand that brine, inflammable or urinous spirits, and the like +acrimonious and burning fluids corrode, destroy, and consume them in a +very short time; when I consider the rending, burning, and tearing pains +and tortures of the gout, stone, colic, cancer, rheumatism, convulsions, +and such like insufferably painful distempers; when I see the crises of +almost all acute distempers happen either by rank and fetid sweats, +thick lateritious and lixivious sediments in the urine, black, putrid, +and fetid dejections, attended with livid and purple spots, corrosive +ulcers, impostumes in the joints or muscles, or a gangrene and +mortification in this or that part of the body; when I see the sharp, +the corroding and burning ichor of scorbutic and scrofulous sores, +fretting, galling, and blistering the adjacent parts, with the +inflammation, swelling, hardness, scabs, scurf, scales, and other +loathsome cutaneous foulnesses that attend, the white gritty and chalky +matter, and hard stony or flinty concretions which happen to all those +long troubled with severe gouts, gravel, jaundice, or colic--the +obstructions and hardnesses, the putrefaction and mortification that +happen in the bowels, joints, and members in some of these diseases, and +the rottenness in the bones, ligaments, and membranes that happen in +others; all the various train of pains, miseries, and torments that can +afflict any part of the compound, and for which there is scarce any +reprieve to be obtained, but by swallowing a kind of poison (opiates, +etc.); when I behold with compassion and sorrow, such scenes of misery +and woe, and see them happen only to the rich, the lazy, the luxurious, +and the inactive, those who fare daintily and live voluptuously, those +who are furnished with the rarest delicacies, the richest foods, and the +most generous wines, such as can provoke the appetites, senses, and +passions, in the most exquisite and voluptuous manner; to those who +leave no desire or degree of appetite unsatisfied, and not to the poor, +the low, the meaner sort, those destitute of the necessaries, +conveniences, and pleasures of life; to the frugal, industrious, +temperate, laborious, and active, inhabiting barren and uncultivated +countries, deserts, and forests under the poles or under the line;--I +must, if I am not resolved to resist the strongest conviction, conclude +that it must be something received into the body that can produce such +terrible appearances in it--some flagrant and notable difference in the +food that so sensibly distinguishes them from the latter; and that it is +the miserable man himself that creates his miseries and begets his +torture, or at least those from whom he has derived his bodily organs. + +"Nothing is so light and easy to the stomach, most certainly, as the +farinaceous or mealy vegetables; such as peas, beans, millet, oats, +barley, rye, wheat, sago, rice, potatoes, and the like." + +Milk is not included in the foregoing list of light articles; although +Dr. C. was evidently extremely fond of prescribing it in chronic +diseases. It does not fully appear, so far as I can learn from his +writings, that he regarded it as by any means indispensable to those +who were perfectly healthy, except during infancy and childhood. The +following extract will give us--more than any other, perhaps--his real +sentiments, though modestly expressed in the form of a conjecture, +rather than a settled belief. + +"I have sometimes indulged the conjecture that animal food, and _made_ +or artificial liquors, in the original frame of our nature and design of +our creation, were not intended for human creatures. They seem to me +neither to have those strong and fit organs for digesting them (at +least, such as birds and beasts of prey have that live on flesh); nor, +naturally, to have those voracious and brutish appetites, that require +animal food and strong liquors to satisfy them; nor those cruel and hard +hearts, or those diabolical passions, which could easily suffer them to +tear and destroy their fellow-creatures; at least, not in the first and +early ages, before every man had corrupted his way, and God was forced +to exterminate the whole race by an universal deluge, and was also +obliged to shorten their lives from nine hundred or one thousand years +to seventy. He wisely foresaw that animal food and artificial liquors +would naturally contribute toward this end, and indulged or permitted +the generation that was to plant the earth again after the flood the use +of them for food; knowing that, though it would shorten their lives and +plait a scourge of thorns for the backs of the lazy and voluptuous, it +would be cautiously avoided by those who knew it was their duty and +happiness to keep their passions low, and their appetites in subjection. +And this very era of the flood is that mentioned in holy writ for the +indulgence of animal food and artificial liquors, after the trial had +been made how insufficient alone a vegetable diet--which was the first +food appointed for human kind after their creation--was, in the long +lives of men, to restrain their wickedness and malice, and after finding +that nothing but shortening their duration could possibly prevent the +evil. + +"It is true, there is scarce a possibility of preventing the destroying +of animal life, as things are now constituted, since insects breed and +nestle in the very vegetables themselves; and we scarcely ever devour a +plant or root, wherein we do not destroy innumerable animalculæ. But, +besides what I have said of nature's being quite altered and changed +from what was originally intended, there is a great difference between +destroying and extinguishing animal life by choice and election, to +gratify our appetites, and indulge concupiscence, and the casual and +unavoidable crushing of those who, perhaps, otherwise would die within +the day, or at most the year, and who obtain but an inferior kind of +existence and life, at the best. + +"Whatever there may be, in this conjecture, it is evident to those who +understand the animal economy of the frame of human bodies, together +with the history, both of those who have lived abstemiously, and of +those who have lived freely, that indulging in flesh meat and strong +liquors, inflames the passions and shortens life, begets chronical +distempers and a decrepit age. + +"For remedying the distempers of the body, to make a man live as long as +his original frame was designed to last, with the least pain and fewest +diseases, and without the loss of his senses, I think Pythagoras and +Cornaro by far the two greatest men that ever were:--the first, by +vegetable food and unfermented liquors; the latter, by the lightest and +least of animal food, and naturally fermented liquors. Both lived to a +great age. But, what is chiefly to be regarded in their conduct and +example, both preserved their senses, cheerfulness, and serenity to the +last; and, which is still more to be regarded, both, at least the last, +dissolved without pain or struggle; the first having lost his life in a +tumult, as it is said by some, after a great age of perfect health. + +"A plain, natural, and philosophical reason why vegetable food is +preferable to all other food is, that abounding with few or no salts, +being soft and cool, and consisting of parts that are easily divided and +formed into chyle without giving any labor to the digestive powers, it +has not that force to open the lacteals, to distend their orifices and +excite them to an unnatural activity, to let them pass too great a +quantity of hot and rank chyle into the blood, and so overcharge and +inflame the lymphatics and capillaries, which is the natural and +ordinary effect of animal food; and therefore cannot so readily produce +diseases. There is not a sufficient stimulus in the salts and spirits of +vegetable food to create an unnatural appetite, or violent cramming; at +least, not sufficient to force open and extend the mouths of the +lacteals, more than naturally they are or ought to be. Such food +requires little or no force of digestion, a little gentle heat and +motion being sufficient to dissolve it into its integral particles: so +that, in a vegetable diet, though the sharp humors, in the first +passages, are extended, relaxed stomach, and sometimes a delightful +piquancy in the food, may tempt one to exceed in quantity; yet rarely, +if spices and sauces--as too much butter, oil, and sugar--are not joined +to seeds[9] and vegetables, can the mischief go farther than the stomach +and bowels, to create a pressed load, sickness, vomiting, or purging, +by its acquiring an acrimony from its not being received into the +lacteals;--so that on more being admitted into the blood than the +expenses of living require, life and health can never be endangered by a +vegetable diet. But all the contrary happens under a high animal diet." + +Now I will not undertake to vouch--as indeed I cannot, conscientiously, +do it--for the correctness of all Dr. C.'s notions in physiology or +pathology. The great object I have in view, by the introduction of these +quotations, may be accomplished without it. His preference for vegetable +food, or for what he calls a milk and seed diet, is the point which I +wish to make most prominent. + +In the following paragraphs, he takes up and considers some of the +popular objections of the day, to his doctrines and practice. + +"One of the most terrible objections some weak persons make against this +regimen and method, is, that upon accidental trials, they have always +found milk, fruit, and vegetables so inflate, blow them up, and raise +such tumults and tempests in their stomach and bowels, that they have +been terrified and affrighted from going on. I own the truth and fact to +be such, in some as is represented; and that in stomachs and entrails +inured only to hot and high meats and drinks, and consequently in an +inflammatory state and full of choler and phlegm, this sensation will +sometimes happen--just as a bottle of cider or fretting wine, when the +cork is pulled out, will fly up, and fume, and rage; and if you throw in +a little ferment or acid (such as milk, seeds, fruit, and vegetables _to +them_), the effervescence and tempest will exasperate to a hurricane. + +"But what are wind, flatulence, phlegm, and choler? What, indeed, but +stopped perspiration, superfluous nourishment, inconcocted chyle, of +high food and strong liquors, fermented and putrifying? And when these +are shut up and corked, with still more and more solid, strong, hot, and +styptic meats and drinks, is the corruption and putrefaction thereby +lessened? Will it not then, at last, either burst the vessel, or throw +out the cork or stopples, and raise still more lasting and cruel +tempests and tumults? Are milk and vegetables, seeds and fruits, harder +of digestion, more corrosive, or more capable of producing chyle, blood, +and juices, less fit to circulate, to perspire, and be secreted? + +"But what is to be done? The cure is obvious. Begin by degrees; eat less +animal food--the most tender and young--and drink less strong fermented +liquors, for a month or two. Then proceed to a _trimming_ diet, of one +day, seed and vegetables, and another day, tender, young animal +food;--and, by degrees, slide into a total milk, seed, and vegetable +diet; cooling the stomach and entrails gradually, to fit them for this +soft, mild, sweetening regimen; and in time your diet will give you all +the gratification you ever had from strong, high, and rank food, and +spirituous liquors. And you will, at last, enjoy ease, free spirits, +perfect health, and long life into the bargain. + +"Seeds of all kinds are fittest to begin with, in these cases, when +dried, finely ground, and dressed; and, consequently, the least +flatulent. Lessen the quantity, even of these, below what your appetite +would require, at least for a time. Bear a little, and forbear. + +"Virtue and good health are not to be obtained, without some labor and +pains, against contrary habits. It was a wild bounce of a Pythagorean, +who defied any one to produce an instance of a person, who had long +lived on milk and vegetables, who ever cut his own throat, hanged, or +made way with himself; who had ever suffered at Tyburn, gone to Newgate, +or to Moorfields; (and, he added rather profanely,) or, would go to +eternal misery hereafter. + +"Another weighty objection against a vegetable diet, I have heard, has +been made by learned men; and is, that vegetables require great labor, +strong exercise, and much action, to digest and turn them into proper +nutriment; as (say they) is evident from their being the common diet of +day-laborers, handicraftsmen, and farmers. This objection I should have +been ashamed to mention, but that I have heard it come from men of +learning; and they might have as justly said, that freestone is harder +than marble, and that the juice of vegetables makes stronger glue than +that of fish and beef! + +"Do not children and young persons, that is, tender persons, live on +milk and seeds, even before they are capable of much labor and exercise? +Do not all the eastern and southern people live almost entirely on them? +The Asiatics, Moors, and Indians, whose climates incapacitate them for +much labor, and whose indolence is so justly a reproach to them,--are +these lazier and less laborious men than the Highlanders and native +Irish? + +"The truth is, hardness of digestion principally depends on the +minuteness of the component particles, as is evident in marble and +precious stones. And animal substances being made of particles that pass +through innumerable very little, or infinitely small excretory ducts, +must be of a much finer texture, and consequently harder, or tougher, in +their composition, than any vegetable substance can be. And the flesh of +animals that live on animals, is like double distilled spirits, and so +requires much labor to break, grind, and digest it. And, indeed, if +day-laborers, and handicraftsmen were allowed the high, strong food of +men of condition, and the quiet and much-thinking persons were confined +to the farmer and ploughman's food, it would be much happier for both. + +"Another objection, still, against a milk and vegetable diet is, that it +breeds phlegm, and so is unfit for tender persons, of cold +constitutions; especially those whose predominant failing is too much +phlegm. But this objection has as little foundation as either of the +preceding. Phlegm is nothing but superfluous chyle and nourishment, as +the taking down more food than the expenses of living and the waste of +the solids and fluids require. The people that live most on such +foods--the eastern and southern people and those of the northern I have +mentioned--are less troubled with phlegm than any others. Superfluity +will always produce redundancy, whether it be of phlegm or choler; and +that which will digest the most readily, will produce the least +phlegm--such as milk, seeds, and vegetables. By cooling and relaxing the +solids, the phlegm will be more readily thrown up and discharged--more, +I say, by such a diet than by a hot, high, caustic, and restringent one; +but that discharge is a benefit to the constitution, and will help it +the sooner and faster to become purified, and so to get into perfect +good health. Whereas, by shutting them up, the can or cask must fly and +burst so much the sooner. + +"The only material and solid objections against a milk, seed, and +vegetable diet, are the following: + +"_First_, That it is particular and unsocial, in a country where the +common diet is of another nature. But I am sure sickness, lowness, and +oppression, are much more so. These difficulties, after all, happen only +at first, while the cure is about; for, when good health comes, all +these oddnesses and specialities will vanish, and then all the contrary +to these will be the case. + +"_Secondly_, That it is weakening, and gives a man less strength and +force, than common diet. It is true that this may be the result, at +first, while the cure is imperfect. But then the greater activity and +gayety which will ensue on the return of health, under a milk and +vegetable diet, will liberally supply that defect. + +"_Thirdly_, The most material objection against such a diet is, that it +cools, relaxes, softens, and unbends the solids, at first, faster than +it corrects and sweetens the juices, and brings on greater degrees of +lowness than it is designed to cure; and so sinks, instead of raising. +But this objection is not universally true; for there are many I have +treated, who, without any such inconvenience, or consequent lowness, +have gone into this regimen, and have been free from any oppression, +sinking, or any degree of weakness, ever after; and they were not only +those who have been generally temperate and clean, free from humors and +sharpnesses, but who, on the decline of life, or from a naturally weak +constitution or frame, have been oppressed and sunk from their weakness +and their incapacity to digest common animal food and fermented liquors. + +"I very much question if any diet, either hot or cool, has any great +influence on the solids, after the fluids have been entirely sweetened +and balmified. Sweeten and thin the juices, and the rest will follow, as +a matter of course." + +At page 90 of Dr. Cheyne's Natural Method of Curing Diseases, he thus +says: + +"People think they cannot possibly subsist on a little meat, milk, and +vegetables, or on any low diet, and that they must infallibly perish if +they should be confined to water only; not considering that nine tenths +of the whole mass of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet, or +pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of their senses, limbs, +and faculties, without diseases, or but few, and those from accidents or +epidemical causes; and that there have been nations, and now are numbers +of tribes, who voluntarily confine themselves to vegetables only; as the +Essenes among the Jews, some Hermits and Solitaries among the Christians +of the first ages, a great number of monks in the Chartreux now in +Europe, Banians among the Indians and Chinese, the Guebres among the +Persians, and of old, the Druids among ourselves." + +To illustrate the foregoing, I may here introduce the following extracts +from the sixth London edition of Dr. Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long +Life. + +"It is surprising to what a great age the Eastern Christians, who +retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, +lived healthful on a very little food. We are informed, by Cassian, that +the common measure for twenty-four hours was about twelve ounces, with +only pure water for drink. St. Anthony lived to one hundred and five +years on mere bread and water, adding only a few herbs at last. On a +similar diet, James the Hermit lived to one hundred and four years. +Arsenius, the tutor of the emperor Arcadius, to one hundred and +twenty--sixty-five years in society, and fifty-five in the desert. St. +Epiphanius, to one hundred and fifteen; St. Jerome, about one hundred; +Simon Stylites, to one hundred and nine; and Romualdus, to one hundred +and twenty. + +"It is wonderful in what sprightliness, strength, activity, and freedom +of spirits, a low diet, even here in England, will preserve those who +have habituated themselves to it. Buchanan informs us of one Laurence, +who preserved himself to one hundred and forty, by the mere force of +temperance and labor. Spotswood mentions one Kentigern (afterward called +St. Mongah, or Mungo, from whom the famous well in Wales is named), who +lived to one hundred and eighty-five years; and who, after he came to +years of understanding, never tasted wine or strong drink, and slept on +the cold ground. + +"My worthy friend, Mr. Webb, is still alive. He, by the quickness of the +faculties of the mind, and the activity of the organs of his body, shows +the great benefit of a low diet--living altogether on vegetable food and +pure water. Henry Jenkins lived to one hundred and sixty-nine years on a +low, coarse, and simple diet. Thomas Parr died at the age of one hundred +and fifty-two years and nine months. His diet was coarse bread, milk, +cheese, whey, and small beer; and his historian tells us, that he might +have lived a good while longer if he had not changed his diet and air; +coming out of a clear, thin air, into the thick air of London, and being +taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully +of the best wines, and, as a necessary consequence, died in a short +time. Dr. Lister mentions eight persons in the north of England, the +youngest of whom was above one hundred years old, and the oldest was one +hundred and forty. He says, it is to be observed that the food of all +this mountainous country is exceeding coarse." + +Dr. C., in his Natural Method, at page 91, thus continues his remarks: + +"And there are whole villages in this kingdom, even of those who live on +the plains, who scarce eat animal food, or drink fermented liquors a +dozen times a year. It is true, most of these cannot be said to live at +ease and commodiously, and many may be said to live in barbarity and +ignorance. All I would infer from this is, that they do live, and enjoy +life, health, and outward serenity, with few or no bodily diseases but +from accidents and epidemical causes; and that, being reduced by +voluntary and necessary poverty, they are not able to manage with care +and caution the rest of the non-naturals, which, for perfect health and +cheerfulness, must all be equally attended to, and prudently conducted; +and their ignorance and brutality is owing to the want of the +convenience of due and sufficient culture and education in their youth. + +"But the only conclusion I would draw from these historical facts is, +that a low diet, or living on vegetables, will not destroy life or +health, or cause nervous and cephalic distempers; but, on the contrary, +cure them, as far as they are curable. I pretend to demonstrate from +these facts, that abstinence and a low diet is the great antidote and +universal remedy of distempers acquired by excess, intemperance, and a +mistaken regimen of high meats and drinks; and that it will greatly +alleviate and render tolerable the original distempers derived from +diseased parents; and that it is absolutely necessary for the deep +thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties sound and +entire, ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of +life; and that it is, lastly, the true and real antidote and +preservative from heavy-headedness, irregular and disorderly +intellectual functions, from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and +senses, and from all nervous distempers, as far as the ends of +Providence and the condition of mortality will allow. + +"Let two people be taken as nearly alike as the diversity and the +individuality of nature will admit, of the same age, stature, +complexion, and strength of body, and under the same chronical +distemper, and I am willing to take the seeming worse of the two; let +all the most promising nostrums, drops, drugs, and medicines known among +the learned and experienced physicians, ancient or modern, regular +physicians or quacks, be administered to the best of the two, by any +professor at home or abroad; I will manage my patient with only a few +naturally indicated and proper evacuations and sweetening innocent +alternatives, which shall neither be loathsome, various, nor +complicated, require no confinement, under an appropriate diet, or, in a +word, under the 'lightest and the least,' or at worst under a milk and +seed diet; and I will venture reputation and life, that my method cures +sooner, more perfectly and durably, is much more easily and pleasantly +passed through, in a shorter time, and with less danger of a relapse +than the other, with all the assistance of the best skill and +experience, under a full and free, though even a commonly reputed +moderate diet, but of rich foods and generous liquors; much more, under +a voluptuous diet." + +But I am unwilling to dismiss this subject without inserting a few more +extracts from Dr. Cheyne, to show his views of the treatment of +diseases. And first, of the scurvy, and other diseases which he supposes +to arise from it. + +"There is no chronical distemper, whatsoever, more universal, more +obstinate, and more fatal in Britain than the scurvy, taken in its +general extent. Scarce any one chronical distemper but owes its origin +to a scorbutic tendency, or is so complicated with it, that it furnishes +the most cruel and most obstinate symptoms. To it we owe all the +dropsies that happen after the meridian of life; all diabetes, asthmas, +consumptions of several kinds; many sorts of colics and diarrhoeas; +some kinds of gouts and rheumatisms, all palsies, various kinds of +ulcers, and possibly the cancer itself; and most cutaneous foulnesses, +weakly constitutions, and bad digestions; vapors, melancholy, and almost +all nervous distempers whatsoever. And what a plentiful source of +miseries the last are, the afflicted best can tell. And scarce any one +chronical distemper whatever, but has some degree of this evil +faithfully attending it. The reason why the scurvy is peculiar to this +country and so fruitful of miseries, is, that it is produced by causes +mostly special and particular to this island, to wit: the indulging so +much in animal food and strong fermented liquors, sedentary and confined +employments, etc. + +"Though the inhabitants of Britain live, for the most part, as long as +those of a warmer climate, and probably rather longer, yet scarce any +one, especially those of the better sort, but becomes crazy and suffers +under some chronical distemper or other, before he arrives at old age. + +"Nothing less than a very moderate use of animal food, and that of the +least exciting kind, and a more moderate use of spirituous liquors, due +exercise, etc., can keep this hydra under. And nothing else than a total +abstinence from animal food and alcoholic liquors can totally extirpate +it." + +The following are extracted from his "Natural Methods." I do not lay +them down as recipes, to be followed in the treatment of diseases; but +to show the views of Dr. Cheyne in regard to vegetable regimen. + +"1. _Cancer._--Any cancer that can be cut out, contracted, and healed up +with common, that is, soft, cool, and gently astringent dressings, and +at last left as an issue on the part, may, by a cow's milk and seed diet +continued ever afterward, be made as easy to the patient, and his life +and health as long preserved, almost, as if he had never been afflicted +with it; especially if under fifty years of age. + +"2. _Cancer._--A total ass's milk diet--about two quarts a day, without +any other meat or drink--will in time cure a cancer in any part of the +body, with mere common dressings, provided the patient is not quite worn +out with it before it is begun, or too far gone in the common duration +of life and even in that case, it will lessen the pain, lengthen life, +and make death easier, especially if joined with small interspersed +bleedings, millepedes, crabs' eyes prepared, nitre and rhubarb, properly +managed. But the diet, even after the cure, must be continued, and never +after greatly altered, unless it be into cow's milk with seeds. + +"3. _Consumption._--A total milk and seed diet, gentle and frequent +bleedings, as symptoms exasperate, a little ipecacuanha or thumb vomit +repeated once or twice a week, chewing quill bark in the morning, and a +few grains of rhubarb at night, will totally cure consumptions, even +when attended with tubercles, and hemoptoe, and hectic, in the first +stage; will greatly relieve, if not cure, in the second stage, +especially if riding and a warm clear air be joined; and make death +easier in the third and last stage. + +"4. _Fits._--A total cow's milk diet--about two quarts a day--without +any other food, will at last totally cure all kinds of fits, +epileptical, hysterical, or apoplectic, if entered upon before fifty. +But the patient, if near fifty, must ever after continue in the same +diet, with the addition only of seeds; otherwise his fits will return +oftener and more severely, and at last cut him off. + +"5. _Palsy._--A total cow's milk diet, without any other food, will bid +fairest to cure a hemiplegia or even a dead palsy, and consequently all +the lesser degrees of a partial one, if entered upon before fifty. And +this distemper I take to be the most obstinate, intractable, and +disheartening one that can afflict the human machine; and is chiefly +produced by intemperate cookery, with its necessary attendant, habitual +luxury. + +"6. _Gout._--A total milk and seed diet, with gentle vomits before and +after the fits, chewing bark in the morning and rhubarb at night, with +bleeding about the equinoxes, will perfectly cure the gout in persons +under fifty, and greatly relieve those farther advanced in life; but +must be continued ever after, if such desire to get well. + +"7. _Gravel._--Soap lees, softened with a little oil of sweet almonds, +drunk about a quarter of an ounce twice a day on a fasting stomach; or +soap and egg-shell pills, with a total milk and seed diet, and Bristol +water beverage, will either totally dissolve the stone in kidneys or +bladder, or render it almost as easy as the nail on one's finger, if the +patient is under fifty, and much relieve him, even after that age. + +"In about thirty years' practice, in which I have, in some degree or +other, advised this method in proper cases, I have had but two patients +in whose total recovery I have been mistaken, and these were both +scrofulous cases, where the glands and tubercles were so many, so hard, +and so impervious that even the ponderous remedies and diet joined could +not discuss them; and they were both also too far gone before they +entered upon them;--and I have found deep scrofulous vapors the most +obstinate of any of this tribe of these distempers. And indeed nothing +can possibly reach such, but the ponderous medicines, joined with a +liquid, cool, soft, milk and seed regimen; and if these two do not, in +due time, I can boldly affirm it, nothing ever will." + +Dr. Cheyne goes on to speak of the cure, on similar principles, of a +great many other difficult or dangerous diseases, as asthma, pleurisy, +hemorrhage, mania, jaundice, bilious colic, rheumatism, scurvy, and +venereal disease; but he modestly owns that, in his opinion on these, he +does not feel such entire confidence as in the former cases, for want of +sufficient experiments. He, however, closes one of his chapters with the +following pretty strong statement: + +"I am morally certain, and am myself entirely convinced, that a milk and +seed, or milk and turnip diet, duly persisted in, with the occasional +helps mentioned (elsewhere) on exacerbations, will either totally cure +or greatly relieve every chronical distemper I ever saw or read of." + +Another chapter is thus concluded, and with it I shall conclude my +extracts from his writings. + +"Some, perhaps, may controvert, nay, ridicule the doctrine laid down in +these propositions. I shall neither reply to, nor be moved with any +thing that shall be said against them. If they are of nature and truth, +they will stand; if not, I consent they should come to nought. I have +satisfied my own conscience--the rest belongs to Providence. Possibly +time and bodily sufferings may justify them;--if not to this generation, +perhaps to some succeeding one. I myself am convinced, by long and many +repeated experience, of their justness and solidity. If what has been +advocated through this whole treatise does not convince others, nothing +I can add will be sufficient. I will leave only this reflection with my +readers. + +"All physicians, ancient and modern, allow that a milk and seed diet +will totally cure before fifty, and infinitely alleviate after it, the +consumption, the rheumatism, the scurvy, the gout--these highest, most +mortal, most painful, and most obstinate distempers; and nothing is more +certain in mathematics, than that which will cure the greater will +certainly cure the lesser distempers." + + +DR. GEOFFROY. + +Dr. Geoffroy, a distinguished French physician and professor of +chemistry and medicine in some of the institutions of France, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. The bearing of the following extract will +be readily seen. It is from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for the +year 1730; and I am indebted for it to the labors of Dr. Cheyne. + +"M. Geoffroy has given a method for determining the proportion of +nourishment or true matter of the flesh and blood, contained in any sort +of food. He took a pound of meat that had been freed from the fat, +bones, and cartilages, and boiled it for a determined time in a close +vessel, with three pints of water; then, pouring off the liquor, he +added the same quantity of water, boiling it again for the same time; +and this operation he repeated several times, so that the last liquor +appeared, both in smell and taste, to be little different from common +water. Then, putting all the liquor together, and filtrating, to +separate the too gross particles, he evaporated it over a slow fire, +till it was brought to an extract of a pretty moderate consistence. + +"This experiment was made upon several sorts of food, the result of +which may be seen in the following table. The weights are in ounces, +drachms, and grains; sixty grains to a drachm, and eight drachms to an +ounce. + + Kind of Food. Amount of Extract. + oz. dr. gr. + One lb. Beef 0. 7. 8. + " Veal 1. 1. 48. + " Mutton 1. 3. 16. + " Lamb 1. 1. 39. + " Chicken 1. 4. 34. + " Pigeon 1. 0. 12. + " Pheasant 1. 2. 8. + " Partridge 1. 4. 34. + " Calves' Feet 1. 2. 26. + " Carp 1. 0. 8. + " Whey 1. 1. 3. + " Bread 4. 1. 0. + +"The relative proportion of the nourishment will be as follows: + + Beef 7 + Veal 9 + Mutton 11 + Lamb 9 + Chicken 12 + Pigeon 8 + Pheasant 10 + Partridge 12 + Calves' Feet 10 + Carp 8 + Whey 9 + Bread 33 + +"From the foregoing decisive experiments it is evident that white, +young, tender animal food, bread, milk, and vegetables are the best and +most effectual substances for nutrition, accretion, and sweetening bad +juices. They may not give so strong and durable mechanical force, +because being easily and readily digestible, and quickly passing all the +animal functions, so as to turn into good blood and muscular flesh, they +are more transitory, fugitive, and of prompt secretion; yet they will +perform all the animal functions more readily and pleasantly, with fewer +resistances and less labor, and leave the party to exercise the rational +and intellectual operations with pleasure and facility. They will leave +Nature to its own original powers, prevent and cure diseases, and +lengthen out life." + +Now if this experiment proves what Dr. C. supposes in favor of the +lighter meats and vegetables taken together, how much more does it prove +for bread alone? For it cannot escape the eye of the least observing +that this article, though placed last in the list of Dr. Geoffroy, is by +far the highest in point of nutriment; nay, that it is about three times +as high as any of the rest. I am not disposed to lay so much stress on +these experiments as Dr. C. does; nevertheless, they prove something +Connected with the more recent experiments of Messrs. Percy and +Vauquelin and others, how strikingly do they establish one fact, at +least, viz., that bread and the other farinaceous vegetables cannot +possibly be wanting in nutriment; and how completely do they annihilate +the old-fashioned doctrine--one which is still abroad and very +extensively believed--that animal food is a great deal more nourishing +than vegetable! No careful inquirer can doubt that bread, peas, beans, +rice, etc., are twice as nutritious--to say the least--as flesh or fish. + + +MESSRS. PERCY AND VAUQUELIN. + +As I have alluded, in the preceding article, to the experiments of +Messrs. Percy and Vauquelin, two distinguished French chemists, their +testimony in this place seems almost indispensable, even though we +should not regard it, in the most strict import of the term, as medical +testimony. The result of their experiments, as communicated by them to +the French minister of the interior, is as follows: + +In bread, every one hundred pounds is found to contain eighty pounds of +nutritious matter; butcher's meat, averaging the different sorts, +contains only thirty-five pounds in one hundred; French beans (in the +grain), ninety-two pounds in one hundred; broad beans, eighty-nine +pounds; peas, ninety-three pounds; lentils (a species of half pea little +known with us), fifty-four pounds in one hundred; greens and turnips +only eight pounds of solid nutritious substance in one hundred; carrots, +fourteen pounds; and one hundred pounds of potatoes yield only +twenty-five pounds of nutriment. + +I will just affix to the foregoing one more table. It is inserted in +several other works which I have published; but for the benefit of +those who may never yet have seen it, and to show how strikingly it +corresponds with the results of the experiments of Geoffroy, Percy, and +Vauquelin, I deem it proper to insert it. + +Of the best wheat, one hundred pounds contain about eighty-five pounds +of nutritious matter; of rice, ninety pounds; of rye, eighty; of barley, +eighty-three; of beans, eighty-nine to ninety-two; peas, ninety-three; +lentils, ninety-four; meat (average), thirty-five; potatoes, +twenty-five; beets, fourteen; carrots, ten; cabbage, seven; greens, six; +and turnips, four. + + +DR. PEMBERTON. + +Dr. Pemberton, after speaking of the general tendency, in our highly fed +communities, to scrofula and consumption, makes the following remarks, +which need no comment: + +"If a child is born of scrofulous parents, I would strongly recommend +that it be entirely nourished from the breast of a healthy nurse, for at +least a year. After this, the food should consist of milk and +farinaceous vegetables. By a perseverance in this diet for three years, +I have imagined that the threatened scrofulous appearances have +certainly been postponed, if not altogether prevented." + + +SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. + +Sir John Sinclair, an eminent British surgeon, says, "I have wandered a +good deal about the world, my health has been tried in all ways, and, by +the aid of temperance and hard work, I have worn out two armies in two +wars, and probably could wear out another before my period of old age +arrives. I eat no animal food, drink no wine or malt liquor, or spirits +of any kind; I wear no flannel; and neither regard wind nor rain, heat +nor cold, when business is in the way." + + +DR. JAMES, OF WISCONSIN. + +Dr. James, of Wisconsin, but formerly of Albany, and editor of a +temperance paper in that city, one of the most sensible, intelligent, +and refined of men, and one of the first in his profession, is a +vegetable eater, and a man of great simplicity in all his physical, +intellectual, and moral habits. I do not know that his views have ever +been presented to the public, but I state them with much confidence, +from a source in which I place the most implicit reliance. + + +DR. CRANSTOUN. + +Dr. Cranstoun, a worthy medical gentleman in England, became subject, by +some means or other, to a chronic dysentery, on which he exhausted, as +it were, the whole materia medica, in vain. At length, after suffering +greatly for four or five years, he was completely cured by a milk and +vegetable diet. The following is his own brief account of his cure, in a +letter to Dr. Cheyne: + +"I resolutely, as soon as capable of a diet, held myself close to your +rules of bland vegetable food and elementary drink, and, without any +other medicine, save frequent chewing of rhubarb and a little bark, I +passed last winter and this summer without a relapse of the dysentery; +and, though by a very slow advance, I find now more restitution of the +body and regularity in the economy, on this primitive aliment, than ever +I knew from the beginning of this trouble. This encourages much my +perseverance in the same method, and that so religiously, as, to my +knowledge, now for more than a year and a half I have not tasted of any +thing that had animal life. There is plenty in the vegetable kingdom." + + +DR. TAYLOR, OF ENGLAND. + +This gentleman, who had studied the works of Dr. Sydenham, and was +therefore rather favorably inclined toward a milk and vegetable diet, +became at last subject to epileptic fits. Not being willing, however, to +give up his high living and his strong drinks, he tried the effects of +medicine, and even consulted all the most eminent of his brethren of the +medical profession in and about London; but all to no purpose, and the +fits continued to recur. He used frequently to be attacked with them +while riding along the road, in pursuance of the business of his +profession. In these cases he would fall from his horse, and often +remain senseless till some passenger or wagon came along and carried him +to the nearest house. At length his danger, not only from accidents, but +from the frequency and violence of the attacks, became so imminent that +he was obliged to follow the advice of his master, Sydenham. He first +laid aside the use of all fermented and distilled liquors; then, finding +his fits became less frequent and violent, he gave up all flesh meat, +and confined himself entirely to cows' milk. + +In pursuance of this plan, in a year or two the epilepsy entirely left +him. "And now," says Dr. Cheyne, from whom I take the account, "for +seventeen years he has enjoyed as good health as human nature is capable +of, except that once, in a damp air and foggy weather in riding through +Essex, he was seized with an ague, which he got over by chewing the +bark." He assured Dr. C. that at this time--and he was considerably +advanced in life--he could play six hours at cricket without fatigue or +distress, and was more active and clear in his faculties than ever he +had been before in his whole life. He also said he had cured a great +many persons, by means of the same diet, of inveterate distempers. + + +DRS. HUFELAND AND ABERNETHY. + +The celebrated Dr. Hufeland taught that a simple vegetable diet was most +conducive to health and long life. The distinguished Dr. Abernethy has +expressed an opinion not very unlike it, in the following eccentric +manner: + +"If you put improper food into the stomach it becomes disordered, and +the whole system is affected. Vegetable matter ferments and becomes +gaseous, while _animal_ substances are changed into a putrid, +abominable, and acrid stimulus. Now, some people acquire preposterous +noses; others, blotches on the face and different parts of the body; +others, inflammation of the eyes; all arising from the irritations of +the stomach. I am often asked why I don't practice what I preach. I +reply by reminding the inquirer of the parson and sign-post--both point +the way, but neither follows its course." + + +DR. GREGORY. + +Dr. Gregory, a distinguished professor and practitioner of medicine in +Scotland, in a work published more than seventy years ago, strongly +recommends plain and simple food for children. Till they are three years +old, he says, their diet should consist of plain milk, panada, good +bread, barley meal porridge, and rice. He also complains of pampering +them with animal food. The same arguments which are good for forming +them to the habits of vegetable food exclusively for the first three +years of life, would be equally good for its continuance. + + +DR. CULLEN, OF EDINBURGH. + +The name of Dr. Cullen is well known, and he has long been regarded as +high authority. Yet this distinguished writer and teacher expressly +says, that a very temperate and _sparing_ use of animal food is the +surest means of preserving health and obtaining long life. But I will +quote his own language, in various parts of his writings. And first, +from his Materia Medica: + +"Vegetable aliment, as never over-distending the vessels or loading the +system, never interrupts the stronger emotions of the mind, while the +heat, fullness, and weight of animal food, is an enemy to its vigorous +efforts. Temperance, then, does not consist so much in the quantity, for +that will always be regulated by our appetite, as in the _quality_, +viz., a large proportion of vegetable aliment." + +I will not stop here to oppose Dr. C.'s views in regard to the quantity +of our food; for this is not the place. It is sufficient to show that he +admits the importance of _quality_, and gives the preference to a diet +of vegetables. + +He seems in favor, in another place in his works, of sleeping after +eating--perhaps a heresy, too--and inclines to the opinion that the +practice would be hardly hurtful if we ate less animal food. + +But his "First Lines of the Practice of Physic," abounds in testimonies +in favor of vegetable food. In speaking, for example, of the cure of +rheumatic affections, he has the following language: + +"The cure, therefore, requires, in the first place, an antiphlogistic +regimen, and particularly, a total abstinence from animal food, and from +all fermented or spirituous liquors." + +"Antiphlogistic regimen," in medical language, means that food and drink +which is most cooling and quieting to the stomach and to the general +system. + +In the treatment of gout, Dr. Cullen recommends a course like that which +has been stated, except that instead of proposing vegetable food as a +means of cure, he recommends it as _preventive_. He says-- + +"The gout may be entirely prevented by constant bodily exercise, and by +a low diet; and I am of opinion that this prevention may take place even +in persons who have a hereditary disposition to the disease. I must add, +here, that even when the disposition has discovered itself by severe +paroxysms of inflammatory gout, I am persuaded that labor and abstinence +will absolutely prevent any returns of it for the rest of life." + +Again, in reference to the same subject, he thus observes: + +"I am firmly persuaded that any man who, early in life, will enter upon +the constant practice of bodily labor and of abstinence from animal +food, will be preserved entirely from the disease." + +And yet once more. + +"If an abstinence from animal food be entered upon early in life, while +the vigor of the system is yet entire, I have no doubt of its being both +safe and effectual." + +To guard against the common opinion that by vegetable food, he meant +raw, or crude, or bad vegetables, Dr. C. explains his meaning by +assuring the reader that by a vegetable diet he means the "farinaceous +seeds," and "milk;" and admits that green, crude, and bad vegetables are +not only less useful, but actually liable to produce the very diseases, +which good, mealy vegetable food will prevent or cure. + +This is an important distinction. Many a person, who wishes to be +abstemious, seems to think that if he only abstains from flesh and fish, +that is enough. No matter, he supposes, what vegetables he uses, so they +are vegetables; nor how much he abuses himself by excess in quantity. +Nay, he will even load his stomach with milk, or butter, or eggs; +sometimes with fish (we have often been asked if we considered fish as +animal food); and sometimes, worse still, with hot bread, hot buckwheat +cakes, hot short-cakes, swimming, almost, in butter;--yes, and sometimes +he will even cover his potatoes with gravy, mustard, salt, etc. + +It is in vain for mankind to abstain from animal food, as they call it, +and yet run into these worse errors. The lean parts of animals not much +fattened, and only rarely cooked, eaten once a day in small quantity, +are far less unwholesome than many of the foregoing. + +But to return to Dr. C. In speaking of the proper drink for persons +inclined to gout, he thus remarks: + +"With respect to drink, fermented liquors are useful only when they are +joined with animal food, and that by their acescency; and their stimulus +is only necessary from custom. When, therefore, animal food is to be +avoided, fermented liquors are unnecessary, and by increasing the +acescency of vegetables, these liquors may be hurtful. The stimulus of +fermented or spirituous liquors is not necessary to the young and +vigorous: and, when much employed, impairs the tone of the system." + +Dr. C. might have added--what indeed we should infer by parity of +reasoning--that when fermented liquors are avoided, animal food is no +longer necessary, and by increasing the alkaline state of the stomach +and fluids, may be hurtful. The truth is, they go best together. If we +use flesh and fish, which are alkaline, a small quantity of gently acid +drink, as weak cider or wine, taken either _with_ our meals, or +_between_ them, may be useful. It is better, however, to abstain from +both. + +For if a purely vegetable aliment, with water alone for drink, is safe +to all young persons inclining at all to gout, to whom is it unsafe? If +it tends to render a young person at all weaker, that very weakness +would predispose to the gout, in some of its forms, if a person were +constitutionally inclined to that disease--if not to some other +complaint, to which he was more inclined. It cannot, therefore, be +unsafe to any, if Dr. C. is right. + +But if those who are trained to it, _lose_ nothing, even in the high +latitude of Scotland--where Dr. C. wrote--by confining themselves to +good vegetables and water, then they must necessarily _gain_, on his own +principles, by this way of living, because they get rid of any sort of +necessity (he might have added, lose their appetite) for fermented +liquors. + +More than this, as the doctor himself concludes, in another place, they +prevent many acute diseases. His words are these:--"It is animal food +which especially predisposes to the plethoric and inflammatory state; +and that food is therefore to be especially avoided." It is true, he is +here speaking of gouty persons: but his principles are also fairly +susceptible, as I have shown, of a general application. + +In short, it is an undeniable fact, that even a thorough-going vegetable +eater might prove every thing he wished, from old established writers on +medicine and health, though themselves were feeders on animal food; just +as a teetotaler may prove the doctrine of abstinence from all drinks but +water, from the writings of medical men, though themselves are still, in +many cases, pouring down their cider, their beer, or their wine--or at +least, their tea and coffee. + + +DR. BENJAMIN RUSH. + +I find nothing in the writings of this great man which shows, with +certainty, what his views were, in regard to animal food. The +presumption is, that he was sparing in its use, and that he encouraged a +very limited use of it in others. This is presumed, 1, from the general +tenor of his writings--deeply imbued as they are with the great doctrine +of temperance in all things; and, 2, from the fondness he seems to have +manifested in mentioning the temperance and even abstinence of +individuals of whom he was speaking. + +Of Ann Woods, for example, who died at the age of ninety-six years, he +says, "Her diet was simple, consisting chiefly of weak tea, milk, +cheese, butter, and vegetables. Meat of all kinds, except veal, +disagreed with her stomach. She found great benefit from frequently +changing her aliment. Her drinks were water, cider and water, and +molasses and vinegar in water. She never used spirits. Her memory (at +her death) was but little impaired. She was cheerful, and thankful that +her condition in life was happier than that of hundreds of other +people." + +In his account of Benjamin Lay, a philosopher of the sect of the +Friends, in Pennsylvania, Dr. R. relates, that "he was extremely +temperate in his diet, living chiefly upon vegetables. Turnips boiled +and afterward roasted, were his favorite dinner. His drink was pure +water. He lived above eighty years." It appears, also, that he was +exceedingly healthy. + +He relates of Anthony Benezet, a distinguished teacher of Philadelphia, +who lived to an advanced age, that his sympathy was so great with every +thing that was capable of feeling pain, that he resolved, toward the +close of his life, to eat no animal food. He also relates the following +singular anecdote of him. Upon coming into his brother's house, one day, +when the family were dining upon poultry, he was asked by his brother's +wife to sit down and dine with them. What! said he, would you have me +eat my neighbors? + +Dr. Caleb Bannister, in another part of this work, tells us that he was +led to adopt a milk and vegetable diet, in incipient consumption, from +reading the writings of Dr. Rush; and I have little doubt that Dr. R. +himself lived quite abstemiously, if not altogether on vegetables. + +Nor is this _incidental_ testimony from Dr. Rush quite all. In his work +"On the Diseases of the Mind," he speaks often of the evils of eating +high-seasoned food, and especially animal food. And in stating what were +the proper remedies for debility in young men, when induced by certain +forms of licentiousness, he expressly insists on a diet consisting +simply of vegetables, and prepared without condiments; and he even +encourages the disuse of salt. Had Dr. Rush lived to this day, he +would, ere now, in all probability, have fully adopted and defended the +vegetable system. With views like his on the subject of intemperance, +and a mind ever open to conviction, the result could hardly have been +otherwise. + + +DR. WILLIAM LAMBE, OF LONDON. + +Dr. William Lambe, of London, is distinguished both as a physician and a +general scholar, and is a prominent member of the "College of +Physicians." He was a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, and a +fellow-student with the immortal Clarkson. + +Dr. Lambe is the author of several valuable works, among which are his +"Reports on Cancer," and a more recent work entitled, "Additional +Reports on the Effects of a Peculiar Regimen, in Cases of Cancer, +Scrofula, Consumption, Asthma, and other chronic diseases." He has also +made and published numerous experiments, especially in chemistry, which +is, with him, a favorite science; and it is said that he has spent +fortunes in this way. + +Dr. L. is now eighty-four years of age, and has lived on vegetable diet +forty-two years. He commenced this course to cure himself of internal +gout, and continued it because he found it better for his health. He is +now only troubled with it slightly, at his extremities, which he thinks +highly creditable to a vegetable course--having thrown it off from his +vital organs. He is cheerful and active, and able to discharge the +duties of an extensive medical practice. He walks into town, a distance +of three miles from his residence, every morning, and back at night; and +thinks himself as likely to live twenty years longer as he was, twenty +years ago, to live to his present age. + +The following is a condensed account of Dr. L.'s views, as obtained from +his "Additional Reports," above mentioned. Some of the first paragraphs +relate to the effects of vegetable food on those who are predisposed to +scrofula, consumption, etc. + +"We see daily examples of young persons becoming consumptive who never +went without animal food a single day of their lives. If the use of +animal food were necessary to prevent consumption, we should expect, +where people lived almost entirely upon such a diet, the disease would +be unknown. + +"Now, the Indian tribes visited by Mr. Hearne live in this manner. They +do not cultivate the earth. They subsist by hunting, and the scanty +produce of spontaneous vegetation. But, among these tribes consumption +is common. Their diseases, as Mr. Hearne informs us, are principally +fluxes, scurvy, and consumption. + +"In the last four years, several cases of glandular swellings have +occurred to me at the general dispensary, and I have made particular +inquiries into the mode of living of such children. In the majority, +they had animal food. In opposition to the accusation of vegetable food +causing tumefaction of the abdomen, I must testify, that twice in my own +family I have seen such swellings disappear under a vegetable regimen, +which had been formed under a diet of animal food. + +"Increasing the strength, for a time, is no proof of the salubrity of +diet. The increased strength may not continue, though the diet should be +continued. On the contrary, there is a sort of oscillation; the strength +just rising, then sinking again. This is what is experienced by the +trainers of boxers. A certain time is necessary to get these men into +condition; but this condition cannot be maintained for many weeks +together, though the process by which it was formed is continued. The +same is found to hold in the training of race-horses, and +fighting-cocks. + +"It seems certain that animal food predisposes to disease. Timoric, in +his account of the plague at Constantinople, asserts that the Armenians, +who live chiefly on vegetable food, were far less disposed to the +disease than other people. The typhus fever is greatly exasperated by +full living. + +"It seems, moreover, highly probable that the power inherent in the +human living body, of restoring itself under accidents or wounds, is +strongest in those who use most a vegetable regimen. + +"Contagions act with greater virulence upon bodies prepared by a full +diet of animal food. + +"Since fishing has declined in the isles of Ferro, and the inhabitants +have lived chiefly on vegetables, the elephantiasis has ceased among +them. + +"Those monks who, by the rules of their institution, abstain from the +flesh of animals, enjoy a longer mean term of life, as the consequence. +Of this there can be no doubt. Of one hundred and fifty-two monks, taken +promiscuously in all times and all sorts of climates, there lives +produced a total, according to Baillot (a writer of eminence), of 11,589 +years, or an average of seventy-six years and a little more than three +months. + +"Those Bramins who abstain most scrupulously from the flesh of animals +attain to the greatest longevity. + +"Life is prolonged, under incurable diseases, about one tenth by +vegetable diet; so that a person who would otherwise die at seventy, +will reach seventy-seven. In general, however, the proportion is about +one sixth. + +"Abstaining from animal food palliates, when it does not cure, all +constitutional diseases. + +"The use of animal food hurries on life with an unnatural and unhealthy +rapidity. We arrive at puberty too soon; the passions are developed too +early; in the male, they acquire an impetuosity approaching to madness; +females become mothers too early, and too frequently; and, finally, the +system becomes prematurely exhausted and destroyed, and we become +diseased and old, when we ought to be in middle life. + +"It affords no trifling ground of suspicion against the use of animal +food that it so obviously inclines us to corpulency. Corpulency itself +is a species of disease, and a still surer harbinger of other diseases. +It is so even in animals. When a sheep has become fat, the butcher knows +it must be killed or it will rot and decline. It is rare indeed for the +corpulent to be long-lived. They are at the same time sleepy, lethargic, +and short-breathed. Even Hippocrates says, 'Those who are uncommonly fat +die more quickly than the lean.' + +"As a general, rule, the florid are less healthy than those who have +little color; an increase of color having ever been judged, by common +sense, to be a sign of impending illness. Some, however, who are lean +upon animal food, thrive upon vegetables, and improve in color. + +"All the notions of vegetable diet affording only a deficient +nutriment--notions which are countenanced by the language of Cullen and +other great physicians--are wholly groundless. + +"Man is herbivorous in his structure. + +"I have observed no ill consequences from the relinquishment of animal +food. The apprehended danger of the change, with which men scare +themselves and their neighbors, is a mere phantom of the imagination. +The danger, in truth, lies wholly on the other side. + +"There is no organ of the body which, under the use of vegetable food, +does not receive an increase of sensibility, or of that power which is +thought to be imparted to it by the nervous system. + +"Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, and others of the masters of ancient +wisdom, adhered to the Pythagorean diet (vegetable diet), and are known +to have arrived at old age with the enjoyment of uninterrupted health. +Celsus affirms that the bodies which are filled with much animal food +become the most quickly old and diseased. It was proverbial that the +ancient athletæ were the most stupid of men. The cynic Diogenes, being +asked what was the cause of this stupidity, is reported to have +answered, 'Because they are wholly formed of the flesh of swine and +oxen.' Theophrastus says that feeding upon flesh destroys the reason, +and makes the mind more dull. + +"Animal food is unfavorable to the intellectual powers. The effect is, +in some measure, instantaneous; it being hardly possible to apply to any +thing requiring thought after a full meal of meat; so that it has been +not improperly said of vegetable feeders, that _with them it is morning +all day long_. But the senses, the memory, the understanding, and the +imagination have also been observed to improve by a vegetable diet. + +"It will not be disputed that, for consumptive symptoms, a vegetable +diet, or at least a vegetable and milk diet, is the most proper. + +"It has been said, that the great fondness men have for animal food, is +proof enough that nature intended them to eat it. As if men were not +fond of wine, ardent spirits, and other things which we know cut short +their days! + +"In every period of history it has been known that vegetables alone are +sufficient for the support of life; and the bulk of mankind live upon +them at this hour. The adherence to the use of animal food is no more +than a gross persistence in the customs of savage life, and an +insensibility to the progress of reason and the operation of +intellectual improvement. This habit must be considered as one of the +numerous relics of that ancient barbarism which has overspread the face +of the globe, and which still taints the manners of civilized nations. + +"The use of fermented liquors is, in some measure, a necessary +concomitant and appendage to the use of animal food. Animal food, in a +great number of persons, loads the stomach, causes some degree of +oppression, fullness, and uneasiness; and, if the measure of it be in +excess, some nausea and tendency to sickness. Such persons say meat is +too heavy for the stomach. Fish is still more apt to nauseate. The use +of fermented liquors takes off these uneasy feelings, and is thought to +assist digestion. In short, in the use of animal food, man having +deviated from the simple aliment offered him by the hand of nature, and +which is the best suited to his organs of digestion, he has brought upon +himself a premature decay, and much intermediate suffering connected +with it. To this use of animal food almost all nations that have emerged +from a state of barbarism, have united the use of spirituous and +fermented liquors." + +It is but justice to Dr. L., however, as the above was written by him +over thirty years ago, to say, that though he still adheres to the same +views, he thinks pure distilled water a very important addition to the +vegetable diet, in the cure of chronic diseases. The following are his +remarks in a letter to Mr. Graham, dated ten or twelve years ago. + +"My doctrine is, that for the preservation of health, and more +particularly for the successful treatment of chronic diseases, it is +necessary to attend to the _whole_ ingesta--to the _fluid_ with as much +care as the solid. And I am persuaded that the errors into which men +have fallen with regard to supposed mischiefs or inconveniences (as +weakness, for example), as resulting from a restriction to a vegetable +diet, have, to a very considerable extent arisen from a want of a proper +attention to the quality of the water they drank. So far back as the +year 1803, I found that the use of pure distilled, instead of common +water, relieved a state of habitual suffering of the stomach and bowels. +On this account, I always require that _distilled_ water shall be joined +to the use of a vegetable diet; and consider this to be essential to the +treatment." + + +PROFESSOR LAWRENCE. + +Professor Lawrence is the author of a work entitled Lectures on +Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. He is a member of +the Royal College of Surgeons, London, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery +to the College, and Surgeon to several Hospitals. In his work above +mentioned, after much discussion in regard to the natural dietetic +character of man, he thus remarks: + +"That animal food renders man strong and courageous, is fully disproved +by the inhabitants of northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, +Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Kamtschadales, as well as by +the Esquimaux in the northern, and the natives of Terra del Fuego in the +southern extremity of America, which are the smallest, weakest, and +least brave people of the globe, although they live almost entirely upon +flesh, and that often raw. + +"Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice, as +that of animal matter is with physical force and courage. _That men can +be perfectly nourished, and their bodily and mental capabilities fully +developed in any climate, by a diet purely vegetable, admits of abundant +proof from experience._ In the periods of their greatest simplicity, +manliness, and bravery, the Greeks and Romans appear to have lived +almost entirely on plain vegetable preparations. Indifferent bread, +fruits, and other produce of the earth, are the chief nourishment of the +modern Italians, and of the mass of the population in most countries in +Europe. Of those more immediately known to ourselves, the Irish and +Scotch may be mentioned, who are certainly not rendered weaker than +their English fellow-subjects by their free use of vegetable aliment. +The Negroes, whose great bodily powers are well known, feed chiefly on +vegetable substances; and the same is the case with the South Sea +Islanders, whose agility and strength were so great that the stoutest +and most expert English sailors had no chance with them in wrestling and +boxing." + +The concession of Prof. L., which I have placed in italic, is sufficient +for our purpose; we ask no more. Nevertheless, I am willing to hear his +views of the indications afforded by our anatomical character, which +are, as will be seen, equally decisive in favor of vegetable eating. + +"Physiologists have usually represented that our species holds a middle +rank, in the masticatory and digestive apparatus, between the +flesh-eating and herbivorous animals--a statement which seems rather to +have been deduced from what we have learned by experience on the +subject, than to result from an actual comparison of men and animals. + +"The teeth and jaws of men are, in all respects, much more similar to +those of monkeys than of any other animal. The number is the same as in +man, and the form so closely similar, that they might easily be mistaken +for human. In most of them, except the ourang-outang, the canine teeth +are much larger and stronger than in us; and so far, these animals have +a more carnivorous character than man. + +"Thus we find, that whether we consider the teeth and jaws, or the +immediate instruments of digestion, the human structure closely +resembles that of the simiæ (monkey race), all of which, in their +natural state, are completely herbivorous. Man possesses a tolerably +large coecum, and a cellular colon; which I believe are not found in +any herbivorous animal." + +The ourang-outang naturally prefers fruits and nuts, as the professor +himself shows by extracts from the statements of travelers and +naturalists. He is also fond of bread. On board a ship or elsewhere, _in +confinement_, he may, however, be taught, like men, to eat almost any +thing;--not only to eat milk and suck eggs, but even to eat raw flesh. + +It is true, indeed, after all these foregoing statements and concessions +in regard to man's native character and the wholesomeness of a diet +exclusively vegetable--and after admitting that the human body and mind +can be fully and perfectly nourished and _developed_ on it, this +distinguished writer goes on to say that it is still doubtful which +diet--animal, vegetable, or mixed--is on the whole _most_ conducive to +health, and strength--which is best calculated to avert or remove +disease--whether errors in quantity or quality are most pernicious, etc. +He says the solution of these and other analogous questions, can only be +expected from experimental investigation. He proceeds to say-- + +"_Mankind are so averse to relinquish their favorite indulgences, and to +desert established habits_, that we cannot entertain very sanguine +expectations of any important discovery in this department. We must add +to this, that there are many other causes affecting human health, +besides diet. Before venturing to draw any inferences on a subject beset +with so many obstacles, it would be necessary to observe the effects of +a purely animal and a purely vegetable diet on several individuals of +different habits, pursuits, and modes of life; to note their state, both +bodily and mental; and to learn the condition of two or three +generations fed in the same manner." + +Now, the only difference between this opinion and what I conceive to be +the truth in the case is, that just such experimental investigations as +those to which he refers have, to all intents and purposes, been already +made; as, I trust, will be distinctly shown in the sequel of this work. + + +DR. SALGUES. + +Dr. Salgues, Physician, and Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, etc., +etc., to the Institute of France, some years ago wrote a book, entitled +"Rules for Preserving the Health of the Aged," which contained many very +judicious remarks on diet. There is nothing in the volume, however, +which is decidedly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable, unless it +is a few anecdotes; and I have introduced his name chiefly as a sort of +authority for those anecdotes. They are the following: + +"Josephus informs us that the Essenes were very long lived; many lived +upward of one hundred years, solely from their simple habits and +sobriety. Aristotle and Plato speak of Herodicus the philosopher, who, +although of a feeble and consumptive habit, lived, in consequence of his +sobriety, upward of one hundred years. Phabrinus, mentioned by Athenius, +lived more than one hundred years, drinking milk only. Zoroaster, +according to Pliny, remained twenty years in a desert, living on a small +quantity of cheese only." + + +THE AUTHOR OF "SURE METHODS," ETC. + +The British author of "Sure Methods of Improving Health and Prolonging +Life," supposed by many to be the distinguished Dr. Johnson, speaks +thus: + +"It must be confessed that, in temperate climates, at least, an animal +diet is, in one respect, more wasting than a vegetable, because it +excites, by its stimulating qualities, a temporary fever after every +meal, by which the springs of life are urged into constant, +preternatural, and weakening exertions. Again; persons who live chiefly +on animal food are subject to various acute and fatal disorders, as the +scurvy, malignant ulcers, inflammatory fevers, etc., and are likewise +liable to corpulency, more especially when united to inordinate +quantities of liquid aliment. There appears to be also a tendency in an +animal diet to promote the formation of many chronic diseases; and we +seldom find those who indulge much in this diet to be remarkable for +longevity. + +"In favor of vegetables, it may be justly said, that man could hardly +live entirely on animal food, but we know he may on vegetable. Vegetable +aliment has likewise no tendency to produce those constitutional +disorders which animal food so frequently occasions. And this is a great +advantage, more especially in our country (he means in Great Britain), +where the general sedentary mode of living so powerfully contributes to +the formation and establishment of numerous severe chronic maladies. Any +unfavorable effects vegetable food may have on the body, are almost +wholly confined to the stomach and bowels, and rarely injure the system +at large. This food has also a beneficial influence on the powers of the +mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, and liveliness of +imagination, and acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live +principally on meat. It should also be added, that a vegetable diet, +when it consists of articles easily digested, as potatoes, turnips, +bread, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., is certainly favorable to long life." + + +BARON CUVIER.[10] + +Perhaps it is not generally known that Baron Cuvier, the prince of +naturalists, in the progress of his researches came to the most decisive +conclusion, that, so far as any thing can be ascertained or proved by +the investigation of science in regard to the natural dietetic character +of man, he is a fruit and vegetable eater. I have not seen his own +views; but the following are said, by an intelligent writer, to be a +tolerably faithful transcript of them, and to be derived from his +Comparative Anatomy. + +"Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man +be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons. + +"The ourang-outang perfectly resembles man, both in the order and number +of his teeth. The ourang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape +tribe, all of which are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species +of animals, which live on different food, in which this analogy exists. +In many frugivorous animals, the canine teeth are more pointed and +distinct than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to +that of the ourang-outang, is greater than to that of any other animal. + +"The intestines are also identical with those of herbivorous animals, +which present a large surface for absorption, and have ample and +cellulated colons. The coecum also, though short, is larger than that +of carnivorous animals; and even here the ourang-outang retains its +accustomed similarity. + +"The structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to a pure +vegetable diet, in every essential particular. It is true, that the +reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long +accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds, +as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from being any argument in +its favor. A lamb, which was fed for some time on flesh by a ship's +crew, refused its natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are +numerous instances of horses, sheep, oxen, and even wood-pigeons, having +been taught to live upon flesh, until they have loathed their natural +aliment." + +No one will deny that Baron Cuvier was in favor of flesh eating; but it +was not because he ever believed, for one moment, that man was +_naturally_ a flesh-eating animal. Man is a reasoning animal (he +argues), and intended to be so. If left to the guidance of his +instincts, the same yielding to the law of his structure which would +exclude flesh meats, should also exclude cookery. Or, in other words, if +he is not permitted to depart from the line of life which his structure +indicates, he must no more cook his vegetables than eat animal food. +Besides, he is made, as Cuvier supposes, for artificial society, and the +Creator designed him to _improve_ his food; and, if I understand his +reasoning, he is better able, with his present structure of teeth, jaws, +stomach, intestines, etc., to make this improvement, and rise above his +nature, and yield to the force and indications of reason and experience, +than if he possessed any other known living structure. + +To this structure, however, as well as to the same power of adaptation, +the monkey race, and especially the ourang-outang, closely typo +approximates. Cuvier's reasoning, in my view, applies only to the +adaptability (if I may be allowed the expression) of the human animal, +without deciding how far he should avail himself of his power to make +changes. + + +DR. LUTHER V. BELL. + +I have alluded, in another part of this work, to the prize essay of Dr. +Bell, awarded to him by the Boylston Medical Committee on the subject of +the diet of laborers in New England. Dr. Bell is a physician of +respectable talents, and is at present the Physician to an Insane +Hospital in Charlestown, near this city. + +Dr. Bell admits, with the most distinguished naturalists and +physiologists of Europe,--Cuvier, Lawrence, Blumenbach, Bell of London, +Richerand, Marc, etc.,--that the structure of man resembles closely that +of the monkey race; and hence objects to the conclusion to which some of +these men have arrived (by jumping over, as it were), that man is an +omnivorous animal. He freely allows--I use his own words--"that man does +approximate more closely to the frugivorous animals than to any others, +in physical organization." But then he insists that the conclusion which +ought to be drawn from this similarity "is, that he is designed to have +his food in about the same state of mechanical cohesion, requiring about +the same energy of masticatory organs, as if it consisted of fruits, +etc., alone." + +But, wherefore should we draw even this conclusion, if structure and +instinct prove nothing, and if we are to be governed solely by reason, +without regard to structure and instinct? For my own part, I believe +reason is never true reason, when it turns wholly out of doors either +instinct or the indications of organization. In other words, an +enlightened reason would look both to the structure and organization of +man, and to a large and broad experience, for the solution of a question +so important as what diet is, on the whole, best for man. And the +experience of the world, both in the present and all former ages, leads +me to a conclusion entirely different from that to which Dr. Bell, and +those who entertain the same views with him, seem to have arrived--a +conclusion which is indicated by structure, and confirmed by facts and +universal experience. But this subject will be further discussed and +developed in another place. It is sufficient for my present purpose, to +bring testimony in favor of the safety of vegetable eating, and of the +doctrine that man is naturally a vegetable and fruit-eating animal; and +especially if I produce, to this end, the testimony of flesh-eaters +themselves. + + +DR. WILLIAM BUCHAN, AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC MEDICINE." + +"Indulgence in animal food, renders men dull and unfit for the pursuits +of science, especially when it is accompanied with the free use of +strong liquors. I am inclined to think that _consumptions_, so common in +England, are, in part, owing to the great use of animal food. But the +disease most common to this country is the scurvy. One finds a dash of +it in almost every family, and in some the taint is very deep. A disease +so general must have a general cause, and there is none so obvious as +the great quantity of animal food which is devoured. As a proof that +scurvy arises from this cause, we are in possession of no remedy for +that disease equal to the free use of fresh vegetables. By the +uninterrupted use of animal food, a putrid diathesis is induced in the +system, which predisposes to a variety of disorders. I am fully +convinced that many of those obstinate complaints for which we are at a +loss to account, and which we find it still more difficult to cure, are +the effects of a scorbutic taint, lurking in the habit. + +"The choleric disposition of the English is almost proverbial. Were I to +assign a cause, it would be, their living so much on animal food. There +is no doubt but this induces a ferocity of temper unknown to men whose +food is taken chiefly from the vegetable kingdom.[11] + +"Experience proves that not a few of the diseases incident to the +inhabitants of this country, are owing to their mode of living. The +vegetable productions they consume, fall considerably short of the +proportion they ought to bear to the animal part of their food. The +major part of the aliment ought to consist of vegetable substances. +There is a continual tendency in animal food, as well as in the human +body itself, to putrefaction; which can only be counteracted by the free +use of vegetables. All who value health, ought to be contented with +making one meal of animal food in twenty-four hours; and this ought to +consist of one kind only. + +"The most obstinate scurvy has often been cured by a vegetable diet; +nay, milk alone, will frequently do more in that disease than any +medicine. Hence it is evident that if vegetables and milk were more used +in diet, we should have less scurvy, and likewise fewer putrid and +inflammatory fevers. + +"Such as abound with blood (and such are almost all of us), should be +sparing in the use of every thing which is highly nourishing--as fat +meat, rich wines, strong ales, and the like. Their food should consist +chiefly of bread and other vegetable substances; and their drink ought +to be water, whey, or small beer." + +Dr. B. also insists on a vegetable diet, as a preventive of many +diseases; particularly of consumption. When there is a tendency to this +disease, in the young, he says "it should be counteracted by strictly +adhering to a diet of the farinacea, and ripe fruits. Animal food and +fermented liquors ought to be rigidly prohibited. Even milk often proves +too nutritious." + + +DR. CHARLES WHITLAW. + +Dr. Whitlaw is the author of a work entitled "New Medical Discoveries," +in two volumes, and of a "Treatise on Fever." He has also established +medical vapor baths in London, New York, and elsewhere; and is a +gentleman of much skill and eminence in his profession. Dr. Whitlaw +says-- + +"All philosophers have given their testimony in favor of vegetable food, +from Pythagoras to Franklin. Its beneficial influence on the powers of +the mind has been experienced by all sedentary and literary men. + +"But, that which ought to convince every one of the salubrity of a diet +consisting of vegetables, is the consideration of the dreadful effects +of totally abstaining from it, unless it be for a very short time; +accounts of which we meet with, fully and faithfully recorded, in the +most interesting and most authentic narratives of human affairs--wars, +sieges of places, long encampments, distant voyages, the peopling of +uncultivated and maritime countries, remarkable pestilences, and the +lives of illustrious men. To this cause the memorable plague at Athens +was attributed; and indeed all the other plagues and epidemical +distempers, of which we have any faithful accounts, will be found to +have originated in a deprivation of vegetable food. + +"The only objections I have ever heard urged (the only plausible ones, +he must mean, I think), is the notion of its inadequacy to the +sustenance of the body. But this is merely a strong prejudice into which +the generality of mankind have fallen, owing to their ignorance of the +laws of life and health. Agility and constant vigor of body are the +effect of health, which is much better preserved by a herbaceous, +aqueous, and sparing tender diet, than by one which is fleshy, vinous, +unctuous, and hard of digestion. + +"So fully were the Romans, at one time, persuaded of the superior +goodness of vegetable diet, that, besides the private example of many of +their great men, they established laws respecting food, among which were +the _lex fannia_, and the _lex licinia_, which allowed but very little +animal food; and, for a period of five hundred years, diseases were +banished along with the physician from the Roman empire. Nor has our own +age been destitute of examples of men, brave from the vigor both of +their bodies and their minds, who at the same time have been drinkers of +water and eaters of vegetables.[12] + +"Nothing is more certain than that animal food is inimical to health. +This is evident from its stimulating qualities producing, as it were, a +temporary fever after every meal; and not only so, but from its +corruptible qualities it gives rise to many fatal diseases; and those +who indulge in its use seldom arrive at an advanced age. + +"We have the authority of the Scripture for asserting that the proper +aliment of man is vegetables. See Genesis. And as disease is not +mentioned as a part of the cause, we have reason to believe that the +antediluvians were strangers to this evil. Such a phenomenon as disease +could hardly exist among a people who lived entirely on a vegetable +food; consequently all the individuals made mention of in that period of +the world, are said to have died of old age; whereas, since the day of +Noah, when mankind were permitted to eat animal food, such an occurrence +as a man dying of old age, or a natural decay of the bodily functions, +does not occur probably once in half a century. + +"Its injurious effects on the mind are equally certain. The Tartars, who +live principally on animal food, are cruel and ferocious in their +disposition, gloomy and sullen minded, delighting in exterminating wars +and plunder; while the Bramins and Hindoos, who live entirely on +vegetable aliment, possess a mildness and gentleness of character and +disposition directly the reverse of the Tartar; and I have no doubt, had +India possessed a more popular form of government, and a more +enlightened priesthood, her people, with minds so fitted for +contemplation, would have far outstripped the other nations of the world +in manufactures, and in the arts and sciences. + +"But we need only look at the peasantry of Ireland, who, living as they +do, chiefly on a vegetable--and to say the least of it, a very +suspicious kind of aliment, I mean the potatoe--are yet as robust and +vigorous a race of men as inherit any portion of the globe. + +"The greater part of our bodily disease is brought on by improper food. +This opinion has been strongly confirmed by my daily experience in the +treatment of those diseases to which the people of England are +peculiarly subject, such as scrofula, consumption, leprosy, etc. These +disorders are making fearful and rapid strides; so much so, that not a +single family may now be considered exempt from their melancholy +ravages." + +This is fearful testimony, but it is the result of much observation and +of twenty years' experience. But the same causes are producing the same +effects--at least, so far as scrofula and consumption are concerned--in +this country, at the present time, of which Dr. W. complains so loudly +in England. I could add much more from his writings, but what I have +said is sufficient. + + +DR. JAMES CLARK. + +Dr. Clark, physician to the king and queen of Belgium, in a Treatise on +Pulmonary Consumption, has the following remarks: + +"There is no greater evil in the management of children than that of +giving them animal diet very early. By persevering in the use of an +over-stimulating diet, the digestive organs become irritated, and the +various secretions immediately connected with and necessary to digestion +are diminished, especially the biliary secretion; and constipation of +the bowels and congestion of the abdominal viscera succeed. Children so +fed, moreover, become very liable to attacks of fever and of +inflammation, affecting particularly the mucous membranes; and measles +and the other diseases incident to childhood are generally severe in +their attack." + +The suggestion that a mild or vegetable diet will render certain +diseases incident to childhood more mild than otherwise they would be, +is undoubtedly an important one; and as just as it is important. But +the remark might be extended, in its application. Both children and +adults would escape all sorts of diseases, especially colds and +epidemics, with much more certainty, or, if attacked, the attacks would +be much more mild, on an exclusively vegetable diet than on a mixed one. +Dr. Clark does not, indeed, say so; but I may say it, and with +confidence. And Dr. C. could not probably show any reason why, on his +own principles, it should not be so. + + +PROF. MUSSEY, OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. + +Prof. R. D. Mussey, of Hanover, New Hampshire, whose science and skill +as a surgeon and physician are well known and attested all over New +England, has for many years taught, both directly and indirectly, in his +public lectures, that man is naturally a fruit and vegetable eater. This +he proves, first, from the structure of his teeth and intestines--next +from his physiological character, and finally, from various facts and +considerations too numerous to detail here. + +He thinks the Bible doctrines are in favor of the disuse of flesh and +fish; that the Jews were required to abstain from pork, and from all fat +and blood, for physiological no less than other reasons. An infant, he +says, naturally has a disrelish for animal food. He says that, in all +probability, animal food was not permitted, though used, before the +flood; and that its use, contrary to the wish of the Creator, was +probably one cause of human degeneracy. Animal food, he says, is apt to +produce diseases of the skin--makes people passionate and +violent--excites the nervous system too much--renders the senses and +faculties more dull--and favors the accumulation of what is mired +tartar on the teeth, and thus causes their early and certain decay. The +blood and breath of carnivorous animals emit an unpleasant odor, while +those of vegetable eaters do not. The fact that man _does eat_ flesh no +more proves its necessity, than the fact that cows, and sheep, and +horses can be taught it, proves its necessity to them. The Africans bear +the cold better the first winter after their arrival in a northern +climate than afterward. May not this be owing to their simple vegetable +living? + + +DR. CONDIE, OF PHILADELPHIA. + +The Journal of Health, edited by some of the ablest physicians of +Philadelphia, has the following remarkable language on the subject of +vegetable food. See vol. 1, page 277. + +"It is well known that vegetable substances, particularly the +farinaceous, are fully sufficient, of themselves, for maintaining a +healthy existence. We have every reason for believing that the fruits of +the earth constituted, originally, the only food of man. Animal food is +digested in a much shorter period than vegetables; from which +circumstance, as well as its approaching much nearer in its composition +to the substance of the body into which it is to be converted, it might +at first be supposed the most appropriate article of nourishment. It +has, however, been found that vegetable matter can be as readily and +perfectly _assimilated_ by the stomach into appropriate _nutriment_ as +the most tender animal substances; and confessedly with a less heating +effect upon the system generally. + +"As a general rule, it will be found that those who make use of a diet +consisting chiefly of vegetable matter have a vast advantage in looks, +in strength, and spirits, over those who partake largely of animal food. +They are remarkable for the firm, healthy plumpness of their muscles, +and the transparency of their skins. This assertion, though at variance +with popular opinion, is amply supported by experience." + +At page 7 of the same volume of the Journal of Health we find the +following remarks. The editors were alluding to those persons who think +they cannot preserve their health and strength without flesh or fish, +and who believe their children would also suffer without it: + +"For the information of all such misguided persons, we beg leave to +state, that the large majority of mankind do not eat any animal food; +or, if any, they use it so sparingly, and at such long intervals, that +it cannot be said to form their nourishment. Millions in Asia are +sustained by rice alone, with perhaps a little vegetable oil for +seasoning. + +"In Italy and southern Europe, generally, bread, made of the flour of +wheat or Indian corn, with lettuce and the like mixed with oil, +constitutes the food of the most robust part of its population. + +"The Lazzaroni of Naples, with forms so actively and finely +proportioned, cannot even calculate on this much. Coarse bread and +potatoes is their chief reliance. Their drink of luxury is a glass of +iced water, slightly acidulated. + +"Hundreds of thousands--we might say millions--of Irish do not see +flesh-meat or fish from one week's end to another. Potatoes and oatmeal +are their articles of food: if milk can be added it is thought a luxury. +Yet where shall we find a more healthy and robust population, or one +more enduring of bodily fatigue, and exhibiting more mental vivacity? +What a contrast between these people and the inhabitants of the extreme +north--the timid Laplanders, Esquimaux, and Samoideans, whose food is +almost entirely animal?" + +Again, at page 187 we are told that "the more simple the aliment, and +the less _altered_ by culinary processes, the slower is the change in +digestion; but, at the same time, the less is the stimulation and wear +of the powers of life. The Bramins of Hindostan, who live on exceedingly +simple food, are long livers, even in a hot and exhausting climate. The +peasants of Switzerland and of Scotland, nourished on bread, milk, and +cheese, attain a very old age, and enjoy great bodily strength. + +"Where there is too much excitement of the body, generally, from +fullness of the blood-vessels, or of any one of the organs, owing to a +wrong direction of the blood to it (and in one or the other of these +conditions we find almost every body now-a-days), animal food, by being +long retained in the stomach, and calling into greater action other +parts during digestion, as well as furnishing them with more blood +afterward, must be obviously improper. The more of this kind of food is +taken under such circumstances, the greater will be the oppression; and +the weakness, different from that of a healthy person long hungered, +will only be increased by the increased amount of blood carried to the +diseased part." + +It is true that the editors of the Journal of Health connect with the +foregoing paragraphs the statement that, "if it be desirable to give +nutriment in a small bulk, to obtund completely the sensation of hunger +and restore strength to the body, a small quantity of animal will be +preferable to much vegetable food." But then it is only in a few +diseased cases that any such thing is desirable. And even then, if we +look carefully at the language used, the comparison is not made between +animal and vegetable food in moderate or reasonable quantities, but +between a _small quantity_ of the former and _much_ of the latter. + + +DR. J. V. C. SMITH, OF BOSTON. + +The following remarks are extracted from the Boston Medical +Intelligencer, at a period when Dr. J. V. C. Smith was the editor. They +have the appearance of being from Dr. Smith's own pen. Dr. S. is at +present the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: + +"It is true[13] that animal food contains a greater portion of +nutriment, in a given quantity, than vegetables; but the digestive +functions of the human system become prematurely exhausted by constant +action, and the whole system eventually sinks under great or +uninterrupted excitement. If, for the various ragouts with which modern +tables are so abundantly furnished, men would substitute _wholesome +vegetables and pure water_, we should see health walking in paths that +are now crowded with the bloated victims of voluptuous appetite. +Millions of Gentoos have lived to an advanced age without having tasted +any thing that ever possessed life, and been wholly free from a chain of +maladies which have scourged every civilized nation on the globe. The +wandering Arabs, who have traversed the barren desert of Sahara, +subsisting on the scanty pittance of milk from the half-famished camel +that carried them, have seen two hundred years roll round without a day +of sickness." + + +SYLVESTER GRAHAM. + +Although Mr. Graham does not, so far as I know, lay claim to the +"honors" of any medical institution, it cannot be doubted that his +knowledge of physiology, to say nothing of anatomy, pathology, and +medicine, is such as to entitle him to a high rank among medical men; +and I have, therefore, without hesitation, concluded to insert his +testimony in this place. + +Of his views, however, on the subject before us, it seems almost +superfluous to speak, as they are set forth, and have been set forth for +many years, so conspicuously, not only in his public lectures, but in +his writings, that the bare mention of his name, in almost any part of +the country, is to awaken the prejudices, if not the hostilities, of +every foe, and of some friends (supposed friends, I mean), of +"temperance in all things." It is sufficient, perhaps, for my present +purpose, to say of him, that, after the most rigid and profound +examination of the subject which he is capable of making--and his +capabilities are by no means very limited--it is his unhesitating +belief, that in every climate, and in all circumstances in which it is +proper for man to be placed, an exclusively farinaceous and fruit diet +is the best adapted to the development and improvement of all his powers +of body, mind, and soul; provided, however, he were trained to it from +the first. And even at any period of life, unless in the case of certain +forms of diseases, he believes it would be preferable to exchange, in a +proper manner, every form of mixed diet for one purely vegetable. Such +opinions as these, as a part of his views in relation to the physical +duties of man, he publicly, and strenuously, and eloquently, announces +and defends. + + +DR. JOHN M. ANDREW. + +Dr. Andrew is a practitioner of medicine in Remsen, Oneida county, State +of New York. His letter was intended for chapter iv., but came too late. +This fact is the only apology for inserting it in this place. Several +interesting cases of dietetic reform accompanied the letter, but I must +omit them, for want of room, in this work. + + REMSEN, April 28, 1838. + +DEAR SIR--It is now about sixteen months since I adopted an exclusively +vegetable diet. I have, however, never been very much inclined to animal +food; and, indeed, before I ever heard of the Graham system I laid it +aside, during summer, when farming--which, by the by, had always been my +occupation till I commenced my professional course, about four years +ago. I have, to the best of my knowledge, enjoyed what is commonly +called good health, and possessed a degree of strength surpassed only by +few; and in connection with the assiduous cultivation of my mental +faculties, I have carefully sought to improve my physical powers, which +I deem of incalculable worth to the student, as well as to the laborer. + +My attention was first called to the subject of vegetable eating by +Professor Mussey, in a lecture before the medical class of the Western +Medical College of New York, while fulfilling the duties of the +professorship, to which he was called in 1836. In that lecture our +adaptations, and the design of the Creator in regard to our mode of +subsistence, were clearly held forth, and such was the impression made +on my mind, that I was induced at once to adopt the vegetable system, +both in practice and theory. In my change of diet I did not suffer any +inconvenience. The fact that I had, for some length of time, been living +mostly on vegetables, will account for that circumstance, however. + +But the great advantages derived from the change were soon perceptible, +though not appreciated by others. I met with much opposition from my +friends, frequently being told that I was fast losing my flesh and all +my youthful vigor and vivacity. And yet, for one year and more, I have +not lost a pound of flesh. + +I was gazed upon as an anomaly in society; some anxiously looking, and +others fearfully expecting my downfall and destruction; but both are +alike disappointed. The system, though I have not been able to follow it +so strictly as I could wish, from the circumstances in which I have been +placed, has far exceeded my expectations. One year and more has rolled +away, and I thank God I can look back, with some degree of satisfaction, +on the time spent in the enjoyment of that alone which sweetens the cup +of life. My most able advocacy has been my manual exertions and I have +demonstrated the utility of the _system_ alike to the professional and +laboring classes of community. + +I do not go beyond the truth when I say, that I cannot find a man to vie +with me in the field, with the scythe, the fork, or the axe. I do not +want any thing but potatoes and salt; and I can cut and put up four +cords of wood in a day, with no very great exertion. I have frequently +been told, by friends, that my _potato and salt system_ would not stand +the test of the field; but I have silenced their clamor by actual +demonstration with all the implements above named. + +At present, no consideration would induce me to return to my former mode +of living. + + JOHN M. ANDREW. + + +DR. WILLIAM SWEETSER, OF BOSTON. + +Dr. Sweetser is the author of a "Treatise on Consumption," and of a +"Treatise on Digestion." He has also been a medical professor in the +University of Vermont, and a public lecturer on health, in Boston. + +In his work on consumption, while speaking of the prevailing belief of a +necessity for the use of animal food to those children who possess the +scrofulous or consumptive tendency, he thus remarks: + +"A diet of milk and mild farinaceous articles, with perhaps light animal +decoctions, appears best suited to the early years of life. Whenever +there exists an evident inflammatory tendency, as is the case in some +scrofulous systems, solid animal food, if used at all, should be taken +with the greatest precaution. + +"And again--how often is it that fat, plethoric, meat-eating children, +their faces looking as though the blood was just ready to ooze out, are +with the greatest complacency exhibited by their parents as patterns of +health! But let it ever be remembered, that the condition of the system +popularly called rude or full health, and which is the result of high +feeding, is too often closely bordering on a state of disease." + +In his work on digestion he seems to regard man as naturally an +omnivorous animal; and, taking this for granted, he speaks as follows +respecting his diet: + +"One would hardly assert that even in temperate climates his (man's) +system requires animal food. I doubt whether any instance can be +adduced--unless man be regarded as such--of an omnivorous animal +incapable of being adequately nourished by a sufficient and proper +vegetable diet. + +"Man, dwelling in a temperate climate, and with the power to choose, +almost uniformly employs a mixture of animal and vegetable food; but how +much early education may have to do in forming his taste for a mixed +diet it is difficult to estimate. Habit has certainly great influence in +attaching us to particular kinds of aliment. One who has long been +accustomed to animal food cannot at once abstain from it without +experiencing some feebleness for the want of its stimulation, and +perhaps even temporary emaciation. And, on the other hand, he who has +long been confined to a vegetable diet is apt to lose his relish for +flesh, and, on recurring suddenly to its use, to find it too exciting. + +"The liberal use of animal food has been generally thought requisite in +arctic climes, to stimulate the functions, and thus furnish a more +abundant supply of animal heat, to preserve against the extremity of +external temperature. Northern voyagers mostly believe that fat animal +food and oils are essential to the maintenance of health and life in the +inhabitants of those frozen regions. But to me it would seem that their +habits, in respect to diet, prove the _capabilities_, rather than the +necessities, of their systems. They learn to eat their coarse fare +because they can get no other. Their food, moreover, as is generally the +case in savage life, is precarious; and thus, being at times exposed to +extreme want, they are stimulated to greater excesses when their +supplies are ample. + +"The fact of man's dwelling in them (the arctic regions), and eating +what he can get there, no more proves him to be naturally a +flesh-eating animal than the circumstance of some cattle learning to eat +fish, when they are in situations where they can obtain no other food, +proves them to be piscivorous. + +"Haller conceived it necessary that human life should be sustained by +animal and vegetable food, so apportioned that neither should be in +excess; and he asserts that abstinence from animal food causes great +weakness in the body, and usually a troublesome diarrhoea. But such an +opinion is certainly incorrect, since not only particular individuals, +but even numbers of people, dwelling in temperate climates, from various +causes, subsist almost wholly on vegetable substances, and yet preserve +their health and vigor. + +"Were we educated to its exclusive use, I am persuaded that a vegetable +diet would afford us ample support; but whether, if restrained from +animal food, we should, _as a consequence_, in the course of time, and +under equally favoring circumstances in other respects, rise still +higher in our moral and physical nature, remains, as I conceive, to be +proved." + +These views of Dr. S. were repeated, in substance, in a course of +lectures given by him at the Masonic Temple, in Boston, in 1838. It will +be seen that he concedes what the friends of the vegetable system deem a +very important point, viz., that man's whole powers, physical, +intellectual, and moral, can be well developed on a diet exclusively +vegetable. We do not ask him to grant more. If man is as well off on +vegetable food as without it, we have moral reasons of so much weight to +place against animal food, as, when duly considered, will be, by all +candid persons, sufficient to lead to its rejection. + +True, we do not believe, with Dr. S.--at least I do not--that "whether a +diet purely vegetable, or one comprehending both animal and vegetable +food, would be most conducive to health, longevity, and intellectual, +moral, and physical development, is a question only to be determined by +a long course of experiments, made by various individuals in equal +health, and placed, in all other respects, under as nearly similar +circumstances as practicable." I believe this course of experiment does +not remain _to be_ made, but that it has been made, most fully, during +the last four or five thousand years, and that the question is settled +in favor--wholly so--of vegetable food. Still I do not ask physicians +and other medical men to grant more than Dr. S. has; it is quite as much +as we ought to expect of them. + + +DR. A. L. PIERSON. + +Dr. Pierson, of Salem, in Massachusetts, a physician and surgeon of +considerable eminence, in a lecture some time ago, before the American +Institute of Instruction, observed that "young men who were anxious to +avail themselves of the advantages of a liberal education, and were +therefore compelled to consult economy, had found out that it was not +necessary to pay three or four dollars a week for mere board, when the +most vigorous and uniform health may be secured by a diet of mere +vegetable food and water." + +I know not that Dr. P. avows himself an advocate for the exclusive use +of vegetable food, but if what I have quoted is not enough to satisfy us +in regard to his opinion of its safety, and its full power to develop +body and mind, I know not what would be. If the most vigorous and +uniform health can be secured on vegetable food, what individual in the +world--in view of the moral considerations at least--would ever resort +to the carcasses of animals? + + +STATEMENT OF DR. C. BYINGTON, OF PHILADELPHIA. + +A physician of some eminence, residing in Philadelphia, has been heard +to say that it was his decided opinion that mankind would live longest, +and be healthiest and happiest, on mere bread and water. I may add here, +that there was every evidence but one that he was sincere in this +statement, although I do not fully accord with him, believing that the +best health requires variety of food--not, indeed, at the same meal, but +at different ones. The exception I make in regard to his sincerity, is +in reference to the fact, that while he professed to believe a bread and +vegetable diet to be best for mankind, he did not adopt it. + + +TESTIMONY OF A PHYSICIAN IN NEW YORK. + +In the work entitled "Hints to a Fashionable Lady," by a physician--his +name not given--we find the following testimony: + +"Young persons invariably do best on simple but moderately nutritious +fare. Too large a proportion of animal food and fatty substances are +pernicious to the complexion. On the contrary, a diet which is +principally vegetable, with the luxuries of the dairy (not butter, +surely, for that is elsewhere prohibited), is most advantageous. Nowhere +are finer complexions to be found than in those parts of England, +Scotland, and Ireland, where the living is almost exclusively vegetable. + +"Those who subsist entirely on vegetable food have seldom, if ever, a +constantly bad breath, or an offensive perspiration. It has been +ascertained that the teeth are uniformly best in those countries where +least animal food is used." + + +THE FEMALE'S CYCLOPEDIA. + +From a fugitive volume, entitled "The Female's Cyclopedia," I have +concluded to make the following extract, because I have reason to +believe the writer to have been a physician: + +"Animal food certainly gives most strength; but its stimulancy excites +fever, and produces plethora and its consequences. The system is sooner +worn out by a repetition of its stimuli, and those who indulge greatly +in such diet are more likely to be carried off early by inflammatory +diseases; or if, by judicious exercise, they qualify its effects, they +yet acquire such an accumulation of putrescent fluids as becomes the +foundation for the most inveterate chronic diseases in after age. + +"The most valuable state of the mind, however, appears to be connected +with somewhat less of firmness and vigor of body. Vegetable aliment, as +never over-distending the vessels or loading the system, does not +interrupt the stronger emotions of the mind; while the heat, fullness, +and weight of animal food, are inimical to its vigorous exertion. +Temperance, therefore, does not so much consist in the quantity--since +the appetite will regulate that--as in the quality; namely, in a large +proportion of vegetable aliment." + + +DR. VAN COOTH. + +Dr. Van Cooth, a learned European writer--I believe a Hollander--has +recently maintained, incidentally, in a learned medical dissertation, +that the great body of the ancient Egyptians and Persians "confined +themselves to a vegetable diet." To be sure, Dr. V. does not seem to be +a vegetable eater himself, but the friends of the latter system are not +the less indebted to him for the concession. The physical and moral +superiority of those vegetable eating nations, in the days of their +glory, are well known; and every intelligent reader of history, and +honest inquirer after truth, will make his own inferences from the facts +which I have mentioned. + + +DR. WILLIAM BEAUMONT. + +The work of this gentleman, entitled "Experiments and Observations on +the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion," is well known--at +least to the medical community. The following are some of the +conclusions to which his experiments conducted him: + +"Solid aliment, thoroughly masticated, is far more salutary than soups, +broths, etc. + +"Fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every kind, are difficult of +digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to derange that organ and +induce disease. + +"Spices, pepper, stimulating and heating condiments of every kind, +retard digestion and injure the stomach. + +"Coffee and tea debilitate the stomach and impair digestion. + +"Simple water is the only fluid called for by the wants of the economy; +the artificial drinks are all more or less injurious--some more so than +others; but none can claim exemption from the general charge." + +If it should be said that this testimony of Dr. Beaumont is by no means +directly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. I admit it. But he +certainly goes very far toward conceding every thing which I claim, +when he says that "fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every +kind, are difficult of digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to +derange that organ and induce disease;" and especially when he speaks so +highly of farinaceous substances and good fruits. Pray, what animal food +can be eaten which does not contain, at least, a small quantity of oil? +And if this oil tends to induce disease, and farinaceous food does not, +why should not animal food be excluded? + + +SIR EVERARD HOME. + +This distinguished philosopher and medical gentleman, though, like many +others, he insisted that vegetable food did not produce full muscular +development, yet admitted the natural character of man to be that of a +vegetable eater, in the following, or nearly the following, terms: + +"In the history of man--in the Bible--we are told that dominion over the +animal world was bestowed upon him at his creation; but the divine +permission to indulge in animal food was not given till after the flood. +The observations I have to make accord strongly with this tradition; +for, while mankind remained in a state of innocence, there is every +ground to believe that their only food was the produce of the vegetable +kingdom." + + +DR. JENNINGS. + +Dr. Jennings is the author of a work published at Oberlin, Ohio, in +1847, entitled "Medical Reform." In this volume, at page 198, we find +the following facts and statements. The author is comparing the effects +of animal food on the human system with those of alcohol, from which we +learn his views concerning the former: + +"Position I.--Animal food, in common with alcohol, creates a feverish +diathesis, evidences of which are--1. An impaired state of the +respiratory function. 2. The pulse is rendered more frequent and +irregular, both by alcohol and meat. 3. A feverish heat is generated in +the system, and persons are made more thirsty, by the use of both these +substances. 4. Both substances equally induce what is called the +digestive fever. + +"Position II.--Alcoholic drinks lay the foundation for occasional +disturbances in the system, of different kinds and grades, as bilious +bowel affections, etc., and so do flesh meats. In the production of +colds, animal food is far the most efficient. + +"Position III.--Animal food tends, quite as strongly as the moderate use +of alcoholic liquors, to weaken and disturb the balance of action +between the secerning and excerning systems of vessels, by which some +persons become leaner and others fleshier than they should be. + +"Position IV.--With about equal potency alcohol and flesh meats weaken +the force of the capillaries of the system, on which healthy action so +much depends. + +"Position V.--A flesh diet, in common with the use of strong drink, +impairs the tone of the nutritive apparatus, by which its ability to +work up raw material and manufacture it into sound, well finished vital +fabric, is diminished, and of course the appetite or call for food is +satisfied with a less quantity of the raw material. This fact has given +rise to the opinion that animal food contains more nutriment than +vegetable. + +"Position VI.--The total abandonment of an habitual use of animal food +is attended with all the perplexing, uncomfortable, and distressing +difficulties that follow the giving up of an habitual use of strong +drink. A change from one kind of simple nutriment to another has no +such effect. It is only when the constant use of some stimulating +substance is abandoned that such difficulties are experienced." + + +DR. JARVIS. + +This gentleman, in his "Practical Physiology," at page 86, has the +following thoughts: + +"Some have contended that man was designed to eat only of the fruits and +vegetables of the earth; while others maintain, with equal confidence, +that he should add to these the flesh of beasts. There are many +individuals, both in this and other countries, who confine themselves to +vegetable diet. They believe they enjoy better health, and maintain +greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet. +The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to +determine its value. It has not proved a failure, nor has it +demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that flesh is injurious."[14] + + +DR. TICKNOR. + +"From the fact," says this author, "that animal food is proper and +necessary for health in polar regions, and that a vegetable diet is +equally proper and necessary in the torrid zone, we may conclude that in +winter, in our own climate, an animal diet is the best; while vegetables +are more conducive to health in the summer season." + +It would not be difficult to prove, from the very concessions of Dr. T., +that vegetable food is better adapted to health, in _general_, than +animal; but I forbear to do so, in this place. The subject will be fully +discussed in the concluding chapter. + + +DR. COLES. + +The author of a small volume recently published at Boston, entitled the +"Philosophy of Health; or, Health without Medicine," is more decided in +his views on diet than any late writer I have seen, except Dr. Jennings +and O. S. Fowler. He says, at page 35: + +"Man, in his original, holy state, was provided for from the vegetables +of that happy garden which was given him to prune. This was the +Creator's original plan; * * * * the eating of flesh was one of the +consequences of the fall. Living on vegetable food is undoubtedly the +most natural and healthy method of subsistence." + +Again, at page 45--"The objections, then, against meat-eating are +threefold--intellectual, moral, and physical. Its tendency is to check +intellectual activity, to depreciate moral sentiment, and to derange the +fluids of the body." + + +DR. SHEW. + +This active physician is zealously devoted to the propagation of +hydropathy. He uses no medicine in the management of disease--nothing at +all but water. To this, however, he adds great attention to diet. In his +Journal,[15] and elsewhere, he is a zealous and able advocate of the +vegetable system, preferring it himself, and recommending it to his +patients and followers. + +Dr. Shew's opinion, in this particular, is entitled to the more weight +from the fact of his having been very familiar with disease and diet, +both in the old world and the new. He has been twice to Germany; and has +spent much time at Graefenberg, with Priessnitz, the founder of the +system which he so zealously defends and practices, and so strongly +advocates. + + +DR. MORRILL. + +Dr. C. Morrill, in a recent work entitled, "Physiology of Woman, and her +Diseases," says much in favor of an exclusively vegetable diet in some +of the diseases of woman; and among other things, makes the following +general remarks: + +"Even by those who labor (referring here to the healthy), meat should be +taken moderately, and but once a day. The sedentary, generally, do not +need it." + + +DR. BELL. + +This gentleman's testimony has been given elsewhere. I only subjoin the +following: "By far the greater number of the inhabitants of the earth +have used, in all ages, and continue to use, at this time, vegetable +aliment alone." + + +DR. BRADLEY. + +Dr. D. B. Bradley, the distinguished missionary at Bangkok, in Siam, +though not exactly a vegetable eater, is favorably disposed to the +vegetable system. He has read Graham and myself with great care, and is +an anxious inquirer after all truth. + + +DR. STEPHENSON. + +Dr. Chauncy Stephenson, of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in what he calls +his "New System of Medicine," commends to all his readers, for their +sustenance, "pure air, a proper temperature, good vegetable food, and +pure cold water." And lest he should be misunderstood, he immediately +adds--"The best articles of food for general use are good, well-baked +cold bread, made of rye and Indian corn, wheat or barley meal; rice, +good ripe fruits of all kinds, both fresh and dried, and a proper +proportion of good roots, such as potatoes, parsneps, turnips, onions, +etc." Even milk he regards as a questionable food for adults or middle +aged persons. + +Again, he says: "Animal food, in general, digests sooner than most kinds +of vegetables; and not being so much in accordance with man's nature, +constitution, and moral character, it is very liable, finally, to +generate disease, inflammation, or fever, even when it is not taken to +excess." He closes by advising all persons to content themselves with +"pure vegetable food;" and that in the least quantity compatible with +good health. + + +DR. J. BURDELL, + +A distinguished dentist of New York, has long been a vegetable eater, +and a zealous defender of the faith (in this particular) which he +professes. + + +DR. THOMAS SMETHURST, + +In a work entitled Hydrotherapia, says, "Children thrive best upon a +simple, moderately nourishing vegetable diet." And if children thus +thrive the best, why not adults? + + +DR. SCHLEMMER. + +Dr. C. V. Schlemmer, a German by birth, but now an adopted son of old +England, in giving an account of the diet of himself, his three sons of +eleven, ten, and four years of age, with their tutor, observes: "Raw +peas, beans, and fruit are our food: our teeth are our mills; the +stomach is the kitchen." And all of them, as he affirms, enjoy the best +of health. For himself, as he says, he has practiced in this way six +years. + + +DR. CURTIS, AND OTHERS. + +Dr. Curtis, a distinguished botanic physician of Ohio, with several +other physicians, both of the old and the new school, whom I have not +named, do not hesitate to regard a pure vegetable diet, in the abstract, +as by far the best for all mankind, both in health and disease. + +Dr. Porter, of Waltham, for example, when I meet him, always concedes +that a well-selected vegetable diet is superior to every other. He has +repeatedly told me of an experiment he made, of three months, on mere +bread and water. Never, says he, was I more vigorous in body and mind, +than at the end of this experiment. But the reader well knows that I am +not an advocate of a diet of mere bread and water. I regard fruits, or +fruit juices--unfermented--almost as necessary, to adults, as bread. + + +PROF. C. U. SHEPARD. + +The reputation of this gentleman, in the scientific world, is so well +known, that no apology can be necessary for inserting his testimony. As +a chemist, he is second to very few, if any, men in this country. The +following are his remarks: + +"Start not back at the idea of subsisting upon the potato alone, ye who +think it necessary to load your tables with all the dainty viands of the +market--with fish, flesh, and fowl, seasoned with oil and spices, and +eaten, perhaps, with wines;--start not back, I say, with disgust, until +you are able to display in your own pampered persons a firmer muscle, a +more beau-ideal outline, and a healthier red than the potato-fed +peasantry of Ireland and Scotland once showed you, as you passed by +their cabin doors! + +"No; the chemical physiologist will tell you that the well ripened +potato, when properly cooked, contains every element that man requires +for nutrition; and in the best proportion in which they are found in any +plant whatever. There is the abounding supply of starch for enabling him +to maintain the process of breathing, and for generating the necessary +warmth of body; there is the nitrogen for contributing to the growth and +renovation of organs; the lime and phosphorus for the bones; and all the +salts which a healthy circulation demands. In fine, the potato may well +be called the universal plant." + + +BLACKWOOD, IN HIS MAGAZINE. + +"Chemistry," says Blackwood's Magazine, "has already told us many +remarkable things in regard to the vegetable food we eat--that it +contains, for example, a certain per centage of the actual fat and lean +we consume in our beef, or mutton, or pork--and, therefore, that he who +lives on vegetable food may be as strong as the man who lives on animal +food, because both in reality feed on the same things, in a somewhat +different form." + +There is this difference, however, that in the one case--that is, in the +use of the vegetables which contain the elements referred to--we save +the trouble of running it through the body of the living animal, and +losing seven eighths of it, as we do, practically in the process; +whereas in the other we do not. We also save ourselves the necessity of +training the young and the old to scenes of butchery and blood. + + +PROF. JOHNSTON. + +This gentleman, in a recent edition of his "Elements of Agricultural +Chemistry and Geology," tells us that from experiments made in the +laboratory of the Agricultural Association of Scotland, wheat and oats, +when analyzed, contain of nutritious properties the following +proportion: + + Musc. matter. Fat. Starch. + Wheat, 10 pounds, 3 pounds, 50 pounds. + Oats, 18 " 6 " 65 " + +Thus oats, and even wheat, are quite rich in that which forms muscular +matter in the human body. + + +SIMEON COLLINS, OF WESTFIELD, MASS. + +This gentleman, in his fifty-first year, states that having been for +several years afflicted with a severe cough, which he supposed bordered +upon consumption, he "discontinued the use of flesh meat, fish, fowl, +butter, gravy, tea, and coffee, and made use of a plain vegetable diet." +"My bread," says he, "is made of unbolted wheat meal; my drink is pure +cold water; my bed, for winter and summer, is made of the everlasting +flower; and my health is, and ever has been, perfect, since I got fairly +cleansed from the filthiness of flesh meat, and other pernicious +articles of diet in common use. + +"My business requires a great degree of activity, and I can truly say +that I am a stranger to weariness or languor. At the time of entering +upon this system, I had a wife and five children, the youngest eight +years of age;--they all soon entered upon the same course of living with +myself, and soon were all benefited in health. I have now six +children--the youngest fifteen months old, and as happy as a lark. +Previous to the time of our adopting the present system of living, my +expenses for medicine and physicians would range from $20 to $30 a +year--for the last four years it has been nothing worth naming." + + +REV. JOSEPH EMERSON. + +Mr. Emerson was a teacher of eminence, known throughout the United +States, but particularly so in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He died in +the latter state, in 1833, aged about fifty-five. He had long been a +miserable dyspeptic, but was probably kept alive amid certain strange +violations of physical law, such as studying hard till midnight, for +example, for many years, by his great care in regard to his diet. Mrs. +Banister, late Miss Z. P. Grant (the associate, at Ipswich, of Miss +Lyon, who died recently at South Hadley, who was his pupil), thus speaks +of his rigid habits: + +"He not only uniformly rejected whatever food he had decided to be +injurious to him, but whatever he deemed necessary for his food or +drink, was always taken, whether at home or abroad. As his diet, for +several years, consisted generally, either of bread and milk, or of +bread and butter, what solid food he wanted could be supplied at any +table."[16] + +It is also testified of him, by his brother, Prof. Emerson, of Andover, +that "for more than thirty years he adopted the practice of eating but +one kind at a meal." If I do not misremember, for I knew him well, he +was in favor of banishing flesh and fish, and substituting milk and +fruits in their stead, on Bible ground.--I refer here to the Divine +arrangement in the first chapter of Genesis; and which has never, that I +am aware, been altered. + + +TAK SISSON. + +Tak Sisson, as he was called, was a slave in the family of a man in +Rhode Island, before and during the Revolution. + +From early childhood he could never be prevailed on to eat any flesh or +fish, but he subsisted on vegetable food and milk; neither could he be +persuaded to eat high seasoned food of any kind. When he was a child, +his parents used to scold him severely, and threaten to whip him because +he refused to eat flesh. They said to him (as I have been told a +thousand times), that if he did not eat meat he would never be good for +any thing, but would always be a poor, puny creature. + +But Tak persevered in his vegetable and unstimulating diet, and, to the +surprise of all, grew fast, and his body was finely developed and +athletic. He was very stout and robust, and altogether the most +vigorous and dexterous of any of the family. He finally became more than +six feet high, and every way well proportioned, and remarkable for his +agility and strength. He was so uncommonly shrewd, bright, strong, and +active, that he became notorious for his shrewdness, and for his feats +of strength and agility. Indeed, he was so full of his playful mischief +as greatly to annoy his overseer. + +During the Revolutionary War it became an object to take Gen. Prescott. +A door was to be forced where he was quartered and sleeping, and Tak was +selected for the work. Having taken his lesson from the American +officer, he proceeded to the door, plunged his thick head against it, +burst it open, roused Gen. P., like a tiger sprung upon him, seized him +in his brawny arms, and in a low, stern voice, said, "One word, and you +are a dead man." Then hastily snatching the general's cloak and wrapping +it round him, at the same time telling a companion to take care of the +rest of his clothes, he took him in his arms, as if a child, and ran +with him to a boat which was waiting, and escaped with his prisoner +without rousing even the British sentinels. + +Tak lived on his vegetable fare to a very advanced age, and was +remarkable, through life, for his activity, strength, and shrewdness. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] By seed, Dr. C. means the farinaceous grains; wheat, corn, rye, etc. + +[10] Cuvier was not a medical man, but I have classed him with medical +men, on account of his profound knowledge of Comparative Anatomy and +Physiology. + +[11] "Unless," as a writer in the Graham Journal very justly observes, +"these latter indulge, habitually and freely, in the use of intoxicating +substances." + +[12] Such was Gen. Elliot, so distinguished at the famous siege of +Gibraltar. Such, too, was Mr. Shillitoe, of whom honorable mention will +be made in another place;--besides many more. + +[13] So he thinks, but I think otherwise. Animal food, as I have shown +elsewhere, is not so nutritious as some of the farinaceous vegetables. + +[14] Dr. J. here overlooks one important fact, viz., that the testimony +of all those who have tried the exclusive use of vegetable food is +_positive_ in its nature; while that of others, who have not tried it, +is, and necessarily must be, negative. + +[15] The Water-Cure Journal. + +[16] An aged lady, of Dedham--a pillar in every good cause--has, for +twelve or fifteen years, carried abroad with her, when traveling, some +plain bread and apples; and no entreaties will prevail with her, at home +or abroad, to eat luxuries. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of + Plautus.--Plutarch.--Porphyry.--Lord Bacon.--Sir William + Temple.--Cicero.--Cyrus the Great.--Gassendi.--Prof. + Hitchcock.--Lord Kaims.--Dr. Thomas Dick.--Prof. Bush.--Thomas + Shillitoe.--Alexander Pope.--Sir Richard Phillips.--Sir Isaac + Newton.--The Abbé Gallani.--Homer.--Dr. Franklin.--Mr. + Newton.--O. S. Fowler.--Rev. Mr. Johnston.--John H. + Chandler.--Rev. J. Caswell.--Mr. Chinn.--Father + Sewall.--Magliabecchi.--Oberlin and Swartz.--James + Haughton.--John Bailies.--Francis Hupazoli.--Prof. + Ferguson.--Howard, the Philanthropist.--Gen. + Elliot.--Encyclopedia Americana.--Thomas Bell, of + London.--Linnæus, the Naturalist.--Shelley, the Poet.--Rev. Mr. + Rich.--Rev. John Wesley.--Lamartine. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +This chapter might have been much more extended than it is. I might have +mentioned, for example, the cases of Daniel and his three brethren, at +the court of the Babylonian monarch, who certainly maintained their +health--if they did not even improve it--by vegetable food, and by a +form of it, too, which has by many been considered rather doubtful. I +might have mentioned the case of Paul,[17] who, though he occasionally +appears to have eaten flesh, said, expressly, that he would abstain from +it while the world stood, where a great moral end was to be gained; and +no one can suppose he would have done so, had he feared any injury would +thereby result to his constitution of body or mind. + +The case of William Penn, if I remember rightly what he says in his "No +Cross no Crown," would have been in point. Jefferson, the third +President of the United States, was, according to his own story, almost +a vegetable eater, during the whole of his long life. He says he +abstained principally from animal food; using it, if he used it at all, +only as a condiment for his vegetables. And does any one, who has read +his remarks, doubt that his "convictions" were in favor of the exclusive +use of vegetable food? + +However, to prevent the volume from much exceeding the limits originally +assigned it, I will be satisfied--and I hope the public will--with the +following selections of testimonies, ancient and modern; some of more, +some of less importance; but all of them, as it appears to me, worthy of +being collected and incorporated into a volume like this, and faithfully +and carefully examined. + + +PLAUTUS. + +Plautus, a distinguished dramatic Roman writer, who flourished about two +thousand years ago, gives the following remarkable testimony against the +use of animal food, and of course in favor of the salubrity of +vegetables; addressed, indeed, to his own countrymen and times, but +scarcely less applicable to our own: + +"You apply the term wild to lions, panthers, and serpents; yet, in your +own savage slaughters, you surpass them in ferocity; for the blood shed +by them is a matter of necessity, and requisite for their subsistence. + +"But, that man is not, by nature, destined to devour animal food, is +evident from the construction of the human frame, which bears no +resemblance to wild beasts or birds of prey. Man is not provided with +claws or talons, with sharpness of fang or tusk, so well adapted to tear +and lacerate; nor is his stomach so well braced and muscular, nor his +animal spirits so warm, as to enable him to digest this solid mass of +animal flesh. On the contrary, nature has made his teeth smooth, his +mouth narrow, and his tongue soft; and has contrived, by the slowness of +his digestion, to divert him from devouring a species of food so ill +adapted to his frame and constitution. But, if you still maintain that +such is your natural mode of subsistence, then follow nature in your +mode of killing your prey, and employ neither knife, hammer, nor +hatchet--but, like wolves, bears, and lions, seize an ox with your +teeth, grasp a boar round the body, or tear asunder a lamb or a hare, +and, like the savage tribe, devour them still panting in the agonies of +death. + +"We carry our luxury still farther, by the variety of sauces and +seasonings which we add to our beastly banquets--mixing together oil, +wine, honey, pickles, vinegar, and Syrian and Arabian ointments and +perfumes, as if we intended to bury and embalm the carcasses on which we +feed. The difficulty of digesting such a mass of matter, reduced in our +stomachs to a state of liquefaction and putrefaction, is the source of +endless disorders in the human frame. + +"First of all, the wild, mischievous animals were selected for food; and +then the birds and fishes were dragged to slaughter; next, the human +appetite directed itself against the laborious ox, the useful and +fleece-bearing sheep, and the cock, the guardian of the house. At last, +by this preparatory discipline, man became matured for human massacres, +slaughters, and wars." + + +PLUTARCH. + +"It is best to accustom ourselves to eat no flesh at all, for the earth +affords plenty enough of things not only fit for nourishment, but for +enjoyment and delight; some of which may be eaten without much +preparation, and others may be made pleasant by adding divers other +things to them. + +"You ask me," continues Plutarch, "'for what reason Pythagoras abstained +from eating the flesh of brutes?' For my part, I am astonished to think, +on the contrary, what appetite first induced man to taste of a dead +carcass; or what motive could suggest the notion of nourishing himself +with the flesh of animals which he saw, the moment before, bleating, +bellowing, walking, and looking around them. How could he bear to see an +impotent and defenceless creature slaughtered, skinned, and cut up for +food? How could he endure the sight of the convulsed limbs and muscles? +How bear the smell arising from the dissection? Whence happened it that +he was not disgusted and struck with horror when he came to handle the +bleeding flesh, and clear away the clotted blood and humors from the +wounds? + +"We should therefore rather wonder at the conduct of those who first +indulged themselves in this horrible repast, than at such as have +humanely abstained from it." + + +PORPHYRY, OF TYRE. + +Porphyry, of Tyre, lived about the middle of the third century, and +wrote a book on abstinence from animal food. This book was addressed to +an individual who had once followed the vegetable system, but had +afterward relinquished it. The following is an extract from it: + +"You owned, when you lived among us, that a vegetable diet was +preferable to animal food, both for preserving the health and for +facilitating the study of philosophy; and now, since you have eat flesh, +your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was +true. It was not from those who lived on vegetables that robbers or +murderers, sycophants or tyrants, have proceeded; but from +_flesh-eaters_. The necessaries of life are few and easily acquired, +without violating justice, liberty, health, or peace of mind; whereas +luxury obliges those vulgar souls who take delight in it to covet +riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to misspend their +time, to ruin their health and to renounce the joy of an upright +conscience." + +He takes pains to persuade men of the truth of the two following +propositions: + +1st. "That a conquest over the appetites and passions will greatly +contribute to preserve health and to remove distempers. + +2d. "That a simple vegetable food, being easily procured and easily +digested, is a mighty help toward obtaining this conquest over +ourselves." + +To prove the first proposition, he appeals to experience, and proves +that many of his acquaintance who had disengaged themselves from the +care of amassing riches, and turning their thoughts to spiritual +subjects, had got rid entirely of their bodily distempers. + +In confirmation of the second proposition, he argues in the following +manner: "Give me a man who considers, seriously, what he is, whence he +came, and whither he must go, and from these considerations resolves not +to be led astray nor governed by his passions; and let such a man tell +me whether a rich animal diet is more easily procured or incites less to +irregular passions and appetites than a light vegetable diet! But if +neither he, nor a physician, nor indeed any reasonable man whatsoever, +dares to affirm this, why do we oppress ourselves with animal food, and +why do we not, together with luxury and flesh meat, throw off the +incumbrances and snares which attend them?" + + +LORD BACON. + +Lord Bacon, in his treatise on Life and Death, says, "It seems to be +approved by experience, that a spare and almost a Pythagorean diet, such +as is prescribed by the strictest monastic life, or practiced by +hermits, is most favorable to long life." + + +SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. + +"The patriarchs' abodes were not in cities, but in open countries and +fields. Their lives were pastoral, and employed in some sorts of +agriculture. They were of the same race, to which their marriages were +generally confined. Their diet was simple, as that of the ancients is +generally represented. Among them flesh and wine were seldom used, +except at sacrifices at solemn feasts. + +"The Brachmans, among the old Indians, were all of the same races, lived +in fields and in woods, after the course of their studies was ended, and +fed only upon rice, milk, and herbs. + +"The Brazilians, when first discovered, lived the most natural, original +lives of mankind, so frequently described in ancient countries, before +laws, or property, or arts made entrance among them; and so their +customs may be concluded to have been yet more simple than either of the +other two. They lived without business or labor, further than for their +necessary food, by gathering fruits, herbs, and plants. They knew no +other drink but water; were not tempted to eat or drink beyond common +appetite and thirst; were not troubled with either public or domestic +cares, and knew no pleasures but the most simple and natural. + +"From all these examples and customs, it may probably be concluded that +the common ingredients of health and long life are, great temperance, +open air, easy labor, little care, simplicity of diet--rather fruits and +plants than flesh, which easier corrupts--and water, which preserves the +radical moisture without too much increasing the radical heat. Whereas +sickness, decay, and death proceed commonly from the one preying too +fast upon the other, and at length wholly extinguishing it." + + +CICERO. + +This eminent man sometimes, if not usually, confined himself to +vegetable food. Of this we have evidence, in his complaints about the +refinements of cookery--that they were continually tempting him to +excess, etc. He says, that after having withstood all the temptations +that the noblest lampreys and oysters could throw in his way, he was at +last overpowered by paltry beets and mallows. A victory, by the way, +which, in the case of the eater of plain food, is very often achieved. + + +CYRUS THE GREAT. + +This distinguished warrior was brought up, like the inferior Persians, +on bread, cresses, and water; and, notwithstanding the temptations of a +luxurious and voluptuous court, he rigorously adhered to his simple +diet. Nay, he even carried his simple habits nearly through life with +him; and it was not till he had completely established one of the +largest and most powerful empires of antiquity that he began to yield +to the luxuries of the times. Had he pursued his steady course of +temperance through life, the historian, instead of recording his death +at only seventy, might have told us that he died at a hundred or a +hundred and fifty. + + +PETER GASSENDI. + +Two hundred and twenty years ago, Peter Gassendi, a famous French +philosopher--and by the way, one of the most learned men of his +time--wrote a long epistle to Van Helmont, a Dutch chemist, on the +question whether the teeth of mankind indicate that they are naturally +flesh-eaters. + +In this epistle, too long for insertion here,[18] Gassendi maintains, +with great ingenuity, that the human teeth were not made for flesh. He +does not evade any of the facts in the case, but meets them all fairly +and discusses them freely. And after having gone through with all parts +of the argument, and answered every other conceivable objection, he thus +concludes: + +"And here I feel that it may be objected to me: Why, then, do you not, +yourself, abstain from flesh and feed only on fruits and vegetables? I +must plead the force of habit, for my excuse. In persons of mature age +nature appears to be so wholly changed, that this artificial habit +cannot be renounced without some detriment. But I confess that if I were +wise, and relinquishing the use of flesh, should gradually accustom +myself to the gifts of the kind earth, I have little doubt that I should +enjoy more regular health, and acquire greater activity of mind. For +truly our numerous diseases, and the dullness of our faculties, seem +principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may +say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the +whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. +In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads of +man's nature." + +I know how it strikes many when they find such men as Gassendi, +admitting the doctrines for which I contend, in theory, and even +strenuously defending them, and yet setting them at naught in practice. +Surely, say they, such persons cannot be sincere. For myself, however, I +draw a very different conclusion. Their conduct is perfectly in harmony +with that of the theoretic friends of cold water, plain dress, and +abstemiousness in general. They are compelled to admit the truth; but it +is so much against their habits, as in the case of Gassendi, besides +being still more strongly opposed to their lusts and appetites, that +they cannot, or rather, will not conform to what they believe, in their +daily practice. Their testimony, to me, is the strongest that can be +obtained, because they testify against themselves, and in spite of +themselves. + + +PROF. HITCHCOCK. + +This gentleman, a distinguished professor in Amherst College, is the +author of a work, entitled "Dyspepsia Forestalled and Resisted," which +has been read by many, and execrated by not a few of those who are so +wedded to their lusts as to be unwilling to be told of their errors. + +I am not aware that Professor H. has any where, in his writings, urged a +diet exclusively vegetable, for all classes of the community, although +I believe he does not hesitate to urge it on all students; and one might +almost infer, from his works of various kinds, that if he is not already +a believer in the doctrines of its universal superiority to a mixed +diet, he is not very far from it. In a sermon of his, in the National +Preacher, for November, 1834, he calls a diet exclusively vegetable, a +"proper course of living." + +I propose to add here a few anecdotes of his, which I know not how to +find elsewhere. + +"Pythagoras restricted himself to vegetable food altogether, his dinner +being bread, honey, and water; and he lived upward of eighty years. +Matthew (St. Matthew, I suppose he means), according to Clement, lived +upon vegetable diet. Galen, one of the most distinguished of the ancient +physicians, lived one hundred and forty years, and composed between +seven and eight hundred essays on medical and philosophical subjects; +and he was always, after the age of twenty-eight, extremely sparing in +the quantity of his food. The Cardinal de Salis, Archbishop of Seville, +who lived one hundred and ten years, was invariably sparing in his diet. +One Lawrence, an Englishman, by temperance and labor lived one hundred +and forty years; and one Kentigern, who never tasted spirits or wine, +and slept on the ground and labored hard, died at the age of one hundred +and eighty-five. Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, who died at the age of one +hundred and sixty-nine, was a poor fisherman, as long as he could follow +this pursuit; and ultimately he became a beggar, living on the coarsest +and most sparing diet. Old Parr, who died at the age of one hundred and +fifty-three, was a farmer, of extremely abstemious habits, his diet +being solely milk, cheese, coarse bread, small beer, and whey. At the +age of one hundred and twenty he married a second wife by whom he had a +child. But being taken to court, as a great curiosity, in his one +hundred and fifty-second year, he very soon died--as the physicians +decidedly testified, after dissection, in consequence of a change from a +parsimonious to a plentiful diet. Henry Francisco, of this country, who +lived to about one hundred and forty, was, except for a certain period, +remarkably abstemious, eating but little, and particularly abstaining +almost entirely from animal food; his favorite articles being tea, bread +and butter, and baked apples. Mr. Ephraim Pratt, of Shutesbury, Mass., +who died at the age of one hundred and seventeen years, lived very much +upon milk, and that in small quantity; and his son, Michael Pratt, +attained to the age of one hundred and three, by similar means." + +Speaking, in another place, of a milk diet, Professor H. observes, that +"a diet chiefly of milk produces a most happy serenity, vigor, and +cheerfulness of mind--very different from the gloomy, crabbed, and +irritable temper, and foggy intellect, of the man who devours flesh, +fish, and fowl, with ravenous appetite, and adds puddings, pies, and +cakes to the load." + + +LORD KAIMS. + +Henry Home, otherwise called Lord Kaims, the author of the "Elements of +Criticism," and of "Six Sketches on the History of Man," has, in the +latter work, written eighty years ago, the following statements +respecting the inhabitants of the torrid zone: + +"We have no evidence that either the hunter or shepherd state were ever +known there. The inhabitants at present subsist upon vegetable food, +and probably did so from the beginning." + +In speaking of particular nations or tribes of this zone, he tells us +that "the inhabitants of Biledulgerid and the desert of Sahara, have but +two meals a day--one in the morning and one in the evening;" and "being +temperate," he adds, "and strangers to the diseases of luxury and +idleness, they generally live to a great age."[19] Sixty, with them, is +the prime of life, as thirty is in Europe. "Some of the inland tribes of +Africa," he says, "make but one meal a day, which is in the evening." +And yet "their diet is plain, consisting mostly of rice, fruits, and +roots. An inhabitant of Madagascar will travel two or three days without +any other food than a sugar-cane." So also, he might have added, will +the Arab travel many days, and at almost incredible speed, with nothing +but a little gum-arabic; and the Peruvians and other inhabitants of +South America, with a little parched corn. But I have one more extract +from Lord Kaims: + +"The island of Otaheite is healthy, the people tall and well made; and +by temperance--vegetables and fish being their chief nourishment--they +live to a good old age, with scarcely an ailment. There is no such thing +known among them as rotten teeth; the very smell of wine or spirits is +disagreeable; and they never deal in tobacco or spiceries. In many +places Indian corn is the chief nourishment, which every man plants for +himself." + + +DR. THOMAS DICK. + +Dr. Dick, author of the "Philosophy of Religion," and several other +works deservedly popular, gives this remarkable testimony: + +"To take the life of any sensitive being, and to feed on its flesh, +appears incompatible with a state of innocence, and therefore no such +grant was given to Adam in paradise, nor to the antediluvians. It +appears to have been a grant suited only to the degraded state of man, +after the deluge; and it is probable that, as he advances in the scale +of moral perfection in the future ages of the world, the use of animal +food will be gradually laid aside, and he will return again to the +productions of the vegetable kingdom, as the original food of man--as +that which is best suited to the rank of rational and moral +intelligence. And perhaps it may have an influence, in combination with +other favorable circumstances, in promoting health and longevity." + + +PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH. + +Professor Bush, a writer of some eminence, in his "Notes on Genesis," +while speaking of the permission to man in regard to food, in Genesis i. +29, has the following language: + +"It is not perhaps to be understood, from the use of the word _give_, +that a _permission_ was now granted to man of using that for food which +it would have been unlawful for him to use without that permission; for, +by the very constitution of his being, he was made to be sustained by +that food which was most congenial to his animal economy; and this it +must have been lawful for him to employ, unless self-destruction had +been his duty. The true import of the phrase, therefore, doubtless is, +that God had _appointed_, _constituted_, _ordained_ this, as the staple +article of man's diet. He had formed him with a nature to which a +vegetable aliment was better suited than any other. It cannot perhaps be +inferred from this language that the use of flesh-meat was absolutely +forbidden; but it clearly implies that the fruits of the field were the +diet most adapted to the constitution which the Creator had given." + + +THOMAS SHILLITOE. + +Mr. Shillitoe was a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, at +Tottenham, near London. The first twenty-five years of his life were +spent in feeble health, made worse by high living. This high living was +continued about twenty years longer, when, finding himself fast failing, +he yielded to the advice of a medical friend, and abandoned all drinks +but water, and all food but the plainest kinds, by which means he so +restored his constitution that he lived to be nearly ninety years of +age; and at eighty could walk with ease from Tottenham to London, six +miles, and back again. The following is a brief account of this +distinguished man, when at the age of eighty, and nearly in his own +words: + +It is now nearly thirty years since I ate fish, flesh, or fowl, or took +fermented liquor of any kind whatsoever. I find, from continued +experience, that abstinence is the best medicine. I don't meddle with +fermented liquors of any kind, even as medicine. I find I am capable of +doing better without them than when I was in the daily use of them. + +"One way in which I was favored to experience help in my willingness to +abandon all these things, arose from the effect my abstinence had on my +natural temper. My natural disposition is very irritable. I am persuaded +that ardent spirits and high living have more or less effect in tending +to raise into action those evil propensities which, if given way to, war +against the soul, and render us displeasing to Almighty God." + + +ALEXANDER POPE. + +Pope, the poet, ascribes all the bad passions and diseases of the human +race to their subsisting on the flesh, blood, and miseries of animals. +"Nothing," he says, "can be more shocking and horrid than one of our +kitchens, sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of +creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung +up here and there. It gives one an image of a giant's den in romance, +bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were +slain by his cruelty." + + +SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS. + +Sir Richard Phillips, in his "Million of Facts," says that "the mixed +and fanciful diet of man is considered as the cause of numerous +diseases, from which animals are exempt. Many diseases have abated with +changes of natural diet, and others are virulent in particular +countries, arising from peculiarities. The Hindoos are considered the +freest from disease of any part of the human race. The laborers on the +African coast, who go from tribe to tribe to perform the manual labor, +and whose strength is wonderful, live entirely on plain rice. The Irish, +Swiss, and Gascons, the slaves of Europe, feed also on the simplest +diet; the former chiefly on potatoes." + +He states, also, that the diseases of cattle often afflict those who +subsist on them. "In 1599," he observes, "the Venetian government, to +stop a fatal disease among the people, prohibited the sale of meat, +butter, or cheese, on Pain of death." + + +SIR ISAAC NEWTON. + +This distinguished philosopher and mathematician is said to have +abstained rigorously, at times, from all but purely vegetable food, and +from all drinks but water; and it is also stated that some of his +important labors were performed at these seasons of strict temperance. +While writing his treatise on Optics, it is said he confined himself +entirely to bread, with a little sack and water; and I have no doubt +that his remarkable equanimity of temper, and that government of his +animal appetites, throughout, for which he was so distinguished to the +last hour of his life, were owing, in no small degree, to his habits of +rigid temperance. + + +THE ABBE GALLANI. + +The Abbé Gallani ascribes all social crimes to animal destruction--thus, +treachery to angling and ensnaring, and murder to hunting and shooting. +And he asserts that the man who would kill a sheep, an ox, or any +unsuspecting animal, would, but for the law, kill his neighbor. + + +HOMER. + +Even Homer, three thousand years ago, says Dr. Cheyne, could observe +that the Homolgians--those Pythagoreans, those milk and vegetable +eaters--were the longest lived and the honestest of men. + + +DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. + +Dr. Franklin, in his younger days, often, for some time together, lived +exclusively on a vegetable diet, and that, too, in small quantity. +During his after life he also observed seasons of abstinence from animal +food, or _lents_, as he called them, of considerable length. His food +and drink were, moreover, especially in early life, exceedingly simple; +his meal often consisting of nothing but a biscuit and a slice of bread, +with a bunch of raisins, and perhaps a basin of gruel. Now, Dr. F. +testifies of himself; that he found his progress in science to be in +proportion to that clearness of mind and aptitude of conception which +can only be produced by total abstinence from animal food. He also +derived many other advantages from his abstinence, both physical and +moral. + + +MR. NEWTON. + +This author wrote a work entitled "Defence of Vegetable Regimen." It is +often quoted by Shelley, the poet, and others. I know nothing of the +author or of his works, except through Shelley, who gives us some of his +views, and informs us that seventeen persons, of all ages, consisting of +Mr. Newton's family and the family of Dr. Lambe, who is elsewhere +mentioned in this work, had, at the time he wrote, lived seven years on +a pure vegetable diet, and without the slightest illness. Of the +seventeen, some of them were infants, and one of them was almost dead +with asthma when the experiment was commenced, but was already nearly +cured by it; and of the family of Mr. N., Shelley testifies that they +were "the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to +conceive"--the girls "perfect models for a sculptor"--and their +dispositions "the most gentle and conciliating." + +The following paragraph is extracted from Mr. Newton's "Defence," and +will give us an idea of his sentiments. He was speaking of the fable of +Prometheus: + +"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory +as time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, the +drift of the fable seems to be this: Man, at his creation, was endowed +with the gift of perpetual youth, that is, he was not formed to be a +sickly, suffering creature, as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and +to sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth, without +disease or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food, and of +fire, with which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste. +Jupiter and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these +inventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the +newly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet, ensued; other +drink than water was resorted to, and man forfeited the inestimable gift +of health, which he had received from heaven; he became diseased, the +partaker of a precarious existence, and no longer descended into his +grave slowly." + + +O. S. FOWLER. + +O. S. Fowler, the distinguished phrenologist, in his work on Physiology, +devotes nearly one hundred pages to the discussion of the great diet +question. He endeavors to show that, in every point of view, a flesh +diet--or a diet partaking of flesh, fish, or fowl, in any degree--is +inferior to a well-selected vegetable diet; and, as I think, +successfully. He finally says: + +"I wish my own children had never tasted, and would never taste, a +mouthful of meat. Increased health, efficiency, talents, virtue, and +happiness, would undoubtedly be the result. But for the fact that my +table is set for others than my own wife and children, it would never +be furnished with meat, so strong are my convictions against its +utility." + +I believe that L. N. Fowler, the brother and associate of the former, is +of the same opinion; but my acquaintance with him is very limited. Both +the Fowlers, with Mr. Wells, their associate in book-selling, seem +anxiously engaged in circulating books which involve the discussion of +this great question. + + +REV. MR. JOHNSTON. + +Mr. Johnston, who for some fifteen or twenty years has been an American +missionary in different foreign places--Trebizond, Smyrna, etc.--is, +from conviction, a vegetable eater. The author holds in his possession +several letters from this gentleman, on the subject of health, from +which, but for want of room, he would be glad to make numerous extracts. +He once sent, or caused to be sent, to him, at Trebizond, a barrel of +choice American apples, for which the missionary, amid numerous Eastern +luxuries, was almost starving. Happy would it be for many other American +and British missionaries, if they had the same simple taste and natural +appetite. + + +JOHN H. CHANDLER. + +This young man has been for eight or ten years in the employ of the +Baptist Foreign Missionary Board, and is located at Bangkok, in Siam. +For several years before he left this country he was a vegetable eater, +sometimes subsisting on mere fruit for one or two of his daily meals. +And yet, as a mechanic, his labor was hard--sometimes severe. + +Since he has been in Siam he has continued his reformed habits, as +appears from his letters and from reports. The last letter I had from +him was dated June 10, 1847. The following are extracts from it: + +"I experienced the same trials (that is, from others) on my arrival in +Burmah, in regard to vegetable diet, that I did in the United States. +This I did not expect, and was not prepared for it. Through the blessing +of God we were enabled to endure, and have persevered until now. + +"Myself and wife are more deeply convinced than ever that vegetable diet +is the best adapted to sustain health. I cannot say that we have been +much more free from sickness than our associates; but one thing we can +say--we have been equally well off, and our expenses have been much +less." + +After going on to say how much his family--himself and wife--saved by +their plain living, viz., an average of about one dollar a week, he +makes additional remarks, of which I will only quote the following: + +"My labors, being mostly mechanical, are far more fatiguing than those +of my brethren; and I do not think any of them could endure a greater +amount of labor than I do." + +It deserves to be noticed, in this connection, that Mr. Chandler has +slender muscles, and would by no means be expected to accomplish as much +as many men of greater vigor; and yet we have reason to believe that he +performs as much labor as any man in the service of the board. + + +REV. JESSE CASWELL. + +Mr. Caswell went out to India about thirteen years ago, a dyspeptic, +and yet perhaps somewhat better than while engaged in his studies at +Andover. For several years after his arrival he suffered much from +sickness, like his fellow-laborers. His station was Bangkok. He was an +American missionary, sent out by the American Board, as it is called, of +Boston. + +About six years ago he wrote me for information on the subject of +health. He had read my works, and those of Mr. Graham, and seemed not +only convinced of the general importance of studying the science of +human life, but of the superiority of a well selected vegetable diet, +especially at the East. He was also greatly anxious that missionaries +should be early taught what he had himself learned. The following is one +of his first paragraphs: + +"I feel fully convinced that you are engaged in a work second to few if +any of the great enterprises of the day. If there be any class of men +standing in special need of correct physiological knowledge, that class +consists of missionaries of the cross. What havoc has disease made with +this class, and for the most part, as I feel convinced, because, before +and after leaving their native land, they live so utterly at variance +with the laws of their nature." + +He then proceeds to say, that the American missionaries copy the example +of the English, and that they all eat too much high-seasoned food, and +too much flesh and fish; and argues against the practice by adducing +facts. The following is one of them: + +"My Siamese teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who +live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can +endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way. +* * * The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this +they generally eat _a very little_, with their rice." + +The next year I had another letter from him. He had been sick, but was +better, and thought he had learned a great deal, during his sickness, +about the best means of preserving health. He had now fully adopted what +he chose to call the Graham system, and was rejoicing--he and his wife +and children--in its benefits. He says, "If a voice from an obscure +corner of the earth can do any thing toward encouraging your heart and +staying your hands, that voice you shall have." He suggests the +propriety of my sending him a copy of "Vegetable Diet." "I think," says +he, "it might do great good." He wished to lend it among his friends. + +It must suffice to say, that he continued to write me, once or twice a +year, as long as he lived. He also insisted strongly on the importance +of physiological information among students preparing for the ministry, +and especially for missions. He even wrote once or twice to Rev. Dr. +Anderson, and solicited attention to the subject. But the board would +neither hear to him nor to me, except to speak kind words, for nothing +effective was ever done. They even refused a well-written communication +on the subject, intended for the Missionary Herald. Let me also say, +that as early as March, 1845, he told me that Dr. Bradley, his associate +(now in this country), with his family, were beginning to live on the +vegetable system; and added, that one of the sisters of the mission, who +was no "Grahamite," had told him she thought there was not one third as +much flesh used in all the mission families that there was a year +before. + +Mr. Caswell became exceedingly efficient, over-exerted himself in +completing a vocabulary of the Siamese language, and in other labors, +and died in September last. He was, according to the testimony of Dr. +Bradley, a "_noble man_;" and probably his life and health, and that of +his family, were prolonged many years by his improved habits. But his +early transgressions--like those of thousands--at length found him out. +I allude to his errors in regard to exercise, eating, drinking, +sleeping, taking medicine, etc. + + +MR. SAMUEL CHINN. + +This individual has represented the town of Marblehead, Mass., in the +state legislature, and is a man of respectability. He is now, says the +"Lynn Washingtonian," above forty years of age, a strong, healthy man, +and, to use his own language, "has neither ache nor pain." For the ten +years next preceding our last account from him he had lived on a simple +vegetable diet, condemning to slaughter no flocks or herds that "range +the valley free," but leaving them to their native, joyous hill-sides +and mountains. But Mr. Chinn, not contented with abstinence from animal +food, goes nearly the full length of Dr. Schlemmer and his sect, and +abjures cookery. For four years he subsisted--we believe he does so +now--on nothing but unground wheat and fruit. His breakfast, it is said, +he uniformly makes of fruit; his other two meals of unground wheat; +patronizing neither millers nor cooks. A few years since, being +appointed a delegate to a convention in Worcester, fifty-eight miles +distant, he filled his pocket with wheat, walked there during the day, +attended the convention, and the next day walked home again, with +comparative ease. + + +FATHER SEWALL. + +This venerable man--Jotham Sewall, of Maine, as he styles himself, one +of the fathers of that state--is now about ninety years of age, and yet +is, what he has long been, an active home missionary. He is a man of +giant size and venerable appearance, of a green old age, and remarkably +healthy. He is an early riser, a man of great cheerfulness, and of the +most simple habits. He has abstained from tea and coffee--poisonous +things, as he calls them--forty-seven years. His only drinks are water +and sage tea. These, with bread, milk, and fruits, and perhaps a little +salt, are the only things that enter his stomach. How long he has +abstained from flesh and fish I have not learned, but I believe some +thirty or forty years. + +Such is the appearance of this venerable man, that no one is surprised +to find in him those gigantic powers of mind, and that readiness to give +wise counsel on every important occasion, for which he has so long been +distinguished. It has sometimes seemed to me that no one would doubt the +efficacy of a well-selected vegetable diet to give strength, mental or +bodily, who had known Father Sewall. + + +MAGLIABECCHI, + +An Italian, who died in the beginning of the eighteenth century, abjured +cookery at the age of forty years, and confined himself chiefly to +fruits, grains, and water. He never allowed himself a bed, but slept on +a kind of settee, wrapped in a long morning gown, which served him for +blanket and clothing the year round. + +I would not be understood as encouraging the anti-cookery system of Dr. +Schlemmer and Magliabecchi; but it is interesting to know _what can be +done_. Magliabecchi lived to the age of from eighty to one hundred +years. + + +OBERLIN AND SWARTZ. + +These two distinguished men were essentially vegetable eaters. Of the +habits of Oberlin, the venerable pastor and father of Waldbach, I am not +able to speak, however, with so much certainty as of those of Swartz. +His income, during the early part of his residence in India, was only +forty-eight pounds a year, which, being estimated by its ability to +procure supplies for his necessities, was only equal to about one +hundred dollars. He not only accepted of very narrow quarters, but ate, +drank, and dressed, in the plainest manner. "A dish of rice and +vegetables," says his biographer, "satisfied his appetite for food." + + +THE IRISH. + +Much has been said of the dietetic habits of the Irish, of late years, +especially of their potato. Now, we have abundant facts which go to +prove that good potatoes form a wholesome aliment, equal, if not +superior, to many forms of European and American diet. Yet it cannot be +that a diet consisting wholly of potatoes is as well for the race as one +partaking of greater variety. + +Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and +Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, whom he +visited: + +"He was upward of eighty years when I had last seen him, and he was now +in his ninety-fourth year. He found the old gentleman seated on a kind +of rustic seat, in the garden, by the side of some bee-hives. He was +asleep. On his waking I was astonished to see the little change time had +wrought on him; a little more stoop in his shoulders, a wrinkle more, +perhaps, in his forehead, a more perfect whiteness of his hair, was all +the difference since I had seen him last. Flesh meat in my venerable +friend's house was an article never to be met with. _For sixty years +past he had not tasted it_, nor did he by any means like to see it taken +by others. His food was vegetables, bread, milk, butter, and honey. His +whole life was a series of benevolent actions, and Providence rewarded +him, even here, by a peace of mind which passeth all understanding, by a +judgment vigorous and unclouded, and by a length of days beyond the +common course of men." + +James Haughton, I believe of Dublin--a correspondent of Henry C. Wright, +of Philadelphia, who is himself in theory a vegetable eater--has, for +some time past, rejected flesh, and pursued a simple course of living, +as he says, with great advantage. I have been both amused and instructed +by his letters. + +I have met with several Irish people of intelligence who were vegetable +eaters, but their names are not now recollected. They have not, however, +in any instance, confined themselves to potatoes. One of the most +distinguished of these was a female laborer in the family of a merchant +at Barnstable. She was, from choice, a very rigid vegetable eater; and +yet no person in the whole neighborhood was more efficient as a laborer. +Those who know her, and are in the habit of thinking no person can work +hard without flesh and fish, often express their astonishment that she +should be able to live so simply and yet perform so much labor. + + +JOHN BAILIES. + +John Bailies, of England, who reached the great age of one hundred and +twenty-eight, is said to have been a strict vegetarian. His food, for +the most part, consisted of brown bread and cheese; and his drink of +water and milk. He had survived the whole town of Northampton (as he was +wont to say), where he resided, three or four times over; and it was his +custom to say that they were all killed by tea and coffee. Flesh meat at +that time had not come into suspicion, otherwise he would doubtless have +attributed part of the evil to this agency. + + +FRANCIS HUPAZOLI. + +This gentleman was a Sardinian ecclesiastic, at the first; afterward a +merchant at Scio; and finally Venetian consul at Smyrna. Much has been +said of Lewis Cornaro, who, having broken down his constitution at the +age of forty, renewed it by his temperance, and lasted unto nearly the +age of a century. His story is interesting and instructive; but little +more so than that of Hupazoli. + +His habits were all remarkable for simplicity and truth, except one. He +was greatly licentious; and his licentiousness, at the age of +eighty-five, had nearly carried him off. Yet such was the mildness of +his temper, and so correct was he in regard to exercise, rest, rising, +eating, drinking, etc., that he lived on, to the great age of one +hundred and fifteen years, and then died, not of old age, but of +disease. + +Hupazoli did not entirely abstain from flesh; and yet he used very +little, and that was wild game. His living was chiefly on fruits. +Indeed, he ate but little at any time; and his supper was particularly +light. His drink was water. He never took any medicine in his whole +life, not even tobacco; nor was he so much as ever bled. In fact, till +late in life, he was never sick. + + +MARY CAROLINE HINCKLEY. + +This young woman, a resident of Hallowell, in Maine, and somewhat +distinguished as a poet, is, from her own conviction and choice both, a +vegetable eater. Her story, which I had from her friends, is +substantially as follows: + +When about eleven years of age she suddenly changed her habits of +eating, and steadfastly refused, at the table, all kinds of food which +partook of flesh and fish. The family were alarmed, and afraid she was +ill. When they made inquiry concerning it, she hesitated to assign the +reasons for her conduct; but, on being pressed closely, she confessed +that she abstained for conscience' sake; that she had become fully +convinced, from reading and reflection, that she ought not to eat animal +food. + +It was in vain that the family and neighbors remonstrated with her, and +endeavored, in various ways, to induce her to vary from her purpose. She +continued to use no fowl, flesh, or fish; and in this habit she +continues, as I believe, to this day, a period of some twelve or fifteen +years. + + +JOHN WHITCOMB. + +John Whitcomb, of Swansey, N. H., at the age of one hundred and four was +in possession of sound mind and memory, and had a fresh countenance; and +so good was his health, that he rose and bathed himself in cold water +even in mid-winter. His wounds, moreover, would heal like those of a +child. And yet this man, for eighty years, refused to drink any thing +but water; and for thirty years, at the close of life, confined himself +chiefly to bread and milk as his diet. + + +CAPT. ROSS, OF THE BRITISH NAVY. + +It is sometimes said that animal food is indispensably necessary in the +polar regions. We have seen, however, in the testimony of Professor +Sweetser, that this view of the case is hardly correct. But we have +positive testimony on this subject from Capt. Ross himself. + +This navigator, with his company, spent the winter of 1830-31 above 70° +of north latitude, without beds, clothing (that is, extra clothing), or +animal food, and with no evidence of any suffering from the mere disuse +of flesh and fish. + + +HENRY FRANCISCO. + +This individual, who died at Whitehall, N. Y., in the year 1820, at the +age of one hundred and twenty-five years, was, during the latter part of +his life, quite a Grahamite, as the moderns would call him. His favorite +articles of food were tea, bread and butter, and baked apples; and he +was even abstemious in the use of these. + + +PROFESSOR FERGUSON. + +Professor Adam Ferguson, an individual not unknown in the literary +world, was, till he was fifty years of age, regarded as quite healthy. +Brought up in fashionable society, he was very often invited to +fashionable dinners and parties, at which he ate heartily and drank +wine--sometimes several bottles. Indeed, he habitually ate and drank +freely; and, as he had by nature a very strong constitution, he thought +nothing which he ate or drank injured him. + +Things went on in this manner, as I have already intimated, till he was +fifty years of age. One day, about this time, having made a long +journey in the cold, he returned very much fatigued, and in this +condition went to dine with a party, where he ate and drank in his usual +manner. Soon after dinner, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, +followed by palsy; but by bleeding, and other energetic measures, he was +partially restored. + +He was now, by the direction of his physician, put upon what was called +a low diet. It consisted of vegetable food and milk. For nearly forty +years he tasted no meat, drank nothing but water and a little weak tea, +and took no suppers. If he ventured, at any time, upon more stimulating +food or drink, he soon had a full pulse, and hot, restless nights. His +bowels, however, seemed to be much affected by the fit of palsy; and not +being inclined, so far as I can learn, to the use of fruit and coarse +bread, he was sometimes compelled to use laxatives. + +When he was about seventy years of age, however, all his paralytic +symptoms had disappeared; and his health was so excellent, for a person +of his years, as to excite universal admiration. This continued till he +was nearly ninety. His mind, up to this time, was almost as entire as in +his younger days; none of his bodily functions, except his sight, were +much impaired. So perfect, indeed, was the condition of his physical +frame, that nobody, who had not known his history, would have suspected +he had ever been apoplectic or paralytic. + +When about ninety years of age, his health began slightly to decline. A +little before his death, he began to take a little meat. This, however, +did not save him--nature being fairly worn out. On the contrary, it +probably hastened his dissolution. His bowels became irregular, his +pulse increased, and he fell into a bilious fever, of which he died at +the great age of ninety-three. + +Probably there are, on record, few cases of longevity more instructive +than this. Besides showing the evil tendency of living at the expense of +life, it also shows, in a most striking manner, the effects of simple +and unstimulating food and drink, even in old age; and the danger of +recurring to the use of that which is more stimulating in very advanced +life. In this last respect, it confirms the experience of Cornaro, who +was made sick by attempting, in his old age, and at the solicitation of +kind friends, to return to the use of a more stimulating diet; and of +Parr, who was destroyed in the same way, after having attained to more +than a hundred and fifty years. + +But the fact that living at the expense of life, cuts down, here and +there, in the prime of life, or even at the age of fifty, a few +individuals, though this of itself is no trivial evil, is not all. Half +of what we call the infirmities of old age--and thus charge them upon +Him who made the human frame _subject_ to age--have their origin in the +same source; I mean in this living too fast, and exhausting prematurely +the vital powers. When will the sons of men learn wisdom in this matter? +Never, I fear, till they are taught, as commonly as they now are reading +and writing, the principles of physiology. + + +HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. + +Although individual cases of abstinence from animal food prove but +little, yet they prove something in the case of a man so remarkable as +John Howard. If he, with a constitution not very strong, and in the +midst of the greatest fatigues of body and mind, could best sustain +himself on a bread and water, or bread and tea diet, who is there that +would not be well sustained on vegetable food? And yet it is certain +that Howard was a vegetable eater for many years of the latter part of +his life; and that had he not exposed himself in a remarkable manner, +there is no known reason why he might not have lasted with a +constitution no better than his was, to a hundred years of age. + + +GEN. ELLIOTT. + +The following extract exhibits in few words, the dietetic history of +that brave and wise commander, General George Augustus Elliott, of the +British army: + +"During the whole of his active life, Gen. Elliott had inured himself to +the most rigid habits of order and watchfulness; seldom sleeping more +than four hours a day, and never eating any thing but vegetable food, or +drinking any thing but water. During eight of the most anxious days of +the memorable siege of Gibraltar, he confined himself to four ounces of +rice a day. He was universally regarded as one of the most abstemious +men of his age. + +"And yet his abstemiousness did not diminish his vigor; for, at the +above-mentioned siege of Gibraltar, when he was sixty-six years of age, +he had nearly all the activity and fire of his youth. Nor did he die of +any wasting disease, such as full feeders are wont to say men bring upon +them by their abstinence. On the contrary, owing to a hereditary +tendency, perhaps, of his family, he died at the age of seventy-three, +of apoplexy." + + +ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA. + +The following testimony is from the Encyclopedia. I do not suppose the +writer was the friend of a diet exclusively vegetable; but his testimony +is therefore the more interesting. His only serious mistake is in regard +to the tendency of vegetable food to form weak fibres. + +"Sometimes a particular kind of food is called wholesome, because it +produces a beneficial effect of a particular character on the system of +an individual. In this case, however, it is to be considered as a +medicine; and can be called wholesome only for those whose systems are +in the same condition. + +"Aliments abounding in fat are unwholesome, because fat resists the +operation of the gastric juice. + +"The addition of too much spice makes many an innocent aliment +injurious, because spices resist the action of the digestive organs, and +produce an irritation of particular parts of the system. + +"The kind of aliment influences the health, and even the character of +man. He is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable +aliment; but can live exclusively on either. + +"Experience proves that animal food most readily augments the solid +parts of the blood, the fibrine, and therefore the strength of the +muscular system; but disposes the body, at the same time, to +inflammatory, putrid, and scorbutic diseases; and the character to +violence and coarseness. On the contrary, vegetable food renders the +blood lighter and more liquid, but forms weak fibres, disposes the +system to the diseases which spring from feebleness, and tends to +produce a gentle character. + +"Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use +of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is +indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of +some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, +cheese, and butter, are vigorous people. + +"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal +aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The +latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when +their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes +in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on +vegetable food." + + +MR. THOMAS BELL, OF LONDON. + +Mr. Thomas Bell, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal +College of Surgeons in London, Lecturer on the Anatomy and Diseases of +the Teeth, at Guy's Hospital, and Surgeon Dentist to that institution, +in his physiological observations on the natural food of man, deduced +from the character of the teeth, says, "The opinion which I venture to +give, has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me +sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say, that every +fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was +originally formed a frugiverous (fruit-eating) animal, and therefore, +probably, tropical or nearly so, with regard to his geographical +situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his +teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin +and general structure of his limbs." + +LINNÆUS, THE NATURALIST. + +Linnæus, in speaking of fruits and esculent vegetables, says--"This +species of food is that which is most suitable to man, as is evinced by +the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands." + + +SHELLEY, THE POET. + +The following are the views of that eccentric, though in many respects +sensible writer, Shelley, as presented in a note to his work, called +Queen Mab. I have somewhat abridged them, not solely to escape part of +his monstrous religious sentiments, but for other reasons. I have +endeavored, however, to preserve, undisturbed, his opinions and +reasonings, which I hope will make a deep and abiding impression: + +"The depravity of the physical and moral nature of man, originated in +his unnatural habits of life. The language spoken by the mythology of +nearly all religions seems to prove that, at some distant period, man +forsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of +his being to unnatural appetites. Milton makes Raphael thus exhibit to +Adam the consequence of his disobedience: + + '----Immediately, a place + Before his eyes appeared; and, noisome, dark, + A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid + Numbers of all diseased; all maladies + Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms + Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, + Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, + Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, + Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, + And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, + Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, + Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.' + +"The fable of Prometheus, too, is explained in a manner somewhat +similar. Before the time of Prometheus, according to Hesiod, mankind +were exempt from suffering; they enjoyed a vigorous youth; and death, +when at length it came, approached like sleep, and gently closed the +eyes. Prometheus (who represents the human race) effected some great +change in the condition of his nature, and applied fire to culinary +purposes. From this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of +disease. It consumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and +infinite variety, inducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and +violent death. All vice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence. + +"Man, and the animals which he has infected with his society, or +depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the bison, +and the wolf are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die, +either from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic hog, +the sheep, the cow, and the dog are subject to an incredible number of +distempers, and, like the corrupters of their nature, have physicians, +who thrive upon their miseries. + +"The supereminence of man is like Satan's supereminence of pain,--and +the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, and crime, have +reason to curse the untoward event, that, by enabling him to communicate +his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow animals. But +the steps that have been taken are irrevocable. + +"The whole of human science is comprised in one question: How can the +advantages of intellect and civilization be reconciled with the liberty +and pure pleasures of natural life? How can we take the benefits and +reject the evils of the system, which is now interwoven with our being? +I believe that _abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors +would, in a great measure, capacitate us for the solution of this +important question_. + +"It is true, that mental and bodily derangement is attributable in part +to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern +diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the +sexes, whence the misery and diseases of celibacy, unenjoying +prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty, necessarily spring; +the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the exhalations of chemical +processes: the muffling of our bodies in superfluous apparel; the absurd +treatment of infants; all these, and innumerable other causes, +contribute their mite to the mass of human evil. + +"Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugiverous animals +in every thing, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws +wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the +living fibre. A mandarin of the first class, with nails two inches long, +would probably find them, alone, inefficient to hold even a hare. It is +only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparations +that it is rendered susceptible of mastication and digestion, and that +the sight of its bloody juices does not excite intolerable loathing, +horror, and disgust. Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a +decisive experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a +living lamb with his teeth, and, plunging his head into its vitals, +slake his thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of +horror, let him revert to the irresistible instincts of nature that +would rise in judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such +work as this. Then, and then only, would he be consistent. + +"Young children evidently prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and other +fruit, to the flesh of animals, until, by the gradual depravation of the +digestive organs, the free use of vegetables has, for a time, produced +serious inconveniences. _For a time_, I say, since there never was an +instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food to +vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate the body, +by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to restore to the +mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not one in fifty possesses +on the present system. A love of strong liquor is also with difficulty +taught to infants. Almost every one remembers the wry faces which the +first glass of port produced. Unsophisticated instinct is invariably +unerring; but to decide on the fitness of animal food from the perverted +appetites which its constrained adoption produces, is to make the +criminal a judge in his own cause; it is even worse--it is appealing to +the infatuated drunkard in a question of the salubrity of brandy. + +"Except in children, however, there remain no traces of that instinct +which determines, in all other animals, what aliment is natural or +otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning adults +of our species, that it has become necessary to urge considerations +drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are naturally +frugiverous. + +"Crime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of disease +shall be discovered, the root, from which all vice and misery have so +long overshadowed the globe, will be bare to the axe. All the exertions +of man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear +profit of his species. No sane mind, in a sane body, resolves upon a +crime. It is a man of violent passions, blood-shot eyes, and swollen +veins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder. The system of a simple +diet is not a reform of legislation, while the furious passions and evil +propensities of the human heart, in which it had its origin, are +unassuaged. It strikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment +which may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small +societies, families, and even individuals. In no case has a return to a +vegetable diet produced the slightest injury; in most it has been +attended with changes undeniably beneficial. + +"Should ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, he might +trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural habits, as +clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to sensation. What +prolific sources of disease are not those mineral and vegetable poisons, +that have been introduced for its extirpation! How many thousands have +become murderers and robbers, bigots and domestic tyrants, dissolute and +abandoned adventurers, from the use of fermented liquors, who, had they +slaked their thirst only with pure water, would have lived but to +diffuse the happiness of their own unperverted feelings! How many +groundless opinions and absurd institutions have not received a general +sanction from the sottishness and intemperance of individuals! + +"Who will assert that, had the populace of Paris satisfied their hunger +at the ever-furnished table of vegetable nature, they would have lent +their brutal suffrage to the proscription-list of Robespierre? Could a +set of men, whose passions were not perverted by unnatural stimuli, +look with coolness on an _auto da fe_? Is it to be believed that a being +of gentle feelings, rising from his meal of roots, would take delight in +sports of blood? + +"Was Nero a man of temperate life? Could you read calm health in his +cheek, flushed with ungovernable propensities of hatred for the human +race? Did Muley Ismail's pulse beat evenly? was his skin transparent? +did his eyes beam with healthfulness, and its invariable concomitants, +cheerfulness and benignity? + +"Though history has decided none of these questions, a child could not +hesitate to answer in the negative. Surely the bile-suffused cheek of +Bonaparte, his wrinkled brow, and yellow eye, the ceaseless inquietude +of his nervous system, speak no less plainly the character of his +unresting ambition than his murders and his victories. It is impossible, +had Bonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders, that he could +have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the +Bourbons. + +"The desire of tyranny could scarcely be excited in the individual; the +power to tyrannize would certainly not be delegated by a society neither +frenzied by inebriation nor rendered impotent and irrational by disease. +Pregnant, indeed, with inexhaustible calamity is the renunciation of +instinct, as it concerns our physical nature. Arithmetic cannot +enumerate, nor reason perhaps suspect, the multitudinous sources of +disease in civilized life. Even common water, that apparently innoxious +_pabulum_, when corrupted by the filth of populous cities, is a deadly +and insidious destroyer. + +"There is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet +and pure water has not infallibly mitigated, wherever the experiment +has been fairly tried. Debility is gradually converted into strength, +disease into healthfulness; madness, in all its hideous variety, from +the ravings of the fettered maniac, to the unaccountable irrationalities +of ill-temper, that make a hell of domestic life, into a calm and +considerate evenness of temper, that alone might offer a certain pledge +of the future moral reformation of society. + +"On a natural system of diet, old age would be our last and our only +malady; the term of our existence would be protracted; we should enjoy +life, and no longer preclude others from the enjoyment of it; all +sensational delights would be infinitely more exquisite and perfect; the +very sense of being would then be a continued pleasure, such as we now +feel it in some few and favored moments of our youth. + +"By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those +who love happiness and truth, to give a fair trial to the vegetable +system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject whose merits an +experience of six months should set forever at rest. + +"But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a +sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its +ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier by +the short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments, by +medicine, than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are +invariably sensual and indocile; yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded, +that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved--when +it is as clear, that those who live naturally are exempt from premature +death, as that nine is not one, the most sottish of mankind will feel a +preference toward a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and +painful life. + +"On the average, out of sixty persons, four die in three years. Hopes +are entertained, that in April, 1814,[20] a statement will be given that +sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on vegetables and +pure water, are then in _perfect health_. More than two years have now +elapsed; _not one of them has died_; no such example will be found in +any sixty persons taken at random. + +"When these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by +all who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence +from aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal. + +"In proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of +evidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on +vegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old +age, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented +liquors as slow but certain poisons. + +"The change which would be produced by simple habits on political +economy, is sufficiently remarkable. The monopolizing eater of animal +flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by devouring an acre at a +meal, and many loaves of bread would cease to contribute to gout, +madness, and apoplexy, in the shape of a pint of porter, or a dram of +gin, when appeasing the long-protracted famine of the hard-working +peasant's hungry babes. + +"The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the +carcass of an ox, would afford ten times the sustenance, undepraving +indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if gathered immediately +from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile districts of the habitable +globe are now actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and +waste of aliment absolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the +wealthy that can, to any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural +craving for dead flesh, and they pay for the greater license of the +privilege, by subjection to supernumerary diseases. + +"Again--the spirit of the nation that should take the lead in this great +reform would insensibly become agricultural; commerce, with its vices, +selfishness, and corruption, would gradually decline; more natural +habits would produce gentler manners, and the excessive complication of +political relations would be so far simplified that every individual +might feel and understand why he loved his country, and took a personal +interest in its welfare. + +"On a natural system of diet, we should require no spices from India; no +wines from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those +multitudinous articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is +rifled, and which are the cause of so much individual rivalship, and +such calamitous and sanguinary national disputes. + +"Let it ever be remembered, that it is the direct influence of excess of +commerce to make the interval between the rich and the poor wider and +more unconquerable. Let it be remembered, that it is a foe to every +thing of real worth and excellence in the human character. The odious +and disgusting aristocracy of wealth, is built upon the ruins of all +that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner +of a barbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it impossible to realize a +state of society, where all the energies of man shall be directed to the +production of his solid happiness? + +"None must be intrusted with power (and money is the completest species +of power), who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the +general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors, +directly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant +cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to +starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping curtailers of +population, pasturage would include a waste too great to be afforded. +The labor requisite to support a family is far lighter than is usually +supposed. The peasantry work, not only for themselves, but for the +aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers. + +"The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any +other. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of +legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are +produced, is to suppose that by taking away the effect, the cause will +cease to operate. + +"But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on the proselytism of +individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit to the community, upon +the total change of the dietetic habits in its members. It proceeds +securely from a number of particular cases to one that is universal, and +has this advantage over the contrary mode, that one error does not +invalidate all that has gone before. + +"Let not too much, however, be expected from this system. The +healthiest among us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most +symmetrical, athletic, and long-lived is a being inexpressibly inferior +to what he would have been had not the unnatural habits of his ancestors +accumulated for him a certain portion of malady and deformity. In the +most perfect specimen of civilized man, something is still found wanting +by the physiological critic. Can a return to nature, then, +instantaneously eradicate predispositions that have been slowly taking +root in the silence of innumerable ages? Indubitably not. All that I +contend for is, that from the moment of relinquishing all unnatural +habits, no new disease is generated; and that the predisposition to +hereditary maladies gradually perishes for want of its accustomed +supply. In cases of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, +such is the invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water. + +"Those who may be induced by these remarks to give the vegetable system +a fair trial, should, in the first place, date the commencement of their +practice from the moment of their conviction. All depends upon breaking +through a pernicious habit resolutely and at once. Dr. Trotter asserts, +that no drunkard was ever reformed by gradually relinquishing his dram. +Animal flesh, in its effects on the human stomach, is analogous to a +dram; it is similar to the kind, though differing in the degree of its +operation. The proselyte to a pure diet must be warned to expect a +temporary diminution of muscular strength. The subtraction of a powerful +stimulus will suffice to account for this event. But it is only +temporary, and is succeeded by an equable capability for exertion, far +surpassing his former various and fluctuating strength. + +"Above all, he will acquire an easiness of breathing, by which such +exertion is performed, with a remarkable exemption from that painful and +difficult panting now felt by almost every one, after hastily climbing +an ordinary mountain. He will be equally capable of bodily exertion or +mental application, after, as before his simple meal. He will feel none +of the narcotic effects of ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct +consequence of exhausting stimuli, would yield to the power of natural +and tranquil impulses. He will no longer pine under the lethargy of +_ennui_, that unconquerable weariness of life, more to be dreaded than +death itself. + +"He will no longer be incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying +those organs from which he expects his gratification. The pleasures of +taste to be derived from a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, +lettuce, with a dessert of apples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, +raspberries, and in winter, oranges, apples, and pears, is far greater +than is supposed. Those who wait until they can eat this plain fare with +the sauce of appetite, will scarcely join with the hypocritical +sensualist at a lord mayor's feast, who declaims against the pleasures +of the table." + + +REV. EZEKIEL RICH. + +This gentleman, once a teacher in Troy, N. H., now nearly seventy years +of age, is a giant, both intellectually and physically, like Father +Sewall, of Maine. The following is his testimony--speaking of what he +calls his system: + +"Such a system of living was formed by myself, irrespective of Graham or +Alcott, or any other modern dietetic philosophers and reformers, +although I agree with them in many things. It allows but little use of +flesh, condiments, concentrated articles, complex cooking, or hot and +stimulating drinks. On the other hand, it requires great use of milk, +the different bread stuffs, fruits, esculent roots and pulse, all well, +simply, and neatly cooked." + + +REV. JOHN WESLEY. + +The habits of this distinguished individual, though often adverted to, +are yet not sufficiently known. For the last half of his long life +(eighty-eight years) he was a thorough going vegetarian. He also +testifies that for three or four successive years he lived entirely on +potatoes; and during that whole time he never relaxed his arduous +ministerial labors, nor ever enjoyed better health. + + +LAMARTINE. + +Lamartine was educated a vegetarian of the strictest sort--an education +which certainly did not prevent his possessing as fine a physical frame +as can be found in the French republic. Of his mental and moral +characteristics it is needless that I should speak. True it is that +Lamartine ate flesh and fish at one period of his life; but we have the +authority of Douglas Jerrold's London Journal for assuring our readers +that he is again a vegetarian. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Some, however, represent the great apostle to have been a rigid +vegetable eater. On this point I have no settled opinion. + +[18] It may be found at full length at page 233 of the 6th volume of the +Library of Health. + +[19] Instances, he says, are not rare (but this I doubt), of two hundred +children born to a man by his different wives, in some parts of the +interior of Africa. + +[20] A date but little later than that of the work whence this article +is extracted. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM. + + The Pythagoreans.--The Essenes.--The Bramins.--Society of Bible + Christians.--Orphan Asylum of Albany.--The Mexican + Indians.--School in Germany.--American Physiological Society. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +The following chapter did not come within the scope of my plan, as it +was originally formed. But in prosecuting the labors of preparing a +volume on vegetable diet, it has more and more seemed to me desirable to +add a short account of some of the communities and associations of men, +both of ancient and modern times, who, amid a surrounding horde of +flesh-eaters, have withstood the power of temptation, and proved, in +some measure, true to their own nature, and the first impulses of mercy, +humanity, and charity. I shall not, of course, attempt to describe all +the sects and societies of the kind to which I refer, but only a few of +those which seem to me most important. + +One word may be necessary in explanation of the term communities. I mean +by it, smaller communities, or associations. There have been, and still +are, many whole nations which might be called vegetable-eating +communities; but of such it is not my purpose to speak at present. + + +THE PYTHAGOREANS. + +Pythagoras appears to have flourished about 550 years before Christ. He +was, probably, a native of the island of Samos; but a part of his +education, which was extensive and thorough, was received in Egypt. He +taught a new philosophy; and, according to some, endeavored to enforce +it by laying claim to supernatural powers. But, be this as it may have +been, he was certainly a man of extraordinary qualities and powers, as +well as of great and commanding influence. In an age of great luxury and +licentiousness, he taught, both by example and precept, the most rigid +doctrines of sobriety, temperance, and purity. He abstained from all +animal food, and limited himself entirely to vegetables; of which he +usually preferred bread and honey. Nor did he allow the free use of +every kind of vegetable; for beans, and I believe every species of +pulse, were omitted. Water was his only drink. He lived, it is said, to +the age of eighty; and even then did not perish from disease or old age, +but from starvation in a place where he had sought a retreat from the +fury of his enemies. + +His disciples are said to have been exceedingly numerous, in almost all +quarters of the then known world, especially in Greece and Italy. It is +impossible, however, to form any conjecture of their numbers. The +largest school or association of his rigid followers is supposed to have +been at the city of Crotona, in South Italy. Their number was six +hundred. They followed all his dietetic and philosophical rules with the +utmost strictness. The association appears to have been, for a time, +exceedingly flourishing. It was a society of philosophers, rather than +of common citizens. They held their property in one common stock, for +the benefit of the whole. The object of the association was chiefly to +aid each other in promoting intellectual cultivation. Pythagoras did +not teach abstinence from all hurtful food and drink, and an exclusive +use of that which was the _best_, for the sole purpose of making men +better, or more healthy, or longer-lived _animals_; he had a higher and +nobler purpose. It was to make them better rationals, more truly noble +and god-like--worthy the name of rational men, and of the relation in +which they stood to their common Father. And yet, after all, his +doctrines appear to have been mingled with much bigotry and +superstition. + + +THE ESSENES. + +The following account of this singular sect of the ancient Jews is +abridged from an article in the Annals of Education, for July, 1836. The +number of this vegetable-eating sect is not known, though, according to +Philo, there were four thousand of them in the single province of Judea. + +"Pliny, says that the Essenes of Judea fed on the fruit of the +palm-tree. But, however this may have been, it is agreed, on all hands, +that, like the ancient Pythagoreans, they lived exclusively on vegetable +food, and that they were abstinent in regard to the quantity even of +this. They would not kill a living creature, even for sacrifices. It is +also understood that they treated diseases of every kind--though it does +not appear that they were subject to many--with roots and herbs. +Josephus says they were long-lived, and that many of them lived over a +hundred years. This he attributes to their 'regular course of life,' and +especially to 'the simplicity of their diet.'" + + +THE BRAMINS. + +The Bramins, or Brahmins, are, as is probably well known, the first of +the four _castes_ among the Hindoos. They are the priests of the people, +and are remarkable, in their way, for their sanctity. Of their number I +am not at present apprised, but it must be very great. But, however +great it may be, they are vegetable eaters of the strictest sect. They +are not even allowed to eat eggs; and I believe milk and its products +are also forbidden them; but of this I am not quite certain. Besides +adhering to the strictest rules of temperance, they are also required to +observe frequent fasts of the most severe kind, and to practice regular +and daily, and sometimes thrice daily ablutions. They subsist much on +green herbs, roots, and fruits; and at some periods of their ministry, +they live much in the open air. And yet those of them who are true +Bramins--who live up to the dignity of their profession--are among the +most healthy, vigorous, and long-lived of their race. The accounts of +their longevity may, in some instances, be exaggerated; but it is +certain that, other things being equal, they do not in this respect fall +behind any other caste of their countrymen. + + +SOCIETY OF BIBLE CHRISTIANS. + +This society has existed in Great Britain nearly half a century. They +abstain from flesh, fish, and fowl--in short, from every thing that has +animal life--and from all alcoholic liquors. Of their number in the +kingdom I am not well informed. In Manchester they have three churches +that have regular preachers; and frequent meetings have been held for +discussing the diet question within a few years, some of which have +been well attended, and all of which have been interesting. Among those +who have adopted "the pledge" at their meetings, are some of the most +distinguished men in the kingdom, and a few of the members of +parliament. Through these and other instrumentalities, the question is +fairly up in England, and will not cease to be discussed till fairly +settled. + +A branch or colony from the parent society, under the pastoral care of +Rev. Wm. Metcalfe, consisting of only eight members, came in 1817 and +established itself in Philadelphia. They were incorporated as a society +in 1830. In 1846 the number of their church members was about seventy, +besides thirty who adhered to their abstemious habits, but were not in +full communion. During the thirty years ending in 1846, twelve of their +number died--four children and eight adults. The average age of the +latter was fifty-seven years. Of the seventy now belonging to the +society, nineteen are between forty and eighty years of age; and forty, +in all, over twenty-five. Of the whole number, twelve have abstained +from animal food thirty-seven years, seven from twenty to thirty years, +and fifty-one never tasted animal food or drank intoxicating drinks. + +And yet they are all--if we except Mr. Metcalfe, their minister--of the +laboring class, and hard laborers, too. Their strength and power of +endurance is fully equal to their neighbors in similar circumstances, +and in several instances considerably superior. Mr. Fowler, the +phrenologist, testifies, concerning one of them, that he is regarded as +the strongest man in Philadelphia. I have long had acquaintance with +this sect, through Mr. M., of Philadelphia, and Mr. Simpson, one of +their leading men in England, and have not a doubt of the truth of what +has been publicly stated concerning them. They are a modest people, and +make few pretensions; and yet they are a very meritorious people. + +One thing very much to their advantage, as it shows the health-giving, +health-preserving tendency of their practice and principles, remains to +be related. When the yellow fever prevailed in Philadelphia, in 1818 and +1819, the infection seemed specially rife in the immediate vicinity of +the Bible Christians. So, also, in 1832, with the cholera. And yet none +of them fled. There they remained during the whole period of suffering, +and afforded their sick neighbors all the relief in their power. Their +minister, in particular, was unwearied in his efforts to do good. Yet +not one of their little number ever sickened or died of either yellow +fever or cholera. + +Till within a few years, they have been governed solely by regard to +religious principle, having known little of Physiology or any other +science bearing on health. Of late, however, they have turned their +attention to the subject, and have among them a respectable +Physiological society, which holds its regular meetings, and is said to +be flourishing. + +From one of their publications, entitled "Vegetable Cookery," I have +extracted the following very brief summary of their views concerning the +use of animals for sustenance. + +"The Society of Bible Christians abstain from animal food, not only in +obedience to the Divine command, but because it is an observance, which, +if more generally adopted, would prevent much cruelty, luxury, and +disease, besides many other evils which cause misery in society. It +would be productive of much good, by promoting health, long life, and +happiness, and thus be a most effectual means of reforming mankind. It +would entirely abolish that greatest of curses, _war_; for those who are +so conscientious as not to kill animals, will never murder human beings. +On all these accounts the system cannot be too much recommended. The +practice of abstaining cannot be wrong; it must therefore be some +consolation to be on the side of duty. If we err, we err on the sure +side; it is innocent; it is infinitely better authorized and more nearly +associated with religion, virtue, and humanity, than the contrary +practice--and we have the sanction of the wisest and the best of men--of +the whole Christian world, for several hundred years after the +commencement of the Christian era." + + +ORPHAN ASYLUM OF ALBANY. + +I class this as a community, because it is properly so, and because I +cannot conveniently class it otherwise. The facts which are to be +related are too valuable to be lost. They were first published, I +believe, in the Northampton Courier; and subsequently in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal, and in the Moral Reformer. In the present +case, the account is greatly abridged. + +The Orphan Asylum of Albany was established about the close of the year +1829, or the beginning of the year 1830. Shortly after its +establishment, it contained seventy children, and subsequently many +more. The average number, from its commencement to August 1836, was +eighty. + +For the first three years, the diet of the inmates consisted of fine +bread, rice, Indian puddings, potatoes, and other vegetables and fruits, +with milk; to which was added flesh or flesh-soup once a day. +Considerable attention was also paid to bathing and cleanliness, and to +clothing, air, and exercise. Bathing, however, was performed in a +perfect manner, only once in three weeks. As many of them were received +in poor health, not a few continued sickly. + +In the fall of 1833, the diet and regimen of the inmates were materially +changed. Daily ablution of the whole body, in the use of the cold shower +or sponge bath--or, in cases of special disease, the tepid bath was one +of the first steps taken; then the fine bread was laid aside for that +made of unbolted wheat meal; and soon after flesh and flesh-soups were +wholly banished; and thus they continued to advance, till, in about +three months more, they had come fully upon the vegetable system, and +had adopted reformed habits in regard to sleeping, air, clothing, +exercise, etc. On this course, then, they continued to August, 1836, +and, for aught I know, to the present time. The results were as follows: + +During the first three years, or while the old system was followed, from +four to six children were continually on the sick list, and sometimes +more; and one or two assistant nurses were necessary. A physician was +needed once, twice, or three times a week, uniformly; and deaths were +frequent. During this whole period there were between thirty and forty +deaths. + +After the new system was fairly adopted, the nursery was soon entirely +vacated, and the services of the nurse and physician no longer needed; +and for more than two years no case of sickness or death took place. In +the succeeding twelve months there were three deaths, but they were new +inmates, and were diseased when they were received; and two of them were +idiots. The Report of the Managers says, "Under this system of +dietetics (though the change ought not to be wholly attributed to the +diet) the health of the children has not only been preserved, but those +who came to the asylum weakly, have become healthy and strong, and +greatly increased in activity, cheerfulness, and happiness." The +superintendents also state, that "since the new regimen has been fully +adopted, there has been a remarkable increase of health, strength, +activity, vivacity, cheerfulness, and contentment among the children. +Indeed, they appear to be, uniformly, perfectly healthy and happy; and +the strength and activity they exhibit are truly surprising. The change +of temper is very great. They have become less turbulent, irritable, +peevish, and discontented; and far more manageable, gentle, peaceable, +and kind to each other." One of them further observes, "There has been a +great increase in their mental activity and power; the quickness and +acumen of their perception, the vigor of their apprehension, and the +power of their retention daily astonish me." + +Such an account hardly needs comment; and I leave it to make its own +impression on the candid and unbiassed mind and heart of the reader. + + +THE MEXICAN INDIANS. + +The Indian tribes of Mexico, according to the traveler Humboldt, live on +vegetable food. A spot of ground, which, if cultivated with wheat, as in +Europe, would sustain only ten persons, and which by its produce, if +converted into pork or beef, would little more than support one, will in +Mexico, when used for banana, sustain equally well two hundred and +fifty. + +The reader will do well to take the above fact, and the estimates +appended to it, along with him when he comes to examine what I have +called the economical argument of the great diet question, in our last +chapter, under the head, "The Moral Argument." We shall do well to +remember another suggestion of Humboldt, that the habit of eating +animals diminishes our natural horror of cannibalism. + + +SCHOOL IN GERMANY. + +There is, in the Annals of Education for August, 1836, an account of a +school in which the same simple system which was pursued in the Orphan +Asylum at Albany was adopted, and with the same happy results. I say the +_same_ system; I believe plain meat was allowed occasionally, but it was +seldom. Their food was exceedingly simple, consisting chiefly of bread +and other vegetables, fruits and milk. Great attention was also paid to +daily cold bathing. The following is the teacher's statement in regard +to the results: + +"I am at present the foster father of nearly seventy young people, who +were born in all the varieties of climate from Lisbon to Moscow, and +whose early education was necessarily very different. These young men +are all healthy; not a single eruption is visible on their faces; and +three years often pass, during which not a single one of them is +confined to his bed; and in the twenty-one years that I have been +engaged in this institution, not one pupil has died. Yet, I am no +physician. During the first ten years of my residence here, no physician +entered my house; and, not till the number of my pupils was very much +increased, and I grew anxious not to overlook any thing in regard to +them, did I begin to seek at all for medical advice. + +"It is the mode of treating the young men here, which is the cause of +their superior health; and this is the reason why death has not yet +entered our doors. Should we ever deviate from our present +principles--should we approach nearer the mode of living common in +wealthy families--we should soon be obliged to establish, in our +institution, as it is in others, medicine closets and nurseries. Instead +of the freshness which now adorns the cheeks of our youth, paleness +would appear, and our church-yards would contain the tombs of promising +young men, who, in the bloom of their years, had fallen victims to +disease." + + +THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. + +This association was formed in 1837. When first formed, it consisted of +one hundred and twenty-four males, and forty-one females; in all, one +hundred and sixty-five. Their number soon increased to more than two +hundred. + +Most of these individuals were more or less feeble, and a very large +proportion of them were actually suffering from chronic disease when +they became members of the society. Not a few joined it, indeed, as a +last resort, after having tried every thing else, as drowning men are +said to catch at straws. + +Nearly if not quite all the members of this society, as well as most of +their families, abstained for a time from animal food. Some of them even +adopted the vegetable system a year or so earlier. And there were a few +who adopted it much sooner--one or two of them eight years earlier. + +Of the individuals belonging to the Physiological Society or to their +families, and adhering to the same principles, two adults only died, +and one child, during the first two years. I will not be quite positive, +but there were four in all, two adults, and two children; but this was +the extent of mortality among them for about fifteen months. + +The whole number of those who belonged to the society, with those +members of their families who adhered to their principles (estimating +families, as is usually done, at five members to each), is believed to +have been from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty. The +average mortality for the same number of healthy persons, during the +same period, in Boston and the adjacent places, was about six or seven; +though in some places it was much greater. In a single parish in +Roxbury--and without any remarkable sickness--the mortality, for the +same number of persons, was equal to ten or twelve. + +Now, we must not forget, what I have already stated, that this society +of vegetable-eaters--the two hundred adults, I mean--were generally +invalids, and some of them given over by physicians. Instead, therefore, +of only half the usual proportion of deaths among them, we might +naturally enough have expected twice or three times the usual number. +And this expectation would have appeared still better founded when it +was considered that many made the change in their habits, and especially +in their diet, very suddenly. + +But the whole story is not yet told. Not only was the number of deaths +very small, as above stated, but there were a great number of remarkable +recoveries. Some, who had very obstinate complaints, appeared, for a +time, to be entirely well. Others were getting well as fast as could be +expected. Some, who were broken down and prematurely old, seemed to +renew their youth. Many became free from colds and eruptive complaints, +to which they were formerly subject. And those who had acute diseases, +of whom, however, the number was very small, did not suffer so much as +is usually the case with flesh-eaters in circumstances otherwise +apparently similar. + +But a reverse at length came. They were led into their abstemious course +by mere impulse in very many cases, and though a library was formed and +meetings held, nobody, hardly, would read, and the meetings grew thin. +They had no Joe Smith or Gen. Taylor to lead them--and mankind without +leaders and without deep-toned principle, soon grow tired of war. Few +will fight in such circumstances. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED. + + General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument--1. The + Anatomical Argument.--2. The Physiological Argument.--3. The + Medical Argument.--4. The Political Argument.--5. The + Economical Argument.--6. The Argument from Experience.--7. The + Moral Argument.--Conclusion. + + +In the progress of a work like this, it may not be amiss to present, in +a very brief manner, the general arguments in defence of a diet +exclusively vegetable. Some of them have, indeed, already been adverted +to in the testimony of the preceding chapters; but not all. Besides, it +seemed to me desirable to collect the whole in a general view. + +There are various ways of doing this, according to the different aspects +in which the subject is viewed. Every one has his own point of +observation. I have mine. Conformably to the view I have taken, +therefore, I shall endeavor to arrange my remarks under the nine +following heads, viz., the ANATOMICAL, the PHYSIOLOGICAL, the MEDICAL, +the POLITICAL, the ECONOMICAL, the EXPERIMENTAL, the MORAL, the +MILLENNIAL, and the BIBLE ARGUMENTS. + +Dr. Cheyne relied principally on what I have called the medical +argument--though what I mean by this may not be quite obvious, till I +shall have presented it in its proper place. Not that he wholly +overlooked any thing else; but this, as it seems to me, was with him the +grand point. Nearly the same might be said of Dr. Lambe, and of several +others. + +Dr. Mussey seems to place the anatomical and physiological arguments in +the foreground. It is true he makes much use of the medical and the +moral arguments; but the former appear to be his favorites. Dr. Whitlaw, +and some others, incline to make the moral and political arguments more +prominent. Mr. Graham, who has probably done more to reduce the subject +of vegetable dietetics to a _system_ than any other individual,--though +he makes much use of _all_ the rest, especially the moral and +medical,--appears to dwell with most interest on the physiological +argument. This seems to be, with him, the strong-hold--the grand +citadel. And it must be confessed that the point of defence is very +strong indeed, as we shall see in the sequel. + +If I have a favorite, with the rest, it is the moral argument, or +perhaps a combination of this with the economical. But then I dwell on +the latter with so much interest, chiefly on account of the former. I +would give very little to be able to bring the world of mankind back to +nature's true simplicity, if it were only to make them better and more +perfect animals; though I know not but an attempt of this sort would be +as truly laudable as the attempt so often made to improve the breed of +our domestic animals. I suppose man, considered as a mere animal, is +superior, in point of importance to all the others. But, after all, I +would reform his dietetic habits principally to make him better, +morally; to make him better, in the discharge of his varied duties to +his fellow-beings and to God. I would elevate him, that he may become as +truly god-like, or godly as he now too often is, by his unnatural +habits, earthly or beastly. I would render him a rational being, fitted +to fill the space which he appears to have been originally designed to +fill--the gap in the great chain of being between the higher quadrupeds +and the beings we are accustomed to regard as angelic. I would restore +him to his true dignity. I would make him a child of God, and an _heir_ +of a glorious immortality. + +But I now proceed to the discussion of the subject which I have assigned +to this chapter. + + +I. THE ANATOMICAL ARGUMENT. + +There has been a time when the teeth and intestines of man were supposed +to indicate the necessity of a mixed diet--a diet partly animal and +partly vegetable. Four out of thirty-two teeth were found to resemble +slightly, the teeth of carnivorous animals. In like manner, the length +of the intestinal tube was thought to be midway between that of the +flesh-eating, and that of the herb-eating quadrupeds. But, unfortunately +for this mode of defending an animal diet, it has been found out that +the fruit and vegetable-eating monkey race, and the herb-eating camel, +have the said four-pointed teeth much more pointed than those of man and +that the intestines, compared with the real length of the body, instead +of assigning to man a middle position, would place him among the +herbivorous animals. In short--for I certainly need not dwell on this +part of my subject, after having adduced so fully the views of Prof. +Lawrence and Baron Cuvier--there is no intelligent naturalist or +comparative anatomist, at present, who attempts to resort for one moment +to man's structure, in support of the hypothesis that he is a +flesh-eater. None, so far as I know, will affirm, or at least with any +show of reason maintain, that anatomy, so far as that goes, is in favor +of flesh eating. We come, then, to another and more important division +of our subject. + + +II. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. + +One of the advantages of vegetable-eaters over others, is in the +superior appetite which they enjoy. There are many flesh-eaters who have +what they call a good appetite. But I never knew a person of this +description, who made the change from a mixed diet to one purely +vegetable, who did not afterward acknowledge that he never once knew, +while he was an eater of animal food, a truly perfect appetite. This +testimony in favor of vegetable diet is positive; whereas that of the +multitude, who have never made the change I speak of, but who are +therefore the more ready to laugh at the conclusions, is merely +negative. + +A person of perfect appetite can eat at all times, and under all +circumstances. He can eat of one thing or another, and in greater or +less quantity. Were there no objections to it, he could make an entire +meal of the coarsest and most indigestible substances; or, he could eat +ten or fifteen times a day; or, he could eat a quantity at once which +would astonish even a Siberian; or, on the contrary, he could abstain +from food entirely, for a short time; and any of these without serious +inconvenience. He would, indeed, feel a slight want of something (in the +case of total abstinence), when the usual hour arrived for taking a +meal; but the sensation is not an abiding one; when the hour has passed +by, it entirely disappears. Nor is there ever, at least for a day or two +of abstinence, that gnawing at the stomach, as some express it, which is +so often felt by the flesh-eater and the devourer of other mixed and +injurious dishes and which is so generally mistaken for true and +genuine hunger. + +I have said that the vegetable-eater finds no serious inconvenience from +the quality or quantity of his food; but I mean to speak here of the +_immediate_ effects solely. No doubt every error of this sort produces +mischief, sooner or later. The more perfect the appetite is, the greater +should be our moral power of commanding it, and of controlling the +quality and quantity of our food and drink, as well as the times and +seasons of receiving it. + +These statements, I am aware, are contrary to the received and current +opinion; but that they are true, can be proved, not by one person +merely,--though if that person were to be entirely relied on, his +positive affirmation would outweigh a thousand _negative_ +testimonies,--but by many hundreds. It is more generally supposed that +he who confines himself to a simple diet, soon brings his stomach into +such a state that the slightest departure from his usual habits for once +only, produces serious inconveniences; and this indeed is urged as an +argument against simplicity itself. Yet, how strange! How much more +natural to suppose that the more perfect the health of the stomach, the +better it will bear, for a time, with slight or even serious departures +from truth and nature! How much more natural to suppose that perfect +health is the very best defence against all the causes which tend to +invite or to provoke disease! And what it would be natural to infer, is +proved by experience to be strictly true. The thorough-going +vegetable-eater can make a meal for once, or perhaps feed for a day or +so, on substances which would almost kill many others; and can do so +with comparative impunity. He can make a whole meal of cheese, cabbage, +fried pudding, fried dough-nuts, etc., etc.; and if it be not in +remarkable excess, he will feel no immediate inconvenience, unless from +the mental conviction that he must pay the full penalty at some distant +day. + +I repeat it, the appetite of the vegetable-eater, if true to his +principles, and temperate in regard to quantity, is always, at all +moments of his life, perfect. To be sure, he is not always _hungry_. +Hunger, indeed, as I have already intimated--what most people call +hunger, a morbid sensation, or gnawing--is unknown to him. But there is +scarce a moment of his life, at least, when he is awake, in which he +could not enjoy the pleasures of eating, even the coarsest viands, with +a high relish; provided, however, he knew it was _proper_ for him to +eat. Nor is his appetite fickle, demanding this or that particular +article, and disconcerted if it cannot be obtained. It is satisfied with +any thing to which the judgment directs; and though gratified, in a high +degree, with dainties, when nothing better and more wholesome cannot be +obtained, never demanding them in a peremptory manner. + +The vegetable-eater has a more quiet, happy, and perfect digestion than +the flesh-eater. On this point there has been much mistake, even among +physiologists. Richerand and many others suppose that a degree of +constitutional disturbance is indispensable during the process of +digestion; and some have even said that the system was subjected at +every meal--nay, at every healthy meal--to a species of miniature fever. +The remarks of Richerand are as follows. I have slightly abridged them, +but have not altered the sense: + +"While the alimentary solution is going on, a slight shivering is felt; +the pulse becomes quicker and more contracted; the vital power seems to +forsake the other organs, to concentrate itself on that which is the +seat of the digestive process. As the stomach empties itself, the +shivering is followed by a gentle warmth; the pulse increases in +fullness and frequency; and the insensible perspiration is augmented. +Digestion brings on, therefore, a general action, analogous to a febrile +paroxysm." + +And what is it, indeed, _but_ a febrile paroxysm? Nay, Richerand himself +confirms this by adding, "this fever of digestion, noticed already by +the ancients, is particularly observable in women of great sensibility." +That is, the fever is more violent in proportion to the want of power in +the person it attacks to resist its influence; just as it is with fever +in all other circumstances, or when induced by any other causes. + +But, can any one believe the Author of Nature has so made us, that in a +steady and rational obedience to his laws, it is indispensable that we +should be thrown into a fever three times a day, one thousand and +ninety-five times in a year, and seventy-six thousand six hundred and +fifty in seventy years? No wonder, if this were true, that the vitality +of our organs was ordained to wear out soon; for we see by what means +the result would be accomplished. + +The fever, however, of which Richerand speaks, does very generally +exist, because mankind very generally depart from nature and her laws. +But it is not necessary. The simple vegetable-eater--if he lives right +in all other respects--if he errs not as to quantity, knows nothing of +it; nor should it be known by any body. We should leave it to the +animals below man to err, in quantity and quality, to an excess which +constitutes a surfeit or a fever, and causes fullness and drowsiness, +and a recumbent posture. The self-styled lord of the animal world should +rise superior to habits which have marked, in every age, certain orders +of the lower animals. + +But the chyle which is produced from vegetable aliment is better--all +other things being equal--than that which is produced from any other +food. For proof of this, we need but the testimony of Oliver and other +physiologists. They tell us, unhesitatingly, that under the same +circumstances, chyle which is formed from vegetables will be preserved +from putrefaction many days longer--the consequence of greater purity +and a more perfect vitality--than that which is formed from any +admixture of animal food. Is it not, then, better for the purposes of +health and longevity? Can it, indeed, be otherwise? I will say nothing +at present, for want of space to devote to it, of the indications which +are afforded by the other sensible properties of the chyle which is +produced from vegetables. The single fact I have presented is enough on +that point. + +The best solids and fluids are produced by vegetable eating. On this +single topic a volume might be written, without exhausting it, while I +must confine myself to a page or two. + +In the first place, it forms better bones and more solid muscles, and +consequently gives to the frame greater solidity and strength. Compare, +in evidence of the truth of this statement, the vegetable-eating +millions of middle and southern Europe, with the other millions, who, +supposed to be more fortunate, can get a little flesh or fish once a +day. Especially, make this comparison in Ireland, where the vegetable +food selected is far from being of the first or best order; and whose +sight is so obtuse as not to perceive the difference? I do not say, +compare the enervated inhabitant of a hot climate, as Spain or Italy, +with the inhabitant of England, or Scotland, or Russia, for that would +be an unfair comparison, wholly so; but compare Italian with Italian, +Frenchman with Frenchman, German with German, Scotchman with Scotchman, +and Hibernian with Hibernian. + +In like manner, compare the millions of Japanese of the interior, who +subsist through life chiefly on rice, with the few millions of the +coasts who eat a little fish with their rice. Make a similar comparison +in China and in Hindostan. Notice, in particular, the puny Chinese, who +live in southern China, on quite a large proportion of shell-fish, +compared with the Chinese of the interior. Extend your observations to +Hindostan. Do not talk of the effeminate habits and weak constitutions +of the rice and curry eaters there--bad as the admixture of rice and +curry may be--for that is to compare the Hindoo with other nations; but +compare Hindoo with Hindoo, which is the only fair way. Compare the +porters of the Mediterranean, both of Asia and Europe, who feed on bread +and figs, and carry weights to the extent of eight hundred or one +thousand pounds, with the porters who eat flesh, fish, and oil. Compare +African with African, American Indian with American Indian; nay, even +New Englander with New Englander; for we have a few here who are trained +to vegetable eating. In short, go where you will, and institute a fair +comparison, and the results will be, without a single exception, in +favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. It is necessary, however, in +making the comparison, to place _good_ vegetable food in opposition to +good animal food; for no one will pretend that a diet of crude, +miserable, or imperfect, or sickly vegetables will be as wholesome as +one consisting of rich farinaceous articles and fruits; nor even as many +kinds of plain meat. + +The only instance which, on a proper comparison, will probably be +adduced to prove the incorrectness of these views, will be that of a few +tribes of American Indians, who, though they have extremely robust +bodies, are eaters of much flesh. But they live also in the open air, +and have many other good habits, and are healthy in spite of the +inferiority of their diet. But perfect, physically, as they seem to be, +and probably are, examine the vegetable-eaters among them, of the same +tribe, and they will be found still more so. + +In the next place, the fluids are all in a better and more healthy +state. In proof of this, I might mention in the first place that +superior agility, ease of motion, speed, and power of endurance which so +distinguish vegetable-eaters, wherever a fair comparison is instituted. +They possess a suppleness like that of youth, even long after what is +called the juvenile period of life is passed over. They are often seen +running and jumping, unless restrained by the arbitrary customs of +society, in very advanced age. Their wounds heal with astonishing +rapidity in as many days as weeks, or even months, in the latter case. +All this could not happen, were there not a good state of the fluids of +the system conjoined, to a happy state of the solids. + +The vegetable-eater, if temperate in the use of his vegetables, and if +all his other habits are good, will endure, better than the flesh-eater, +the extremes of heat and cold. This power of endurance has ever been +allowed to be a sure sign of a good state of health. The most vigorous +man, as it is well known, will endure best both extremes of temperature. +But it is a proof also of the greater purity of his solids and fluids. + +The secretions and excretions of his body are in a better state; and +this, again, proves that his blood and other fluids are healthy. He does +not so readily perspire excessively as other men, neither is there any +want of free and easy perspiration. Profuse sweating on every trifling +exertion of the body or mind, is as much a disease as an habitually dry +skin. But the vegetable-eater escapes both of these extremes. The +saliva, the tears, the milk, the gastric juice, the bile, and the other +secretions and excretions--particularly the dejections--are as they +should be. Nay, the very exhalations of the lungs are purer, as is +obvious from the breath. That of a vegetable-eater is perfectly sweet, +while that of a flesh-eater is often as offensive as the smell of a +charnel-house. This distinction is discernible even among the brute +animals. Those which feed on grass, grain, etc., have a breath +incomparably sweeter than those which prey on animals. Compare the +camel, and horse, and cow, and sheep, and rabbit, with the tiger (if you +choose to approach him), the wolf, the dog, the cat, and the hawk. One +comparison will be sufficient; you will never forget it. But there is as +much difference between the odor of the breath of a flesh-eating human +being and a vegetable-eater, as between those of the dog and the lamb. +This, however, is a secret to all but vegetable-eaters themselves, since +none but they are so situated as to be able to make the comparison. But, +betake yourself to mealy vegetables and fruits a few years, and live +temperately on them, and then you will perceive the difference, +especially in riding in a stage-coach. This, I confess, is rather a +draw-back upon the felicity of vegetable-eaters; but it is some +consolation to know what a mass of corruption we ourselves have escaped. + +There is one more secretion to which I wish to direct your attention, +which is, the fat or oil. The man who lives rightly, and rejects animal +food among the rest, will never be overburdened with fat. He will +neither be too corpulent nor too lean. Both these conditions are +conditions of disease, though, as a general rule, corpulence is most to +be dreaded; it is, at least, the most disgusting. Fat, I repeat it, is a +secretion. The cells in which it is deposited serve for relieving the +system of many of the crudities and abuses, not to say poisons, which +are poured into it--cheated; as it were, in some degree into the blood, +secreted into the fat cells, and buried in the fat to be out of the way, +and where they can do but little mischief. Yet, even here they are not +wholly harmless. The fat man is almost always more exposed to disease, +and to _severe_ epidemic disease in particular, than the lean man. Let +us leave it to the swine and other kindred quadrupeds, to dispose of +gross half poisonous matter, by converting it into, or burying it in +fat; let us employ our vital forces and energies in something better. +Above all, let us not descend to swallow, as many have been inclined to +do, besides the ancient Israelites, this gross secretion, and reduce +ourselves to the painful necessity of carrying about, from day to day, a +huge mass of double-refined disease, pillaged from the foulest and +filthiest of animals. + +Vegetable-eaters--especially if they avoid condiments, as well as flesh +and fish--are not apt to be thirsty. It is a common opinion among the +laboring portion of the community, that they who perspire freely, must +drink freely. And yet I have known one or two hard laborers who were +accustomed to sweat profusely and freely, who hardly ever drank any +thing, except a little tea or milk at their meals, and yet were +remarkably strong and healthy, and attained to a great age. One of this +description (Frederick Lord, of Hartford, Conn.), lived to about the age +of eighty-five. How the system is supplied, in such cases, with fluid, I +do not know; but I know it is not necessary to drink perpetually for the +purpose; for if but one healthy man can dispense with drinking, others +may. The truth is, we seldom drink from real thirst. We drink chiefly +either from habit, or because we have created a morbid or diseased +thirst by improper food or drink, among which animal food is pretty +conspicuous. + +I have intimated that, in order to escape thirst, the vegetable-eater +must abstain also from condiments. This he will be apt to do. It is he +who eats flesh and fish, and drinks something besides water, who feels +such an imperious necessity for condiments. The vegetable and milk +eater, and water-drinker, do not need them. + +It is in this view, that the vegetable system lies at the foundation of +all reform in the matter of temperance. So long as the use of animal +food is undisturbed and its lawfulness unquestioned, all our efforts to +heal the maladies of society are superficial. The wound is not yet +probed to the bottom. But, renounce animal food, restore us to our +proper condition, and feed us on milk and farinaceous articles, and our +fondness for excitement and our hankering for exciting drinks and +condiments will, in a few generations, die away. Animal food is a root +of all evil, so far as temperance is concerned, in its most popular and +restricted sense. + +The pure vegetable-eaters, especially those who are trained as such, +seldom drink at all. Some use a little water with their meals, and a few +drink occasionally between them, especially if they labor much in the +open air, and perspire freely. Some taste nothing in the form of drink +for months, unless we call the abundant juices of apples and other +fruits, and milk, etc., by that name--of which, by the way, they are +exceedingly fond. The reason is, they are seldom thirsty. Dr. Lambe, of +London, doubts whether man is naturally a drinking animal; but I do not +carry the matter so far. Still I believe that ninety-nine hundredths of +the drink which is used, _as_ now used, does more harm than good. + +He who avoids flesh and fish, escapes much of that languor and +faintness, at particular hours, which others feel. He has usually a +clear and quiet head in the morning. He is ready, and willing, and glad +to rise in due season; and his morning feelings are apt to last all day. +He has none of that faintness between his meals which many have, and +which tempts thousands to luncheons, drams, tobacco, snuff, and opium, +and ultimately destroys so much health and life. The truth is, that +vegetable food is not only more quiet and unstimulating than any other, +but it holds out longer also. I know the contrary of this is the general +belief; but it is not well founded. Animal food stimulates most, and as +the stimulus goes off soon, we are liable to feel dull after it, and to +fancy we need the stimulus of drink or something else to keep us up till +the arrival of another meal. And, having acquired a habit of relying on +our food to stimulate us immediately, much more than to give us real, +lasting, permanent strength, it is no wonder we feel, for a time, a +faintness if we discontinue its use. This only shows the power of habit, +and the over-stimulating character of our accustomed food. Nor does the +simple vegetable-eater suffer, during the spring, as other people say +they do. All is cheerful and happy with him, even then. Nor, lastly, is +he subject to hypochondria or depression of spirits. He is always lively +and cheerful; and all with him is bright and happy. As it has been +expressed elsewhere, with the truly temperate man it is "morning all +day." + +The system of diet in question, greatly improves, exalts, and perfects +the senses. The sight, smell, and taste are rendered greatly superior by +it. The difference in favor of the hearing and the touch may not be so +obvious; nevertheless, it is believed to be considerable. But the change +in the other senses--the first three which I have named--even when we +reform as late as at thirty-five or forty, is wonderful. I do not wish +to encourage, by this, a delay of the work of reformation; we can never +begin it too early. + +Vegetable diet favors beauty of form and feature. The forms of the +natives of some of the South Sea Islands, to say nothing of their +features, are exceedingly fine. They are tall and well proportioned. So +it is with the Japanese and Chinese, especially of the interior, where +they subsist almost wholly on rice and fruits. The Japanese are the +finest men, physically speaking, in Asia. The New Hollanders, on the +contrary, who live almost wholly on flesh and fish, are among the most +meagre and ugly of the human race, if we except the flesh-eating savages +of the north, and the Greenlanders and Laplanders. In short, the +principle I have here advanced will hold, as a _general rule_, I +believe, other things being equal, throughout the world. If it be asked +whether I would exalt beauty and symmetry into virtues, I will only say +that they are not without their use in a virtuous people; and I look +forward to a period in the world's history, when all will be +comparatively well formed and beautiful. Beauty is exceedingly +influential, as every one must have observed who has been long in the +world; at least, if he has had his eyes open. And it is probably right +that it should be so. Our beauty is almost as much within our control, +as a race, as our conduct. + +A vegetable diet, moreover, promotes and preserves a clearness and a +generally healthful state of the mental faculties. I believe that much +of the moral as well as intellectual error in the world, arises from a +state of mind which is produced by the introduction of improper liquids +and solids into the stomach, or, at least, by their application to the +nervous system. Be this as it may, however, there is nothing better for +the brain than a temperate diet of well-selected vegetables, with water +for drink. This Sir Isaac Newton and hundreds of others could abundantly +attest. + +It also favors an evenness and tranquillity of temper, which is of +almost infinite value. The most fiery and vindictive have been enabled, +by this means, when all other means had failed, to transform themselves +into rational beings, and to become, in this very respect, patterns to +those around them. If this were its only advantage, in a physiological +point of view, it would be of more value than worlds. It favors, too, +simplicity of character. It makes us, in the language of the Bible, to +remain, or to become, as little children, and it preserves our juvenile +character and habits through life, and gives us a green old age. + +Finally and lastly, it gives us an independence of external things and +circumstances, that can never be attained without it. In vain may we +resort to early discipline and correct education--in vain to moral and +religious training--in vain, I had almost said, to the promises and +threatenings of heaven itself, so long as we continue the use of food so +unnatural to man as the flesh of animals, with the condiments and +sauces, and improper drinks which follow in its train. Our hope, under +God, is, in no small degree, on a radical change in man's dietetic +habits--in a return to that simple path of truth and nature, from which, +in most civilized countries, those who have the pecuniary means of doing +it have unwisely departed. + + +III. THE MEDICAL ARGUMENT. + +If perfect health is the best preventive and security against disease, +and if a well-selected and properly administered vegetable diet is best +calculated to promote and preserve that perfect health, then this part +of the subject--what I have ventured to call the medical argument--is at +once disposed of. The superiority of the diet I recommend is established +beyond the possibility of debate. Now that this is the case--namely, +that this diet is best calculated to promote perfect health--I have no +doubt. For the sake of others, however, it may be well to adduce a few +facts, and present a few brief considerations. + +It is now pretty generally known, that Howard, the philanthropist, was, +for about forty years a vegetable-eater, subsisting for much of this +time on bread and tea, and that he went through every form of exposure +to disease, contagious and non-contagious, perfectly unharmed. And had +it not been for other physical errors than those which pertain to diet, +I know of no reason why his life might not have been preserved many +years longer--perhaps to this time. + +Rev. Josiah Brewer, late a missionary in Smyrna, was very much exposed +to disease, and, like Mr. Howard, to the plague itself; and yet I am not +aware that he ever had a single sick day as the consequence of his +exposure. I do not know with certainty that he abstains entirely from +flesh meat, but he is said to be rigidly temperate in other respects. + +Those who have read Rush's Inquiries and other writings, are aware that +he was very much exposed to the yellow fever in Philadelphia, during the +years in which it prevailed there. Now, there is great reason for +believing that he owed his exemption from the disease, in part, at +least, to his great temperance. + +Mr. James, a teacher in Liberia, in Africa, had abstained for a few +years from animal food, prior to his going out to Africa. Immediately +after his arrival there, and during the sickly season, one of his +companions who went out with him, died of the fever. Mr. James was +attacked slightly, but recovered. + +Another vegetable-eater--the Rev. Mr. Crocker--went out to a sickly part +of Africa some years since, and remained at his station a long time in +perfect health, while many of his friends sickened or died. At length, +however, he fell. + +Gen. Thomas Sheldon, of this state, a vegetable-eater, spent several +years in the most sickly parts of the Southern United States, with an +entire immunity from disease; and he gives it as his opinion that it is +no matter where we are, so that our dietetic and other habits are +correct. + +Mr. G. McElroy, of Kentucky, spent several months of the most sickly +season in the most unhealthy parts of Africa, in the year 1835, and yet +enjoyed the best of health the whole time. While there and on his +passage home, he abstained wholly from animal food, living on rice and +other farinaceous vegetables and fruits. + +In view of these facts and many others, Mr. Graham remarks: "Under a +proper regimen our enterprising young men of New England may go to New +Orleans or Liberia, or any where else they choose, and stay as long as +they choose, and yet enjoy good health." And there is no doubt he is +right. + +But it is hardly worth while to cite single facts in proof of a point of +this kind. There is abundant testimony to be had, going to show that a +vegetable diet is a security against disease, especially against +epidemics, whether in the form of a mere influenza or malignant fever. +Nay, there is reason to believe that a person living according to _all_ +the Creator's laws, physical and moral, could hardly receive or +communicate disease of any kind. How could a person in perfect health, +and obeying to an iota all the laws of health--how could he contract +disease? What would there be in his system which could furnish a nidus +for its reception? + +I am well aware that not a few people suppose the most healthy are as +much exposed to disease as others, and that there are some who even +suppose they are much more so. "Death delights in a shining mark," or +something to this effect, is a maxim which has probably had its origin +in the error to which I have adverted. To the same source may be traced +the strange opinion that a fatal or malignant disease makes its first +and most desperate attacks upon the healthy and the robust. The fact +is--and this explains the whole riddle--those who are regarded, by the +superficial and short-sighted in this matter, as the most healthy and +robust, are usually persons whose unhealthy habits have already sown the +seeds of disease; and nothing is wanting but the usual circumstances of +epidemics to rouse them into action. More than all this, these +strong-looking but inwardly-diseased persons are almost sure to die +whenever disease does attack them, simply on account of the previous +abuses of their constitutions. + +During the prevalence of the cholera in New York, about the year 1832, +all the Grahamites, as they were called, who had for some time abstained +from animal food--and their number was quite respectable--and who +persevered in it, either wholly escaped the disease, or had it very +lightly; and this, too, notwithstanding a large proportion of them were +very much exposed to its attacks, living in the parts of the city where +it most prevailed, or in families where others were dying almost daily. +This could not be the result of mere accident; it is morally impossible. + +But flesh-eaters--admitting the flesh were wholesome--are not only much +more liable to contract disease, but if they contract it, to suffer more +severely than others. There is yet another important consideration which +belongs to the medical argument. Animal food is much more liable than +vegetable food, to those changes or conditions which we call poisonous, +and which are always, in a greater or less degree, the sources of +disease; it is also more liable to poisonous mixtures or adulterations. + +It is true, that in the present state of the arts, and of agriculture +and civic life generally, vegetables themselves are sometimes the +sources of disease. I refer not to the spurred rye and other substances, +which occasionally find their way into our fields and get mixed with our +grains, etc., and which are known to be very active poisons,--so much as +to the acrid or otherwise improper juices which are formed by forced +vegetation, especially about cities, whether by means of hot-beds, +green-houses, or new, strong, or highly-concentrated manures. I refer +also to the crude, unripe, and imperfect fruits and other things with +which our markets are filed now-a-days; and especially to _decaying_ +fruits and vegetables. But I cannot enlarge; a volume would be too +little to do this part of the subject justice. Nothing is more wanted +than light on this subject, and a consequent reform in our fashionable +agriculture and horticulture. + +And yet, although I admit, most cheerfully, the danger we are in of +contracting disease by using diseased vegetables, the danger is neither +so frequent nor so imminent, in proportion to the quantity of it +consumed, as from animal food. Let us briefly take a view of the facts. + +Milk, in its nature, approaches nearest to the line of the vegetable +kingdom, and is therefore, in my view, the least objectionable form of +animal food. I am even ready to admit that for persons affected with +certain forms of chronic disease, and for all children, milk is +excellent. And yet, excellent as it is, it is very liable to be +injurious. We are told, by the most respectable medical men of France, +that all the cows about Paris have tubercles (the seeds or beginning of +consumption) in their lungs which is probably owing to the unnatural +state in which they are kept, as regards the kind, and quantity, and +hours of receiving their food; and especially as regards air, exercise, +and water. Cows cannot be healthy, nor any other domestic animals, any +more than men, when long subjected to the unnatural and unhealthy +influences of bad air, want of exercise, etc. Hence, then, most of our +cows about our towns and cities must be diseased, in a greater or less +degree--if not with consumption, with something else. And of course +their milk must be diseased--not, perhaps, as much as their blood and +flesh, but more or less so. But if milk is diseased, the butter and +cheese made from it must be diseased also. + +But milk is sometimes diseased through the vegetables which are eaten by +the cow. Every one knows how readily the sensible properties of certain +acrid plants are perceived in the milk. Hence as I have elsewhere +intimated, we are doubly exposed to danger from eating animal food; +first, from the diseases of the animal itself, and secondly, from the +diseases which are liable to be induced upon us by the vegetables they +use, some of which are not poisonous to them, but are so to us. So that, +in avoiding animal food, we escape at least a part of the danger. + +Besides the general fact, that almost all medical and dietetic writers +object to fat, and to butter among the rest, as difficult of digestion +and tending to cutaneous and other diseases,--and besides the general +admission in society at large that it makes the skin "break out,"--it +must be obvious that it is liable to retain, in a greater or less +degree, all the poisonous properties which existed in the milk from +which it was made. Next to fat pork, butter seems to me one of the worst +things that ever entered a human stomach; and if it will not, like pork, +quite cause the leprosy, it will cause almost every other skin disease +which is known. + +Cheese is often poisoned now-a-days by design. I do not mean to say that +the act of poisoning is accompanied by malice toward mankind; far from +it. It is added to color it, as in the form of anatto; or to give it +freshness and tenderness, as in the case of arsenic.[21] + +Eggs, when not fresh, are more or less liable to disease. I might even +say more. When not fresh, they _are_ diseased. On this point we have the +testimony of Drs. Willich and Dunglison. The truth is, that the yolk of +the egg has a strong tendency to decomposition, and this decomposing or +putrefying process _begins_ long before it is perceived, or even +suspected, by most people. There is much reason for believing that a +large proportion of the eggs eaten in civic life,--except when we keep +the poultry ourselves,--are, when used, more or less in a state of +decomposition. And yet, into how many hundred forms of food do they +enter in fashionable life, or in truth, in almost every condition of +society! The French cooks are said to have six hundred and eighty-five +methods of cooking the egg, including all the various sorts of pastry, +etc., of which it forms a component part. + +One of the grand objections against animal food, of almost all sorts, +is, that it tends with such comparative rapidity to decomposition. Such +is at least the case with eggs, flesh, and fish of every kind. The usual +way of preventing the decomposition is by processes scarcely less +hurtful--by the addition of salt, pyroligneous acid, saltpetre, lime, +etc. These, to be sure, prevent putrefaction; but they render every +thing to which they are applied, unless it is the egg, the more +indigestible. + +It is a strange taste in mankind, by the way, which leads them to prefer +things in a state of incipient decomposition. And yet such a taste +certainly prevails widely. Many like the flesh beaten; hence the origin +of the cruel practice of the East of whipping animals to death.[22] And +most persons like fresh meat kept till it begins to be _tender_; that +is, begins to putrefy. So most persons like fermented beer better than +that which is unfermented, although fermentation is a step toward +putrefaction; and they like vinegar, too, which is also far advanced in +the same road. + +That diseased food causes diseases in the persons who use it, needs not, +one would think, a single testimony; and yet, I will name a few. + +Dr. Paris, speaking of fish, says,--"It is not improbable that certain +cutaneous diseases may be produced, or at least aggravated by such +diet." Dr. Dunglison says, bacon and cured meats are often poisonous. He +speaks of the poisonous tendency of eggs, and says that all _made_ +dishes are more or less "rebellious." In Aurillac, in France, not many +years since, fifteen or sixteen persons were attacked with symptoms of +cholera after eating the milk of a certain goat. The goat died with +cholera about twenty-four hours after, and two men, no less eminent +than Professors Orfila and Marc, gave it as their undoubted opinion that +the cholera symptoms alluded to, were caused by the milk. I have myself +known oysters at certain times and seasons to produce the same symptoms. +During the progress of a mortal disease among the poultry on Edisto +Island, S. C., in 1837, all the dogs and vultures that tasted of the +flesh of the dead poultry sickened and died. Chrisiston mentions an +instance in which five persons were poisoned by eating beef; and +Dunglison one in which fourteen persons were made sick, and some died, +from eating the meat of a calf. Between the years 1793 and 1827, it is +on record that there were in the kingdom of Wurtemberg alone, no less +than two hundred and thirty-four cases of poisoning, and one hundred and +ten deaths, from eating sausages. But I need not multiply this sort of +evidence, the world abounds with it; though for one person who is +poisoned so much as to be made sick immediately, hundreds perhaps are +only slightly affected; and the punishment may seem to be deferred for +many years. + +The truth, in short, is, that every fashionable process of fattening and +even of domesticating animals, induces disease; and as most of the +animals we use for food are domesticated or fattened, or both, it +follows that most of our animal food, whether milk, butter, cheese, +eggs, or flesh, is diseased food, and must inevitably, sooner or later, +induce disease in those who receive it. Those which are most fattened +are the worst, of course; as the hog, the goose, the sheep, and the ox. +The more the animal is removed from a natural state, in fattening, the +more does the fat accumulate, and the more it is diseased. Hence the +complaints against every form of animal oil or fat, in every age, by +men who, notwithstanding their complaints, for the most part, continue +to set mankind an example of its use. + +Let me here introduce a single paragraph from Dr. Cheyne, which is very +much to my present purpose. + +"About London, we can scarce have any but crammed poultry or stall-fed +butchers' meat. It were sufficient to disgust the stoutest stomach to +see the foul, gross, and nasty manner in which, and the fetid, putrid, +and unwholesome materials _with_ which they are fed. Perpetual foulness +and cramming, gross food and nastiness, we know, will putrefy the +juices, and corrupt the muscular substance of human creatures--and sure +they can do no less in brute animals--and thus make our food poison. The +same may be said of hot-beds, and forcing plants and vegetables. The +only way of having sound and healthful animals, is to leave them to +their own natural liberty in the free air, and their own proper element, +with plenty of food and due cleanliness; and a shelter from the injuries +of the weather, whenever they have a mind to retire to it." + +The argument then is, that, for healthy adults at least, a well-selected +vegetable diet, other things being equal, is a preventive of disease, +and a security against its violence, should it attack us, in a far +greater degree than a diet which includes animal food in any of its +numerous forms. It will either prevent the common diseases of childhood, +including those which are deemed contagious, or render their attacks +extremely mild: it will either prevent or mitigate the symptoms of the +severe diseases of adults, not excepting malignant fevers, small-pox, +plague, etc.; and it will either prevent such diseases as cancer, gout, +epilepsy, scrofula, and consumption, or prolong life under them. + +Who that has ever thought of the condition of our domestic animals, +especially about towns and cities--their want of good air, abundant +exercise, good water, and natural food, to say nothing of the butter-cup +and the other poisonous products of over-stimulating or fresh manures +which they sometimes eat--has not been astonished to find so little +disease among us as there actually is? Animal food, in its best state, +is a great deal more stimulating and heating to the system than +vegetable food;--but how much more injurious is it made, in the +circumstances in which most animals are placed? Do we believe that even +a New Zealand cannibal would willingly eat flesh, if he knew it was from +an animal that when killed was laboring under a load of liver complaint, +gout, consumption, or fever? And yet, such is the condition of most of +the animals we slay for food. They would often die of their diseases if +we did not put the knife to their throats to prevent it. + +One more consideration. If the exclusive use of vegetable food will +prevent a multitude of the worst and most incurable diseases to which +human nature, in other circumstances, seems liable; if it will modify +the diseases which a mixed diet, or absolute intemperance, or gluttony +had induced,--by what rule can we limit its influence? How know we that +what is so efficacious in regard to the larger diseases, will not be +equally so in the case of all smaller ones? And why, then, may not its +universal adoption, after a few generations, banish disease entirely +from the world? Every person of common observation, knows that, as a +general rule, they who approach the nearest to a pure vegetable and +water diet, are most exempt from disease, and the longest-lived and most +happy. How, then, can it otherwise happen than that a still closer +approximation will afford a greater exemption still, and so on +indefinitely? At what point of an approach toward such diet and regimen, +and toward perfect health at the same time, is it that we stop, and more +temperance still will injure us? In short, where do we cross the line? + + +IV. THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT. + +I have dwelt at such length on the physiological and medical arguments +in defence of the vegetable system, that I must compress my remaining +views into the smallest space possible; especially those which relate to +its political, national, or general advantages. + +Political economists tell us that the produce of an acre of land in +wheat, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and in fruits, will sustain +animal life sixteen times as long as when the produce of the same acre +is converted into flesh, by feeding and fattening animals upon it. + +But, if we admit that this estimate is too high, and if the real +difference is only eight to one, instead of sixteen to one, the results +may perhaps surprise us; and if we have not done it before, may lead us +to reflection. Let us see what some of them are. + +The people of the United States are believed to eat, upon the average, +an amount of animal food equal at least to one whole meal once a day, +and those of Great Britain one in two days. But taking this estimate to +be correct, Great Britain, by substituting vegetable for animal food, +might sustain forty-nine instead of twenty-one millions of inhabitants, +and the United States sixty-six millions instead of twenty; and this, +too, in their present comfort, and without clearing up any more new +land. Here, then, we are consuming that unnecessarily--if animal food is +unnecessary--which would sustain seventy-nine millions of human beings +in life, health, and happiness. + +Now, if life is a blessing at all--if it is a blessing to twenty-two +millions in Great Britain, and twenty millions in the United +States--then to add to this population an increase of seventy-nine +millions, would be to increase, in the same proportion, the aggregate of +human happiness. And if, in addition to this, we admit the very +generally received principle, that there is a tendency, from the nature +of things, in the population of any country, to keep up with the means +of support, we, of Great Britain and America, keep down, at the present +moment, by flesh-eating, sixty-three millions of inhabitants. + +We do not destroy them, in the full sense of the term, it is true, for +they never had an existence. But we prevent their coming into the +possession of a joyous and happy existence; and though we have no name +for it, is it not a crime? What! no crime for thirty-five millions of +people to prevent and preclude the existence of sixty-three millions? + +I see no way of avoiding the force of this argument, except by denying +the premises on which I have founded my conclusions. But they are far +more easily denied than disproved. The probability, after all, is, that +my estimates are too low, and that the advantages of an exclusively +vegetable diet, in a national or political point of view, are even +greater than is here represented. I do not deny, that some deduction +ought to be made on account of the consumption of fish, which does not +prevent the growth or use of vegetable products; but my belief is, that, +including them, the animal food we use amounts to a great deal more than +one meal a day, or one third of our whole living. + +Suppose there was no _crime_ in shutting human beings out of existence +by flesh-eating, at the amazing rate I have mentioned--still, is it not, +I repeat it, a great national or political loss? Or, will it be said, in +its defence, as has been said in defence of war, if not of intemperance +and some of the forms of licentiousness, that as the world is, it is a +blessing to keep down its population, otherwise it would soon be +overstocked? The argument would be as good in one case as in the other; +that is, it is not valid in either. The world might be made to sustain, +in comfort, even in the present comparatively infant state of the arts +and sciences, at least forty or fifty times its present number of +inhabitants. It will be time enough a thousand or two thousand years to +come, to begin to talk about the danger of the world's being +over-peopled; and, above all, to talk about justifying what we know is, +in the abstract, very wrong, to prevent a distant imagined evil; one, in +fact, which may not, and probably will not ever exist. + + +V. THE ECONOMICAL ARGUMENT. + +The economy of the vegetable system is so intimately connected with its +political or national advantages; that is, so depends on, or grows out +of them, that I hesitated for some time before I decided to consider it +separately. Whatever is shown clearly to be for the general good policy +and well-being of society, cannot be prejudicial to the best interests +of the individuals who compose that society. Still, there are some minor +considerations that I wish to present under this head, that could not +so well have been introduced any where else. + +There is, indeed, one reason for omitting wholly the consideration of +the pecuniary advantages of the system which I am attempting to defend. +The public, to some extent, at once consider him who adverts to this +topic, as parsimonious or mean. But, conscious as I am of higher objects +in consulting economy than the saving of money, that it may be expended +on things of no more value than the mere indulgence or gratification of +the appetites or the passions, in a world where there are minds to +educate and souls to save, I have ventured to treat on the subject. + +It must be obvious, at a single glance, that if the vegetable products +of an acre of land--such as wheat, rye, corn, barley, potatoes, beans, +peas, turnips, beets, apples, strawberries, etc.--will sustain a family +in equal health eight times as long as the pork, or beef, or mutton, +which the same vegetables would make by feeding them to domestic +animals, it must be just as mistaken a policy for the individual to make +the latter disposition of these products as for a nation to do so. +Nations are made of individuals; and, as I have already said, whatever +is best, in the end, for the one, must also be the best, as a general +rule, for the other. + +But who has not been familiar from his very infancy with the maxim, that +"a good garden will half support a family?" And who that is at all +informed in regard to the manners and customs of the old world, does not +know that the maxim has been verified there, time immemorial? But again: +who has not considered, that if a garden of a given size will half +support a family, one twice as large would support it wholly? + +The truth is, it needs but a very small spot indeed, of good soil, for +raising all the necessaries of a family. I think I have shown, in +another work,[23] that five hundred and fifty pounds of Indian or corn +meal, or ten bushels of the corn, properly cooked, will support, or more +than support, an adult individual a year. Four times this amount is a +very large allowance for a family of five persons; nay, even three times +is sufficient. But how small a spot of good soil is required for raising +thirty bushels of corn! + +It is true, no family would wish to be confined a whole year to this one +kind of food; nor do I wish to have it so; not that I think any serious +mischiefs would arise as the consequence; but I should prefer, for my +own part, a greater variety. But this does not materially alter the +case. Suppose an acre and a half of land were required for the +production of thirty bushels of corn. Let the cultivator, if he chooses, +raise only fifteen bushels of corn, and sow the remainder with barley, +or rye, or wheat. Or, if he prefer it, let him plant the one half of the +piece with beans, peas, potatoes, beets, onions, etc. The one half of +the space devoted to the production of some sort of grain would still +half support his family; and it would require more than ordinary +gluttony in a family of five persons to consume the produce of the other +half, if the crops were but moderately abundant. A quarter of an acre of +it ought to produce, at least, sixty bushels of potatoes; but this +alone, would give such a family about ten pounds of potatoes, or one +sixth of a bushel a day, for every day in the year, which is a tolerable +allowance of food, without the grain and other vegetables. + +But suppose a whole family were to live wholly on grain, as corn, or +even wheat, for the year; the whole expenditure would hardly, exceed +fifty dollars, in dear places and in the dearest times. Of course, I am +speaking now of expenses for food and drink merely, the latter of which +usually costs nothing, or need not. How small a sum is this to expend in +New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, in the maintenance of a family! +And yet, it is amply sufficient for the vegetable-eater, unless his +family live exclusively on wheat bread, or milk, when it might fall a +little short. Of corn, at a dollar a bushel, it would give him eight +pounds a day--far more than a family ought to consume, if they ate +nothing else; and of potatoes, at forty cents a bushel, above twenty +pounds, or one third of a bushel--more than sufficient for the family of +an Hibernian. + +Now, let me ask how much beef, or lamb, or pork, or sausages, or eggs, +or cheese, this would buy? At ten cents a pound for each, which is +comparatively low, it would buy five hundred pounds; about one pound and +six ounces for the whole family, or four or five ounces each a day. This +would be an average amount of nutriment equal to that of about two +ounces of grain, or bread of grain, a day, to each individual. In so far +as laid out in butter, or chicken, or turkey, at twenty cents a pound, +it would give also about two or three ounces a day! + +Further remarks under this head can hardly be necessary. He who +considers the subject in its various aspects, will be likely to see the +weight of the argument. There is a wide difference between a system +which will give to each member of a family, upon the average, only about +four or five ounces of food a day, and one which will give each of them +more than twenty-five ounces a day, each ounce of the latter containing +twice the nutriment of the former, and being much more savory and +healthy at the same time. There is a wide difference, in matters of +economy, at least, between ONE and TEN. + +I will only add, under this head, a few tables. The first is to show the +comparative amount of nutritious matter contained in some of the leading +articles of human food, both animal and vegetable. It is derived from +the researches of such men as MM. Percy and Vauquelin, of France, and +Sir Humphrey Davy, of England. + + 100 pounds of Wheat contain 85 pounds of nutritious matter. + " " Rice " 90 " " " + " " Rye " 80 " " " + " " Barley " 83 " " " + " " Peas " 93 " " " + " " Lentils " 94 " " " + " " Beans 89 to 92 " " " + " " Bread (average) 80 " " " + " " Meat (average) 35 " " " + " " Potatoes contain 25 " " " + " " Beets " 14 " " " + " " Carrots 10 to 14 " " " + " " Cabbage " 7 " " " + " " Greens, turnips 4 to 8 " " + +Of course, it does not follow that every individual will be able to +extract just this amount of nutriment from each article; for, in this +respect, as well as in others, much will depend on circumstances. + +The second table is from Mr. James Simpson, of Manchester, England, in a +small work entitled, "The Products of the Vegetable Kingdom versus +Animal Food," recently published in London. Its facts are derived from +Dr. Playfair, Boussingault, and other high authorities. It will be seen +to refute, entirely, the popular notions concerning the Liebig theory. +The truth is, Liebig's views are misunderstood. His views are not so +much opposed to mine as many suppose. Besides, neither he nor I are +infallible. + + Flesh Heat Ashes + forming forming for + Solid matter. Water. principle. principle. the bones. + Potatoes, 28 per ct. 72 per ct. 2 per ct. 25 per ct. 1 per ct. + Turnips, 11 " 89 " 1 " 9 " 1 " + Barley Meal, 84-1/2 " 15-1/2 " 14 " 68-1/2 " 2 " + Beans, 86 " 14 " 31 " 51-1/2 " 3 " + Oats, 82 " 18 " 11 " 68 " 3 " + Wheat, 85-1/2 " 14-1/2 " 21 " 62 " 2-1/2 " + Peas, 84 " 16 " 29 " 51-1/2 " 3-1/2 " + Carrots, 13 " 87 " 2 " 10 " 1 " + Veal, 25 " 75 " { + Beef, 25 " 75 " { 25 + Mutton, 25 " 75 " { + Lamb, 25 " 75 " { + Blood, 20 " 80 " 20 + + +VI. THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPERIENCE. + +A person trained in the United States or in England--but especially one +who was trained in New England--might very naturally suppose that all +the world were flesh-eaters; and that the person who abstains from an +article which is at almost every one's table, was quite singular. He +would, perhaps, suppose there must be something peculiar in his +structure, to enable him to live without either flesh or fish; +particularly, if he were a laborer. Little would he dream--little does a +person who has not had much opportunity for reading, and who has not +been taught to reflect, and who has never traveled a day's journey from +the place which gave him birth, even so much as dream--that almost all +the world, or at least almost all the hard-laboring part of it, are +vegetable-eaters, and always have been; and that it is only in a few +comparatively small portions of the civilized and half-civilized world, +that the bone and sinew of our race ever eat flesh or fish for any thing +more than as a condiment or seasoning to the rest of their food, or even +taste it at all. And yet such is the fact. + +It is true, that in a vast majority of cases, as I have already +intimated, laborers are vegetable-eaters from necessity: they cannot get +flesh. Almost all mankind, as they are usually trained, are fond of +extra stimulants, if they can get them; and whether they are called +savages or civilized men, will indulge in them more or less, if they are +to be had, unless their intellectual and moral natures have been so well +developed and cultivated, as to have acquired the ascendency. Spirits, +wine, cider, beer, coffee, tea, condiments, tobacco, opium, snuff, flesh +meat, and a thousand other things, which excite, for a time, more +pleasurable sensations than water and plain vegetables and fruits, will +be sought with more or less eagerness according to the education which +has been received, and according to our power of self-government. + +I have said that most persons are vegetable-eaters from necessity, not +from choice. There are some tribes in the equatorial regions who seem to +be exceptions to this rule; and yet I am not quite satisfied they are +so. Some children, among us, who are trained to a very simple diet, will +seem to shrink from tea or coffee, or alcohol, or camphor, and even from +any thing which is much heated, when first presented to them. But, train +the same children to the ordinary, complex, high-seasoned diet of this +country, and it will not take long to find out that they are ready to +acquire the habit of relishing the excitement of almost all sorts of +_unnaturals_ which can be presented to them. And if there are tribes of +men who at first refuse flesh meat, I apprehend they do so for the same +reasons which lead a child among us, who is trained simply to refuse hot +food and drink, or at least, hot tea and coffee, when the latter are +first presented to him. + +Gutzlaff, the Chinese traveler and missionary, has found that the +Chinese of the interior, who have scarcely ever tasted flesh or fish, +soon acquire a wonderful relish for it, just as our children do for +spirituous or exciting drinks and drugs, and as savages do for tobacco +and spirits. But he has also made another discovery, which is, that +flesh-eating almost ruins them for labor. Instead of being strong, +robust, and active, they soon become lazy, self-indulgent, and +effeminate. This is a specimen--perhaps a tolerably fair one--of the +natural tendency of such food in all ages and countries. Man every where +does best, nationally and individually, other things being equal, on a +well-chosen diet of vegetables, fruits, and water. In proportion as +individuals or families, or tribes or nations, depart from this--other +things being equal--in the same proportion do they degenerate +physically, intellectually, and morally. + +Such a statement may startle some of my New England readers, perhaps, +who have never had opportunity to become acquainted with facts as they +are. But can it be successfully controverted? Is it not true, that, with +a few exceptions--and those more apparent than real--nations have +flourished, and continued to flourish, in proportion as they have +retained the more natural dietetic habits to which I have alluded; and +that they have been unhappy or short-lived, as nations, in proportion as +exciting food and drink have been used? Is it not true, that those +individuals, families, tribes, and nations, which have used what I call +excitements, liquid or solid, have been subjected by them to the same +effects which follow the use of spirits--first, invigoration, and +subsequently decline, and ultimately a loss of strength? Why is it that +the more wealthy, all over Europe, who get flesh more or less, +deteriorate in their families so rapidly? Why is it that every thing is, +in this respect, so stationary among the middle classes and the poor? + +In short--for the case appears to me a plain one--it is the simple +habits of some, whether we speak of nations, families, or individuals, +which have preserved the world from going to utter decay. In ancient +times, the Egyptians, the most enlightened and one of the most enduring +of nations, were what might properly be called a vegetable-eating +nation; so were the ancient Persians, in the days of their greatest +glory; so the Essenes, among the Jews; so the Romans, as I have said +elsewhere, and the Greeks. If either Moses or Herodotus is to be +credited, men lived, in ancient times, about a thousand years. Indeed, +empire seems to have departed from among the ancient nations precisely +when simplicity departed. So it is with nations still. A flesh-eating +nation may retain the supremacy of the world a short time, as several +European and American nations have done; just as the laborer, whose +brain and nerves are stimulated by ardent spirits, may for a time +retain--through the medium of an artificial strength--the ascendency +among his fellow-laborers; but the triumph of both the nation and the +individual must be short, and the debility which follows proportionable. +And if the United States, as a nation, seem to form an exception to the +truth of this remark, it is only because the stage of debility has not +yet arrived. Let us be patient, however, for it is not far off. + +But to come to the specification of facts. The Japanese of the interior, +according to some of the British geographers, live principally on rice +and fruits--a single handful of rice often forming the basis of their +frugal meal. Flesh, it is said, they either cannot get, or do not like; +and to milk, even, they have the same sort of aversion which most of us +have to blood. It is only a few of them, comparatively, and those +principally who live about the coasts, who ever use either flesh or +fish. And yet we have the concurring testimony of all geographers and +travelers, that in their physical and intellectual development, at +least, to say nothing of their moral peculiarities, they are the finest +men in all Asia. In what other country of Asia are schools and early +education in such high reputation as in Japan? Where are the inhabitants +so well formed, so stout made, and so robust? Compare them with the +natives of New Holland, in the same, or nearly the same longitude, and +about as far south of the equator as the Japanese are north of it, and +what a contrast! The New Hollanders, though eating flesh liberally, are +not only mere savages, but they are among the most meagre and wretched +of the human race. On the contrary, the Japanese, in mind and body, are +scarcely behind the middle nations of Europe. + +Nearly the same remarks will apply to China, and with little +modification, to Hindostan. In short, the hundreds of millions of +southern Asia are, for the most part, vegetable-eaters; and a large +proportion of them live chiefly, if not wholly on rice, though by no +means the most favorable vegetable for exclusive use. What countries +like these have maintained their ancient, moral, intellectual, and +political landmarks? Grant that they have made but little improvement +from century to century; it is something not to have deteriorated. Let +us proceed with our general view of the world, ancient and modern. + +The Jews of Palestine, two thousand years ago, lived chiefly on +vegetable food. Flesh, of certain kinds, was indeed admissible, by their +law; but, except at their feasts and on special occasions, they ate +chiefly bread, milk, honey, and fruits. + +Lawrence says that "the Greeks and Romans, in the periods of their +greatest simplicity, manliness, and bravery, appear to have lived almost +entirely on plain vegetable preparations." + +The Irish of modern days, as well as the Scotch, are confined almost +wholly to vegetable food. So are the Italians, the Germans, and many +other nations of modern Europe. Yet, where shall we look for finer +specimens of bodily health, strength, and vigor, than in these very +countries? The females, especially, where shall we look for their +equals? The men, even--the Scotch and Irish, for example--are they +weaker than their brethren, the English, who use more animal food? + +It will be said, perhaps, the vegetable-eating Europeans are not always +distinguished for vigorous minds. True; but this, it may be maintained, +arises from their degraded physical condition, generally; and that +neglect of mental and moral cultivation which accompanies it. A few, +even here, like comets in the material system, have occasionally broken +out, and emitted no faint light in the sphere in which they were +destined to move. + +But we are not confined to Europe. The South Sea Islanders, in many +instances, feed almost wholly on vegetable substances; yet their agility +and strength are so great, that it is said "the stoutest and most expert +English sailors, had no chance with them in wrestling and boxing." + +We come, lastly, to Africa, the greater part of whose millions feed on +rice, dates, etc.; yet their bodily powers are well known. + +In short, more than half of the 800,000,000 of human beings which +inhabit our globe live on vegetables; or, if they get meat at all, it is +so rarely that it can hardly have any effect on their structure or +character. Out of Europe and the United States--I might even say, out of +the latter--the use of animal food is either confined to a few meagre, +weak, timid nations, like the Esquimaux, the Greenlanders, the +Laplanders, the Samoiedes, the Kamtschadales, the Ostiacs, and the +natives of Siberia and Terra del Fuego; or those wealthier classes, or +individuals of every country, who are able to range lawlessly over the +Creator's domains, and select, for their tables, whatever fancy or +fashion, or a capricious appetite may dictate, or physical power afford +them. + + +VII. THE MORAL ARGUMENT. + +In one point of view, nearly every argument which can be brought to show +the superiority of a vegetable diet over one that includes flesh or +fish, is a moral argument. + +Thus, if man is so constituted by his structure, and by the laws of his +animal economy, that all the functions of the body, and of course all +the faculties of the mind, and the affections of the soul, are in better +condition--better subserve our own purposes, and the purposes of the +great Creator--as well as hold out longer, on the vegetable system--then +is it desirable, in a moral point of view, to adopt it. If mankind lose, +upon the average, about two years of their lives by sickness, as some +have estimated it,[24] saying nothing of the pain and suffering +undergone, or of the mental anguish and soul torment which grow out of +it, and often render life a burden; and if the simple primitive custom +of living on vegetables and fruits, along with other good physical and +mental habits, which seem naturally connected with it, will, in time, +nearly if not wholly remove or prevent this amazing loss, then is the +argument deduced therefrom, in another part of this chapter, a moral +argument. + +If, as I have endeavored to show, the adoption of the vegetable system +by nations and individuals, would greatly advance the happiness of all, +in every known respect, and if, on this account, such a change in our +flesh-eating countries would be sound policy, and good economy,--then we +have another moral argument in its favor. + +But, again; if it be true that all nations have been the most virtuous +and flourishing, other things being equal, in the days of their +simplicity in regard to food, drink, etc.; and if we can, in every +instance, connect the decline of a nation with the period of their +departure, as a nation, into the maze of luxurious and enervating +habits; and if this doctrine is, as a general rule, obviously applicable +to smaller classes of men, down to single families, then is the argument +we derive from it in its nature a moral one. Whatever really tends, +without the possibility of mistake, to the promotion of human happiness, +here and hereafter, is, without doubt, moral. + +But this, though much, is not all. The destruction of animals for food, +in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause +every reflecting individual--not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities +of our nature--to shudder. I recall: daily observation shows that such +is not the fact; nor should it, upon second thought, be expected. Where +all are dark, the color is not perceived; and so universally are the +moral sensibilities which really belong to human nature deadened by the +customs which prevail among us, that few, if any, know how to estimate, +rightly, the evil of which I speak. They have no more a correct idea of +a true sensibility--not a _morbid_ one--on this subject, than a blind +man has of colors; and for nearly the same reasons. And on this account +it is, that I seem to shrink from presenting, at this time, those +considerations which, I know, cannot, from the very nature of the case, +be properly understood or appreciated, except by a very few. + +Still there are some things which, I trust, may be made plain. It must +be obvious that the custom of rendering children familiar with the +taking away of life, even when it is done with a good degree of +tenderness, cannot have a very happy effect. But, when this is done, not +only without tenderness or sympathy, but often with manifestations of +great pleasure, and when children, as in some cases, are almost +constant witnesses of such scenes, how dreadful must be the results! + +In this view, the world, I mean our own portion of it, sometimes seems +to me like one mighty slaughter-house--one grand school for the +suppression of every kind, and tender, and brotherly feeling--one grand +process of education to the entire destitution of all moral +principle--one vast scene of destruction to all moral sensibility, and +all sympathy with the woes of those around us. Is it not so? + +I have seen many boys who shuddered, at first, at the thought of taking +the life, even of a snake, until compelled to it by what they conceived +to be duty; and who shuddered still more at taking the life of a lamb, a +calf, a pig, or a fowl. And yet I have seen these same boys, in +subsequent life, become so changed, that they could look on such scenes +not merely with indifference, but with gratification. Is this change of +feeling desirable? How long is it after we begin to look with +indifference on pain and suffering in brutes, before we begin to be less +affected than before by human suffering? + +I am not ignorant that sentiments like these are either regarded as +morbid, and therefore pitiable, or as affected, and therefore +ridiculous. Who that has read the story of Anthony Benezet, as related +by Dr. Rush, has not smiled at what he must have regarded a feeling +wholly misplaced, if nothing more? And yet it was a feeling which I +think is very far from deserving ridicule, however homely the manner of +expressing it. But I have related this interesting story in another part +of the work. + +I am not prepared to maintain, strongly, the old-fashioned doctrine, +that a butcher who commences his employment at adult age, is necessarily +rendered hardhearted or unfeeling; or, that they who eat flesh have +their sensibilities deadened, and their passions inflamed by it--though +I am not sure that there is not some truth in it. I only maintain, that +to render children familiar with the taking away of animal +life,--especially the lives of our own domestic animals, often endeared +to us by many interesting circumstances of their history, or of our own, +in relation to them,--cannot be otherwise than unhappy in its tendency. + +How shocking it must be to the inhabitants of Jupiter, or some other +planet, who had never before witnessed these sad effects of the ingress +of sin among us, to see the carcasses of animals, either whole or by +piece-meal, hoisted upon our very tables before the faces of children of +all ages, from the infant at the breast, to the child of ten or twelve, +or fourteen, and carved, and swallowed; and this not merely once, but +from day to day, through life! What could they--what would they--expect +from such an education of the young mind and heart? What, indeed, but +mourning, desolation, and woe! + +On this subject the First Annual Report of the American Physiological +Society thus remarks--and I wish the remark might have its due weight on +the mind of the reader: + +"How can it be right to be instrumental in so much unnecessary +slaughter? How can it be right, especially for a country of vegetable +abundance like ours, to give daily employment to twenty thousand or +thirty thousand butchers? How can it be right to train our children to +behold such slaughter? How can it be right to blunt the edge of their +moral sensibilities, by placing before them, at almost every meal, the +mangled corpses of the slain; and not only placing them there, but +rejoicing while we feast upon them?" + +One striking evidence of the tendency which an habitual shedding of +blood has on the mind and heart, is found in the fact that females are +generally so reluctant to take away life, that notwithstanding they are +trained to a fondness for all sorts of animal food, very few are willing +to gratify their desires for a stimulating diet, by becoming their own +butchers. I have indeed seen females who would kill a fowl or a lamb +rather than go without it; but they are exceedingly rare. And who would +not regard female character as tarnished by a familiarity with such +scenes as those to which I have referred? But if the keen edge of female +delicacy and sensibility would be blunted by scenes of bloodshed, are +not the moral sensibilities of our own sex affected in a similar way? +And must it not, then, have a deteriorating tendency? + +It cannot be otherwise than that the circumstances of which I have +spoken, which so universally surround infancy and childhood, should take +off, gradually, the keen edge of moral sensibility, and lessen every +virtuous or holy sympathy. I have watched--I believe impartially--the +effect on certain sensitive young persons in the circle of my +acquaintance. I have watched myself. The result has confirmed the +opinion I have just expressed. No child, I think, can walk through a +common market or slaughter-house without receiving moral injury; nor am +I quite sure that any virtuous adult can. + +How have I been struck with the change produced in the young mind by +that merriment which often accompanies the slaughter of an innocent +fowl, or lamb, or pig! How can the Christian, with the Bible in hand, +and the merciful doctrines of its pages for his text, + + "Teach me to feel another's woe," + +--the beast's not excepted--and yet, having laid down that Bible, go at +once from the domestic altar to make light of the convulsions and exit +of a poor domestic animal? + +Is it said, that these remarks apply only to the _abuse_ of a thing, +which, in its place, is proper? Is it said, that there is no necessity +of levity on these occasions? Grant that there is none; still the result +is almost inevitable. But there is, in any event, one way of avoiding, +or rather preventing both the abuse and the occasion for abuse, by +ceasing to kill animals for food; and I venture to predict that the evil +never will be prevented otherwise. + +The usual apology for hunting and fishing, in all their various and +often cruel forms,--whereby so many of our youth, from the setters of +snares for birds, and the anglers for trout, to the whalemen, are +educated to cruelty, and steeled to every virtuous and holy +sympathy,--is, the necessity of the animals whom we pursue for food. I +know, indeed, that this is not, in most cases, the true reason, but it +is the reason given--it is the substance of the reason. It serves as an +apology. They who make it may often be ignorant of the true reason, or +they or others may wish to conceal it; and, true to human nature, they +are ready to give every reason for their conduct, but the real and most +efficient one. + +It must not, indeed, be concealed that there is one more apology usually +made for these cruel sports; and made too, in some instances, by good +men; I mean, by men whose intentions are in the main pure and excellent. +These sports are healthy, they tell us. They are a relief to mind and +body. Perhaps no good man, in our own country, has defended them with +more ingenuity, or with more show of reason and good sense, than Dr. +Comstock, in his recent popular work on Human Physiology. And yet, there +is scarcely a single advantage which he has pointed out, as being +derived from the "pleasures of the chase," that may not be gained in a +way which savors less of blood. The doctor himself is too much in love +with botany, geology, mineralogy, and the various branches of natural +history, not to know what I mean when I say this. He knows full well the +excitement, and, on his own principles, the consequent relief of body +and mind from their accustomed and often painful round, which grows out +of clambering over mountains and hills, and fording streams, and +climbing trees and rocks, to need any very broad hints on the subject; +to say nothing of the delights of agriculture and horticulture. How +could he, then, give currency to practices which, to say the least,--and +by his own concessions, too,--are doubtful in regard to their moral +tendencies, by inserting his opinions in favor of sports, for which he +himself happens to be partial, in a school-book? Is this worthy of those +who would educate the youth of our land on the principles of the Bible? + + +VIII. THE MILLENNIAL ARGUMENT + +I believe it is conceded by most intelligent men, that all the arguments +we bring against the use of animal food, which are derived from anatomy, +physiology, or the laws of health, or even of psychology, are well +founded. But they still say, "Man is not what he once was; he is +strangely perverted; that custom, or habit, which soon becomes second +nature, and often proves stronger to us than first nature, has so +changed him that he is more a creature of art than of nature, or at +least of _first_ nature. And though animal food was not necessary to him +at first--perhaps not in accordance with his best interests--yet it has +become so by long use; and as a creature of art rather than of nature, +he now seems to require it." + +This reasoning, at first view, appears very _specious_. But upon second +view, we see it is wanting--greatly so--in solidity. It takes for +granted, as I understand it, that what we call civilization, has +rendered animal food necessary to man. But is it not obvious that the +condition of things which is thus supposed to render this species of +food necessary, is not likely to disappear--nay, that it is every +century becoming more and more the law, so to speak, of the land? Who is +to stop the labor-saving machine, the railroad car, or the lightning +flash of intelligence? + +And do not these considerations, if they prove any thing, prove quite +too much? For if, in the onward career of what is thus called +civilization, we have gone from a diet which scarcely required the use +of animal food in order to render it both palatable and healthful, to +one in whose dishes it is generally blended in some one or more of its +forms, must we not expect that a still further progress in the same +course will render the same kind of diet still more indispensable? If +flesh, fish, fowl, butter, cheese, eggs, lard, etc., are much more +necessary to us now, than they were a thousand years ago, will they not +be still more necessary a thousand years hence? + +I do not see how we can avoid such a conclusion. And yet such a +conclusion will involve us in very serious difficulties. In Japan and +China--the former more especially--if the march of civilization should +be found to have rendered animal food more necessary, it has at the same +time rendered it less accessible to the mass of the population. The +great increase of the human species has crowded out the animals, even +the domestic ones. Some of the old historians and geographers tell us +that there are not so many domestic animals in the whole kingdom of +Japan, as in a single township of Sweden. And must not all nations, as +society progresses and the millennium dawns, crowd out the animals in +the same way? It cannot be otherwise. True, there may remain about the +same supply as at present from the rivers and seas, and perchance from +the air; but what can these do for the increasing hundreds of millions +of such large countries? What do they for Japan? In short, if the +reasoning above were good and valid, it would seem to show that +precisely at the point of civilization where animal food becomes most +necessary, at precisely that point it becomes most scarce. + +These things do not seem to me to go well together. We must reject the +one or the other. If we believe in a millennium, we must, inevitably, +give up our belief in animal food, at least the belief that its +necessity grows out of the increasing wants of society. Or if, on the +other hand, we believe in the increasing necessity of animal food, we +must banish from our minds all hope of what we call a millennium, at +least for the present. + + +IX. THE BIBLE ARGUMENT. + +It is not at all uncommon for those who find themselves driven from all +their strong-holds, in this matter, to fly to the Bible. Our Saviour ate +flesh and fish, say they; and the God of the New Testament, as well as +of the Old, in this and other ways, not only permitted but sanctioned +its use. + +But, to say nothing of the folly of going, for proof of every thing we +wish to prove, to a book which was never given for this purpose, or of +the fact that in thus adducing Scripture to prove our favorite +doctrines, we often go too far, and prove too much; is it true that the +Saviour ate flesh and fish? Or, if this could be proved, is it true that +his example binds us forever to that which other evidence as well as +science show to be of doubtful utility? Paul did not think so, most +certainly. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, he says, +if it cause our brother to offend. Did not Paul understand, at least as +well as we, the precepts and example of our Saviour? + +And as to a permission to Noah and his descendants, the Jews, to use +animal food--was it not for the hardness of the human heart, as our +Saviour calls it? From the beginning, was it so? Is not man, in the +first chapter of Genesis, constituted a vegetable-eater? Was his +constitution ever altered? And if so, when and where? Will they who fly +to the Bible for their support, in this particular, please to tell us? + +But it is idle to go to the Bible, on this subject. I mean, it is idle +to pretend to do so, when we mean not so much. Men who _incline_ to wine +and other alcoholic drinks, plead the example and authority of the +Bible. Yet you will hardly find a man who drinks wine simply because he +believes the Bible justifies its use. He drinks it for other reasons, +and then makes the foolish excuse that the Bible is on his side. So in +regard to the use of flesh meat. Find a man who really uses flesh or +fish _because_ the Bible requires him to do so, and I will then discuss +the question with him on Bible ground. Till that time, further argument +on this direction is unnecessary. + + +CONCLUSION. + +But I must conclude this long essay. There is one consideration, +however, which I am unwilling to omit, although, in deciding on the +merits of the question before us, it may not have as much +weight--regarded as a part of the moral argument--on every mind, as it +has on my own. + +Suppose the great Creator were to make a new world somewhere in the +regions of infinite space, and to fit it out in most respects like our +own. It is to be the place and abode of such minerals, vegetables, and +animals as our own. Instead, however, of peopling it gradually, he fills +it at once with inhabitants; and instead of having the arts and the +sciences in their infancy, he creates every thing in full maturity. In a +word, he makes a world which shall be exactly a copy of our own, with +the single exception that the 800,000,000 of free agents in it shall be +supposed to be wholly ignorant in regard to the nature of the food +assigned them. But the new world is created, we will suppose, at +sunrise, in October. The human inhabitants thereof have stomachs, and +soon, that is, by mid-day or before night, feel the pangs of hunger. +Now, what will they eat? + +The world being mature, every thing in it is, of course, mature. Around, +on every hand, are cornfields with their rich treasures; above, that is, +in the boughs of the orchards, hang the rich russets, pippins, and the +various other excellent kinds of the apple, with which our own country +and other temperate climates abound. In tropical regions, of course, +almost every vegetable production is flourishing at that season, as well +as the corn and the apple. Or, he has but to look on the surface of the +earth on which he stands, and there are the potatoe, the turnip, the +beet, and many other esculent roots; to say nothing of the squash, the +pumpkin, the melon, the chestnut, the walnut, the beechnut, the +butternut, the hazelnut, etc.,--most of which are nourishing, and more +or less wholesome, and are in full view. Around him, too, are the +animals. I am willing even to admit the domestic animal--the horse, the +ox, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the turkey, the goose, the +hen, yes, and even the pig. And now, I ask again, what will he eat? He +is destitute of experience, and he has no example. But he has a stomach, +and he is hungry: he has hands and he has teeth; the world is all before +him, and he is the lord of it, at least so far as to use such food in it +as he pleases. + +Does any one believe that, in these circumstances, man would prey upon +the animals around him? Does any person believe--can he for one moment +believe--he would forthwith imbrue his hands in blood, whether that of +his own species or of some other? Would he pass by the mellow apple, +hanging in richest profusion every where, inviting him as it were by its +beauties? Would he pass by the fields, with their golden ears? Would he +despise the rich products of field, and forest, and garden, and hasten +to seize the axe or the knife, and, ere the blood had ceased to flow, or +the muscles to quiver, give orders to his fair but affrighted companion +within to prepare the fire, and make ready the gridiron or the spider? +Or, without the knowledge even of this, or the patience to wait for the +tedious process of cooking to be completed, would he eat raw the +precious morsel? Does any one believe this? Can any one--I repeat the +question--can any one believe it? + +On the contrary, would not every living human being revolt, at first, +from the idea, let it be suggested as it might, of plunging his hands in +blood? Can there be a doubt that he would direct his attention at +first--yes, and for a long time afterward--to the vegetable world for +his food? Would it not take months and years to reconcile his +feelings--his moral nature--to the thought of flesh-mangling or +flesh-eating? At least, would not this be the result, if he were a +disciple of Christianity? Although professing Christians, as the world +is now constituted, do not hesitate to commit such depredations, would +they do so in the circumstances we have supposed? + +I am sure there can be but one opinion on this subject; although I +confess it impossible for me to say how it may strike other minds +constituted somewhat differently from my own. With me, this +consideration of the subject has weight and importance. It is not +necessary, however. The argument--the moral argument, I mean--is +sufficient, as it seems to me, without it. What then shall we say of the +anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the +economical, the experimental, the Bible, the millennial, and the moral +arguments, when united? Have they not force? Are they not a nine-fold +cord, not easily broken? Is it not too late in the day of human +improvement to meet them with no argument but ignorance, and with no +other weapon but ridicule? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] For proof that arsenic or ratsbane is sometimes added to cheese, +see the Library of Health, volume ii., page 69. In proof of the +poisonous tendency of milk and butter, see Whitlaw's Theory of Fever, +and Clark's Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption. + +[22] See Dunglison's Hygiene, page 250. + +[23] The Young Housekeeper. + +[24] Or, more nearly, perhaps, a year and a half, in this country. In +England, it is one year and five-sevenths. + + + + +OUTLINES + +OF A + +NEW SYSTEM OF FOOD AND COOKERY. + + +In the work of revising and preparing the foregoing volume for +publication, the writer was requested to add to it a system of vegetable +cookery. At first he refused to do so, both on account of the difficulty +of bringing so extensive a subject within the compass of twenty or +thirty pages, and because it did not seem to him to be called for, in +connection with the present volume. But he has yielded his own judgment +to the importunity of the publishers and other friends of the work, and +prepared a mere outline or skeleton of what he may hereafter fill up, +should circumstances and the necessary leisure permit. + +But there is one difficulty to be met with at the very threshold of the +subject. Vegetable eaters are not so hard driven to find whereon to +subsist, as many appear to suppose. For the question is continually +asked, "If you dispense wholly with flesh and fish, pray what can you +find to eat?" Now, while we are aware that one small sect of the +vegetarians--the followers of Dr. Schlemmer--eat every thing in a raw +state, we are, for ourselves, full believers in plain and simple +cookery. That a potato, for example, is better cooked than uncooked, +both for man and beast, we have not the slightest doubt. We believe that +a system of preparing food which renders the raw material more +palatable, more digestible, and more nutritious, or perhaps all this at +once, must be legitimate, and even preferable--if not for the +individual, at least for the race. + +But the difficulty alluded to is, how to select a few choice dishes from +the wide range--short of flesh and fish--which God and nature permit. +For if we believed in the use of eggs when commingled with food, we +should hardly deem it proper to go the whole length of our French +brethren, who have nearly seven hundred vegetable dishes, of which eggs +form a component part; nor the whole length even to which our own +powers of invention might carry us; no, nor even the whole length to +which the writer of an English work now before us, and entitled +"Vegetable Cookery," has gone--the extent of about a thousand plain +receipts. We believe the whole nature of man, and even his appetite, +when unperverted, is best served and most fully satisfied with a range +of dishes which shall hardly exceed hundreds. + +It is held by Dr. Dunglison, Dr. Paris, and many of the old school +writers, that all made dishes--all mixtures of food--are "more or less +rebellious;" that is, more or less indigestible, and consequently more +or less hurtful. If they mean by this, that in spite of the +accommodating power of the stomach to the individual, they are hurtful +to the race, I go with them most fully. But I do _not_ believe that _all +made dishes, to all persons_, are so directly injurious as many suppose. +God has made man, in a certain sense, omnivorous. His physical stomach +can receive and assimilate, like his mental stomach, a great variety of +substances; and both can go on, without apparent disease, for a great +many years, and perhaps for a tolerably long life in this way. + +There is, however, a higher question for man to ask as a rational being +and as a Christian, than whether this or that dish will hurt him +directly. It is, whether a dish or article is _best_ for him--best for +body, mind, and heart--best for the whole human nature--best for the +whole interests of the whole race--best for time, and best for eternity. +Startle not, reader, at this assertion. If West could properly say, "I +paint for eternity," the true disciple of Christ and truth can say, "I +eat and drink for eternity." And a higher authority than any that is +merely human has even required us to do so. + +This places the subject of preparing food on high ground. And were I to +carry out my plan fully, I should exclude from a Christian system of +food and cookery all mixtures, properly so called, and all medicines or +condiments. Not that all mixtures are equally hurtful to the well-being +of the race, nor all medicines. Indeed, considering our training and +habits, some of both, to most persons, have become necessary. I know of +many whose physical inheritance is such, that salt, if not a few other +medicinal substances, have become at least present necessaries to them. +And to those mixtures of substances closely allied, as farina with +farina--meal of one kind with meal of another--I could scarcely have any +objection, myself. Nature objects to incompatibles, and therefore I do; +and medicine, and all those kinds of food which are opposed one to +another, are incompatible with each other. When one is in the stomach, +the other should not be. + +I have spoken of carrying out my plan, but this I cannot now fully do. +It would not be borne, till, as Lord Bacon used to say, "some time be +passed over." But, on the other hand, I am unwilling to give directions, +as I did ten or twelve years ago, in my Young Housekeeper, such as shall +pander to a perverted--most abominably perverted--public taste. Man is +made for progress, and it is high time the public standard were raised +in regard to food and cookery. + +Although grains and fruits are the natural food of man, yet there are a +variety of shapes in which the grains or farinacea may be presented to +us; and there are a few substances fit for food which do not properly +belong to either of these classes. I shall treat first of the different +kinds of food prepared from grain or farinaceous substances; secondly, +of fruits; thirdly, of roots; and fourthly, speak of a few articles that +do not properly belong to any of the three. + +While, therefore, as will be seen by the remarks already made, I have +many things to say that the community cannot yet bear, it need not +escape the observation of the most careless reader, that I aim at +nothing less than an entire ultimate subversion of the present system of +cookery, believing it to be utterly at war with the laws of God, and of +man's whole nature. + + +CLASS I.--FARINACEOUS, OR MEALY SUBSTANCES. + +The principal of these are wheat, oats, Indian corn, rice, rye, barley, +buckwheat, millet, chestnuts, peas, beans, and lentils. They are +prepared in various forms. + + +DIVISION I.--BREAD. + +The true idea of bread is that coarse or cracked and unbolted meal, +formed into a mass of dough by means of water, and immediately baked in +loaves of greater or less thickness, according to the fancy. + +Some use bolted meal; most raise bread by fermentation; many use salt; +some saleratus, or carbonate of potash; and, in the country, many use +milk instead of water to form the paste. I might also mention several +other additions, which, like saleratus, it is becoming fashionable to +make. + +All these things are a departure, greater or less, from the true idea +of a bread; and bread made with any of these changes, is so much the +less perfectly adapted to the promotion of health, happiness, and +longevity. + +Bolting is objectionable, because bread made from bolted meal, +especially when eaten hot, is more apt, when the digestive powers are +not very vigorous, to form a paste, which none but very strong stomachs +can entirely overcome. Besides, it takes out a part of the sweetness, or +life, as it is termed, of the flour. They who say fine flour bread is +sweetest, are led into this mistake by the force of habit, and by the +fact that the latter comes in contact, more readily than coarse bread, +with the papillæ of the tongue, and seems to have more taste to it +because it touches at more points. + +Raising bread by inducing fermentation, wastes a part of the saccharine +matter; and the more it is raised, the greater is the waste. By +lessening the attraction of cohesion, it makes it more easy of +digestion, it is true; but the loss of nutriment and of pleasure to the +true appetite more than counterbalances this. Bakers, in striving to get +a large loaf, rob the bread of most of its sweetness. + +Salt is objectionable, because it hardens the bread, and renders it more +difficult of digestion. Our ancestors, in this country, did not use it +at all; and many are the families that will not use it now. + +Those who use salt in bread, tell us how _flat_ it would taste without +it. This idea of flatness has two sources. 1. We have so long given our +bread the taste of salt, as we have most other things, that it seems +tasteless without it. 2. The flatness spoken of in an article of food is +oftentimes the true taste of the article, unaltered by any stimulus. If +any two articles need to be stimulated with salt, however, it is rice +and beans--bread never. + +If saleratus is used in bread where no acidity is present, it is a +medicine; or, if you please, a poison both to the stomach and +intestines. If it meets and neutralizes an acid either in the bread-tray +or the stomach, the residuum is a new chemical compound diffused through +the bread, which is more or less injurious, according to its nature and +quantity. + +Milk is objectionable on the score of its tendency to render the bread +more indigestible than when it was wet with water, and perhaps by +rendering it too nutritious. For good bread without the milk is already +too nutritious for health, if eaten exclusively, for a long time. That +man should not live on bread alone, is as true physically as it is +morally. + +No bread should be eaten while new and hot--though the finer it is, the +worse for health when thus eaten. Old bread, heated again, is less +hurtful. But if eaten both new and hot, and with butter or milk, or any +thing which soaks and fills it, the effect is very bad. Mrs. Howland, in +her Economical Housekeeper, says much about _ripe_ bread. And I should +be glad to say as much, had I room, about ripe bread, and about the true +philosophy of bread and bread-making, as she has. + + +SECTION A.--_Bread of the first order._ + +This is made of coarse meal--as coarse as it can well be ground, +provided the kernels are all broken. The grain should be well washed, +and it may be ground in the common way, or according to the oriental +mode, in hand-mills. The latter mode is preferable, because you can thus +have it fresh. Meal is somewhat injured by being kept long ground. + +If great pains is not taken to have the grain clean when ground, it +needs to be passed through a coarse sieve, that all foreign bodies may +be carefully separated. The hulls of corn, and especially the husks of +oats and buckwheat, should also be separated in some way. In no case, +however, should meal be bolted. Good health requires that we eat the +innutritious and coarser parts as well as the finer. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take a sufficient quantity of good, recent wheat meal;[25] +wet it well, but not too soft, with pure water; form it into thin cakes, +and bake it as hard as the teeth will bear. Remember, however, that the +saliva aids the teeth greatly, especially when you masticate your food +slowly. The cakes should be very thin--the thinner the better. Many, +however, prefer them an inch thick, or even more. + +RECEIPT 2.--Oat meal prepared in the same manner. Procure what is called +the Scotch kiln dried oat meal, if you can. No matter if it is +manufactured in New England, if it is well done. + +RECEIPT 3.--Indian meal cakes, otherwise called hoe cakes, or Johnny +cakes, are next in point of value to bread made of wheat and oats. They +are most healthy, however, in cold weather. + +RECEIPT 4.--Rye cakes come next. Warm instead of cold water is often +used to wet all the above. Some even choose to scald the meal. Fancy may +be indulged in this particular, only you must remember that warm water +in warm weather may soon give rise, if the mass stands long, to a degree +of fermentation, which, for the best bread, should be avoided. + +RECEIPT 5.--Barley meal bread comes next in order in the unleavened +series. In regard to this species of bread, however, I do not speak from +experience, but from report. + +RECEIPT 6.--Of millet bread I know still less. Cakes made of it, as +above, must certainly be wholesome. + +RECEIPT 7.--Buckwheat cakes are last in the series of the best breads. +The meal is always too fine, and hence makes heavy bread, except when +hot. Few use it without fermentation. + +Unleavened bread may be made as above, of all the various kinds of +grain, finely ground; but it is apt to be heavy, whereas, when made +properly, of coarse meal, it is only firm, never heavy; that is, it +never has a lead-like appearance. They may make and use it who have iron +stomachs. + + +SECTION B.--_Bread of the second order._ + +This consists essentially of mixtures of the various coarse meals. True +it is, that made or mixed food is objectionable; but the union of one +farinaceous substance with another to form bread, can hardly be +considered a mixture. It is, essentially, the addition of farina to +farina, with some change in the proportion of the gluten and other +properties. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat meal and Indian, in about the proportion of two parts +of wheat to one of Indian. + +RECEIPT 2.--Wheat meal and oat meal, about equal parts. + +RECEIPT 3.--Wheat meal and Indian, equal parts. + +RECEIPT 4.--Wheat meal and rye meal; two parts, quarts, or pounds of the +former to one of the latter. + +RECEIPT 5.--Rye and Indian, equal parts of each. + +RECEIPT 6.--Rye, two thirds; Indian, one third. + +RECEIPT 7.--Wheat meal and rice. Three quarts of wheat meal to one pint +of good clean rice, boiled till it is soft. + +RECEIPT 8.--Three parts of wheat meal to one of Indian. + +RECEIPT 9.--Four parts of wheat to one of Indian. + +The proportion of the ingredients above may be varied to a great extent. +I have inserted some of the best. The following are _irregulars_, but +may as well be mentioned here as any where. + +RECEIPT 10.--Two quarts of wheat meal to one pound of well boiled ripe +beans, made soft by pounding or otherwise. + +RECEIPT 11.--Seven pounds of wheat meal and two and a half pounds of +good, mealy, and well boiled and pounded potatoes. + +RECEIPT 12.--Equal parts of coarse meal from rye, barley, and buckwheat. +This is chiefly used in Westphalia. + +RECEIPT 13.--Seven parts of wheat meal (as in Receipt 11), with two +pounds of split peas boiled to a soup, and used to wet the flour. + +RECEIPT 14.--Wheat meal and apples, in the proportion of about three of +the former (some use two) to one of the latter. The apples must be first +pared and cored, and stewed or baked. See my "Young Housekeeper," +seventh edition, page 396. + +RECEIPT 15.--Wheat meal and boiled chestnuts; three quarts of the former +to one of the latter. + +RECEIPT 16.--Wheat meal, four quarts, and one quart of well boiled and +pounded marrow squash. + +RECEIPT 17.--Wheat, corn, or barley meal; three quarts to one quart of +powdered comfrey root. This is inserted from the testimony of Rev. E. +Rich, of Troy, N. H. + +RECEIPT 18.--Wheat meal, three pounds, to one pound of pounded corn, +boiled and pounded green. This is the most doubtful form which has yet +been mentioned. + +RECEIPT 19.--Receipt 7 describes rice bread. Bell, in his work on Diet +and Regimen, says the best and most economical rice bread is made thus: +Wheat meal, three pounds; rice, well boiled, one pound--wet with the +water in which the rice is boiled. + +I wish to say here, once for all, that any kind of bread may be salted, +if you will _have_ salt, except the patented bread mentioned in the +beginning of the next section, which is salted in the process. Molasses +in small quantity may also be added, if preferred. + + +SECTION C.--_Bread of the third kind._ + +Of this there are several kinds. Those which are made by a simple +effervescence, provided the residuum is not injurious, are best, and +shall accordingly be placed first in order. Next will follow various +kinds of bread made by the ordinary process of fermentation, salting, +etc. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat meal, seven pounds; carbonate of soda or saleratus[26] +three quarters of an ounce to one ounce; water, two and three quarter +pints; muriatic acid, 420 to 560 drops. Mix the soda with the meal as +intimately as possible, by means of a wooden spoon or stick. Then mix +the acid and water, and add it slowly to the mass, stirring it +constantly. Make three loaves of it, and bake it in a quick oven. + +RECEIPT 2.--Wheat meal, one pound; sesquicarbonate of soda, forty +grains; muriatic acid, fifty drops; cold water, half a pint, or a +sufficient quantity. Mix in the same way, and with the same caution, as +in Receipt 1. Make one loaf of it, and bake in a quick oven.[27] + +RECEIPT 3.--Wheat meal, one quart; cream of tartar, two tea-spoonfuls; +saleratus, one tea-spoonful; and two and a half teacups full of milk. +Mix well, and bake thirty minutes. If the meal is fresh, as it ought to +be, the milk may be omitted. + +RECEIPT 4.--Coarse rye meal, Indian meal, and oat meal, may be formed +into bread in nearly a similar manner. So, in fact, may fine meal and +all sorts of mixtures. + +RECEIPT 5.--Professor Silliman more than intimates, that carbonic acid +gas _might_ be made to inflate bread, without either an effervescence or +a fermentation. The plan is, to force carbonic acid, by some means or +other, into the mass of dough, or, as bakers call it, the sponge. I do +not know that the experiment has yet been made. + +RECEIPT 6.--Coarse Indian meal may be formed into small, rather thin +loaves, and prepared and baked as in Receipt 3. + +Let us now proceed to common fermented bread: + +RECEIPT 7.--Wheat meal, six pounds; good yeast, a teacup full; and a +sufficient quantity of pure water. Knead thoroughly. Bake it in small +loaves, unless you have a very strong heat. + +RECEIPT 8.--Another way: Wheat meal, six quarts; molasses and yeast, +each a teacup full. Mould into loaves half the thickness you mean they +shall be after they are baked. Place them in the pans, in a temperature +which will cause a moderate fermentation. When risen enough, place them +in the oven. A strong heat is required. + +RECEIPT 9.--Rye bread may be made in a similar way. It must, however, be +well kneaded, to secure an intimate mixture with the yeast. Does not +require quite so strong a heat as the former. + +RECEIPT 10.--Oat meal bread may be prepared by mixing good kiln dried +oat meal, a little salt and warm water, and a spoonful of yeast. Beat +till it is quite smooth, and rather a thick batter; cover and let it +stand to rise; then bake it on a hot iron plate, or on a bake stove. Be +careful not to burn it. + +RECEIPT 11.--Barley, or black bread, as it is called in Europe, makes a +wholesome article of food. It may be fermented or unfermented. + +RECEIPT 12.--Corn bread is sometimes made thus: Six pints meal, four +pints water, one spoonful of salt; mix well, and bake in oblong rolls +two inches thick. Bake in a hot oven. + +It should be added to this division of my subject, that in baking bread +sweet oil may be used (a vegetable oil) as a substitute for animal oil, +to prevent the bread from adhering too closely. Or you may sift a +quantity of Indian meal into the pans. If you use sweet, or olive oil, +be sure to get that which is not rancid. Much of the olive oil of the +shops is unfit to be used. + + +DIVISION II.--WHOLE GRAINS. + +Some have maintained that since man is made to live on grain, fruits, +etc., and since the most perfect mastication is secured by the use of +uncooked grains, it is useless, and worse than useless, to resort to +cookery at all, especially the cookery of bread. I have mentioned Dr. +Schlemmer and his followers already as holding this opinion. Many of +these people confine themselves to the use of uncooked grains and +fruits. They do not cook their beans and peas. Nor can it be denied that +they enjoy thus far very good health. + +Now, while I admit that man, as an individual, can get along very well +in this way, I am most fully persuaded that many kinds of farinaceous +food are improved by cookery. Of the potato, I have already, +incidentally, spoken. But are not wheat and corn, and many other grains, +as well as the potato, improved by cookery? A barrel of flour (one +hundred and ninety-six pounds) will make about two hundred and seventy +pounds of good dry bread. It does not appear that the bread contains +more water than the grain did from which it was made. Whence, then, the +increase of weight by seventy-four pounds? Is not the water--a part of +it, at least--which is used in making bread, rendered solid, as water is +in slacking lime; or at least so incorporated with the flour or meal as +to add both to its weight, and to its nutritious properties? + +Or if, in the present infancy of the science of domestic chemistry, we +are not able to give a satisfactory answer to the question, is not an +affirmative highly probable? Such an answer would give no countenance, I +believe, to the custom of raising our bread, since the increase of +weight in making unfermented cakes or loaves, is about as great as in +the case of fermented ones. + +One of the strongest arguments ever yet brought against bread-making is, +that it relieves us from the necessity of mastication. But to this we +reply, that such cakes as may be made (and such loaves even) require +more mastication than the uncooked grains. Pereira, in his excellent +work on Diet, endeavors to support the doctrine that cooking bursts the +grains of the farinacea, so as to bring them the better within the power +of the stomach. This is specious, if not sound. In any event, I think it +pretty certain, that though man can do very well on raw grains, yet +there is a gain by cookery which more than repays the trouble. But +though baking the flour or meal into cakes or bread, is the best method +of preparation, there are other methods, secondary to this, which +deserve our notice. One of these I will now describe. + + +SECTION A.--_Boiled Grains._ + +These require less mastication than those which are submitted to other +processes; but they are more easy of digestion, and to some more +palatable, and even more digestible. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take good perfect wheat; wash clean, and boil till soft in +pure soft water. Those who are accustomed to salt their food, use sugar, +etc., will naturally salt and sweeten this. + +RECEIPT 2.--Rye or barley may be prepared in the same way, but it is not +quite so sweet. + +RECEIPT 3.--Indian corn may be boiled, but the process requires six +hours or more, even after it has soaked all night, and there has been a +frequent change of the water. And with all this boiling, the skins +sometimes adhere rather strongly, unless you boil with them some ashes, +or other alkali. + +RECEIPT 4.--Rice, carefully cleaned, and well boiled, is good food. +Imperfectly boiled, it is apt to disorder the bowels. And so +unstimulating is it, and so purely nutritious, that they who eat it +exclusively, without salt or curry, or any other condiment, are apt to +become constipated. Potatoes go well with it. + +RECEIPT 5.--Chestnuts, well selected, and well boiled, are highly +palatable, greatly nutritious, and easy of digestion. They are best, +however, soon after they are ripe. + +RECEIPT 6.--Boiled peas, when ripe, either whole or split, make a +healthy dish. They are best, however, when they have been cooked several +days. When boiled enough, drain them through a sieve, but not very dry. + +Some housekeepers soak ripe peas over night, in water in which they have +dissolved a little saleratus. If you boil new or unripe peas, be careful +not to cook them too much. + +RECEIPT 7.--Beans, whether ripe or green (unless in bread or pudding), +are not so wholesome as peas. They lead to flatulence, acidity, and +other stomach disorders. And yet, eaten in moderate quantities, when +ripe, they are to the hard, healthy laborer very tolerable food. Eaten +green, they are most palatable, but least healthy. + +RECEIPT 8.--Green corn boiled is bad food. Sweet corn, cooked in this +way, is the best. + +RECEIPT 9.--Lentils are nutritious, highly so; but I know little about +them practically. + + +SECTION B.--_Grains, etc., in other forms. They may be baked, parched, +roasted, or torrefied._ + +RECEIPT 1.--Dry slowly, with a pretty strong heat, till they become so +dry and brittle as to fall readily into powder. Corn is most frequently +prepared in this way for food; but this and several other grains are +often torrefied for coffee. Care should be taken to avoid burning. + +RECEIPT 2.--Roasted grains are more wholesome. It is not usual or easy +to roast them properly, however, except the chestnut, as the expanded +air bursts or parches them. By cutting through the skin or shell, this +result may be avoided, as it often is in the case of the chestnut. To +roast well, they should be laid on the hearth or an iron plate, covered +with ashes, and by building a fire slowly, all burning may be prevented. + +RECEIPT 3.--Corn and buckwheat are often parched, and they form, +especially the former, a very good food. In South America, and in some +semi-barbarous nations, parched corn is a favorite dish. + +RECEIPT 4.--Green corn is often roasted in the ear. It is less +wholesome, however, than when boiled. Sweet corn is the best for either +purpose. + +RECEIPT 5.--Of baking grains I have little to say, because I _know_ +little on that subject.[28] + + +DIVISION III.--CAKES + +This species of farinaceous food is much used, and is fast coming into +vogue. The term, in its largest sense, would include the unleavened +bread or cakes, of which I have spoken so freely in Division 1. They +are for the most part, however, made by the addition of butter, eggs, +aromatics, milk, etc., to the dough; and in proportion as they depart +from simple bread, are more and more unhealthy. I shall mention but a +few, though hundreds might be named which would still be vegetable food, +as good olive oil, in preparing them, may be substituted for butter. I +shall treat of them under one head or section. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take of dough, prepared according to the English patented +process, mentioned in Division I., Section C, Receipt 1 and Receipt 2, +and bake in a thin form and in the usual manner. + +RECEIPT 2.--Fruit cakes, if people will have them, may be made in the +same manner. No butter would be necessary, even to butter eaters, when +prepared in this patented way. If any have doubts, let them consult +Pereira on Food and Diet, page 153. + +RECEIPT 3.--Gingerbread may be made in the same way, and without alum or +potash. It is thus comparatively harmless. Coarse meal always makes +better gingerbread than fine flour. + +RECEIPT 4.--Buckwheat cakes may be raised in the same general way. + +RECEIPT 5.--Cakes of millet, rice, etc., are said to have been made by +this process; but on this point I cannot speak from experience. + +RECEIPT 6.--Biscuits, crackers, wafers, etc., are a species of cake, and +might be made so as to be comparatively wholesome. + +RECEIPT 7.--Biscuits may be made of coarse corn meal, with the addition +of an egg and a little water. Make it into a stiff paste, and roll very +thin. + + +DIVISION IV.--PUDDINGS. + +These are a species of bread, only made thinner. They are usually +unfermented. I shall speak of two kinds--hominy and puddings proper. + +SECTION A.--_Hominy._ + +This is usually eaten hot; but it improves on keeping a day or two. It +may be warmed over, if necessary. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat hominy, or cracked wheat, may be made into a species +of pudding thus: Stir the hominy into boiling water (a little salted, if +it must be so), very gradually. Boil from fifteen minutes to one hour. +If boiled too long, it has a raw taste. + +RECEIPT 2.--Corn hominy, or, as it is sometimes called, samp. Two quarts +of hominy; four quarts of water; stir well, that the hulls may rise; +then pour off the water through a sieve, that the hulls may separate. +Pour the same water again upon the hominy, stir well, and pour off again +several times. Finally, pour back the water, add a little salt, if you +use salt at all, and if necessary, a little more water, and hang it over +a slow fire to boil. During the first hour it should be stirred almost +constantly. Boil from three to six hours. + +RECEIPT 3.--Another way: Take white Indian corn broken coarsely, put it +over the fire with plenty of water, adding more boiling water as it +wastes. It requires long boiling. Some boil it for six hours the day +before it is wanted, and from four to six the next day. Salt, if used at +all, may be added on the plate. + +RECEIPT 4.--Another way still of making hominy is to soak it over night, +and boil it slowly for four or five hours, in the same water, which +should be soft. + +There are other ways of making hominy, but I have no room to treat of +them. + + +SECTION B.--_Puddings proper._ + +These are of various kinds. Indeed, a single work I have before me on +Vegetable Cookery has not less than 127 receipts for dishes of this +sort, to say nothing of its pancakes, fritters, etc. I shall select a +few of the best, and leave the rest. + +The greatest objection to puddings is, that they are usually swallowed +in large quantity, unmasticated, after we have eaten enough of something +else. They are also eaten new and hot, and with butter, or some other +mixture almost as injurious. Some puddings, from half a day to a day and +a half old, are almost as good for us as bread. + +One of the best puddings I know of, is a stale loaf of bread, steamed. +Another is good sweet kiln dried oat meal, without any cooking at all. +But there are some good cooked puddings, I say again, such as the +following: + +RECEIPT 1.--Boiled Indian pudding: Indian meal, a quart; water, a pint; +molasses, a teacup full. Mix it well, and boil four hours. + +RECEIPT 2.--Another Indian pudding. Indian meal, three pints; scald it, +make it thin, and boil it about six hours. + +RECEIPT 3.--Another of the same: To one quart of boiling milk, while +boiling, add a teacup full of Indian meal; mix well, and add a little +molasses. Boil three hours in a strong heat. + +RECEIPT 4.--Hominy: Take a quart of milk and half a pint of Indian +meal; mix it well, and add a pint and a half of cooked hominy. Bake well +in a moderate oven. + +RECEIPT 5.--Baked Indian pudding may be made by putting together and +baking well a quart of milk, a pint of Indian meal, and a pint of water. +Add salt or molasses, if you please. + +RECEIPT 6.--Oat meal pudding: Pour a quart of boiling milk over a pint +of the best fine oat meal; let it soak all night; next day add two +beaten eggs; rub over, with pure sweet oil, a basin that will just hold +it; cover it tight with a floured cloth, and boil it an hour and a half. +When cold, slice and toast, or rather dry it, and eat it as you would +oat cake itself. + +This may be the proper place to say, that all coarse meal puddings are +healthiest when twelve or twenty hours old; but are all improved--and so +is brown bread--by drying, or almost toasting on the stove. + +RECEIPT 7.--Rice pudding: To one quart of new milk add a teacup full of +rice, sweetened a little. No dressings are necessary without you choose +them. Bake it well. + +RECEIPT 8.--Wheat meal pudding may be made by wetting the coarse meal +with milk, and sweetening it a little with molasses. Bake in a moderate +heat. + +RECEIPT 9.--Boiled rice pudding may be made by boiling half a pound of +rice in a moderate quantity of water, and adding, when tender, a +coffee-cup full of milk, sweetening a little, and baking, or rather +simmering half an hour. Add salt if you prefer it. + +RECEIPT 10.--_Polenta_--Corn meal, mixed with cheese--grated, as I +suppose, but we are not told in what proportion it is used--baked well, +makes a pudding which the Italians call polenta. It is not very +digestible. + +RECEIPT 11.--Pudding may be made of any of the various kinds of meal I +have mentioned, except those containing rye, by adding from one fourth +to one third of the meal of the comfrey root. See Division I of this +class, Section B, Receipt 17. + +RECEIPT 12.--Bread pudding: Take a loaf of rather stale bread, cut a +hole in it, add as much new milk as it will soak up through the opening, +tie it up in a cloth, and boil it an hour. + +RECEIPT 13.--Another of the same: Slice bread thinly, and put it in +milk, with a little sweetening; add a little flour, and bake it an hour +and a half. + +RECEIPT 14.--Another still: Three pints of milk, one pound of baker's +bread, four spoonfuls of sugar, and three of molasses. Cut the bread in +slices; interpose a few raisins, if you choose, between each two +slices, and then pour on the milk and sweetening. If baked, an hour and +a half is sufficient. If boiled, two or three hours. Use a tin pudding +boiler. + +RECEIPT 15.--Rice and apple pudding: Boil six ounces of rice in a pint +of milk, till it is soft; then fill a dish about half full of apples +pared and cored; sweeten; put the rice over them as a crust, and bake +it. + +RECEIPT 16.--Stirabout is made in Scotland by stirring oat meal in +boiling water till it becomes a thick pudding or porridge. This, with +cakes of oat meal and potatoes, forms the principal food of many parts +of Scotland. + +RECEIPT 17.--Hasty pudding is best made as follows: Mix five or six +spoonfuls of sifted meal in half a pint of cold water; stir it into a +quart of water, while boiling; and from time to time sprinkle and stir +in meal till it becomes thick enough. It should boil half or three +quarters of an hour. It may be made of Indian or rye meal. + +RECEIPT 18.--Potato pudding: Take two pounds of well boiled and well +mashed potato, one pound of wheat meal; make a stiff paste, by mixing +well; and tie it in a wet cloth dusted with flour. Boil it two hours. + +RECEIPT 19.--Apple pudding may be made by alternating a layer of +prepared apples with a layer of dough made of wheat meal, till you have +filled a tin pudding boiler. Boil it three hours. + +RECEIPT 20.--Sago pudding: Take half a pint of sago and a quart of milk. +Boil half the milk, and pour it on the sago; let it stand half an hour; +then add the remainder of the milk. Sweeten to your taste. + +RECEIPT 21.--Tapioca pudding may be prepared in a similar manner. + +RECEIPT 22.--To make cracker pudding, to a quart of milk add four thick +large coarse meal crackers broken in pieces, a little sugar, and a +little flour, and bake it one hour and thirty minutes. + +RECEIPT 23.--Sweet apple pudding is made by cutting in pieces six sweet +apples, and putting them and half a pint of Indian meal, with a little +salt, into a pint of milk, and baking it about three hours. + +RECEIPT 24.--Sunderland pudding is thus made: Take about two thirds of a +good-sized teacup full of flour, three eggs, and a pint of milk. Bake +about fifteen minutes in cups. Dress it as you please--sweet sauce is +preferred. + +RECEIPT 25.--Arrow root pudding may be made by adding two ounces of +arrow root, previously well mixed with a little cold milk, to a pint of +milk boiling hot. Set it on the fire; let it boil fifteen or twenty +minutes, stirring it constantly. When cool, add three eggs and a little +sugar, and bake it in a moderate oven. + +RECEIPT 26.--Boiled arrow root pudding: Mix as before, only do not let +it quite boil. Stir it briskly for some time, after putting it on the +fire the second time, at a heat of not over 180 degrees. When cooled, +add three eggs and a little salt. + +RECEIPT 27.--Cottage pudding: Two pounds of potatoes, pared, boiled, and +mashed, one pint of milk, three eggs, and two ounces of sugar, and if +you choose, a little salt. Bake it three quarters of an hour. + +RECEIPT 28.--Snow balls: Pare and core as many large apples as there are +to be balls; wash some rice--about a large spoonful to an apple will be +enough; boil it in a little water with a pinch of salt, and drain it. +Spread it on cloths, put on the apples, and boil them an hour. Before +they are turned out of the cloths, dip them into cold water. + +Macaroni is made into puddings a great deal, and so is vermicelli; but +they are at best very indifferent dishes. Those who live solely to eat +may as well consult "Vegetable Cookery," where they will find +indulgences enough and too many, even though flesh and fish are wholly +excluded. They will find soups, pancakes, omelets, fritters, jellies, +sauces, pies, puddings, dumplings, tarts, preserves, salads, +cheese-cakes, custards, creams, buns, flummery, pickles, syrups, +sherbets, and I know not what. You will find them by hundreds. And you +will find directions, too, for preparing almost every vegetable +production of both hemispheres. And if you have brains of your own you +may invent a thousand new dishes every day for a long time without +exhausting the vegetable kingdom. + + +DIVISION V.--PIES. + +Pies, as commonly made, are vile compounds. The crust is usually the +worst part. The famous Peter Parley (S. G. Goodrich, Esq.), in his +Fireside Education, represents pies, cakes, and sweetmeats as totally +unfit for the young. + +Within a few years attempts have been made to get rid of the crust of +pies--the abominations of the crust, I mean--by using Indian meal sifted +into the pans, etc.; but the plan has not succeeded. It is the pastry +that gives pies their charm. Divest them of this, and people will almost +as readily accept of plain ripe fruit, especially when baked, stewed, or +in some other way cooked. + +As pies are thus objectionable, and are, withal, a mongrel race, +partaking of the nature both of bread and fruit, and yet, as such, unfit +for the company of either, I will almost omit them. I will only mention +two or three. + +RECEIPT 1.--Squashes, boiled, mashed, strained, and mixed with milk or +milk and water, in small quantity, may be made into a tolerable pie. +They may rest on a thick layer of Indian meal. + +RECEIPT 2.--Pumpkins may be made into pies in a similar manner; but in +general they are not so sweet as squashes. + +RECEIPT 3.--Potato pie: Cut potatoes into squares, with one or two +turnips sliced; add milk or cream, just to cover them; salt a little, +and cover them with a bread crust. Sweet potatoes make far better pies +than any other kind. + +Almost any thing may be made into pies. Plain apple pies--so plain as to +become mere apple sauce--are far from being very objectionable. See the +next Class of Foods. + + +CLASS II.--FRUITS. + +So far as fruits, at least in an uncooked state, have been used as food, +they have chiefly been regarded as a dessert, or at most as a condiment. +Until within a few years, few regarded them as a principal article--as +standing next to bread in point of importance. In treating of these +substances as food, I shall simply divide them into Domestic and +Foreign. + + +DIVISION I.--DOMESTIC FRUITS. + + +SECTION A.--_The large fruits--Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc._ + +RECEIPT 1.--The apple. May be baked in tin pans, or in a common bake +pan. The sweet apple requires a more intense heat than the sour. The +skin may be removed before baking, but it is better to have it remain. +The best apple pie in the world is a baked apple. + +RECEIPT 2.--It may be roasted before the fire, by being buried in ashes, +or by throwing it upon hot coals, and quickly turning it. The last +process is sometimes called _hunting_ it. + +RECEIPT 3.--It may be boiled, either in water alone, or in water and +sugar, or in water and molasses. In this case the skin is often removed, +that the saccharine matter may the better penetrate the body of the +apple. + +RECEIPT 4.--It may also be pared and cored, and then stewed, either +alone or with molasses, to form plain apple sauce--a comparatively +healthy dish. + +RECEIPT 5.--Lastly, it may be pared and cored, placed in a deep vessel, +covered with a plain crust, as wheat meal formed into dough, and baked +slowly. This forms a species of pie. + +RECEIPT 6.--The pear is not, in every instance, improved by cookery. +Several species, however, are fit for nothing, till mid-winter, when +they are either boiled, baked, or stewed. + +The peach can hardly be cooked to advantage. It is sometimes cut up, and +sprinkled with sugar and other substances. + +RECEIPT 7.--A tolerably pleasant sauce can be made by stewing or baking +the quince, and adding sugar or molasses, but it is not very wholesome. + + +SECTION B.--_The smaller fruits. The Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, +Currant, Whortleberry, Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc._ + +None of these, so far as I know, are improved by cookery. It is common +to stew green currants, to make jams, preserves, sauces, etc., but this +is all wrong. The great Creator has, in this instance, at least, done +his own work, without leaving any thing for man to do. + +There is one general law in regard to fruits, and especially these +smaller fruits. Those which melt and dissolve most easily in the mouth, +and leave no residuum, are the most healthy; while those which do not +easily dissolve--which contain large seeds, tough or stringy portions, +or hulls, or scales--are in the same degree indigestible. + +I have said that fruits were next to bread in point of importance. They +are to be taken, always, as part of our regular meals, and never between +meals. Nor should they be eaten at the end of a meal, but either in the +middle or at the beginning. And finally, they should be taken either at +breakfast or dinner. According to the old adage, fruit is gold in the +morning, silver at noon, and lead at night. + + +DIVISION II.--FOREIGN FRUITS. + +The more important of these are the banana, pine-apple, and orange, and +fig, raisin, prune, and date. The first three need no cooking, two of +the last four may be cooked. The date is one of the best--the orange one +of the worst, because procured while green, and also because it is +stringy. + +RECEIPT 1.--The prune. Few things sit easier on the feeble or delicate +stomach than the stewed prune. It should be stewed slowly, in very +little water. + +RECEIPT 2.--The good raisin is almost as much improved by stewing as the +prune. + +I do not know that the fig has ever yet been subjected to the processes +of modern cookery. It is, however, with bread, a good article of food. + +Fruits, in their juices, may be regarded as the milk of adults and old +people, but are less useful to young children and to the _very_ old. But +to be useful they must be perfectly ripe, and eaten in their season. +Thus used, they prevent a world of summer diseases--used improperly, +they invite disease, and do much other mischief. + +In general, fruits and milk do not go very well together. The baked +sweet apple and whortleberry seem to be least objectionable. + + +CLASS III.--ROOTS. + + +DIVISION I.--MEALY ROOTS. + +These are the potato, in its numerous varieties, the artichoke, the +ground-nut, and the comfrey. Of these the potato is by far the most +important. + + +SECTION A.--_The Common Potato._ + +This may be roasted, baked, boiled, steamed, or fried. It is also made +into puddings and pies. Roasting in the ashes is the best method of +cooking it; frying by far the worst. I take this opportunity to enter my +protest against all frying of food. Com. Nicholson, of revolutionary +memory, would never, as his daughters inform me, have a frying-pan in +his house. + +The potato is best when well roasted in the ashes, but also excellent +when baked, and very tolerable when boiled or steamed. + +There are many ways of preparing the potato and cooking it. Some always +pare it. It may be well to pare it late in the winter and in the spring, +but not at other times. For, in paring, we lose a portion of the richest +part of the potato, as in the case of paring the apple. There is much +tact required to pare a potato properly, that is, thinly. + +RECEIPT 1.--To boil a potato, see that the kettle is clean, the water +pure and soft, and the potatoes clean. Put them in as soon as the water +boils.[29] When they are soft, which can be determined by piercing them +with a fork, pour off the water, and let them steam about five minutes. + +RECEIPT 2.--To roast in the ashes, wash them clean, then dry them, then +remove the heated embers and ashes quite to the bottom of the +fire-place, and place them as closely together as possible, but not on +top of each other. Cover as quickly as possible, and fill the crevices +with hot embers and small coals. Let them be as nearly of a size as +possible, and cover them to the depth of an inch. Then build a hot fire +over them. They will be cooked in from half an hour to three quarters of +an hour, according to the size and heat of the fire. + +RECEIPT 3.--Baking potatoes in a stove or oven, is a process so +generally known, that it hardly needs description. + +RECEIPT 4.--Steaming is better than boiling. Some fry them; others stew +them with vegetables for soup, etc. + + +SECTION B.--_The Sweet Potato._ + +This was once confined to the Southern States, but it is now raised in +tolerable perfection in New Jersey and on Long Island. It is richer than +the common potato in saccharine matter, and probably more nutritious; +but not, it is believed, quite so wholesome. Still it is a good article +of food. + +RECEIPT 1.--Roasting is the best process of cooking these. They may be +prepared in the ashes or before a fire. The last process is most common. +They cook in far less time than a common potato. + +RECEIPT 2.--Baking and roasting by the fire are nearly or quite the same +thing as respects the sweet potato. Steaming is a little different, and +boiling greatly so. The boiled sweet potato is, however, a most +excellent article. + + +DIVISION II.--SWEET AND WATERY ROOTS. + +These are far less healthy than the mealy ones; and yet are valuable, +because, like potatoes, they furnish the system with a good deal of +innutritious matter, to be set off against the almost pure nutriment of +bread, rice, beans, peas, etc. + +RECEIPT 1.--The beet is best when boiled thoroughly, which requires some +care and a good deal of time. It may be roasted, baked, or stewed, +however. It is rich in sugar, but is not very easily digested. + +RECEIPT 2.--The parsnep. The boiled parsnep is more easily _dissolved_ +in the stomach than the beet; but my readers must know that many things +which are dissolved in the stomach are nevertheless very imperfectly +digested. + +RECEIPT 3.--The turnip, well boiled, is watery, but easily digested and +wholesome. It may also be roasted or baked, and some eat it raw. + +RECEIPT 4.--The carrot is richer than the turnip, but not therefore more +digestible. It may be boiled, stewed, fried, or made into pies, +puddings, etc. It is a very tolerable article of food. + +RECEIPT 5.--The radish, fashionable as it is, is nearly useless. + +RECEIPT 6.--For the sick, and even for others, arrow root jellies, +puddings, etc., are much valued. This, with sago, tapioca, etc., is most +useful for that class of sick persons who have strong appetites.[30] + + +CLASS IV.--MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD. + +Under this head I shall treat briefly of the proper use of a few +substances commonly and very properly used as food, but which cannot +well come under any of the foregoing classes. They are chiefly found in +the various chapters of my Young Housekeeper, as well as in Dr. +Pereira's work on Food and Diet, under the heads of "Buds and Young +Shoots," "Leaves and Leaf Stalks," "Cucurbitaceous Fruits," and "Oily +Seeds." + +RECEIPT 1.--Asparagus, well boiled, is nutritious and wholesome. Salt is +often added, and sometimes butter. The former, to many, is needless; the +latter, to all, injurious. + +RECEIPT 2.--Some of the varieties of the squash are nutritious and +wholesome, especially when boiled. Its use in pies and puddings is also +well known. + +RECEIPT 3.--A few varieties of the pumpkin, especially the sweet +pumpkin, are proper for the table. Made into plain sauce, they are +highly valued by most, but they are best known as ingredients of pies +and puddings. A few eat them when merely baked. + +RECEIPT 4.--The tomato is fashionable, but a sour apple, if equal pains +were taken with it, and it were equally fashionable, might be equally +useful. It adds, however, to nature's vast variety! + +RECEIPT 5.--Watermelons, coming as they do at the end of the hot season, +when eaten with bread, are happily adapted (as most other ripe fruits +are, when eaten in the same way, and at their own proper season) to +prevent disease, and promote health and happiness. + +RECEIPT 6.--Muskmelons are richer than watermelons, but not more +wholesome. Of the canteloupe I know but little. + +RECEIPT 7.--The cucumber. Taken at the moment when ripe--neither green +nor acid--the cucumber is almost, but not quite as valuable as the +melon. It should be eaten in the same way, rejecting the rind. The +Orientals of modern days sometimes boil them, but in former times they +ate them uncooked, though always ripe. Unripe cucumbers are a _modern_ +dish, and will erelong go out of fashion. + +RECEIPT 8.--Onions have medicinal properties, but this should be no +recommendation to healthy people. Raw, they are unwholesome; boiled, +they are better; fried, they are positively pernicious. + +RECEIPT 9.--Nuts are said to be adapted to man in a state of nature; but +I write for those who are in an artificial state, not a natural state. +Of the chestnut I have spoken elsewhere. The hazelnut is next best, then +perhaps the peanut and the beechnut. The butternut, and walnut or +hickory-nut, are too oily. Nor do I see how they can be improved by +cookery. + +RECEIPT 10.--Cabbage, properly boiled, and without condiments, is +tolerable, but rather stringy, and of course rather indigestible. + +RECEIPT 11.--Greens and salads are stringy and indigestible. Besides, +they are much used, as condiments are, to excite or provoke an +appetite--a thing usually wrong. A feeble appetite, say at the opening +of the spring, however common, is a great blessing. If let alone, nature +will erelong set to rights those things, which have gone wrong perhaps +all winter; and then appetite will return in a natural way. + +But the worst thing about greens, salads, and some other things, is, +they are eaten with vinegar. Vinegar and all substances, I must again +say, which resist or retard putrefaction, retard also the work of +digestion. It is a universal law, and ought to be known as such, that +whatever tends to preserve our food--except perhaps ice and the +air-pump--tends also to interfere with the great work of digestion. +Hence, all pickling, salting, boiling down, sweetening, etc., are +objectionable. Pereira says, "By drying, salting, smoking, and pickling, +the digestibility of fish is greatly impaired;" and this, except as +regards _drying_, is but the common doctrine. It should, however, be +applied generally as well as to fish. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] Formerly called Graham meal. + +[26] I shall use these terms indiscriminately, as they mean in practice +the same thing. + +[27] Both these processes are patented in Great Britain. The bread thus +retains its sweetness--no waste of its saccharine matter, and no +residuum except muriate of soda or common salt. Sesquicarbonate of soda +is made of three parts or atoms of the carbonic acid, and two of the +soda. + +[28] Keep butter and all greasy substances away from every preparation +of food which belongs to this division--especially from green peas, +beans, corn, etc. + +[29] Some prepare them, and soak them in water over the night. + +[30] In general, the appetites of the sick are taken away by design. In +such cases there should be none of the usual forms of indulgence. A +little bread--the crust is best--is the most proper indulgence. If, +however, the appetite is raging, as in a convalescent state it sometimes +is, puddings and even gruel may be proper, because they busy the stomach +without giving it any considerable return for its labor. + + + + +Fowler and Wells, + +Publishers of Scientific and Popular + +STANDARD WORKS, + +308 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + +In order to accommodate "The People" residing in all parts of the United +States, the Publishers will forward, by return of the FIRST MAIL, any +book named in this List. The postage will be prepaid by them at the New +York Post-office. By this arrangement of paying postage in advance, +fifty per cent. is saved to the purchaser. The price of each work, +including postage, is given, so that the exact amount may be remitted. +Fractional parts of a dollar may be sent in postage-stamps. 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It + contains an explanation of each faculty, full enough to be + clear, yet so short as not to weary; together with combinations + of the faculties, and engravings to show the organs, large and + small; thereby enabling all persons, with little study, to + become acquainted with practical Phrenology. + + * * * * * + +FAMILIAR LESSONS ON PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY; for Children and Youth. +Two volumes in one. $1 25. + + The natural language of each organ is illustrated, and the work + is brought out in a style well adapted to the family circle, as + well as the school-room.--_Teachers' Comp'n._ + + * * * * * + +MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL SCIENCE; applied to the Elevation of Society. By +Combe, Cox, and others. $2 80. + + This work contains Essays on Phrenology, as a department of + physiological science, exhibiting its varied and important + applications to social and moral philosophy, to legislation, + medicine, and the arts. With Portraits of Drs. Gall, Spurzheim, + and Combe. + + * * * * * + +MENTAL SCIENCE. Lectures on the Philosophy of Phrenology. By Rev. G. S. +Weaver. Illustrated. 87 cents. + + These Lectures were prepared for the intellectual, moral, and + social benefit of society. The author has, in this respect, + done a good work for the rising generation. + + * * * * * + +DEFENCE OF PHRENOLOGY; containing the Nature and value of Phrenological +Evidence. A work for doubters. 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +LOVE AND PARENTAGE; applied to the Improvement of Offspring; By O. S. +Fowler. Price 80 cents. + +LOVE AND PARENTAGE, AND AMATIVENESS; in one vol. Muslin, 75 cents. + + * * * * * + +DOMESTIC LIFE; or, Marriage Vindicated and Free Love Exposed. By Nelson +Sizer. Price 15 cents. + + * * * * * + +PHRENOLOGY AND THE SCRIPTURES; showing their Harmony; An able, though +small, work. By Rev. J. Pierpont. 12 cts. + + * * * * * + +PHRENOLOGICAL GUIDE. Designed for Students of their own Characters. With +numerous Engravings. Price 15 cents. + + * * * * * + +PHRENOLOGICAL ALMANAC. Published Annually. With Calendars for all +Latitudes. Profusely Illustrated with Portraits of Distinguished +Persons. Price 6 cents. 25 copies, $1. + + * * * * * + +CHART, FOR RECORDING THE VARIOUS PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS. Illustrated +with Engravings. Designed for the Use of Phrenologists. Price 6 cents. +25 copies, $1. + + * * * * * + +SYMBOLICAL HEAD AND PHRENOLOGICAL CHART, IN MAP FORM, for Framing. +Showing the Natural Language of the Phrenological Organs. Price 25 +cents. + + * * * * * + +THE WORKS OF GALL, COMBE, SPURZHEIM, and others, for sale, wholesale and +retail. + +PHRENOLOGICAL SPECIMENS for Societies and Private Cabinets. 40 casts; +net, $25. + +PORTRAITS FOR LECTURERS, 40 in the set, for $25. + + * * * * * + +BENEFITS OF A PHRENOLOGICAL EXAMINATION. + +A CORRECT Phrenological examination will teach, with SCIENTIFIC +CERTAINTY, that most useful of all knowledge--YOURSELF; your DEFECTS, +and how to obviate them; your excellences, and how to make the most of +them; your NATURAL TALENTS, and thereby in what spheres and pursuits you +can best succeed; show wherein you are liable to errors and excesses; +direct you SPECIFICALLY, what faculties you require especially to +cultivate and restrain; give all needed advice touching +self-improvement, and the preservation and restoration of health; show, +THROUGHOUT, how to DEVELOP, PERFECT, and make the MOST POSSIBLE out of +YOUR OWN SELF; disclose to parents their children's INNATE CAPABILITIES, +natural callings, dispositions, defects, means of improvement, the mode +of government especially adapted to each--it will enable business men to +choose reliable partners and customers; merchants, confidential clerks; +mechanics, apprentices having natural GIFTS adapted to particular +branches; ship-masters, good crews; the friendly, desirable associates; +guide matrimonial candidates in selecting CONGENIAL life-companions, +especially adapted to each other; show the married what in each other to +allow for and conciliate; and can be made the VERY best instrumentality +for PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, IMPROVEMENT, AND HAPPINESS. + + FOWLER AND WELLS, Phrenologists, + 308 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + +_Books sent prepaid by First Mail to any Post Office in the United +States._ + + + + +WORKS ON WATER CURE, + +PUBLISHED BY + +FOWLER AND WELLS, + +308 Broadway, New York. + + If the people can be thoroughly indoctrinated in the general + principles of HYDROPATHY, and make themselves acquainted with + the LAWS OF LIFE AND HEALTH, they will well-nigh emancipate + themselves from all need of doctors of any sort--DR. TRALL. + +HYDROPATHIC ENCYCLOPÆDIA: A System of Hydropathy and Hygiene. Containing +Outlines of Anatomy; Physiology of the Human Body; Hygienic Agencies, +and the Preservation of Health; Dietetics, and Hydropathic Cookery; +Theory and Practice of Water Treatment; Special Pathology, and +Hydro-Therapeutics, including the Nature, Causes, Symptoms, and +Treatment of all known Diseases; Application of Hydropathy to Midwifery +and the Nursery. Designed as a Guide to Families and Students, and a +Text-Book for Physicians. By R. T. Trall, M.D. Illustrated with upwards +of Three Hundred Engravings and Colored Plates. Substantially bound, in +one large volume. Price for either edition, prepaid by mail, $3 00. + + This is the most comprehensive and popular work on Hydropathy, + with nearly one thousand pages. Of all the numerous + publications which have attained such a wide popularity, as + issued by Fowlers & Wells, perhaps none are more adapted to + general utility than this rich, comprehensive, and + well-arranged Encyclopædia.--_N. Y. Tribune._ + + * * * * * + +HYDROPATHIC FAMILY PHYSICIAN. A Ready Prescriber and Hygienic Adviser, +with reference to the Nature, Causes, Prevention and Treatment of +Diseases, Accidents, and Casualties of every kind; with a Glossary, +Table of Contents, and Index. Illustrated with nearly Three Hundred +Engravings. By Joel Shew, M.D. One large volume of 820 pages, +substantially bound, in library style. Price, with postage prepaid by +mail, $2 50. + + It possesses the most practical utility of any of the author's + contributions to popular medicine, and is well adapted to give + the reader an accurate idea of the organization and functions + of the human frame.--_New York Tribune._ + + * * * * * + +DOMESTIC PRACTICE OF HYDROPATHY, with fifteen Engraved Illustrations of +Important Subjects, with a Form of a Report for the Assistance of +Patients in consulting their Physicians by Correspondence. By Ed. +Johnson, M.D. Muslin, $1 50. + + * * * * * + +HYDROPATHY; or, the Water-cure. Its Principles, Processes, and Modes of +Treatment. In part from the most Eminent Authors, Ancient and Modern. +Together with an Account of the Latest Methods of Priessnitz. Numerous +Cases, with Treatment described By Dr. Shew. $1 25. + + * * * * * + +CHRONIC DISEASES. An Exposition of the Causes, Progress, and Termination +of various Chronic Diseases of the Digestive Organs, Lungs, Nerves, +Limbs, and Skin, and of their Treatment by Water and other Hygienic +Means. By James M. Gully, M.D. Illustrated. Muslin, $1 50. + + * * * * * + +HOME TREATMENT FOR SEXUAL ABUSES. A Practical Treatise for both Sexes, +on the Nature and Causes of Excessive and Unnatural Indulgences, the +Disease and Injuries resulting therefrom, with their Symptoms and +Hydropathic Management. By Dr. Trall. 30 cts. + + * * * * * + +CHILDREN; THEIR HYDROPATHIC MANAGEMENT IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. A +Descriptive and Practical Work, designed as a Guide for Families and +Physicians. With numerous cases described. By Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo., 432 +pp. Muslin, $1 25. + + * * * * * + +MIDWIFERY, AND THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. A Descriptive and Practical Work, +showing the Superiority of Water Treatment in Menstruation and its +Disorders, Chlorosis, Leucorrhoea, Fluor Albus, Prolapsus Uteri, +Hysteria, Spinal Diseases, and other Weaknesses of Females in Pregnancy +and its Diseases, Abortion, Uterine Hemorrhage and the General +Management of Childbirth, Nursing, etc., etc. Illustrated with Numerous +Cases of Treatment. By Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo. 432 pp. Muslin, $1 25. + + * * * * * + +COOK BOOK, NEW HYDROPATHIC, By R. T. Trall, M. D. A System of Cookery on +Hydropathic Principles, containing an Exposition of the True Relations +of all Alimentary Substances to Health, with Plain Recipes for preparing +all Appropriate Dishes for Hydropathic Establishments, Vegetarian +Boarding-houses, Private Families, etc., etc. It is the Cook's Complete +Guide for all who "eat to live." Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 +cents. + + * * * * * + +CONSUMPTION; ITS PREVENTION AND CURE BY THE WATER TREATMENT. With Advice +concerning Hemorrhage of the Lungs, Coughs, Colds, Asthma, Bronchitis, +and Sore Throat. By Dr. Shew. Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE APPLIED TO EVERY KNOWN DISEASE. A New Theory. A Complete +Demonstration of the Advantages of the Hydropathic System of Curing +Diseases; showing also the fallacy of the Allopathic Method, and its +Utter Inability to Effect a Permanent Cure. With an Appendix, containing +Hydropathic Diet, and Rules for Bathing. By J. H. Rausse. Translated +from the German. Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE ALMANAC. Published Annually, containing Important and +Valuable Hydropathic Matter. 48 pp. 6 cents. + + * * * * * + +PHILOSOPHY OF WATER-CURE. A Development of the True Principles of Health +and Longevity. By John Balbirnie, M.D. With a Letter from Sir Edward +Lytton Bulwer. Paper. Price, 80 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE JOURNAL AND HERALD OF REFORMS. Devoted to Physiology, +Hydropathy, and the Laws of Life and Health. Illustrated Engravings. +Quarto. Monthly, at $1 00 a year. + + We know of no American periodical which presents a greater + abundance of valuable information on all subjects relating to + human progress and welfare.--_N. Y. Tribune._ + + This is, unquestionably, the most popular Health Journal in the + world.--_N. Y. Eve. Post._ + + * * * * * + +RESULTS OF HYDROPATHY; OR, CONSTIPATION not a Disease of the Bowels; +Indigestion not a Disease of the Stomach; with an Exposition of the true +Nature and Causes of these Ailments, explaining the reason why they are +so certainly cured by the Hydropathic Treatment. By Edward Johnson, M.D. +Muslin. Price, 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE LIBRARY. In Seven Volumes, 12mo Embracing the most popular +works on the subject. By American and European Authors. Bound in +Embossed Muslin. Price, only $7 00. + + This library comprises most of the important works on the + subject of Hydropathy. The volumes are of uniform size and + binding, and form a most valuable medical library. + + * * * * * + +WATER AND VEGETABLE DIET in Consumption, Scrofula, Cancer, Asthma, and +other Chronic Diseases. In which the Advantages of Pure Water are +particularly considered. By William Lambe, M.D., With Notes and +Additions by Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo., 258 pp. Paper, 62 cents. Muslin, 87 +cents. + + * * * * * + +ACCIDENTS AND EMERGENCIES: A Guide, containing Directions for Treatment +in Bleeding, Cuts, Bruises, Sprains, Broken Bones, Dislocations, Railway +and Steamboat Accidents, Burns and Scalds, Bites of Mad Dogs, Cholera, +Injured Eyes, Choking, Poison, Fits, Sunstroke, Lightning, Drowning, +etc., etc. By Alfred Smee, F.R.S. Illustrated with numerous Engravings. +Appendix by Dr. Trall. Price, prepaid, 15 cents. + + * * * * * + +PARENTS' GUIDE FOR THE TRANSMISSION of the Desired Qualities to +Offspring; and Childbirth made Easy. By Mrs. Hester Pendleton. Price, 60 +cents. + + * * * * * + +PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH. Illustrated with Cases, Showing the Remarkable +Effects of Water in Mitigating the Pains and Perils of the Parturient +State. By Dr. Shew. Paper. Price, 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +INTRODUCTION TO THE WATER-CURE. Founded in Nature, and adapted to the +Wants of Man. Price, 15 cents. + + * * * * * + +SEXUAL DISEASES; their Causes, Prevention, and Cure, on Physiological +Principles. Embracing Home Treatment for Sexual Abuses; Chronic +Diseases, especially the Nervous Diseases of Women; The Philosophy of +Generation; Amativeness; Hints on the Reproductive Organs. In one +volume. Price, $1 25. + + * * * * * + +THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN LIFE. By Sylvester Graham, M.D. With a Portrait and +Biography of the Author. $2 50. + + * * * * * + +CURIOSITIES OF COMMON WATER; or, the Advantages thereof in preventing +and curing Diseases; gathered from the Writings of several Eminent +Physicians, and also from more than Forty Years' Experience. By John +Smith, C.M. With Additions, by Dr. Shew. 80 cents. + + * * * * * + +PRACTICE OF WATER-CURE. With Authenticated Evidence of its Efficacy and +Safety. Containing a detailed account of the various processes used in +the Water-Treatment, etc. By James Wilson, M. D., and James M. Gully, M. +D. 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +EXPERIENCE IN WATER-CURE. A Familiar Exposition of the Principles and +Results of Water-Treatment in Acute and Chronic Diseases; an Explanation +of Water-Cure Processes; Advice on Diet and Regimen and Particular +Directions to Women in the Treatment of Female Diseases, Water-Treatment +in Childbirth, and the Diseases of Infancy. Illustrated by Numerous +Cases. By Mrs. Nichols. Price, 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE MANUAL. A Popular Work, 12mo. Embracing descriptions of the +various Modes of Bathing, the Hygienic and Curative Effects of Air, +Exercises, Clothing, Occupation, Diet, Water-Drinking, etc. Together +with Descriptions of Diseases, and the Hydropathic Remedies. By Joel +Shew, M. D. Muslin. Price, 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +CHRONIC DISEASES: Especially the Nervous Diseases of Woman. By D. Rosch. +Translated from the German. 30 cts. + + * * * * * + +ALCOHOLIC CONTROVERSY. A Review of the _Westminster Review_ on the +Physiological Errors of Teetotalism. By Dr. Trall. Price, 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +DIGESTION, PHYSIOLOGY OF, Considered in Relation to the Principles of +Dietetics. By G. Combe. Illustrated, 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +FRUITS AND FARINACEA THE PROPER FOODS OF MAN. 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Alcott. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .tocnum {position: absolute; top: auto; right: 10%;} + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: .5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i11 {display: block; margin-left: 5.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i15 {display: block; margin-left: 7.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i23 {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30478 ***</div> + +<h1>VEGETABLE DIET:</h1> + +<h4>AS SANCTIONED BY</h4> + +<h2>MEDICAL MEN,</h2> + +<h4>AND BY</h4> + +<h2>EXPERIENCE IN ALL AGES.</h2> + +<h4>INCLUDING A</h4> + +<h3>SYSTEM OF VEGETABLE COOKERY.</h3> + +<h2>BY DR. WM. A. ALCOTT,</h2> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF THE YOUNG MAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG WOMAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG MOTHER, +YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER, AND LATE EDITOR OF THE LIBRARY OF HEALTH.</p> + +<p class="center">SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.</p> + +<p class="center"> +NEW YORK:<br /> +FOWLER AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS,<br /> +No. 308 BROADWAY<br /> +1859.<br /> +<br /> +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By fowlers & wells</span>,<br /> +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New<br /> +York.<br /> +<br /> +BANES & PALMER, STEREOTYPERS,<br /> +201 William st. corner Frankfort, N. Y.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>The following volume embraces the testimony, direct or indirect, of more +than a <span class="smcap">hundred</span> individuals—besides that of societies and +communities—on the subject of vegetable diet. Most of this one hundred +persons are, or were, persons of considerable distinction in society; +and more than <span class="smcap">fifty</span> of them were either medical men, or such as have +made physiology, hygiene, anatomy, pathology, medicine, or surgery a +leading or favorite study.</p> + +<p>As I have written other works besides this—especially the "Young +House-Keeper"—which treat, more or less, of diet, it may possibly be +objected, that I sometimes repeat the same idea. But how is it to be +avoided? In writing for various classes of the community, and presenting +my views in various connections and aspects, it is almost necessary to +do so. Writers on theology, or education, or any other important topic, +do the same—probably to a far greater extent, in many instances, than I +have yet done. I repeat no idea for the <i>sake</i> of repeating it. Not a +word is inserted but what seems to me necessary, in order that I may be +intelligible. Moreover, like the preacher of truth on many other +subjects, it is not so much my object to produce something new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> in every +paragraph, as to explain, illustrate, and enforce what is already known.</p> + +<p>It may also be thought that I make too many books. But, as I do not +claim to be so much an originator of <i>new</i> things as an instrument for +diffusing the <i>old</i>, it will not be expected that I should be twenty +years on a volume, like Bishop Butler. I had, however, been collecting +my stock of materials for this and other works—published or +unpublished—more than twenty-five years. Besides, it might be safely +and truly said that the study and reading and writing, in the +preparation of this volume, the "House I Live In," and the "Young +House-Keeper," have consumed at least three of the best years of my +life, at fourteen or fifteen hours a day. Several of my other works, as +the "Young Mother," the "Mother's Medical Guide," and the "Young Wife," +have also been the fruit of years of toil and investigation and +observation, of which those who think only of the labor of merely +<i>writing them out</i>, know nothing. Even the "Mother in her Family"—at +least some parts of it—though in general a lighter work, has been the +result of much care and labor. The circumstance of publishing several +books at the same, or nearly the same time, has little or nothing to do +with their preparation.</p> + +<p>When I commenced putting together the materials of this little treatise +on diet—thirteen years ago—it was my intention simply to show the +<span class="smcap">safety</span> of a vegetable and fruit diet, both for those who are afflicted +with many forms of chronic disease, and for the healthy. But I soon +became convinced that I ought to go farther, and show its <span class="smcap">superiority</span> +over every other. This I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> have attempted to do—with what success, the +reader must and will judge for himself.</p> + +<p>I have said, it was not my original intention to prove a vegetable and +fruit diet to be any thing more than <i>safe</i>. But I wish not to be +understood as entertaining, even at that time, any doubts in regard to +the superiority of such a diet: the only questions with me were, Whether +the public mind was ready to hear and weigh the proofs, and whether this +volume was the place in which to present them. Both these questions, +however, as I went on, were settled, in the affirmative. I believed—and +still believe—that the public mind, in this country, is prepared for +the free discussion of all topics—provided they are discussed +candidly—which have a manifest bearing on the well-being of man; and I +have governed myself accordingly.</p> + +<p>An apology may be necessary for retaining, unexplained, a few medical +terms. But I did not feel at liberty to change them, in the +correspondence of Dr. North, for more popular language; and, having +retained them thus far, it did not seem desirable to explain them +elsewhere. Nor was I willing to deface the pages of the work with +explanatory notes. The fact is, the technical terms alluded to, are, +after all, very few in number, and may be generally understood by the +connection in which they appear.</p> + +<p class="right">THE AUTHOR.<br /> +<span class="smcap">West Newton</span> Mass.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>ADVERTISEMENT</h2> + +<h3>TO THE SECOND EDITION.</h3> + + +<p>The great question in regard to diet, viz., whether any food of the +animal kind is absolutely necessary to the most full and perfect +development of man's whole nature, being fairly up, both in Europe and +America, and there being no practical, matter-of-fact volume on the +subject, of moderate size, in the market, numerous friends have been for +some time urging me to get up a new and revised edition of a work which, +though imperfect, has been useful to many, while it has been for some +time out of print. Such an edition I have at length found time to +prepare—to which I have added, in various ways, especially in the form +of new facts, nearly fifty pages of new and original matter.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">West Newton</span>, Mass., 1849.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p><span class="tocnum">Page</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<h4>ORIGIN OF THIS WORK.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Experience of the Author, and his Studies.—Pamphlet in +1832.—Prize-Question of the Boylston Medical +Committee.—Collection of Materials for an Essay.—Dr. +North.—His Letter and Questions.—Results, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-20</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<h4>LETTERS TO DR. NORTH.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Letter of Dr. Parmly.—Dr. W. A. Alcott.—Dr. D. S. +Wright.—Dr. H. N. Preston.—Dr. H. A. Barrows.—Dr. Caleb +Bannister.—Dr. Lyman Tenny.—Dr. J. M. B. Harden.—Joseph +Ricketson, Esq.—Joseph Congdon, Esq.—George W. Baker, +Esq.—John Howland, Jr., Esq.—Dr. Wm. H. Webster.—Josiah +Bennet, Esq.—Wm. Vincent, Esq.—Dr. George H. Perry.—Dr. L. +W. Sherman, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_21'>21</a>-55</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<h4>REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Correspondence.—The "prescribed course of Regimen."—How many +victims to it?—Not one.—Case of Dr. Harden considered.—Case +of Dr. Preston.—Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the +treatment of Scrofula.—No reports of Injury from the +prescribed System.—Case of Dr. Bannister.—Singular testimony +of Dr. Wright.—Vegetable food for Laborers.—Testimony, on the +whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could +reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_56'>56</a>-66</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h4>ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.—Dr. J. M. B. Harden.—Dr. J. +Porter.—Dr. N. J. Knight.—Dr. Lester Keep.—Second letter +from Dr. Keep.—Dr. Henry H. Brown.—Dr. Franklin Knox.—From a +Physician.—Additional statements by the Author. <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_66'>66</a>-91</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<h4>TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks.—Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.—Dr. +Geoffroy.—Vauquelin and Percy.—Dr. Pemberton.—Sir John +Sinclair.—Dr. James.—Dr. Cranstoun.—Dr. Taylor.—Drs. +Hufeland and Abernethy.—Sir Gilbert Blane.—Dr. Gregory.—Dr. +Cullen.—Dr. Rush.—Dr. Lambe.—Prof. Lawrence.—Dr. +Salgues.—Author of "Sure Methods."—Baron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> Cuvier.—Dr. Luther +V. Bell.—Dr. Buchan.—Dr. Whitlaw.—Dr. Clark.—Prof. +Mussey.—Drs. Bell and Condie.—Dr. J. V. C. Smith.—Mr. +Graham.—Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.—Dr. Sweetser.—Dr. +Pierson.—Physician in New York.—Females' Encyclopedia.—Dr. +Van Cooth.—Dr. Beaumont.—Sir Everard Home.—Dr. +Jennings.—Dr. Jarvis.—Dr. Ticknor.—Dr. Coles.—Dr. +Shew.—Dr. Morrill.—Dr. Bell.—Dr. Jackson.—Dr. +Stephenson.—Dr. J. Burdell.—Dr. Smethurst.—Dr. +Schlemmer.—Dr. Curtis.—Dr. Porter, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_92'>92</a>-175</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<h4>TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks.—Testimony of +Plautus.—Plutarch.—Porphyry.—Lord Bacon.—Sir William +Temple.—Cicero.—Cyrus the Great.—Gassendi.—Prof. +Hitchcock.—Lord Kaims.—Dr. Thomas Dick.—Prof. Bush.—Thomas +Shillitoe.—Alexander Pope.—Sir Richard Phillips.—Sir Isaac +Newton.—The Abbé Gallani.—Homer.—Dr. Franklin.—Mr. +Newton.—O. S. Fowler.—Rev. Mr. Johnston.—John H. +Chandler.—Rev. J. Caswell.—Mr. Chinn.—Father +Sewall.—Magliabecchi.—Oberlin and Swartz.—James +Haughton.—John Bailies.—Francis Hupazoli.—Prof. +Ferguson.—Howard, the Philanthropist.—Gen. +Elliot.—Encyclopedia Americana.—Thomas Bell, of +London.—Linnæus, the Naturalist.—Shelley, the Poet.—Rev. +Mr. Rich.—Rev. John Wesley.—Lamartine, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_176'>176</a>-222</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3> + +<h4>SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Pythagoreans.—The Essenes.—The Bramins.—Society of Bible +Christians.—Orphan Asylum of Albany.—The Mexican +Indians.—School in Germany.—American Physiological +Society, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_223'>223</a>-235</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<h4>VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument.—1. The +Anatomical Argument.—2. The Physiological Argument.—3. The +Medical Argument.—4. The Political Argument.—5. The +Economical Argument.—6. The Argument from Experience.—7. The +Moral Argument.—Conclusion, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_236'>236</a>-296</span></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h2>VEGETABLE COOKERY.</h2> + + +<h3>CLASS I.</h3> + +<h4>FARINACEOUS OR MEALY SUBSTANCES.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Bread of the first order.—Bread of the second order.—Bread of +the third kind.—Boiled Grains.—Grains in other forms—baked, +parched, roasted, or torrefied.—Hominy.—Puddings proper, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_291'>291</a>-308</span></p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>CLASS II.</h3> + +<h4>FRUITS.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The large fruits—Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc.—The smaller +fruits—Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, Currant, Whortleberry, +Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc., <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_308'>308</a>-309</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CLASS III.</h3> + +<h4>ROOTS.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Common Potato.—The Sweet Potato, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_309'>309</a>-311</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CLASS IV.</h3> + +<h4>MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Buds and Young Shoots.—Leaves and Leaf Stalks.—Cucurbitaceous +Fruits.—Oily Seeds, etc., <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_311'>311</a>-312</span></p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<h2>VEGETABLE DIET.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>ORIGIN OF THIS WORK.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Experience of the Author, and his Studies.—Pamphlet in +1832.—Prize Question of the Boylston Medical +Committee.—Collection of Materials for an Essay.—Dr. +North.—His Letter and Questions.—Results.</p></div> + + +<p>Twenty-three years ago, the present season, I was in the first stage of +tuberculous consumption, and evidently advancing rapidly to the second. +The most judicious physicians were consulted, and their advice at length +followed. I commenced the practice of medicine, traveling chiefly on +horseback; and, though unable to do but little at first, I soon gained +strength enough to perform a moderate business, and to combine with it a +little gardening and farming. At the time, or nearly at the time, of +commencing the practice of medicine, I laid aside my feather bed, and +slept on straw; and in December, of the same year, I abandoned spirits, +and most kinds of stimulating food. It was not, however, until nineteen +years ago, the present season, that I abandoned all drinks but water, +and all flesh, fish, and other highly stimulating and concentrated +aliments, and confined myself to a diet of milk, fruits, and +vegetables.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the meantime, the duties of my profession, and the nature of my +studies led me to prosecute, more diligently than ever, a subject which +I had been studying, more or less, from my very childhood—the laws of +Human Health. Among other things, I collected facts on this subject from +books which came in my way; so that when I went to Boston, in January, +1832, I had already obtained, from various writers, on materia medica, +physiology, disease, and dietetics, quite a large parcel. The results of +my reflections on these, and of my own observation and experience, were, +in part—but in part only—developed in July, of the same year, in an +anonymous pamphlet, entitled, "Rational View of the Spasmodic Cholera;" +published by Messrs. Clapp & Hull, of Boston.</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1833, the Boylston Medical Committee of Harvard +University offered a prize of fifty dollars, or a gold medal of that +value, to the author of the best dissertation on the following question: +"What diet can be selected which will ensure the greatest health and +strength to the laborer in the climate of New England—quality and +quantity, and the time and manner of taking it, to be considered?"</p> + +<p>At first, I had thoughts of attempting an essay on the subject; for it +seemed to me an important one. Circumstances, however, did not permit me +to prosecute the undertaking; though I was excited by the question of +the Boylston Medical Committee to renewed efforts to increase my stock +of information and of facts.</p> + +<p>In 1834, I accidentally learned that Dr. Milo L. North, a distinguished +practitioner of medicine in Hartford, Connecticut, was pursuing a course +of inquiry not unlike my own, and collecting facts and materials for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +similar purpose. In correspondence with Dr. North, a proposition was +made to unite our stock of materials; but nothing for the present was +actually done. However, I agreed to furnish Dr. North with a statement +of my own experience, and such other important facts as came within the +range of my own observations; and a statement of my experience was +subsequently intrusted to his care, as will be seen in its place, in the +body of this work.</p> + +<p>In February, 1835, Dr. North, in the prosecution of his efforts, +addressed the following circular, or <span class="smcap">letter</span> and <span class="smcap">questions</span>, to the editor +of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, which were accordingly +inserted in a subsequent number of that work. They were also published +in the American Journal of Medical Science, of Philadelphia, and copied +into numerous papers, so that they were pretty generally circulated +throughout our country.</p> + + +<h4>"To the Editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.</h4> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Reports not unfrequently reach us of certain individuals who have +fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. Those persons are +said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest confidence, to have +pertinaciously followed the course, till they reached a point of +reduction from which there was no recovery. If these are facts, they +ought to be collected and published. And I beg leave, through your +Journal, to request my medical brethren, if they have been called to +advise in such cases, that they will have the kindness to answer, +briefly, the following interrogatories, by mail, as early as convenient.</p> + +<p>"Should the substance of their replies ever be embodied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> in a small +volume, they will not only receive a copy and the thanks of the author, +but will have the pleasure to know they are assisting in the settlement +of a question of great interest to the country. If it should appear +probable that their patient was laboring under a decline at the +commencement of the change of diet, this ought, in candor, to be fully +disclosed.</p> + +<p>"It will be perceived, by the tenor of the questions, that they are +designed to embrace not only unfortunate results of a change of diet, +but such as are favorable. There are, in our community, considerable +numbers who have entirely excluded animal food from their diet. It is +exceedingly desirable that the results of such experiments, so difficult +to be found in this land of plenty, should be ascertained and thrown +before the profession and the community. Will physicians, then, have the +kindness, if they know of any persons in their vicinity who have +excluded animal food from their diet for a year or over, to lend them +this number of the Journal, and ask them to forward to Milo L. North, +Hartford, Connecticut, as early as convenient, the result of this change +of diet on their health and constitution, in accordance with the +following inquiries?</p> + +<p>"1. Was your bodily strength either increased or diminished by excluding +all animal food from your diet?</p> + +<p>"2. Were the animal sensations, connected with the process of digestion, +more—or less agreeable?</p> + +<p>"3. Was the mind clearer; and could it continue a laborious +investigation longer than when you subsisted on mixed diet?</p> + +<p>"4. What constitutional infirmities were aggravated or removed?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"5. Had you fewer colds or other febrile attacks—or the reverse?</p> + +<p>"6. What length of time, the trial?</p> + +<p>"7. Was the change to a vegetable diet, in your case, preceded by the +use of an uncommon proportion of animal food, or of high seasoning, or +of stimulants?</p> + +<p>"8. Was this change accompanied by a substitution of cold water for tea +and coffee, during the experiment?</p> + +<p>"9. Is a vegetable diet more—or less aperient than mixed?</p> + +<p>"10. Do you believe, from your experience, that the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet?</p> + +<p>"11. Have you selected, from your own observation, any articles in the +vegetable kingdom, as particularly healthy, or otherwise?</p> + +<p>"N.B.—Short answers to these inquiries are all that is necessary; and +as a copy of the latter is retained by the writer, it will be sufficient +to refer to them numerically, without the trouble of transcribing each +question.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Hartford</span>, February 25, 1835."</p> + +<p>This circular, or letter, drew forth numerous replies from various parts +of the United States, and chiefly from medical men. In the meantime, the +prize of the Boylston Medical Committee was awarded to Luther V. Bell, +M.D., of Derry, New Hampshire, and was published in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal, and elsewhere, and read with considerable +interest.</p> + +<p>In the year 1836, while many were waiting—some with a degree of +impatience—to hear from Dr. North, his health so far failed him, that +he concluded to relinquish, for the present, his inquiries; and, at his +particular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> request, I consented to have the following card inserted in +the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dr. North</span>, of Hartford, Connecticut, tenders his grateful +acknowledgments to the numerous individuals, who were so kind +as to forward to him a statement of the effects of vegetable +diet on their own persons, in reply to some specific inquiries +inserted in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of March +11, 1835, and in the Philadelphia Journal of the same year. +Although many months elapsed before the answers were all +received, yet the writer is fully aware that these +communications ought to have been published before this. His +apology is a prolonged state of ill health, which has now +become so serious as to threaten to drive him to a southern +climate for the winter. In this exigency, he has solicited Dr. +W. A. Alcott, of Boston, to receive the papers and give them to +the public as soon as his numerous engagements will permit. +This arrangement will doubtless be fully satisfactory, both to +the writers of the communications and to the public.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Hartford</span>, November 4, 1836."</p></div> + + +<p>Various circumstances, beyond my control, united to defer the +publication of the contemplated work to the year 1838. It is hoped, +however, that nothing was lost by delay. It gave further opportunity for +reflection, as well as for observation and experiment; and if the work +is of any value at all to the community, it owes much of that value to +the fact that what the public may be disposed to regard as unnecessary, +afforded another year for investigation. Not that any new discoveries +were made in that time, but I was, at least, enabled to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> verify and +confirm my former conclusions, and to review, more carefully than ever, +the whole argument. It is hoped that the work will at least serve as a +pioneer to a more extensive as well as more scientific volume, by some +individual who is better able to do the subject justice.</p> + +<p>It will be my object to present the facts and arguments of the following +volume, not in a distorted or one-sided manner, but according to truth. +I have no private interests to subserve, which would lead me to +suppress, or falsely color, or exaggerate. If vegetable food is not +preferable to animal, I certainly do not wish to have it so regarded. +This profession of a sincere desire to know and teach the truth may be +an apology for placing the letters in the order in which they +appear—which certainly is such as to give no unfair advantages to those +who believe in the superiority of the vegetable system—and for the +faithfulness with which their whole contents, whether favoring one side +or other of the argument, have been transcribed.</p> + +<p>The title of the work requires a word of explanation. It is not +intended, or even intimated, that there are no facts here but what rest +on medical authority; but rather, that the work originated with the +medical profession, and contains, for the most part, testimony which is +exclusively medical—either given by medical men, or under their +sanction. In fact, though designed chiefly for popular reading, it is in +a good degree a medical work; and will probably stand or fall, according +to the sentence of approbation or disapprobation which shall be +pronounced by the medical profession.</p> + +<p>The following chapter will contain the letters addressed to Dr. North. +They are inserted, with a single<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> exception, in the precise order of +their date. The first, however, does not appear to have been elicited by +Dr. North's circular; but rather by a request in some previous letter. +It will be observed that several of the letters include more than one +case or experiment; and a few of them many. Thus the whole series +embraces, at the least calculation, from thirty to forty experiments.</p> + +<p>The replies of nearly every individual are numbered to correspond with +the questions, as suggested by Dr. North; so that, if there should +remain a doubt, in any case, in regard to the precise point referred to +by the writer of the letter, the reader has only to turn to the circular +in the present chapter, and read the question there, which corresponds +to the number of the doubtful one. Thus, for example, the various +replies marked 6, refer to the length or duration of the experiment or +experiments which had been made; and those marked 9, to the aperient +effects of a diet exclusively vegetable. And so of all the rest.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>LETTERS TO DR. NORTH.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Letter of Dr. Parmly.—Dr. W. A. Alcott.—Dr. D. S. +Wright.—Dr. H. N. Preston.—Dr. H. A. Barrows.—Dr. Caleb +Bannister.—Dr. Lyman Tenny.—Dr. J. M. B. Harden.—Joseph +Ricketson, Esq.—Joseph Congdon, Esq.—George W. Baker, +Esq.—John Howland, Jr., Esq.—Dr. Wm. H. Webster.—Josiah +Bennet, Esq.—Wm. Vincent, Esq.—Dr. Geo. H. Perry.—Dr. L. W. +Sherman.</p></div> + + +<h4>LETTER I.—FROM DR. PARMLY, DENTIST.</h4> + +<h4>To Dr. North.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>,—For two years past, I have abstained from the use of all +the diffusible stimulants, using no animal food, either flesh, fish, or +fowl; nor any alcoholic or vinous spirits; no form of ale, beer, or +porter; no cider, tea, or coffee; but using milk and water as my only +liquid aliment, and feeding sparingly, or rather, moderately, upon +farinaceous food, vegetables, and fruit, seasoned with unmelted butter, +slightly boiled eggs, and sugar or molasses; with no condiment but +common salt.</p> + +<p>I adopted this regimen in company with several friends, male and female, +some of whom had been afflicted either with dyspepsia or some other +chronic malady. In every instance within the circle of my acquaintance, +the <i>symptoms</i> of disease disappeared before this system of diet; and I +have every reason to believe that the disease itself was wholly or in +part eradicated.</p> + +<p>In answer to your inquiry, whether I ascribe the cure,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> in the cases +alleged, to the abstinence from animal food or from stimulating drinks, +or from both, I cannot but give it as my confident opinion that the +result is to be attributed to a general abandonment of the <i>diffusive +stimuli</i>, under every shape and form.</p> + +<p>An increase of flesh was one of the earliest effects of the +<i>anti-stimulating</i> regimen, in those cures in which the system was in +low condition. The animal spirits became more cheerful, buoyant, and +uniformly pleasurable. Mental and bodily labor was endured with much +less fatigue, and both intellectual and corporeal exertion was more +vigorous and efficient.</p> + +<p>In the language of Addison, this system of ultra temperance has had the +happy effect of "filling the mind with inward joy, and spreading delight +through all its faculties."</p> + +<p>But, although I have thus made the experiment of abstaining wholly from +the use of liquid and solid stimulants, and from every form of animal +food, I am not fully convinced that it should be deemed improper, on any +account, to use the more slightly stimulating forms of animal food. +Perhaps fish and fowl, with the exception of ducks and geese, turtle and +lobster, may be taken without detriment, in moderate quantities. And I +regard good mutton as being the lightest, and, at the same time, the +most nutritious of all meats, and as producing less inconvenience than +any other kind, where the energies of the stomach are enfeebled. And yet +there are unquestionably many constitutions which would be benefited by +living, as I and others have done, on purely vegetable diet and ripe +fruits.</p> + +<p>In relation to many of the grosser kinds of animal food, all alcoholic +spirits, all distilled and fermented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> liquors, tea and coffee, opium and +tobacco,—I feel confident in pronouncing them not only useless, but +noxious to the animal machine.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Eleazer Parmly</span></p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, January 31, 1835.</p> + +<h4>LETTER II—FROM DR. W. A. ALCOTT.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, December 19, 1834.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I received your communication, and hasten to reply to as many +of your inquiries as I can. Allow me to take them up in the very order +in which you have presented them.</p> + +<p>Answer to question 1. I was bred to a very active life, from my earliest +childhood. This active course was continued till about the time of my +leaving off the use of flesh and fish; since which period my habits +have, unfortunately, been more sedentary. I think my muscular strength +is somewhat less now than it was before I omitted flesh meat, but in +what proportion I am unable to say; for indeed it varies greatly. When +more exercise is used, my strength increases—sometimes almost +immediately; when less exercise is used, my strength again diminishes, +but not so rapidly. These last circumstances indicate a more direct +connection between my loss of muscular strength and my neglect of +exercise than between the former and my food.</p> + +<p>2. Rather more agreeable; unless I use too large a quantity of food; to +which however I am rather more inclined than formerly, as my appetite is +keener, and food relishes far better. A sedentary life, moreover, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> I +am well satisfied, tends to bring my moral powers into subjection to the +physical.</p> + +<p>3. My mind has been clearer, since I commenced the experiment to which +you allude, than before; but I doubt whether I can better endure a +"laborious investigation." A little rest or exercise, perhaps less than +formerly, restores vigor. I am sometimes tempted to <i>break my day into +two</i>, by sleeping at noon. But I am not so apt to be cloyed with study, +or reflection, as formerly.</p> + +<p>4. Several. 1. An eruptive complaint, sometimes, at one period of my +life, very severe. 2. Irritation of the lungs; probably, indeed most +certainly, incipient phthisis. 3. Rheumatic attacks, though they had +never been very severe.</p> + +<p>The eruptive disease, however, and the rheumatic attacks, are not wholly +removed; but they are greatly diminished. The irritation at the lungs +has nearly left me. This is the more remarkable from the fact that I +have been, during almost the whole period of my experiment, in or about +Boston. I was formerly somewhat subject to palpitations; these are now +less frequent. I am also less exposed to epidemics. Formerly, like other +scrofulous persons, I had nearly all that appeared; now I have very few.</p> + +<p>You will observe that I merely state the facts, without affirming, +positively, that my change of diet has been the cause, though I am quite +of opinion that this has not been without its influence. Mental quiet +and total abstinence from all drinks but water, may also have had much +influence, as well as other causes.</p> + +<p>5. Very few colds. Last winter I had a violent inflammation of the ear, +which was attended with some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> fever; but abstinence and emollient +applications soon restored me. In July last, I had a severe attack of +diarrhœa unattended with much fever, which I attributed to drinking +too much water impregnated with earthy salts, and to which I had been +unaccustomed. When I have a cold, of late, it affects, principally, the +nasal membrane; and, if I practice abstinence, soon disappears. In this +respect, more than in any other, I am confident that since I commenced +the use of a vegetable diet I have been a very great gainer.</p> + +<p>6. The experiment was fully begun four years ago last summer; though I +had been making great changes in my physical habits for four years +before. For about three years, I used neither flesh nor fish, nor even +eggs more than two or three times a year. The only animal food I used +was milk; and for some long periods, not even that. But at the end of +three years I ate a very small quantity of flesh meat once a day, for +three or four weeks, and then laid it aside. This was in the time of the +cholera. The only effect I perceived from its use was a slight increase +of peristaltic action. In March last, I used a little dried fish once or +twice a day, for a few days; but with no peculiar effects. After my +attack of diarrhœa, in July last, I used a little flesh several +times; but for some months past I have laid it aside entirely, with no +intention of resuming it. Nothing peculiar was observed, as to its +effects, during the last autumn.</p> + +<p>7. I never used a large proportion of animal food, except milk, since I +was a child; but I have been in the habit, at various periods of my +life, of drinking considerable cider. For some months before I laid +aside flesh and fish, I had been accustomed to the use of more animal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +food than usual, but less cider; though, for a part of the time, I made +up the deficiency of cider with ale and coffee. For several months +previous to the beginning of the experiment, I had drank nothing but +water.</p> + +<p>8. Rather less. But here, again, I fear I am in danger of attributing to +one cause what is the effect of another. My neglect of exercise may be +more in fault than the rice and bread and milk which I use. Still I must +think that vegetable food is, in my own case, less aperient than animal.</p> + +<p>9. In regard to students, my reply is, Yes, most certainly. So I think +in regard to laborers, were they trained to it. But how far <i>early +habits</i> may create a demand for the continuance of animal food through +life, I am quite at a loss for an opinion. Were I a hard laborer, I +should use no animal food. When I travel on foot forty or fifty miles a +day, I use vegetable food, and in less than the usual quantity. This I +used to do before I commenced my experiment.</p> + +<p>10. I use bread made of unbolted wheat meal, in moderate quantity, when +I can get it; plain Indian cakes once a day; milk once a day; rice once +a day. My plan is to use as few things as possible at the same meal, but +to have considerable variety at different meals. I use no new bread or +pastry, no cheese, and but little butter; and very little fruit, except +apples in moderate quantity.</p> + +<p>11. The answer to this question, though I think it would be important +and interesting, with many other particulars, I must defer for the +present. The experiments of Dr. F., a young man in this neighborhood, +and of several other individuals, would, I know be in point;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> but I have +not at my command the time necessary to present them.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER III.—FROM DR. D. S. WRIGHT.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Whitehall</span>, Washington Co., N. Y., March 17, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I noticed a communication from you in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal of the 5th instant, in which you signify a wish to +collect facts in relation to the effects of a vegetable diet upon the +human system, etc. I submit for your consideration my own experience; +premising, however, that I am a practicing physician in this place—am +thirty-three years old—of a sanguine, bilious temperament—have from +youth up usually enjoyed good health—am not generally subject to +fevers, etc.</p> + +<p>I made a radical change in my diet three years ago this present month, +from a mixed course of animal and vegetable food, to a strictly +vegetable diet, on which I subsisted pretty uniformly for the most part +of one year. I renewed it again about ten moths ago.</p> + +<p>My reasons for adopting it were: 1st. I had experienced the beneficial +effects of it for several years before, during the warm weather, in +obviating a dull cephalalgic pain, and oppression in the epigastrium. +2dly. I had recently left the salubrious atmosphere of the mountains in +Essex county, in this state, for this place of <i>musquitoes</i> and +<i>miasmata</i>. 3dly, and prominently. I had frequent exposures to the +variolous infection, and I had a <i>dreadful</i> apprehension that I might +have an attack of the varioloid, as at that time I had never +experimentally tried the protective powers of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> vaccine virus, and +had <i>too</i> little confidence in those who recommended its prophylactic +powers. The results I submit you, in reply to your interrogatories.</p> + +<p>1. I think each time I tried living on vegetable food exclusively, that +for the first month I could not endure fatigue <i>as well</i>. Afterward I +could.</p> + +<p>2. The digestive organs were always more agreeably excited.</p> + +<p>3. The mind uniformly clearer, and could endure laborious investigations +longer, and with less effort.</p> + +<p>4. I am constitutionally healthy and robust.</p> + +<p>5. I believe I have more colds, principally seated on the mucous +membranes of the lungs, fauces, and cavities of the head. (I do not, +however, attribute it to diet.)</p> + +<p>6. The first trial was one year. I am now ten months on the same plan, +and shall continue it.</p> + +<p>7. I never used a large quantity of animal food or stimulants, of any +description.</p> + +<p>8. I have for several years used tea and coffee, usually once a +day—believe them healthy.</p> + +<p>9. Vegetable diet is less aperient than a mixed diet, if we except +<i>Indian corn</i>.</p> + +<p>10. I do not think that common laborers, in health, could do as well +without animal food; but I think students might.</p> + +<p>11. I have selected <i>potatoes</i>, when <i>baked</i> or <i>roasted</i>, and all +articles of food usually prepared from <i>Indian meal</i>, as the most +healthy articles on which I subsist; particularly the latter, whose +aperient and nutritive qualities render it, in my estimation, an +invaluable article for common use.</p> + + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">D. S. Wright.</span></p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> +<h4>LETTER IV.—FROM DR. H. N. PRESTON.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Plymouth</span>, Mass., March 26, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—When I observed your questions in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal, of the 11th of March, I determined to give you +personal experience, in reply to your valuable queries.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1832, while engaged in more than usual professional +labor, I began to suffer from indigestion, which gradually increased, +unabated by any medicinal or dietetic course, until I was reduced to the +very confines of the grave. The disease became complicated, for a time, +with chronic bronchitis. I would remark, that, at the time of my +commencing a severe course of diet, I was able to attend to my practice +daily.</p> + +<p>In answer to your inquiries, I would say to the 1st—very much +diminished, and rapidly.</p> + +<p>2. Rather less; distinct local uneasiness—less disposition to +drowsiness; but decidedly more troubled with cardialgia, and +eructations.</p> + +<p>3. I think not.</p> + +<p>4. My disease was decidedly increased; as cough, headache, and +emaciation; and being of a scrofulous diathesis, was lessening my +prospect of eventual recovery.</p> + +<p>5. My febrile attacks increased with my increased debility.</p> + +<p>6. Almost four months; when I became convinced death would be the +result, unless I altered my course.</p> + +<p>7. I had taken animal food moderately, morning and noon—very little +high seasoning—no stimulants, except tea and coffee. The latter was my +favorite beverage;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and I usually drank two cups with my breakfast and +dinner, and black tea with my supper.</p> + +<p>8. I drank but one cup of weak coffee with my breakfast, none with +dinner, and generally a cup of milk and water with supper.</p> + +<p>9. With me <i>much less aperient</i>; indeed, costiveness became a very +serious and distressing accompaniment.</p> + +<p>10. From somewhat extensive observation, for the last seven years, I +should say, of laborers never; students seldom.</p> + +<p>11. Among dyspeptics, potatoes nearly boiled, then mashed together, +rolled into balls, and laid over hot coals, until a second time cooked, +as easy as any vegetable. If any of the luxuries of the table have been +noticed as particularly injurious, it has been cranberries, prepared in +any form, as stewed in sauce, tarts, pies, etc.</p> + +<p>Crude as these answers are, they are at your service; and I am prompted +to give them from the fact, that very few persons, I presume, have been +so far reduced as myself, with dyspepsia and its concomitants. In fact, +I was pronounced, by some of the most scientific physicians of Boston, +as past all prospect of cure, or even much relief, from medicine, diet, +or regimen. My attention has naturally been turned with anxious +solicitude to the subject of diet, in all its forms. Since my unexpected +restoration to health, my opportunities for observation among dyspeptics +have been much enlarged; and I most unhesitatingly say, that my success +is much more encouraging, in the management of such cases, since +pursuing a more liberal diet, than before. Plain animal diet, avoiding +condiments and tea, using mucilaginous drink, as the Irish Moss, is +preferable to "absolute diet,"—cases of decided chronic gastritis +excepted.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">H. N. Preston</span>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER V.—FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Phillips</span>, Somerset Co., Me., April 28, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I have a brother-in-law, who owes his life to abstinence from +animal food, and strict adherence to the simplest vegetable diet. My own +existence is prolonged, only (according to human probabilities) by +entire abstinence from flesh-meat of every description, and feeding +principally upon the coarsest farinacea.</p> + +<p>Numberless other instances have come under my observation within the +last three years, in which a strict adherence to a simple vegetable diet +has done for the wretched invalid what the best medical treatment had +utterly failed to do; and in no one instance have I known permanently +injurious results to follow from this course, but in many instances have +had to lament the want of firmness and decision, and a gradual return to +the "<i>flesh-pots of Egypt</i>."</p> + +<p>With these views, I very cheerfully comply with your general invitation, +on page 77, volume 12, of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. The +answers to your interrogatories will apply to the case first referred +to, to my own case, and to nearly every one which has occurred within my +notice.</p> + +<p>1. Increased, uniformly; and in nearly every instance, without even the +usual debility consequent upon withdrawing the stimulus of animal food.</p> + +<p>2. More agreeable in every instance.</p> + +<p>3. Affirmative, <i>in toto</i>.</p> + +<p>4. None aggravated, except flatulence in one or two instances. All the +horrid train of dyspeptic symptoms uniformly mitigated, and obstinate +constipation removed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>5. Fewer colds and febrile attacks.</p> + +<p>6. Three years, with my brother; with myself, eighteen months partially, +and three months wholly; the others, from one to six months.</p> + +<p>7. Negative.</p> + +<p>8. Cold water—my brother and myself; others, hot and cold water +alternately.</p> + +<p>9. More aperient,—no exceptions.</p> + +<p>10. I believe the health of <i>students</i> would uniformly be promoted—and +the days of the laborer, to say the least, would be lengthened.</p> + +<p>11. I have; and that is, simple bread made of wheat meal, ground in +corn-stones, and mixed up precisely as it comes from the mill—with the +substitution of fine flour when the bowels become too active.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Horace A. Barrows</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER VI.—FROM DR. CALEB BANNISTER.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Phelps, N. Y.</span>, May 4, 1835.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—My age is fifty-three. My ancestors had all melted away with +hereditary consumption. At the age of twenty, I began to be afflicted +with pain in different parts of the thorax, and other premonitory +symptoms of phthisis pulmonalis. Soon after this, my mother and eldest +sister died with the disease. For myself, having a severe attack of ague +and fever, all my consumptive symptoms became greatly aggravated; the +pain was shifting—sometimes between the shoulders, sometimes in the +side, or breast, etc. System extremely irritable, pulse hard and easily +excited, from about ninety to one hundred and fifty, by the stimulus of +a very small quantity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> of food; and, to be short, I was given up, on all +hands, as lost.</p> + +<p>From reading "Rush" I was induced to try a milk diet, and succeeded in +regaining my health, so that for twenty-four years I have been entirely +free from any symptom of phthisis; and although subject, during that +time, to many attacks of fever and other epidemics, have steadily +followed the business of a country physician.</p> + +<p>I would further remark, before proceeding to the direct answer to your +questions, that soon perceiving the benefit resulting from the course I +had commenced, and finding the irritation to diminish in proportion as I +diminished not only the quality, but quantity of my food, I took less +than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to +about the quantity of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen +arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking only my usual +quantity in <i>bulk</i>.</p> + +<p>A seton was worn in the side, and a little exercise on horseback taken +three times every day, as strength would allow, during the whole +progress. The appetite was, at all times, not only <i>craving</i>, it was +<i>voracious</i>; insomuch that all my sufferings from all other sources, +dwindled to a point when compared with it.</p> + +<p>The quantity that I ate at a time so far from satisfying my appetite, +only served to increase it; and this inconvenience continued during the +whole term, without the least abatement;—and the only means by which I +could resist its cravings, was to live entirely by myself, and keep out +of sight of all kinds of food except the scanty pittance on which I +subsisted. And now to the proposed questions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>1. Increased.</p> + +<p>2. More agreeable, hunger excepted.</p> + +<p>3. To the first part of this question, I should say evidently clearer; +to the latter part, such was the state of debility when I commenced, and +such was it through the whole course, I am not able to give a decisive +answer.</p> + +<p>4. This question, you will perceive, is already answered in my +preliminary remarks.</p> + +<p>5. Fewer, insomuch that I had none.</p> + +<p>6. Two full years.</p> + +<p>7. My living, from early life, had been conformable to the habits of the +farmers of New England, from which place I emigrated, and my habits in +regard to stimulating drinks were always moderate; but I occasionally +took them, in conformity to the customs of those "<i>times of ignorance</i>."</p> + +<p>8. I literally drank <i>nothing</i>; the milk wholly supplying the place of +all liquids.</p> + +<p>9. State of the bowels good before adopting the course, and after.</p> + +<p>10. I do not.</p> + +<p>11. I have not.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Caleb Bannister.</span></p> + +<h4>LETTER VII.—FROM DR. LYMAN TENNY.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Franklin</span>, Vermont, June 22, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—In answer to your inquiries, in the Boston Medical and Surgical +Journal, vol. xii., page 78, I can say that I have lived entirely upon a +bread and milk diet, without using any animal food other than the milk.</p> + +<p>1. At first, my bodily strength was diminished to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> certain degree, and +required a greater quantity of food, and rather oftener, than when upon +a mixed diet of animal food (strictly so called) and vegetables.</p> + +<p>2. The animal sensations, attending upon the process of digestion, were +rather more agreeable than when upon a mixed diet.</p> + +<p>3. My mind was more clear, but I could not continue a laborious +investigation as long as when I used animal food more plentifully.</p> + +<p>4. At this time there were no constitutional infirmities which I was +laboring under, except those which more or less accompany the rapid +growth of the body; such as a general lassitude, impaired digestion, +etc., which were neither removed nor aggravated, but kept about so, +until I ate just what I pleased, without any regard to my indigestion, +etc., when I began to improve in the strength of my whole system.</p> + +<p>5. I do not recollect whether I was subject to more or fewer colds; but +I can say I was perfectly free from all febrile attacks, although +febrile diseases often prevailed in my vicinity. But since that time, a +period of six years, I have had three attacks of fever.</p> + +<p>6. The length of time I was upon this diet was about two years.</p> + +<p>7. Before entering upon this diet, I was in the habit of taking a +moderate quantity of animal food, but without very high seasoning or +stimulants.</p> + +<p>8. While using this diet, I confined myself entirely and exclusively to +cold water as a drink—using neither tea, coffee, nor spirits of any +kind whatever.</p> + +<p>9. I am inclined to think that a vegetable diet is more aperient than an +animal one; indeed, I may say I know it to be a fact.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>10. From what I have experienced, I do not think that laborers would be +any more healthy by excluding animal food from their diet entirely; but +I believe it would be much getter if they would use less. As to +students, I believe their health would be promoted if they were to +exclude it almost, if not entirely.</p> + +<p>11. I never have selected any vegetables which I thought to be more +healthy than others: nor indeed do I believe there is any one that is +more healthy than another; but believe that all those vegetables which +we use in the season of them, are adapted to supply and satisfy the +wants of the system.</p> + +<p>We are carnivorous, as well as granivorous animals, having systems +requiring animal, as well as vegetable food, to keep all the organs of +the body in tune; and perhaps we need a greater variety than other +animals.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lyman Tenny.</span></p> + +<h4>LETTER VIII.—FROM DR. J. M. B. HARDEN.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Liberty County</span>, Georgia, July 15, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Having observed, in the May number of the "American Journal of the +Medical Sciences," certain inquiries in relation to diet, proposed by +you to the physicians of the United States, I herewith transmit to you +an account of a case exactly in point, which I hope may prove +interesting to yourself, and in some degree "assist in the settlement of +a question of <i>great interest</i> to the <i>country</i>."</p> + +<p>The case, to which allusion is made, occurred in the person of a very +intelligent and truly scientific gentleman of this county, whose regular +habits, both of mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> and body, added to his sound and discriminating +judgment, will tend to heighten the value and importance of the +experiment involved in the case I am about to detail.</p> + +<p>Before proceeding to give his answers to your interrogatories, it may be +well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was +forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his +business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great +deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he himself declares, +to walk seldom less than ten miles a day, and frequently more; and this +exercise was continued during the whole period of the experiment. His +health for two years previously had been very feeble, arising, as he +supposed, from a diseased <i>spleen</i>; which organ is at this time +enlarged, and somewhat indurated. His digestive powers have <i>always</i> +been <i>good</i>, and he had been in the habit of making his meals at times +entirely of <i>animal food</i>. His bowels have always been regular, and +rather inclined to looseness, but never disordered. He is five feet +eight inches high, of a very thin and spare habit of body, with thin +dark hair, inclining to baldness; complexion rather dark than fair; eyes +dark hazel; of <i>very studious</i> habits when free from active engagements; +with great powers of mental abstraction and attention, and of a temper +<i>remarkably even</i>.</p> + +<p>In answer to your interrogatories, he replies,—</p> + +<p>1. That his bodily strength was increased, and general health became +better.</p> + +<p>2. He perceived no difference.</p> + +<p>3. He is assured of the affirmative.</p> + +<p>4. His spleen was diminished in size, and frequent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> and long-continued +attacks of <i>lumbago</i> were rendered <i>much milder</i>, and have so continued.</p> + +<p>5. Had fewer colds and febrile attacks.</p> + +<p>6. Three years.</p> + +<p>7. No; with the slight exception mentioned above.</p> + +<p>8. No.</p> + +<p>9. In his case rather less.</p> + +<p>10. Undoubtedly.</p> + +<p>11. No; has made his meals of cabbages entirely, and found them as +easily digested as any other article of diet. I may remark, that <i>honey</i> +to him is a poison, producing, <i>invariably</i>, symptoms of cholera.</p> + +<p>After three years' trial of this diet, without having any previous +apparent disease, but on the contrary as strong as usual, he was taken, +somewhat suddenly, in the winter of 1832 and 3, with symptoms of extreme +debility, attended with œdematous swellings of the lower extremities, +and painful cramps, at night confined to the gastrocnemii of both legs, +and some feverishness, indicated more by the beatings of the <i>carotids</i> +than by any other symptom. His countenance became very pallid, and +indeed he had every appearance of a man in a very low state of health. +Yet, during the whole period of this apparent state of disease, there +were no symptoms indicative of disorder in any function, save the +general function of innervation, and perhaps that of the lymphatics or +absorbents of the lower extremities. Nor was there any manifest disease +of any organ, unless it was the spleen, which was not then remarkably +enlarged. I was myself disposed to attribute his symptoms to the spleen, +and possibly to the want of animal food; but he himself attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of the vapor of +arseniuretted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> and sulphuretted hydrogen gases, to which he was +subjected during some chemical experiments on the ores of cobalt, to +which he has been for a long time turning his attention; a circumstance +which I had not known until lately.</p> + +<p>However it may be, he again returned to a mixed diet (to which however +he ascribes no agency in his recovery), and, after six months' +continuance in this state, he rapidly recovered his usual health and +strength, which, up to this day—two full years after the expiration of +six months—have continued good. In the treatment of his case no +medicine of any kind was given, to which any good effect can be +attributed; and indeed he may be said to have undergone no medical +treatment at all.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">J. M. B. Harden</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER IX.—FROM JOSEPH RICKETSON, ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New Bedford</span>, 8th month, 26th, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Respected Friend</span>,—Perhaps before giving answers to thy queries in the +American Journal of Medical Science, it may not be amiss to give thee +some account of my family and manner of living, to enable thee to judge +of the effect of a vegetable diet on the constitution.</p> + +<p>I have a wife, a mother aged eighty-eight, and two female domestics. It +is now near three years since we adopted what is called the Graham or +vegetable diet, though not in its fullest extent. We exclude animal food +from our diet, but sometimes we indulge in shell and other fish. We use +no kind of stimulating liquors, either as drink or in cookery, nor any +other stimulants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> except occasionally a little spice. We do not, as +Professor Hitchcock would recommend, nor as I believe would be most +conducive to good health, live entirely simple; sometimes, however, for +an experiment, I have eaten only rice and milk; at other times only +potatoes and milk for my dinner; and have uniformly found I could endure +as much fatigue, and walk as far without inconvenience, as when I have +eaten a greater variety. We, however, endeavor to make our varieties +mostly at different meals.</p> + +<p>For breakfast and tea we have some hot water poured upon milk, to which +we add a little sugar, and cold bread and butter; but in cold weather we +toast the bread, and prefer having it so cool as not to melt the butter. +We seldom eat a meal without some kind of dried or preserved fruit, such +as peaches, plums, quinces, or apples; and in the season, when easily to +be procured, we use, freely, baked apples, also berries, particularly +blackberries stewed, which, while cooking, are sweetened and thickened a +little. Our dinners are nearly the same as our other meals, except that +we use cold milk, without any water. We have puddings sometimes made of +stale bread, at others of Graham or other flour, or rice, or ground +rice, usually baked; we have also hasty puddings, made of Indian meal, +or Graham flour, which we eat with milk or melted sugar and cream; +occasionally we have other simple puddings, such as tapioca, etc. +Custards, with or without a crust, pies made of apple, and other fruits +either green or preserved; but we have no more shortening in the crust +than just to make it a little tender.</p> + +<p>I have two sons; one lived with us about fifteen months after we adapted +this mode of living; it agreed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> remarkably well with him; he grew strong +and fleshy. He married since that time, and, in some measure, returned +to the usual manner of living; but he is satisfied it does not agree so +well with him as the Graham diet. The coarse bread he cannot well do +without. My other son was absent when we commenced this way of living; +he has been at home about six weeks, and has not eaten any animal food +except when he dined out. He has evidently <i>lost</i> flesh, and is not very +well; <i>he</i> thinks he shall not be able to live without animal food, but +I think his indisposition is more owing to the season of the year than +diet. He never drank any tea or coffee until about four years since, +when he took some coffee for a while, but no tea. For the last two years +he has not drank either, when he could get milk. He is generally +healthy, and so is his brother: both were literally brought up on +gingerbread and milk, never taking animal food of choice, until they +were fifteen or sixteen years of age.</p> + +<p>Dr. Keep, of Fairhaven, Connecticut, was here about a year since, in +very bad health, since which I learn he has recovered by abstaining from +animal food and other injurious diet. As he is a scientific man, I think +he can give thee some useful information.</p> + +<p>1. The strength of both myself and wife has very materially increased, +so that we can now walk ten miles as easily as we could five before; +possibly it may in part be attributed to practice. Our health is, in +every respect, much improved. One of our women enjoys perfect health; +the other was feeble when we commenced this way of living, and she has +not gained much if any in the time; but this may be owing to her +attendance on my mother, both day and night, who, being blind and +feeble, takes no exercise except to walk across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> the room; but we are +very sure she would not have lived to this time had she not adopted this +way of living.</p> + +<p>2. The process of digestion is much more agreeable, if we do not indulge +in eating too much. We seldom have occasion to think of it after rising +from the table.</p> + +<p>3. I do not perceive much effect on the mind, other than what would +naturally be produced by the restoration of health; but have no doubt a +laborious investigation might be continued as long, if not longer, on +this than any other diet.</p> + +<p>4. I was formerly very much afflicted with the headache, and sometimes +was troubled with rheumatism. I have very seldom, for the last two years +especially, been troubled with either; and when I have had a turn of +headache, it is light indeed compared with what it was before we adopted +this system of living. My wife was very dyspeptic, and often had severe +turns of palpitation of the heart; the latter is entirely removed, and +she seldom experiences any inconvenience from the former. Our nurse was +formerly, and still is, troubled with severe turns of headache, though +not so bad as formerly; and I think she would have much less of it if +she were placed in a different situation.</p> + +<p>5. We scarcely know what it is to have a cold; my wife in particular. +Previously to our change of diet, I was very subject to severe colds, +attended with a hard cough, which lasted, sometimes, for several weeks.</p> + +<p>6. As before stated, we exclude animal food from our diet, as well as +tea and coffee.</p> + +<p>7. Before we adopted a vegetable diet, we always had meat for dinner, +and generally with breakfast; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> not unfrequently with tea. Tea and +coffee we drank very strong.</p> + +<p>8. We have substituted milk and water sweetened, for tea and coffee.</p> + +<p>9. Most vegetables I find have a tendency (especially when Graham or +unbolted wheaten flour is used) to keep the bowels open; to counteract +which, we use rice once or twice a week. Potatoes, when eaten freely, +are flatulent, but not inconvenient when eaten moderately.</p> + +<p>10. I think the health of students, by the exclusion of animal food from +their diet, would be promoted, especially if they excluded tea and +coffee also; and I can see no good reason why it should not be +beneficial to laboring people. I have conversed with two or three +mechanics, who confirm me in this belief.</p> + +<p>11. Graham bread, as we call it, eaten with milk, or baked potatoes and +milk, for most people, I think would be healthy; to which should be +added such a proportion of rice as may be found necessary.</p> + +<p class="right">Thy friend,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Joseph Ricketson</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER X.—FROM JOSEPH CONGDON, ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New Bedford</span>, Sept., 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Answers</span> to Dr. North's inquiries on diet.</p> + +<p>1. Increase of strength and activity, connected with, and perhaps in +some good degree a consequence of, an increase of daily exercise.</p> + +<p>2. Process of digestion more regular and agreeable.</p> + +<p>3. Mental activity greater; no decisive experiments on the ability to +<i>continue</i> a laborious investigation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>4. Dyspepsia of long continuance, and also difficult breathing; +inflammation of the eyes.</p> + +<p>5. Fewer colds; febrile attacks very slight; great elasticity in +recovering from disease. Some part of the effect should undoubtedly be +ascribed to greater attention to the skin by bathing and friction.</p> + +<p>6. Twenty-six months of <i>entire abstinence</i> from all animal substances, +excepting butter and milk. Salt is used regularly.</p> + +<p>7. Through life inclined to a vegetable diet, with few stimulants.</p> + +<p>8. Drinks have been milk, milk and water, or cold water.</p> + +<p>9. A <i>well-selected</i> vegetable diet appears to produce a very regular +action of the stomach and bowels.</p> + +<p>10. I think the health of laborers and students would be promoted by a +<i>great</i> reduction of the usual quantity of animal food, and perhaps by +discontinuing its use entirely. I feel no want.</p> + +<p>11. From my experience, I can very highly recommend bread made of coarse +wheat flour. Among fruits, the blackberry, as peculiarly adapted to the +state of the body, at the time of the year when it is in season. My +range of food has been confined. I avoid green vegetables. Age 35.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Joseph Congdon</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER XI.—FROM GEORGE W. BAKER, ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New Bedford</span>, 9th month, 10, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dr. M. L. North</span>,—Agreeably to request, the following answers are +forwarded, which I believe to be correct as far as my experience has +tested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<p>1. At first it was diminished; but after a few months it was restored, +and I think increased.</p> + +<p>2. More.</p> + +<p>3. It could.</p> + +<p>4. Pretty free from constitutional infirmities before the change, and no +increase since.</p> + +<p>5. I have had no cold, of any consequence, for the last three years; at +which time I substituted cold water for tea and coffee, and commenced +using cold water for washing about my head and neck and for shaving, +which I continued through the year.</p> + +<p>6. I have not eaten animal food for about eighteen months.</p> + +<p>7. Two years previous to the entire change the quantity was great, but +there had been a gradual diminution.</p> + +<p>8. It was. (See fifth answer.)</p> + +<p>9. More so, in my case.</p> + +<p>10. I believe the health of both laborers and students would be +improved.</p> + +<p>11. I have generally avoided eating cucumbers; otherwise I have not.</p> + +<p class="right">Thy assured friend,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Geo. W. Baker</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER XII—FROM JOHN HOWLAND, JR., ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New Beford</span>, 9th month, 10th day, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Friend</span>,—As I have lived nearly three years upon a vegetable diet, I +cheerfully comply with thy request.</p> + +<p>1. My bodily strength has been increased; and I can now endure much more +exercise than formerly, without fatigue.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>2. They are more agreeable; and I am now free from that dull, heavy +feeling, which I used to experience after my meals.</p> + +<p>3. My mind is much clearer; and I am free from that depression of +spirits, to which I was formerly subject.</p> + +<p>4. I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed. +I had frequent and severe attacks of headache, which I now rarely have; +and when they do occur they are very light, compared with what they +formerly were.</p> + +<p>5. I have had fewer colds, and those much lighter than formerly.</p> + +<p>6. About three years.</p> + +<p>7. I used to eat animal food for breakfast and dinner, with coffee for +drink, at those meals; and tea for my third meal, with bread and butter.</p> + +<p>8. Milk for breakfast, and cold water for the other two meals.</p> + +<p>9. I have found it more so; inasmuch as the use of it, with the +substitution of bread, made from <i>coarse, unbolted wheat flour</i>, instead +of superfine, has removed my costiveness entirely.</p> + +<p>10. I do.</p> + +<p>11. I consider potatoes and rice as the most healthy, and confine myself +principally to the former.</p> + +<p>I would remark that during the season of fruits, I eat freely of them, +with milk; and consider them to be healthy.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John Howland, Jr</span>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER XIII.—FROM DR. W. H. WEBSTER.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Batavia</span>, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical +Sciences, Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case +somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my +own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my +health, as a kind of key to my answers.</p> + +<p>It is about fifteen years since I was called a <i>dyspeptic</i>; this was +while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my +medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely +swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next +month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left +college more dead than alive—a confirmed dyspeptic.</p> + +<p>In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the +winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my +indulgence in the luxuries of the table—especially in animal food, and +distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of +the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became +very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to +extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon +the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, +which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the +greatest share of that time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> with the most excruciating torture. On +getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition +indeed—reduced to a skeleton—a voracious appetite, which could not be +indulged, and which had scarcely deserted me through the whole eight +months. I could not regain my flesh or strength but by almost +imperceptible degrees; indeed, loaf-sugar and crackers were almost the +only food I could use with impunity for the first year.</p> + +<p>It is now nearly four years since I have eaten animal food, unless it be +here and there a little, as an experiment, with the sole exception of +oysters, in which I can indulge, but with all due deference to the +stricter rules of temperance. Still my appetite for animal food seems +unabated. I have ever been a man unusually temperate in the use of +intoxicating drinks; and by no means intemperate in the luxuries of the +table. I take no meat, no alcoholic or fermented drinks, not even cider; +and, for a year past, my health has been better than for three years +previous; and I think that about one third the amount of nourishment +usually taken by men of my age, might subserve the purposes of food for +<i>me</i> better than a larger quantity. The more I eat, the more I desire to +eat; and abstinence is my best medicine.</p> + +<p>But I have already surpassed my limits, and here are my answers.</p> + +<p>1. My strength is invariably diminished by animal food, and in almost +direct proportion to the quantity, with the exception named above.</p> + +<p>2. Pain has been the uniform attendant upon the digestion of an animal +diet, with feverish restlessness and constipation.</p> + +<p>3. Decidedly more fit for energetic action.</p> + +<p>4. An irritation, or subacute inflammation of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> digestive apparatus, +which is aggravated by animal food.</p> + +<p>5. Can endure hardship, exposure, and fatigue, much better without meat.</p> + +<p>6. About four years, with the exception stated above.</p> + +<p>7. It was not.</p> + +<p>8. Partially at the commencement; but not of late, if not taken hot.</p> + +<p>9. Much more aperient.</p> + +<p>10. Both classes take too much; and students and sedentaries should take +little or none.</p> + +<p>11. For myself farinaceous articles first, then the succulent sub-acid +ripe fruits, then the less oily nuts are most healthful—and animal +food, strong coffee and tea, and unripe or hard fruits, in any +considerable quantities, are most pernicious.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">W. H. Webster</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER XIV.—FROM JOSIAH BENNET, ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Mount-Joy</span>, Pa., Oct. 27, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I hereby transmit to you, answers to a series of dietetic queries +which you have recently submitted.</p> + +<p>1. My physical strength was at least equal (I am rather inclined to +think greater) after abstaining from animal food. I was, I am certain, +not subject to such general debility and lassitude of the system, after +considerable bodily exercise.</p> + +<p>2. More agreeable—not being subject to a sense of vertigo, which +frequently (with me) followed the use of animal food. There is, +generally, more cheerfulness and vivacity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>3. The mind is more clear, and is not so liable to be confused when +intent upon any intricate subject; and, of course, "can continue a +laborious investigation longer." There is at no time such a propensity +to incogitancy.</p> + +<p>4. I am not aware of being the subject of any "constitutional +infirmities;" yet, that the change of diet had a very great effect upon +the system, is obvious, from the fact of my having been, formerly, +subject to an eruptive disease of the skin, principally on the shoulders +and upper part of the back, for a number of years, which is not the case +at present, nor do I think will be, as long as I continue my present +mode of living.</p> + +<p>5. I think I have not had as many colds and febrile attacks as before, +nor have they been so severe; yet I cannot be very decisive on this +point, on account of the length of time in the trial not being fully +sufficient.</p> + +<p>6. Between seven and eight months. I must here state that animal food +was not <i>entirely</i> excluded. I probably partook, in very moderate +quantities, once or twice a week.</p> + +<p>7. The quantity of animal food which would be considered "an uncommon +proportion," I am unable to determine; but I was accustomed to make use +of it, not <i>less</i> than twice, and sometimes three times a day, +moderately seasoned. No other stimulants, of any account.</p> + +<p>8. Cold water has been the only substitute for tea and coffee, with the +exception of an occasional cup; probably as often as once or twice a +week. I was, on several occasions, by personal experience, induced to +believe that the use of strong coffee retarded the process of +digestion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>9. More aperient. Previous to the general exclusion of animal food from +my diet, I was subject to inveterate costiveness; cases of which are now +neither frequent nor severe.</p> + +<p>10. I do firmly believe it would.</p> + +<p>11. My diet, principally, during the trial, consisted of wheat bread, of +the proper age, with a moderate quantity of fresh butter. Potatoes, +beans, and some other esculent roots, etc., I found to be nutritious and +healthy. The following substances I found to produce a contrary effect, +or to possess different qualities: cabbage, when not well boiled; +cucumbers, raw or pickled; radishes, beets, and the whole catalogue of +preserves. Fresh bread was particularly hurtful to me.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Josiah Bennett</span>.</p> + +<h4>LETTER XV.—FROM WILLIAM VINCENT, ESQ.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hopkinton, R. I</span>., Dec. 23, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—The following answer to the interrogations in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal of March 1835, on diet, etc., as proposed by +yourself, has been through the press of business, neglected until this +late period. Trusting they may be of some use, I now forward them.</p> + +<p>1. Rather increased, if any change.</p> + +<p>2. ——</p> + +<p>3. I think I have retained the vigor of my mind more, in consequence of +an abstemious diet.</p> + +<p>4. I thought I had the appearance of scurvy, which gradually +disappeared.</p> + +<p>5. ——</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> +<p>6. From May 20, 1811, (more than twenty-four years.)</p> + +<p>7. Small in quantity, and dressed and cooked simply.</p> + +<p>8. I have drank nothing but warm tea, for seven years.</p> + +<p>9. Bowels uniformly open.</p> + +<p>10. I should not think it would.</p> + +<p>11. I have lived principally on bread, butter, and cheese, and a few +dried vegetables.</p> + +<p>I was born March 31, 1764. In 1833, when mowing, to quench thirst, I +drank about a gill of cold water, <i>after</i> about as much milk and water; +and the same year, some molasses and water; but they did not answer the +purpose. But when I rinsed my mouth with cold water, it allayed my +thirst.</p> + +<p class="right">(Signed)</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Wm. Vincent.</span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER XVI.—FROM L. R. BRADLEY, BY DR. GEO. H. PERRY.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hopkinton, R. I.</span>, Dec. 23, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I deem it necessary, first, to mention the situation of my health, +at the time of commencing abstinence from animal food. I was recovering +from an illness of a <i>nervous fever</i>. A sudden change respecting my food +not sitting well, rendered it necessary for me to abstain from all +kinds, excepting dry wheat bread and gruel, for several weeks. By +degrees I returned to my former course of diet, but as yet not to its +full extent, as I cannot partake of animal food of any kind whatever, +nor of vegetables cooked therewith.</p> + +<p>1. Diminished.</p> + +<p>2. —<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>3. I do not perceive the mind to be clearer, and the power of +investigation less.</p> + +<p>4. Distress in the stomach and pain in the head removed.</p> + +<p>5. ——</p> + +<p>6. Six years and ten months.</p> + +<p>7. Unusual proportion of animal food.</p> + +<p>8. The first year, I drank only warm water, sweetened; since that, tea.</p> + +<p>9. ——</p> + +<p>10. I do not.</p> + +<p>11. I find <i>beets</i> particularly hard to digest.</p> + +<p class="right">L. R. B.</p> + +<p>The foregoing statements and answers are in her own way and manner.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Geo. H. Perry.</span></p> + + +<h3>LETTER XVII.—FROM DR. L. W. SHERMAN.</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Falmouth</span>, Mass., March 28, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—In compliance with the request you recently made in the Medical +Journal, I inclose the following answers to the queries relative to +regimen you have propounded. They are given by a lady, whose experience, +intelligence, and discernment, have eminently qualified her to answer +them. She, with myself, is equally interested with you in having this +important question settled, and is extremely happy that you have +undertaken to do it. This lady is now fifty years of age; her +constitution naturally is good; her early habits were active, and her +diet simple, until twenty years of age. After that, until within a few +years, her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> living consisted of all kinds of meats and delicacies, with +wine after dinners, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>1. Her bodily strength was greatly increased by excluding animal food +from her diet.</p> + +<p>2. The animal sensations connected with the process of digestion have +been decidedly more agreeable.</p> + +<p>3. The mind is much clearer, the spirits much better, the temper more +even, and "less irritability pervades the system." The mind can continue +a laborious investigation longer than when she subsisted on a mixed +diet.</p> + +<p>4. Her health, which was before feeble, has, by the change, been +decidedly improved.</p> + +<p>5. She has certainly had fewer colds, and no febrile attacks of any +consequence, since she has practiced rigid abstinence from meats.</p> + +<p>6. She has abstained entirely for three years, and has taken but little +for seven or eight years; and whenever she has, from necessity (in being +from home, where she could procure nothing else), indulged in eating +meat, she has universally suffered severely in consequence.</p> + +<p>7. The change to a vegetable diet was preceded, in her case, by the use +of an uncommon proportion of animal food, highly seasoned with +stimulants.</p> + +<p>8. Tea and coffee she has not used for thirteen years. She has used, for +substitutes, water, milk and water, barley water, and gruel. She found +tea and coffee to have an exceedingly pernicious effect upon her nervous +and digestive system.</p> + +<p>9. A vegetable diet is more aperient than a mixed. Habitual constipation +has been entirely removed by the change.</p> + +<p>10. She sincerely believes, from her experience, that the health of +laborers and students would be generally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> promoted by the exclusion of +animal food from their diet.</p> + +<p>11. She considers <i>hominy</i>, as prepared at the South, particularly +healthy; and subsists upon this, with bread made from coarse flour, with +broccoli, cauliflower, and all kinds of vegetables in their season.</p> + +<p>Be assured, dear sir, that these answers have come from a high source, +to which private reference may at any time be made, and consequently are +entitled to the highest consideration.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">L. W. Sherman.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—If I have not been minute enough in the relation of this case, I +shall hereafter be happy to answer any questions you may think proper to +propose. It is a very interesting and important case, in my opinion. The +lady has been under my care a number of times, while laboring under +slight indisposition. She has always been very regular and systematic in +all her habits. She is healthy and robust in appearance, and looks as +though she might not be more than forty. This is the only case of the +kind within my knowledge. I have practiced on her plan for a few weeks +at a time, and, so far as my experience goes, it precisely comports with +hers. But I love the "good things" of this world too well to abstain +from their use, until some formidable disease demands their prohibition.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right">L. W. S.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Dr. Preston has since deceased.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Mr. Vincent is of Stonington, Ct.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Correspondence.—The "prescribed course of Regimen."—How many +victims to it?—Not one.—Case of Dr. Harden considered.—Case +of Dr. Preston.—Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the +treatment of Scrofula.—No reports of Injury from the +prescribed System.—Case of Dr. Bannister.—Singular testimony +of Dr. Wright.—Vegetable food for Laborers.—Testimony, on the +whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could +reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances.</p></div> + + +<p>"Reports not unfrequently reach us," says Dr. North, "of certain +individuals who have fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. +These persons are said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest +confidence, to have pertinaciously followed the course, till they +reached a point of reduction from which there was no recovery." "If +these are facts," he adds, "they ought to be known and published."</p> + +<p>It was in this view, that Dr. North, himself a medical practitioner of +high respectability, sent forth to every corner of the land, through +standard and orthodox medical journals, to regular and experienced +physicians—his "medical brethren"—his list of inquiries. These +inquiries, designed to elicit truth, were couched in just such language +as was calculated to give free scope and an acceptable channel for the +communication of every fact which seemed to be opposed to the <span class="smcap">vegetable +system</span>; for this, we believe, was distinctly understood, by every +medical man, to be the "prescribed course of regimen" alluded to.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>The results of Dr. North's inquiries, and of an opportunity so favorable +for "putting down," by the exhibition of sober facts, the vegetable +system, are fully presented in the foregoing chapter. Let it not be said +by any, that the attempt was a partial or unfair one. Let it be +remembered that every effort was made to obtain <i>truth in facts</i>, +without partiality, favor, or affection. Let it be remembered, too, that +nearly two years elapsed before Dr. North gave up his papers to the +author; during which time, and indeed up to the present hour—a period, +in the whole, of more than fourteen years—a door has been opened to +every individual who had any thing to say, bearing upon the subject.</p> + +<p>Let us now review the contents of the foregoing chapter. Let us see, in +the first place, what number of persons have here been reported, by +medical men, as having fallen victims to the said "prescribed course of +regimen."</p> + +<p>The matter is soon disposed of. Not a case of the description is found +in the whole catalogue of returns to Dr. N. This is a triumph which the +friends of the vegetable system did not expect. From the medical +profession of this country, hostile as many of them are known to be to +the "prescribed course of regimen," they must naturally have expected to +hear of at least a few persons who were supposed to have fallen victims +to it. But, I say again, not one appears.</p> + +<p>It is true that Dr. Preston, of Plymouth, Mass., thinks he should have +fallen a victim to his abstinence from flesh meat, had he not altered +his course; and Dr. Harden, of Georgia, relates a case of sudden loss of +strength, and great debility, which he thought, <i>at the time</i>, might +"possibly" be ascribed to the want of animal food:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> though the +individual himself attributed it to quite another cause. These are the +only two, of a list of thirty or forty, which were detailed, that bear +the slightest resemblance to those which report had brought to the ear +of Dr. N., and about which he so anxiously and earnestly solicited +inquiry of his medical brethren.</p> + +<p>As to the case mentioned by Dr. Harden, no one who examined it with +care, will believe for a moment, that it affords the slightest evidence +against a diet exclusively vegetable. The gentleman who made the +experiment had pursued it faithfully three years, without the slightest +loss of strength, but with many advantages, when, of a sudden, extreme +debility came on. Is it likely that a diet on which he had so long been +doing well, should produce such a sudden falling off? The gentleman +himself appears not to have had the slightest suspicion that the +debility had any connection with the diet. He attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of poisonous +gases, to which he was subjected in the process of some chemical +experiments.</p> + +<p>But why, then, it may be asked, did he return to a mixed diet, if he had +imbibed no doubts in regard to a diet exclusively vegetable; and, above +all, how happened he to recover on it? To this it may be replied, that +there is every reason to believe, from the tenor of the letter, that he +acted against his own inclination, and contrary to his own views, at the +request of his friends, and of Dr. Harden, his physician; though Dr. +Harden does not expressly say so. Besides, it does not appear that under +his mixed diet there was any favorable change, till something like six +months had elapsed. This was a period, in all probability, just +sufficient to allow the poison of the gases to disappear; after which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +he might have been expected to recover on any diet not positively bad. +If this is not a true solution of the case, how happens it that there +was no disease of any organ or function, except the nervous function? +There is every reason for believing that Dr. Harden, at the date of his +letter, had undergone a change of opinion, and was himself beginning to +doubt whether the regimen had any agency in producing the debility.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>The case of Dr. Preston is somewhat more difficult. At first view, it +seems to sustain the old notion of medical men, that, with a scrofulous +habit, a diet exclusively vegetable cannot be made to agree. This, I +say, seems to be a natural conclusion, <i>at first view</i>. But, on looking +a little farther, we may find some facts that justify a different +opinion.</p> + +<p>Dr. Preston was evidently timid and fearful—foreboding ill—during the +whole progress of his experiment. We think his story fully justifies +this conclusion. In such circumstances, what could have been expected? +There is no course of regimen in the world which will succeed happily in +a state of mind like this.</p> + +<p>It should be carefully observed by the reader, that Dr. Preston speaks +of entering upon a "severe course of diet;" and also, that, in +attempting to give an opinion as to the best kind of vegetable food, he +speaks of potatoes, prepared in a certain specified manner, as being +preferable to any other. Now, I think it obvious, that Dr. Preston's +"severe course" partook largely of <i>crude</i> vegetables, instead of the +richer and better farinaceous articles—as the various sorts of bread, +rice, pulse, etc.—and, if so, it is not to be wondered at that it was +so unsuccessful. In short, I do not think he made any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> thing like a fair +experiment in vegetable diet. His testimony, therefore, though +interesting, seems to be entitled to very little weight.</p> + +<p>This conclusion is stated with the more confidence, from the fact that +some of the best medical writers, not only of ancient times, but of the +present day, appear to entertain serious doubts in regard to the +soundness of the popular opinion in favor of the "beef-steak-and-porter" +system of curing scrofulous patients. Dr. Clark, in the progress of his +"Treatise on Consumption," almost expresses a belief that a judicious +vegetable diet is preferable even for the scrofulous. He would not, of +course, recommend a diet of <i>crude</i> vegetables, but one, rather, which +would partake largely of farinaceous grains and fruits. Nor do I suppose +he would, in every case, entirely exclude milk.</p> + +<p>Dr. Cheyne, in his writings, not only gives it as his opinion that a +milk diet, long continued, or a milk and vegetable diet and mild +mercurials, are the best means of curing scrofula; but he also says, +expressly, that "in all countries where animal food and strong fermented +liquors are too freely used, there is scarcely an individual that hath +not scrofulous glands." A sad story to relate, or to read! But, Dr. +Lambe, of London, and other British physicians, entertain similar +sentiments; and Dr. Lambe practices medicine largely, while entertaining +these sentiments. I could mention more than one distinguished physician, +in Boston and elsewhere, who prescribes a vegetable and milk diet in +scrofula.</p> + +<p>But, granting even the most that the friends of animal food can claim, +what would the case of Dr. Preston prove? That the healthy are ever +injured by the vegetable system? By no means. That the sickly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> would +generally be? Certainly not. Dr. Preston himself even specifies one +disease, in which he thinks a vegetable diet would be useful. What, +then, is the bearing of <i>this single and singular case</i>? Why, at the +most, it only shows that there are some forms of dyspepsia which require +animal food. Dr. Preston does not produce a single fact unfavorable to a +diet exclusively vegetable for the healthy.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p>It is also worthy of particular notice, that not a fact is brought, or +an experiment related, in a list of from thirty to forty cases, reported +too by medical men, which goes to prove that any injury has arisen to +the healthy, from laying aside the use of animal food. This kind of +information, though not the principal thing, was at least a secondary +object with Dr. North; as we see by his questions, which were intended +to be put to those who had excluded animal food from their diet for a +year or more.</p> + +<p>But, let us take a general view of the replies to the inquiries of Dr. +North. The sum of his first three questions, was,—What were the effects +of excluding animal food from your diet on your bodily strength, your +mental faculties, and your appetite and animal spirits?</p> + +<p>The answers to the three questions, of which this is the same, are, as +will be seen, remarkable. In almost every instance the reply indicates +that bodily and mental labor was endured with less fatigue than before, +and that an increased activity of mind and body was accompanied with +increased cheerfulness and animal enjoyment. In nearly every instance, +strength of body was actually increased; especially after the first +month. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> result so uniformly in favor of the vegetable system is +certainly more than could have been expected.</p> + +<p>One physician who made the experiment, indeed, says, that though his +mind was clearer than before, he could not endure, so long, a laborious +investigation. Another individual says, he perceived no difference in +this respect. A third says, she found her bodily strength and powers of +investigation somewhat diminished, though her disease was removed. With +these exceptions, the testimony on this point is, as I have already +said, most decidedly—I might say most overwhelmingly—in favor of the +disuse of animal food.</p> + +<p>To the question, whether any constitutional infirmities were aggravated +or removed by the new course of regimen, the replies are almost equally +favorable to the vegetable system. It is true that one of the +physicians, Dr. Parmly, thinks the beneficial effects which appeared in +the circle of his observation were the results of a simultaneous +discontinuance of fermented drinks, tea and coffee, and condiments. But +I believe every one who reads his letter will be surprised at his +conclusions. No matter, however; we have his facts, and we are quite +willing they should be carefully considered. The singular case of Dr. +Preston, I now leave wholly out of the account. It was, as I have since +learned, the story of a <i>very singular man</i>.</p> + +<p>Among the diseases and difficulties which were removed, or supposed to +be removed, by the new diet, were dyspepsia, with the constipation which +usually attends it, general lassitude, rheumatism, periodical headache, +palpitations, irritation of the first passages, eruptive diseases of the +skin, scurvy, and consumption.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>The case of Dr. Bannister, who was, in early life, decidedly +consumptive, is one of the most remarkable on record. Though evidently +consumptive, and near the borders of the grave, between the ages of +twenty and twenty-nine, he so far recovered as to be, at the age of +fifty-three, entirely free from every symptom of phthisis for +twenty-four years; during which whole period, he was sufficiently +vigorous to follow the laborious business of a country physician.</p> + +<p>The confidence of Dr. Wright in the prophylactic powers of a diet +exclusively vegetable, so far as the mere opinion of one medical man is +to be received as testimony in the case, is also remarkable. He not only +regards the vegetable system as a defence against the diseases of +miasmatic regions, but also against the varioloid disease. On the latter +point, he goes, it seems, almost as far as Mr. Graham, who appears to +regard it not only as, in some measure, a preventive of epidemic +diseases generally, in which he is most undoubtedly correct, but also of +the small-pox.</p> + +<p>The testimony on another point which is presented in the replies to Dr. +North's questions, is almost equally uniform. In nearly every instance, +the individuals who have abandoned animal food have found themselves +less subject to colds than before; and some appear to have fallen into +the habit of escaping them altogether. When it is considered how serious +are the consequences of taking cold—when it is remembered that +something like one half of the diseases of our climate have their origin +in this source—it is certainly no trifling evidence in favor of a +course of regimen, that, besides being highly favorable in every other +respect, it should prove the means of freeing mankind from exposure to a +malady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> at once troublesome in itself and disastrous in its +consequences.</p> + +<p>In reply to the question,—Is a vegetable diet more or less aperient +than a mixed one,—the answers have been the same, in nearly every +instance, that it is more so.</p> + +<p>The answers to the question whether it was believed the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet, are rather various. It will be observed, however, that +many of the replies, in this case, are medical <i>opinions</i>, and come from +men who, though they felt themselves bound to state facts, were +doubtless, with very few exceptions, prejudiced against an exclusively +vegetable regimen for the healthy. It is, therefore, to me, a matter of +surprise, to find some of them in favor of the said prescribed course of +regimen, both for students and laborers, and many of them in favor of +the discontinuance of animal food by students. Those who have themselves +made the experiment, with hardly an exception, are decidedly in favor of +a vegetable regimen for all classes of mankind, particularly the +sedentary. And in regard to the necessity of diminishing the proportion +of animal food consumed by all classes, there seems to be but one voice.</p> + +<p>On one more important point there is a very general concurrence of +opinion. I allude to the choice of articles from the vegetable kingdom. +The farinacea are considered as the best; especially wheat, ground +without bolting. The preference of Dr. Preston is an exception; and +there are one or two others.</p> + +<p>On the whole—I repeat it—the testimony is far more favorable to the +"prescribed course of regimen," both for the healthy and diseased than +under the circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> connected with the inquiry the most +thorough-going vegetable eater could possibly have anticipated. If this +is a fair specimen—and I know no reason why it may not be regarded as +such—of the results of similar experiments and similar observations +among medical men throughout our country, could their observations and +experiments be collected, it certainly confirms the views which some +among us have long entertained on this subject, and which will be still +more strongly confirmed by evidence which will be produced in the +following chapters. Had similar efforts been made forty or fifty years +ago, to ascertain the views of physicians and others respecting the +benefits or safety of excluding wine and other fermented drinks in the +treatment of several diseases, in which not one in ten of our modern +practitioners would now venture to use them, as well as among the +healthy, I believe the results would have been of a very different +character. The opinions, at least, of the physicians themselves, would +most certainly have been, nearly without a dissenting voice, that the +entire rejection of wine and fermented liquors was dangerous to the +sick, and unsafe to many of the healthy, especially the hard laborer. +And there is quite as much reason to believe that animal food will be +discarded from our tables in the progress of a century to come, as there +was, in 1800, for believing that all drinks but water would be laid +aside in the progress of the century which is now passing.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See a more recent letter from Dr. Harden, in the next +chapter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Besides, it is worthy of notice, that Dr. Preston did not +long survive on his own plan. He died about the year 1840.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.—Dr. J. M. B. Harden.—Dr. J. +Porter.—Dr. N. J. Knight.—Dr. Lester Keep.—Second letter +from Dr. Keep.—Dr. Henry H. Brown.—Dr. Franklin Knox.—From a +Physician.—Additional statements by the Author.</p></div> + + +<p>During the years 1837 and 1838 I wrote to several of the physicians +whose names, experiments, and facts appear in Chapter II. Their answers, +so far as received, are now to be presented.</p> + +<p>I have also received interesting letters from several other physicians +in New England and elsewhere—but particularly in New England—on the +same general subject, which, with an additional statement of my own +case, I have added to the foregoing. I might have added a hundred +authentic cases, of similar import. I might also have obtained an +additional amount of the same sort of intelligence, had it not been for +the want of time, amid numerous other pressing avocations, for +correspondence of this kind. Besides, if what I have obtained is not +satisfactory, I have many doubts whether more would be so.</p> + +<p>The first letter I shall insert is from Dr. H. A. Barrows, of Phillips, +in Maine. It is dated October 10, 1837, and may be considered as a +sequel to that written by him to Dr. North, though it is addressed to +the author of this volume.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER I.—FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—As to food, my course of living has been quite uniform for +the last two or three years—principally as follows. Wheat meal bread, +potatoes, butter, and baked sweet apples for breakfast and dinners; for +suppers, old dry flour bread, which, eaten very leisurely without +butter, sauce, or drink, sits the lightest and best of any thing I eat. +But I cannot make this my principal diet, because the bowels will not +act (<i>without physic</i>) unless they have the spur of wheat bran two +thirds of the time. I have at times practiced going to bed without any +third meal; and have found myself amply rewarded for this kind of +fasting, and the consequent respite thereby afforded the stomach, in +quiet sleep and improved condition the next day. And as to drink, I +still use cold water, which I take with as great a zest, and as keen a +relish, as the inebriate does his stimulus. I seldom drink any thing +with my meals; and if I could live without drinking any thing between +meals, I think I should be rid of the principal "thorn in my side," the +acetous fermentation so constantly going on in my epigastric storehouse.</p> + +<p>As to exercise, I take abundance; perform all my practice (except in the +winter) on horseback, and find this the very best kind of exercise for +me. I seldom eat oftener than at intervals of six hours, and am apt to +eat too much—have at various times attempted Don Cornaro's method of +weighing food, but have found it rather dry business, probably on +account of its conflicting with my appetite; but I actually find that my +stomach does not bear watching at all well.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>My brother continues to practice nearly total abstinence from animal +food. I have seen him but once in two and a half years, but learn his +health has greatly improved, so that he was able to take charge of a +high school in the fall of 1836, of an academy in the spring of the +present year, and also again this fall. During his vacation last July, +he took a tour into the interior of Worcester county, Mass., and came +home entirely on foot by way of the Notch of the White Hills, traveling +nearly three hundred miles. This speaks something in favor of rigid +abstinence—as when he commenced this regimen he was extremely low.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours sincerely,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">H. A. Barrows.</span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER II.—FROM DR. JOHN M. B. HARDEN.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Georgia</span>, Liberty Co., Oct. 19, 1837.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I stated in my letter to Dr. North, if I recollect correctly, +that the use of animal food was resumed in consequence of a protracted +indisposition brought on, <i>as was supposed</i>, by the inhalation of +arseniuretted hydrogen gas. The gentleman had begun to recover some time +previously; and in a short time after he commenced the use of the animal +food, he was restored to his usual health. He has continued the use of +it ever since to the same extent as in the former part of his life. He +has lately passed his fifty-fifth year, and is now in the enjoyment of +as good health as he has ever known.</p> + +<p>I know of a gentleman in an adjoining county, who with his lady has been +living for some time past on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> purely vegetable diet. They have not +continued it long enough, however, to make the experiment a fair one.</p> + +<p>No case of injury from the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen has come +under my own personal observation, if we except the one above alluded +to. I find, however, that Gehlen, a celebrated French chemist, fell a +victim to it in the year 1815. His death is thus announced in the +"Philosophical Magazine" for that year. "We lament to have to announce +the death of Gehlen, many years the editor of an excellent Journal on +Chemistry and other sciences, and a profound chemist. He fell a victim +to his ardent desire to promote the advancement of chemical knowledge. +He was preparing, in company with Mr. Rehland, his colleague, some +arsenated hydrogen gas, and while watching for the full development of +this air from its acid solution, trying every moment to judge from its +particular smell when that operation would be completed, he inhaled the +fatal poison which has robbed science of his valuable services." Vide +Tillock's Phil. Mag., vol. 46, p. 316. Some further notice is taken of +his death in a paper extracted from the "Annales de Chimie et de +Physique," and published in a subsequent volume of the same Magazine. +Vide vol. 49, p. 280, in which are given his last experiments on that +subject, by M. Gay Lussac. I regret that no account is given in the same +work of the symptoms arising from the poison in his case. I presume, +however, they are on record.</p> + +<p>In the subject of the case I mention, the general and prominent symptoms +were an immediate and great diminution of muscular strength, with pallor +of countenance and constant febricula, the arteries of the head beating +with violence, particularly when lying down at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> night, the pulse always +moderately increased in frequency, and full, but not tense; and +digestion for the most part good. This state continued for about three +months, during which time he was attending to his usual business, +although not able to take as much exercise as before. At the end of this +time he began to recover slowly, but it was six months before he was +restored entirely.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John M. B. Harden</span>.</p> + +<h4>LETTER III.—FROM DR. JOSHUA PORTER.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">North Brookfield</span>, Oct. 26, 1827.</p> + +<p>Though I would by no means favor the propensity for book-making, so +prevalent in our day, yet I have been long of the opinion that a work on +vegetable diet for general readers was greatly needed. I need it in my +family; and there are many others in this vicinity who would be +materially benefited by such a work.</p> + +<p>I have had no means of ascertaining the good or bad effects of a "diet +exclusively vegetable in cases of phthisis, scrofula, and dyspepsia," +for I have had none of the above diseases to contend with. But, since +your letter was received, I have been called to prescribe for a man who +has been a flesh eater for more than half a century. He was confined to +his house, had been losing strength for several months, still keeping up +his old habits. The disease which was preying upon him was chronic +inflammation of the right leg; the flesh had been so long swollen and +inflamed that it had become hard to the touch. There were ulcers on his +thigh, and some had made their appearance on the hip. This disease had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +been of <i>seven months'</i> standing, though not in so aggravated a form as +it now appeared. During this time, all the local applications had been +made that could be thought of by the good ladies in the neighborhood; +and after every thing of the kind had failed, they concluded to send for +"the doctor."</p> + +<p>After examining the patient attentively, I became convinced that the +disease, which developed itself locally, was of a constitutional origin, +and of course could not be cured by local remedies. All local +applications were discontinued; the patient was put on a vegetable diet +after the alimentary canal was freely evacuated. I saw this man three +days afterward. The dark purple appearance of the leg had somewhat +subsided; the red and angry appearance about the base of the ulcers was +gone, his strength improved, etc. Three days after I called, I found him +in his garden at work.</p> + +<p>He is now—two weeks since my first prescription—almost well. All the +ulcers have healed, with the exception of one or two. This man, who +thinks it wicked not to use the good things God has given us—such as +meat, cider, tobacco, etc.—is very willing to subsist, for the present, +on vegetable food, because he finds it the only remedy for his disease.</p> + +<p>Early in the spring of 1830, while a student at Amherst College, I was +attacked with dyspepsia, which rendered my life wretched for more than a +year, and finally drove me from college; but it had now so completely +gained the mastery, that no means I resorted to for relief afforded even +a palliation of my sufferings. After I had suffered nearly two years in +this way, I was made more wretched, if possible, by frequent attacks of +colic, with pains and cramps extending to my back;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> and so severe had +these pains become, that the prescriptions of the most eminent +physicians afforded only partial relief.</p> + +<p>On the 13th of February, 1833, after suffering from the most violent +paroxysm I had ever endured, I left my home for Brunswick, Maine, to +attend a course of medical lectures. For several days I boarded at a +public house, and ate freely of several substantial dishes that were +before me. The consequence was a fresh attack of colic. From some +circumstances that came up at this time, I was convinced that flesh +meats had much to do with my sufferings, and the resolution was formed +at once to change my diet and "starve" out dyspepsia.</p> + +<p>I took a room by myself, and made arrangements for receiving a pint of +milk per day; this, with coarse rye and Indian bread, constituted my +only food. After living in this way a week or two, I had a free and +natural evacuation. Thus nature began to effect what medicine alone had +done for nearly three years. The skin became moist, and my voracious +appetite began to subside. I returned home to my friends at the close of +the term well, and have been well ever since—have never had a colic +pain or any costiveness since that time. My powers of digestion are +good, and though I do not live so rigidly now as when at Brunswick, I +always feel best when my food is vegetables and milk. I can endure +fatigue and exposure as well as any man. On this mild diet, too, my +muscular strength has considerably increased; and every day is adding +new vigor to my constitution.</p> + +<p>Having experienced so much benefit from a mild diet, and being +rationally convinced that man was a fruit-eating animal naturally, I +made my views public by a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> course of lectures on physiology, which I +delivered in the Lyceum soon after I came to this place (three years +ago). The consequence was, that quite a number of those who heard my +lectures commenced training their families as well as themselves to the +use of vegetables, etc., and I am happy to inform you that, at this day, +many of our most active influential business-doing men are living in the +plainest and most simple manner.</p> + +<p>One of my neighbors has taken no flesh for more than three years. He is +of the ordinary height, and sanguine temperament, and usually weighed, +when he ate flesh, one hundred and eighty pounds. After he changed his +diet, his countenance began to change, and his cheeks fell in; and his +meat-eating friends had serious apprehensions that he would survive but +a short time, unless he returned to his former habits. But he +persevered, and is now more vigorous and more athletic than any man in +the region, or than he himself has ever been before.</p> + +<p>His muscular strength is very great. A few days since, a number of the +most athletic young men in our village were trying their strength at +lifting a cask of lime, weighing five hundred pounds. All failed to do +it, with the exception of one, who partly raised it from the ground. +After they were gone, this vegetable eater without any difficulty raised +the cask four or five times. More than three years ago this man lost his +daughter, who fell a prey to cholera infantum; he has now a daughter +rather more than a year old, whom he has trained on strictly +physiological principles; and though very feeble at birth, and for three +months subsequently, she is now the most healthy child in the town. This +child had some of the first symptoms of consumption<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> last August, owing +to the too free indulgence of the mother in improper articles of food; +but being treated with demulcents, at the same time correcting the +mother's system, she recovered, and is now the "picture of health."</p> + +<p>I was conversing with this gentleman the other day respecting his +health—says he is perfectly well, weighs one hundred and sixty-five +pounds; and though he was called well when eating flesh, he was not so +in reality; for every few weeks he was troubled with headache and a +sense of fullness in the region of the stomach, for which he was obliged +to take an active cathartic. For a few months before he adopted the +vegetable system, he had decided symptoms of congestion in the head, +such as precede apoplexy. I questioned him as to his appetite. He +informed me, that when he ate meat he had such an unconquerable desire +for food about eleven o'clock, that he could not wait till noon. This he +calls "meat hunger," for it disappeared soon after he came to the +present style of living. He has no craving now; but when he begins to +eat, the zest is exquisite.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Joshua Porter</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER IV.—FROM DR. N. J. KNIGHT, OF TRURO.</h4> + +<p class="right">Dated at <span class="smcap">Truro</span>, October, 1837.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Alcott: Sir</span>,—I hasten to comply so far with your request as to show +my decided approbation of a fruit and farinaceous diet, both in health +and sickness. The manner in which nutritious vegetables are presented to +us for our consumption and support, evince to a demonstration the +simplicity of our corporeal systems.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> Through every medium of correct +information, we learn that the most distinguished men, both in ancient +and modern times, were pre-eminently distinguished for their +abstemiousness, and the simplicity of their diet.</p> + +<p>It was not, however, a consideration of this kind that first induced me +to relinquish flesh meat and fish. Some three years previous to my +forming a determination to subsist upon farinacea, I had been laboring +under an aggravated case of dyspepsia; and about six months previous, +also, an attack of acute rheumatism.</p> + +<p>I was harassed with constant constipation of the bowels, and ejection of +food after eating, together with occasional pain in the head.</p> + +<p>Under all these circumstances, I came to this determination, which I +committed to paper: "November 9, 1831. This day ceased from +strengthening this mortal body by any part of that which ever drew +breath." To the above I rigidly adhered until last November, when my +health had become so perfect that I thought myself invincible, so far as +disease was concerned. All pains and aches had left me, and all the +functions of the body seemed to be performed in a healthy manner.</p> + +<p>My diet had consisted of rye and Indian bread, stale flour bread, sweet +bread without shortening, milk, some ripe fruit, and occasionally a +little butter.</p> + +<p>During this time, while I devoted myself to considerable laborious +practice and hard study, there was no deficiency of muscular strength or +mental energy. I am fully satisfied my mind was never so active and +strong.</p> + +<p>Since last November I have, at times, taken animal food, in order that I +might be absolutely satisfied that my mode of living acted decidedly in +favor of my perfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> health, and that a different course would produce +organic derangement.</p> + +<p>I had only taken animal food about two months after the usual custom, +before I had a severe attack, and only escaped an inflammatory fever by +the most rigid antiphlogistic treatment.</p> + +<p>I again lived as I ought, and felt well; and having continued so some +time, I resorted the second time to an animal diet.</p> + +<p>In two months' time, I was taken with the urticaria febrilis, of +Bateman, which lasted me more than two weeks, and my suffering was +sufficient to forever exclude from my stomach every kind of animal food.</p> + +<p>I am now satisfied, to all intents and purposes, that mankind would live +longer, and enjoy more perfectly the "sane mind in a sound body," should +they never taste flesh meat or fish.</p> + +<p>A simple farinaceous diet I have ever found more efficient in the cure +of chronic complaints, where there was not much organic lesion, than +every other medical agent.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A., infected with scrofula of the left breast, and in a state of +ulceration, applied to me two years since. The ulcer was then the size +of a half-dollar, and discharged a considerable quantity of imperfect +pus. The axillary glands were much enlarged, and, doubting the +practicability of operating with the knife in such cases, I told her the +danger of her disease, and ordered her to subsist upon bread and milk +and some fruit, drink water, and keep the body of as uniform temperature +as possible. I ordered the sore to be kept clean by ablutions of tepid +water. In less than three months, the ulcer was all healed, and her +general health much improved. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> axillary glands are still enlarged, +though less so than formerly.</p> + +<p>She still lives simply, and enjoys good health; but she tells me if she +tastes flesh meat, it produces a twinging in the breast.</p> + +<p>Many cases, like the above, have come under my observation and immediate +attention, and suffice it to say, I have never failed to ameliorate the +condition of every individual that has applied to me, who was suffering +under chronic affections, if they would follow my prescriptions—unless +the system was incapable of reaction.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, truly,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">N. J. Knight</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER V.—FROM DR. LESTER KEEP.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Fair Haven</span>, Jan. 22, 1838.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Agreeably to your request, I will inform you that from +September, 1834, to June, 1836, I used no meat at all, except +occasionally in my intercourse with society, I used a little to avoid +attracting notice.</p> + +<p>When I commenced my studies, life was burdensome. I knew not, for +months, and I may say years, what enjoyment comfortable health affords. +In a great many ways I can now see that I very greatly erred in my +course of living. I am surprised that the system will hold out in its +powers during so long a process in the use of what I should now consider +the means best calculated to break it down.</p> + +<p>I cannot now particularize. But in college, and during my professional +studies, and since, during six or eight years of practice in an arduous +profession, I have been greatly guilty, and neglected those means best +calculated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> to promote and preserve health; and used those means best +fitted to destroy it. The summers of 1832, 1833, and 1834, were pretty +much lost, from wretched health. I was growing worse every year, and no +medicines that I could prepare for myself, or that were prescribed by +various brother physicians, had any thing more than a temporary effect +to relieve me. All of the year 1834, until September, I used opium for +relief; and I used three and four grains of sulphate of morphine per +day, equal to about sixteen grains of opium. Spirit, wine, and ale I had +tried, and journeys through many portions of the State of Maine, with +the hope that a more northern climate would invigorate and restore a +system that I feared was broken down forever, and that at the age of +thirty-seven. But, without further preamble, I will say, I omitted at +once and entirely the use of tea, coffee, meat, butter, grease of all +sorts, cakes, pies, etc., wine, cider, spirits, opium (which I feared I +must use as long as I lived), and tobacco, the use of which I learned in +college. Of course, from so sudden and so great a change, a most horrid +condition must ensue for many days, for the relief of which I used the +warm bath at first several times a day. I had set no time to omit these +articles, and made no resolutions, except to give this course a trial, +to find out whether I had many native powers of system left, and what +was their character and condition when unaffected by the list of agents +mentioned.</p> + +<p>I pursued this plan of living faithfully for one year and a half, and +with unspeakable joy I found a gradual return of original vigor and +health. Now, I cannot say that the omission of meat of all kinds, for a +year and a half, caused this improvement in health; it is possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> that +it had but little to do with it. I know I was guilty of many bad habits; +and probably all combined caused my bad condition.</p> + +<p>At the close of the year and a half, I married my present second wife, +and then commenced living as do others, in most respects, and continued +this course most of the time until I received your letter. I then again +omitted the use of all animal food, tea, coffee, and tobacco; and for +the last month, it is a clear case, my health is better; that is, more +vigorous to bear cold. I also bear labor and care better.</p> + +<p>I have not investigated the subject of dietetics very much, but I have +no doubt that the inhabitants of our whole land make too much use of +animal food. No doubt it obstructs the vital powers, and tends to +unbalance the healthful play and harmony of the various organs and their +functions. There is too much nutriment in a small space. An unexpected +quantity is taken; for with most people a sense of fullness is the test +of a sufficient quantity.</p> + +<p>I am satisfied that I am better without animal food than with the +quantity I ordinarily use. If I should use but a small quantity once or +twice a day, it is possible it would not be injurious. This I have not +tried; for I am so excessively fond of meat, that I always eat <i>more</i> +than a small quantity, when I eat it at all. Healthy, vigorous men, day +laborers in the field, or forest, may perhaps require some meat to +sustain the system, during hard and exhausting labor. Of this I cannot +say.</p> + +<p>I am now pretty well convinced, from two or three years' observation, +that a large portion of my business, as a physician, arises from +intemperance in the use of food. Too much and too rich nutriment is +used,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> and my constant business is, to counteract its bad effects.</p> + +<p>Two cases are now in mind of the great benefit of dieting for the +recovery of health, the particulars of which I cannot now give you. One +of them I think would be willing to speak for himself on the subject.</p> + +<p class="right">I am, sir, yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lester Keep</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER VI.—SECOND LETTER FROM DR. KEEP.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Fair Haven</span>, Ct., Jan. 26, 1838.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Since I wrote you, a few days ago, I have learned of several +individuals who have, for some length of time, used no flesh meat at +all.</p> + +<p>Amos Townsend, Cashier of the New Haven Bank, has, as I am told, lived +almost entirely upon bread, crackers, or something of that kind, and but +little of that. He can dictate a letter, count money, and hold +conversation with an individual, all at the same time, with no +embarrassment; and I know him to have firm health.</p> + +<p>Our minister, Rev. B. L. Swan, during the whole of two years of his +theological studies at Princeton, made crackers and water his only food, +and was in good health.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hanover Bradley, of this village, who has been several years a +missionary among the Indians, has, for I think, eight or ten years, +lived entirely on vegetable food. He had been long a dyspeptic.</p> + +<p>There are some other cases of less importance, and probably very many in +New Haven; but I am situated a mile from the city, and have never +inquired for vegetable livers.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lester Keep</span>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER VII.—FROM DR. HENRY H. BROWN</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">West Randolph</span>, Vt., Feb. 3, 1838.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—It has been about two years and a half since I adopted an +exclusively vegetable diet, with no drink but water; and my food has +been chiefly prepared by the most simple forms of cookery. Previously to +this, I used a large proportion of flesh meat, and drank tea and coffee. +I had much impaired my health by such indulgences. I hardly need to say +that my health has greatly improved, and is now quite good and uniform.</p> + +<p>I think that physicians, in prescribing for the removal of disease, +should pay much more regard to the diet of their patients, and +administer less of powerful medicine, than is customary with gentlemen +of this profession at large.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Henry H. Brown</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER VIII.—FROM DR. FRANKLIN KNOX.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Kinston</span>,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> N. C., June 23, 1837.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Your letter of the 22d July has been hitherto unanswered, +through press of business.</p> + +<p>I consider an exclusive vegetable diet as of the utmost consequence in +most diseases, especially in those chronic affections or morbid states +of the system which are not commonly considered as diseases; and I think +that, in these cases, such a diet is too often overlooked, even by +physicians.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, truly,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">F. Knox</span>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<h4>LETTER IX.—FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE PHYSICIAN.</h4> + +<p>[The following letter, received last autumn, is from a medical +gentleman, in a distant part of the country, whose name, for particular +reasons, we stand pledged not to give to the world. The facts, however, +may be relied on; and they are exceedingly important and interesting.]</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Your letter was duly received. I proceed to say that, since I +settled in this town, my attacks of epilepsy<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> have occurred in the +following order:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>1833.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Nov.</td><td align='left'>18.</td><td align='left'>One at</td><td align='left'>11 P. M.</td><td align='left'>Severe.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>19.</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>24.</td><td align='left'>Nineteen, from</td><td align='left'>4 A. M. to 3 P. M.</td><td align='left'>Frightful.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1835.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Jan.</td><td align='left'>13.</td><td align='left'>One at</td><td align='left'>4 A. M.</td><td align='left'>}</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>15.</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>} Milder.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>16.</td><td align='left'>Two at 2 and</td><td align='left'>4 A. M.</td><td align='left'>}</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Thus it appears that I have enjoyed a longer immunity since the last, +than for some years prior. I have maintained total abstinence from +flesh, fish, or fowl, for two and a half years, namely, from March 1835 +to the present time. That this happy immunity from a most obstinate +disease is to be attributed solely to my abstinence from animal food, I +do not feel prepared to assert; but that my general health has been +better, my attacks of disease far milder, my vigor of mind and body +greater, my mental perceptions clearer and more acute, and my enjoyment +of life, on the whole, very essentially increased, I am fully prepared +to prove.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> +<p>I have, however, found it nearly as essential for me to abstain from +many kinds of vegetable food as from animal, namely, from all kinds of +flatulent vegetables; from all kinds of fruits and berries, except the +very mildest—as, perfectly ripe and well baked sweet apples—and from +all kinds of pies, sauces, and preserves. Of these, however, I am not +able to say, as I do of the animal varieties, that I have practiced +total abstinence; by no means. I have often ventured to indulge, and +generally suffer more or less for my temerity. My severest sufferings +for the last two years have been in the form of colic, of which I have +had frequent slight attacks; but none to confine me over twenty-four +hours.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h4>ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS.—BY THE AUTHOR.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></h4> + +<p>From the age of five or six months to that of two years, I was literally +crammed with flesh meat; usually of the most gross kind. Such a course +was believed, by the fond parents and others, as likely to be productive +of the most healthful and happy consequences. The result was an +accumulation of adipose substance, that rendered me one of the most +unsightly, not to say monstrous productions of nature. I ought not to +say <i>nature</i>, perhaps; for, if not perverted, she produces no such +monsters. At the age of six months, my weight was twenty-five pounds; +and it rose soon after to thirty or more.</p> + +<p>When I was about two years of age, I had the whooping-cough, and, having +been brought up to the height, and more than the height of my condition, +by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> over-feeding with fat meat, I suffered exceedingly. I? recovered, at +length, but I had lost my relish, as I am informed, for flesh meat; and +from this time till the age of fourteen, I seldom ate any but the +leanest muscle. I was tolerably healthy, but, from the age of two years, +was slender; so much so that, at five or six, I only weighed fifty +pounds; and was constantly either found fault with, or pitied, because I +did not eat meat in quality and quantity like other people. Nor was it +without much effort, even at the age of fourteen, that I could bring +myself to be reconciled to it. I was also trained to the early use of +much cider, and to the moderate use of tea and spirits. I have spoken of +my slender constitution;—I believe this was in part the result of +excessive early labor, and that it was not wholly owing to a premature +use of flesh meat.</p> + +<p>I had suffered so much, however, from the belief that I was feeble from +the latter cause, that I had no sooner become reconciled to the use of +flesh and fish—which was at the age of fourteen—than I indulged in it +quite freely. About this time I had a severe attack of measles, which +came very near carrying me off. I was left with anasarca, or general +dropsy, and with weak eyes. To cure the former the physicians plied me, +for a long time, with blue pill, and with mercurial medicine in other +forms, and also with digitalis; and finally filled my stomach to +overflowing with diuretic drinks. However, in spite of them all, I +recovered during the next year; except that a foundation was laid for +premature decay of the teeth, and for a severe eruptive disease. This +last, and the weakness of the eyes, were, for some time, very +troublesome.</p> + +<p>The eruptive complaint was soon discovered to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> less severe, even in +hot weather, and while I was using a great deal of exercise, in +proportion as I abstained from all drinks but water, and ate none but +mild food. Owing to the discovery of this fact and to other causes, I +chiefly discontinued the use of stimulating food and drink, during the +hottest part of the season; though I committed much error in regard to +the quantity of my food, and drank quite too freely of cold water. Still +I always found my health best, and my body and mind most vigorous at the +end of summer, or the beginning of autumn, notwithstanding the very hard +labor to which I was subjected on the farm. This increase of vigor was, +at that time, attributed chiefly to a free use of summer fruits; for, so +deeply had the belief been infixed by early education, that highly +stimulating food and drink were indispensable to the full health and +strength of mankind, and especially to people who were laboring hard, +that, though I sometimes suspected they were not true friends to the +human system, my conscience always condemned the suspicion, and +pronounced me guilty of a species of high treason for harboring it.</p> + +<p>This brings up my dietetic history, to the period at which it commences, +in the letter to Dr. North. The study of medicine, however, from the age +of twenty-four to twenty-seven, and the subsequent study and practice of +it for a few years, joined to the changes I made at the same time in my +physical habits, and my observations on their effects, led me to reject, +one after another, and one group after another, the whole tribe of extra +stimulants—solid and fluid.</p> + +<p>The sequel of my story remains to be told. It is now nearly fifteen +years since I wrote the letter, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> is found at page 23d, to Dr. +North. During this long period, and for several years before, amounting, +in all, to about nineteen years, I have not only abstained entirely from +flesh, fish, and fowl—not having eaten a pound of any one of these +during the whole time, except the very few pounds I used in the time of +the first visitation of our country with cholera, as before +mentioned—but I have almost entirely abstained from butter, cheese, +eggs, and milk. Butter, especially, I <i>never</i> taste at all. The +occasional use of milk, in very small quantities, once a day, has, +however, been resorted to; not from necessity, indeed, or to gratify any +strong desire or inclination for it, but from a conviction of its happy +medicinal effects on my much-injured frame. Hot food of every kind, and +liquids, with the exception just made, I rarely touch. Nearly every +thing is taken in as solid a form and in as simple a state as possible; +with no condiments, except a very little salt, and with no sweets, +sauces, gravies, jellies, preserves, etc. I seldom use more than one +sort of food at a time, unless it be to add fruit as a second article; +and this is rarely done, except in the morning. I have for ten or twelve +years used no drinks with my meals; and sometimes for months together +have had very little thirst at all.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> +<p>And as to the effects, they are such, and have all along been such, as +to make me wonder at myself, whenever I think of it. Instead of being +constantly subject to cold, and nearly dying with consumption in the +spring, I am almost free from any tendency to take cold at all. During +the winter of 1837-8, by neglecting to keep the temperature of my room +low enough, and by neglecting also to take sufficient exercise in the +open air, I became unusually tender, and suffered to some extent from +colds. But I was well again during the spring, and felt as if I had +recovered or nearly recovered my former hardihood.</p> + +<p>In regard to other complaints, I may say still more. Of rheumatism, I +have scarcely had a twinge in twelve or fourteen years. My eruptive +complaint is, I believe, <i>entirely</i> gone. The weakness of my eyes has +been wholly gone for many years. Indeed, the strength and perfection of +my sight and of all my senses, till nearly fifty years of age—hearing +perhaps excepted, in which I perceive no alteration—appeared to be +constantly improving. My stomach and intestines perform their respective +duties in the most appropriate, correct, and healthful manner. My +appetite is constantly good, and as constantly improving;—that is, +going on toward perfection. I can detect, especially by taste, almost +any thing which is in the least offensive or deleterious in food or +drink; and yet I can receive, without immediate apparent disturbance, +and readily digest, almost any thing which ever entered a human +stomach—knives, pencils, clay, chalk, etc., perhaps excepted. I can eat +a full meal of cabbage, or any other very objectionable crude aliment, +or even cheese or pastry—a single meal, I mean—with apparent impunity; +not when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> fatigued, of course, or in any way debilitated, but in the +morning and when in full strength. It is true, I make no experiments of +this sort, except occasionally <i>as</i> experiments.</p> + +<p>In my former statements I gave it as my opinion that vegetable food was +less aperient than animal. My opinion now is, that if we were trained on +vegetable food, and had never received substances into the stomach which +were unduly stimulating, we should find the intestinal or peristaltic +action quite sufficient. The apparent sluggishness of the bowels, when +we first exchange an animal diet for a vegetable one, is probably owing +to our former abuses. At present, I find my plain vegetable food, in +moderate and reasonable quantity, quite as aperient as it ought to be, +and, if I exceed a proper quantity, too much so.</p> + +<p>I have now no remaining doubts of the vast importance that would result +to mankind, from an universal training from childhood, to the exclusive +use of vegetable food. I believe such a course of training, along with a +due attention to air, exercise, cleanliness, etc., would be the means of +improving our race, physically, intellectually, and morally, beyond any +thing of which the world has yet conceived. But my reasons for this +belief will be seen more fully in another place. They are founded in +science and the observation of facts around me, much more than on a +narrow individual experience.</p> + +<p>There is one circumstance which I must not omit, because it is full of +admonition and instruction. I have elsewhere stated that, twenty-three +years ago, I had incipient phthisis. Of this fact, and of the fact that +there were considerable inroads made by disease on the upper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> lobe of +the right lung, I have not the slightest doubt. The symptoms were such +at the time, and subsequently, as could not have been mistaken. Besides, +what was, as I conceive, pretty fully established by the symptoms which +existed, is rendered still more certain by auscultation. The sounds +which are heard during respiration, in the region to which I have +alluded, leave no doubt on the minds of skillful medical men, of their +origin. Still I doubt whether the disease has made any considerable +progress for many years.</p> + +<p>But, during the winter of 1837-8, my employments became excessively +laborious; and, for the whole winter and spring, were sufficient for at +least two healthy and strong men. They were also almost wholly +sedentary. At the end of May, I took a long and rather fatiguing journey +through a country by no means the most healthy, and came home somewhat +depressed in mind and body, especially the former. I was also unusually +emaciated, and I began to have fears of a decline. Still, however, my +appetite was good, and I had a good share of bodily strength. The more I +directed my attention to myself, the worse I became; and I actually soon +began to experience darting pains in the chest, together with other +symptoms of a renewal of pulmonary disease. Perceiving my danger, +however, from the state of my mind, I at length made a powerful effort +to shake off the mental disturbance—which succeeded. This, together +with moderate labor and rather more exercise than before, seemed +gradually to set me right.</p> + +<p>Again, in the spring of 1848, after lecturing for weeks and +months—often in bad and unventilated rooms and subjecting myself, +unavoidably, to many of those abuses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> which exist every where in +society, I was attacked with a cough, followed by great debility, from +which it cost me some three months or more of labor with the spade and +hoe, to recover. With this and the exceptions before named, I have now, +for about twenty years, been as healthy as ever I was in my life, except +the slight tendency to cold during the winter of which I have already +taken notice. I never was more cheerful or more happy; never saw the +world in a brighter aspect; never before was it more truly "morning all +day" with me. I have paid, in part, the penalty of my transgressions; +and may, perhaps, go on, in life, many years longer.</p> + +<p>I now fear nothing in the future, so far as health and disease are +concerned, so much as excessive alimentation. To this evil—and it is a +most serious and common one in this land of abundance and busy +activity—I am much exposed, both from the keenness of my appetite, and +the exceeding richness of the simple vegetables and fruits of which I +partake. But, within a few years past, I seem to have gotten the +victory, in a good measure, even in this respect. By eating only a few +simple dishes at a time, and by measuring or weighing them with the +eye—for I weigh them in no other way—I am usually able to confine +myself to nearly the proper limits.</p> + +<p>This caution, and these efforts at self-government, are not needed +because their neglect involves any immediate suffering; for, as I have +already stated, there was never a period in my life before, when I was +so completely independent—apparently so, I mean—of external +circumstances. I can eat what I please, and as much or as little as I +please. I can observe set hours, or be very irregular. I can use a +pretty extensive variety at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> same meal, and a still greater variety +at different meals, or I can live perpetually on a single article—nay, +on almost any thing which could be named in the animal or vegetable +kingdom—and be perfectly contented and happy in the use of it. I could +in short, eat, work, think, sleep, converse, or play almost all the +while; or I could abstain from any or all of these, almost all the +while. Let me be understood, however. I do not mean to say that either +of these courses would be best for me, in the end; but only that I have +so far attained to independence of external circumstances that, for a +time, I believe I should be able to do or bear all I have mentioned.</p> + +<p>One thing more, in this connection, and I shall have finished my +remarks. I sleep too little; but it is because I allow my mind to run +over the world so much, and lay so many schemes for human improvement or +for human happiness; and because I allow my sympathies to become so +deeply enlisted in human suffering and human woe. I should be most +healthy, in the end, by spending six hours or more in sleep; whereas I +do not probably exceed four or five. I have indeed obtained a respite +from the grave of twenty-three years, through a partial repentance and +amendment of life, and the mercy of God; but did I obey all his laws as +well as I do a part of them, I know of no reason why my life might not +be lengthened, not merely fifteen years, as was Hezekiah's, or +twenty-three merely, but forty or fifty.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Dr. Knox has since removed to St. Louis, Missouri.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The reader will find another remarkable cure of epilepsy in +a subsequent chapter of this volume. The case was that of Dr. Taylor, of +England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See pages 13 and 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> This fact, and certain discussions on the subject of +temperance, led me to abstain, about the years 1841 and 1842, entirely +from all drink for a long time. Indeed, I made two of these experiments; +in one of which I abstained nine months and nineteen days, and in the +other fourteen months and one or two days; except that in the latter +case I ate, literally, for one or two successive days, while working +hard at haying, one or two bowls a day of bread and water. But these +were experiments <i>merely</i>—the experiments made by a medical man who +preferred making experiments on himself to making them on others; and +they never deserved the misconstruction which was put upon them by +several persons, who, in other respects, were very sensible men. "The +author" never believed with Dr. Lambe, of London, that man is not a +drinking animal.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks.—Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.—Dr. +Geoffroy.—Vanquelin and Percy.—Dr. Pemberton.—Sir John +Sinclair.—Dr. James.—Dr. Cranstoun.—Dr. Taylor.—Drs. +Hufeland and Abernethy.—Sir Gilbert Blane.—Dr. Gregory.—Dr. +Cullen.—Dr. Rush.—Dr. Lambe.—Prof. Lawrence.—Dr. +Salgues.—Author of "Sure Methods."—Baron Cuvier.—Dr. Luther +V. Bell.—Dr. Buchan.—Dr. Whitlaw.—Dr. Clark.—Prof. +Mussey.—Drs. Bell and Condie.—Dr. J. V. C. Smith.—Mr. +Graham.—Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.—Dr. Sweetser.—Dr. +Pierson.—Physician in New York.—Females' Encyclopedia.—Dr. +Van Cooth.—Dr. Beaumont.—Sir Everard Home.—Dr. +Jennings.—Dr. Jarvis.—Dr. Ticknor.—Dr. Coles.—Dr. +Shew.—Dr. Morrill.—Dr. Bell.—Dr. Jackson.—Dr. +Stephenson.—Dr. J. Burdell.—Dr. Smethurst.—Dr. +Schlemmer.—Dr. Curtis.—Dr. Porter.</p></div> + + +<h3>GENERAL REMARKS.</h3> + +<p>The number of physicians, and surgeons, and medical men, whose testimony +is brought to bear on the subject of diet, in the chapter which follows, +is by no means as great as it might have been. There are few writers on +anatomy, physiology, materia medica, or disease, who have not, either +directly or indirectly, given their testimony in favor of a mild and +vegetable diet for persons affected with certain chronic diseases. And +there is scarcely a writer on hygiene, or even on diet, who has not done +much more than this, and at times hinted at the safety of such a diet +for those who are in health; particularly the studious and sedentary. +But my object has been, not so much to collect all the evidence I could, +as to make a judicious selection—a selection which should present the +subject upon which it bears, in as many aspects as possible. I have +aimed in general,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> also, to procure the testimony of intelligent and +philanthropic men; or, at least of men whose names have by some means or +other been already brought before the public. If there are a few +exceptions to this rule, if a few are men whose names have been hitherto +unknown, it is on account of the <i>aspect</i>, as I have already said, of +their testimony, or on account of their peculiar position, as regards +country, age of the world, etc., or to secure their authority for +certain anecdotes or facts.</p> + +<p>In the arrangement of the testimony, I have been guided by no particular +rule, unless it has been to present first that of some of the older and +most accredited writers, such as Cheyne, Cullen, and Rush. The testimony +of certain living men and authors, particularly of our own country, has +been presented toward the close of the chapter, and in a very brief and +condensed form, from design. The propriety of inserting their names at +all was for a time considered doubtful. It is believed, however, that +they could not, in strict justice, have been entirely omitted. But let +not the meagre sketch of their views I have given, satisfy us. We want a +full development of their principles from their own pens—such a +development as, I hope, will not long be withheld from a world which is +famishing for the want of it. But now to the testimony.</p> + + +<h3>DR. GEORGE CHEYNE.</h3> + +<p>This distinguished physician, and somewhat voluminous writer, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. He may justly be esteemed the father of +what is now called the "vegetable system" of living; although it is +evident he did not see every thing clearly. "In the early part of his +life," says Prof. Hitchcock, in his work on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> Dyspepsia, "he was a +voluptuary; and before he attained to middle age, was so corpulent that +it was necessary to open the whole side of his carriage that he might +enter; and he saw death inevitable, without a change of his course. He +immediately abandoned all ardent spirits, wine, and fermented liquors, +and confined himself wholly to milk, vegetables, and water. This course, +with active exercise, reduced him from the enormous weight of four +hundred and forty-eight pounds, to one hundred and forty; and restored +his health and the vigor of his mind. After a few years, he ventured to +change his abstemious diet for one more rich and stimulating. But the +effect was a recurrence of his former corpulence and ill health. A +return to milk, water, and vegetables restored him again; and he +continued in uninterrupted health to the age of seventy-two."</p> + +<p>The following is his account of himself, at the age of about seventy:</p> + +<p>"It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered upon +a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, I took this +light food as my appetite directed, without any measure, and found +myself easy under it. After some time, I found it became necessary to +lessen the quantity; and I have latterly reduced it to one half, at +most, of what I at first seemed to bear. And if it shall please God to +spare me a few years longer, in order, in that case, to preserve that +freedom and clearness which, by his, blessing, I now enjoy, I shall +probably find myself obliged to deny myself one half of my present daily +substance—which is precisely three Winchester pints of new cows' milk, +and six ounces of biscuit made of fine flour, without salt or yeast, and +baked in a quick oven."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is exceedingly interesting to find an aged physician, especially one +who had formerly been in the habit of using six pints of milk, and +twelve ounces of unfermented biscuit, and of regarding that as a low +diet, reducing himself to one half this quantity in his old age, with +evident advantages; and cheerfully looking forward to a period, as not +many years distant, when he should be obliged to restrict himself to +half even of that quantity. How far he finally carried his temperance, +we do not exactly know. We only know that, after thirty years of health +and successful medical practice, he strenuously contended for the +superiority of a vegetable and milk diet over any other, whether for the +feeble or the healthy. But his numerous works abound with the most +earnest exhortations to temperance in all things, and with the most +interesting facts and cogent reasonings; and—I repeat it—if there be +any individual, since the days of Pythagoras, whose name ought to be +handed down to posterity as the father of the vegetable system of +living, it is that of Dr. Cheyne.</p> + +<p>Among his works are, a work on Fevers; an Essay on the true Nature and +proper Method of treating the Gout; a work on the Philosophical +Principles of Religion; an Essay of Health and Long Life; a work called +the English Malady; and another entitled the Natural Method of Cure in +the Diseases of the Body, and the Distempers of the Mind depending +thereon. The latter, and his Essay of Long Life are, in my view, his +greatest works; though the history of his own experience is chiefly +contained in his English Malady.</p> + +<p>I shall now proceed to make such extracts from his works, as seem to me +most striking and important to the general reader. They are somewhat +numerous,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> and there may be a few repetitions; but I was more anxious to +preserve his exact language—which is rather prolix—than to abridge too +much, at the risk of misrepresenting his sentiments.</p> + +<p>"When I see milk, oil, emulsion, mild watery fluids, and such like soft +liquors run through leathern tubes or pipes (for such animal veins and +arteries indeed are) for years, without destroying them, and observe on +the other hand that brine, inflammable or urinous spirits, and the like +acrimonious and burning fluids corrode, destroy, and consume them in a +very short time; when I consider the rending, burning, and tearing pains +and tortures of the gout, stone, colic, cancer, rheumatism, convulsions, +and such like insufferably painful distempers; when I see the crises of +almost all acute distempers happen either by rank and fetid sweats, +thick lateritious and lixivious sediments in the urine, black, putrid, +and fetid dejections, attended with livid and purple spots, corrosive +ulcers, impostumes in the joints or muscles, or a gangrene and +mortification in this or that part of the body; when I see the sharp, +the corroding and burning ichor of scorbutic and scrofulous sores, +fretting, galling, and blistering the adjacent parts, with the +inflammation, swelling, hardness, scabs, scurf, scales, and other +loathsome cutaneous foulnesses that attend, the white gritty and chalky +matter, and hard stony or flinty concretions which happen to all those +long troubled with severe gouts, gravel, jaundice, or colic—the +obstructions and hardnesses, the putrefaction and mortification that +happen in the bowels, joints, and members in some of these diseases, and +the rottenness in the bones, ligaments, and membranes that happen in +others; all the various train of pains, miseries, and torments that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> can +afflict any part of the compound, and for which there is scarce any +reprieve to be obtained, but by swallowing a kind of poison (opiates, +etc.); when I behold with compassion and sorrow, such scenes of misery +and woe, and see them happen only to the rich, the lazy, the luxurious, +and the inactive, those who fare daintily and live voluptuously, those +who are furnished with the rarest delicacies, the richest foods, and the +most generous wines, such as can provoke the appetites, senses, and +passions, in the most exquisite and voluptuous manner; to those who +leave no desire or degree of appetite unsatisfied, and not to the poor, +the low, the meaner sort, those destitute of the necessaries, +conveniences, and pleasures of life; to the frugal, industrious, +temperate, laborious, and active, inhabiting barren and uncultivated +countries, deserts, and forests under the poles or under the line;—I +must, if I am not resolved to resist the strongest conviction, conclude +that it must be something received into the body that can produce such +terrible appearances in it—some flagrant and notable difference in the +food that so sensibly distinguishes them from the latter; and that it is +the miserable man himself that creates his miseries and begets his +torture, or at least those from whom he has derived his bodily organs.</p> + +<p>"Nothing is so light and easy to the stomach, most certainly, as the +farinaceous or mealy vegetables; such as peas, beans, millet, oats, +barley, rye, wheat, sago, rice, potatoes, and the like."</p> + +<p>Milk is not included in the foregoing list of light articles; although +Dr. C. was evidently extremely fond of prescribing it in chronic +diseases. It does not fully appear, so far as I can learn from his +writings, that he regarded it as by any means indispensable to those +who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> were perfectly healthy, except during infancy and childhood. The +following extract will give us—more than any other, perhaps—his real +sentiments, though modestly expressed in the form of a conjecture, +rather than a settled belief.</p> + +<p>"I have sometimes indulged the conjecture that animal food, and <i>made</i> +or artificial liquors, in the original frame of our nature and design of +our creation, were not intended for human creatures. They seem to me +neither to have those strong and fit organs for digesting them (at +least, such as birds and beasts of prey have that live on flesh); nor, +naturally, to have those voracious and brutish appetites, that require +animal food and strong liquors to satisfy them; nor those cruel and hard +hearts, or those diabolical passions, which could easily suffer them to +tear and destroy their fellow-creatures; at least, not in the first and +early ages, before every man had corrupted his way, and God was forced +to exterminate the whole race by an universal deluge, and was also +obliged to shorten their lives from nine hundred or one thousand years +to seventy. He wisely foresaw that animal food and artificial liquors +would naturally contribute toward this end, and indulged or permitted +the generation that was to plant the earth again after the flood the use +of them for food; knowing that, though it would shorten their lives and +plait a scourge of thorns for the backs of the lazy and voluptuous, it +would be cautiously avoided by those who knew it was their duty and +happiness to keep their passions low, and their appetites in subjection. +And this very era of the flood is that mentioned in holy writ for the +indulgence of animal food and artificial liquors, after the trial had +been made how insufficient alone a vegetable diet—which was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> first +food appointed for human kind after their creation—was, in the long +lives of men, to restrain their wickedness and malice, and after finding +that nothing but shortening their duration could possibly prevent the +evil.</p> + +<p>"It is true, there is scarce a possibility of preventing the destroying +of animal life, as things are now constituted, since insects breed and +nestle in the very vegetables themselves; and we scarcely ever devour a +plant or root, wherein we do not destroy innumerable animalculæ. But, +besides what I have said of nature's being quite altered and changed +from what was originally intended, there is a great difference between +destroying and extinguishing animal life by choice and election, to +gratify our appetites, and indulge concupiscence, and the casual and +unavoidable crushing of those who, perhaps, otherwise would die within +the day, or at most the year, and who obtain but an inferior kind of +existence and life, at the best.</p> + +<p>"Whatever there may be, in this conjecture, it is evident to those who +understand the animal economy of the frame of human bodies, together +with the history, both of those who have lived abstemiously, and of +those who have lived freely, that indulging in flesh meat and strong +liquors, inflames the passions and shortens life, begets chronical +distempers and a decrepit age.</p> + +<p>"For remedying the distempers of the body, to make a man live as long as +his original frame was designed to last, with the least pain and fewest +diseases, and without the loss of his senses, I think Pythagoras and +Cornaro by far the two greatest men that ever were:—the first, by +vegetable food and unfermented liquors; the latter, by the lightest and +least of animal food, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> naturally fermented liquors. Both lived to a +great age. But, what is chiefly to be regarded in their conduct and +example, both preserved their senses, cheerfulness, and serenity to the +last; and, which is still more to be regarded, both, at least the last, +dissolved without pain or struggle; the first having lost his life in a +tumult, as it is said by some, after a great age of perfect health.</p> + +<p>"A plain, natural, and philosophical reason why vegetable food is +preferable to all other food is, that abounding with few or no salts, +being soft and cool, and consisting of parts that are easily divided and +formed into chyle without giving any labor to the digestive powers, it +has not that force to open the lacteals, to distend their orifices and +excite them to an unnatural activity, to let them pass too great a +quantity of hot and rank chyle into the blood, and so overcharge and +inflame the lymphatics and capillaries, which is the natural and +ordinary effect of animal food; and therefore cannot so readily produce +diseases. There is not a sufficient stimulus in the salts and spirits of +vegetable food to create an unnatural appetite, or violent cramming; at +least, not sufficient to force open and extend the mouths of the +lacteals, more than naturally they are or ought to be. Such food +requires little or no force of digestion, a little gentle heat and +motion being sufficient to dissolve it into its integral particles: so +that, in a vegetable diet, though the sharp humors, in the first +passages, are extended, relaxed stomach, and sometimes a delightful +piquancy in the food, may tempt one to exceed in quantity; yet rarely, +if spices and sauces—as too much butter, oil, and sugar—are not joined +to seeds<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> and vegetables, can the mischief go farther than the stomach +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> bowels, to create a pressed load, sickness, vomiting, or purging, +by its acquiring an acrimony from its not being received into the +lacteals;—so that on more being admitted into the blood than the +expenses of living require, life and health can never be endangered by a +vegetable diet. But all the contrary happens under a high animal diet."</p> + +<p>Now I will not undertake to vouch—as indeed I cannot, conscientiously, +do it—for the correctness of all Dr. C.'s notions in physiology or +pathology. The great object I have in view, by the introduction of these +quotations, may be accomplished without it. His preference for vegetable +food, or for what he calls a milk and seed diet, is the point which I +wish to make most prominent.</p> + +<p>In the following paragraphs, he takes up and considers some of the +popular objections of the day, to his doctrines and practice.</p> + +<p>"One of the most terrible objections some weak persons make against this +regimen and method, is, that upon accidental trials, they have always +found milk, fruit, and vegetables so inflate, blow them up, and raise +such tumults and tempests in their stomach and bowels, that they have +been terrified and affrighted from going on. I own the truth and fact to +be such, in some as is represented; and that in stomachs and entrails +inured only to hot and high meats and drinks, and consequently in an +inflammatory state and full of choler and phlegm, this sensation will +sometimes happen—just as a bottle of cider or fretting wine, when the +cork is pulled out, will fly up, and fume, and rage; and if you throw in +a little ferment or acid (such as milk, seeds, fruit, and vegetables <i>to +them</i>), the effervescence and tempest will exasperate to a hurricane.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But what are wind, flatulence, phlegm, and choler? What, indeed, but +stopped perspiration, superfluous nourishment, inconcocted chyle, of +high food and strong liquors, fermented and putrifying? And when these +are shut up and corked, with still more and more solid, strong, hot, and +styptic meats and drinks, is the corruption and putrefaction thereby +lessened? Will it not then, at last, either burst the vessel, or throw +out the cork or stopples, and raise still more lasting and cruel +tempests and tumults? Are milk and vegetables, seeds and fruits, harder +of digestion, more corrosive, or more capable of producing chyle, blood, +and juices, less fit to circulate, to perspire, and be secreted?</p> + +<p>"But what is to be done? The cure is obvious. Begin by degrees; eat less +animal food—the most tender and young—and drink less strong fermented +liquors, for a month or two. Then proceed to a <i>trimming</i> diet, of one +day, seed and vegetables, and another day, tender, young animal +food;—and, by degrees, slide into a total milk, seed, and vegetable +diet; cooling the stomach and entrails gradually, to fit them for this +soft, mild, sweetening regimen; and in time your diet will give you all +the gratification you ever had from strong, high, and rank food, and +spirituous liquors. And you will, at last, enjoy ease, free spirits, +perfect health, and long life into the bargain.</p> + +<p>"Seeds of all kinds are fittest to begin with, in these cases, when +dried, finely ground, and dressed; and, consequently, the least +flatulent. Lessen the quantity, even of these, below what your appetite +would require, at least for a time. Bear a little, and forbear.</p> + +<p>"Virtue and good health are not to be obtained, without some labor and +pains, against contrary habits. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> was a wild bounce of a Pythagorean, +who defied any one to produce an instance of a person, who had long +lived on milk and vegetables, who ever cut his own throat, hanged, or +made way with himself; who had ever suffered at Tyburn, gone to Newgate, +or to Moorfields; (and, he added rather profanely,) or, would go to +eternal misery hereafter.</p> + +<p>"Another weighty objection against a vegetable diet, I have heard, has +been made by learned men; and is, that vegetables require great labor, +strong exercise, and much action, to digest and turn them into proper +nutriment; as (say they) is evident from their being the common diet of +day-laborers, handicraftsmen, and farmers. This objection I should have +been ashamed to mention, but that I have heard it come from men of +learning; and they might have as justly said, that freestone is harder +than marble, and that the juice of vegetables makes stronger glue than +that of fish and beef!</p> + +<p>"Do not children and young persons, that is, tender persons, live on +milk and seeds, even before they are capable of much labor and exercise? +Do not all the eastern and southern people live almost entirely on them? +The Asiatics, Moors, and Indians, whose climates incapacitate them for +much labor, and whose indolence is so justly a reproach to them,—are +these lazier and less laborious men than the Highlanders and native +Irish?</p> + +<p>"The truth is, hardness of digestion principally depends on the +minuteness of the component particles, as is evident in marble and +precious stones. And animal substances being made of particles that pass +through innumerable very little, or infinitely small excretory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> ducts, +must be of a much finer texture, and consequently harder, or tougher, in +their composition, than any vegetable substance can be. And the flesh of +animals that live on animals, is like double distilled spirits, and so +requires much labor to break, grind, and digest it. And, indeed, if +day-laborers, and handicraftsmen were allowed the high, strong food of +men of condition, and the quiet and much-thinking persons were confined +to the farmer and ploughman's food, it would be much happier for both.</p> + +<p>"Another objection, still, against a milk and vegetable diet is, that it +breeds phlegm, and so is unfit for tender persons, of cold +constitutions; especially those whose predominant failing is too much +phlegm. But this objection has as little foundation as either of the +preceding. Phlegm is nothing but superfluous chyle and nourishment, as +the taking down more food than the expenses of living and the waste of +the solids and fluids require. The people that live most on such +foods—the eastern and southern people and those of the northern I have +mentioned—are less troubled with phlegm than any others. Superfluity +will always produce redundancy, whether it be of phlegm or choler; and +that which will digest the most readily, will produce the least +phlegm—such as milk, seeds, and vegetables. By cooling and relaxing the +solids, the phlegm will be more readily thrown up and discharged—more, +I say, by such a diet than by a hot, high, caustic, and restringent one; +but that discharge is a benefit to the constitution, and will help it +the sooner and faster to become purified, and so to get into perfect +good health. Whereas, by shutting them up, the can or cask must fly and +burst so much the sooner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The only material and solid objections against a milk, seed, and +vegetable diet, are the following:</p> + +<p>"<i>First</i>, That it is particular and unsocial, in a country where the +common diet is of another nature. But I am sure sickness, lowness, and +oppression, are much more so. These difficulties, after all, happen only +at first, while the cure is about; for, when good health comes, all +these oddnesses and specialities will vanish, and then all the contrary +to these will be the case.</p> + +<p>"<i>Secondly</i>, That it is weakening, and gives a man less strength and +force, than common diet. It is true that this may be the result, at +first, while the cure is imperfect. But then the greater activity and +gayety which will ensue on the return of health, under a milk and +vegetable diet, will liberally supply that defect.</p> + +<p>"<i>Thirdly</i>, The most material objection against such a diet is, that it +cools, relaxes, softens, and unbends the solids, at first, faster than +it corrects and sweetens the juices, and brings on greater degrees of +lowness than it is designed to cure; and so sinks, instead of raising. +But this objection is not universally true; for there are many I have +treated, who, without any such inconvenience, or consequent lowness, +have gone into this regimen, and have been free from any oppression, +sinking, or any degree of weakness, ever after; and they were not only +those who have been generally temperate and clean, free from humors and +sharpnesses, but who, on the decline of life, or from a naturally weak +constitution or frame, have been oppressed and sunk from their weakness +and their incapacity to digest common animal food and fermented liquors.</p> + +<p>"I very much question if any diet, either hot or cool, has any great +influence on the solids, after the fluids<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> have been entirely sweetened +and balmified. Sweeten and thin the juices, and the rest will follow, as +a matter of course."</p> + +<p>At page 90 of Dr. Cheyne's Natural Method of Curing Diseases, he thus +says:</p> + +<p>"People think they cannot possibly subsist on a little meat, milk, and +vegetables, or on any low diet, and that they must infallibly perish if +they should be confined to water only; not considering that nine tenths +of the whole mass of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet, or +pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of their senses, limbs, +and faculties, without diseases, or but few, and those from accidents or +epidemical causes; and that there have been nations, and now are numbers +of tribes, who voluntarily confine themselves to vegetables only; as the +Essenes among the Jews, some Hermits and Solitaries among the Christians +of the first ages, a great number of monks in the Chartreux now in +Europe, Banians among the Indians and Chinese, the Guebres among the +Persians, and of old, the Druids among ourselves."</p> + +<p>To illustrate the foregoing, I may here introduce the following extracts +from the sixth London edition of Dr. Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long +Life.</p> + +<p>"It is surprising to what a great age the Eastern Christians, who +retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, +lived healthful on a very little food. We are informed, by Cassian, that +the common measure for twenty-four hours was about twelve ounces, with +only pure water for drink. St. Anthony lived to one hundred and five +years on mere bread and water, adding only a few herbs at last. On a +similar diet, James the Hermit lived to one hundred and four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> years. +Arsenius, the tutor of the emperor Arcadius, to one hundred and +twenty—sixty-five years in society, and fifty-five in the desert. St. +Epiphanius, to one hundred and fifteen; St. Jerome, about one hundred; +Simon Stylites, to one hundred and nine; and Romualdus, to one hundred +and twenty.</p> + +<p>"It is wonderful in what sprightliness, strength, activity, and freedom +of spirits, a low diet, even here in England, will preserve those who +have habituated themselves to it. Buchanan informs us of one Laurence, +who preserved himself to one hundred and forty, by the mere force of +temperance and labor. Spotswood mentions one Kentigern (afterward called +St. Mongah, or Mungo, from whom the famous well in Wales is named), who +lived to one hundred and eighty-five years; and who, after he came to +years of understanding, never tasted wine or strong drink, and slept on +the cold ground.</p> + +<p>"My worthy friend, Mr. Webb, is still alive. He, by the quickness of the +faculties of the mind, and the activity of the organs of his body, shows +the great benefit of a low diet—living altogether on vegetable food and +pure water. Henry Jenkins lived to one hundred and sixty-nine years on a +low, coarse, and simple diet. Thomas Parr died at the age of one hundred +and fifty-two years and nine months. His diet was coarse bread, milk, +cheese, whey, and small beer; and his historian tells us, that he might +have lived a good while longer if he had not changed his diet and air; +coming out of a clear, thin air, into the thick air of London, and being +taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully +of the best wines, and, as a necessary consequence, died in a short +time. Dr. Lister mentions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> eight persons in the north of England, the +youngest of whom was above one hundred years old, and the oldest was one +hundred and forty. He says, it is to be observed that the food of all +this mountainous country is exceeding coarse."</p> + +<p>Dr. C., in his Natural Method, at page 91, thus continues his remarks:</p> + +<p>"And there are whole villages in this kingdom, even of those who live on +the plains, who scarce eat animal food, or drink fermented liquors a +dozen times a year. It is true, most of these cannot be said to live at +ease and commodiously, and many may be said to live in barbarity and +ignorance. All I would infer from this is, that they do live, and enjoy +life, health, and outward serenity, with few or no bodily diseases but +from accidents and epidemical causes; and that, being reduced by +voluntary and necessary poverty, they are not able to manage with care +and caution the rest of the non-naturals, which, for perfect health and +cheerfulness, must all be equally attended to, and prudently conducted; +and their ignorance and brutality is owing to the want of the +convenience of due and sufficient culture and education in their youth.</p> + +<p>"But the only conclusion I would draw from these historical facts is, +that a low diet, or living on vegetables, will not destroy life or +health, or cause nervous and cephalic distempers; but, on the contrary, +cure them, as far as they are curable. I pretend to demonstrate from +these facts, that abstinence and a low diet is the great antidote and +universal remedy of distempers acquired by excess, intemperance, and a +mistaken regimen of high meats and drinks; and that it will greatly +alleviate and render tolerable the original distempers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> derived from +diseased parents; and that it is absolutely necessary for the deep +thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties sound and +entire, ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of +life; and that it is, lastly, the true and real antidote and +preservative from heavy-headedness, irregular and disorderly +intellectual functions, from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and +senses, and from all nervous distempers, as far as the ends of +Providence and the condition of mortality will allow.</p> + +<p>"Let two people be taken as nearly alike as the diversity and the +individuality of nature will admit, of the same age, stature, +complexion, and strength of body, and under the same chronical +distemper, and I am willing to take the seeming worse of the two; let +all the most promising nostrums, drops, drugs, and medicines known among +the learned and experienced physicians, ancient or modern, regular +physicians or quacks, be administered to the best of the two, by any +professor at home or abroad; I will manage my patient with only a few +naturally indicated and proper evacuations and sweetening innocent +alternatives, which shall neither be loathsome, various, nor +complicated, require no confinement, under an appropriate diet, or, in a +word, under the 'lightest and the least,' or at worst under a milk and +seed diet; and I will venture reputation and life, that my method cures +sooner, more perfectly and durably, is much more easily and pleasantly +passed through, in a shorter time, and with less danger of a relapse +than the other, with all the assistance of the best skill and +experience, under a full and free, though even a commonly reputed +moderate diet, but of rich foods and generous liquors; much more, under +a voluptuous diet."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>But I am unwilling to dismiss this subject without inserting a few more +extracts from Dr. Cheyne, to show his views of the treatment of +diseases. And first, of the scurvy, and other diseases which he supposes +to arise from it.</p> + +<p>"There is no chronical distemper, whatsoever, more universal, more +obstinate, and more fatal in Britain than the scurvy, taken in its +general extent. Scarce any one chronical distemper but owes its origin +to a scorbutic tendency, or is so complicated with it, that it furnishes +the most cruel and most obstinate symptoms. To it we owe all the +dropsies that happen after the meridian of life; all diabetes, asthmas, +consumptions of several kinds; many sorts of colics and diarrhœas; +some kinds of gouts and rheumatisms, all palsies, various kinds of +ulcers, and possibly the cancer itself; and most cutaneous foulnesses, +weakly constitutions, and bad digestions; vapors, melancholy, and almost +all nervous distempers whatsoever. And what a plentiful source of +miseries the last are, the afflicted best can tell. And scarce any one +chronical distemper whatever, but has some degree of this evil +faithfully attending it. The reason why the scurvy is peculiar to this +country and so fruitful of miseries, is, that it is produced by causes +mostly special and particular to this island, to wit: the indulging so +much in animal food and strong fermented liquors, sedentary and confined +employments, etc.</p> + +<p>"Though the inhabitants of Britain live, for the most part, as long as +those of a warmer climate, and probably rather longer, yet scarce any +one, especially those of the better sort, but becomes crazy and suffers +under some chronical distemper or other, before he arrives at old age.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nothing less than a very moderate use of animal food, and that of the +least exciting kind, and a more moderate use of spirituous liquors, due +exercise, etc., can keep this hydra under. And nothing else than a total +abstinence from animal food and alcoholic liquors can totally extirpate +it."</p> + +<p>The following are extracted from his "Natural Methods." I do not lay +them down as recipes, to be followed in the treatment of diseases; but +to show the views of Dr. Cheyne in regard to vegetable regimen.</p> + +<p>"1. <i>Cancer.</i>—Any cancer that can be cut out, contracted, and healed up +with common, that is, soft, cool, and gently astringent dressings, and +at last left as an issue on the part, may, by a cow's milk and seed diet +continued ever afterward, be made as easy to the patient, and his life +and health as long preserved, almost, as if he had never been afflicted +with it; especially if under fifty years of age.</p> + +<p>"2. <i>Cancer.</i>—A total ass's milk diet—about two quarts a day, without +any other meat or drink—will in time cure a cancer in any part of the +body, with mere common dressings, provided the patient is not quite worn +out with it before it is begun, or too far gone in the common duration +of life and even in that case, it will lessen the pain, lengthen life, +and make death easier, especially if joined with small interspersed +bleedings, millepedes, crabs' eyes prepared, nitre and rhubarb, properly +managed. But the diet, even after the cure, must be continued, and never +after greatly altered, unless it be into cow's milk with seeds.</p> + +<p>"3. <i>Consumption.</i>—A total milk and seed diet, gentle and frequent +bleedings, as symptoms exasperate, a little ipecacuanha or thumb vomit +repeated once or twice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> a week, chewing quill bark in the morning, and a +few grains of rhubarb at night, will totally cure consumptions, even +when attended with tubercles, and hemoptoe, and hectic, in the first +stage; will greatly relieve, if not cure, in the second stage, +especially if riding and a warm clear air be joined; and make death +easier in the third and last stage.</p> + +<p>"4. <i>Fits.</i>—A total cow's milk diet—about two quarts a day—without +any other food, will at last totally cure all kinds of fits, +epileptical, hysterical, or apoplectic, if entered upon before fifty. +But the patient, if near fifty, must ever after continue in the same +diet, with the addition only of seeds; otherwise his fits will return +oftener and more severely, and at last cut him off.</p> + +<p>"5. <i>Palsy.</i>—A total cow's milk diet, without any other food, will bid +fairest to cure a hemiplegia or even a dead palsy, and consequently all +the lesser degrees of a partial one, if entered upon before fifty. And +this distemper I take to be the most obstinate, intractable, and +disheartening one that can afflict the human machine; and is chiefly +produced by intemperate cookery, with its necessary attendant, habitual +luxury.</p> + +<p>"6. <i>Gout.</i>—A total milk and seed diet, with gentle vomits before and +after the fits, chewing bark in the morning and rhubarb at night, with +bleeding about the equinoxes, will perfectly cure the gout in persons +under fifty, and greatly relieve those farther advanced in life; but +must be continued ever after, if such desire to get well.</p> + +<p>"7. <i>Gravel.</i>—Soap lees, softened with a little oil of sweet almonds, +drunk about a quarter of an ounce twice a day on a fasting stomach; or +soap and egg-shell pills, with a total milk and seed diet, and Bristol +water beverage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> will either totally dissolve the stone in kidneys or +bladder, or render it almost as easy as the nail on one's finger, if the +patient is under fifty, and much relieve him, even after that age.</p> + +<p>"In about thirty years' practice, in which I have, in some degree or +other, advised this method in proper cases, I have had but two patients +in whose total recovery I have been mistaken, and these were both +scrofulous cases, where the glands and tubercles were so many, so hard, +and so impervious that even the ponderous remedies and diet joined could +not discuss them; and they were both also too far gone before they +entered upon them;—and I have found deep scrofulous vapors the most +obstinate of any of this tribe of these distempers. And indeed nothing +can possibly reach such, but the ponderous medicines, joined with a +liquid, cool, soft, milk and seed regimen; and if these two do not, in +due time, I can boldly affirm it, nothing ever will."</p> + +<p>Dr. Cheyne goes on to speak of the cure, on similar principles, of a +great many other difficult or dangerous diseases, as asthma, pleurisy, +hemorrhage, mania, jaundice, bilious colic, rheumatism, scurvy, and +venereal disease; but he modestly owns that, in his opinion on these, he +does not feel such entire confidence as in the former cases, for want of +sufficient experiments. He, however, closes one of his chapters with the +following pretty strong statement:</p> + +<p>"I am morally certain, and am myself entirely convinced, that a milk and +seed, or milk and turnip diet, duly persisted in, with the occasional +helps mentioned (elsewhere) on exacerbations, will either totally cure +or greatly relieve every chronical distemper I ever saw or read of."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another chapter is thus concluded, and with it I shall conclude my +extracts from his writings.</p> + +<p>"Some, perhaps, may controvert, nay, ridicule the doctrine laid down in +these propositions. I shall neither reply to, nor be moved with any +thing that shall be said against them. If they are of nature and truth, +they will stand; if not, I consent they should come to nought. I have +satisfied my own conscience—the rest belongs to Providence. Possibly +time and bodily sufferings may justify them;—if not to this generation, +perhaps to some succeeding one. I myself am convinced, by long and many +repeated experience, of their justness and solidity. If what has been +advocated through this whole treatise does not convince others, nothing +I can add will be sufficient. I will leave only this reflection with my +readers.</p> + +<p>"All physicians, ancient and modern, allow that a milk and seed diet +will totally cure before fifty, and infinitely alleviate after it, the +consumption, the rheumatism, the scurvy, the gout—these highest, most +mortal, most painful, and most obstinate distempers; and nothing is more +certain in mathematics, than that which will cure the greater will +certainly cure the lesser distempers."</p> + + +<h3>DR. GEOFFROY.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Geoffroy, a distinguished French physician and professor of +chemistry and medicine in some of the institutions of France, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. The bearing of the following extract will +be readily seen. It is from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for the +year 1730; and I am indebted for it to the labors of Dr. Cheyne.</p> + +<p>"M. Geoffroy has given a method for determining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> the proportion of +nourishment or true matter of the flesh and blood, contained in any sort +of food. He took a pound of meat that had been freed from the fat, +bones, and cartilages, and boiled it for a determined time in a close +vessel, with three pints of water; then, pouring off the liquor, he +added the same quantity of water, boiling it again for the same time; +and this operation he repeated several times, so that the last liquor +appeared, both in smell and taste, to be little different from common +water. Then, putting all the liquor together, and filtrating, to +separate the too gross particles, he evaporated it over a slow fire, +till it was brought to an extract of a pretty moderate consistence.</p> + +<p>"This experiment was made upon several sorts of food, the result of +which may be seen in the following table. The weights are in ounces, +drachms, and grains; sixty grains to a drachm, and eight drachms to an +ounce.</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td colspan="2">Kind of Food.</td><td colspan="3">Amount of Extract.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>oz.</td><td align='left'>dr.</td><td align='left'>gr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One lb.</td><td align='left'>Beef</td><td align='left'>0.</td><td align='left'>7.</td><td align='left'>8.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Veal</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>48.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Mutton</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>3.</td><td align='left'>16.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Lamb</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>39.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Chicken</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>4.</td><td align='left'>34.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Pigeon</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>0.</td><td align='left'>12.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Pheasant</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>2.</td><td align='left'>8.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Partridge</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>4.</td><td align='left'>34.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Calves' Feet</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>2.</td><td align='left'>26.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Carp</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>0.</td><td align='left'>8.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Whey</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>3.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Bread</td><td align='left'>4.</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>0.</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>"The relative proportion of the nourishment will be as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Beef</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Veal</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mutton</td><td align='right'>11</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lamb</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Chicken</td><td align='right'>12</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Pigeon</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Pheasant</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Partridge</td><td align='right'>12</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Calves' Feet</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Carp</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Whey</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Bread</td><td align='right'>33</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>"From the foregoing decisive experiments it is evident that white, +young, tender animal food, bread, milk, and vegetables are the best and +most effectual substances for nutrition, accretion, and sweetening bad +juices. They may not give so strong and durable mechanical force, +because being easily and readily digestible, and quickly passing all the +animal functions, so as to turn into good blood and muscular flesh, they +are more transitory, fugitive, and of prompt secretion; yet they will +perform all the animal functions more readily and pleasantly, with fewer +resistances and less labor, and leave the party to exercise the rational +and intellectual operations with pleasure and facility. They will leave +Nature to its own original powers, prevent and cure diseases, and +lengthen out life."</p> + +<p>Now if this experiment proves what Dr. C. supposes in favor of the +lighter meats and vegetables taken together, how much more does it prove +for bread alone? For it cannot escape the eye of the least observing +that this article, though placed last in the list of Dr. Geoffroy, is by +far the highest in point of nutriment; nay, that it is about three times +as high as any of the rest. I am not disposed to lay so much stress on +these experiments as Dr. C. does; nevertheless, they prove something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +Connected with the more recent experiments of Messrs. Percy and +Vauquelin and others, how strikingly do they establish one fact, at +least, viz., that bread and the other farinaceous vegetables cannot +possibly be wanting in nutriment; and how completely do they annihilate +the old-fashioned doctrine—one which is still abroad and very +extensively believed—that animal food is a great deal more nourishing +than vegetable! No careful inquirer can doubt that bread, peas, beans, +rice, etc., are twice as nutritious—to say the least—as flesh or fish.</p> + + +<h3>MESSRS. PERCY AND VAUQUELIN.</h3> + +<p>As I have alluded, in the preceding article, to the experiments of +Messrs. Percy and Vauquelin, two distinguished French chemists, their +testimony in this place seems almost indispensable, even though we +should not regard it, in the most strict import of the term, as medical +testimony. The result of their experiments, as communicated by them to +the French minister of the interior, is as follows:</p> + +<p>In bread, every one hundred pounds is found to contain eighty pounds of +nutritious matter; butcher's meat, averaging the different sorts, +contains only thirty-five pounds in one hundred; French beans (in the +grain), ninety-two pounds in one hundred; broad beans, eighty-nine +pounds; peas, ninety-three pounds; lentils (a species of half pea little +known with us), fifty-four pounds in one hundred; greens and turnips +only eight pounds of solid nutritious substance in one hundred; carrots, +fourteen pounds; and one hundred pounds of potatoes yield only +twenty-five pounds of nutriment.</p> + +<p>I will just affix to the foregoing one more table. It is inserted in +several other works which I have published;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> but for the benefit of +those who may never yet have seen it, and to show how strikingly it +corresponds with the results of the experiments of Geoffroy, Percy, and +Vauquelin, I deem it proper to insert it.</p> + +<p>Of the best wheat, one hundred pounds contain about eighty-five pounds +of nutritious matter; of rice, ninety pounds; of rye, eighty; of barley, +eighty-three; of beans, eighty-nine to ninety-two; peas, ninety-three; +lentils, ninety-four; meat (average), thirty-five; potatoes, +twenty-five; beets, fourteen; carrots, ten; cabbage, seven; greens, six; +and turnips, four.</p> + + +<h3>DR. PEMBERTON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Pemberton, after speaking of the general tendency, in our highly fed +communities, to scrofula and consumption, makes the following remarks, +which need no comment:</p> + +<p>"If a child is born of scrofulous parents, I would strongly recommend +that it be entirely nourished from the breast of a healthy nurse, for at +least a year. After this, the food should consist of milk and +farinaceous vegetables. By a perseverance in this diet for three years, +I have imagined that the threatened scrofulous appearances have +certainly been postponed, if not altogether prevented."</p> + + +<h3>SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.</h3> + +<p>Sir John Sinclair, an eminent British surgeon, says, "I have wandered a +good deal about the world, my health has been tried in all ways, and, by +the aid of temperance and hard work, I have worn out two armies in two +wars, and probably could wear out another before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> my period of old age +arrives. I eat no animal food, drink no wine or malt liquor, or spirits +of any kind; I wear no flannel; and neither regard wind nor rain, heat +nor cold, when business is in the way."</p> + + +<h3>DR. JAMES, OF WISCONSIN.</h3> + +<p>Dr. James, of Wisconsin, but formerly of Albany, and editor of a +temperance paper in that city, one of the most sensible, intelligent, +and refined of men, and one of the first in his profession, is a +vegetable eater, and a man of great simplicity in all his physical, +intellectual, and moral habits. I do not know that his views have ever +been presented to the public, but I state them with much confidence, +from a source in which I place the most implicit reliance.</p> + + +<h3>DR. CRANSTOUN.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Cranstoun, a worthy medical gentleman in England, became subject, by +some means or other, to a chronic dysentery, on which he exhausted, as +it were, the whole materia medica, in vain. At length, after suffering +greatly for four or five years, he was completely cured by a milk and +vegetable diet. The following is his own brief account of his cure, in a +letter to Dr. Cheyne:</p> + +<p>"I resolutely, as soon as capable of a diet, held myself close to your +rules of bland vegetable food and elementary drink, and, without any +other medicine, save frequent chewing of rhubarb and a little bark, I +passed last winter and this summer without a relapse of the dysentery; +and, though by a very slow advance, I find now more restitution of the +body and regularity in the economy, on this primitive aliment, than ever +I knew from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> the beginning of this trouble. This encourages much my +perseverance in the same method, and that so religiously, as, to my +knowledge, now for more than a year and a half I have not tasted of any +thing that had animal life. There is plenty in the vegetable kingdom."</p> + + +<h3>DR. TAYLOR, OF ENGLAND.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, who had studied the works of Dr. Sydenham, and was +therefore rather favorably inclined toward a milk and vegetable diet, +became at last subject to epileptic fits. Not being willing, however, to +give up his high living and his strong drinks, he tried the effects of +medicine, and even consulted all the most eminent of his brethren of the +medical profession in and about London; but all to no purpose, and the +fits continued to recur. He used frequently to be attacked with them +while riding along the road, in pursuance of the business of his +profession. In these cases he would fall from his horse, and often +remain senseless till some passenger or wagon came along and carried him +to the nearest house. At length his danger, not only from accidents, but +from the frequency and violence of the attacks, became so imminent that +he was obliged to follow the advice of his master, Sydenham. He first +laid aside the use of all fermented and distilled liquors; then, finding +his fits became less frequent and violent, he gave up all flesh meat, +and confined himself entirely to cows' milk.</p> + +<p>In pursuance of this plan, in a year or two the epilepsy entirely left +him. "And now," says Dr. Cheyne, from whom I take the account, "for +seventeen years he has enjoyed as good health as human nature is capable +of, except that once, in a damp air and foggy weather in riding through +Essex, he was seized with an ague, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> he got over by chewing the +bark." He assured Dr. C. that at this time—and he was considerably +advanced in life—he could play six hours at cricket without fatigue or +distress, and was more active and clear in his faculties than ever he +had been before in his whole life. He also said he had cured a great +many persons, by means of the same diet, of inveterate distempers.</p> + + +<h3>DRS. HUFELAND AND ABERNETHY.</h3> + +<p>The celebrated Dr. Hufeland taught that a simple vegetable diet was most +conducive to health and long life. The distinguished Dr. Abernethy has +expressed an opinion not very unlike it, in the following eccentric +manner:</p> + +<p>"If you put improper food into the stomach it becomes disordered, and +the whole system is affected. Vegetable matter ferments and becomes +gaseous, while <i>animal</i> substances are changed into a putrid, +abominable, and acrid stimulus. Now, some people acquire preposterous +noses; others, blotches on the face and different parts of the body; +others, inflammation of the eyes; all arising from the irritations of +the stomach. I am often asked why I don't practice what I preach. I +reply by reminding the inquirer of the parson and sign-post—both point +the way, but neither follows its course."</p> + + +<h3>DR. GREGORY.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Gregory, a distinguished professor and practitioner of medicine in +Scotland, in a work published more than seventy years ago, strongly +recommends plain and simple food for children. Till they are three years +old, he says, their diet should consist of plain milk, panada,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> good +bread, barley meal porridge, and rice. He also complains of pampering +them with animal food. The same arguments which are good for forming +them to the habits of vegetable food exclusively for the first three +years of life, would be equally good for its continuance.</p> + + +<h3>DR. CULLEN, OF EDINBURGH.</h3> + +<p>The name of Dr. Cullen is well known, and he has long been regarded as +high authority. Yet this distinguished writer and teacher expressly +says, that a very temperate and <i>sparing</i> use of animal food is the +surest means of preserving health and obtaining long life. But I will +quote his own language, in various parts of his writings. And first, +from his Materia Medica:</p> + +<p>"Vegetable aliment, as never over-distending the vessels or loading the +system, never interrupts the stronger emotions of the mind, while the +heat, fullness, and weight of animal food, is an enemy to its vigorous +efforts. Temperance, then, does not consist so much in the quantity, for +that will always be regulated by our appetite, as in the <i>quality</i>, +viz., a large proportion of vegetable aliment."</p> + +<p>I will not stop here to oppose Dr. C.'s views in regard to the quantity +of our food; for this is not the place. It is sufficient to show that he +admits the importance of <i>quality</i>, and gives the preference to a diet +of vegetables.</p> + +<p>He seems in favor, in another place in his works, of sleeping after +eating—perhaps a heresy, too—and inclines to the opinion that the +practice would be hardly hurtful if we ate less animal food.</p> + +<p>But his "First Lines of the Practice of Physic," abounds in testimonies +in favor of vegetable food. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> speaking, for example, of the cure of +rheumatic affections, he has the following language:</p> + +<p>"The cure, therefore, requires, in the first place, an antiphlogistic +regimen, and particularly, a total abstinence from animal food, and from +all fermented or spirituous liquors."</p> + +<p>"Antiphlogistic regimen," in medical language, means that food and drink +which is most cooling and quieting to the stomach and to the general +system.</p> + +<p>In the treatment of gout, Dr. Cullen recommends a course like that which +has been stated, except that instead of proposing vegetable food as a +means of cure, he recommends it as <i>preventive</i>. He says—</p> + +<p>"The gout may be entirely prevented by constant bodily exercise, and by +a low diet; and I am of opinion that this prevention may take place even +in persons who have a hereditary disposition to the disease. I must add, +here, that even when the disposition has discovered itself by severe +paroxysms of inflammatory gout, I am persuaded that labor and abstinence +will absolutely prevent any returns of it for the rest of life."</p> + +<p>Again, in reference to the same subject, he thus observes:</p> + +<p>"I am firmly persuaded that any man who, early in life, will enter upon +the constant practice of bodily labor and of abstinence from animal +food, will be preserved entirely from the disease."</p> + +<p>And yet once more.</p> + +<p>"If an abstinence from animal food be entered upon early in life, while +the vigor of the system is yet entire, I have no doubt of its being both +safe and effectual."</p> + +<p>To guard against the common opinion that by vegetable food, he meant +raw, or crude, or bad vegetables,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Dr. C. explains his meaning by +assuring the reader that by a vegetable diet he means the "farinaceous +seeds," and "milk;" and admits that green, crude, and bad vegetables are +not only less useful, but actually liable to produce the very diseases, +which good, mealy vegetable food will prevent or cure.</p> + +<p>This is an important distinction. Many a person, who wishes to be +abstemious, seems to think that if he only abstains from flesh and fish, +that is enough. No matter, he supposes, what vegetables he uses, so they +are vegetables; nor how much he abuses himself by excess in quantity. +Nay, he will even load his stomach with milk, or butter, or eggs; +sometimes with fish (we have often been asked if we considered fish as +animal food); and sometimes, worse still, with hot bread, hot buckwheat +cakes, hot short-cakes, swimming, almost, in butter;—yes, and sometimes +he will even cover his potatoes with gravy, mustard, salt, etc.</p> + +<p>It is in vain for mankind to abstain from animal food, as they call it, +and yet run into these worse errors. The lean parts of animals not much +fattened, and only rarely cooked, eaten once a day in small quantity, +are far less unwholesome than many of the foregoing.</p> + +<p>But to return to Dr. C. In speaking of the proper drink for persons +inclined to gout, he thus remarks:</p> + +<p>"With respect to drink, fermented liquors are useful only when they are +joined with animal food, and that by their acescency; and their stimulus +is only necessary from custom. When, therefore, animal food is to be +avoided, fermented liquors are unnecessary, and by increasing the +acescency of vegetables, these liquors may be hurtful. The stimulus of +fermented or spirituous liquors is not necessary to the young and +vigorous:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> and, when much employed, impairs the tone of the system."</p> + +<p>Dr. C. might have added—what indeed we should infer by parity of +reasoning—that when fermented liquors are avoided, animal food is no +longer necessary, and by increasing the alkaline state of the stomach +and fluids, may be hurtful. The truth is, they go best together. If we +use flesh and fish, which are alkaline, a small quantity of gently acid +drink, as weak cider or wine, taken either <i>with</i> our meals, or +<i>between</i> them, may be useful. It is better, however, to abstain from +both.</p> + +<p>For if a purely vegetable aliment, with water alone for drink, is safe +to all young persons inclining at all to gout, to whom is it unsafe? If +it tends to render a young person at all weaker, that very weakness +would predispose to the gout, in some of its forms, if a person were +constitutionally inclined to that disease—if not to some other +complaint, to which he was more inclined. It cannot, therefore, be +unsafe to any, if Dr. C. is right.</p> + +<p>But if those who are trained to it, <i>lose</i> nothing, even in the high +latitude of Scotland—where Dr. C. wrote—by confining themselves to +good vegetables and water, then they must necessarily <i>gain</i>, on his own +principles, by this way of living, because they get rid of any sort of +necessity (he might have added, lose their appetite) for fermented +liquors.</p> + +<p>More than this, as the doctor himself concludes, in another place, they +prevent many acute diseases. His words are these:—"It is animal food +which especially predisposes to the plethoric and inflammatory state; +and that food is therefore to be especially avoided." It is true, he is +here speaking of gouty persons: but his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> principles are also fairly +susceptible, as I have shown, of a general application.</p> + +<p>In short, it is an undeniable fact, that even a thorough-going vegetable +eater might prove every thing he wished, from old established writers on +medicine and health, though themselves were feeders on animal food; just +as a teetotaler may prove the doctrine of abstinence from all drinks but +water, from the writings of medical men, though themselves are still, in +many cases, pouring down their cider, their beer, or their wine—or at +least, their tea and coffee.</p> + + +<h3>DR. BENJAMIN RUSH.</h3> + +<p>I find nothing in the writings of this great man which shows, with +certainty, what his views were, in regard to animal food. The +presumption is, that he was sparing in its use, and that he encouraged a +very limited use of it in others. This is presumed, 1, from the general +tenor of his writings—deeply imbued as they are with the great doctrine +of temperance in all things; and, 2, from the fondness he seems to have +manifested in mentioning the temperance and even abstinence of +individuals of whom he was speaking.</p> + +<p>Of Ann Woods, for example, who died at the age of ninety-six years, he +says, "Her diet was simple, consisting chiefly of weak tea, milk, +cheese, butter, and vegetables. Meat of all kinds, except veal, +disagreed with her stomach. She found great benefit from frequently +changing her aliment. Her drinks were water, cider and water, and +molasses and vinegar in water. She never used spirits. Her memory (at +her death) was but little impaired. She was cheerful, and thankful that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +her condition in life was happier than that of hundreds of other +people."</p> + +<p>In his account of Benjamin Lay, a philosopher of the sect of the +Friends, in Pennsylvania, Dr. R. relates, that "he was extremely +temperate in his diet, living chiefly upon vegetables. Turnips boiled +and afterward roasted, were his favorite dinner. His drink was pure +water. He lived above eighty years." It appears, also, that he was +exceedingly healthy.</p> + +<p>He relates of Anthony Benezet, a distinguished teacher of Philadelphia, +who lived to an advanced age, that his sympathy was so great with every +thing that was capable of feeling pain, that he resolved, toward the +close of his life, to eat no animal food. He also relates the following +singular anecdote of him. Upon coming into his brother's house, one day, +when the family were dining upon poultry, he was asked by his brother's +wife to sit down and dine with them. What! said he, would you have me +eat my neighbors?</p> + +<p>Dr. Caleb Bannister, in another part of this work, tells us that he was +led to adopt a milk and vegetable diet, in incipient consumption, from +reading the writings of Dr. Rush; and I have little doubt that Dr. R. +himself lived quite abstemiously, if not altogether on vegetables.</p> + +<p>Nor is this <i>incidental</i> testimony from Dr. Rush quite all. In his work +"On the Diseases of the Mind," he speaks often of the evils of eating +high-seasoned food, and especially animal food. And in stating what were +the proper remedies for debility in young men, when induced by certain +forms of licentiousness, he expressly insists on a diet consisting +simply of vegetables, and prepared without condiments; and he even +encourages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> the disuse of salt. Had Dr. Rush lived to this day, he +would, ere now, in all probability, have fully adopted and defended the +vegetable system. With views like his on the subject of intemperance, +and a mind ever open to conviction, the result could hardly have been +otherwise.</p> + + +<h3>DR. WILLIAM LAMBE, OF LONDON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. William Lambe, of London, is distinguished both as a physician and a +general scholar, and is a prominent member of the "College of +Physicians." He was a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, and a +fellow-student with the immortal Clarkson.</p> + +<p>Dr. Lambe is the author of several valuable works, among which are his +"Reports on Cancer," and a more recent work entitled, "Additional +Reports on the Effects of a Peculiar Regimen, in Cases of Cancer, +Scrofula, Consumption, Asthma, and other chronic diseases." He has also +made and published numerous experiments, especially in chemistry, which +is, with him, a favorite science; and it is said that he has spent +fortunes in this way.</p> + +<p>Dr. L. is now eighty-four years of age, and has lived on vegetable diet +forty-two years. He commenced this course to cure himself of internal +gout, and continued it because he found it better for his health. He is +now only troubled with it slightly, at his extremities, which he thinks +highly creditable to a vegetable course—having thrown it off from his +vital organs. He is cheerful and active, and able to discharge the +duties of an extensive medical practice. He walks into town, a distance +of three miles from his residence, every morning, and back at night; and +thinks himself as likely to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> live twenty years longer as he was, twenty +years ago, to live to his present age.</p> + +<p>The following is a condensed account of Dr. L.'s views, as obtained from +his "Additional Reports," above mentioned. Some of the first paragraphs +relate to the effects of vegetable food on those who are predisposed to +scrofula, consumption, etc.</p> + +<p>"We see daily examples of young persons becoming consumptive who never +went without animal food a single day of their lives. If the use of +animal food were necessary to prevent consumption, we should expect, +where people lived almost entirely upon such a diet, the disease would +be unknown.</p> + +<p>"Now, the Indian tribes visited by Mr. Hearne live in this manner. They +do not cultivate the earth. They subsist by hunting, and the scanty +produce of spontaneous vegetation. But, among these tribes consumption +is common. Their diseases, as Mr. Hearne informs us, are principally +fluxes, scurvy, and consumption.</p> + +<p>"In the last four years, several cases of glandular swellings have +occurred to me at the general dispensary, and I have made particular +inquiries into the mode of living of such children. In the majority, +they had animal food. In opposition to the accusation of vegetable food +causing tumefaction of the abdomen, I must testify, that twice in my own +family I have seen such swellings disappear under a vegetable regimen, +which had been formed under a diet of animal food.</p> + +<p>"Increasing the strength, for a time, is no proof of the salubrity of +diet. The increased strength may not continue, though the diet should be +continued. On the contrary, there is a sort of oscillation; the strength +just rising, then sinking again. This is what is experienced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> by the +trainers of boxers. A certain time is necessary to get these men into +condition; but this condition cannot be maintained for many weeks +together, though the process by which it was formed is continued. The +same is found to hold in the training of race-horses, and +fighting-cocks.</p> + +<p>"It seems certain that animal food predisposes to disease. Timoric, in +his account of the plague at Constantinople, asserts that the Armenians, +who live chiefly on vegetable food, were far less disposed to the +disease than other people. The typhus fever is greatly exasperated by +full living.</p> + +<p>"It seems, moreover, highly probable that the power inherent in the +human living body, of restoring itself under accidents or wounds, is +strongest in those who use most a vegetable regimen.</p> + +<p>"Contagions act with greater virulence upon bodies prepared by a full +diet of animal food.</p> + +<p>"Since fishing has declined in the isles of Ferro, and the inhabitants +have lived chiefly on vegetables, the elephantiasis has ceased among +them.</p> + +<p>"Those monks who, by the rules of their institution, abstain from the +flesh of animals, enjoy a longer mean term of life, as the consequence. +Of this there can be no doubt. Of one hundred and fifty-two monks, taken +promiscuously in all times and all sorts of climates, there lives +produced a total, according to Baillot (a writer of eminence), of 11,589 +years, or an average of seventy-six years and a little more than three +months.</p> + +<p>"Those Bramins who abstain most scrupulously from the flesh of animals +attain to the greatest longevity.</p> + +<p>"Life is prolonged, under incurable diseases, about one tenth by +vegetable diet; so that a person who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> would otherwise die at seventy, +will reach seventy-seven. In general, however, the proportion is about +one sixth.</p> + +<p>"Abstaining from animal food palliates, when it does not cure, all +constitutional diseases.</p> + +<p>"The use of animal food hurries on life with an unnatural and unhealthy +rapidity. We arrive at puberty too soon; the passions are developed too +early; in the male, they acquire an impetuosity approaching to madness; +females become mothers too early, and too frequently; and, finally, the +system becomes prematurely exhausted and destroyed, and we become +diseased and old, when we ought to be in middle life.</p> + +<p>"It affords no trifling ground of suspicion against the use of animal +food that it so obviously inclines us to corpulency. Corpulency itself +is a species of disease, and a still surer harbinger of other diseases. +It is so even in animals. When a sheep has become fat, the butcher knows +it must be killed or it will rot and decline. It is rare indeed for the +corpulent to be long-lived. They are at the same time sleepy, lethargic, +and short-breathed. Even Hippocrates says, 'Those who are uncommonly fat +die more quickly than the lean.'</p> + +<p>"As a general, rule, the florid are less healthy than those who have +little color; an increase of color having ever been judged, by common +sense, to be a sign of impending illness. Some, however, who are lean +upon animal food, thrive upon vegetables, and improve in color.</p> + +<p>"All the notions of vegetable diet affording only a deficient +nutriment—notions which are countenanced by the language of Cullen and +other great physicians—are wholly groundless.</p> + +<p>"Man is herbivorous in his structure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have observed no ill consequences from the relinquishment of animal +food. The apprehended danger of the change, with which men scare +themselves and their neighbors, is a mere phantom of the imagination. +The danger, in truth, lies wholly on the other side.</p> + +<p>"There is no organ of the body which, under the use of vegetable food, +does not receive an increase of sensibility, or of that power which is +thought to be imparted to it by the nervous system.</p> + +<p>"Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, and others of the masters of ancient +wisdom, adhered to the Pythagorean diet (vegetable diet), and are known +to have arrived at old age with the enjoyment of uninterrupted health. +Celsus affirms that the bodies which are filled with much animal food +become the most quickly old and diseased. It was proverbial that the +ancient athletæ were the most stupid of men. The cynic Diogenes, being +asked what was the cause of this stupidity, is reported to have +answered, 'Because they are wholly formed of the flesh of swine and +oxen.' Theophrastus says that feeding upon flesh destroys the reason, +and makes the mind more dull.</p> + +<p>"Animal food is unfavorable to the intellectual powers. The effect is, +in some measure, instantaneous; it being hardly possible to apply to any +thing requiring thought after a full meal of meat; so that it has been +not improperly said of vegetable feeders, that <i>with them it is morning +all day long</i>. But the senses, the memory, the understanding, and the +imagination have also been observed to improve by a vegetable diet.</p> + +<p>"It will not be disputed that, for consumptive symptoms, a vegetable +diet, or at least a vegetable and milk diet, is the most proper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It has been said, that the great fondness men have for animal food, is +proof enough that nature intended them to eat it. As if men were not +fond of wine, ardent spirits, and other things which we know cut short +their days!</p> + +<p>"In every period of history it has been known that vegetables alone are +sufficient for the support of life; and the bulk of mankind live upon +them at this hour. The adherence to the use of animal food is no more +than a gross persistence in the customs of savage life, and an +insensibility to the progress of reason and the operation of +intellectual improvement. This habit must be considered as one of the +numerous relics of that ancient barbarism which has overspread the face +of the globe, and which still taints the manners of civilized nations.</p> + +<p>"The use of fermented liquors is, in some measure, a necessary +concomitant and appendage to the use of animal food. Animal food, in a +great number of persons, loads the stomach, causes some degree of +oppression, fullness, and uneasiness; and, if the measure of it be in +excess, some nausea and tendency to sickness. Such persons say meat is +too heavy for the stomach. Fish is still more apt to nauseate. The use +of fermented liquors takes off these uneasy feelings, and is thought to +assist digestion. In short, in the use of animal food, man having +deviated from the simple aliment offered him by the hand of nature, and +which is the best suited to his organs of digestion, he has brought upon +himself a premature decay, and much intermediate suffering connected +with it. To this use of animal food almost all nations that have emerged +from a state of barbarism, have united the use of spirituous and +fermented liquors."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is but justice to Dr. L., however, as the above was written by him +over thirty years ago, to say, that though he still adheres to the same +views, he thinks pure distilled water a very important addition to the +vegetable diet, in the cure of chronic diseases. The following are his +remarks in a letter to Mr. Graham, dated ten or twelve years ago.</p> + +<p>"My doctrine is, that for the preservation of health, and more +particularly for the successful treatment of chronic diseases, it is +necessary to attend to the <i>whole</i> ingesta—to the <i>fluid</i> with as much +care as the solid. And I am persuaded that the errors into which men +have fallen with regard to supposed mischiefs or inconveniences (as +weakness, for example), as resulting from a restriction to a vegetable +diet, have, to a very considerable extent arisen from a want of a proper +attention to the quality of the water they drank. So far back as the +year 1803, I found that the use of pure distilled, instead of common +water, relieved a state of habitual suffering of the stomach and bowels. +On this account, I always require that <i>distilled</i> water shall be joined +to the use of a vegetable diet; and consider this to be essential to the +treatment."</p> + + +<h3>PROFESSOR LAWRENCE.</h3> + +<p>Professor Lawrence is the author of a work entitled Lectures on +Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. He is a member of +the Royal College of Surgeons, London, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery +to the College, and Surgeon to several Hospitals. In his work above +mentioned, after much discussion in regard to the natural dietetic +character of man, he thus remarks:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That animal food renders man strong and courageous, is fully disproved +by the inhabitants of northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, +Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Kamtschadales, as well as by +the Esquimaux in the northern, and the natives of Terra del Fuego in the +southern extremity of America, which are the smallest, weakest, and +least brave people of the globe, although they live almost entirely upon +flesh, and that often raw.</p> + +<p>"Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice, as +that of animal matter is with physical force and courage. <i>That men can +be perfectly nourished, and their bodily and mental capabilities fully +developed in any climate, by a diet purely vegetable, admits of abundant +proof from experience.</i> In the periods of their greatest simplicity, +manliness, and bravery, the Greeks and Romans appear to have lived +almost entirely on plain vegetable preparations. Indifferent bread, +fruits, and other produce of the earth, are the chief nourishment of the +modern Italians, and of the mass of the population in most countries in +Europe. Of those more immediately known to ourselves, the Irish and +Scotch may be mentioned, who are certainly not rendered weaker than +their English fellow-subjects by their free use of vegetable aliment. +The Negroes, whose great bodily powers are well known, feed chiefly on +vegetable substances; and the same is the case with the South Sea +Islanders, whose agility and strength were so great that the stoutest +and most expert English sailors had no chance with them in wrestling and +boxing."</p> + +<p>The concession of Prof. L., which I have placed in italic, is sufficient +for our purpose; we ask no more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> Nevertheless, I am willing to hear his +views of the indications afforded by our anatomical character, which +are, as will be seen, equally decisive in favor of vegetable eating.</p> + +<p>"Physiologists have usually represented that our species holds a middle +rank, in the masticatory and digestive apparatus, between the +flesh-eating and herbivorous animals—a statement which seems rather to +have been deduced from what we have learned by experience on the +subject, than to result from an actual comparison of men and animals.</p> + +<p>"The teeth and jaws of men are, in all respects, much more similar to +those of monkeys than of any other animal. The number is the same as in +man, and the form so closely similar, that they might easily be mistaken +for human. In most of them, except the ourang-outang, the canine teeth +are much larger and stronger than in us; and so far, these animals have +a more carnivorous character than man.</p> + +<p>"Thus we find, that whether we consider the teeth and jaws, or the +immediate instruments of digestion, the human structure closely +resembles that of the simiæ (monkey race), all of which, in their +natural state, are completely herbivorous. Man possesses a tolerably +large cœcum, and a cellular colon; which I believe are not found in +any herbivorous animal."</p> + +<p>The ourang-outang naturally prefers fruits and nuts, as the professor +himself shows by extracts from the statements of travelers and +naturalists. He is also fond of bread. On board a ship or elsewhere, <i>in +confinement</i>, he may, however, be taught, like men, to eat almost any +thing;—not only to eat milk and suck eggs, but even to eat raw flesh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is true, indeed, after all these foregoing statements and concessions +in regard to man's native character and the wholesomeness of a diet +exclusively vegetable—and after admitting that the human body and mind +can be fully and perfectly nourished and <i>developed</i> on it, this +distinguished writer goes on to say that it is still doubtful which +diet—animal, vegetable, or mixed—is on the whole <i>most</i> conducive to +health, and strength—which is best calculated to avert or remove +disease—whether errors in quantity or quality are most pernicious, etc. +He says the solution of these and other analogous questions, can only be +expected from experimental investigation. He proceeds to say—</p> + +<p>"<i>Mankind are so averse to relinquish their favorite indulgences, and to +desert established habits</i>, that we cannot entertain very sanguine +expectations of any important discovery in this department. We must add +to this, that there are many other causes affecting human health, +besides diet. Before venturing to draw any inferences on a subject beset +with so many obstacles, it would be necessary to observe the effects of +a purely animal and a purely vegetable diet on several individuals of +different habits, pursuits, and modes of life; to note their state, both +bodily and mental; and to learn the condition of two or three +generations fed in the same manner."</p> + +<p>Now, the only difference between this opinion and what I conceive to be +the truth in the case is, that just such experimental investigations as +those to which he refers have, to all intents and purposes, been already +made; as, I trust, will be distinctly shown in the sequel of this work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. SALGUES.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Salgues, Physician, and Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, etc., +etc., to the Institute of France, some years ago wrote a book, entitled +"Rules for Preserving the Health of the Aged," which contained many very +judicious remarks on diet. There is nothing in the volume, however, +which is decidedly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable, unless it +is a few anecdotes; and I have introduced his name chiefly as a sort of +authority for those anecdotes. They are the following:</p> + +<p>"Josephus informs us that the Essenes were very long lived; many lived +upward of one hundred years, solely from their simple habits and +sobriety. Aristotle and Plato speak of Herodicus the philosopher, who, +although of a feeble and consumptive habit, lived, in consequence of his +sobriety, upward of one hundred years. Phabrinus, mentioned by Athenius, +lived more than one hundred years, drinking milk only. Zoroaster, +according to Pliny, remained twenty years in a desert, living on a small +quantity of cheese only."</p> + + +<h3>THE AUTHOR OF "SURE METHODS," ETC.</h3> + +<p>The British author of "Sure Methods of Improving Health and Prolonging +Life," supposed by many to be the distinguished Dr. Johnson, speaks +thus:</p> + +<p>"It must be confessed that, in temperate climates, at least, an animal +diet is, in one respect, more wasting than a vegetable, because it +excites, by its stimulating qualities, a temporary fever after every +meal, by which the springs of life are urged into constant, +preternatural, and weakening exertions. Again; persons who live chiefly +on animal food are subject to various acute and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> fatal disorders, as the +scurvy, malignant ulcers, inflammatory fevers, etc., and are likewise +liable to corpulency, more especially when united to inordinate +quantities of liquid aliment. There appears to be also a tendency in an +animal diet to promote the formation of many chronic diseases; and we +seldom find those who indulge much in this diet to be remarkable for +longevity.</p> + +<p>"In favor of vegetables, it may be justly said, that man could hardly +live entirely on animal food, but we know he may on vegetable. Vegetable +aliment has likewise no tendency to produce those constitutional +disorders which animal food so frequently occasions. And this is a great +advantage, more especially in our country (he means in Great Britain), +where the general sedentary mode of living so powerfully contributes to +the formation and establishment of numerous severe chronic maladies. Any +unfavorable effects vegetable food may have on the body, are almost +wholly confined to the stomach and bowels, and rarely injure the system +at large. This food has also a beneficial influence on the powers of the +mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, and liveliness of +imagination, and acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live +principally on meat. It should also be added, that a vegetable diet, +when it consists of articles easily digested, as potatoes, turnips, +bread, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., is certainly favorable to long life."</p> + + +<h3>BARON CUVIER.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></h3> + +<p>Perhaps it is not generally known that Baron Cuvier,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> the prince of +naturalists, in the progress of his researches came to the most decisive +conclusion, that, so far as any thing can be ascertained or proved by +the investigation of science in regard to the natural dietetic character +of man, he is a fruit and vegetable eater. I have not seen his own +views; but the following are said, by an intelligent writer, to be a +tolerably faithful transcript of them, and to be derived from his +Comparative Anatomy.</p> + +<p>"Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man +be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons.</p> + +<p>"The ourang-outang perfectly resembles man, both in the order and number +of his teeth. The ourang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape +tribe, all of which are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species +of animals, which live on different food, in which this analogy exists. +In many frugivorous animals, the canine teeth are more pointed and +distinct than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to +that of the ourang-outang, is greater than to that of any other animal.</p> + +<p>"The intestines are also identical with those of herbivorous animals, +which present a large surface for absorption, and have ample and +cellulated colons. The cœcum also, though short, is larger than that +of carnivorous animals; and even here the ourang-outang retains its +accustomed similarity.</p> + +<p>"The structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to a pure +vegetable diet, in every essential particular. It is true, that the +reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long +accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from being any argument in +its favor. A lamb, which was fed for some time on flesh by a ship's +crew, refused its natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are +numerous instances of horses, sheep, oxen, and even wood-pigeons, having +been taught to live upon flesh, until they have loathed their natural +aliment."</p> + +<p>No one will deny that Baron Cuvier was in favor of flesh eating; but it +was not because he ever believed, for one moment, that man was +<i>naturally</i> a flesh-eating animal. Man is a reasoning animal (he +argues), and intended to be so. If left to the guidance of his +instincts, the same yielding to the law of his structure which would +exclude flesh meats, should also exclude cookery. Or, in other words, if +he is not permitted to depart from the line of life which his structure +indicates, he must no more cook his vegetables than eat animal food. +Besides, he is made, as Cuvier supposes, for artificial society, and the +Creator designed him to <i>improve</i> his food; and, if I understand his +reasoning, he is better able, with his present structure of teeth, jaws, +stomach, intestines, etc., to make this improvement, and rise above his +nature, and yield to the force and indications of reason and experience, +than if he possessed any other known living structure.</p> + +<p>To this structure, however, as well as to the same power of adaptation, +the monkey race, and especially the ourang-outang, closely typo +approximates. Cuvier's reasoning, in my view, applies only to the +adaptability (if I may be allowed the expression) of the human animal, +without deciding how far he should avail himself of his power to make +changes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. LUTHER V. BELL.</h3> + +<p>I have alluded, in another part of this work, to the prize essay of Dr. +Bell, awarded to him by the Boylston Medical Committee on the subject of +the diet of laborers in New England. Dr. Bell is a physician of +respectable talents, and is at present the Physician to an Insane +Hospital in Charlestown, near this city.</p> + +<p>Dr. Bell admits, with the most distinguished naturalists and +physiologists of Europe,—Cuvier, Lawrence, Blumenbach, Bell of London, +Richerand, Marc, etc.,—that the structure of man resembles closely that +of the monkey race; and hence objects to the conclusion to which some of +these men have arrived (by jumping over, as it were), that man is an +omnivorous animal. He freely allows—I use his own words—"that man does +approximate more closely to the frugivorous animals than to any others, +in physical organization." But then he insists that the conclusion which +ought to be drawn from this similarity "is, that he is designed to have +his food in about the same state of mechanical cohesion, requiring about +the same energy of masticatory organs, as if it consisted of fruits, +etc., alone."</p> + +<p>But, wherefore should we draw even this conclusion, if structure and +instinct prove nothing, and if we are to be governed solely by reason, +without regard to structure and instinct? For my own part, I believe +reason is never true reason, when it turns wholly out of doors either +instinct or the indications of organization. In other words, an +enlightened reason would look both to the structure and organization of +man, and to a large and broad experience, for the solution of a question +so important as what diet is, on the whole, best for man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> And the +experience of the world, both in the present and all former ages, leads +me to a conclusion entirely different from that to which Dr. Bell, and +those who entertain the same views with him, seem to have arrived—a +conclusion which is indicated by structure, and confirmed by facts and +universal experience. But this subject will be further discussed and +developed in another place. It is sufficient for my present purpose, to +bring testimony in favor of the safety of vegetable eating, and of the +doctrine that man is naturally a vegetable and fruit-eating animal; and +especially if I produce, to this end, the testimony of flesh-eaters +themselves.</p> + + +<h3>DR. WILLIAM BUCHAN, AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC MEDICINE."</h3> + +<p>"Indulgence in animal food, renders men dull and unfit for the pursuits +of science, especially when it is accompanied with the free use of +strong liquors. I am inclined to think that <i>consumptions</i>, so common in +England, are, in part, owing to the great use of animal food. But the +disease most common to this country is the scurvy. One finds a dash of +it in almost every family, and in some the taint is very deep. A disease +so general must have a general cause, and there is none so obvious as +the great quantity of animal food which is devoured. As a proof that +scurvy arises from this cause, we are in possession of no remedy for +that disease equal to the free use of fresh vegetables. By the +uninterrupted use of animal food, a putrid diathesis is induced in the +system, which predisposes to a variety of disorders. I am fully +convinced that many of those obstinate complaints for which we are at a +loss to account, and which we find it still more difficult to cure, are +the effects of a scorbutic taint, lurking in the habit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The choleric disposition of the English is almost proverbial. Were I to +assign a cause, it would be, their living so much on animal food. There +is no doubt but this induces a ferocity of temper unknown to men whose +food is taken chiefly from the vegetable kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>"Experience proves that not a few of the diseases incident to the +inhabitants of this country, are owing to their mode of living. The +vegetable productions they consume, fall considerably short of the +proportion they ought to bear to the animal part of their food. The +major part of the aliment ought to consist of vegetable substances. +There is a continual tendency in animal food, as well as in the human +body itself, to putrefaction; which can only be counteracted by the free +use of vegetables. All who value health, ought to be contented with +making one meal of animal food in twenty-four hours; and this ought to +consist of one kind only.</p> + +<p>"The most obstinate scurvy has often been cured by a vegetable diet; +nay, milk alone, will frequently do more in that disease than any +medicine. Hence it is evident that if vegetables and milk were more used +in diet, we should have less scurvy, and likewise fewer putrid and +inflammatory fevers.</p> + +<p>"Such as abound with blood (and such are almost all of us), should be +sparing in the use of every thing which is highly nourishing—as fat +meat, rich wines, strong ales, and the like. Their food should consist +chiefly of bread and other vegetable substances; and their drink ought +to be water, whey, or small beer."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> +<p>Dr. B. also insists on a vegetable diet, as a preventive of many +diseases; particularly of consumption. When there is a tendency to this +disease, in the young, he says "it should be counteracted by strictly +adhering to a diet of the farinacea, and ripe fruits. Animal food and +fermented liquors ought to be rigidly prohibited. Even milk often proves +too nutritious."</p> + + +<h3>DR. CHARLES WHITLAW.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Whitlaw is the author of a work entitled "New Medical Discoveries," +in two volumes, and of a "Treatise on Fever." He has also established +medical vapor baths in London, New York, and elsewhere; and is a +gentleman of much skill and eminence in his profession. Dr. Whitlaw +says—</p> + +<p>"All philosophers have given their testimony in favor of vegetable food, +from Pythagoras to Franklin. Its beneficial influence on the powers of +the mind has been experienced by all sedentary and literary men.</p> + +<p>"But, that which ought to convince every one of the salubrity of a diet +consisting of vegetables, is the consideration of the dreadful effects +of totally abstaining from it, unless it be for a very short time; +accounts of which we meet with, fully and faithfully recorded, in the +most interesting and most authentic narratives of human affairs—wars, +sieges of places, long encampments, distant voyages, the peopling of +uncultivated and maritime countries, remarkable pestilences, and the +lives of illustrious men. To this cause the memorable plague at Athens +was attributed; and indeed all the other plagues and epidemical +distempers, of which we have any faithful accounts, will be found to +have originated in a deprivation of vegetable food.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The only objections I have ever heard urged (the only plausible ones, +he must mean, I think), is the notion of its inadequacy to the +sustenance of the body. But this is merely a strong prejudice into which +the generality of mankind have fallen, owing to their ignorance of the +laws of life and health. Agility and constant vigor of body are the +effect of health, which is much better preserved by a herbaceous, +aqueous, and sparing tender diet, than by one which is fleshy, vinous, +unctuous, and hard of digestion.</p> + +<p>"So fully were the Romans, at one time, persuaded of the superior +goodness of vegetable diet, that, besides the private example of many of +their great men, they established laws respecting food, among which were +the <i>lex fannia</i>, and the <i>lex licinia</i>, which allowed but very little +animal food; and, for a period of five hundred years, diseases were +banished along with the physician from the Roman empire. Nor has our own +age been destitute of examples of men, brave from the vigor both of +their bodies and their minds, who at the same time have been drinkers of +water and eaters of vegetables.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>"Nothing is more certain than that animal food is inimical to health. +This is evident from its stimulating qualities producing, as it were, a +temporary fever after every meal; and not only so, but from its +corruptible qualities it gives rise to many fatal diseases; and those +who indulge in its use seldom arrive at an advanced age.</p> + +<p>"We have the authority of the Scripture for asserting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> that the proper +aliment of man is vegetables. See Genesis. And as disease is not +mentioned as a part of the cause, we have reason to believe that the +antediluvians were strangers to this evil. Such a phenomenon as disease +could hardly exist among a people who lived entirely on a vegetable +food; consequently all the individuals made mention of in that period of +the world, are said to have died of old age; whereas, since the day of +Noah, when mankind were permitted to eat animal food, such an occurrence +as a man dying of old age, or a natural decay of the bodily functions, +does not occur probably once in half a century.</p> + +<p>"Its injurious effects on the mind are equally certain. The Tartars, who +live principally on animal food, are cruel and ferocious in their +disposition, gloomy and sullen minded, delighting in exterminating wars +and plunder; while the Bramins and Hindoos, who live entirely on +vegetable aliment, possess a mildness and gentleness of character and +disposition directly the reverse of the Tartar; and I have no doubt, had +India possessed a more popular form of government, and a more +enlightened priesthood, her people, with minds so fitted for +contemplation, would have far outstripped the other nations of the world +in manufactures, and in the arts and sciences.</p> + +<p>"But we need only look at the peasantry of Ireland, who, living as they +do, chiefly on a vegetable—and to say the least of it, a very +suspicious kind of aliment, I mean the potatoe—are yet as robust and +vigorous a race of men as inherit any portion of the globe.</p> + +<p>"The greater part of our bodily disease is brought on by improper food. +This opinion has been strongly confirmed by my daily experience in the +treatment of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> diseases to which the people of England are +peculiarly subject, such as scrofula, consumption, leprosy, etc. These +disorders are making fearful and rapid strides; so much so, that not a +single family may now be considered exempt from their melancholy +ravages."</p> + +<p>This is fearful testimony, but it is the result of much observation and +of twenty years' experience. But the same causes are producing the same +effects—at least, so far as scrofula and consumption are concerned—in +this country, at the present time, of which Dr. W. complains so loudly +in England. I could add much more from his writings, but what I have +said is sufficient.</p> + + +<h3>DR. JAMES CLARK.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Clark, physician to the king and queen of Belgium, in a Treatise on +Pulmonary Consumption, has the following remarks:</p> + +<p>"There is no greater evil in the management of children than that of +giving them animal diet very early. By persevering in the use of an +over-stimulating diet, the digestive organs become irritated, and the +various secretions immediately connected with and necessary to digestion +are diminished, especially the biliary secretion; and constipation of +the bowels and congestion of the abdominal viscera succeed. Children so +fed, moreover, become very liable to attacks of fever and of +inflammation, affecting particularly the mucous membranes; and measles +and the other diseases incident to childhood are generally severe in +their attack."</p> + +<p>The suggestion that a mild or vegetable diet will render certain +diseases incident to childhood more mild than otherwise they would be, +is undoubtedly an important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> one; and as just as it is important. But +the remark might be extended, in its application. Both children and +adults would escape all sorts of diseases, especially colds and +epidemics, with much more certainty, or, if attacked, the attacks would +be much more mild, on an exclusively vegetable diet than on a mixed one. +Dr. Clark does not, indeed, say so; but I may say it, and with +confidence. And Dr. C. could not probably show any reason why, on his +own principles, it should not be so.</p> + + +<h3>PROF. MUSSEY, OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.</h3> + +<p>Prof. R. D. Mussey, of Hanover, New Hampshire, whose science and skill +as a surgeon and physician are well known and attested all over New +England, has for many years taught, both directly and indirectly, in his +public lectures, that man is naturally a fruit and vegetable eater. This +he proves, first, from the structure of his teeth and intestines—next +from his physiological character, and finally, from various facts and +considerations too numerous to detail here.</p> + +<p>He thinks the Bible doctrines are in favor of the disuse of flesh and +fish; that the Jews were required to abstain from pork, and from all fat +and blood, for physiological no less than other reasons. An infant, he +says, naturally has a disrelish for animal food. He says that, in all +probability, animal food was not permitted, though used, before the +flood; and that its use, contrary to the wish of the Creator, was +probably one cause of human degeneracy. Animal food, he says, is apt to +produce diseases of the skin—makes people passionate and +violent—excites the nervous system too much—renders the senses and +faculties more dull—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> favors the accumulation of what is mired +tartar on the teeth, and thus causes their early and certain decay. The +blood and breath of carnivorous animals emit an unpleasant odor, while +those of vegetable eaters do not. The fact that man <i>does eat</i> flesh no +more proves its necessity, than the fact that cows, and sheep, and +horses can be taught it, proves its necessity to them. The Africans bear +the cold better the first winter after their arrival in a northern +climate than afterward. May not this be owing to their simple vegetable +living?</p> + + +<h3>DR. CONDIE, OF PHILADELPHIA.</h3> + +<p>The Journal of Health, edited by some of the ablest physicians of +Philadelphia, has the following remarkable language on the subject of +vegetable food. See vol. 1, page 277.</p> + +<p>"It is well known that vegetable substances, particularly the +farinaceous, are fully sufficient, of themselves, for maintaining a +healthy existence. We have every reason for believing that the fruits of +the earth constituted, originally, the only food of man. Animal food is +digested in a much shorter period than vegetables; from which +circumstance, as well as its approaching much nearer in its composition +to the substance of the body into which it is to be converted, it might +at first be supposed the most appropriate article of nourishment. It +has, however, been found that vegetable matter can be as readily and +perfectly <i>assimilated</i> by the stomach into appropriate <i>nutriment</i> as +the most tender animal substances; and confessedly with a less heating +effect upon the system generally.</p> + +<p>"As a general rule, it will be found that those who make use of a diet +consisting chiefly of vegetable matter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> have a vast advantage in looks, +in strength, and spirits, over those who partake largely of animal food. +They are remarkable for the firm, healthy plumpness of their muscles, +and the transparency of their skins. This assertion, though at variance +with popular opinion, is amply supported by experience."</p> + +<p>At page 7 of the same volume of the Journal of Health we find the +following remarks. The editors were alluding to those persons who think +they cannot preserve their health and strength without flesh or fish, +and who believe their children would also suffer without it:</p> + +<p>"For the information of all such misguided persons, we beg leave to +state, that the large majority of mankind do not eat any animal food; +or, if any, they use it so sparingly, and at such long intervals, that +it cannot be said to form their nourishment. Millions in Asia are +sustained by rice alone, with perhaps a little vegetable oil for +seasoning.</p> + +<p>"In Italy and southern Europe, generally, bread, made of the flour of +wheat or Indian corn, with lettuce and the like mixed with oil, +constitutes the food of the most robust part of its population.</p> + +<p>"The Lazzaroni of Naples, with forms so actively and finely +proportioned, cannot even calculate on this much. Coarse bread and +potatoes is their chief reliance. Their drink of luxury is a glass of +iced water, slightly acidulated.</p> + +<p>"Hundreds of thousands—we might say millions—of Irish do not see +flesh-meat or fish from one week's end to another. Potatoes and oatmeal +are their articles of food: if milk can be added it is thought a luxury. +Yet where shall we find a more healthy and robust population, or one +more enduring of bodily fatigue, and exhibiting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> more mental vivacity? +What a contrast between these people and the inhabitants of the extreme +north—the timid Laplanders, Esquimaux, and Samoideans, whose food is +almost entirely animal?"</p> + +<p>Again, at page 187 we are told that "the more simple the aliment, and +the less <i>altered</i> by culinary processes, the slower is the change in +digestion; but, at the same time, the less is the stimulation and wear +of the powers of life. The Bramins of Hindostan, who live on exceedingly +simple food, are long livers, even in a hot and exhausting climate. The +peasants of Switzerland and of Scotland, nourished on bread, milk, and +cheese, attain a very old age, and enjoy great bodily strength.</p> + +<p>"Where there is too much excitement of the body, generally, from +fullness of the blood-vessels, or of any one of the organs, owing to a +wrong direction of the blood to it (and in one or the other of these +conditions we find almost every body now-a-days), animal food, by being +long retained in the stomach, and calling into greater action other +parts during digestion, as well as furnishing them with more blood +afterward, must be obviously improper. The more of this kind of food is +taken under such circumstances, the greater will be the oppression; and +the weakness, different from that of a healthy person long hungered, +will only be increased by the increased amount of blood carried to the +diseased part."</p> + +<p>It is true that the editors of the Journal of Health connect with the +foregoing paragraphs the statement that, "if it be desirable to give +nutriment in a small bulk, to obtund completely the sensation of hunger +and restore strength to the body, a small quantity of animal will be +preferable to much vegetable food." But then it is only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> in a few +diseased cases that any such thing is desirable. And even then, if we +look carefully at the language used, the comparison is not made between +animal and vegetable food in moderate or reasonable quantities, but +between a <i>small quantity</i> of the former and <i>much</i> of the latter.</p> + + +<h3>DR. J. V. C. SMITH, OF BOSTON.</h3> + +<p>The following remarks are extracted from the Boston Medical +Intelligencer, at a period when Dr. J. V. C. Smith was the editor. They +have the appearance of being from Dr. Smith's own pen. Dr. S. is at +present the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal:</p> + +<p>"It is true<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> that animal food contains a greater portion of +nutriment, in a given quantity, than vegetables; but the digestive +functions of the human system become prematurely exhausted by constant +action, and the whole system eventually sinks under great or +uninterrupted excitement. If, for the various ragouts with which modern +tables are so abundantly furnished, men would substitute <i>wholesome +vegetables and pure water</i>, we should see health walking in paths that +are now crowded with the bloated victims of voluptuous appetite. +Millions of Gentoos have lived to an advanced age without having tasted +any thing that ever possessed life, and been wholly free from a chain of +maladies which have scourged every civilized nation on the globe. The +wandering Arabs, who have traversed the barren desert of Sahara, +subsisting on the scanty pittance of milk from the half-famished camel +that carried them, have seen two hundred years roll round without a day +of sickness."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<h3>SYLVESTER GRAHAM.</h3> + +<p>Although Mr. Graham does not, so far as I know, lay claim to the +"honors" of any medical institution, it cannot be doubted that his +knowledge of physiology, to say nothing of anatomy, pathology, and +medicine, is such as to entitle him to a high rank among medical men; +and I have, therefore, without hesitation, concluded to insert his +testimony in this place.</p> + +<p>Of his views, however, on the subject before us, it seems almost +superfluous to speak, as they are set forth, and have been set forth for +many years, so conspicuously, not only in his public lectures, but in +his writings, that the bare mention of his name, in almost any part of +the country, is to awaken the prejudices, if not the hostilities, of +every foe, and of some friends (supposed friends, I mean), of +"temperance in all things." It is sufficient, perhaps, for my present +purpose, to say of him, that, after the most rigid and profound +examination of the subject which he is capable of making—and his +capabilities are by no means very limited—it is his unhesitating +belief, that in every climate, and in all circumstances in which it is +proper for man to be placed, an exclusively farinaceous and fruit diet +is the best adapted to the development and improvement of all his powers +of body, mind, and soul; provided, however, he were trained to it from +the first. And even at any period of life, unless in the case of certain +forms of diseases, he believes it would be preferable to exchange, in a +proper manner, every form of mixed diet for one purely vegetable. Such +opinions as these, as a part of his views in relation to the physical +duties of man, he publicly, and strenuously, and eloquently, announces +and defends.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. JOHN M. ANDREW.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Andrew is a practitioner of medicine in Remsen, Oneida county, State +of New York. His letter was intended for chapter iv., but came too late. +This fact is the only apology for inserting it in this place. Several +interesting cases of dietetic reform accompanied the letter, but I must +omit them, for want of room, in this work.</p> + + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Remsen</span>, April 28, 1838.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>—It is now about sixteen months since I adopted an exclusively +vegetable diet. I have, however, never been very much inclined to animal +food; and, indeed, before I ever heard of the Graham system I laid it +aside, during summer, when farming—which, by the by, had always been my +occupation till I commenced my professional course, about four years +ago. I have, to the best of my knowledge, enjoyed what is commonly +called good health, and possessed a degree of strength surpassed only by +few; and in connection with the assiduous cultivation of my mental +faculties, I have carefully sought to improve my physical powers, which +I deem of incalculable worth to the student, as well as to the laborer.</p> + +<p>My attention was first called to the subject of vegetable eating by +Professor Mussey, in a lecture before the medical class of the Western +Medical College of New York, while fulfilling the duties of the +professorship, to which he was called in 1836. In that lecture our +adaptations, and the design of the Creator in regard to our mode of +subsistence, were clearly held forth, and such was the impression made +on my mind, that I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> induced at once to adopt the vegetable system, +both in practice and theory. In my change of diet I did not suffer any +inconvenience. The fact that I had, for some length of time, been living +mostly on vegetables, will account for that circumstance, however.</p> + +<p>But the great advantages derived from the change were soon perceptible, +though not appreciated by others. I met with much opposition from my +friends, frequently being told that I was fast losing my flesh and all +my youthful vigor and vivacity. And yet, for one year and more, I have +not lost a pound of flesh.</p> + +<p>I was gazed upon as an anomaly in society; some anxiously looking, and +others fearfully expecting my downfall and destruction; but both are +alike disappointed. The system, though I have not been able to follow it +so strictly as I could wish, from the circumstances in which I have been +placed, has far exceeded my expectations. One year and more has rolled +away, and I thank God I can look back, with some degree of satisfaction, +on the time spent in the enjoyment of that alone which sweetens the cup +of life. My most able advocacy has been my manual exertions and I have +demonstrated the utility of the <i>system</i> alike to the professional and +laboring classes of community.</p> + +<p>I do not go beyond the truth when I say, that I cannot find a man to vie +with me in the field, with the scythe, the fork, or the axe. I do not +want any thing but potatoes and salt; and I can cut and put up four +cords of wood in a day, with no very great exertion. I have frequently +been told, by friends, that my <i>potato and salt system</i> would not stand +the test of the field; but I have silenced their clamor by actual +demonstration with all the implements above named.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>At present, no consideration would induce me to return to my former mode +of living.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John M. Andrew.</span></p> + + + +<h3>DR. WILLIAM SWEETSER, OF BOSTON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Sweetser is the author of a "Treatise on Consumption," and of a +"Treatise on Digestion." He has also been a medical professor in the +University of Vermont, and a public lecturer on health, in Boston.</p> + +<p>In his work on consumption, while speaking of the prevailing belief of a +necessity for the use of animal food to those children who possess the +scrofulous or consumptive tendency, he thus remarks:</p> + +<p>"A diet of milk and mild farinaceous articles, with perhaps light animal +decoctions, appears best suited to the early years of life. Whenever +there exists an evident inflammatory tendency, as is the case in some +scrofulous systems, solid animal food, if used at all, should be taken +with the greatest precaution.</p> + +<p>"And again—how often is it that fat, plethoric, meat-eating children, +their faces looking as though the blood was just ready to ooze out, are +with the greatest complacency exhibited by their parents as patterns of +health! But let it ever be remembered, that the condition of the system +popularly called rude or full health, and which is the result of high +feeding, is too often closely bordering on a state of disease."</p> + +<p>In his work on digestion he seems to regard man as naturally an +omnivorous animal; and, taking this for granted, he speaks as follows +respecting his diet:</p> + +<p>"One would hardly assert that even in temperate climates his (man's) +system requires animal food. I doubt whether any instance can be +adduced—unless man be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> regarded as such—of an omnivorous animal +incapable of being adequately nourished by a sufficient and proper +vegetable diet.</p> + +<p>"Man, dwelling in a temperate climate, and with the power to choose, +almost uniformly employs a mixture of animal and vegetable food; but how +much early education may have to do in forming his taste for a mixed +diet it is difficult to estimate. Habit has certainly great influence in +attaching us to particular kinds of aliment. One who has long been +accustomed to animal food cannot at once abstain from it without +experiencing some feebleness for the want of its stimulation, and +perhaps even temporary emaciation. And, on the other hand, he who has +long been confined to a vegetable diet is apt to lose his relish for +flesh, and, on recurring suddenly to its use, to find it too exciting.</p> + +<p>"The liberal use of animal food has been generally thought requisite in +arctic climes, to stimulate the functions, and thus furnish a more +abundant supply of animal heat, to preserve against the extremity of +external temperature. Northern voyagers mostly believe that fat animal +food and oils are essential to the maintenance of health and life in the +inhabitants of those frozen regions. But to me it would seem that their +habits, in respect to diet, prove the <i>capabilities</i>, rather than the +necessities, of their systems. They learn to eat their coarse fare +because they can get no other. Their food, moreover, as is generally the +case in savage life, is precarious; and thus, being at times exposed to +extreme want, they are stimulated to greater excesses when their +supplies are ample.</p> + +<p>"The fact of man's dwelling in them (the arctic regions), and eating +what he can get there, no more proves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> him to be naturally a +flesh-eating animal than the circumstance of some cattle learning to eat +fish, when they are in situations where they can obtain no other food, +proves them to be piscivorous.</p> + +<p>"Haller conceived it necessary that human life should be sustained by +animal and vegetable food, so apportioned that neither should be in +excess; and he asserts that abstinence from animal food causes great +weakness in the body, and usually a troublesome diarrhœa. But such an +opinion is certainly incorrect, since not only particular individuals, +but even numbers of people, dwelling in temperate climates, from various +causes, subsist almost wholly on vegetable substances, and yet preserve +their health and vigor.</p> + +<p>"Were we educated to its exclusive use, I am persuaded that a vegetable +diet would afford us ample support; but whether, if restrained from +animal food, we should, <i>as a consequence</i>, in the course of time, and +under equally favoring circumstances in other respects, rise still +higher in our moral and physical nature, remains, as I conceive, to be +proved."</p> + +<p>These views of Dr. S. were repeated, in substance, in a course of +lectures given by him at the Masonic Temple, in Boston, in 1838. It will +be seen that he concedes what the friends of the vegetable system deem a +very important point, viz., that man's whole powers, physical, +intellectual, and moral, can be well developed on a diet exclusively +vegetable. We do not ask him to grant more. If man is as well off on +vegetable food as without it, we have moral reasons of so much weight to +place against animal food, as, when duly considered, will be, by all +candid persons, sufficient to lead to its rejection.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>True, we do not believe, with Dr. S.—at least I do not—that "whether a +diet purely vegetable, or one comprehending both animal and vegetable +food, would be most conducive to health, longevity, and intellectual, +moral, and physical development, is a question only to be determined by +a long course of experiments, made by various individuals in equal +health, and placed, in all other respects, under as nearly similar +circumstances as practicable." I believe this course of experiment does +not remain <i>to be</i> made, but that it has been made, most fully, during +the last four or five thousand years, and that the question is settled +in favor—wholly so—of vegetable food. Still I do not ask physicians +and other medical men to grant more than Dr. S. has; it is quite as much +as we ought to expect of them.</p> + + +<h3>DR. A. L. PIERSON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Pierson, of Salem, in Massachusetts, a physician and surgeon of +considerable eminence, in a lecture some time ago, before the American +Institute of Instruction, observed that "young men who were anxious to +avail themselves of the advantages of a liberal education, and were +therefore compelled to consult economy, had found out that it was not +necessary to pay three or four dollars a week for mere board, when the +most vigorous and uniform health may be secured by a diet of mere +vegetable food and water."</p> + +<p>I know not that Dr. P. avows himself an advocate for the exclusive use +of vegetable food, but if what I have quoted is not enough to satisfy us +in regard to his opinion of its safety, and its full power to develop +body and mind, I know not what would be. If the most vigorous and +uniform health can be secured on vegetable food,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> what individual in the +world—in view of the moral considerations at least—would ever resort +to the carcasses of animals?</p> + + +<h3>STATEMENT OF DR. C. BYINGTON, OF PHILADELPHIA.</h3> + +<p>A physician of some eminence, residing in Philadelphia, has been heard +to say that it was his decided opinion that mankind would live longest, +and be healthiest and happiest, on mere bread and water. I may add here, +that there was every evidence but one that he was sincere in this +statement, although I do not fully accord with him, believing that the +best health requires variety of food—not, indeed, at the same meal, but +at different ones. The exception I make in regard to his sincerity, is +in reference to the fact, that while he professed to believe a bread and +vegetable diet to be best for mankind, he did not adopt it.</p> + + +<h3>TESTIMONY OF A PHYSICIAN IN NEW YORK.</h3> + +<p>In the work entitled "Hints to a Fashionable Lady," by a physician—his +name not given—we find the following testimony:</p> + +<p>"Young persons invariably do best on simple but moderately nutritious +fare. Too large a proportion of animal food and fatty substances are +pernicious to the complexion. On the contrary, a diet which is +principally vegetable, with the luxuries of the dairy (not butter, +surely, for that is elsewhere prohibited), is most advantageous. Nowhere +are finer complexions to be found than in those parts of England, +Scotland, and Ireland, where the living is almost exclusively vegetable.</p> + +<p>"Those who subsist entirely on vegetable food have seldom, if ever, a +constantly bad breath, or an offensive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> perspiration. It has been +ascertained that the teeth are uniformly best in those countries where +least animal food is used."</p> + + +<h3>THE FEMALE'S CYCLOPEDIA.</h3> + +<p>From a fugitive volume, entitled "The Female's Cyclopedia," I have +concluded to make the following extract, because I have reason to +believe the writer to have been a physician:</p> + +<p>"Animal food certainly gives most strength; but its stimulancy excites +fever, and produces plethora and its consequences. The system is sooner +worn out by a repetition of its stimuli, and those who indulge greatly +in such diet are more likely to be carried off early by inflammatory +diseases; or if, by judicious exercise, they qualify its effects, they +yet acquire such an accumulation of putrescent fluids as becomes the +foundation for the most inveterate chronic diseases in after age.</p> + +<p>"The most valuable state of the mind, however, appears to be connected +with somewhat less of firmness and vigor of body. Vegetable aliment, as +never over-distending the vessels or loading the system, does not +interrupt the stronger emotions of the mind; while the heat, fullness, +and weight of animal food, are inimical to its vigorous exertion. +Temperance, therefore, does not so much consist in the quantity—since +the appetite will regulate that—as in the quality; namely, in a large +proportion of vegetable aliment."</p> + + +<h3>DR. VAN COOTH.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Van Cooth, a learned European writer—I believe a Hollander—has +recently maintained, incidentally, in a learned medical dissertation, +that the great body of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> ancient Egyptians and Persians "confined +themselves to a vegetable diet." To be sure, Dr. V. does not seem to be +a vegetable eater himself, but the friends of the latter system are not +the less indebted to him for the concession. The physical and moral +superiority of those vegetable eating nations, in the days of their +glory, are well known; and every intelligent reader of history, and +honest inquirer after truth, will make his own inferences from the facts +which I have mentioned.</p> + + +<h3>DR. WILLIAM BEAUMONT.</h3> + +<p>The work of this gentleman, entitled "Experiments and Observations on +the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion," is well known—at +least to the medical community. The following are some of the +conclusions to which his experiments conducted him:</p> + +<p>"Solid aliment, thoroughly masticated, is far more salutary than soups, +broths, etc.</p> + +<p>"Fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every kind, are difficult of +digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to derange that organ and +induce disease.</p> + +<p>"Spices, pepper, stimulating and heating condiments of every kind, +retard digestion and injure the stomach.</p> + +<p>"Coffee and tea debilitate the stomach and impair digestion.</p> + +<p>"Simple water is the only fluid called for by the wants of the economy; +the artificial drinks are all more or less injurious—some more so than +others; but none can claim exemption from the general charge."</p> + +<p>If it should be said that this testimony of Dr. Beaumont is by no means +directly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. I admit it. But he +certainly goes very far toward conceding every thing which I claim, +when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> he says that "fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every +kind, are difficult of digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to +derange that organ and induce disease;" and especially when he speaks so +highly of farinaceous substances and good fruits. Pray, what animal food +can be eaten which does not contain, at least, a small quantity of oil? +And if this oil tends to induce disease, and farinaceous food does not, +why should not animal food be excluded?</p> + + +<h3>SIR EVERARD HOME.</h3> + +<p>This distinguished philosopher and medical gentleman, though, like many +others, he insisted that vegetable food did not produce full muscular +development, yet admitted the natural character of man to be that of a +vegetable eater, in the following, or nearly the following, terms:</p> + +<p>"In the history of man—in the Bible—we are told that dominion over the +animal world was bestowed upon him at his creation; but the divine +permission to indulge in animal food was not given till after the flood. +The observations I have to make accord strongly with this tradition; +for, while mankind remained in a state of innocence, there is every +ground to believe that their only food was the produce of the vegetable +kingdom."</p> + + +<h3>DR. JENNINGS.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Jennings is the author of a work published at Oberlin, Ohio, in +1847, entitled "Medical Reform." In this volume, at page 198, we find +the following facts and statements. The author is comparing the effects +of animal food on the human system with those of alcohol, from which we +learn his views concerning the former:</p> + +<p>"Position I.—Animal food, in common with alcohol,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> creates a feverish +diathesis, evidences of which are—1. An impaired state of the +respiratory function. 2. The pulse is rendered more frequent and +irregular, both by alcohol and meat. 3. A feverish heat is generated in +the system, and persons are made more thirsty, by the use of both these +substances. 4. Both substances equally induce what is called the +digestive fever.</p> + +<p>"Position II.—Alcoholic drinks lay the foundation for occasional +disturbances in the system, of different kinds and grades, as bilious +bowel affections, etc., and so do flesh meats. In the production of +colds, animal food is far the most efficient.</p> + +<p>"Position III.—Animal food tends, quite as strongly as the moderate use +of alcoholic liquors, to weaken and disturb the balance of action +between the secerning and excerning systems of vessels, by which some +persons become leaner and others fleshier than they should be.</p> + +<p>"Position IV.—With about equal potency alcohol and flesh meats weaken +the force of the capillaries of the system, on which healthy action so +much depends.</p> + +<p>"Position V.—A flesh diet, in common with the use of strong drink, +impairs the tone of the nutritive apparatus, by which its ability to +work up raw material and manufacture it into sound, well finished vital +fabric, is diminished, and of course the appetite or call for food is +satisfied with a less quantity of the raw material. This fact has given +rise to the opinion that animal food contains more nutriment than +vegetable.</p> + +<p>"Position VI.—The total abandonment of an habitual use of animal food +is attended with all the perplexing, uncomfortable, and distressing +difficulties that follow the giving up of an habitual use of strong +drink. A change from one kind of simple nutriment to another has no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +such effect. It is only when the constant use of some stimulating +substance is abandoned that such difficulties are experienced."</p> + + +<h3>DR. JARVIS.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, in his "Practical Physiology," at page 86, has the +following thoughts:</p> + +<p>"Some have contended that man was designed to eat only of the fruits and +vegetables of the earth; while others maintain, with equal confidence, +that he should add to these the flesh of beasts. There are many +individuals, both in this and other countries, who confine themselves to +vegetable diet. They believe they enjoy better health, and maintain +greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet. +The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to +determine its value. It has not proved a failure, nor has it +demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that flesh is injurious."<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + + +<h3>DR. TICKNOR.</h3> + +<p>"From the fact," says this author, "that animal food is proper and +necessary for health in polar regions, and that a vegetable diet is +equally proper and necessary in the torrid zone, we may conclude that in +winter, in our own climate, an animal diet is the best; while vegetables +are more conducive to health in the summer season."</p> + +<p>It would not be difficult to prove, from the very concessions of Dr. T., +that vegetable food is better adapted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> to health, in <i>general</i>, than +animal; but I forbear to do so, in this place. The subject will be fully +discussed in the concluding chapter.</p> + + +<h3>DR. COLES.</h3> + +<p>The author of a small volume recently published at Boston, entitled the +"Philosophy of Health; or, Health without Medicine," is more decided in +his views on diet than any late writer I have seen, except Dr. Jennings +and O. S. Fowler. He says, at page 35:</p> + +<p>"Man, in his original, holy state, was provided for from the vegetables +of that happy garden which was given him to prune. This was the +Creator's original plan; * * * * the eating of flesh was one of the +consequences of the fall. Living on vegetable food is undoubtedly the +most natural and healthy method of subsistence."</p> + +<p>Again, at page 45—"The objections, then, against meat-eating are +threefold—intellectual, moral, and physical. Its tendency is to check +intellectual activity, to depreciate moral sentiment, and to derange the +fluids of the body."</p> + + +<h3>DR. SHEW.</h3> + +<p>This active physician is zealously devoted to the propagation of +hydropathy. He uses no medicine in the management of disease—nothing at +all but water. To this, however, he adds great attention to diet. In his +Journal,<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and elsewhere, he is a zealous and able advocate of the +vegetable system, preferring it himself, and recommending it to his +patients and followers.</p> + +<p>Dr. Shew's opinion, in this particular, is entitled to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> the more weight +from the fact of his having been very familiar with disease and diet, +both in the old world and the new. He has been twice to Germany; and has +spent much time at Graefenberg, with Priessnitz, the founder of the +system which he so zealously defends and practices, and so strongly +advocates.</p> + + +<h3>DR. MORRILL.</h3> + +<p>Dr. C. Morrill, in a recent work entitled, "Physiology of Woman, and her +Diseases," says much in favor of an exclusively vegetable diet in some +of the diseases of woman; and among other things, makes the following +general remarks:</p> + +<p>"Even by those who labor (referring here to the healthy), meat should be +taken moderately, and but once a day. The sedentary, generally, do not +need it."</p> + + +<h3>DR. BELL.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman's testimony has been given elsewhere. I only subjoin the +following: "By far the greater number of the inhabitants of the earth +have used, in all ages, and continue to use, at this time, vegetable +aliment alone."</p> + + +<h3>DR. BRADLEY.</h3> + +<p>Dr. D. B. Bradley, the distinguished missionary at Bangkok, in Siam, +though not exactly a vegetable eater, is favorably disposed to the +vegetable system. He has read Graham and myself with great care, and is +an anxious inquirer after all truth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. STEPHENSON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Chauncy Stephenson, of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in what he calls +his "New System of Medicine," commends to all his readers, for their +sustenance, "pure air, a proper temperature, good vegetable food, and +pure cold water." And lest he should be misunderstood, he immediately +adds—"The best articles of food for general use are good, well-baked +cold bread, made of rye and Indian corn, wheat or barley meal; rice, +good ripe fruits of all kinds, both fresh and dried, and a proper +proportion of good roots, such as potatoes, parsneps, turnips, onions, +etc." Even milk he regards as a questionable food for adults or middle +aged persons.</p> + +<p>Again, he says: "Animal food, in general, digests sooner than most kinds +of vegetables; and not being so much in accordance with man's nature, +constitution, and moral character, it is very liable, finally, to +generate disease, inflammation, or fever, even when it is not taken to +excess." He closes by advising all persons to content themselves with +"pure vegetable food;" and that in the least quantity compatible with +good health.</p> + + +<h3>DR. J. BURDELL,</h3> + +<p>A distinguished dentist of New York, has long been a vegetable eater, +and a zealous defender of the faith (in this particular) which he +professes.</p> + + +<h3>DR. THOMAS SMETHURST,</h3> + +<p>In a work entitled Hydrotherapia, says, "Children thrive best upon a +simple, moderately nourishing vegetable diet." And if children thus +thrive the best, why not adults?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. SCHLEMMER.</h3> + +<p>Dr. C. V. Schlemmer, a German by birth, but now an adopted son of old +England, in giving an account of the diet of himself, his three sons of +eleven, ten, and four years of age, with their tutor, observes: "Raw +peas, beans, and fruit are our food: our teeth are our mills; the +stomach is the kitchen." And all of them, as he affirms, enjoy the best +of health. For himself, as he says, he has practiced in this way six +years.</p> + + +<h3>DR. CURTIS, AND OTHERS.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Curtis, a distinguished botanic physician of Ohio, with several +other physicians, both of the old and the new school, whom I have not +named, do not hesitate to regard a pure vegetable diet, in the abstract, +as by far the best for all mankind, both in health and disease.</p> + +<p>Dr. Porter, of Waltham, for example, when I meet him, always concedes +that a well-selected vegetable diet is superior to every other. He has +repeatedly told me of an experiment he made, of three months, on mere +bread and water. Never, says he, was I more vigorous in body and mind, +than at the end of this experiment. But the reader well knows that I am +not an advocate of a diet of mere bread and water. I regard fruits, or +fruit juices—unfermented—almost as necessary, to adults, as bread.</p> + + +<h3>PROF. C. U. SHEPARD.</h3> + +<p>The reputation of this gentleman, in the scientific world, is so well +known, that no apology can be necessary for inserting his testimony. As +a chemist, he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> second to very few, if any, men in this country. The +following are his remarks:</p> + +<p>"Start not back at the idea of subsisting upon the potato alone, ye who +think it necessary to load your tables with all the dainty viands of the +market—with fish, flesh, and fowl, seasoned with oil and spices, and +eaten, perhaps, with wines;—start not back, I say, with disgust, until +you are able to display in your own pampered persons a firmer muscle, a +more beau-ideal outline, and a healthier red than the potato-fed +peasantry of Ireland and Scotland once showed you, as you passed by +their cabin doors!</p> + +<p>"No; the chemical physiologist will tell you that the well ripened +potato, when properly cooked, contains every element that man requires +for nutrition; and in the best proportion in which they are found in any +plant whatever. There is the abounding supply of starch for enabling him +to maintain the process of breathing, and for generating the necessary +warmth of body; there is the nitrogen for contributing to the growth and +renovation of organs; the lime and phosphorus for the bones; and all the +salts which a healthy circulation demands. In fine, the potato may well +be called the universal plant."</p> + + +<h3>BLACKWOOD, IN HIS MAGAZINE.</h3> + +<p>"Chemistry," says Blackwood's Magazine, "has already told us many +remarkable things in regard to the vegetable food we eat—that it +contains, for example, a certain per centage of the actual fat and lean +we consume in our beef, or mutton, or pork—and, therefore, that he who +lives on vegetable food may be as strong as the man who lives on animal +food, because both in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> reality feed on the same things, in a somewhat +different form."</p> + +<p>There is this difference, however, that in the one case—that is, in the +use of the vegetables which contain the elements referred to—we save +the trouble of running it through the body of the living animal, and +losing seven eighths of it, as we do, practically in the process; +whereas in the other we do not. We also save ourselves the necessity of +training the young and the old to scenes of butchery and blood.</p> + + +<h3>PROF. JOHNSTON.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, in a recent edition of his "Elements of Agricultural +Chemistry and Geology," tells us that from experiments made in the +laboratory of the Agricultural Association of Scotland, wheat and oats, +when analyzed, contain of nutritious properties the following +proportion:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Musc. matter.</td><td align='left'>Fat.</td><td align='left'>Starch.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wheat,</td><td align='left'>10 pounds,</td><td align='left'>3 pounds,</td><td align='left'>50 pounds.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oats,</td><td align='left'>18 "</td><td align='left'>6 "</td><td align='left'>65 "</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Thus oats, and even wheat, are quite rich in that which forms muscular +matter in the human body.</p> + + +<h3>SIMEON COLLINS, OF WESTFIELD, MASS.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, in his fifty-first year, states that having been for +several years afflicted with a severe cough, which he supposed bordered +upon consumption, he "discontinued the use of flesh meat, fish, fowl, +butter, gravy, tea, and coffee, and made use of a plain vegetable diet." +"My bread," says he, "is made of unbolted wheat meal; my drink is pure +cold water; my bed, for winter and summer, is made of the everlasting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +flower; and my health is, and ever has been, perfect, since I got fairly +cleansed from the filthiness of flesh meat, and other pernicious +articles of diet in common use.</p> + +<p>"My business requires a great degree of activity, and I can truly say +that I am a stranger to weariness or languor. At the time of entering +upon this system, I had a wife and five children, the youngest eight +years of age;—they all soon entered upon the same course of living with +myself, and soon were all benefited in health. I have now six +children—the youngest fifteen months old, and as happy as a lark. +Previous to the time of our adopting the present system of living, my +expenses for medicine and physicians would range from $20 to $30 a +year—for the last four years it has been nothing worth naming."</p> + + +<h3>REV. JOSEPH EMERSON.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Emerson was a teacher of eminence, known throughout the United +States, but particularly so in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He died in +the latter state, in 1833, aged about fifty-five. He had long been a +miserable dyspeptic, but was probably kept alive amid certain strange +violations of physical law, such as studying hard till midnight, for +example, for many years, by his great care in regard to his diet. Mrs. +Banister, late Miss Z. P. Grant (the associate, at Ipswich, of Miss +Lyon, who died recently at South Hadley, who was his pupil), thus speaks +of his rigid habits:</p> + +<p>"He not only uniformly rejected whatever food he had decided to be +injurious to him, but whatever he deemed necessary for his food or +drink, was always taken, whether at home or abroad. As his diet, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +several years, consisted generally, either of bread and milk, or of +bread and butter, what solid food he wanted could be supplied at any +table."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>It is also testified of him, by his brother, Prof. Emerson, of Andover, +that "for more than thirty years he adopted the practice of eating but +one kind at a meal." If I do not misremember, for I knew him well, he +was in favor of banishing flesh and fish, and substituting milk and +fruits in their stead, on Bible ground.—I refer here to the Divine +arrangement in the first chapter of Genesis; and which has never, that I +am aware, been altered.</p> + + +<h3>TAK SISSON.</h3> + +<p>Tak Sisson, as he was called, was a slave in the family of a man in +Rhode Island, before and during the Revolution.</p> + +<p>From early childhood he could never be prevailed on to eat any flesh or +fish, but he subsisted on vegetable food and milk; neither could he be +persuaded to eat high seasoned food of any kind. When he was a child, +his parents used to scold him severely, and threaten to whip him because +he refused to eat flesh. They said to him (as I have been told a +thousand times), that if he did not eat meat he would never be good for +any thing, but would always be a poor, puny creature.</p> + +<p>But Tak persevered in his vegetable and unstimulating diet, and, to the +surprise of all, grew fast, and his body was finely developed and +athletic. He was very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> stout and robust, and altogether the most +vigorous and dexterous of any of the family. He finally became more than +six feet high, and every way well proportioned, and remarkable for his +agility and strength. He was so uncommonly shrewd, bright, strong, and +active, that he became notorious for his shrewdness, and for his feats +of strength and agility. Indeed, he was so full of his playful mischief +as greatly to annoy his overseer.</p> + +<p>During the Revolutionary War it became an object to take Gen. Prescott. +A door was to be forced where he was quartered and sleeping, and Tak was +selected for the work. Having taken his lesson from the American +officer, he proceeded to the door, plunged his thick head against it, +burst it open, roused Gen. P., like a tiger sprung upon him, seized him +in his brawny arms, and in a low, stern voice, said, "One word, and you +are a dead man." Then hastily snatching the general's cloak and wrapping +it round him, at the same time telling a companion to take care of the +rest of his clothes, he took him in his arms, as if a child, and ran +with him to a boat which was waiting, and escaped with his prisoner +without rousing even the British sentinels.</p> + +<p>Tak lived on his vegetable fare to a very advanced age, and was +remarkable, through life, for his activity, strength, and shrewdness.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> By seed, Dr. C. means the farinaceous grains; wheat, corn, +rye, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Cuvier was not a medical man, but I have classed him with +medical men, on account of his profound knowledge of Comparative Anatomy +and Physiology.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> "Unless," as a writer in the Graham Journal very justly +observes, "these latter indulge, habitually and freely, in the use of +intoxicating substances."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Such was Gen. Elliot, so distinguished at the famous siege +of Gibraltar. Such, too, was Mr. Shillitoe, of whom honorable mention +will be made in another place;—besides many more.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> So he thinks, but I think otherwise. Animal food, as I +have shown elsewhere, is not so nutritious as some of the farinaceous +vegetables.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Dr. J. here overlooks one important fact, viz., that the +testimony of all those who have tried the exclusive use of vegetable +food is <i>positive</i> in its nature; while that of others, who have not +tried it, is, and necessarily must be, negative.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The Water-Cure Journal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> An aged lady, of Dedham—a pillar in every good +cause—has, for twelve or fifteen years, carried abroad with her, when +traveling, some plain bread and apples; and no entreaties will prevail +with her, at home or abroad, to eat luxuries.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks.—Testimony of +Plautus.—Plutarch.—Porphyry.—Lord Bacon.—Sir William +Temple.—Cicero.—Cyrus the Great.—Gassendi.—Prof. +Hitchcock.—Lord Kaims.—Dr. Thomas Dick.—Prof. Bush.—Thomas +Shillitoe.—Alexander Pope.—Sir Richard Phillips.—Sir Isaac +Newton.—The Abbé Gallani.—Homer.—Dr. Franklin.—Mr. +Newton.—O. S. Fowler.—Rev. Mr. Johnston.—John H. +Chandler.—Rev. J. Caswell.—Mr. Chinn.—Father +Sewall.—Magliabecchi.—Oberlin and Swartz.—James +Haughton.—John Bailies.—Francis Hupazoli.—Prof. +Ferguson.—Howard, the Philanthropist.—Gen. +Elliot.—Encyclopedia Americana.—Thomas Bell, of +London.—Linnæus, the Naturalist.—Shelley, the Poet.—Rev. Mr. +Rich.—Rev. John Wesley.—Lamartine.</p></div> + + +<h3>GENERAL REMARKS.</h3> + +<p>This chapter might have been much more extended than it is. I might have +mentioned, for example, the cases of Daniel and his three brethren, at +the court of the Babylonian monarch, who certainly maintained their +health—if they did not even improve it—by vegetable food, and by a +form of it, too, which has by many been considered rather doubtful. I +might have mentioned the case of Paul,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> who, though he occasionally +appears to have eaten flesh, said, expressly, that he would abstain from +it while the world stood, where a great moral end was to be gained; and +no one can suppose he would have done so, had he feared any injury would +thereby result to his constitution of body or mind.</p> + +<p>The case of William Penn, if I remember rightly what he says in his "No +Cross no Crown," would have been in point. Jefferson, the third +President of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> United States, was, according to his own story, almost +a vegetable eater, during the whole of his long life. He says he +abstained principally from animal food; using it, if he used it at all, +only as a condiment for his vegetables. And does any one, who has read +his remarks, doubt that his "convictions" were in favor of the exclusive +use of vegetable food?</p> + +<p>However, to prevent the volume from much exceeding the limits originally +assigned it, I will be satisfied—and I hope the public will—with the +following selections of testimonies, ancient and modern; some of more, +some of less importance; but all of them, as it appears to me, worthy of +being collected and incorporated into a volume like this, and faithfully +and carefully examined.</p> + + +<h3>PLAUTUS.</h3> + +<p>Plautus, a distinguished dramatic Roman writer, who flourished about two +thousand years ago, gives the following remarkable testimony against the +use of animal food, and of course in favor of the salubrity of +vegetables; addressed, indeed, to his own countrymen and times, but +scarcely less applicable to our own:</p> + +<p>"You apply the term wild to lions, panthers, and serpents; yet, in your +own savage slaughters, you surpass them in ferocity; for the blood shed +by them is a matter of necessity, and requisite for their subsistence.</p> + +<p>"But, that man is not, by nature, destined to devour animal food, is +evident from the construction of the human frame, which bears no +resemblance to wild beasts or birds of prey. Man is not provided with +claws or talons, with sharpness of fang or tusk, so well adapted to tear +and lacerate; nor is his stomach so well braced and muscular, nor his +animal spirits so warm, as to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> enable him to digest this solid mass of +animal flesh. On the contrary, nature has made his teeth smooth, his +mouth narrow, and his tongue soft; and has contrived, by the slowness of +his digestion, to divert him from devouring a species of food so ill +adapted to his frame and constitution. But, if you still maintain that +such is your natural mode of subsistence, then follow nature in your +mode of killing your prey, and employ neither knife, hammer, nor +hatchet—but, like wolves, bears, and lions, seize an ox with your +teeth, grasp a boar round the body, or tear asunder a lamb or a hare, +and, like the savage tribe, devour them still panting in the agonies of +death.</p> + +<p>"We carry our luxury still farther, by the variety of sauces and +seasonings which we add to our beastly banquets—mixing together oil, +wine, honey, pickles, vinegar, and Syrian and Arabian ointments and +perfumes, as if we intended to bury and embalm the carcasses on which we +feed. The difficulty of digesting such a mass of matter, reduced in our +stomachs to a state of liquefaction and putrefaction, is the source of +endless disorders in the human frame.</p> + +<p>"First of all, the wild, mischievous animals were selected for food; and +then the birds and fishes were dragged to slaughter; next, the human +appetite directed itself against the laborious ox, the useful and +fleece-bearing sheep, and the cock, the guardian of the house. At last, +by this preparatory discipline, man became matured for human massacres, +slaughters, and wars."</p> + + +<h3>PLUTARCH.</h3> + +<p>"It is best to accustom ourselves to eat no flesh at all, for the earth +affords plenty enough of things not only fit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> for nourishment, but for +enjoyment and delight; some of which may be eaten without much +preparation, and others may be made pleasant by adding divers other +things to them.</p> + +<p>"You ask me," continues Plutarch, "'for what reason Pythagoras abstained +from eating the flesh of brutes?' For my part, I am astonished to think, +on the contrary, what appetite first induced man to taste of a dead +carcass; or what motive could suggest the notion of nourishing himself +with the flesh of animals which he saw, the moment before, bleating, +bellowing, walking, and looking around them. How could he bear to see an +impotent and defenceless creature slaughtered, skinned, and cut up for +food? How could he endure the sight of the convulsed limbs and muscles? +How bear the smell arising from the dissection? Whence happened it that +he was not disgusted and struck with horror when he came to handle the +bleeding flesh, and clear away the clotted blood and humors from the +wounds?</p> + +<p>"We should therefore rather wonder at the conduct of those who first +indulged themselves in this horrible repast, than at such as have +humanely abstained from it."</p> + + +<h3>PORPHYRY, OF TYRE.</h3> + +<p>Porphyry, of Tyre, lived about the middle of the third century, and +wrote a book on abstinence from animal food. This book was addressed to +an individual who had once followed the vegetable system, but had +afterward relinquished it. The following is an extract from it:</p> + +<p>"You owned, when you lived among us, that a vegetable diet was +preferable to animal food, both for preserving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> the health and for +facilitating the study of philosophy; and now, since you have eat flesh, +your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was +true. It was not from those who lived on vegetables that robbers or +murderers, sycophants or tyrants, have proceeded; but from +<i>flesh-eaters</i>. The necessaries of life are few and easily acquired, +without violating justice, liberty, health, or peace of mind; whereas +luxury obliges those vulgar souls who take delight in it to covet +riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to misspend their +time, to ruin their health and to renounce the joy of an upright +conscience."</p> + +<p>He takes pains to persuade men of the truth of the two following +propositions:</p> + +<p>1st. "That a conquest over the appetites and passions will greatly +contribute to preserve health and to remove distempers.</p> + +<p>2d. "That a simple vegetable food, being easily procured and easily +digested, is a mighty help toward obtaining this conquest over +ourselves."</p> + +<p>To prove the first proposition, he appeals to experience, and proves +that many of his acquaintance who had disengaged themselves from the +care of amassing riches, and turning their thoughts to spiritual +subjects, had got rid entirely of their bodily distempers.</p> + +<p>In confirmation of the second proposition, he argues in the following +manner: "Give me a man who considers, seriously, what he is, whence he +came, and whither he must go, and from these considerations resolves not +to be led astray nor governed by his passions; and let such a man tell +me whether a rich animal diet is more easily procured or incites less to +irregular passions and appetites than a light vegetable diet!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> But if +neither he, nor a physician, nor indeed any reasonable man whatsoever, +dares to affirm this, why do we oppress ourselves with animal food, and +why do we not, together with luxury and flesh meat, throw off the +incumbrances and snares which attend them?"</p> + + +<h3>LORD BACON.</h3> + +<p>Lord Bacon, in his treatise on Life and Death, says, "It seems to be +approved by experience, that a spare and almost a Pythagorean diet, such +as is prescribed by the strictest monastic life, or practiced by +hermits, is most favorable to long life."</p> + + +<h3>SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.</h3> + +<p>"The patriarchs' abodes were not in cities, but in open countries and +fields. Their lives were pastoral, and employed in some sorts of +agriculture. They were of the same race, to which their marriages were +generally confined. Their diet was simple, as that of the ancients is +generally represented. Among them flesh and wine were seldom used, +except at sacrifices at solemn feasts.</p> + +<p>"The Brachmans, among the old Indians, were all of the same races, lived +in fields and in woods, after the course of their studies was ended, and +fed only upon rice, milk, and herbs.</p> + +<p>"The Brazilians, when first discovered, lived the most natural, original +lives of mankind, so frequently described in ancient countries, before +laws, or property, or arts made entrance among them; and so their +customs may be concluded to have been yet more simple than either of the +other two. They lived without business or labor, further than for their +necessary food, by gathering fruits, herbs, and plants. They knew no +other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> drink but water; were not tempted to eat or drink beyond common +appetite and thirst; were not troubled with either public or domestic +cares, and knew no pleasures but the most simple and natural.</p> + +<p>"From all these examples and customs, it may probably be concluded that +the common ingredients of health and long life are, great temperance, +open air, easy labor, little care, simplicity of diet—rather fruits and +plants than flesh, which easier corrupts—and water, which preserves the +radical moisture without too much increasing the radical heat. Whereas +sickness, decay, and death proceed commonly from the one preying too +fast upon the other, and at length wholly extinguishing it."</p> + + +<h3>CICERO.</h3> + +<p>This eminent man sometimes, if not usually, confined himself to +vegetable food. Of this we have evidence, in his complaints about the +refinements of cookery—that they were continually tempting him to +excess, etc. He says, that after having withstood all the temptations +that the noblest lampreys and oysters could throw in his way, he was at +last overpowered by paltry beets and mallows. A victory, by the way, +which, in the case of the eater of plain food, is very often achieved.</p> + + +<h3>CYRUS THE GREAT.</h3> + +<p>This distinguished warrior was brought up, like the inferior Persians, +on bread, cresses, and water; and, notwithstanding the temptations of a +luxurious and voluptuous court, he rigorously adhered to his simple +diet. Nay, he even carried his simple habits nearly through life with +him; and it was not till he had completely established one of the +largest and most powerful empires<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> of antiquity that he began to yield +to the luxuries of the times. Had he pursued his steady course of +temperance through life, the historian, instead of recording his death +at only seventy, might have told us that he died at a hundred or a +hundred and fifty.</p> + + +<h3>PETER GASSENDI.</h3> + +<p>Two hundred and twenty years ago, Peter Gassendi, a famous French +philosopher—and by the way, one of the most learned men of his +time—wrote a long epistle to Van Helmont, a Dutch chemist, on the +question whether the teeth of mankind indicate that they are naturally +flesh-eaters.</p> + +<p>In this epistle, too long for insertion here,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Gassendi maintains, +with great ingenuity, that the human teeth were not made for flesh. He +does not evade any of the facts in the case, but meets them all fairly +and discusses them freely. And after having gone through with all parts +of the argument, and answered every other conceivable objection, he thus +concludes:</p> + +<p>"And here I feel that it may be objected to me: Why, then, do you not, +yourself, abstain from flesh and feed only on fruits and vegetables? I +must plead the force of habit, for my excuse. In persons of mature age +nature appears to be so wholly changed, that this artificial habit +cannot be renounced without some detriment. But I confess that if I were +wise, and relinquishing the use of flesh, should gradually accustom +myself to the gifts of the kind earth, I have little doubt that I should +enjoy more regular health, and acquire greater activity of mind. For +truly our numerous diseases,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> and the dullness of our faculties, seem +principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may +say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the +whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. +In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads of +man's nature."</p> + +<p>I know how it strikes many when they find such men as Gassendi, +admitting the doctrines for which I contend, in theory, and even +strenuously defending them, and yet setting them at naught in practice. +Surely, say they, such persons cannot be sincere. For myself, however, I +draw a very different conclusion. Their conduct is perfectly in harmony +with that of the theoretic friends of cold water, plain dress, and +abstemiousness in general. They are compelled to admit the truth; but it +is so much against their habits, as in the case of Gassendi, besides +being still more strongly opposed to their lusts and appetites, that +they cannot, or rather, will not conform to what they believe, in their +daily practice. Their testimony, to me, is the strongest that can be +obtained, because they testify against themselves, and in spite of +themselves.</p> + + +<h3>PROF. HITCHCOCK.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, a distinguished professor in Amherst College, is the +author of a work, entitled "Dyspepsia Forestalled and Resisted," which +has been read by many, and execrated by not a few of those who are so +wedded to their lusts as to be unwilling to be told of their errors.</p> + +<p>I am not aware that Professor H. has any where, in his writings, urged a +diet exclusively vegetable, for all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> classes of the community, although +I believe he does not hesitate to urge it on all students; and one might +almost infer, from his works of various kinds, that if he is not already +a believer in the doctrines of its universal superiority to a mixed +diet, he is not very far from it. In a sermon of his, in the National +Preacher, for November, 1834, he calls a diet exclusively vegetable, a +"proper course of living."</p> + +<p>I propose to add here a few anecdotes of his, which I know not how to +find elsewhere.</p> + +<p>"Pythagoras restricted himself to vegetable food altogether, his dinner +being bread, honey, and water; and he lived upward of eighty years. +Matthew (St. Matthew, I suppose he means), according to Clement, lived +upon vegetable diet. Galen, one of the most distinguished of the ancient +physicians, lived one hundred and forty years, and composed between +seven and eight hundred essays on medical and philosophical subjects; +and he was always, after the age of twenty-eight, extremely sparing in +the quantity of his food. The Cardinal de Salis, Archbishop of Seville, +who lived one hundred and ten years, was invariably sparing in his diet. +One Lawrence, an Englishman, by temperance and labor lived one hundred +and forty years; and one Kentigern, who never tasted spirits or wine, +and slept on the ground and labored hard, died at the age of one hundred +and eighty-five. Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, who died at the age of one +hundred and sixty-nine, was a poor fisherman, as long as he could follow +this pursuit; and ultimately he became a beggar, living on the coarsest +and most sparing diet. Old Parr, who died at the age of one hundred and +fifty-three, was a farmer, of extremely abstemious habits, his diet +being solely milk,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> cheese, coarse bread, small beer, and whey. At the +age of one hundred and twenty he married a second wife by whom he had a +child. But being taken to court, as a great curiosity, in his one +hundred and fifty-second year, he very soon died—as the physicians +decidedly testified, after dissection, in consequence of a change from a +parsimonious to a plentiful diet. Henry Francisco, of this country, who +lived to about one hundred and forty, was, except for a certain period, +remarkably abstemious, eating but little, and particularly abstaining +almost entirely from animal food; his favorite articles being tea, bread +and butter, and baked apples. Mr. Ephraim Pratt, of Shutesbury, Mass., +who died at the age of one hundred and seventeen years, lived very much +upon milk, and that in small quantity; and his son, Michael Pratt, +attained to the age of one hundred and three, by similar means."</p> + +<p>Speaking, in another place, of a milk diet, Professor H. observes, that +"a diet chiefly of milk produces a most happy serenity, vigor, and +cheerfulness of mind—very different from the gloomy, crabbed, and +irritable temper, and foggy intellect, of the man who devours flesh, +fish, and fowl, with ravenous appetite, and adds puddings, pies, and +cakes to the load."</p> + + +<h3>LORD KAIMS.</h3> + +<p>Henry Home, otherwise called Lord Kaims, the author of the "Elements of +Criticism," and of "Six Sketches on the History of Man," has, in the +latter work, written eighty years ago, the following statements +respecting the inhabitants of the torrid zone:</p> + +<p>"We have no evidence that either the hunter or shepherd state were ever +known there. The inhabitants at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> present subsist upon vegetable food, +and probably did so from the beginning."</p> + +<p>In speaking of particular nations or tribes of this zone, he tells us +that "the inhabitants of Biledulgerid and the desert of Sahara, have but +two meals a day—one in the morning and one in the evening;" and "being +temperate," he adds, "and strangers to the diseases of luxury and +idleness, they generally live to a great age."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Sixty, with them, is +the prime of life, as thirty is in Europe. "Some of the inland tribes of +Africa," he says, "make but one meal a day, which is in the evening." +And yet "their diet is plain, consisting mostly of rice, fruits, and +roots. An inhabitant of Madagascar will travel two or three days without +any other food than a sugar-cane." So also, he might have added, will +the Arab travel many days, and at almost incredible speed, with nothing +but a little gum-arabic; and the Peruvians and other inhabitants of +South America, with a little parched corn. But I have one more extract +from Lord Kaims:</p> + +<p>"The island of Otaheite is healthy, the people tall and well made; and +by temperance—vegetables and fish being their chief nourishment—they +live to a good old age, with scarcely an ailment. There is no such thing +known among them as rotten teeth; the very smell of wine or spirits is +disagreeable; and they never deal in tobacco or spiceries. In many +places Indian corn is the chief nourishment, which every man plants for +himself."</p> + + +<h3>DR. THOMAS DICK.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Dick, author of the "Philosophy of Religion," and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> several other +works deservedly popular, gives this remarkable testimony:</p> + +<p>"To take the life of any sensitive being, and to feed on its flesh, +appears incompatible with a state of innocence, and therefore no such +grant was given to Adam in paradise, nor to the antediluvians. It +appears to have been a grant suited only to the degraded state of man, +after the deluge; and it is probable that, as he advances in the scale +of moral perfection in the future ages of the world, the use of animal +food will be gradually laid aside, and he will return again to the +productions of the vegetable kingdom, as the original food of man—as +that which is best suited to the rank of rational and moral +intelligence. And perhaps it may have an influence, in combination with +other favorable circumstances, in promoting health and longevity."</p> + + +<h3>PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH.</h3> + +<p>Professor Bush, a writer of some eminence, in his "Notes on Genesis," +while speaking of the permission to man in regard to food, in Genesis i. +29, has the following language:</p> + +<p>"It is not perhaps to be understood, from the use of the word <i>give</i>, +that a <i>permission</i> was now granted to man of using that for food which +it would have been unlawful for him to use without that permission; for, +by the very constitution of his being, he was made to be sustained by +that food which was most congenial to his animal economy; and this it +must have been lawful for him to employ, unless self-destruction had +been his duty. The true import of the phrase, therefore, doubtless is, +that God had <i>appointed</i>, <i>constituted</i>, <i>ordained</i> this, as the staple +article of man's diet. He had formed him with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> nature to which a +vegetable aliment was better suited than any other. It cannot perhaps be +inferred from this language that the use of flesh-meat was absolutely +forbidden; but it clearly implies that the fruits of the field were the +diet most adapted to the constitution which the Creator had given."</p> + + +<h3>THOMAS SHILLITOE.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Shillitoe was a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, at +Tottenham, near London. The first twenty-five years of his life were +spent in feeble health, made worse by high living. This high living was +continued about twenty years longer, when, finding himself fast failing, +he yielded to the advice of a medical friend, and abandoned all drinks +but water, and all food but the plainest kinds, by which means he so +restored his constitution that he lived to be nearly ninety years of +age; and at eighty could walk with ease from Tottenham to London, six +miles, and back again. The following is a brief account of this +distinguished man, when at the age of eighty, and nearly in his own +words:</p> + +<p>It is now nearly thirty years since I ate fish, flesh, or fowl, or took +fermented liquor of any kind whatsoever. I find, from continued +experience, that abstinence is the best medicine. I don't meddle with +fermented liquors of any kind, even as medicine. I find I am capable of +doing better without them than when I was in the daily use of them.</p> + +<p>"One way in which I was favored to experience help in my willingness to +abandon all these things, arose from the effect my abstinence had on my +natural temper. My natural disposition is very irritable. I am persuaded +that ardent spirits and high living have more or less effect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> in tending +to raise into action those evil propensities which, if given way to, war +against the soul, and render us displeasing to Almighty God."</p> + + +<h3>ALEXANDER POPE.</h3> + +<p>Pope, the poet, ascribes all the bad passions and diseases of the human +race to their subsisting on the flesh, blood, and miseries of animals. +"Nothing," he says, "can be more shocking and horrid than one of our +kitchens, sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of +creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung +up here and there. It gives one an image of a giant's den in romance, +bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were +slain by his cruelty."</p> + + +<h3>SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS.</h3> + +<p>Sir Richard Phillips, in his "Million of Facts," says that "the mixed +and fanciful diet of man is considered as the cause of numerous +diseases, from which animals are exempt. Many diseases have abated with +changes of natural diet, and others are virulent in particular +countries, arising from peculiarities. The Hindoos are considered the +freest from disease of any part of the human race. The laborers on the +African coast, who go from tribe to tribe to perform the manual labor, +and whose strength is wonderful, live entirely on plain rice. The Irish, +Swiss, and Gascons, the slaves of Europe, feed also on the simplest +diet; the former chiefly on potatoes."</p> + +<p>He states, also, that the diseases of cattle often afflict those who +subsist on them. "In 1599," he observes, "the Venetian government, to +stop a fatal disease among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> people, prohibited the sale of meat, +butter, or cheese, on Pain of death."</p> + + +<h3>SIR ISAAC NEWTON.</h3> + +<p>This distinguished philosopher and mathematician is said to have +abstained rigorously, at times, from all but purely vegetable food, and +from all drinks but water; and it is also stated that some of his +important labors were performed at these seasons of strict temperance. +While writing his treatise on Optics, it is said he confined himself +entirely to bread, with a little sack and water; and I have no doubt +that his remarkable equanimity of temper, and that government of his +animal appetites, throughout, for which he was so distinguished to the +last hour of his life, were owing, in no small degree, to his habits of +rigid temperance.</p> + + +<h3>THE ABBE GALLANI.</h3> + +<p>The Abbé Gallani ascribes all social crimes to animal destruction—thus, +treachery to angling and ensnaring, and murder to hunting and shooting. +And he asserts that the man who would kill a sheep, an ox, or any +unsuspecting animal, would, but for the law, kill his neighbor.</p> + + +<h3>HOMER.</h3> + +<p>Even Homer, three thousand years ago, says Dr. Cheyne, could observe +that the Homolgians—those Pythagoreans, those milk and vegetable +eaters—were the longest lived and the honestest of men.</p> + + +<h3>DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Franklin, in his younger days, often, for some time together, lived +exclusively on a vegetable diet, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> that, too, in small quantity. +During his after life he also observed seasons of abstinence from animal +food, or <i>lents</i>, as he called them, of considerable length. His food +and drink were, moreover, especially in early life, exceedingly simple; +his meal often consisting of nothing but a biscuit and a slice of bread, +with a bunch of raisins, and perhaps a basin of gruel. Now, Dr. F. +testifies of himself; that he found his progress in science to be in +proportion to that clearness of mind and aptitude of conception which +can only be produced by total abstinence from animal food. He also +derived many other advantages from his abstinence, both physical and +moral.</p> + + +<h3>MR. NEWTON.</h3> + +<p>This author wrote a work entitled "Defence of Vegetable Regimen." It is +often quoted by Shelley, the poet, and others. I know nothing of the +author or of his works, except through Shelley, who gives us some of his +views, and informs us that seventeen persons, of all ages, consisting of +Mr. Newton's family and the family of Dr. Lambe, who is elsewhere +mentioned in this work, had, at the time he wrote, lived seven years on +a pure vegetable diet, and without the slightest illness. Of the +seventeen, some of them were infants, and one of them was almost dead +with asthma when the experiment was commenced, but was already nearly +cured by it; and of the family of Mr. N., Shelley testifies that they +were "the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to +conceive"—the girls "perfect models for a sculptor"—and their +dispositions "the most gentle and conciliating."</p> + +<p>The following paragraph is extracted from Mr. Newton's "Defence," and +will give us an idea of his sentiments. He was speaking of the fable of +Prometheus:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory +as time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, the +drift of the fable seems to be this: Man, at his creation, was endowed +with the gift of perpetual youth, that is, he was not formed to be a +sickly, suffering creature, as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and +to sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth, without +disease or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food, and of +fire, with which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste. +Jupiter and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these +inventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the +newly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet, ensued; other +drink than water was resorted to, and man forfeited the inestimable gift +of health, which he had received from heaven; he became diseased, the +partaker of a precarious existence, and no longer descended into his +grave slowly."</p> + + +<h3>O. S. FOWLER.</h3> + +<p>O. S. Fowler, the distinguished phrenologist, in his work on Physiology, +devotes nearly one hundred pages to the discussion of the great diet +question. He endeavors to show that, in every point of view, a flesh +diet—or a diet partaking of flesh, fish, or fowl, in any degree—is +inferior to a well-selected vegetable diet; and, as I think, +successfully. He finally says:</p> + +<p>"I wish my own children had never tasted, and would never taste, a +mouthful of meat. Increased health, efficiency, talents, virtue, and +happiness, would undoubtedly be the result. But for the fact that my +table is set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> for others than my own wife and children, it would never +be furnished with meat, so strong are my convictions against its +utility."</p> + +<p>I believe that L. N. Fowler, the brother and associate of the former, is +of the same opinion; but my acquaintance with him is very limited. Both +the Fowlers, with Mr. Wells, their associate in book-selling, seem +anxiously engaged in circulating books which involve the discussion of +this great question.</p> + + +<h3>REV. MR. JOHNSTON.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Johnston, who for some fifteen or twenty years has been an American +missionary in different foreign places—Trebizond, Smyrna, etc.—is, +from conviction, a vegetable eater. The author holds in his possession +several letters from this gentleman, on the subject of health, from +which, but for want of room, he would be glad to make numerous extracts. +He once sent, or caused to be sent, to him, at Trebizond, a barrel of +choice American apples, for which the missionary, amid numerous Eastern +luxuries, was almost starving. Happy would it be for many other American +and British missionaries, if they had the same simple taste and natural +appetite.</p> + + +<h3>JOHN H. CHANDLER.</h3> + +<p>This young man has been for eight or ten years in the employ of the +Baptist Foreign Missionary Board, and is located at Bangkok, in Siam. +For several years before he left this country he was a vegetable eater, +sometimes subsisting on mere fruit for one or two of his daily meals. +And yet, as a mechanic, his labor was hard—sometimes severe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>Since he has been in Siam he has continued his reformed habits, as +appears from his letters and from reports. The last letter I had from +him was dated June 10, 1847. The following are extracts from it:</p> + +<p>"I experienced the same trials (that is, from others) on my arrival in +Burmah, in regard to vegetable diet, that I did in the United States. +This I did not expect, and was not prepared for it. Through the blessing +of God we were enabled to endure, and have persevered until now.</p> + +<p>"Myself and wife are more deeply convinced than ever that vegetable diet +is the best adapted to sustain health. I cannot say that we have been +much more free from sickness than our associates; but one thing we can +say—we have been equally well off, and our expenses have been much +less."</p> + +<p>After going on to say how much his family—himself and wife—saved by +their plain living, viz., an average of about one dollar a week, he +makes additional remarks, of which I will only quote the following:</p> + +<p>"My labors, being mostly mechanical, are far more fatiguing than those +of my brethren; and I do not think any of them could endure a greater +amount of labor than I do."</p> + +<p>It deserves to be noticed, in this connection, that Mr. Chandler has +slender muscles, and would by no means be expected to accomplish as much +as many men of greater vigor; and yet we have reason to believe that he +performs as much labor as any man in the service of the board.</p> + + +<h3>REV. JESSE CASWELL.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Caswell went out to India about thirteen years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> ago, a dyspeptic, +and yet perhaps somewhat better than while engaged in his studies at +Andover. For several years after his arrival he suffered much from +sickness, like his fellow-laborers. His station was Bangkok. He was an +American missionary, sent out by the American Board, as it is called, of +Boston.</p> + +<p>About six years ago he wrote me for information on the subject of +health. He had read my works, and those of Mr. Graham, and seemed not +only convinced of the general importance of studying the science of +human life, but of the superiority of a well selected vegetable diet, +especially at the East. He was also greatly anxious that missionaries +should be early taught what he had himself learned. The following is one +of his first paragraphs:</p> + +<p>"I feel fully convinced that you are engaged in a work second to few if +any of the great enterprises of the day. If there be any class of men +standing in special need of correct physiological knowledge, that class +consists of missionaries of the cross. What havoc has disease made with +this class, and for the most part, as I feel convinced, because, before +and after leaving their native land, they live so utterly at variance +with the laws of their nature."</p> + +<p>He then proceeds to say, that the American missionaries copy the example +of the English, and that they all eat too much high-seasoned food, and +too much flesh and fish; and argues against the practice by adducing +facts. The following is one of them:</p> + +<p>"My Siamese teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who +live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can +endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way. +* * *<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this +they generally eat <i>a very little</i>, with their rice."</p> + +<p>The next year I had another letter from him. He had been sick, but was +better, and thought he had learned a great deal, during his sickness, +about the best means of preserving health. He had now fully adopted what +he chose to call the Graham system, and was rejoicing—he and his wife +and children—in its benefits. He says, "If a voice from an obscure +corner of the earth can do any thing toward encouraging your heart and +staying your hands, that voice you shall have." He suggests the +propriety of my sending him a copy of "Vegetable Diet." "I think," says +he, "it might do great good." He wished to lend it among his friends.</p> + +<p>It must suffice to say, that he continued to write me, once or twice a +year, as long as he lived. He also insisted strongly on the importance +of physiological information among students preparing for the ministry, +and especially for missions. He even wrote once or twice to Rev. Dr. +Anderson, and solicited attention to the subject. But the board would +neither hear to him nor to me, except to speak kind words, for nothing +effective was ever done. They even refused a well-written communication +on the subject, intended for the Missionary Herald. Let me also say, +that as early as March, 1845, he told me that Dr. Bradley, his associate +(now in this country), with his family, were beginning to live on the +vegetable system; and added, that one of the sisters of the mission, who +was no "Grahamite," had told him she thought there was not one third as +much flesh used in all the mission families that there was a year +before.</p> + +<p>Mr. Caswell became exceedingly efficient, over-exerted himself in +completing a vocabulary of the Siamese<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> language, and in other labors, +and died in September last. He was, according to the testimony of Dr. +Bradley, a "<i>noble man</i>;" and probably his life and health, and that of +his family, were prolonged many years by his improved habits. But his +early transgressions—like those of thousands—at length found him out. +I allude to his errors in regard to exercise, eating, drinking, +sleeping, taking medicine, etc.</p> + + +<h3>MR. SAMUEL CHINN.</h3> + +<p>This individual has represented the town of Marblehead, Mass., in the +state legislature, and is a man of respectability. He is now, says the +"Lynn Washingtonian," above forty years of age, a strong, healthy man, +and, to use his own language, "has neither ache nor pain." For the ten +years next preceding our last account from him he had lived on a simple +vegetable diet, condemning to slaughter no flocks or herds that "range +the valley free," but leaving them to their native, joyous hill-sides +and mountains. But Mr. Chinn, not contented with abstinence from animal +food, goes nearly the full length of Dr. Schlemmer and his sect, and +abjures cookery. For four years he subsisted—we believe he does so +now—on nothing but unground wheat and fruit. His breakfast, it is said, +he uniformly makes of fruit; his other two meals of unground wheat; +patronizing neither millers nor cooks. A few years since, being +appointed a delegate to a convention in Worcester, fifty-eight miles +distant, he filled his pocket with wheat, walked there during the day, +attended the convention, and the next day walked home again, with +comparative ease.</p> + + +<h3>FATHER SEWALL.</h3> + +<p>This venerable man—Jotham Sewall, of Maine, as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> styles himself, one +of the fathers of that state—is now about ninety years of age, and yet +is, what he has long been, an active home missionary. He is a man of +giant size and venerable appearance, of a green old age, and remarkably +healthy. He is an early riser, a man of great cheerfulness, and of the +most simple habits. He has abstained from tea and coffee—poisonous +things, as he calls them—forty-seven years. His only drinks are water +and sage tea. These, with bread, milk, and fruits, and perhaps a little +salt, are the only things that enter his stomach. How long he has +abstained from flesh and fish I have not learned, but I believe some +thirty or forty years.</p> + +<p>Such is the appearance of this venerable man, that no one is surprised +to find in him those gigantic powers of mind, and that readiness to give +wise counsel on every important occasion, for which he has so long been +distinguished. It has sometimes seemed to me that no one would doubt the +efficacy of a well-selected vegetable diet to give strength, mental or +bodily, who had known Father Sewall.</p> + + +<h3>MAGLIABECCHI,</h3> + +<p>An Italian, who died in the beginning of the eighteenth century, abjured +cookery at the age of forty years, and confined himself chiefly to +fruits, grains, and water. He never allowed himself a bed, but slept on +a kind of settee, wrapped in a long morning gown, which served him for +blanket and clothing the year round.</p> + +<p>I would not be understood as encouraging the anti-cookery system of Dr. +Schlemmer and Magliabecchi; but it is interesting to know <i>what can be +done</i>. Magliabecchi lived to the age of from eighty to one hundred +years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>OBERLIN AND SWARTZ.</h3> + +<p>These two distinguished men were essentially vegetable eaters. Of the +habits of Oberlin, the venerable pastor and father of Waldbach, I am not +able to speak, however, with so much certainty as of those of Swartz. +His income, during the early part of his residence in India, was only +forty-eight pounds a year, which, being estimated by its ability to +procure supplies for his necessities, was only equal to about one +hundred dollars. He not only accepted of very narrow quarters, but ate, +drank, and dressed, in the plainest manner. "A dish of rice and +vegetables," says his biographer, "satisfied his appetite for food."</p> + + +<h3>THE IRISH.</h3> + +<p>Much has been said of the dietetic habits of the Irish, of late years, +especially of their potato. Now, we have abundant facts which go to +prove that good potatoes form a wholesome aliment, equal, if not +superior, to many forms of European and American diet. Yet it cannot be +that a diet consisting wholly of potatoes is as well for the race as one +partaking of greater variety.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and +Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, whom he +visited:</p> + +<p>"He was upward of eighty years when I had last seen him, and he was now +in his ninety-fourth year. He found the old gentleman seated on a kind +of rustic seat, in the garden, by the side of some bee-hives. He was +asleep. On his waking I was astonished to see the little change time had +wrought on him; a little more stoop in his shoulders, a wrinkle more, +perhaps, in his forehead,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> a more perfect whiteness of his hair, was all +the difference since I had seen him last. Flesh meat in my venerable +friend's house was an article never to be met with. <i>For sixty years +past he had not tasted it</i>, nor did he by any means like to see it taken +by others. His food was vegetables, bread, milk, butter, and honey. His +whole life was a series of benevolent actions, and Providence rewarded +him, even here, by a peace of mind which passeth all understanding, by a +judgment vigorous and unclouded, and by a length of days beyond the +common course of men."</p> + +<p>James Haughton, I believe of Dublin—a correspondent of Henry C. Wright, +of Philadelphia, who is himself in theory a vegetable eater—has, for +some time past, rejected flesh, and pursued a simple course of living, +as he says, with great advantage. I have been both amused and instructed +by his letters.</p> + +<p>I have met with several Irish people of intelligence who were vegetable +eaters, but their names are not now recollected. They have not, however, +in any instance, confined themselves to potatoes. One of the most +distinguished of these was a female laborer in the family of a merchant +at Barnstable. She was, from choice, a very rigid vegetable eater; and +yet no person in the whole neighborhood was more efficient as a laborer. +Those who know her, and are in the habit of thinking no person can work +hard without flesh and fish, often express their astonishment that she +should be able to live so simply and yet perform so much labor.</p> + + +<h3>JOHN BAILIES.</h3> + +<p>John Bailies, of England, who reached the great age of one hundred and +twenty-eight, is said to have been a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> strict vegetarian. His food, for +the most part, consisted of brown bread and cheese; and his drink of +water and milk. He had survived the whole town of Northampton (as he was +wont to say), where he resided, three or four times over; and it was his +custom to say that they were all killed by tea and coffee. Flesh meat at +that time had not come into suspicion, otherwise he would doubtless have +attributed part of the evil to this agency.</p> + + +<h3>FRANCIS HUPAZOLI.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman was a Sardinian ecclesiastic, at the first; afterward a +merchant at Scio; and finally Venetian consul at Smyrna. Much has been +said of Lewis Cornaro, who, having broken down his constitution at the +age of forty, renewed it by his temperance, and lasted unto nearly the +age of a century. His story is interesting and instructive; but little +more so than that of Hupazoli.</p> + +<p>His habits were all remarkable for simplicity and truth, except one. He +was greatly licentious; and his licentiousness, at the age of +eighty-five, had nearly carried him off. Yet such was the mildness of +his temper, and so correct was he in regard to exercise, rest, rising, +eating, drinking, etc., that he lived on, to the great age of one +hundred and fifteen years, and then died, not of old age, but of +disease.</p> + +<p>Hupazoli did not entirely abstain from flesh; and yet he used very +little, and that was wild game. His living was chiefly on fruits. +Indeed, he ate but little at any time; and his supper was particularly +light. His drink was water. He never took any medicine in his whole +life, not even tobacco; nor was he so much as ever bled. In fact, till +late in life, he was never sick.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>MARY CAROLINE HINCKLEY.</h3> + +<p>This young woman, a resident of Hallowell, in Maine, and somewhat +distinguished as a poet, is, from her own conviction and choice both, a +vegetable eater. Her story, which I had from her friends, is +substantially as follows:</p> + +<p>When about eleven years of age she suddenly changed her habits of +eating, and steadfastly refused, at the table, all kinds of food which +partook of flesh and fish. The family were alarmed, and afraid she was +ill. When they made inquiry concerning it, she hesitated to assign the +reasons for her conduct; but, on being pressed closely, she confessed +that she abstained for conscience' sake; that she had become fully +convinced, from reading and reflection, that she ought not to eat animal +food.</p> + +<p>It was in vain that the family and neighbors remonstrated with her, and +endeavored, in various ways, to induce her to vary from her purpose. She +continued to use no fowl, flesh, or fish; and in this habit she +continues, as I believe, to this day, a period of some twelve or fifteen +years.</p> + + +<h3>JOHN WHITCOMB.</h3> + +<p>John Whitcomb, of Swansey, N. H., at the age of one hundred and four was +in possession of sound mind and memory, and had a fresh countenance; and +so good was his health, that he rose and bathed himself in cold water +even in mid-winter. His wounds, moreover, would heal like those of a +child. And yet this man, for eighty years, refused to drink any thing +but water; and for thirty years, at the close of life, confined himself +chiefly to bread and milk as his diet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>CAPT. ROSS, OF THE BRITISH NAVY.</h3> + +<p>It is sometimes said that animal food is indispensably necessary in the +polar regions. We have seen, however, in the testimony of Professor +Sweetser, that this view of the case is hardly correct. But we have +positive testimony on this subject from Capt. Ross himself.</p> + +<p>This navigator, with his company, spent the winter of 1830-31 above 70° +of north latitude, without beds, clothing (that is, extra clothing), or +animal food, and with no evidence of any suffering from the mere disuse +of flesh and fish.</p> + + +<h3>HENRY FRANCISCO.</h3> + +<p>This individual, who died at Whitehall, N. Y., in the year 1820, at the +age of one hundred and twenty-five years, was, during the latter part of +his life, quite a Grahamite, as the moderns would call him. His favorite +articles of food were tea, bread and butter, and baked apples; and he +was even abstemious in the use of these.</p> + + +<h3>PROFESSOR FERGUSON.</h3> + +<p>Professor Adam Ferguson, an individual not unknown in the literary +world, was, till he was fifty years of age, regarded as quite healthy. +Brought up in fashionable society, he was very often invited to +fashionable dinners and parties, at which he ate heartily and drank +wine—sometimes several bottles. Indeed, he habitually ate and drank +freely; and, as he had by nature a very strong constitution, he thought +nothing which he ate or drank injured him.</p> + +<p>Things went on in this manner, as I have already intimated, till he was +fifty years of age. One day, about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> this time, having made a long +journey in the cold, he returned very much fatigued, and in this +condition went to dine with a party, where he ate and drank in his usual +manner. Soon after dinner, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, +followed by palsy; but by bleeding, and other energetic measures, he was +partially restored.</p> + +<p>He was now, by the direction of his physician, put upon what was called +a low diet. It consisted of vegetable food and milk. For nearly forty +years he tasted no meat, drank nothing but water and a little weak tea, +and took no suppers. If he ventured, at any time, upon more stimulating +food or drink, he soon had a full pulse, and hot, restless nights. His +bowels, however, seemed to be much affected by the fit of palsy; and not +being inclined, so far as I can learn, to the use of fruit and coarse +bread, he was sometimes compelled to use laxatives.</p> + +<p>When he was about seventy years of age, however, all his paralytic +symptoms had disappeared; and his health was so excellent, for a person +of his years, as to excite universal admiration. This continued till he +was nearly ninety. His mind, up to this time, was almost as entire as in +his younger days; none of his bodily functions, except his sight, were +much impaired. So perfect, indeed, was the condition of his physical +frame, that nobody, who had not known his history, would have suspected +he had ever been apoplectic or paralytic.</p> + +<p>When about ninety years of age, his health began slightly to decline. A +little before his death, he began to take a little meat. This, however, +did not save him—nature being fairly worn out. On the contrary, it +probably hastened his dissolution. His bowels became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> irregular, his +pulse increased, and he fell into a bilious fever, of which he died at +the great age of ninety-three.</p> + +<p>Probably there are, on record, few cases of longevity more instructive +than this. Besides showing the evil tendency of living at the expense of +life, it also shows, in a most striking manner, the effects of simple +and unstimulating food and drink, even in old age; and the danger of +recurring to the use of that which is more stimulating in very advanced +life. In this last respect, it confirms the experience of Cornaro, who +was made sick by attempting, in his old age, and at the solicitation of +kind friends, to return to the use of a more stimulating diet; and of +Parr, who was destroyed in the same way, after having attained to more +than a hundred and fifty years.</p> + +<p>But the fact that living at the expense of life, cuts down, here and +there, in the prime of life, or even at the age of fifty, a few +individuals, though this of itself is no trivial evil, is not all. Half +of what we call the infirmities of old age—and thus charge them upon +Him who made the human frame <i>subject</i> to age—have their origin in the +same source; I mean in this living too fast, and exhausting prematurely +the vital powers. When will the sons of men learn wisdom in this matter? +Never, I fear, till they are taught, as commonly as they now are reading +and writing, the principles of physiology.</p> + + +<h3>HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST.</h3> + +<p>Although individual cases of abstinence from animal food prove but +little, yet they prove something in the case of a man so remarkable as +John Howard. If he, with a constitution not very strong, and in the +midst of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> the greatest fatigues of body and mind, could best sustain +himself on a bread and water, or bread and tea diet, who is there that +would not be well sustained on vegetable food? And yet it is certain +that Howard was a vegetable eater for many years of the latter part of +his life; and that had he not exposed himself in a remarkable manner, +there is no known reason why he might not have lasted with a +constitution no better than his was, to a hundred years of age.</p> + + +<h3>GEN. ELLIOTT.</h3> + +<p>The following extract exhibits in few words, the dietetic history of +that brave and wise commander, General George Augustus Elliott, of the +British army:</p> + +<p>"During the whole of his active life, Gen. Elliott had inured himself to +the most rigid habits of order and watchfulness; seldom sleeping more +than four hours a day, and never eating any thing but vegetable food, or +drinking any thing but water. During eight of the most anxious days of +the memorable siege of Gibraltar, he confined himself to four ounces of +rice a day. He was universally regarded as one of the most abstemious +men of his age.</p> + +<p>"And yet his abstemiousness did not diminish his vigor; for, at the +above-mentioned siege of Gibraltar, when he was sixty-six years of age, +he had nearly all the activity and fire of his youth. Nor did he die of +any wasting disease, such as full feeders are wont to say men bring upon +them by their abstinence. On the contrary, owing to a hereditary +tendency, perhaps, of his family, he died at the age of seventy-three, +of apoplexy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA.</h3> + +<p>The following testimony is from the Encyclopedia. I do not suppose the +writer was the friend of a diet exclusively vegetable; but his testimony +is therefore the more interesting. His only serious mistake is in regard +to the tendency of vegetable food to form weak fibres.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes a particular kind of food is called wholesome, because it +produces a beneficial effect of a particular character on the system of +an individual. In this case, however, it is to be considered as a +medicine; and can be called wholesome only for those whose systems are +in the same condition.</p> + +<p>"Aliments abounding in fat are unwholesome, because fat resists the +operation of the gastric juice.</p> + +<p>"The addition of too much spice makes many an innocent aliment +injurious, because spices resist the action of the digestive organs, and +produce an irritation of particular parts of the system.</p> + +<p>"The kind of aliment influences the health, and even the character of +man. He is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable +aliment; but can live exclusively on either.</p> + +<p>"Experience proves that animal food most readily augments the solid +parts of the blood, the fibrine, and therefore the strength of the +muscular system; but disposes the body, at the same time, to +inflammatory, putrid, and scorbutic diseases; and the character to +violence and coarseness. On the contrary, vegetable food renders the +blood lighter and more liquid, but forms weak fibres, disposes the +system to the diseases which spring from feebleness, and tends to +produce a gentle character.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use +of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is +indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of +some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, +cheese, and butter, are vigorous people.</p> + +<p>"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal +aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The +latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when +their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes +in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on +vegetable food."</p> + + +<h3>MR. THOMAS BELL, OF LONDON.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Thomas Bell, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal +College of Surgeons in London, Lecturer on the Anatomy and Diseases of +the Teeth, at Guy's Hospital, and Surgeon Dentist to that institution, +in his physiological observations on the natural food of man, deduced +from the character of the teeth, says, "The opinion which I venture to +give, has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me +sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say, that every +fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was +originally formed a frugiverous (fruit-eating) animal, and therefore, +probably, tropical or nearly so, with regard to his geographical +situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his +teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin +and general structure of his limbs."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LINNÆUS, THE NATURALIST.</h3> + +<p>Linnæus, in speaking of fruits and esculent vegetables, says—"This +species of food is that which is most suitable to man, as is evinced by +the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands."</p> + + +<h3>SHELLEY, THE POET.</h3> + +<p>The following are the views of that eccentric, though in many respects +sensible writer, Shelley, as presented in a note to his work, called +Queen Mab. I have somewhat abridged them, not solely to escape part of +his monstrous religious sentiments, but for other reasons. I have +endeavored, however, to preserve, undisturbed, his opinions and +reasonings, which I hope will make a deep and abiding impression:</p> + +<p>"The depravity of the physical and moral nature of man, originated in +his unnatural habits of life. The language spoken by the mythology of +nearly all religions seems to prove that, at some distant period, man +forsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of +his being to unnatural appetites. Milton makes Raphael thus exhibit to +Adam the consequence of his disobedience:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i15">'——Immediately, a place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before his eyes appeared; and, noisome, dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Numbers of all diseased; all maladies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.'<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>"The fable of Prometheus, too, is explained in a manner somewhat +similar. Before the time of Prometheus, according to Hesiod, mankind +were exempt from suffering; they enjoyed a vigorous youth; and death, +when at length it came, approached like sleep, and gently closed the +eyes. Prometheus (who represents the human race) effected some great +change in the condition of his nature, and applied fire to culinary +purposes. From this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of +disease. It consumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and +infinite variety, inducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and +violent death. All vice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence.</p> + +<p>"Man, and the animals which he has infected with his society, or +depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the bison, +and the wolf are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die, +either from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic hog, +the sheep, the cow, and the dog are subject to an incredible number of +distempers, and, like the corrupters of their nature, have physicians, +who thrive upon their miseries.</p> + +<p>"The supereminence of man is like Satan's supereminence of pain,—and +the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, and crime, have +reason to curse the untoward event, that, by enabling him to communicate +his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow animals. But +the steps that have been taken are irrevocable.</p> + +<p>"The whole of human science is comprised in one question: How can the +advantages of intellect and civilization be reconciled with the liberty +and pure pleasures of natural life? How can we take the benefits<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> and +reject the evils of the system, which is now interwoven with our being? +I believe that <i>abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors +would, in a great measure, capacitate us for the solution of this +important question</i>.</p> + +<p>"It is true, that mental and bodily derangement is attributable in part +to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern +diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the +sexes, whence the misery and diseases of celibacy, unenjoying +prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty, necessarily spring; +the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the exhalations of chemical +processes: the muffling of our bodies in superfluous apparel; the absurd +treatment of infants; all these, and innumerable other causes, +contribute their mite to the mass of human evil.</p> + +<p>"Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugiverous animals +in every thing, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws +wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the +living fibre. A mandarin of the first class, with nails two inches long, +would probably find them, alone, inefficient to hold even a hare. It is +only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparations +that it is rendered susceptible of mastication and digestion, and that +the sight of its bloody juices does not excite intolerable loathing, +horror, and disgust. Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a +decisive experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a +living lamb with his teeth, and, plunging his head into its vitals, +slake his thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of +horror, let him revert to the irresistible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> instincts of nature that +would rise in judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such +work as this. Then, and then only, would he be consistent.</p> + +<p>"Young children evidently prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and other +fruit, to the flesh of animals, until, by the gradual depravation of the +digestive organs, the free use of vegetables has, for a time, produced +serious inconveniences. <i>For a time</i>, I say, since there never was an +instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food to +vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate the body, +by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to restore to the +mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not one in fifty possesses +on the present system. A love of strong liquor is also with difficulty +taught to infants. Almost every one remembers the wry faces which the +first glass of port produced. Unsophisticated instinct is invariably +unerring; but to decide on the fitness of animal food from the perverted +appetites which its constrained adoption produces, is to make the +criminal a judge in his own cause; it is even worse—it is appealing to +the infatuated drunkard in a question of the salubrity of brandy.</p> + +<p>"Except in children, however, there remain no traces of that instinct +which determines, in all other animals, what aliment is natural or +otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning adults +of our species, that it has become necessary to urge considerations +drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are naturally +frugiverous.</p> + +<p>"Crime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of disease +shall be discovered, the root, from which all vice and misery have so +long overshadowed the globe, will be bare to the axe. All the exertions +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear +profit of his species. No sane mind, in a sane body, resolves upon a +crime. It is a man of violent passions, blood-shot eyes, and swollen +veins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder. The system of a simple +diet is not a reform of legislation, while the furious passions and evil +propensities of the human heart, in which it had its origin, are +unassuaged. It strikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment +which may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small +societies, families, and even individuals. In no case has a return to a +vegetable diet produced the slightest injury; in most it has been +attended with changes undeniably beneficial.</p> + +<p>"Should ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, he might +trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural habits, as +clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to sensation. What +prolific sources of disease are not those mineral and vegetable poisons, +that have been introduced for its extirpation! How many thousands have +become murderers and robbers, bigots and domestic tyrants, dissolute and +abandoned adventurers, from the use of fermented liquors, who, had they +slaked their thirst only with pure water, would have lived but to +diffuse the happiness of their own unperverted feelings! How many +groundless opinions and absurd institutions have not received a general +sanction from the sottishness and intemperance of individuals!</p> + +<p>"Who will assert that, had the populace of Paris satisfied their hunger +at the ever-furnished table of vegetable nature, they would have lent +their brutal suffrage to the proscription-list of Robespierre? Could a +set of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> men, whose passions were not perverted by unnatural stimuli, +look with coolness on an <i>auto da fe</i>? Is it to be believed that a being +of gentle feelings, rising from his meal of roots, would take delight in +sports of blood?</p> + +<p>"Was Nero a man of temperate life? Could you read calm health in his +cheek, flushed with ungovernable propensities of hatred for the human +race? Did Muley Ismail's pulse beat evenly? was his skin transparent? +did his eyes beam with healthfulness, and its invariable concomitants, +cheerfulness and benignity?</p> + +<p>"Though history has decided none of these questions, a child could not +hesitate to answer in the negative. Surely the bile-suffused cheek of +Bonaparte, his wrinkled brow, and yellow eye, the ceaseless inquietude +of his nervous system, speak no less plainly the character of his +unresting ambition than his murders and his victories. It is impossible, +had Bonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders, that he could +have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the +Bourbons.</p> + +<p>"The desire of tyranny could scarcely be excited in the individual; the +power to tyrannize would certainly not be delegated by a society neither +frenzied by inebriation nor rendered impotent and irrational by disease. +Pregnant, indeed, with inexhaustible calamity is the renunciation of +instinct, as it concerns our physical nature. Arithmetic cannot +enumerate, nor reason perhaps suspect, the multitudinous sources of +disease in civilized life. Even common water, that apparently innoxious +<i>pabulum</i>, when corrupted by the filth of populous cities, is a deadly +and insidious destroyer.</p> + +<p>"There is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet +and pure water has not infallibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> mitigated, wherever the experiment +has been fairly tried. Debility is gradually converted into strength, +disease into healthfulness; madness, in all its hideous variety, from +the ravings of the fettered maniac, to the unaccountable irrationalities +of ill-temper, that make a hell of domestic life, into a calm and +considerate evenness of temper, that alone might offer a certain pledge +of the future moral reformation of society.</p> + +<p>"On a natural system of diet, old age would be our last and our only +malady; the term of our existence would be protracted; we should enjoy +life, and no longer preclude others from the enjoyment of it; all +sensational delights would be infinitely more exquisite and perfect; the +very sense of being would then be a continued pleasure, such as we now +feel it in some few and favored moments of our youth.</p> + +<p>"By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those +who love happiness and truth, to give a fair trial to the vegetable +system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject whose merits an +experience of six months should set forever at rest.</p> + +<p>"But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a +sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its +ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier by +the short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments, by +medicine, than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are +invariably sensual and indocile; yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded, +that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved—when +it is as clear, that those who live naturally are exempt from premature +death, as that nine is not one, the most sottish of mankind will feel a +preference toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and +painful life.</p> + +<p>"On the average, out of sixty persons, four die in three years. Hopes +are entertained, that in April, 1814,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> a statement will be given that +sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on vegetables and +pure water, are then in <i>perfect health</i>. More than two years have now +elapsed; <i>not one of them has died</i>; no such example will be found in +any sixty persons taken at random.</p> + +<p>"When these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by +all who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence +from aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal.</p> + +<p>"In proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of +evidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on +vegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old +age, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented +liquors as slow but certain poisons.</p> + +<p>"The change which would be produced by simple habits on political +economy, is sufficiently remarkable. The monopolizing eater of animal +flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by devouring an acre at a +meal, and many loaves of bread would cease to contribute to gout, +madness, and apoplexy, in the shape of a pint of porter, or a dram of +gin, when appeasing the long-protracted famine of the hard-working +peasant's hungry babes.</p> + +<p>"The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the +carcass of an ox, would afford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> ten times the sustenance, undepraving +indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if gathered immediately +from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile districts of the habitable +globe are now actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and +waste of aliment absolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the +wealthy that can, to any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural +craving for dead flesh, and they pay for the greater license of the +privilege, by subjection to supernumerary diseases.</p> + +<p>"Again—the spirit of the nation that should take the lead in this great +reform would insensibly become agricultural; commerce, with its vices, +selfishness, and corruption, would gradually decline; more natural +habits would produce gentler manners, and the excessive complication of +political relations would be so far simplified that every individual +might feel and understand why he loved his country, and took a personal +interest in its welfare.</p> + +<p>"On a natural system of diet, we should require no spices from India; no +wines from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those +multitudinous articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is +rifled, and which are the cause of so much individual rivalship, and +such calamitous and sanguinary national disputes.</p> + +<p>"Let it ever be remembered, that it is the direct influence of excess of +commerce to make the interval between the rich and the poor wider and +more unconquerable. Let it be remembered, that it is a foe to every +thing of real worth and excellence in the human character. The odious +and disgusting aristocracy of wealth, is built upon the ruins of all +that is good in chivalry or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner +of a barbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it impossible to realize a +state of society, where all the energies of man shall be directed to the +production of his solid happiness?</p> + +<p>"None must be intrusted with power (and money is the completest species +of power), who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the +general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors, +directly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant +cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to +starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping curtailers of +population, pasturage would include a waste too great to be afforded. +The labor requisite to support a family is far lighter than is usually +supposed. The peasantry work, not only for themselves, but for the +aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers.</p> + +<p>"The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any +other. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of +legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are +produced, is to suppose that by taking away the effect, the cause will +cease to operate.</p> + +<p>"But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on the proselytism of +individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit to the community, upon +the total change of the dietetic habits in its members. It proceeds +securely from a number of particular cases to one that is universal, and +has this advantage over the contrary mode, that one error does not +invalidate all that has gone before.</p> + +<p>"Let not too much, however, be expected from this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> system. The +healthiest among us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most +symmetrical, athletic, and long-lived is a being inexpressibly inferior +to what he would have been had not the unnatural habits of his ancestors +accumulated for him a certain portion of malady and deformity. In the +most perfect specimen of civilized man, something is still found wanting +by the physiological critic. Can a return to nature, then, +instantaneously eradicate predispositions that have been slowly taking +root in the silence of innumerable ages? Indubitably not. All that I +contend for is, that from the moment of relinquishing all unnatural +habits, no new disease is generated; and that the predisposition to +hereditary maladies gradually perishes for want of its accustomed +supply. In cases of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, +such is the invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water.</p> + +<p>"Those who may be induced by these remarks to give the vegetable system +a fair trial, should, in the first place, date the commencement of their +practice from the moment of their conviction. All depends upon breaking +through a pernicious habit resolutely and at once. Dr. Trotter asserts, +that no drunkard was ever reformed by gradually relinquishing his dram. +Animal flesh, in its effects on the human stomach, is analogous to a +dram; it is similar to the kind, though differing in the degree of its +operation. The proselyte to a pure diet must be warned to expect a +temporary diminution of muscular strength. The subtraction of a powerful +stimulus will suffice to account for this event. But it is only +temporary, and is succeeded by an equable capability for exertion, far +surpassing his former various and fluctuating strength.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Above all, he will acquire an easiness of breathing, by which such +exertion is performed, with a remarkable exemption from that painful and +difficult panting now felt by almost every one, after hastily climbing +an ordinary mountain. He will be equally capable of bodily exertion or +mental application, after, as before his simple meal. He will feel none +of the narcotic effects of ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct +consequence of exhausting stimuli, would yield to the power of natural +and tranquil impulses. He will no longer pine under the lethargy of +<i>ennui</i>, that unconquerable weariness of life, more to be dreaded than +death itself.</p> + +<p>"He will no longer be incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying +those organs from which he expects his gratification. The pleasures of +taste to be derived from a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, +lettuce, with a dessert of apples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, +raspberries, and in winter, oranges, apples, and pears, is far greater +than is supposed. Those who wait until they can eat this plain fare with +the sauce of appetite, will scarcely join with the hypocritical +sensualist at a lord mayor's feast, who declaims against the pleasures +of the table."</p> + + +<h3>REV. EZEKIEL RICH.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, once a teacher in Troy, N. H., now nearly seventy years +of age, is a giant, both intellectually and physically, like Father +Sewall, of Maine. The following is his testimony—speaking of what he +calls his system:</p> + +<p>"Such a system of living was formed by myself, irrespective of Graham or +Alcott, or any other modern dietetic philosophers and reformers, +although I agree<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> with them in many things. It allows but little use of +flesh, condiments, concentrated articles, complex cooking, or hot and +stimulating drinks. On the other hand, it requires great use of milk, +the different bread stuffs, fruits, esculent roots and pulse, all well, +simply, and neatly cooked."</p> + + +<h3>REV. JOHN WESLEY.</h3> + +<p>The habits of this distinguished individual, though often adverted to, +are yet not sufficiently known. For the last half of his long life +(eighty-eight years) he was a thorough going vegetarian. He also +testifies that for three or four successive years he lived entirely on +potatoes; and during that whole time he never relaxed his arduous +ministerial labors, nor ever enjoyed better health.</p> + + +<h3>LAMARTINE.</h3> + +<p>Lamartine was educated a vegetarian of the strictest sort—an education +which certainly did not prevent his possessing as fine a physical frame +as can be found in the French republic. Of his mental and moral +characteristics it is needless that I should speak. True it is that +Lamartine ate flesh and fish at one period of his life; but we have the +authority of Douglas Jerrold's London Journal for assuring our readers +that he is again a vegetarian.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Some, however, represent the great apostle to have been a +rigid vegetable eater. On this point I have no settled opinion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> It may be found at full length at page 233 of the 6th +volume of the Library of Health.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Instances, he says, are not rare (but this I doubt), of +two hundred children born to a man by his different wives, in some parts +of the interior of Africa.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> A date but little later than that of the work whence this +article is extracted.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Pythagoreans.—The Essenes.—The Bramins.—Society of Bible +Christians.—Orphan Asylum of Albany.—The Mexican +Indians.—School in Germany.—American Physiological Society.</p></div> + + +<h3>GENERAL REMARKS.</h3> + +<p>The following chapter did not come within the scope of my plan, as it +was originally formed. But in prosecuting the labors of preparing a +volume on vegetable diet, it has more and more seemed to me desirable to +add a short account of some of the communities and associations of men, +both of ancient and modern times, who, amid a surrounding horde of +flesh-eaters, have withstood the power of temptation, and proved, in +some measure, true to their own nature, and the first impulses of mercy, +humanity, and charity. I shall not, of course, attempt to describe all +the sects and societies of the kind to which I refer, but only a few of +those which seem to me most important.</p> + +<p>One word may be necessary in explanation of the term communities. I mean +by it, smaller communities, or associations. There have been, and still +are, many whole nations which might be called vegetable-eating +communities; but of such it is not my purpose to speak at present.</p> + + +<h3>THE PYTHAGOREANS.</h3> + +<p>Pythagoras appears to have flourished about 550 years before Christ. He +was, probably, a native of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> island of Samos; but a part of his +education, which was extensive and thorough, was received in Egypt. He +taught a new philosophy; and, according to some, endeavored to enforce +it by laying claim to supernatural powers. But, be this as it may have +been, he was certainly a man of extraordinary qualities and powers, as +well as of great and commanding influence. In an age of great luxury and +licentiousness, he taught, both by example and precept, the most rigid +doctrines of sobriety, temperance, and purity. He abstained from all +animal food, and limited himself entirely to vegetables; of which he +usually preferred bread and honey. Nor did he allow the free use of +every kind of vegetable; for beans, and I believe every species of +pulse, were omitted. Water was his only drink. He lived, it is said, to +the age of eighty; and even then did not perish from disease or old age, +but from starvation in a place where he had sought a retreat from the +fury of his enemies.</p> + +<p>His disciples are said to have been exceedingly numerous, in almost all +quarters of the then known world, especially in Greece and Italy. It is +impossible, however, to form any conjecture of their numbers. The +largest school or association of his rigid followers is supposed to have +been at the city of Crotona, in South Italy. Their number was six +hundred. They followed all his dietetic and philosophical rules with the +utmost strictness. The association appears to have been, for a time, +exceedingly flourishing. It was a society of philosophers, rather than +of common citizens. They held their property in one common stock, for +the benefit of the whole. The object of the association was chiefly to +aid each other in promoting intellectual cultivation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> Pythagoras did +not teach abstinence from all hurtful food and drink, and an exclusive +use of that which was the <i>best</i>, for the sole purpose of making men +better, or more healthy, or longer-lived <i>animals</i>; he had a higher and +nobler purpose. It was to make them better rationals, more truly noble +and god-like—worthy the name of rational men, and of the relation in +which they stood to their common Father. And yet, after all, his +doctrines appear to have been mingled with much bigotry and +superstition.</p> + + +<h3>THE ESSENES.</h3> + +<p>The following account of this singular sect of the ancient Jews is +abridged from an article in the Annals of Education, for July, 1836. The +number of this vegetable-eating sect is not known, though, according to +Philo, there were four thousand of them in the single province of Judea.</p> + +<p>"Pliny, says that the Essenes of Judea fed on the fruit of the +palm-tree. But, however this may have been, it is agreed, on all hands, +that, like the ancient Pythagoreans, they lived exclusively on vegetable +food, and that they were abstinent in regard to the quantity even of +this. They would not kill a living creature, even for sacrifices. It is +also understood that they treated diseases of every kind—though it does +not appear that they were subject to many—with roots and herbs. +Josephus says they were long-lived, and that many of them lived over a +hundred years. This he attributes to their 'regular course of life,' and +especially to 'the simplicity of their diet.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>THE BRAMINS.</h3> + +<p>The Bramins, or Brahmins, are, as is probably well known, the first of +the four <i>castes</i> among the Hindoos. They are the priests of the people, +and are remarkable, in their way, for their sanctity. Of their number I +am not at present apprised, but it must be very great. But, however +great it may be, they are vegetable eaters of the strictest sect. They +are not even allowed to eat eggs; and I believe milk and its products +are also forbidden them; but of this I am not quite certain. Besides +adhering to the strictest rules of temperance, they are also required to +observe frequent fasts of the most severe kind, and to practice regular +and daily, and sometimes thrice daily ablutions. They subsist much on +green herbs, roots, and fruits; and at some periods of their ministry, +they live much in the open air. And yet those of them who are true +Bramins—who live up to the dignity of their profession—are among the +most healthy, vigorous, and long-lived of their race. The accounts of +their longevity may, in some instances, be exaggerated; but it is +certain that, other things being equal, they do not in this respect fall +behind any other caste of their countrymen.</p> + + +<h3>SOCIETY OF BIBLE CHRISTIANS.</h3> + +<p>This society has existed in Great Britain nearly half a century. They +abstain from flesh, fish, and fowl—in short, from every thing that has +animal life—and from all alcoholic liquors. Of their number in the +kingdom I am not well informed. In Manchester they have three churches +that have regular preachers; and frequent meetings have been held for +discussing the diet question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> within a few years, some of which have +been well attended, and all of which have been interesting. Among those +who have adopted "the pledge" at their meetings, are some of the most +distinguished men in the kingdom, and a few of the members of +parliament. Through these and other instrumentalities, the question is +fairly up in England, and will not cease to be discussed till fairly +settled.</p> + +<p>A branch or colony from the parent society, under the pastoral care of +Rev. Wm. Metcalfe, consisting of only eight members, came in 1817 and +established itself in Philadelphia. They were incorporated as a society +in 1830. In 1846 the number of their church members was about seventy, +besides thirty who adhered to their abstemious habits, but were not in +full communion. During the thirty years ending in 1846, twelve of their +number died—four children and eight adults. The average age of the +latter was fifty-seven years. Of the seventy now belonging to the +society, nineteen are between forty and eighty years of age; and forty, +in all, over twenty-five. Of the whole number, twelve have abstained +from animal food thirty-seven years, seven from twenty to thirty years, +and fifty-one never tasted animal food or drank intoxicating drinks.</p> + +<p>And yet they are all—if we except Mr. Metcalfe, their minister—of the +laboring class, and hard laborers, too. Their strength and power of +endurance is fully equal to their neighbors in similar circumstances, +and in several instances considerably superior. Mr. Fowler, the +phrenologist, testifies, concerning one of them, that he is regarded as +the strongest man in Philadelphia. I have long had acquaintance with +this sect, through Mr. M., of Philadelphia, and Mr. Simpson, one of +their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> leading men in England, and have not a doubt of the truth of what +has been publicly stated concerning them. They are a modest people, and +make few pretensions; and yet they are a very meritorious people.</p> + +<p>One thing very much to their advantage, as it shows the health-giving, +health-preserving tendency of their practice and principles, remains to +be related. When the yellow fever prevailed in Philadelphia, in 1818 and +1819, the infection seemed specially rife in the immediate vicinity of +the Bible Christians. So, also, in 1832, with the cholera. And yet none +of them fled. There they remained during the whole period of suffering, +and afforded their sick neighbors all the relief in their power. Their +minister, in particular, was unwearied in his efforts to do good. Yet +not one of their little number ever sickened or died of either yellow +fever or cholera.</p> + +<p>Till within a few years, they have been governed solely by regard to +religious principle, having known little of Physiology or any other +science bearing on health. Of late, however, they have turned their +attention to the subject, and have among them a respectable +Physiological society, which holds its regular meetings, and is said to +be flourishing.</p> + +<p>From one of their publications, entitled "Vegetable Cookery," I have +extracted the following very brief summary of their views concerning the +use of animals for sustenance.</p> + +<p>"The Society of Bible Christians abstain from animal food, not only in +obedience to the Divine command, but because it is an observance, which, +if more generally adopted, would prevent much cruelty, luxury, and +disease, besides many other evils which cause misery in society. It +would be productive of much good, by promoting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> health, long life, and +happiness, and thus be a most effectual means of reforming mankind. It +would entirely abolish that greatest of curses, <i>war</i>; for those who are +so conscientious as not to kill animals, will never murder human beings. +On all these accounts the system cannot be too much recommended. The +practice of abstaining cannot be wrong; it must therefore be some +consolation to be on the side of duty. If we err, we err on the sure +side; it is innocent; it is infinitely better authorized and more nearly +associated with religion, virtue, and humanity, than the contrary +practice—and we have the sanction of the wisest and the best of men—of +the whole Christian world, for several hundred years after the +commencement of the Christian era."</p> + + +<h3>ORPHAN ASYLUM OF ALBANY.</h3> + +<p>I class this as a community, because it is properly so, and because I +cannot conveniently class it otherwise. The facts which are to be +related are too valuable to be lost. They were first published, I +believe, in the Northampton Courier; and subsequently in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal, and in the Moral Reformer. In the present +case, the account is greatly abridged.</p> + +<p>The Orphan Asylum of Albany was established about the close of the year +1829, or the beginning of the year 1830. Shortly after its +establishment, it contained seventy children, and subsequently many +more. The average number, from its commencement to August 1836, was +eighty.</p> + +<p>For the first three years, the diet of the inmates consisted of fine +bread, rice, Indian puddings, potatoes, and other vegetables and fruits, +with milk; to which was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> added flesh or flesh-soup once a day. +Considerable attention was also paid to bathing and cleanliness, and to +clothing, air, and exercise. Bathing, however, was performed in a +perfect manner, only once in three weeks. As many of them were received +in poor health, not a few continued sickly.</p> + +<p>In the fall of 1833, the diet and regimen of the inmates were materially +changed. Daily ablution of the whole body, in the use of the cold shower +or sponge bath—or, in cases of special disease, the tepid bath was one +of the first steps taken; then the fine bread was laid aside for that +made of unbolted wheat meal; and soon after flesh and flesh-soups were +wholly banished; and thus they continued to advance, till, in about +three months more, they had come fully upon the vegetable system, and +had adopted reformed habits in regard to sleeping, air, clothing, +exercise, etc. On this course, then, they continued to August, 1836, +and, for aught I know, to the present time. The results were as follows:</p> + +<p>During the first three years, or while the old system was followed, from +four to six children were continually on the sick list, and sometimes +more; and one or two assistant nurses were necessary. A physician was +needed once, twice, or three times a week, uniformly; and deaths were +frequent. During this whole period there were between thirty and forty +deaths.</p> + +<p>After the new system was fairly adopted, the nursery was soon entirely +vacated, and the services of the nurse and physician no longer needed; +and for more than two years no case of sickness or death took place. In +the succeeding twelve months there were three deaths, but they were new +inmates, and were diseased when they were received; and two of them were +idiots. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> Report of the Managers says, "Under this system of +dietetics (though the change ought not to be wholly attributed to the +diet) the health of the children has not only been preserved, but those +who came to the asylum weakly, have become healthy and strong, and +greatly increased in activity, cheerfulness, and happiness." The +superintendents also state, that "since the new regimen has been fully +adopted, there has been a remarkable increase of health, strength, +activity, vivacity, cheerfulness, and contentment among the children. +Indeed, they appear to be, uniformly, perfectly healthy and happy; and +the strength and activity they exhibit are truly surprising. The change +of temper is very great. They have become less turbulent, irritable, +peevish, and discontented; and far more manageable, gentle, peaceable, +and kind to each other." One of them further observes, "There has been a +great increase in their mental activity and power; the quickness and +acumen of their perception, the vigor of their apprehension, and the +power of their retention daily astonish me."</p> + +<p>Such an account hardly needs comment; and I leave it to make its own +impression on the candid and unbiassed mind and heart of the reader.</p> + + +<h3>THE MEXICAN INDIANS.</h3> + +<p>The Indian tribes of Mexico, according to the traveler Humboldt, live on +vegetable food. A spot of ground, which, if cultivated with wheat, as in +Europe, would sustain only ten persons, and which by its produce, if +converted into pork or beef, would little more than support one, will in +Mexico, when used for banana, sustain equally well two hundred and +fifty.</p> + +<p>The reader will do well to take the above fact, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> the estimates +appended to it, along with him when he comes to examine what I have +called the economical argument of the great diet question, in our last +chapter, under the head, "The Moral Argument." We shall do well to +remember another suggestion of Humboldt, that the habit of eating +animals diminishes our natural horror of cannibalism.</p> + + +<h3>SCHOOL IN GERMANY.</h3> + +<p>There is, in the Annals of Education for August, 1836, an account of a +school in which the same simple system which was pursued in the Orphan +Asylum at Albany was adopted, and with the same happy results. I say the +<i>same</i> system; I believe plain meat was allowed occasionally, but it was +seldom. Their food was exceedingly simple, consisting chiefly of bread +and other vegetables, fruits and milk. Great attention was also paid to +daily cold bathing. The following is the teacher's statement in regard +to the results:</p> + +<p>"I am at present the foster father of nearly seventy young people, who +were born in all the varieties of climate from Lisbon to Moscow, and +whose early education was necessarily very different. These young men +are all healthy; not a single eruption is visible on their faces; and +three years often pass, during which not a single one of them is +confined to his bed; and in the twenty-one years that I have been +engaged in this institution, not one pupil has died. Yet, I am no +physician. During the first ten years of my residence here, no physician +entered my house; and, not till the number of my pupils was very much +increased, and I grew anxious not to overlook any thing in regard to +them, did I begin to seek at all for medical advice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is the mode of treating the young men here, which is the cause of +their superior health; and this is the reason why death has not yet +entered our doors. Should we ever deviate from our present +principles—should we approach nearer the mode of living common in +wealthy families—we should soon be obliged to establish, in our +institution, as it is in others, medicine closets and nurseries. Instead +of the freshness which now adorns the cheeks of our youth, paleness +would appear, and our church-yards would contain the tombs of promising +young men, who, in the bloom of their years, had fallen victims to +disease."</p> + + +<h3>THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY.</h3> + +<p>This association was formed in 1837. When first formed, it consisted of +one hundred and twenty-four males, and forty-one females; in all, one +hundred and sixty-five. Their number soon increased to more than two +hundred.</p> + +<p>Most of these individuals were more or less feeble, and a very large +proportion of them were actually suffering from chronic disease when +they became members of the society. Not a few joined it, indeed, as a +last resort, after having tried every thing else, as drowning men are +said to catch at straws.</p> + +<p>Nearly if not quite all the members of this society, as well as most of +their families, abstained for a time from animal food. Some of them even +adopted the vegetable system a year or so earlier. And there were a few +who adopted it much sooner—one or two of them eight years earlier.</p> + +<p>Of the individuals belonging to the Physiological Society or to their +families, and adhering to the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> principles, two adults only died, +and one child, during the first two years. I will not be quite positive, +but there were four in all, two adults, and two children; but this was +the extent of mortality among them for about fifteen months.</p> + +<p>The whole number of those who belonged to the society, with those +members of their families who adhered to their principles (estimating +families, as is usually done, at five members to each), is believed to +have been from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty. The +average mortality for the same number of healthy persons, during the +same period, in Boston and the adjacent places, was about six or seven; +though in some places it was much greater. In a single parish in +Roxbury—and without any remarkable sickness—the mortality, for the +same number of persons, was equal to ten or twelve.</p> + +<p>Now, we must not forget, what I have already stated, that this society +of vegetable-eaters—the two hundred adults, I mean—were generally +invalids, and some of them given over by physicians. Instead, therefore, +of only half the usual proportion of deaths among them, we might +naturally enough have expected twice or three times the usual number. +And this expectation would have appeared still better founded when it +was considered that many made the change in their habits, and especially +in their diet, very suddenly.</p> + +<p>But the whole story is not yet told. Not only was the number of deaths +very small, as above stated, but there were a great number of remarkable +recoveries. Some, who had very obstinate complaints, appeared, for a +time, to be entirely well. Others were getting well as fast as could be +expected. Some, who were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> broken down and prematurely old, seemed to +renew their youth. Many became free from colds and eruptive complaints, +to which they were formerly subject. And those who had acute diseases, +of whom, however, the number was very small, did not suffer so much as +is usually the case with flesh-eaters in circumstances otherwise +apparently similar.</p> + +<p>But a reverse at length came. They were led into their abstemious course +by mere impulse in very many cases, and though a library was formed and +meetings held, nobody, hardly, would read, and the meetings grew thin. +They had no Joe Smith or Gen. Taylor to lead them—and mankind without +leaders and without deep-toned principle, soon grow tired of war. Few +will fight in such circumstances.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument—1. The +Anatomical Argument.—2. The Physiological Argument.—3. The +Medical Argument.—4. The Political Argument.—5. The +Economical Argument.—6. The Argument from Experience.—7. The +Moral Argument.—Conclusion.</p></div> + + +<p>In the progress of a work like this, it may not be amiss to present, in +a very brief manner, the general arguments in defence of a diet +exclusively vegetable. Some of them have, indeed, already been adverted +to in the testimony of the preceding chapters; but not all. Besides, it +seemed to me desirable to collect the whole in a general view.</p> + +<p>There are various ways of doing this, according to the different aspects +in which the subject is viewed. Every one has his own point of +observation. I have mine. Conformably to the view I have taken, +therefore, I shall endeavor to arrange my remarks under the nine +following heads, viz., the <span class="smcap">anatomical</span>, the <span class="smcap">physiological</span>, the <span class="smcap">medical</span>, +the <span class="smcap">political</span>, the <span class="smcap">economical</span>, the <span class="smcap">experimental</span>, the <span class="smcap">moral</span>, the +<span class="smcap">millennial</span>, and the <span class="smcap">bible arguments</span>.</p> + +<p>Dr. Cheyne relied principally on what I have called the medical +argument—though what I mean by this may not be quite obvious, till I +shall have presented it in its proper place. Not that he wholly +overlooked any thing else; but this, as it seems to me, was with him the +grand point. Nearly the same might be said of Dr. Lambe, and of several +others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dr. Mussey seems to place the anatomical and physiological arguments in +the foreground. It is true he makes much use of the medical and the +moral arguments; but the former appear to be his favorites. Dr. Whitlaw, +and some others, incline to make the moral and political arguments more +prominent. Mr. Graham, who has probably done more to reduce the subject +of vegetable dietetics to a <i>system</i> than any other individual,—though +he makes much use of <i>all</i> the rest, especially the moral and +medical,—appears to dwell with most interest on the physiological +argument. This seems to be, with him, the strong-hold—the grand +citadel. And it must be confessed that the point of defence is very +strong indeed, as we shall see in the sequel.</p> + +<p>If I have a favorite, with the rest, it is the moral argument, or +perhaps a combination of this with the economical. But then I dwell on +the latter with so much interest, chiefly on account of the former. I +would give very little to be able to bring the world of mankind back to +nature's true simplicity, if it were only to make them better and more +perfect animals; though I know not but an attempt of this sort would be +as truly laudable as the attempt so often made to improve the breed of +our domestic animals. I suppose man, considered as a mere animal, is +superior, in point of importance to all the others. But, after all, I +would reform his dietetic habits principally to make him better, +morally; to make him better, in the discharge of his varied duties to +his fellow-beings and to God. I would elevate him, that he may become as +truly god-like, or godly as he now too often is, by his unnatural +habits, earthly or beastly. I would render him a rational being, fitted +to fill the space which he appears to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> been originally designed to +fill—the gap in the great chain of being between the higher quadrupeds +and the beings we are accustomed to regard as angelic. I would restore +him to his true dignity. I would make him a child of God, and an <i>heir</i> +of a glorious immortality.</p> + +<p>But I now proceed to the discussion of the subject which I have assigned +to this chapter.</p> + + +<h4>I. THE ANATOMICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>There has been a time when the teeth and intestines of man were supposed +to indicate the necessity of a mixed diet—a diet partly animal and +partly vegetable. Four out of thirty-two teeth were found to resemble +slightly, the teeth of carnivorous animals. In like manner, the length +of the intestinal tube was thought to be midway between that of the +flesh-eating, and that of the herb-eating quadrupeds. But, unfortunately +for this mode of defending an animal diet, it has been found out that +the fruit and vegetable-eating monkey race, and the herb-eating camel, +have the said four-pointed teeth much more pointed than those of man and +that the intestines, compared with the real length of the body, instead +of assigning to man a middle position, would place him among the +herbivorous animals. In short—for I certainly need not dwell on this +part of my subject, after having adduced so fully the views of Prof. +Lawrence and Baron Cuvier—there is no intelligent naturalist or +comparative anatomist, at present, who attempts to resort for one moment +to man's structure, in support of the hypothesis that he is a +flesh-eater. None, so far as I know, will affirm, or at least with any +show of reason maintain, that anatomy, so far as that goes, is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> favor +of flesh eating. We come, then, to another and more important division +of our subject.</p> + + +<h4>II. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>One of the advantages of vegetable-eaters over others, is in the +superior appetite which they enjoy. There are many flesh-eaters who have +what they call a good appetite. But I never knew a person of this +description, who made the change from a mixed diet to one purely +vegetable, who did not afterward acknowledge that he never once knew, +while he was an eater of animal food, a truly perfect appetite. This +testimony in favor of vegetable diet is positive; whereas that of the +multitude, who have never made the change I speak of, but who are +therefore the more ready to laugh at the conclusions, is merely +negative.</p> + +<p>A person of perfect appetite can eat at all times, and under all +circumstances. He can eat of one thing or another, and in greater or +less quantity. Were there no objections to it, he could make an entire +meal of the coarsest and most indigestible substances; or, he could eat +ten or fifteen times a day; or, he could eat a quantity at once which +would astonish even a Siberian; or, on the contrary, he could abstain +from food entirely, for a short time; and any of these without serious +inconvenience. He would, indeed, feel a slight want of something (in the +case of total abstinence), when the usual hour arrived for taking a +meal; but the sensation is not an abiding one; when the hour has passed +by, it entirely disappears. Nor is there ever, at least for a day or two +of abstinence, that gnawing at the stomach, as some express it, which is +so often felt by the flesh-eater and the devourer of other mixed and +injurious dishes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> and which is so generally mistaken for true and +genuine hunger.</p> + +<p>I have said that the vegetable-eater finds no serious inconvenience from +the quality or quantity of his food; but I mean to speak here of the +<i>immediate</i> effects solely. No doubt every error of this sort produces +mischief, sooner or later. The more perfect the appetite is, the greater +should be our moral power of commanding it, and of controlling the +quality and quantity of our food and drink, as well as the times and +seasons of receiving it.</p> + +<p>These statements, I am aware, are contrary to the received and current +opinion; but that they are true, can be proved, not by one person +merely,—though if that person were to be entirely relied on, his +positive affirmation would outweigh a thousand <i>negative</i> +testimonies,—but by many hundreds. It is more generally supposed that +he who confines himself to a simple diet, soon brings his stomach into +such a state that the slightest departure from his usual habits for once +only, produces serious inconveniences; and this indeed is urged as an +argument against simplicity itself. Yet, how strange! How much more +natural to suppose that the more perfect the health of the stomach, the +better it will bear, for a time, with slight or even serious departures +from truth and nature! How much more natural to suppose that perfect +health is the very best defence against all the causes which tend to +invite or to provoke disease! And what it would be natural to infer, is +proved by experience to be strictly true. The thorough-going +vegetable-eater can make a meal for once, or perhaps feed for a day or +so, on substances which would almost kill many others; and can do so +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> comparative impunity. He can make a whole meal of cheese, cabbage, +fried pudding, fried dough-nuts, etc., etc.; and if it be not in +remarkable excess, he will feel no immediate inconvenience, unless from +the mental conviction that he must pay the full penalty at some distant +day.</p> + +<p>I repeat it, the appetite of the vegetable-eater, if true to his +principles, and temperate in regard to quantity, is always, at all +moments of his life, perfect. To be sure, he is not always <i>hungry</i>. +Hunger, indeed, as I have already intimated—what most people call +hunger, a morbid sensation, or gnawing—is unknown to him. But there is +scarce a moment of his life, at least, when he is awake, in which he +could not enjoy the pleasures of eating, even the coarsest viands, with +a high relish; provided, however, he knew it was <i>proper</i> for him to +eat. Nor is his appetite fickle, demanding this or that particular +article, and disconcerted if it cannot be obtained. It is satisfied with +any thing to which the judgment directs; and though gratified, in a high +degree, with dainties, when nothing better and more wholesome cannot be +obtained, never demanding them in a peremptory manner.</p> + +<p>The vegetable-eater has a more quiet, happy, and perfect digestion than +the flesh-eater. On this point there has been much mistake, even among +physiologists. Richerand and many others suppose that a degree of +constitutional disturbance is indispensable during the process of +digestion; and some have even said that the system was subjected at +every meal—nay, at every healthy meal—to a species of miniature fever. +The remarks of Richerand are as follows. I have slightly abridged them, +but have not altered the sense:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>"While the alimentary solution is going on, a slight shivering is felt; +the pulse becomes quicker and more contracted; the vital power seems to +forsake the other organs, to concentrate itself on that which is the +seat of the digestive process. As the stomach empties itself, the +shivering is followed by a gentle warmth; the pulse increases in +fullness and frequency; and the insensible perspiration is augmented. +Digestion brings on, therefore, a general action, analogous to a febrile +paroxysm."</p> + +<p>And what is it, indeed, <i>but</i> a febrile paroxysm? Nay, Richerand himself +confirms this by adding, "this fever of digestion, noticed already by +the ancients, is particularly observable in women of great sensibility." +That is, the fever is more violent in proportion to the want of power in +the person it attacks to resist its influence; just as it is with fever +in all other circumstances, or when induced by any other causes.</p> + +<p>But, can any one believe the Author of Nature has so made us, that in a +steady and rational obedience to his laws, it is indispensable that we +should be thrown into a fever three times a day, one thousand and +ninety-five times in a year, and seventy-six thousand six hundred and +fifty in seventy years? No wonder, if this were true, that the vitality +of our organs was ordained to wear out soon; for we see by what means +the result would be accomplished.</p> + +<p>The fever, however, of which Richerand speaks, does very generally +exist, because mankind very generally depart from nature and her laws. +But it is not necessary. The simple vegetable-eater—if he lives right +in all other respects—if he errs not as to quantity, knows nothing of +it; nor should it be known by any body. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> should leave it to the +animals below man to err, in quantity and quality, to an excess which +constitutes a surfeit or a fever, and causes fullness and drowsiness, +and a recumbent posture. The self-styled lord of the animal world should +rise superior to habits which have marked, in every age, certain orders +of the lower animals.</p> + +<p>But the chyle which is produced from vegetable aliment is better—all +other things being equal—than that which is produced from any other +food. For proof of this, we need but the testimony of Oliver and other +physiologists. They tell us, unhesitatingly, that under the same +circumstances, chyle which is formed from vegetables will be preserved +from putrefaction many days longer—the consequence of greater purity +and a more perfect vitality—than that which is formed from any +admixture of animal food. Is it not, then, better for the purposes of +health and longevity? Can it, indeed, be otherwise? I will say nothing +at present, for want of space to devote to it, of the indications which +are afforded by the other sensible properties of the chyle which is +produced from vegetables. The single fact I have presented is enough on +that point.</p> + +<p>The best solids and fluids are produced by vegetable eating. On this +single topic a volume might be written, without exhausting it, while I +must confine myself to a page or two.</p> + +<p>In the first place, it forms better bones and more solid muscles, and +consequently gives to the frame greater solidity and strength. Compare, +in evidence of the truth of this statement, the vegetable-eating +millions of middle and southern Europe, with the other millions, who, +supposed to be more fortunate, can get a little flesh or fish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> once a +day. Especially, make this comparison in Ireland, where the vegetable +food selected is far from being of the first or best order; and whose +sight is so obtuse as not to perceive the difference? I do not say, +compare the enervated inhabitant of a hot climate, as Spain or Italy, +with the inhabitant of England, or Scotland, or Russia, for that would +be an unfair comparison, wholly so; but compare Italian with Italian, +Frenchman with Frenchman, German with German, Scotchman with Scotchman, +and Hibernian with Hibernian.</p> + +<p>In like manner, compare the millions of Japanese of the interior, who +subsist through life chiefly on rice, with the few millions of the +coasts who eat a little fish with their rice. Make a similar comparison +in China and in Hindostan. Notice, in particular, the puny Chinese, who +live in southern China, on quite a large proportion of shell-fish, +compared with the Chinese of the interior. Extend your observations to +Hindostan. Do not talk of the effeminate habits and weak constitutions +of the rice and curry eaters there—bad as the admixture of rice and +curry may be—for that is to compare the Hindoo with other nations; but +compare Hindoo with Hindoo, which is the only fair way. Compare the +porters of the Mediterranean, both of Asia and Europe, who feed on bread +and figs, and carry weights to the extent of eight hundred or one +thousand pounds, with the porters who eat flesh, fish, and oil. Compare +African with African, American Indian with American Indian; nay, even +New Englander with New Englander; for we have a few here who are trained +to vegetable eating. In short, go where you will, and institute a fair +comparison, and the results will be, without a single exception, in +favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> is necessary, however, in +making the comparison, to place <i>good</i> vegetable food in opposition to +good animal food; for no one will pretend that a diet of crude, +miserable, or imperfect, or sickly vegetables will be as wholesome as +one consisting of rich farinaceous articles and fruits; nor even as many +kinds of plain meat.</p> + +<p>The only instance which, on a proper comparison, will probably be +adduced to prove the incorrectness of these views, will be that of a few +tribes of American Indians, who, though they have extremely robust +bodies, are eaters of much flesh. But they live also in the open air, +and have many other good habits, and are healthy in spite of the +inferiority of their diet. But perfect, physically, as they seem to be, +and probably are, examine the vegetable-eaters among them, of the same +tribe, and they will be found still more so.</p> + +<p>In the next place, the fluids are all in a better and more healthy +state. In proof of this, I might mention in the first place that +superior agility, ease of motion, speed, and power of endurance which so +distinguish vegetable-eaters, wherever a fair comparison is instituted. +They possess a suppleness like that of youth, even long after what is +called the juvenile period of life is passed over. They are often seen +running and jumping, unless restrained by the arbitrary customs of +society, in very advanced age. Their wounds heal with astonishing +rapidity in as many days as weeks, or even months, in the latter case. +All this could not happen, were there not a good state of the fluids of +the system conjoined, to a happy state of the solids.</p> + +<p>The vegetable-eater, if temperate in the use of his vegetables, and if +all his other habits are good, will endure, better than the flesh-eater, +the extremes of heat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> and cold. This power of endurance has ever been +allowed to be a sure sign of a good state of health. The most vigorous +man, as it is well known, will endure best both extremes of temperature. +But it is a proof also of the greater purity of his solids and fluids.</p> + +<p>The secretions and excretions of his body are in a better state; and +this, again, proves that his blood and other fluids are healthy. He does +not so readily perspire excessively as other men, neither is there any +want of free and easy perspiration. Profuse sweating on every trifling +exertion of the body or mind, is as much a disease as an habitually dry +skin. But the vegetable-eater escapes both of these extremes. The +saliva, the tears, the milk, the gastric juice, the bile, and the other +secretions and excretions—particularly the dejections—are as they +should be. Nay, the very exhalations of the lungs are purer, as is +obvious from the breath. That of a vegetable-eater is perfectly sweet, +while that of a flesh-eater is often as offensive as the smell of a +charnel-house. This distinction is discernible even among the brute +animals. Those which feed on grass, grain, etc., have a breath +incomparably sweeter than those which prey on animals. Compare the +camel, and horse, and cow, and sheep, and rabbit, with the tiger (if you +choose to approach him), the wolf, the dog, the cat, and the hawk. One +comparison will be sufficient; you will never forget it. But there is as +much difference between the odor of the breath of a flesh-eating human +being and a vegetable-eater, as between those of the dog and the lamb. +This, however, is a secret to all but vegetable-eaters themselves, since +none but they are so situated as to be able to make the comparison. But, +betake yourself to mealy vegetables and fruits a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> years, and live +temperately on them, and then you will perceive the difference, +especially in riding in a stage-coach. This, I confess, is rather a +draw-back upon the felicity of vegetable-eaters; but it is some +consolation to know what a mass of corruption we ourselves have escaped.</p> + +<p>There is one more secretion to which I wish to direct your attention, +which is, the fat or oil. The man who lives rightly, and rejects animal +food among the rest, will never be overburdened with fat. He will +neither be too corpulent nor too lean. Both these conditions are +conditions of disease, though, as a general rule, corpulence is most to +be dreaded; it is, at least, the most disgusting. Fat, I repeat it, is a +secretion. The cells in which it is deposited serve for relieving the +system of many of the crudities and abuses, not to say poisons, which +are poured into it—cheated; as it were, in some degree into the blood, +secreted into the fat cells, and buried in the fat to be out of the way, +and where they can do but little mischief. Yet, even here they are not +wholly harmless. The fat man is almost always more exposed to disease, +and to <i>severe</i> epidemic disease in particular, than the lean man. Let +us leave it to the swine and other kindred quadrupeds, to dispose of +gross half poisonous matter, by converting it into, or burying it in +fat; let us employ our vital forces and energies in something better. +Above all, let us not descend to swallow, as many have been inclined to +do, besides the ancient Israelites, this gross secretion, and reduce +ourselves to the painful necessity of carrying about, from day to day, a +huge mass of double-refined disease, pillaged from the foulest and +filthiest of animals.</p> + +<p>Vegetable-eaters—especially if they avoid condiments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> as well as flesh +and fish—are not apt to be thirsty. It is a common opinion among the +laboring portion of the community, that they who perspire freely, must +drink freely. And yet I have known one or two hard laborers who were +accustomed to sweat profusely and freely, who hardly ever drank any +thing, except a little tea or milk at their meals, and yet were +remarkably strong and healthy, and attained to a great age. One of this +description (Frederick Lord, of Hartford, Conn.), lived to about the age +of eighty-five. How the system is supplied, in such cases, with fluid, I +do not know; but I know it is not necessary to drink perpetually for the +purpose; for if but one healthy man can dispense with drinking, others +may. The truth is, we seldom drink from real thirst. We drink chiefly +either from habit, or because we have created a morbid or diseased +thirst by improper food or drink, among which animal food is pretty +conspicuous.</p> + +<p>I have intimated that, in order to escape thirst, the vegetable-eater +must abstain also from condiments. This he will be apt to do. It is he +who eats flesh and fish, and drinks something besides water, who feels +such an imperious necessity for condiments. The vegetable and milk +eater, and water-drinker, do not need them.</p> + +<p>It is in this view, that the vegetable system lies at the foundation of +all reform in the matter of temperance. So long as the use of animal +food is undisturbed and its lawfulness unquestioned, all our efforts to +heal the maladies of society are superficial. The wound is not yet +probed to the bottom. But, renounce animal food, restore us to our +proper condition, and feed us on milk and farinaceous articles, and our +fondness for excitement and our hankering for exciting drinks and +condiments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> will, in a few generations, die away. Animal food is a root +of all evil, so far as temperance is concerned, in its most popular and +restricted sense.</p> + +<p>The pure vegetable-eaters, especially those who are trained as such, +seldom drink at all. Some use a little water with their meals, and a few +drink occasionally between them, especially if they labor much in the +open air, and perspire freely. Some taste nothing in the form of drink +for months, unless we call the abundant juices of apples and other +fruits, and milk, etc., by that name—of which, by the way, they are +exceedingly fond. The reason is, they are seldom thirsty. Dr. Lambe, of +London, doubts whether man is naturally a drinking animal; but I do not +carry the matter so far. Still I believe that ninety-nine hundredths of +the drink which is used, <i>as</i> now used, does more harm than good.</p> + +<p>He who avoids flesh and fish, escapes much of that languor and +faintness, at particular hours, which others feel. He has usually a +clear and quiet head in the morning. He is ready, and willing, and glad +to rise in due season; and his morning feelings are apt to last all day. +He has none of that faintness between his meals which many have, and +which tempts thousands to luncheons, drams, tobacco, snuff, and opium, +and ultimately destroys so much health and life. The truth is, that +vegetable food is not only more quiet and unstimulating than any other, +but it holds out longer also. I know the contrary of this is the general +belief; but it is not well founded. Animal food stimulates most, and as +the stimulus goes off soon, we are liable to feel dull after it, and to +fancy we need the stimulus of drink or something else to keep us up till +the arrival of another meal. And, having acquired a habit of relying on +our food to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> stimulate us immediately, much more than to give us real, +lasting, permanent strength, it is no wonder we feel, for a time, a +faintness if we discontinue its use. This only shows the power of habit, +and the over-stimulating character of our accustomed food. Nor does the +simple vegetable-eater suffer, during the spring, as other people say +they do. All is cheerful and happy with him, even then. Nor, lastly, is +he subject to hypochondria or depression of spirits. He is always lively +and cheerful; and all with him is bright and happy. As it has been +expressed elsewhere, with the truly temperate man it is "morning all +day."</p> + +<p>The system of diet in question, greatly improves, exalts, and perfects +the senses. The sight, smell, and taste are rendered greatly superior by +it. The difference in favor of the hearing and the touch may not be so +obvious; nevertheless, it is believed to be considerable. But the change +in the other senses—the first three which I have named—even when we +reform as late as at thirty-five or forty, is wonderful. I do not wish +to encourage, by this, a delay of the work of reformation; we can never +begin it too early.</p> + +<p>Vegetable diet favors beauty of form and feature. The forms of the +natives of some of the South Sea Islands, to say nothing of their +features, are exceedingly fine. They are tall and well proportioned. So +it is with the Japanese and Chinese, especially of the interior, where +they subsist almost wholly on rice and fruits. The Japanese are the +finest men, physically speaking, in Asia. The New Hollanders, on the +contrary, who live almost wholly on flesh and fish, are among the most +meagre and ugly of the human race, if we except the flesh-eating savages +of the north, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> Greenlanders and Laplanders. In short, the +principle I have here advanced will hold, as a <i>general rule</i>, I +believe, other things being equal, throughout the world. If it be asked +whether I would exalt beauty and symmetry into virtues, I will only say +that they are not without their use in a virtuous people; and I look +forward to a period in the world's history, when all will be +comparatively well formed and beautiful. Beauty is exceedingly +influential, as every one must have observed who has been long in the +world; at least, if he has had his eyes open. And it is probably right +that it should be so. Our beauty is almost as much within our control, +as a race, as our conduct.</p> + +<p>A vegetable diet, moreover, promotes and preserves a clearness and a +generally healthful state of the mental faculties. I believe that much +of the moral as well as intellectual error in the world, arises from a +state of mind which is produced by the introduction of improper liquids +and solids into the stomach, or, at least, by their application to the +nervous system. Be this as it may, however, there is nothing better for +the brain than a temperate diet of well-selected vegetables, with water +for drink. This Sir Isaac Newton and hundreds of others could abundantly +attest.</p> + +<p>It also favors an evenness and tranquillity of temper, which is of +almost infinite value. The most fiery and vindictive have been enabled, +by this means, when all other means had failed, to transform themselves +into rational beings, and to become, in this very respect, patterns to +those around them. If this were its only advantage, in a physiological +point of view, it would be of more value than worlds. It favors, too, +simplicity of character. It makes us, in the language of the Bible,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> to +remain, or to become, as little children, and it preserves our juvenile +character and habits through life, and gives us a green old age.</p> + +<p>Finally and lastly, it gives us an independence of external things and +circumstances, that can never be attained without it. In vain may we +resort to early discipline and correct education—in vain to moral and +religious training—in vain, I had almost said, to the promises and +threatenings of heaven itself, so long as we continue the use of food so +unnatural to man as the flesh of animals, with the condiments and +sauces, and improper drinks which follow in its train. Our hope, under +God, is, in no small degree, on a radical change in man's dietetic +habits—in a return to that simple path of truth and nature, from which, +in most civilized countries, those who have the pecuniary means of doing +it have unwisely departed.</p> + + +<h4>III. THE MEDICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>If perfect health is the best preventive and security against disease, +and if a well-selected and properly administered vegetable diet is best +calculated to promote and preserve that perfect health, then this part +of the subject—what I have ventured to call the medical argument—is at +once disposed of. The superiority of the diet I recommend is established +beyond the possibility of debate. Now that this is the case—namely, +that this diet is best calculated to promote perfect health—I have no +doubt. For the sake of others, however, it may be well to adduce a few +facts, and present a few brief considerations.</p> + +<p>It is now pretty generally known, that Howard, the philanthropist, was, +for about forty years a vegetable-eater,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> subsisting for much of this +time on bread and tea, and that he went through every form of exposure +to disease, contagious and non-contagious, perfectly unharmed. And had +it not been for other physical errors than those which pertain to diet, +I know of no reason why his life might not have been preserved many +years longer—perhaps to this time.</p> + +<p>Rev. Josiah Brewer, late a missionary in Smyrna, was very much exposed +to disease, and, like Mr. Howard, to the plague itself; and yet I am not +aware that he ever had a single sick day as the consequence of his +exposure. I do not know with certainty that he abstains entirely from +flesh meat, but he is said to be rigidly temperate in other respects.</p> + +<p>Those who have read Rush's Inquiries and other writings, are aware that +he was very much exposed to the yellow fever in Philadelphia, during the +years in which it prevailed there. Now, there is great reason for +believing that he owed his exemption from the disease, in part, at +least, to his great temperance.</p> + +<p>Mr. James, a teacher in Liberia, in Africa, had abstained for a few +years from animal food, prior to his going out to Africa. Immediately +after his arrival there, and during the sickly season, one of his +companions who went out with him, died of the fever. Mr. James was +attacked slightly, but recovered.</p> + +<p>Another vegetable-eater—the Rev. Mr. Crocker—went out to a sickly part +of Africa some years since, and remained at his station a long time in +perfect health, while many of his friends sickened or died. At length, +however, he fell.</p> + +<p>Gen. Thomas Sheldon, of this state, a vegetable-eater, spent several +years in the most sickly parts of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> Southern United States, with an +entire immunity from disease; and he gives it as his opinion that it is +no matter where we are, so that our dietetic and other habits are +correct.</p> + +<p>Mr. G. McElroy, of Kentucky, spent several months of the most sickly +season in the most unhealthy parts of Africa, in the year 1835, and yet +enjoyed the best of health the whole time. While there and on his +passage home, he abstained wholly from animal food, living on rice and +other farinaceous vegetables and fruits.</p> + +<p>In view of these facts and many others, Mr. Graham remarks: "Under a +proper regimen our enterprising young men of New England may go to New +Orleans or Liberia, or any where else they choose, and stay as long as +they choose, and yet enjoy good health." And there is no doubt he is +right.</p> + +<p>But it is hardly worth while to cite single facts in proof of a point of +this kind. There is abundant testimony to be had, going to show that a +vegetable diet is a security against disease, especially against +epidemics, whether in the form of a mere influenza or malignant fever. +Nay, there is reason to believe that a person living according to <i>all</i> +the Creator's laws, physical and moral, could hardly receive or +communicate disease of any kind. How could a person in perfect health, +and obeying to an iota all the laws of health—how could he contract +disease? What would there be in his system which could furnish a nidus +for its reception?</p> + +<p>I am well aware that not a few people suppose the most healthy are as +much exposed to disease as others, and that there are some who even +suppose they are much more so. "Death delights in a shining mark," or +something to this effect, is a maxim which has probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> had its origin +in the error to which I have adverted. To the same source may be traced +the strange opinion that a fatal or malignant disease makes its first +and most desperate attacks upon the healthy and the robust. The fact +is—and this explains the whole riddle—those who are regarded, by the +superficial and short-sighted in this matter, as the most healthy and +robust, are usually persons whose unhealthy habits have already sown the +seeds of disease; and nothing is wanting but the usual circumstances of +epidemics to rouse them into action. More than all this, these +strong-looking but inwardly-diseased persons are almost sure to die +whenever disease does attack them, simply on account of the previous +abuses of their constitutions.</p> + +<p>During the prevalence of the cholera in New York, about the year 1832, +all the Grahamites, as they were called, who had for some time abstained +from animal food—and their number was quite respectable—and who +persevered in it, either wholly escaped the disease, or had it very +lightly; and this, too, notwithstanding a large proportion of them were +very much exposed to its attacks, living in the parts of the city where +it most prevailed, or in families where others were dying almost daily. +This could not be the result of mere accident; it is morally impossible.</p> + +<p>But flesh-eaters—admitting the flesh were wholesome—are not only much +more liable to contract disease, but if they contract it, to suffer more +severely than others. There is yet another important consideration which +belongs to the medical argument. Animal food is much more liable than +vegetable food, to those changes or conditions which we call poisonous, +and which are always, in a greater or less degree, the sources of +disease;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> it is also more liable to poisonous mixtures or adulterations.</p> + +<p>It is true, that in the present state of the arts, and of agriculture +and civic life generally, vegetables themselves are sometimes the +sources of disease. I refer not to the spurred rye and other substances, +which occasionally find their way into our fields and get mixed with our +grains, etc., and which are known to be very active poisons,—so much as +to the acrid or otherwise improper juices which are formed by forced +vegetation, especially about cities, whether by means of hot-beds, +green-houses, or new, strong, or highly-concentrated manures. I refer +also to the crude, unripe, and imperfect fruits and other things with +which our markets are filed now-a-days; and especially to <i>decaying</i> +fruits and vegetables. But I cannot enlarge; a volume would be too +little to do this part of the subject justice. Nothing is more wanted +than light on this subject, and a consequent reform in our fashionable +agriculture and horticulture.</p> + +<p>And yet, although I admit, most cheerfully, the danger we are in of +contracting disease by using diseased vegetables, the danger is neither +so frequent nor so imminent, in proportion to the quantity of it +consumed, as from animal food. Let us briefly take a view of the facts.</p> + +<p>Milk, in its nature, approaches nearest to the line of the vegetable +kingdom, and is therefore, in my view, the least objectionable form of +animal food. I am even ready to admit that for persons affected with +certain forms of chronic disease, and for all children, milk is +excellent. And yet, excellent as it is, it is very liable to be +injurious. We are told, by the most respectable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> medical men of France, +that all the cows about Paris have tubercles (the seeds or beginning of +consumption) in their lungs which is probably owing to the unnatural +state in which they are kept, as regards the kind, and quantity, and +hours of receiving their food; and especially as regards air, exercise, +and water. Cows cannot be healthy, nor any other domestic animals, any +more than men, when long subjected to the unnatural and unhealthy +influences of bad air, want of exercise, etc. Hence, then, most of our +cows about our towns and cities must be diseased, in a greater or less +degree—if not with consumption, with something else. And of course +their milk must be diseased—not, perhaps, as much as their blood and +flesh, but more or less so. But if milk is diseased, the butter and +cheese made from it must be diseased also.</p> + +<p>But milk is sometimes diseased through the vegetables which are eaten by +the cow. Every one knows how readily the sensible properties of certain +acrid plants are perceived in the milk. Hence as I have elsewhere +intimated, we are doubly exposed to danger from eating animal food; +first, from the diseases of the animal itself, and secondly, from the +diseases which are liable to be induced upon us by the vegetables they +use, some of which are not poisonous to them, but are so to us. So that, +in avoiding animal food, we escape at least a part of the danger.</p> + +<p>Besides the general fact, that almost all medical and dietetic writers +object to fat, and to butter among the rest, as difficult of digestion +and tending to cutaneous and other diseases,—and besides the general +admission in society at large that it makes the skin "break out,"—it +must be obvious that it is liable to retain, in a greater<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> or less +degree, all the poisonous properties which existed in the milk from +which it was made. Next to fat pork, butter seems to me one of the worst +things that ever entered a human stomach; and if it will not, like pork, +quite cause the leprosy, it will cause almost every other skin disease +which is known.</p> + +<p>Cheese is often poisoned now-a-days by design. I do not mean to say that +the act of poisoning is accompanied by malice toward mankind; far from +it. It is added to color it, as in the form of anatto; or to give it +freshness and tenderness, as in the case of arsenic.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>Eggs, when not fresh, are more or less liable to disease. I might even +say more. When not fresh, they <i>are</i> diseased. On this point we have the +testimony of Drs. Willich and Dunglison. The truth is, that the yolk of +the egg has a strong tendency to decomposition, and this decomposing or +putrefying process <i>begins</i> long before it is perceived, or even +suspected, by most people. There is much reason for believing that a +large proportion of the eggs eaten in civic life,—except when we keep +the poultry ourselves,—are, when used, more or less in a state of +decomposition. And yet, into how many hundred forms of food do they +enter in fashionable life, or in truth, in almost every condition of +society! The French cooks are said to have six hundred and eighty-five +methods of cooking the egg, including all the various sorts of pastry, +etc., of which it forms a component part.</p> + +<p>One of the grand objections against animal food, of almost all sorts, +is, that it tends with such comparative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> rapidity to decomposition. Such +is at least the case with eggs, flesh, and fish of every kind. The usual +way of preventing the decomposition is by processes scarcely less +hurtful—by the addition of salt, pyroligneous acid, saltpetre, lime, +etc. These, to be sure, prevent putrefaction; but they render every +thing to which they are applied, unless it is the egg, the more +indigestible.</p> + +<p>It is a strange taste in mankind, by the way, which leads them to prefer +things in a state of incipient decomposition. And yet such a taste +certainly prevails widely. Many like the flesh beaten; hence the origin +of the cruel practice of the East of whipping animals to death.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> And +most persons like fresh meat kept till it begins to be <i>tender</i>; that +is, begins to putrefy. So most persons like fermented beer better than +that which is unfermented, although fermentation is a step toward +putrefaction; and they like vinegar, too, which is also far advanced in +the same road.</p> + +<p>That diseased food causes diseases in the persons who use it, needs not, +one would think, a single testimony; and yet, I will name a few.</p> + +<p>Dr. Paris, speaking of fish, says,—"It is not improbable that certain +cutaneous diseases may be produced, or at least aggravated by such +diet." Dr. Dunglison says, bacon and cured meats are often poisonous. He +speaks of the poisonous tendency of eggs, and says that all <i>made</i> +dishes are more or less "rebellious." In Aurillac, in France, not many +years since, fifteen or sixteen persons were attacked with symptoms of +cholera after eating the milk of a certain goat. The goat died with +cholera about twenty-four hours after, and two men, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> less eminent +than Professors Orfila and Marc, gave it as their undoubted opinion that +the cholera symptoms alluded to, were caused by the milk. I have myself +known oysters at certain times and seasons to produce the same symptoms. +During the progress of a mortal disease among the poultry on Edisto +Island, S. C., in 1837, all the dogs and vultures that tasted of the +flesh of the dead poultry sickened and died. Chrisiston mentions an +instance in which five persons were poisoned by eating beef; and +Dunglison one in which fourteen persons were made sick, and some died, +from eating the meat of a calf. Between the years 1793 and 1827, it is +on record that there were in the kingdom of Wurtemberg alone, no less +than two hundred and thirty-four cases of poisoning, and one hundred and +ten deaths, from eating sausages. But I need not multiply this sort of +evidence, the world abounds with it; though for one person who is +poisoned so much as to be made sick immediately, hundreds perhaps are +only slightly affected; and the punishment may seem to be deferred for +many years.</p> + +<p>The truth, in short, is, that every fashionable process of fattening and +even of domesticating animals, induces disease; and as most of the +animals we use for food are domesticated or fattened, or both, it +follows that most of our animal food, whether milk, butter, cheese, +eggs, or flesh, is diseased food, and must inevitably, sooner or later, +induce disease in those who receive it. Those which are most fattened +are the worst, of course; as the hog, the goose, the sheep, and the ox. +The more the animal is removed from a natural state, in fattening, the +more does the fat accumulate, and the more it is diseased. Hence the +complaints against every form of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> animal oil or fat, in every age, by +men who, notwithstanding their complaints, for the most part, continue +to set mankind an example of its use.</p> + +<p>Let me here introduce a single paragraph from Dr. Cheyne, which is very +much to my present purpose.</p> + +<p>"About London, we can scarce have any but crammed poultry or stall-fed +butchers' meat. It were sufficient to disgust the stoutest stomach to +see the foul, gross, and nasty manner in which, and the fetid, putrid, +and unwholesome materials <i>with</i> which they are fed. Perpetual foulness +and cramming, gross food and nastiness, we know, will putrefy the +juices, and corrupt the muscular substance of human creatures—and sure +they can do no less in brute animals—and thus make our food poison. The +same may be said of hot-beds, and forcing plants and vegetables. The +only way of having sound and healthful animals, is to leave them to +their own natural liberty in the free air, and their own proper element, +with plenty of food and due cleanliness; and a shelter from the injuries +of the weather, whenever they have a mind to retire to it."</p> + +<p>The argument then is, that, for healthy adults at least, a well-selected +vegetable diet, other things being equal, is a preventive of disease, +and a security against its violence, should it attack us, in a far +greater degree than a diet which includes animal food in any of its +numerous forms. It will either prevent the common diseases of childhood, +including those which are deemed contagious, or render their attacks +extremely mild: it will either prevent or mitigate the symptoms of the +severe diseases of adults, not excepting malignant fevers, small-pox, +plague, etc.; and it will either prevent such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> diseases as cancer, gout, +epilepsy, scrofula, and consumption, or prolong life under them.</p> + +<p>Who that has ever thought of the condition of our domestic animals, +especially about towns and cities—their want of good air, abundant +exercise, good water, and natural food, to say nothing of the butter-cup +and the other poisonous products of over-stimulating or fresh manures +which they sometimes eat—has not been astonished to find so little +disease among us as there actually is? Animal food, in its best state, +is a great deal more stimulating and heating to the system than +vegetable food;—but how much more injurious is it made, in the +circumstances in which most animals are placed? Do we believe that even +a New Zealand cannibal would willingly eat flesh, if he knew it was from +an animal that when killed was laboring under a load of liver complaint, +gout, consumption, or fever? And yet, such is the condition of most of +the animals we slay for food. They would often die of their diseases if +we did not put the knife to their throats to prevent it.</p> + +<p>One more consideration. If the exclusive use of vegetable food will +prevent a multitude of the worst and most incurable diseases to which +human nature, in other circumstances, seems liable; if it will modify +the diseases which a mixed diet, or absolute intemperance, or gluttony +had induced,—by what rule can we limit its influence? How know we that +what is so efficacious in regard to the larger diseases, will not be +equally so in the case of all smaller ones? And why, then, may not its +universal adoption, after a few generations, banish disease entirely +from the world? Every person of common observation, knows that, as a +general rule, they who approach the nearest to a pure vegetable and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +water diet, are most exempt from disease, and the longest-lived and most +happy. How, then, can it otherwise happen than that a still closer +approximation will afford a greater exemption still, and so on +indefinitely? At what point of an approach toward such diet and regimen, +and toward perfect health at the same time, is it that we stop, and more +temperance still will injure us? In short, where do we cross the line?</p> + + +<h4>IV. THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>I have dwelt at such length on the physiological and medical arguments +in defence of the vegetable system, that I must compress my remaining +views into the smallest space possible; especially those which relate to +its political, national, or general advantages.</p> + +<p>Political economists tell us that the produce of an acre of land in +wheat, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and in fruits, will sustain +animal life sixteen times as long as when the produce of the same acre +is converted into flesh, by feeding and fattening animals upon it.</p> + +<p>But, if we admit that this estimate is too high, and if the real +difference is only eight to one, instead of sixteen to one, the results +may perhaps surprise us; and if we have not done it before, may lead us +to reflection. Let us see what some of them are.</p> + +<p>The people of the United States are believed to eat, upon the average, +an amount of animal food equal at least to one whole meal once a day, +and those of Great Britain one in two days. But taking this estimate to +be correct, Great Britain, by substituting vegetable for animal food, +might sustain forty-nine instead of twenty-one millions of inhabitants, +and the United States sixty-six millions instead of twenty; and this, +too, in their present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> comfort, and without clearing up any more new +land. Here, then, we are consuming that unnecessarily—if animal food is +unnecessary—which would sustain seventy-nine millions of human beings +in life, health, and happiness.</p> + +<p>Now, if life is a blessing at all—if it is a blessing to twenty-two +millions in Great Britain, and twenty millions in the United +States—then to add to this population an increase of seventy-nine +millions, would be to increase, in the same proportion, the aggregate of +human happiness. And if, in addition to this, we admit the very +generally received principle, that there is a tendency, from the nature +of things, in the population of any country, to keep up with the means +of support, we, of Great Britain and America, keep down, at the present +moment, by flesh-eating, sixty-three millions of inhabitants.</p> + +<p>We do not destroy them, in the full sense of the term, it is true, for +they never had an existence. But we prevent their coming into the +possession of a joyous and happy existence; and though we have no name +for it, is it not a crime? What! no crime for thirty-five millions of +people to prevent and preclude the existence of sixty-three millions?</p> + +<p>I see no way of avoiding the force of this argument, except by denying +the premises on which I have founded my conclusions. But they are far +more easily denied than disproved. The probability, after all, is, that +my estimates are too low, and that the advantages of an exclusively +vegetable diet, in a national or political point of view, are even +greater than is here represented. I do not deny, that some deduction +ought to be made on account of the consumption of fish, which does not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +prevent the growth or use of vegetable products; but my belief is, that, +including them, the animal food we use amounts to a great deal more than +one meal a day, or one third of our whole living.</p> + +<p>Suppose there was no <i>crime</i> in shutting human beings out of existence +by flesh-eating, at the amazing rate I have mentioned—still, is it not, +I repeat it, a great national or political loss? Or, will it be said, in +its defence, as has been said in defence of war, if not of intemperance +and some of the forms of licentiousness, that as the world is, it is a +blessing to keep down its population, otherwise it would soon be +overstocked? The argument would be as good in one case as in the other; +that is, it is not valid in either. The world might be made to sustain, +in comfort, even in the present comparatively infant state of the arts +and sciences, at least forty or fifty times its present number of +inhabitants. It will be time enough a thousand or two thousand years to +come, to begin to talk about the danger of the world's being +over-peopled; and, above all, to talk about justifying what we know is, +in the abstract, very wrong, to prevent a distant imagined evil; one, in +fact, which may not, and probably will not ever exist.</p> + + +<h4>V. THE ECONOMICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>The economy of the vegetable system is so intimately connected with its +political or national advantages; that is, so depends on, or grows out +of them, that I hesitated for some time before I decided to consider it +separately. Whatever is shown clearly to be for the general good policy +and well-being of society, cannot be prejudicial to the best interests +of the individuals who compose that society. Still, there are some minor +considerations that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> I wish to present under this head, that could not +so well have been introduced any where else.</p> + +<p>There is, indeed, one reason for omitting wholly the consideration of +the pecuniary advantages of the system which I am attempting to defend. +The public, to some extent, at once consider him who adverts to this +topic, as parsimonious or mean. But, conscious as I am of higher objects +in consulting economy than the saving of money, that it may be expended +on things of no more value than the mere indulgence or gratification of +the appetites or the passions, in a world where there are minds to +educate and souls to save, I have ventured to treat on the subject.</p> + +<p>It must be obvious, at a single glance, that if the vegetable products +of an acre of land—such as wheat, rye, corn, barley, potatoes, beans, +peas, turnips, beets, apples, strawberries, etc.—will sustain a family +in equal health eight times as long as the pork, or beef, or mutton, +which the same vegetables would make by feeding them to domestic +animals, it must be just as mistaken a policy for the individual to make +the latter disposition of these products as for a nation to do so. +Nations are made of individuals; and, as I have already said, whatever +is best, in the end, for the one, must also be the best, as a general +rule, for the other.</p> + +<p>But who has not been familiar from his very infancy with the maxim, that +"a good garden will half support a family?" And who that is at all +informed in regard to the manners and customs of the old world, does not +know that the maxim has been verified there, time immemorial? But again: +who has not considered, that if a garden of a given size will half +support a family, one twice as large would support it wholly?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>The truth is, it needs but a very small spot indeed, of good soil, for +raising all the necessaries of a family. I think I have shown, in +another work,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> that five hundred and fifty pounds of Indian or corn +meal, or ten bushels of the corn, properly cooked, will support, or more +than support, an adult individual a year. Four times this amount is a +very large allowance for a family of five persons; nay, even three times +is sufficient. But how small a spot of good soil is required for raising +thirty bushels of corn!</p> + +<p>It is true, no family would wish to be confined a whole year to this one +kind of food; nor do I wish to have it so; not that I think any serious +mischiefs would arise as the consequence; but I should prefer, for my +own part, a greater variety. But this does not materially alter the +case. Suppose an acre and a half of land were required for the +production of thirty bushels of corn. Let the cultivator, if he chooses, +raise only fifteen bushels of corn, and sow the remainder with barley, +or rye, or wheat. Or, if he prefer it, let him plant the one half of the +piece with beans, peas, potatoes, beets, onions, etc. The one half of +the space devoted to the production of some sort of grain would still +half support his family; and it would require more than ordinary +gluttony in a family of five persons to consume the produce of the other +half, if the crops were but moderately abundant. A quarter of an acre of +it ought to produce, at least, sixty bushels of potatoes; but this +alone, would give such a family about ten pounds of potatoes, or one +sixth of a bushel a day, for every day in the year, which is a tolerable +allowance of food, without the grain and other vegetables.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> +<p>But suppose a whole family were to live wholly on grain, as corn, or +even wheat, for the year; the whole expenditure would hardly, exceed +fifty dollars, in dear places and in the dearest times. Of course, I am +speaking now of expenses for food and drink merely, the latter of which +usually costs nothing, or need not. How small a sum is this to expend in +New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, in the maintenance of a family! +And yet, it is amply sufficient for the vegetable-eater, unless his +family live exclusively on wheat bread, or milk, when it might fall a +little short. Of corn, at a dollar a bushel, it would give him eight +pounds a day—far more than a family ought to consume, if they ate +nothing else; and of potatoes, at forty cents a bushel, above twenty +pounds, or one third of a bushel—more than sufficient for the family of +an Hibernian.</p> + +<p>Now, let me ask how much beef, or lamb, or pork, or sausages, or eggs, +or cheese, this would buy? At ten cents a pound for each, which is +comparatively low, it would buy five hundred pounds; about one pound and +six ounces for the whole family, or four or five ounces each a day. This +would be an average amount of nutriment equal to that of about two +ounces of grain, or bread of grain, a day, to each individual. In so far +as laid out in butter, or chicken, or turkey, at twenty cents a pound, +it would give also about two or three ounces a day!</p> + +<p>Further remarks under this head can hardly be necessary. He who +considers the subject in its various aspects, will be likely to see the +weight of the argument. There is a wide difference between a system +which will give to each member of a family, upon the average, only about +four or five ounces of food a day, and one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> which will give each of them +more than twenty-five ounces a day, each ounce of the latter containing +twice the nutriment of the former, and being much more savory and +healthy at the same time. There is a wide difference, in matters of +economy, at least, between <span class="smcap">one</span> and <span class="smcap">ten</span>.</p> + +<p>I will only add, under this head, a few tables. The first is to show the +comparative amount of nutritious matter contained in some of the leading +articles of human food, both animal and vegetable. It is derived from +the researches of such men as MM. Percy and Vauquelin, of France, and +Sir Humphrey Davy, of England.</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>100</td><td align='left'>pounds of</td><td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='left'>contain</td><td align='left'>85</td><td align='left'>pounds</td><td align='left'>of</td><td align='left'> nutritious matter.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Rice</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>90</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Rye</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>80</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Barley</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>83</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Peas</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>93</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Lentils</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>94</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Beans</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>89 to 92</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Bread</td><td align='left'>(average)</td><td align='left'>80</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Meat</td><td align='left'>(average)</td><td align='left'>35</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Potatoes</td><td align='left'>contain</td><td align='left'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Beets</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>14</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Carrots</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>10 to 14</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Cabbage</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>7</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Greens, turnips</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>4 to 8</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>Of course, it does not follow that every individual will be able to +extract just this amount of nutriment from each article; for, in this +respect, as well as in others, much will depend on circumstances.</p> + +<p>The second table is from Mr. James Simpson, of Manchester, England, in a +small work entitled, "The Products of the Vegetable Kingdom versus +Animal Food," recently published in London. Its facts are derived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> from +Dr. Playfair, Boussingault, and other high authorities. It will be seen +to refute, entirely, the popular notions concerning the Liebig theory. +The truth is, Liebig's views are misunderstood. His views are not so +much opposed to mine as many suppose. Besides, neither he nor I are +infallible.</p> + + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td colspan="2">Solid matter.</td><td colspan="2">Water.</td><td colspan="2">Flesh forming principle.</td><td colspan="2">Heat forming principle.</td><td colspan="2">Ashes for the bones.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Potatoes,</td><td align='right'>28</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td><td align='right'>72</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Turnips,</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>89</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>9</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Barley Meal,</td><td align='right'>84-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>15-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>68-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Beans,</td><td align='right'>86</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>31</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>51-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oats,</td><td align='right'>82</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>18</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>68</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wheat,</td><td align='right'>85-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>14-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>21</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>62</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>2-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Peas,</td><td align='right'>84</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>29</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>51-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>3-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Carrots,</td><td align='right'>13</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>87</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Veal,</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>{</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Beef,</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>{25</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mutton,</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>{</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lamb,</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>{</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Blood,</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>80</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>20</td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<h4>VI. THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPERIENCE.</h4> + +<p>A person trained in the United States or in England—but especially one +who was trained in New England—might very naturally suppose that all +the world were flesh-eaters; and that the person who abstains from an +article which is at almost every one's table, was quite singular. He +would, perhaps, suppose there must be something peculiar in his +structure, to enable him to live without either flesh or fish; +particularly, if he were a laborer. Little would he dream—little does a +person who has not had much opportunity for reading, and who has not +been taught to reflect, and who has never traveled a day's journey from +the place which gave him birth, even so much as dream—that almost all +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> world, or at least almost all the hard-laboring part of it, are +vegetable-eaters, and always have been; and that it is only in a few +comparatively small portions of the civilized and half-civilized world, +that the bone and sinew of our race ever eat flesh or fish for any thing +more than as a condiment or seasoning to the rest of their food, or even +taste it at all. And yet such is the fact.</p> + +<p>It is true, that in a vast majority of cases, as I have already +intimated, laborers are vegetable-eaters from necessity: they cannot get +flesh. Almost all mankind, as they are usually trained, are fond of +extra stimulants, if they can get them; and whether they are called +savages or civilized men, will indulge in them more or less, if they are +to be had, unless their intellectual and moral natures have been so well +developed and cultivated, as to have acquired the ascendency. Spirits, +wine, cider, beer, coffee, tea, condiments, tobacco, opium, snuff, flesh +meat, and a thousand other things, which excite, for a time, more +pleasurable sensations than water and plain vegetables and fruits, will +be sought with more or less eagerness according to the education which +has been received, and according to our power of self-government.</p> + +<p>I have said that most persons are vegetable-eaters from necessity, not +from choice. There are some tribes in the equatorial regions who seem to +be exceptions to this rule; and yet I am not quite satisfied they are +so. Some children, among us, who are trained to a very simple diet, will +seem to shrink from tea or coffee, or alcohol, or camphor, and even from +any thing which is much heated, when first presented to them. But, train +the same children to the ordinary, complex,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> high-seasoned diet of this +country, and it will not take long to find out that they are ready to +acquire the habit of relishing the excitement of almost all sorts of +<i>unnaturals</i> which can be presented to them. And if there are tribes of +men who at first refuse flesh meat, I apprehend they do so for the same +reasons which lead a child among us, who is trained simply to refuse hot +food and drink, or at least, hot tea and coffee, when the latter are +first presented to him.</p> + +<p>Gutzlaff, the Chinese traveler and missionary, has found that the +Chinese of the interior, who have scarcely ever tasted flesh or fish, +soon acquire a wonderful relish for it, just as our children do for +spirituous or exciting drinks and drugs, and as savages do for tobacco +and spirits. But he has also made another discovery, which is, that +flesh-eating almost ruins them for labor. Instead of being strong, +robust, and active, they soon become lazy, self-indulgent, and +effeminate. This is a specimen—perhaps a tolerably fair one—of the +natural tendency of such food in all ages and countries. Man every where +does best, nationally and individually, other things being equal, on a +well-chosen diet of vegetables, fruits, and water. In proportion as +individuals or families, or tribes or nations, depart from this—other +things being equal—in the same proportion do they degenerate +physically, intellectually, and morally.</p> + +<p>Such a statement may startle some of my New England readers, perhaps, +who have never had opportunity to become acquainted with facts as they +are. But can it be successfully controverted? Is it not true, that, with +a few exceptions—and those more apparent than real—nations have +flourished, and continued to flourish,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> in proportion as they have +retained the more natural dietetic habits to which I have alluded; and +that they have been unhappy or short-lived, as nations, in proportion as +exciting food and drink have been used? Is it not true, that those +individuals, families, tribes, and nations, which have used what I call +excitements, liquid or solid, have been subjected by them to the same +effects which follow the use of spirits—first, invigoration, and +subsequently decline, and ultimately a loss of strength? Why is it that +the more wealthy, all over Europe, who get flesh more or less, +deteriorate in their families so rapidly? Why is it that every thing is, +in this respect, so stationary among the middle classes and the poor?</p> + +<p>In short—for the case appears to me a plain one—it is the simple +habits of some, whether we speak of nations, families, or individuals, +which have preserved the world from going to utter decay. In ancient +times, the Egyptians, the most enlightened and one of the most enduring +of nations, were what might properly be called a vegetable-eating +nation; so were the ancient Persians, in the days of their greatest +glory; so the Essenes, among the Jews; so the Romans, as I have said +elsewhere, and the Greeks. If either Moses or Herodotus is to be +credited, men lived, in ancient times, about a thousand years. Indeed, +empire seems to have departed from among the ancient nations precisely +when simplicity departed. So it is with nations still. A flesh-eating +nation may retain the supremacy of the world a short time, as several +European and American nations have done; just as the laborer, whose +brain and nerves are stimulated by ardent spirits, may for a time +retain—through the medium of an artificial strength—the ascendency<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> +among his fellow-laborers; but the triumph of both the nation and the +individual must be short, and the debility which follows proportionable. +And if the United States, as a nation, seem to form an exception to the +truth of this remark, it is only because the stage of debility has not +yet arrived. Let us be patient, however, for it is not far off.</p> + +<p>But to come to the specification of facts. The Japanese of the interior, +according to some of the British geographers, live principally on rice +and fruits—a single handful of rice often forming the basis of their +frugal meal. Flesh, it is said, they either cannot get, or do not like; +and to milk, even, they have the same sort of aversion which most of us +have to blood. It is only a few of them, comparatively, and those +principally who live about the coasts, who ever use either flesh or +fish. And yet we have the concurring testimony of all geographers and +travelers, that in their physical and intellectual development, at +least, to say nothing of their moral peculiarities, they are the finest +men in all Asia. In what other country of Asia are schools and early +education in such high reputation as in Japan? Where are the inhabitants +so well formed, so stout made, and so robust? Compare them with the +natives of New Holland, in the same, or nearly the same longitude, and +about as far south of the equator as the Japanese are north of it, and +what a contrast! The New Hollanders, though eating flesh liberally, are +not only mere savages, but they are among the most meagre and wretched +of the human race. On the contrary, the Japanese, in mind and body, are +scarcely behind the middle nations of Europe.</p> + +<p>Nearly the same remarks will apply to China, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> with little +modification, to Hindostan. In short, the hundreds of millions of +southern Asia are, for the most part, vegetable-eaters; and a large +proportion of them live chiefly, if not wholly on rice, though by no +means the most favorable vegetable for exclusive use. What countries +like these have maintained their ancient, moral, intellectual, and +political landmarks? Grant that they have made but little improvement +from century to century; it is something not to have deteriorated. Let +us proceed with our general view of the world, ancient and modern.</p> + +<p>The Jews of Palestine, two thousand years ago, lived chiefly on +vegetable food. Flesh, of certain kinds, was indeed admissible, by their +law; but, except at their feasts and on special occasions, they ate +chiefly bread, milk, honey, and fruits.</p> + +<p>Lawrence says that "the Greeks and Romans, in the periods of their +greatest simplicity, manliness, and bravery, appear to have lived almost +entirely on plain vegetable preparations."</p> + +<p>The Irish of modern days, as well as the Scotch, are confined almost +wholly to vegetable food. So are the Italians, the Germans, and many +other nations of modern Europe. Yet, where shall we look for finer +specimens of bodily health, strength, and vigor, than in these very +countries? The females, especially, where shall we look for their +equals? The men, even—the Scotch and Irish, for example—are they +weaker than their brethren, the English, who use more animal food?</p> + +<p>It will be said, perhaps, the vegetable-eating Europeans are not always +distinguished for vigorous minds. True; but this, it may be maintained, +arises from their degraded physical condition, generally; and that +neglect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> of mental and moral cultivation which accompanies it. A few, +even here, like comets in the material system, have occasionally broken +out, and emitted no faint light in the sphere in which they were +destined to move.</p> + +<p>But we are not confined to Europe. The South Sea Islanders, in many +instances, feed almost wholly on vegetable substances; yet their agility +and strength are so great, that it is said "the stoutest and most expert +English sailors, had no chance with them in wrestling and boxing."</p> + +<p>We come, lastly, to Africa, the greater part of whose millions feed on +rice, dates, etc.; yet their bodily powers are well known.</p> + +<p>In short, more than half of the 800,000,000 of human beings which +inhabit our globe live on vegetables; or, if they get meat at all, it is +so rarely that it can hardly have any effect on their structure or +character. Out of Europe and the United States—I might even say, out of +the latter—the use of animal food is either confined to a few meagre, +weak, timid nations, like the Esquimaux, the Greenlanders, the +Laplanders, the Samoiedes, the Kamtschadales, the Ostiacs, and the +natives of Siberia and Terra del Fuego; or those wealthier classes, or +individuals of every country, who are able to range lawlessly over the +Creator's domains, and select, for their tables, whatever fancy or +fashion, or a capricious appetite may dictate, or physical power afford +them.</p> + + +<h4>VII. THE MORAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>In one point of view, nearly every argument which can be brought to show +the superiority of a vegetable diet over one that includes flesh or +fish, is a moral argument.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus, if man is so constituted by his structure, and by the laws of his +animal economy, that all the functions of the body, and of course all +the faculties of the mind, and the affections of the soul, are in better +condition—better subserve our own purposes, and the purposes of the +great Creator—as well as hold out longer, on the vegetable system—then +is it desirable, in a moral point of view, to adopt it. If mankind lose, +upon the average, about two years of their lives by sickness, as some +have estimated it,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> saying nothing of the pain and suffering +undergone, or of the mental anguish and soul torment which grow out of +it, and often render life a burden; and if the simple primitive custom +of living on vegetables and fruits, along with other good physical and +mental habits, which seem naturally connected with it, will, in time, +nearly if not wholly remove or prevent this amazing loss, then is the +argument deduced therefrom, in another part of this chapter, a moral +argument.</p> + +<p>If, as I have endeavored to show, the adoption of the vegetable system +by nations and individuals, would greatly advance the happiness of all, +in every known respect, and if, on this account, such a change in our +flesh-eating countries would be sound policy, and good economy,—then we +have another moral argument in its favor.</p> + +<p>But, again; if it be true that all nations have been the most virtuous +and flourishing, other things being equal, in the days of their +simplicity in regard to food, drink, etc.; and if we can, in every +instance, connect the decline of a nation with the period of their +departure, as a nation, into the maze of luxurious and enervating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +habits; and if this doctrine is, as a general rule, obviously applicable +to smaller classes of men, down to single families, then is the argument +we derive from it in its nature a moral one. Whatever really tends, +without the possibility of mistake, to the promotion of human happiness, +here and hereafter, is, without doubt, moral.</p> + +<p>But this, though much, is not all. The destruction of animals for food, +in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause +every reflecting individual—not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities +of our nature—to shudder. I recall: daily observation shows that such +is not the fact; nor should it, upon second thought, be expected. Where +all are dark, the color is not perceived; and so universally are the +moral sensibilities which really belong to human nature deadened by the +customs which prevail among us, that few, if any, know how to estimate, +rightly, the evil of which I speak. They have no more a correct idea of +a true sensibility—not a <i>morbid</i> one—on this subject, than a blind +man has of colors; and for nearly the same reasons. And on this account +it is, that I seem to shrink from presenting, at this time, those +considerations which, I know, cannot, from the very nature of the case, +be properly understood or appreciated, except by a very few.</p> + +<p>Still there are some things which, I trust, may be made plain. It must +be obvious that the custom of rendering children familiar with the +taking away of life, even when it is done with a good degree of +tenderness, cannot have a very happy effect. But, when this is done, not +only without tenderness or sympathy, but often with manifestations of +great pleasure, and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> children, as in some cases, are almost +constant witnesses of such scenes, how dreadful must be the results!</p> + +<p>In this view, the world, I mean our own portion of it, sometimes seems +to me like one mighty slaughter-house—one grand school for the +suppression of every kind, and tender, and brotherly feeling—one grand +process of education to the entire destitution of all moral +principle—one vast scene of destruction to all moral sensibility, and +all sympathy with the woes of those around us. Is it not so?</p> + +<p>I have seen many boys who shuddered, at first, at the thought of taking +the life, even of a snake, until compelled to it by what they conceived +to be duty; and who shuddered still more at taking the life of a lamb, a +calf, a pig, or a fowl. And yet I have seen these same boys, in +subsequent life, become so changed, that they could look on such scenes +not merely with indifference, but with gratification. Is this change of +feeling desirable? How long is it after we begin to look with +indifference on pain and suffering in brutes, before we begin to be less +affected than before by human suffering?</p> + +<p>I am not ignorant that sentiments like these are either regarded as +morbid, and therefore pitiable, or as affected, and therefore +ridiculous. Who that has read the story of Anthony Benezet, as related +by Dr. Rush, has not smiled at what he must have regarded a feeling +wholly misplaced, if nothing more? And yet it was a feeling which I +think is very far from deserving ridicule, however homely the manner of +expressing it. But I have related this interesting story in another part +of the work.</p> + +<p>I am not prepared to maintain, strongly, the old-fashioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> doctrine, +that a butcher who commences his employment at adult age, is necessarily +rendered hardhearted or unfeeling; or, that they who eat flesh have +their sensibilities deadened, and their passions inflamed by it—though +I am not sure that there is not some truth in it. I only maintain, that +to render children familiar with the taking away of animal +life,—especially the lives of our own domestic animals, often endeared +to us by many interesting circumstances of their history, or of our own, +in relation to them,—cannot be otherwise than unhappy in its tendency.</p> + +<p>How shocking it must be to the inhabitants of Jupiter, or some other +planet, who had never before witnessed these sad effects of the ingress +of sin among us, to see the carcasses of animals, either whole or by +piece-meal, hoisted upon our very tables before the faces of children of +all ages, from the infant at the breast, to the child of ten or twelve, +or fourteen, and carved, and swallowed; and this not merely once, but +from day to day, through life! What could they—what would they—expect +from such an education of the young mind and heart? What, indeed, but +mourning, desolation, and woe!</p> + +<p>On this subject the First Annual Report of the American Physiological +Society thus remarks—and I wish the remark might have its due weight on +the mind of the reader:</p> + +<p>"How can it be right to be instrumental in so much unnecessary +slaughter? How can it be right, especially for a country of vegetable +abundance like ours, to give daily employment to twenty thousand or +thirty thousand butchers? How can it be right to train our children to +behold such slaughter? How can it be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> right to blunt the edge of their +moral sensibilities, by placing before them, at almost every meal, the +mangled corpses of the slain; and not only placing them there, but +rejoicing while we feast upon them?"</p> + +<p>One striking evidence of the tendency which an habitual shedding of +blood has on the mind and heart, is found in the fact that females are +generally so reluctant to take away life, that notwithstanding they are +trained to a fondness for all sorts of animal food, very few are willing +to gratify their desires for a stimulating diet, by becoming their own +butchers. I have indeed seen females who would kill a fowl or a lamb +rather than go without it; but they are exceedingly rare. And who would +not regard female character as tarnished by a familiarity with such +scenes as those to which I have referred? But if the keen edge of female +delicacy and sensibility would be blunted by scenes of bloodshed, are +not the moral sensibilities of our own sex affected in a similar way? +And must it not, then, have a deteriorating tendency?</p> + +<p>It cannot be otherwise than that the circumstances of which I have +spoken, which so universally surround infancy and childhood, should take +off, gradually, the keen edge of moral sensibility, and lessen every +virtuous or holy sympathy. I have watched—I believe impartially—the +effect on certain sensitive young persons in the circle of my +acquaintance. I have watched myself. The result has confirmed the +opinion I have just expressed. No child, I think, can walk through a +common market or slaughter-house without receiving moral injury; nor am +I quite sure that any virtuous adult can.</p> + +<p>How have I been struck with the change produced in the young mind by +that merriment which often accompanies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> the slaughter of an innocent +fowl, or lamb, or pig! How can the Christian, with the Bible in hand, +and the merciful doctrines of its pages for his text,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Teach me to feel another's woe,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—the beast's not excepted—and yet, having laid down that Bible, go at +once from the domestic altar to make light of the convulsions and exit +of a poor domestic animal?</p> + +<p>Is it said, that these remarks apply only to the <i>abuse</i> of a thing, +which, in its place, is proper? Is it said, that there is no necessity +of levity on these occasions? Grant that there is none; still the result +is almost inevitable. But there is, in any event, one way of avoiding, +or rather preventing both the abuse and the occasion for abuse, by +ceasing to kill animals for food; and I venture to predict that the evil +never will be prevented otherwise.</p> + +<p>The usual apology for hunting and fishing, in all their various and +often cruel forms,—whereby so many of our youth, from the setters of +snares for birds, and the anglers for trout, to the whalemen, are +educated to cruelty, and steeled to every virtuous and holy +sympathy,—is, the necessity of the animals whom we pursue for food. I +know, indeed, that this is not, in most cases, the true reason, but it +is the reason given—it is the substance of the reason. It serves as an +apology. They who make it may often be ignorant of the true reason, or +they or others may wish to conceal it; and, true to human nature, they +are ready to give every reason for their conduct, but the real and most +efficient one.</p> + +<p>It must not, indeed, be concealed that there is one more apology usually +made for these cruel sports; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> made too, in some instances, by good +men; I mean, by men whose intentions are in the main pure and excellent. +These sports are healthy, they tell us. They are a relief to mind and +body. Perhaps no good man, in our own country, has defended them with +more ingenuity, or with more show of reason and good sense, than Dr. +Comstock, in his recent popular work on Human Physiology. And yet, there +is scarcely a single advantage which he has pointed out, as being +derived from the "pleasures of the chase," that may not be gained in a +way which savors less of blood. The doctor himself is too much in love +with botany, geology, mineralogy, and the various branches of natural +history, not to know what I mean when I say this. He knows full well the +excitement, and, on his own principles, the consequent relief of body +and mind from their accustomed and often painful round, which grows out +of clambering over mountains and hills, and fording streams, and +climbing trees and rocks, to need any very broad hints on the subject; +to say nothing of the delights of agriculture and horticulture. How +could he, then, give currency to practices which, to say the least,—and +by his own concessions, too,—are doubtful in regard to their moral +tendencies, by inserting his opinions in favor of sports, for which he +himself happens to be partial, in a school-book? Is this worthy of those +who would educate the youth of our land on the principles of the Bible?</p> + + +<h4>VIII. THE MILLENNIAL ARGUMENT</h4> + +<p>I believe it is conceded by most intelligent men, that all the arguments +we bring against the use of animal food, which are derived from anatomy, +physiology, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> the laws of health, or even of psychology, are well +founded. But they still say, "Man is not what he once was; he is +strangely perverted; that custom, or habit, which soon becomes second +nature, and often proves stronger to us than first nature, has so +changed him that he is more a creature of art than of nature, or at +least of <i>first</i> nature. And though animal food was not necessary to him +at first—perhaps not in accordance with his best interests—yet it has +become so by long use; and as a creature of art rather than of nature, +he now seems to require it."</p> + +<p>This reasoning, at first view, appears very <i>specious</i>. But upon second +view, we see it is wanting—greatly so—in solidity. It takes for +granted, as I understand it, that what we call civilization, has +rendered animal food necessary to man. But is it not obvious that the +condition of things which is thus supposed to render this species of +food necessary, is not likely to disappear—nay, that it is every +century becoming more and more the law, so to speak, of the land? Who is +to stop the labor-saving machine, the railroad car, or the lightning +flash of intelligence?</p> + +<p>And do not these considerations, if they prove any thing, prove quite +too much? For if, in the onward career of what is thus called +civilization, we have gone from a diet which scarcely required the use +of animal food in order to render it both palatable and healthful, to +one in whose dishes it is generally blended in some one or more of its +forms, must we not expect that a still further progress in the same +course will render the same kind of diet still more indispensable? If +flesh, fish, fowl, butter, cheese, eggs, lard, etc., are much more +necessary to us now, than they were a thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> years ago, will they not +be still more necessary a thousand years hence?</p> + +<p>I do not see how we can avoid such a conclusion. And yet such a +conclusion will involve us in very serious difficulties. In Japan and +China—the former more especially—if the march of civilization should +be found to have rendered animal food more necessary, it has at the same +time rendered it less accessible to the mass of the population. The +great increase of the human species has crowded out the animals, even +the domestic ones. Some of the old historians and geographers tell us +that there are not so many domestic animals in the whole kingdom of +Japan, as in a single township of Sweden. And must not all nations, as +society progresses and the millennium dawns, crowd out the animals in +the same way? It cannot be otherwise. True, there may remain about the +same supply as at present from the rivers and seas, and perchance from +the air; but what can these do for the increasing hundreds of millions +of such large countries? What do they for Japan? In short, if the +reasoning above were good and valid, it would seem to show that +precisely at the point of civilization where animal food becomes most +necessary, at precisely that point it becomes most scarce.</p> + +<p>These things do not seem to me to go well together. We must reject the +one or the other. If we believe in a millennium, we must, inevitably, +give up our belief in animal food, at least the belief that its +necessity grows out of the increasing wants of society. Or if, on the +other hand, we believe in the increasing necessity of animal food, we +must banish from our minds all hope of what we call a millennium, at +least for the present.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>IX. THE BIBLE ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>It is not at all uncommon for those who find themselves driven from all +their strong-holds, in this matter, to fly to the Bible. Our Saviour ate +flesh and fish, say they; and the God of the New Testament, as well as +of the Old, in this and other ways, not only permitted but sanctioned +its use.</p> + +<p>But, to say nothing of the folly of going, for proof of every thing we +wish to prove, to a book which was never given for this purpose, or of +the fact that in thus adducing Scripture to prove our favorite +doctrines, we often go too far, and prove too much; is it true that the +Saviour ate flesh and fish? Or, if this could be proved, is it true that +his example binds us forever to that which other evidence as well as +science show to be of doubtful utility? Paul did not think so, most +certainly. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, he says, +if it cause our brother to offend. Did not Paul understand, at least as +well as we, the precepts and example of our Saviour?</p> + +<p>And as to a permission to Noah and his descendants, the Jews, to use +animal food—was it not for the hardness of the human heart, as our +Saviour calls it? From the beginning, was it so? Is not man, in the +first chapter of Genesis, constituted a vegetable-eater? Was his +constitution ever altered? And if so, when and where? Will they who fly +to the Bible for their support, in this particular, please to tell us?</p> + +<p>But it is idle to go to the Bible, on this subject. I mean, it is idle +to pretend to do so, when we mean not so much. Men who <i>incline</i> to wine +and other alcoholic drinks, plead the example and authority of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +Bible. Yet you will hardly find a man who drinks wine simply because he +believes the Bible justifies its use. He drinks it for other reasons, +and then makes the foolish excuse that the Bible is on his side. So in +regard to the use of flesh meat. Find a man who really uses flesh or +fish <i>because</i> the Bible requires him to do so, and I will then discuss +the question with him on Bible ground. Till that time, further argument +on this direction is unnecessary.</p> + + +<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4> + +<p>But I must conclude this long essay. There is one consideration, +however, which I am unwilling to omit, although, in deciding on the +merits of the question before us, it may not have as much +weight—regarded as a part of the moral argument—on every mind, as it +has on my own.</p> + +<p>Suppose the great Creator were to make a new world somewhere in the +regions of infinite space, and to fit it out in most respects like our +own. It is to be the place and abode of such minerals, vegetables, and +animals as our own. Instead, however, of peopling it gradually, he fills +it at once with inhabitants; and instead of having the arts and the +sciences in their infancy, he creates every thing in full maturity. In a +word, he makes a world which shall be exactly a copy of our own, with +the single exception that the 800,000,000 of free agents in it shall be +supposed to be wholly ignorant in regard to the nature of the food +assigned them. But the new world is created, we will suppose, at +sunrise, in October. The human inhabitants thereof have stomachs, and +soon, that is, by mid-day or before night, feel the pangs of hunger. +Now, what will they eat?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> + +<p>The world being mature, every thing in it is, of course, mature. Around, +on every hand, are cornfields with their rich treasures; above, that is, +in the boughs of the orchards, hang the rich russets, pippins, and the +various other excellent kinds of the apple, with which our own country +and other temperate climates abound. In tropical regions, of course, +almost every vegetable production is flourishing at that season, as well +as the corn and the apple. Or, he has but to look on the surface of the +earth on which he stands, and there are the potatoe, the turnip, the +beet, and many other esculent roots; to say nothing of the squash, the +pumpkin, the melon, the chestnut, the walnut, the beechnut, the +butternut, the hazelnut, etc.,—most of which are nourishing, and more +or less wholesome, and are in full view. Around him, too, are the +animals. I am willing even to admit the domestic animal—the horse, the +ox, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the turkey, the goose, the +hen, yes, and even the pig. And now, I ask again, what will he eat? He +is destitute of experience, and he has no example. But he has a stomach, +and he is hungry: he has hands and he has teeth; the world is all before +him, and he is the lord of it, at least so far as to use such food in it +as he pleases.</p> + +<p>Does any one believe that, in these circumstances, man would prey upon +the animals around him? Does any person believe—can he for one moment +believe—he would forthwith imbrue his hands in blood, whether that of +his own species or of some other? Would he pass by the mellow apple, +hanging in richest profusion every where, inviting him as it were by its +beauties? Would he pass by the fields, with their golden ears?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> Would he +despise the rich products of field, and forest, and garden, and hasten +to seize the axe or the knife, and, ere the blood had ceased to flow, or +the muscles to quiver, give orders to his fair but affrighted companion +within to prepare the fire, and make ready the gridiron or the spider? +Or, without the knowledge even of this, or the patience to wait for the +tedious process of cooking to be completed, would he eat raw the +precious morsel? Does any one believe this? Can any one—I repeat the +question—can any one believe it?</p> + +<p>On the contrary, would not every living human being revolt, at first, +from the idea, let it be suggested as it might, of plunging his hands in +blood? Can there be a doubt that he would direct his attention at +first—yes, and for a long time afterward—to the vegetable world for +his food? Would it not take months and years to reconcile his +feelings—his moral nature—to the thought of flesh-mangling or +flesh-eating? At least, would not this be the result, if he were a +disciple of Christianity? Although professing Christians, as the world +is now constituted, do not hesitate to commit such depredations, would +they do so in the circumstances we have supposed?</p> + +<p>I am sure there can be but one opinion on this subject; although I +confess it impossible for me to say how it may strike other minds +constituted somewhat differently from my own. With me, this +consideration of the subject has weight and importance. It is not +necessary, however. The argument—the moral argument, I mean—is +sufficient, as it seems to me, without it. What then shall we say of the +anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the +economical, the experimental, the Bible, the millennial, and the moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +arguments, when united? Have they not force? Are they not a nine-fold +cord, not easily broken? Is it not too late in the day of human +improvement to meet them with no argument but ignorance, and with no +other weapon but ridicule?</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> For proof that arsenic or ratsbane is sometimes added to +cheese, see the Library of Health, volume ii., page 69. In proof of the +poisonous tendency of milk and butter, see Whitlaw's Theory of Fever, +and Clark's Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See Dunglison's Hygiene, page 250.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The Young Housekeeper.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Or, more nearly, perhaps, a year and a half, in this +country. In England, it is one year and five-sevenths.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> +<h2>OUTLINES</h2> + +<h4>OF A</h4> + +<h2>NEW SYSTEM OF FOOD AND COOKERY.</h2> + + +<p>In the work of revising and preparing the foregoing volume for +publication, the writer was requested to add to it a system of vegetable +cookery. At first he refused to do so, both on account of the difficulty +of bringing so extensive a subject within the compass of twenty or +thirty pages, and because it did not seem to him to be called for, in +connection with the present volume. But he has yielded his own judgment +to the importunity of the publishers and other friends of the work, and +prepared a mere outline or skeleton of what he may hereafter fill up, +should circumstances and the necessary leisure permit.</p> + +<p>But there is one difficulty to be met with at the very threshold of the +subject. Vegetable eaters are not so hard driven to find whereon to +subsist, as many appear to suppose. For the question is continually +asked, "If you dispense wholly with flesh and fish, pray what can you +find to eat?" Now, while we are aware that one small sect of the +vegetarians—the followers of Dr. Schlemmer—eat every thing in a raw +state, we are, for ourselves, full believers in plain and simple +cookery. That a potato, for example, is better cooked than uncooked, +both for man and beast, we have not the slightest doubt. We believe that +a system of preparing food which renders the raw material more +palatable, more digestible, and more nutritious, or perhaps all this at +once, must be legitimate, and even preferable—if not for the +individual, at least for the race.</p> + +<p>But the difficulty alluded to is, how to select a few choice dishes from +the wide range—short of flesh and fish—which God and nature permit. +For if we believed in the use of eggs when commingled with food, we +should hardly deem it proper to go the whole length of our French +brethren, who have nearly seven hundred vegetable dishes, of which eggs +form a component part; nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> the whole length even to which our own +powers of invention might carry us; no, nor even the whole length to +which the writer of an English work now before us, and entitled +"Vegetable Cookery," has gone—the extent of about a thousand plain +receipts. We believe the whole nature of man, and even his appetite, +when unperverted, is best served and most fully satisfied with a range +of dishes which shall hardly exceed hundreds.</p> + +<p>It is held by Dr. Dunglison, Dr. Paris, and many of the old school +writers, that all made dishes—all mixtures of food—are "more or less +rebellious;" that is, more or less indigestible, and consequently more +or less hurtful. If they mean by this, that in spite of the +accommodating power of the stomach to the individual, they are hurtful +to the race, I go with them most fully. But I do <i>not</i> believe that <i>all +made dishes, to all persons</i>, are so directly injurious as many suppose. +God has made man, in a certain sense, omnivorous. His physical stomach +can receive and assimilate, like his mental stomach, a great variety of +substances; and both can go on, without apparent disease, for a great +many years, and perhaps for a tolerably long life in this way.</p> + +<p>There is, however, a higher question for man to ask as a rational being +and as a Christian, than whether this or that dish will hurt him +directly. It is, whether a dish or article is <i>best</i> for him—best for +body, mind, and heart—best for the whole human nature—best for the +whole interests of the whole race—best for time, and best for eternity. +Startle not, reader, at this assertion. If West could properly say, "I +paint for eternity," the true disciple of Christ and truth can say, "I +eat and drink for eternity." And a higher authority than any that is +merely human has even required us to do so.</p> + +<p>This places the subject of preparing food on high ground. And were I to +carry out my plan fully, I should exclude from a Christian system of +food and cookery all mixtures, properly so called, and all medicines or +condiments. Not that all mixtures are equally hurtful to the well-being +of the race, nor all medicines. Indeed, considering our training and +habits, some of both, to most persons, have become necessary. I know of +many whose physical inheritance is such, that salt, if not a few other +medicinal substances, have become at least present necessaries to them. +And to those mixtures of substances closely allied, as farina with +farina—meal of one kind with meal of another—I could scarcely have any +objection, myself. Nature objects to incompatibles, and therefore I do; +and medicine, and all those kinds of food which are opposed one to +another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> are incompatible with each other. When one is in the stomach, +the other should not be.</p> + +<p>I have spoken of carrying out my plan, but this I cannot now fully do. +It would not be borne, till, as Lord Bacon used to say, "some time be +passed over." But, on the other hand, I am unwilling to give directions, +as I did ten or twelve years ago, in my Young Housekeeper, such as shall +pander to a perverted—most abominably perverted—public taste. Man is +made for progress, and it is high time the public standard were raised +in regard to food and cookery.</p> + +<p>Although grains and fruits are the natural food of man, yet there are a +variety of shapes in which the grains or farinacea may be presented to +us; and there are a few substances fit for food which do not properly +belong to either of these classes. I shall treat first of the different +kinds of food prepared from grain or farinaceous substances; secondly, +of fruits; thirdly, of roots; and fourthly, speak of a few articles that +do not properly belong to any of the three.</p> + +<p>While, therefore, as will be seen by the remarks already made, I have +many things to say that the community cannot yet bear, it need not +escape the observation of the most careless reader, that I aim at +nothing less than an entire ultimate subversion of the present system of +cookery, believing it to be utterly at war with the laws of God, and of +man's whole nature.</p> + + +<h3>CLASS I.—FARINACEOUS, OR MEALY SUBSTANCES.</h3> + +<p>The principal of these are wheat, oats, Indian corn, rice, rye, barley, +buckwheat, millet, chestnuts, peas, beans, and lentils. They are +prepared in various forms.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION I.—BREAD.</h3> + +<p>The true idea of bread is that coarse or cracked and unbolted meal, +formed into a mass of dough by means of water, and immediately baked in +loaves of greater or less thickness, according to the fancy.</p> + +<p>Some use bolted meal; most raise bread by fermentation; many use salt; +some saleratus, or carbonate of potash; and, in the country, many use +milk instead of water to form the paste. I might also mention several +other additions, which, like saleratus, it is becoming fashionable to +make.</p> + +<p>All these things are a departure, greater or less, from the true<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> idea +of a bread; and bread made with any of these changes, is so much the +less perfectly adapted to the promotion of health, happiness, and +longevity.</p> + +<p>Bolting is objectionable, because bread made from bolted meal, +especially when eaten hot, is more apt, when the digestive powers are +not very vigorous, to form a paste, which none but very strong stomachs +can entirely overcome. Besides, it takes out a part of the sweetness, or +life, as it is termed, of the flour. They who say fine flour bread is +sweetest, are led into this mistake by the force of habit, and by the +fact that the latter comes in contact, more readily than coarse bread, +with the papillæ of the tongue, and seems to have more taste to it +because it touches at more points.</p> + +<p>Raising bread by inducing fermentation, wastes a part of the saccharine +matter; and the more it is raised, the greater is the waste. By +lessening the attraction of cohesion, it makes it more easy of +digestion, it is true; but the loss of nutriment and of pleasure to the +true appetite more than counterbalances this. Bakers, in striving to get +a large loaf, rob the bread of most of its sweetness.</p> + +<p>Salt is objectionable, because it hardens the bread, and renders it more +difficult of digestion. Our ancestors, in this country, did not use it +at all; and many are the families that will not use it now.</p> + +<p>Those who use salt in bread, tell us how <i>flat</i> it would taste without +it. This idea of flatness has two sources. 1. We have so long given our +bread the taste of salt, as we have most other things, that it seems +tasteless without it. 2. The flatness spoken of in an article of food is +oftentimes the true taste of the article, unaltered by any stimulus. If +any two articles need to be stimulated with salt, however, it is rice +and beans—bread never.</p> + +<p>If saleratus is used in bread where no acidity is present, it is a +medicine; or, if you please, a poison both to the stomach and +intestines. If it meets and neutralizes an acid either in the bread-tray +or the stomach, the residuum is a new chemical compound diffused through +the bread, which is more or less injurious, according to its nature and +quantity.</p> + +<p>Milk is objectionable on the score of its tendency to render the bread +more indigestible than when it was wet with water, and perhaps by +rendering it too nutritious. For good bread without the milk is already +too nutritious for health, if eaten exclusively, for a long time. That +man should not live on bread alone, is as true physically as it is +morally.</p> + +<p>No bread should be eaten while new and hot—though the finer it is, the +worse for health when thus eaten. Old bread, heated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> again, is less +hurtful. But if eaten both new and hot, and with butter or milk, or any +thing which soaks and fills it, the effect is very bad. Mrs. Howland, in +her Economical Housekeeper, says much about <i>ripe</i> bread. And I should +be glad to say as much, had I room, about ripe bread, and about the true +philosophy of bread and bread-making, as she has.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>Bread of the first order.</i></h4> + +<p>This is made of coarse meal—as coarse as it can well be ground, +provided the kernels are all broken. The grain should be well washed, +and it may be ground in the common way, or according to the oriental +mode, in hand-mills. The latter mode is preferable, because you can thus +have it fresh. Meal is somewhat injured by being kept long ground.</p> + +<p>If great pains is not taken to have the grain clean when ground, it +needs to be passed through a coarse sieve, that all foreign bodies may +be carefully separated. The hulls of corn, and especially the husks of +oats and buckwheat, should also be separated in some way. In no case, +however, should meal be bolted. Good health requires that we eat the +innutritious and coarser parts as well as the finer.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Take a sufficient quantity of good, recent wheat meal;<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> +wet it well, but not too soft, with pure water; form it into thin cakes, +and bake it as hard as the teeth will bear. Remember, however, that the +saliva aids the teeth greatly, especially when you masticate your food +slowly. The cakes should be very thin—the thinner the better. Many, +however, prefer them an inch thick, or even more.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Oat meal prepared in the same manner. Procure what is called +the Scotch kiln dried oat meal, if you can. No matter if it is +manufactured in New England, if it is well done.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Indian meal cakes, otherwise called hoe cakes, or Johnny +cakes, are next in point of value to bread made of wheat and oats. They +are most healthy, however, in cold weather.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Rye cakes come next. Warm instead of cold water is often +used to wet all the above. Some even choose to scald the meal. Fancy may +be indulged in this particular, only you must remember that warm water +in warm weather may soon give rise, if the mass stands long, to a degree +of fermentation, which, for the best bread, should be avoided.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Barley meal bread comes next in order in the unleavened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +series. In regard to this species of bread, however, I do not speak from +experience, but from report.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Of millet bread I know still less. Cakes made of it, as +above, must certainly be wholesome.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Buckwheat cakes are last in the series of the best breads. +The meal is always too fine, and hence makes heavy bread, except when +hot. Few use it without fermentation.</p> + +<p>Unleavened bread may be made as above, of all the various kinds of +grain, finely ground; but it is apt to be heavy, whereas, when made +properly, of coarse meal, it is only firm, never heavy; that is, it +never has a lead-like appearance. They may make and use it who have iron +stomachs.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>Bread of the second order.</i></h4> + +<p>This consists essentially of mixtures of the various coarse meals. True +it is, that made or mixed food is objectionable; but the union of one +farinaceous substance with another to form bread, can hardly be +considered a mixture. It is, essentially, the addition of farina to +farina, with some change in the proportion of the gluten and other +properties.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Wheat meal and Indian, in about the proportion of two parts +of wheat to one of Indian.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Wheat meal and oat meal, about equal parts.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Wheat meal and Indian, equal parts.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Wheat meal and rye meal; two parts, quarts, or pounds of the +former to one of the latter.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Rye and Indian, equal parts of each.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Rye, two thirds; Indian, one third.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Wheat meal and rice. Three quarts of wheat meal to one pint +of good clean rice, boiled till it is soft.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Three parts of wheat meal to one of Indian.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Four parts of wheat to one of Indian.</p> + +<p>The proportion of the ingredients above may be varied to a great extent. +I have inserted some of the best. The following are <i>irregulars</i>, but +may as well be mentioned here as any where.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 10.</span>—Two quarts of wheat meal to one pound of well boiled ripe +beans, made soft by pounding or otherwise.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 11.</span>—Seven pounds of wheat meal and two and a half pounds of +good, mealy, and well boiled and pounded potatoes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 12.</span>—Equal parts of coarse meal from rye, barley, and buckwheat. +This is chiefly used in Westphalia.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 13.</span>—Seven parts of wheat meal (as in Receipt 11),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> with two +pounds of split peas boiled to a soup, and used to wet the flour.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 14.</span>—Wheat meal and apples, in the proportion of about three of +the former (some use two) to one of the latter. The apples must be first +pared and cored, and stewed or baked. See my "Young Housekeeper," +seventh edition, page 396.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 15.</span>—Wheat meal and boiled chestnuts; three quarts of the former +to one of the latter.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 16.</span>—Wheat meal, four quarts, and one quart of well boiled and +pounded marrow squash.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 17.</span>—Wheat, corn, or barley meal; three quarts to one quart of +powdered comfrey root. This is inserted from the testimony of Rev. E. +Rich, of Troy, N. H.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 18.</span>—Wheat meal, three pounds, to one pound of pounded corn, +boiled and pounded green. This is the most doubtful form which has yet +been mentioned.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 19.</span>—Receipt 7 describes rice bread. Bell, in his work on Diet +and Regimen, says the best and most economical rice bread is made thus: +Wheat meal, three pounds; rice, well boiled, one pound—wet with the +water in which the rice is boiled.</p> + +<p>I wish to say here, once for all, that any kind of bread may be salted, +if you will <i>have</i> salt, except the patented bread mentioned in the +beginning of the next section, which is salted in the process. Molasses +in small quantity may also be added, if preferred.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section C.</span>—<i>Bread of the third kind.</i></h4> + +<p>Of this there are several kinds. Those which are made by a simple +effervescence, provided the residuum is not injurious, are best, and +shall accordingly be placed first in order. Next will follow various +kinds of bread made by the ordinary process of fermentation, salting, +etc.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Wheat meal, seven pounds; carbonate of soda or saleratus<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> +three quarters of an ounce to one ounce; water, two and three quarter +pints; muriatic acid, 420 to 560 drops. Mix the soda with the meal as +intimately as possible, by means of a wooden spoon or stick. Then mix +the acid and water, and add it slowly to the mass, stirring it +constantly. Make three loaves of it, and bake it in a quick oven.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Wheat meal, one pound; sesquicarbonate of soda,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> forty +grains; muriatic acid, fifty drops; cold water, half a pint, or a +sufficient quantity. Mix in the same way, and with the same caution, as +in Receipt 1. Make one loaf of it, and bake in a quick oven.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Wheat meal, one quart; cream of tartar, two tea-spoonfuls; +saleratus, one tea-spoonful; and two and a half teacups full of milk. +Mix well, and bake thirty minutes. If the meal is fresh, as it ought to +be, the milk may be omitted.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Coarse rye meal, Indian meal, and oat meal, may be formed +into bread in nearly a similar manner. So, in fact, may fine meal and +all sorts of mixtures.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Professor Silliman more than intimates, that carbonic acid +gas <i>might</i> be made to inflate bread, without either an effervescence or +a fermentation. The plan is, to force carbonic acid, by some means or +other, into the mass of dough, or, as bakers call it, the sponge. I do +not know that the experiment has yet been made.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Coarse Indian meal may be formed into small, rather thin +loaves, and prepared and baked as in Receipt 3.</p> + +<p>Let us now proceed to common fermented bread:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Wheat meal, six pounds; good yeast, a teacup full; and a +sufficient quantity of pure water. Knead thoroughly. Bake it in small +loaves, unless you have a very strong heat.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Another way: Wheat meal, six quarts; molasses and yeast, +each a teacup full. Mould into loaves half the thickness you mean they +shall be after they are baked. Place them in the pans, in a temperature +which will cause a moderate fermentation. When risen enough, place them +in the oven. A strong heat is required.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Rye bread may be made in a similar way. It must, however, be +well kneaded, to secure an intimate mixture with the yeast. Does not +require quite so strong a heat as the former.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 10.</span>—Oat meal bread may be prepared by mixing good kiln dried +oat meal, a little salt and warm water, and a spoonful of yeast. Beat +till it is quite smooth, and rather a thick batter; cover and let it +stand to rise; then bake it on a hot iron plate, or on a bake stove. Be +careful not to burn it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 11.</span>—Barley, or black bread, as it is called in Europe, makes a +wholesome article of food. It may be fermented or unfermented.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 12.</span>—Corn bread is sometimes made thus: Six pints meal, four +pints water, one spoonful of salt; mix well, and bake in oblong rolls +two inches thick. Bake in a hot oven.</p> + +<p>It should be added to this division of my subject, that in baking bread +sweet oil may be used (a vegetable oil) as a substitute for animal oil, +to prevent the bread from adhering too closely. Or you may sift a +quantity of Indian meal into the pans. If you use sweet, or olive oil, +be sure to get that which is not rancid. Much of the olive oil of the +shops is unfit to be used.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION II.—WHOLE GRAINS.</h3> + +<p>Some have maintained that since man is made to live on grain, fruits, +etc., and since the most perfect mastication is secured by the use of +uncooked grains, it is useless, and worse than useless, to resort to +cookery at all, especially the cookery of bread. I have mentioned Dr. +Schlemmer and his followers already as holding this opinion. Many of +these people confine themselves to the use of uncooked grains and +fruits. They do not cook their beans and peas. Nor can it be denied that +they enjoy thus far very good health.</p> + +<p>Now, while I admit that man, as an individual, can get along very well +in this way, I am most fully persuaded that many kinds of farinaceous +food are improved by cookery. Of the potato, I have already, +incidentally, spoken. But are not wheat and corn, and many other grains, +as well as the potato, improved by cookery? A barrel of flour (one +hundred and ninety-six pounds) will make about two hundred and seventy +pounds of good dry bread. It does not appear that the bread contains +more water than the grain did from which it was made. Whence, then, the +increase of weight by seventy-four pounds? Is not the water—a part of +it, at least—which is used in making bread, rendered solid, as water is +in slacking lime; or at least so incorporated with the flour or meal as +to add both to its weight, and to its nutritious properties?</p> + +<p>Or if, in the present infancy of the science of domestic chemistry, we +are not able to give a satisfactory answer to the question, is not an +affirmative highly probable? Such an answer would give no countenance, I +believe, to the custom of raising our bread, since the increase of +weight in making unfermented cakes or loaves, is about as great as in +the case of fermented ones.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>One of the strongest arguments ever yet brought against bread-making is, +that it relieves us from the necessity of mastication. But to this we +reply, that such cakes as may be made (and such loaves even) require +more mastication than the uncooked grains. Pereira, in his excellent +work on Diet, endeavors to support the doctrine that cooking bursts the +grains of the farinacea, so as to bring them the better within the power +of the stomach. This is specious, if not sound. In any event, I think it +pretty certain, that though man can do very well on raw grains, yet +there is a gain by cookery which more than repays the trouble. But +though baking the flour or meal into cakes or bread, is the best method +of preparation, there are other methods, secondary to this, which +deserve our notice. One of these I will now describe.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>Boiled Grains.</i></h4> + +<p>These require less mastication than those which are submitted to other +processes; but they are more easy of digestion, and to some more +palatable, and even more digestible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Take good perfect wheat; wash clean, and boil till soft in +pure soft water. Those who are accustomed to salt their food, use sugar, +etc., will naturally salt and sweeten this.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Rye or barley may be prepared in the same way, but it is not +quite so sweet.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Indian corn may be boiled, but the process requires six +hours or more, even after it has soaked all night, and there has been a +frequent change of the water. And with all this boiling, the skins +sometimes adhere rather strongly, unless you boil with them some ashes, +or other alkali.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Rice, carefully cleaned, and well boiled, is good food. +Imperfectly boiled, it is apt to disorder the bowels. And so +unstimulating is it, and so purely nutritious, that they who eat it +exclusively, without salt or curry, or any other condiment, are apt to +become constipated. Potatoes go well with it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Chestnuts, well selected, and well boiled, are highly +palatable, greatly nutritious, and easy of digestion. They are best, +however, soon after they are ripe.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Boiled peas, when ripe, either whole or split, make a +healthy dish. They are best, however, when they have been cooked several +days. When boiled enough, drain them through a sieve, but not very dry.</p> + +<p>Some housekeepers soak ripe peas over night, in water in which they have +dissolved a little saleratus. If you boil new or unripe peas, be careful +not to cook them too much.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Beans, whether ripe or green (unless in bread or pudding), +are not so wholesome as peas. They lead to flatulence, acidity, and +other stomach disorders. And yet, eaten in moderate quantities, when +ripe, they are to the hard, healthy laborer very tolerable food. Eaten +green, they are most palatable, but least healthy.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Green corn boiled is bad food. Sweet corn, cooked in this +way, is the best.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Lentils are nutritious, highly so; but I know little about +them practically.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>Grains, etc., in other forms. They may be baked, parched, +roasted, or torrefied.</i></h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Dry slowly, with a pretty strong heat, till they become so +dry and brittle as to fall readily into powder. Corn is most frequently +prepared in this way for food; but this and several other grains are +often torrefied for coffee. Care should be taken to avoid burning.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Roasted grains are more wholesome. It is not usual or easy +to roast them properly, however, except the chestnut, as the expanded +air bursts or parches them. By cutting through the skin or shell, this +result may be avoided, as it often is in the case of the chestnut. To +roast well, they should be laid on the hearth or an iron plate, covered +with ashes, and by building a fire slowly, all burning may be prevented.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Corn and buckwheat are often parched, and they form, +especially the former, a very good food. In South America, and in some +semi-barbarous nations, parched corn is a favorite dish.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Green corn is often roasted in the ear. It is less +wholesome, however, than when boiled. Sweet corn is the best for either +purpose.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Of baking grains I have little to say, because I <i>know</i> +little on that subject.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + + +<h3>DIVISION III.—CAKES</h3> + +<p>This species of farinaceous food is much used, and is fast coming into +vogue. The term, in its largest sense, would include the unleavened +bread or cakes, of which I have spoken so freely in Division<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> 1. They +are for the most part, however, made by the addition of butter, eggs, +aromatics, milk, etc., to the dough; and in proportion as they depart +from simple bread, are more and more unhealthy. I shall mention but a +few, though hundreds might be named which would still be vegetable food, +as good olive oil, in preparing them, may be substituted for butter. I +shall treat of them under one head or section.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Take of dough, prepared according to the English patented +process, mentioned in Division I., Section C, Receipt 1 and Receipt 2, +and bake in a thin form and in the usual manner.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Fruit cakes, if people will have them, may be made in the +same manner. No butter would be necessary, even to butter eaters, when +prepared in this patented way. If any have doubts, let them consult +Pereira on Food and Diet, page 153.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Gingerbread may be made in the same way, and without alum or +potash. It is thus comparatively harmless. Coarse meal always makes +better gingerbread than fine flour.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Buckwheat cakes may be raised in the same general way.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Cakes of millet, rice, etc., are said to have been made by +this process; but on this point I cannot speak from experience.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Biscuits, crackers, wafers, etc., are a species of cake, and +might be made so as to be comparatively wholesome.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Biscuits may be made of coarse corn meal, with the addition +of an egg and a little water. Make it into a stiff paste, and roll very +thin.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION IV.—PUDDINGS.</h3> + +<p>These are a species of bread, only made thinner. They are usually +unfermented. I shall speak of two kinds—hominy and puddings proper.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>Hominy.</i></h4> + +<p>This is usually eaten hot; but it improves on keeping a day or two. It +may be warmed over, if necessary.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Wheat hominy, or cracked wheat, may be made into a species +of pudding thus: Stir the hominy into boiling water (a little salted, if +it must be so), very gradually. Boil from fifteen minutes to one hour. +If boiled too long, it has a raw taste.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Corn hominy, or, as it is sometimes called, samp. Two quarts +of hominy; four quarts of water; stir well, that the hulls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> may rise; +then pour off the water through a sieve, that the hulls may separate. +Pour the same water again upon the hominy, stir well, and pour off again +several times. Finally, pour back the water, add a little salt, if you +use salt at all, and if necessary, a little more water, and hang it over +a slow fire to boil. During the first hour it should be stirred almost +constantly. Boil from three to six hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Another way: Take white Indian corn broken coarsely, put it +over the fire with plenty of water, adding more boiling water as it +wastes. It requires long boiling. Some boil it for six hours the day +before it is wanted, and from four to six the next day. Salt, if used at +all, may be added on the plate.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Another way still of making hominy is to soak it over night, +and boil it slowly for four or five hours, in the same water, which +should be soft.</p> + +<p>There are other ways of making hominy, but I have no room to treat of +them.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>Puddings proper.</i></h4> + +<p>These are of various kinds. Indeed, a single work I have before me on +Vegetable Cookery has not less than 127 receipts for dishes of this +sort, to say nothing of its pancakes, fritters, etc. I shall select a +few of the best, and leave the rest.</p> + +<p>The greatest objection to puddings is, that they are usually swallowed +in large quantity, unmasticated, after we have eaten enough of something +else. They are also eaten new and hot, and with butter, or some other +mixture almost as injurious. Some puddings, from half a day to a day and +a half old, are almost as good for us as bread.</p> + +<p>One of the best puddings I know of, is a stale loaf of bread, steamed. +Another is good sweet kiln dried oat meal, without any cooking at all. +But there are some good cooked puddings, I say again, such as the +following:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Boiled Indian pudding: Indian meal, a quart; water, a pint; +molasses, a teacup full. Mix it well, and boil four hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Another Indian pudding. Indian meal, three pints; scald it, +make it thin, and boil it about six hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Another of the same: To one quart of boiling milk, while +boiling, add a teacup full of Indian meal; mix well, and add a little +molasses. Boil three hours in a strong heat.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Hominy: Take a quart of milk and half a pint of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> Indian +meal; mix it well, and add a pint and a half of cooked hominy. Bake well +in a moderate oven.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Baked Indian pudding may be made by putting together and +baking well a quart of milk, a pint of Indian meal, and a pint of water. +Add salt or molasses, if you please.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Oat meal pudding: Pour a quart of boiling milk over a pint +of the best fine oat meal; let it soak all night; next day add two +beaten eggs; rub over, with pure sweet oil, a basin that will just hold +it; cover it tight with a floured cloth, and boil it an hour and a half. +When cold, slice and toast, or rather dry it, and eat it as you would +oat cake itself.</p> + +<p>This may be the proper place to say, that all coarse meal puddings are +healthiest when twelve or twenty hours old; but are all improved—and so +is brown bread—by drying, or almost toasting on the stove.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Rice pudding: To one quart of new milk add a teacup full of +rice, sweetened a little. No dressings are necessary without you choose +them. Bake it well.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Wheat meal pudding may be made by wetting the coarse meal +with milk, and sweetening it a little with molasses. Bake in a moderate +heat.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Boiled rice pudding may be made by boiling half a pound of +rice in a moderate quantity of water, and adding, when tender, a +coffee-cup full of milk, sweetening a little, and baking, or rather +simmering half an hour. Add salt if you prefer it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 10.</span>—<i>Polenta</i>—Corn meal, mixed with cheese—grated, as I +suppose, but we are not told in what proportion it is used—baked well, +makes a pudding which the Italians call polenta. It is not very +digestible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 11.</span>—Pudding may be made of any of the various kinds of meal I +have mentioned, except those containing rye, by adding from one fourth +to one third of the meal of the comfrey root. See Division I of this +class, Section B, Receipt 17.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 12.</span>—Bread pudding: Take a loaf of rather stale bread, cut a +hole in it, add as much new milk as it will soak up through the opening, +tie it up in a cloth, and boil it an hour.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 13.</span>—Another of the same: Slice bread thinly, and put it in +milk, with a little sweetening; add a little flour, and bake it an hour +and a half.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 14.</span>—Another still: Three pints of milk, one pound of baker's +bread, four spoonfuls of sugar, and three of molasses. Cut the bread in +slices; interpose a few raisins, if you choose, between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> each two +slices, and then pour on the milk and sweetening. If baked, an hour and +a half is sufficient. If boiled, two or three hours. Use a tin pudding +boiler.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 15.</span>—Rice and apple pudding: Boil six ounces of rice in a pint +of milk, till it is soft; then fill a dish about half full of apples +pared and cored; sweeten; put the rice over them as a crust, and bake +it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 16.</span>—Stirabout is made in Scotland by stirring oat meal in +boiling water till it becomes a thick pudding or porridge. This, with +cakes of oat meal and potatoes, forms the principal food of many parts +of Scotland.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 17.</span>—Hasty pudding is best made as follows: Mix five or six +spoonfuls of sifted meal in half a pint of cold water; stir it into a +quart of water, while boiling; and from time to time sprinkle and stir +in meal till it becomes thick enough. It should boil half or three +quarters of an hour. It may be made of Indian or rye meal.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 18.</span>—Potato pudding: Take two pounds of well boiled and well +mashed potato, one pound of wheat meal; make a stiff paste, by mixing +well; and tie it in a wet cloth dusted with flour. Boil it two hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 19.</span>—Apple pudding may be made by alternating a layer of +prepared apples with a layer of dough made of wheat meal, till you have +filled a tin pudding boiler. Boil it three hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 20.</span>—Sago pudding: Take half a pint of sago and a quart of milk. +Boil half the milk, and pour it on the sago; let it stand half an hour; +then add the remainder of the milk. Sweeten to your taste.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 21.</span>—Tapioca pudding may be prepared in a similar manner.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 22.</span>—To make cracker pudding, to a quart of milk add four thick +large coarse meal crackers broken in pieces, a little sugar, and a +little flour, and bake it one hour and thirty minutes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 23.</span>—Sweet apple pudding is made by cutting in pieces six sweet +apples, and putting them and half a pint of Indian meal, with a little +salt, into a pint of milk, and baking it about three hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 24.</span>—Sunderland pudding is thus made: Take about two thirds of a +good-sized teacup full of flour, three eggs, and a pint of milk. Bake +about fifteen minutes in cups. Dress it as you please—sweet sauce is +preferred.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 25.</span>—Arrow root pudding may be made by adding two ounces of +arrow root, previously well mixed with a little cold milk, to a pint of +milk boiling hot. Set it on the fire; let it boil fifteen or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> twenty +minutes, stirring it constantly. When cool, add three eggs and a little +sugar, and bake it in a moderate oven.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 26.</span>—Boiled arrow root pudding: Mix as before, only do not let +it quite boil. Stir it briskly for some time, after putting it on the +fire the second time, at a heat of not over 180 degrees. When cooled, +add three eggs and a little salt.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 27.</span>—Cottage pudding: Two pounds of potatoes, pared, boiled, and +mashed, one pint of milk, three eggs, and two ounces of sugar, and if +you choose, a little salt. Bake it three quarters of an hour.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 28.</span>—Snow balls: Pare and core as many large apples as there are +to be balls; wash some rice—about a large spoonful to an apple will be +enough; boil it in a little water with a pinch of salt, and drain it. +Spread it on cloths, put on the apples, and boil them an hour. Before +they are turned out of the cloths, dip them into cold water.</p> + +<p>Macaroni is made into puddings a great deal, and so is vermicelli; but +they are at best very indifferent dishes. Those who live solely to eat +may as well consult "Vegetable Cookery," where they will find +indulgences enough and too many, even though flesh and fish are wholly +excluded. They will find soups, pancakes, omelets, fritters, jellies, +sauces, pies, puddings, dumplings, tarts, preserves, salads, +cheese-cakes, custards, creams, buns, flummery, pickles, syrups, +sherbets, and I know not what. You will find them by hundreds. And you +will find directions, too, for preparing almost every vegetable +production of both hemispheres. And if you have brains of your own you +may invent a thousand new dishes every day for a long time without +exhausting the vegetable kingdom.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION V.—PIES.</h3> + +<p>Pies, as commonly made, are vile compounds. The crust is usually the +worst part. The famous Peter Parley (S. G. Goodrich, Esq.), in his +Fireside Education, represents pies, cakes, and sweetmeats as totally +unfit for the young.</p> + +<p>Within a few years attempts have been made to get rid of the crust of +pies—the abominations of the crust, I mean—by using Indian meal sifted +into the pans, etc.; but the plan has not succeeded. It is the pastry +that gives pies their charm. Divest them of this, and people will almost +as readily accept of plain ripe fruit, especially when baked, stewed, or +in some other way cooked.</p> + +<p>As pies are thus objectionable, and are, withal, a mongrel race,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> +partaking of the nature both of bread and fruit, and yet, as such, unfit +for the company of either, I will almost omit them. I will only mention +two or three.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Squashes, boiled, mashed, strained, and mixed with milk or +milk and water, in small quantity, may be made into a tolerable pie. +They may rest on a thick layer of Indian meal.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Pumpkins may be made into pies in a similar manner; but in +general they are not so sweet as squashes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Potato pie: Cut potatoes into squares, with one or two +turnips sliced; add milk or cream, just to cover them; salt a little, +and cover them with a bread crust. Sweet potatoes make far better pies +than any other kind.</p> + +<p>Almost any thing may be made into pies. Plain apple pies—so plain as to +become mere apple sauce—are far from being very objectionable. See the +next Class of Foods.</p> + + +<h3>CLASS II.—FRUITS.</h3> + +<p>So far as fruits, at least in an uncooked state, have been used as food, +they have chiefly been regarded as a dessert, or at most as a condiment. +Until within a few years, few regarded them as a principal article—as +standing next to bread in point of importance. In treating of these +substances as food, I shall simply divide them into Domestic and +Foreign.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION I.—DOMESTIC FRUITS.</h3> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>The large fruits—Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc.</i></h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—The apple. May be baked in tin pans, or in a common bake +pan. The sweet apple requires a more intense heat than the sour. The +skin may be removed before baking, but it is better to have it remain. +The best apple pie in the world is a baked apple.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—It may be roasted before the fire, by being buried in ashes, +or by throwing it upon hot coals, and quickly turning it. The last +process is sometimes called <i>hunting</i> it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—It may be boiled, either in water alone, or in water and +sugar, or in water and molasses. In this case the skin is often removed, +that the saccharine matter may the better penetrate the body of the +apple.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—It may also be pared and cored, and then stewed, either +alone or with molasses, to form plain apple sauce—a comparatively +healthy dish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Lastly, it may be pared and cored, placed in a deep vessel, +covered with a plain crust, as wheat meal formed into dough, and baked +slowly. This forms a species of pie.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—The pear is not, in every instance, improved by cookery. +Several species, however, are fit for nothing, till mid-winter, when +they are either boiled, baked, or stewed.</p> + +<p>The peach can hardly be cooked to advantage. It is sometimes cut up, and +sprinkled with sugar and other substances.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—A tolerably pleasant sauce can be made by stewing or baking +the quince, and adding sugar or molasses, but it is not very wholesome.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>The smaller fruits. The Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, +Currant, Whortleberry, Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc.</i></h4> + +<p>None of these, so far as I know, are improved by cookery. It is common +to stew green currants, to make jams, preserves, sauces, etc., but this +is all wrong. The great Creator has, in this instance, at least, done +his own work, without leaving any thing for man to do.</p> + +<p>There is one general law in regard to fruits, and especially these +smaller fruits. Those which melt and dissolve most easily in the mouth, +and leave no residuum, are the most healthy; while those which do not +easily dissolve—which contain large seeds, tough or stringy portions, +or hulls, or scales—are in the same degree indigestible.</p> + +<p>I have said that fruits were next to bread in point of importance. They +are to be taken, always, as part of our regular meals, and never between +meals. Nor should they be eaten at the end of a meal, but either in the +middle or at the beginning. And finally, they should be taken either at +breakfast or dinner. According to the old adage, fruit is gold in the +morning, silver at noon, and lead at night.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION II.—FOREIGN FRUITS.</h3> + +<p>The more important of these are the banana, pine-apple, and orange, and +fig, raisin, prune, and date. The first three need no cooking, two of +the last four may be cooked. The date is one of the best—the orange one +of the worst, because procured while green, and also because it is +stringy.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—The prune. Few things sit easier on the feeble or delicate +stomach than the stewed prune. It should be stewed slowly, in very +little water.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—The good raisin is almost as much improved by stewing as the +prune.</p> + +<p>I do not know that the fig has ever yet been subjected to the processes +of modern cookery. It is, however, with bread, a good article of food.</p> + +<p>Fruits, in their juices, may be regarded as the milk of adults and old +people, but are less useful to young children and to the <i>very</i> old. But +to be useful they must be perfectly ripe, and eaten in their season. +Thus used, they prevent a world of summer diseases—used improperly, +they invite disease, and do much other mischief.</p> + +<p>In general, fruits and milk do not go very well together. The baked +sweet apple and whortleberry seem to be least objectionable.</p> + + +<h3>CLASS III.—ROOTS.</h3> + + +<h4>DIVISION I.—MEALY ROOTS.</h4> + +<p>These are the potato, in its numerous varieties, the artichoke, the +ground-nut, and the comfrey. Of these the potato is by far the most +important.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>The Common Potato.</i></h4> + +<p>This may be roasted, baked, boiled, steamed, or fried. It is also made +into puddings and pies. Roasting in the ashes is the best method of +cooking it; frying by far the worst. I take this opportunity to enter my +protest against all frying of food. Com. Nicholson, of revolutionary +memory, would never, as his daughters inform me, have a frying-pan in +his house.</p> + +<p>The potato is best when well roasted in the ashes, but also excellent +when baked, and very tolerable when boiled or steamed.</p> + +<p>There are many ways of preparing the potato and cooking it. Some always +pare it. It may be well to pare it late in the winter and in the spring, +but not at other times. For, in paring, we lose a portion of the richest +part of the potato, as in the case of paring the apple. There is much +tact required to pare a potato properly, that is, thinly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—To boil a potato, see that the kettle is clean, the water +pure and soft, and the potatoes clean. Put them in as soon as the water +boils.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> When they are soft, which can be determined by piercing them +with a fork, pour off the water, and let them steam about five minutes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—To roast in the ashes, wash them clean, then dry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> them, then +remove the heated embers and ashes quite to the bottom of the +fire-place, and place them as closely together as possible, but not on +top of each other. Cover as quickly as possible, and fill the crevices +with hot embers and small coals. Let them be as nearly of a size as +possible, and cover them to the depth of an inch. Then build a hot fire +over them. They will be cooked in from half an hour to three quarters of +an hour, according to the size and heat of the fire.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Baking potatoes in a stove or oven, is a process so +generally known, that it hardly needs description.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Steaming is better than boiling. Some fry them; others stew +them with vegetables for soup, etc.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>The Sweet Potato.</i></h4> + +<p>This was once confined to the Southern States, but it is now raised in +tolerable perfection in New Jersey and on Long Island. It is richer than +the common potato in saccharine matter, and probably more nutritious; +but not, it is believed, quite so wholesome. Still it is a good article +of food.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Roasting is the best process of cooking these. They may be +prepared in the ashes or before a fire. The last process is most common. +They cook in far less time than a common potato.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Baking and roasting by the fire are nearly or quite the same +thing as respects the sweet potato. Steaming is a little different, and +boiling greatly so. The boiled sweet potato is, however, a most +excellent article.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION II.—SWEET AND WATERY ROOTS.</h3> + +<p>These are far less healthy than the mealy ones; and yet are valuable, +because, like potatoes, they furnish the system with a good deal of +innutritious matter, to be set off against the almost pure nutriment of +bread, rice, beans, peas, etc.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—The beet is best when boiled thoroughly, which requires some +care and a good deal of time. It may be roasted, baked, or stewed, +however. It is rich in sugar, but is not very easily digested.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—The parsnep. The boiled parsnep is more easily <i>dissolved</i> +in the stomach than the beet; but my readers must know that many things +which are dissolved in the stomach are nevertheless very imperfectly +digested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—The turnip, well boiled, is watery, but easily digested and +wholesome. It may also be roasted or baked, and some eat it raw.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—The carrot is richer than the turnip, but not therefore more +digestible. It may be boiled, stewed, fried, or made into pies, +puddings, etc. It is a very tolerable article of food.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—The radish, fashionable as it is, is nearly useless.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—For the sick, and even for others, arrow root jellies, +puddings, etc., are much valued. This, with sago, tapioca, etc., is most +useful for that class of sick persons who have strong appetites.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + + +<h3>CLASS IV.—MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD.</h3> + +<p>Under this head I shall treat briefly of the proper use of a few +substances commonly and very properly used as food, but which cannot +well come under any of the foregoing classes. They are chiefly found in +the various chapters of my Young Housekeeper, as well as in Dr. +Pereira's work on Food and Diet, under the heads of "Buds and Young +Shoots," "Leaves and Leaf Stalks," "Cucurbitaceous Fruits," and "Oily +Seeds."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Asparagus, well boiled, is nutritious and wholesome. Salt is +often added, and sometimes butter. The former, to many, is needless; the +latter, to all, injurious.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Some of the varieties of the squash are nutritious and +wholesome, especially when boiled. Its use in pies and puddings is also +well known.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—A few varieties of the pumpkin, especially the sweet +pumpkin, are proper for the table. Made into plain sauce, they are +highly valued by most, but they are best known as ingredients of pies +and puddings. A few eat them when merely baked.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—The tomato is fashionable, but a sour apple, if equal pains +were taken with it, and it were equally fashionable, might be equally +useful. It adds, however, to nature's vast variety!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Watermelons, coming as they do at the end of the hot season, +when eaten with bread, are happily adapted (as most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> other ripe fruits +are, when eaten in the same way, and at their own proper season) to +prevent disease, and promote health and happiness.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Muskmelons are richer than watermelons, but not more +wholesome. Of the canteloupe I know but little.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—The cucumber. Taken at the moment when ripe—neither green +nor acid—the cucumber is almost, but not quite as valuable as the +melon. It should be eaten in the same way, rejecting the rind. The +Orientals of modern days sometimes boil them, but in former times they +ate them uncooked, though always ripe. Unripe cucumbers are a <i>modern</i> +dish, and will erelong go out of fashion.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Onions have medicinal properties, but this should be no +recommendation to healthy people. Raw, they are unwholesome; boiled, +they are better; fried, they are positively pernicious.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Nuts are said to be adapted to man in a state of nature; but +I write for those who are in an artificial state, not a natural state. +Of the chestnut I have spoken elsewhere. The hazelnut is next best, then +perhaps the peanut and the beechnut. The butternut, and walnut or +hickory-nut, are too oily. Nor do I see how they can be improved by +cookery.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 10.</span>—Cabbage, properly boiled, and without condiments, is +tolerable, but rather stringy, and of course rather indigestible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 11.</span>—Greens and salads are stringy and indigestible. Besides, +they are much used, as condiments are, to excite or provoke an +appetite—a thing usually wrong. A feeble appetite, say at the opening +of the spring, however common, is a great blessing. If let alone, nature +will erelong set to rights those things, which have gone wrong perhaps +all winter; and then appetite will return in a natural way.</p> + +<p>But the worst thing about greens, salads, and some other things, is, +they are eaten with vinegar. Vinegar and all substances, I must again +say, which resist or retard putrefaction, retard also the work of +digestion. It is a universal law, and ought to be known as such, that +whatever tends to preserve our food—except perhaps ice and the +air-pump—tends also to interfere with the great work of digestion. +Hence, all pickling, salting, boiling down, sweetening, etc., are +objectionable. Pereira says, "By drying, salting, smoking, and pickling, +the digestibility of fish is greatly impaired;" and this, except as +regards <i>drying</i>, is but the common doctrine. It should, however, be +applied generally as well as to fish.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Formerly called Graham meal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> I shall use these terms indiscriminately, as they mean in +practice the same thing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Both these processes are patented in Great Britain. The +bread thus retains its sweetness—no waste of its saccharine matter, and +no residuum except muriate of soda or common salt. Sesquicarbonate of +soda is made of three parts or atoms of the carbonic acid, and two of +the soda.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Keep butter and all greasy substances away from every +preparation of food which belongs to this division—especially from +green peas, beans, corn, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Some prepare them, and soak them in water over the night.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> In general, the appetites of the sick are taken away by +design. In such cases there should be none of the usual forms of +indulgence. A little bread—the crust is best—is the most proper +indulgence. If, however, the appetite is raging, as in a convalescent +state it sometimes is, puddings and even gruel may be proper, because +they busy the stomach without giving it any considerable return for its +labor.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> +<h2>Fowler and Wells,</h2> + +<h3>Publishers of Scientific and Popular</h3> + +<h3>STANDARD WORKS,</h3> + +<h4>308 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.</h4> + + +<p>In order to accommodate "The People" residing in all parts of the United +States, the Publishers will forward, by return of the <span class="smcap">first mail</span>, any +book named in this List. The postage will be prepaid by them at the New +York Post-office. By this arrangement of paying postage in advance, +fifty per cent. is saved to the purchaser. 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Published Monthly, at One +Dollar a Year.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It may be termed the standard authority in all matters +pertaining to Phrenology, while the beautiful typography of the +Journal, and the superior character of the numerous +illustrations, are not exceeded in any work with which we are +acquainted.—<i>Am. Cour.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Combe's Lectures on Phrenology</span>;</h3> + +<p>Including its application to the present and prospective condition of +the United States. With Notes, an Essay on the Phrenological Mode of +Investigation, and an Historical Sketch. By Andrew Boardman, M.D. +Illustrated. Muslin, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Education Complete</span>. Embracing Physiology Animal and Mental, applied to +the Preservation and Restoration of Health of Body and Power of Mind; +Self Culture and Perfection of Character, including the Management of +Youth; Memory and Intellectual Improvement, applied to Self Education +and Juvenile Instruction. By Fowler. In 1 vol., $2 50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Every one should read it who would preserve or restore his +health, develop his mind and improve his character.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Education</span>: Its Elementary Principles founded on the Nature of Man. By J. +G. Spurzheim, M. D. With an Appendix, containing a Description of the +Temperaments, and an Analysis of the Phrenological Faculties. Price, in +Paper, 62 cents. Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We regard this volume as one of the most important that has +been offered to the public for many years. It is full of sound +doctrines and practical wisdom.—<i>Boston Medical and Surgical +journal.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Marriage</span>: Its History and Philosophy. With a Phrenological and +Physiological Exposition of the Functions and Qualifications necessary +for Happy Marriages. By L. N. Fowler. Illustrated. Paper, 50 cents; +Muslin, 75 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It contains a full account of the marriage forms and ceremonies +of all nations and tribes, from the earliest history down to +the present time. Those who have not yet entered into +matrimonial relations, should read this book, and all may +profit by a perusal.—<i>N. Y. Illustrated Magazine.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Self-culture, and Perfection of Character;</span> including the Education and +Management of Youth, By O. S. Fowler. Price, paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 +cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Self-made, or never made</span>," is the motto. No individual can +read a page of it without being improved thereby. With this +work, in connection with <span class="smcap">Physiology Animal and Mental, and +Memory and Intellectual Improvement</span>, we may become fully +acquainted with ourselves, comprehending, as they do, the whole +man. We advise all to read these works.—<i>Conn. School +Advocate.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenological Bust</span>; designed especially for learners. Showing the Exact +Location of all the Organs of the Brain. Price, including box for +packing, $1 25. [By Express. Not mailable.]</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This is one of the most ingenious inventions of the age. A cast +made of plaster of Paris, the size of the human head, on which +the exact location of each of the phrenological organs is +represented, fully developed, with all the divisions and +classifications. Those who cannot obtain the services of a +professor, may learn in a very short time, from this model +head, the science of Phrenology, so far as the location of the +organs is concerned.—<i>N. Y. Sun.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Memory and Intellectual Improvement</span>; applied to Self-Education and +Juvenile Instruction. By O. S. Fowler.</p> + +<p>Enlarged and Improved. Illustrated. Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The science of Phrenology, now so well established, affords us +important aid in developing the human mind, according to the +laws of our being. This, the work before us is pre-eminently +calculated to promote, and we cordially recommend it to +all.—<i>Dem. Rev.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Self-instructor in Phrenology and Physiology.</span> Illustrated with 100 +Engravings; including a Chart for recording the various Degrees of +Development. By O. S. and L. N. Fowler. Price, paper, 25 cents; muslin, +50 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This treatise is emphatically a book for the million. It +contains an explanation of each faculty, full enough to be +clear, yet so short as not to weary; together with combinations +of the faculties, and engravings to show the organs, large and +small; thereby enabling all persons, with little study, to +become acquainted with practical Phrenology.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Familiar Lessons on Phrenology and Physiology;</span> for Children and Youth. +Two volumes in one. $1 25.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The natural language of each organ is illustrated, and the work +is brought out in a style well adapted to the family circle, as +well as the school-room.—<i>Teachers' Comp'n.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Moral and Intellectual Science</span>; applied to the Elevation of Society. By +Combe, Cox, and others. $2 80.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This work contains Essays on Phrenology, as a department of +physiological science, exhibiting its varied and important +applications to social and moral philosophy, to legislation, +medicine, and the arts. With Portraits of Drs. Gall, Spurzheim, +and Combe.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mental Science</span>. Lectures on the Philosophy of Phrenology. By Rev. G. S. +Weaver. Illustrated. 87 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>These Lectures were prepared for the intellectual, moral, and +social benefit of society. The author has, in this respect, +done a good work for the rising generation.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Defence of Phrenology</span>; containing the Nature and value of Phrenological +Evidence. A work for doubters. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Love and Parentage</span>; applied to the Improvement of Offspring; By O. S. +Fowler. Price 80 cents.</p> + +<p>LOVE AND PARENTAGE, AND AMATIVENESS; in one vol. Muslin, 75 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Domestic Life</span>; or, Marriage Vindicated and Free Love Exposed. By Nelson +Sizer. Price 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenology and the Scriptures</span>; showing their Harmony; An able, though +small, work. By Rev. J. Pierpont. 12 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenological Guide</span>. Designed for Students of their own Characters. With +numerous Engravings. Price 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenological Almanac</span>. Published Annually. With Calendars for all +Latitudes. Profusely Illustrated with Portraits of Distinguished +Persons. Price 6 cents. 25 copies, $1.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Chart, for Recording the Various Phrenological Developments.</span> Illustrated +with Engravings. Designed for the Use of Phrenologists. Price 6 cents. +25 copies, $1.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Symbolical Head and Phrenological Chart, in Map Form</span>, for Framing. +Showing the Natural Language of the Phrenological Organs. Price 25 +cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Works of Gall, Combe, Spurzheim</span>, and others, for sale, wholesale and +retail.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenological Specimens</span> for Societies and Private Cabinets. 40 casts; +net, $25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Portraits for Lecturers</span>, 40 in the set, for $25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Benefits of a Phrenological Examination</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A correct</span> Phrenological examination will teach, with <span class="smcap">scientific +certainty</span>, that most useful of all knowledge—<span class="smcap">yourself</span>; your <span class="smcap">defects</span>, +and how to obviate them; your excellences, and how to make the most of +them; your <span class="smcap">natural talents</span>, and thereby in what spheres and pursuits you +can best succeed; show wherein you are liable to errors and excesses; +direct you <span class="smcap">specifically</span>, what faculties you require especially to +cultivate and restrain; give all needed advice touching +self-improvement, and the preservation and restoration of health; show, +<span class="smcap">throughout</span>, how to <span class="smcap">develop, perfect</span>, and make the <span class="smcap">most possible</span> out of +<span class="smcap">your own self</span>; disclose to parents their children's <span class="smcap">innate capabilities</span>, +natural callings, dispositions, defects, means of improvement, the mode +of government especially adapted to each—it will enable business men to +choose reliable partners and customers; merchants, confidential clerks; +mechanics, apprentices having natural <span class="smcap">gifts</span> adapted to particular +branches; ship-masters, good crews; the friendly, desirable associates; +guide matrimonial candidates in selecting <span class="smcap">congenial</span> life-companions, +especially adapted to each other; show the married what in each other to +allow for and conciliate; and can be made the <span class="smcap">very</span> best instrumentality +for <span class="smcap">personal development, improvement, and happiness</span>.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">FOWLER AND WELLS, Phrenologists,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">308 <span class="smcap">Broadway, New York</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p><i>Books sent prepaid by First Mail to any Post Office in the United +States.</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WORKS ON WATER CURE,</h2> + +<h4>PUBLISHED BY</h4> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Fowler and Wells</span>,</h3> + +<h4>308 Broadway, New York.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If the people can be thoroughly indoctrinated in the general +principles of <span class="smcap">Hydropathy</span>, and make themselves acquainted with +the <span class="smcap">Laws of Life and Health</span>, they will well-nigh emancipate +themselves from all need of doctors of any sort—<span class="smcap">Dr. Trall</span>.</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hydropathic Encyclopædia</span>: A System of Hydropathy and Hygiene. Containing +Outlines of Anatomy; Physiology of the Human Body; Hygienic Agencies, +and the Preservation of Health; Dietetics, and Hydropathic Cookery; +Theory and Practice of Water Treatment; Special Pathology, and +Hydro-Therapeutics, including the Nature, Causes, Symptoms, and +Treatment of all known Diseases; Application of Hydropathy to Midwifery +and the Nursery. Designed as a Guide to Families and Students, and a +Text-Book for Physicians. By R. T. Trall, M.D. Illustrated with upwards +of Three Hundred Engravings and Colored Plates. Substantially bound, in +one large volume. Price for either edition, prepaid by mail, $3 00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This is the most comprehensive and popular work on Hydropathy, +with nearly one thousand pages. Of all the numerous +publications which have attained such a wide popularity, as +issued by Fowlers & Wells, perhaps none are more adapted to +general utility than this rich, comprehensive, and +well-arranged Encyclopædia.—<i>N. Y. Tribune.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hydropathic Family Physician</span>. A Ready Prescriber and Hygienic Adviser, +with reference to the Nature, Causes, Prevention and Treatment of +Diseases, Accidents, and Casualties of every kind; with a Glossary, +Table of Contents, and Index. Illustrated with nearly Three Hundred +Engravings. By Joel Shew, M.D. One large volume of 820 pages, +substantially bound, in library style. Price, with postage prepaid by +mail, $2 50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It possesses the most practical utility of any of the author's +contributions to popular medicine, and is well adapted to give +the reader an accurate idea of the organization and functions +of the human frame.—<i>New York Tribune.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Domestic Practice of Hydropathy</span>, with fifteen Engraved Illustrations of +Important Subjects, with a Form of a Report for the Assistance of +Patients in consulting their Physicians by Correspondence. By Ed. +Johnson, M.D. Muslin, $1 50.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hydropathy</span>; or, the Water-cure. Its Principles, Processes, and Modes of +Treatment. In part from the most Eminent Authors, Ancient and Modern. +Together with an Account of the Latest Methods of Priessnitz. Numerous +Cases, with Treatment described By Dr. Shew. $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Chronic Diseases</span>. An Exposition of the Causes, Progress, and Termination +of various Chronic Diseases of the Digestive Organs, Lungs, Nerves, +Limbs, and Skin, and of their Treatment by Water and other Hygienic +Means. By James M. Gully, M.D. Illustrated. Muslin, $1 50.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Home Treatment for Sexual Abuses.</span> A Practical Treatise for both Sexes, +on the Nature and Causes of Excessive and Unnatural Indulgences, the +Disease and Injuries resulting therefrom, with their Symptoms and +Hydropathic Management. By Dr. Trall. 30 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Children; Their Hydropathic Management in Health and Disease.</span> A +Descriptive and Practical Work, designed as a Guide for Families and +Physicians. With numerous cases described. By Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo., 432 +pp. Muslin, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Midwifery, and the Diseases of Women. </span> A Descriptive and Practical Work, +showing the Superiority of Water Treatment in Menstruation and its +Disorders, Chlorosis, Leucorrhœa, Fluor Albus, Prolapsus Uteri, +Hysteria, Spinal Diseases, and other Weaknesses of Females in Pregnancy +and its Diseases, Abortion, Uterine Hemorrhage and the General +Management of Childbirth, Nursing, etc., etc. Illustrated with Numerous +Cases of Treatment. By Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo. 432 pp. Muslin, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Cook Book, New Hydropathic</span>, By R. T. Trall, M. D. A System of Cookery on +Hydropathic Principles, containing an Exposition of the True Relations +of all Alimentary Substances to Health, with Plain Recipes for preparing +all Appropriate Dishes for Hydropathic Establishments, Vegetarian +Boarding-houses, Private Families, etc., etc. It is the Cook's Complete +Guide for all who "eat to live." Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 +cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Consumption; Its Prevention and Cure by the Water Treatment.</span> With Advice +concerning Hemorrhage of the Lungs, Coughs, Colds, Asthma, Bronchitis, +and Sore Throat. By Dr. Shew. Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-cure Applied To Every Known Disease.</span> A New Theory. A Complete +Demonstration of the Advantages of the Hydropathic System of Curing +Diseases; showing also the fallacy of the Allopathic Method, and its +Utter Inability to Effect a Permanent Cure. With an Appendix, containing +Hydropathic Diet, and Rules for Bathing. By J. H. Rausse. Translated +from the German. Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-cure Almanac</span>. Published Annually, containing Important and +Valuable Hydropathic Matter. 48 pp. 6 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Philosophy of Water-cure</span>. A Development of the True Principles of Health +and Longevity. By John Balbirnie, M.D. With a Letter from Sir Edward +Lytton Bulwer. Paper. Price, 80 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-cure Journal and Herald of Reforms. </span> Devoted to Physiology, +Hydropathy, and the Laws of Life and Health. Illustrated Engravings. +Quarto. Monthly, at $1 00 a year.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We know of no American periodical which presents a greater +abundance of valuable information on all subjects relating to +human progress and welfare.—<i>N. Y. Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>This is, unquestionably, the most popular Health Journal in the +world.—<i>N. Y. Eve. Post.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Results of Hydropathy; Or, Constipation</span> not a Disease of the Bowels; +Indigestion not a Disease of the Stomach; with an Exposition of the true +Nature and Causes of these Ailments, explaining the reason why they are +so certainly cured by the Hydropathic Treatment. By Edward Johnson, M.D. +Muslin. Price, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-Cure Library</span>. In Seven Volumes, 12mo Embracing the most popular +works on the subject. By American and European Authors. Bound in +Embossed Muslin. Price, only $7 00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This library comprises most of the important works on the +subject of Hydropathy. The volumes are of uniform size and +binding, and form a most valuable medical library.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water and Vegetable Diet</span> in Consumption, Scrofula, Cancer, Asthma, and +other Chronic Diseases. In which the Advantages of Pure Water are +particularly considered. By William Lambe, M.D., With Notes and +Additions by Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo., 258 pp. Paper, 62 cents. Muslin, 87 +cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Accidents and Emergencies</span>: A Guide, containing Directions for Treatment +in Bleeding, Cuts, Bruises, Sprains, Broken Bones, Dislocations, Railway +and Steamboat Accidents, Burns and Scalds, Bites of Mad Dogs, Cholera, +Injured Eyes, Choking, Poison, Fits, Sunstroke, Lightning, Drowning, +etc., etc. By Alfred Smee, F.R.S. Illustrated with numerous Engravings. +Appendix by Dr. Trall. Price, prepaid, 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Parents' Guide for the Transmission</span> of the Desired Qualities to +Offspring; and Childbirth made Easy. By Mrs. Hester Pendleton. Price, 60 +cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pregnancy and Childbirth</span>. Illustrated with Cases, Showing the Remarkable +Effects of Water in Mitigating the Pains and Perils of the Parturient +State. By Dr. Shew. Paper. Price, 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Introduction To the Water-cure</span>. Founded in Nature, and adapted to the +Wants of Man. Price, 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sexual Diseases</span>; their Causes, Prevention, and Cure, on Physiological +Principles. Embracing Home Treatment for Sexual Abuses; Chronic +Diseases, especially the Nervous Diseases of Women; The Philosophy of +Generation; Amativeness; Hints on the Reproductive Organs. In one +volume. Price, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Science of Human Life</span>. By Sylvester Graham, M.D. With a Portrait and +Biography of the Author. $2 50.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Curiosities of Common Water</span>; or, the Advantages thereof in preventing +and curing Diseases; gathered from the Writings of several Eminent +Physicians, and also from more than Forty Years' Experience. By John +Smith, C.M. With Additions, by Dr. Shew. 80 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Practice of Water-cure</span>. With Authenticated Evidence of its Efficacy and +Safety. Containing a detailed account of the various processes used in +the Water-Treatment, etc. By James Wilson, M. D., and James M. Gully, M. +D. 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Experience in Water-cure</span>. A Familiar Exposition of the Principles and +Results of Water-Treatment in Acute and Chronic Diseases; an Explanation +of Water-Cure Processes; Advice on Diet and Regimen and Particular +Directions to Women in the Treatment of Female Diseases, Water-Treatment +in Childbirth, and the Diseases of Infancy. Illustrated by Numerous +Cases. By Mrs. Nichols. Price, 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-cure Manual</span>. A Popular Work, 12mo. Embracing descriptions of the +various Modes of Bathing, the Hygienic and Curative Effects of Air, +Exercises, Clothing, Occupation, Diet, Water-Drinking, etc. Together +with Descriptions of Diseases, and the Hydropathic Remedies. By Joel +Shew, M. D. Muslin. Price, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Chronic Diseases</span>: Especially the Nervous Diseases of Woman. By D. Rosch. +Translated from the German. 30 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Alcoholic Controversy</span>. A Review of the <i>Westminster Review</i> on the +Physiological Errors of Teetotalism. By Dr. Trall. Price, 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Digestion, Physiology of</span>, Considered in Relation to the Principles of +Dietetics. By G. Combe. Illustrated, 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Fruits and Farinacea the Proper Foods of Man.</span> With Notes by Dr. Trall. +Illustrated by numerous Engravings. $1 00.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Vegetable Diet</span>: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in all +Ages. Including a System of Vegetable Cookery. By Dr. Alcott. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Syringes</span>.—We keep constantly for sale, at wholesale or retail, +an assortment of the best Syringes, embracing a variety of +styles, at different prices. The practical value of these +instruments is becoming understood, and no family who have +proper regard for health will be without one. We furnish with +each instrument an <span class="smcap">Illustrated Manual</span> of instructions, prepared +by <span class="smcap">Dr. Trall</span>, giving complete directions for its use. The +prices of the best syringes, sent by mail, postage prepaid, are +from $3 50 to $4 00.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>FOWLER AND WELLS have all works on <span class="smcap">Physiology, Hydropathy, Phrenology</span>, +and the Natural Sciences generally. Booksellers supplied on the most +liberal terms. <span class="smcap">Agents</span> wanted in every State, county, and town. These +works are universally popular, and thousands might be sold where they +have never yet been introduced. Letters and other communications should, +in <span class="smcap">all cases</span>, be post paid, and directed to the Publishers, as follows: +FOWLER AND WELLS, 308 Broadway, N. Y.</p> + + +<p><i>Books sent by first Mail to any Post-Office in the United States</i>.</p> + + +<h3>WORKS ON PHYSIOLOGY,</h3> + +<h4>PUBLISHED BY</h4> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Fowler and Wells</span>,</h3> + +<h4>308 Broadway, New York.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Complete Gymnasium</span>. A profusely illustrated work. Being the +application of Gymnastic, Calisthenic, Kinesipathic, and Vocal Exercises +to the Development of Body and Mind, and the Cure of Disease. By R. T. +Trall, M.D. Price, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hereditary Descent</span>: its Laws and Facts applied to Human Improvement. By +O. S. Fowler. Price, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Food and Diet</span>; with Observations on the Dietetic Regimen suited to +Disordered States of the Digestive Organs; and an Account of the +Dietaries of some of the Principal Metropolitan and other Establishments +for Paupers, Lunatics, Criminals, Children, the Sick, &c. By J. Pereira, +M.D., F.R.S. Octavo. Muslin. Price, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Combe's Physiology</span>, applied to the Preservation of Health, and to the +Improvement of Physical and Mental Education. By Andrew Combe, M.D. With +Notes and Observations by O. S. Fowler. 87 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Maternity</span>; or, the Bearing and Nursing of Children, including Female +Education. By O. S. Fowler. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Combe on Infancy</span>; or, the Physiological and Moral Management of +Children. By Andrew Combe, M.D. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Physiology, Animal and Mental</span>, applied to the Preservation and +Restoration of Health of Body and Power of Mind. By O. S. Fowler. +Illustrated with Engravings. Price 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Amativeness</span>: or, Evils and Remedies of Excessive and Perverted +Sexuality, including Warning and Advice to the Married and Single. An +important little work. 15 cents—REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS: their Diseases, +Causes, and Cure on Hydropathic Principles. 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Uterine Diseases</span>: or, the Displacement of the Uterus. A thorough and +practical treatise on the Malpositions of the Uterus and adjacent +Organs. Illustrated with Colored Engravings from Original Designs. By R. +T. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f9d7fb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #30478 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30478) diff --git a/old/30478-8.txt b/old/30478-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..318c8de --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30478-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11137 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical +Men, and by Experience in All Ages, by William Andrus Alcott + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages + +Author: William Andrus Alcott + +Release Date: November 15, 2009 [EBook #30478] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VEGETABLE DIET *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + +VEGETABLE DIET: + +AS SANCTIONED BY + +MEDICAL MEN, + +AND BY + +EXPERIENCE IN ALL AGES. + +INCLUDING A + +SYSTEM OF VEGETABLE COOKERY. + +BY DR. WM. A. ALCOTT, + +AUTHOR OF THE YOUNG MAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG WOMAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG MOTHER, +YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER, AND LATE EDITOR OF THE LIBRARY OF HEALTH. + +SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. + +NEW YORK: +FOWLER AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS, +No. 308 BROADWAY +1859. + +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, +BY FOWLERS & WELLS, +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of +New York. + +BANES & PALMER, STEREOTYPERS, +201 William st. corner Frankfort, N. Y. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The following volume embraces the testimony, direct or indirect, of more +than a HUNDRED individuals--besides that of societies and +communities--on the subject of vegetable diet. Most of this one hundred +persons are, or were, persons of considerable distinction in society; +and more than FIFTY of them were either medical men, or such as have +made physiology, hygiene, anatomy, pathology, medicine, or surgery a +leading or favorite study. + +As I have written other works besides this--especially the "Young +House-Keeper"--which treat, more or less, of diet, it may possibly be +objected, that I sometimes repeat the same idea. But how is it to be +avoided? In writing for various classes of the community, and presenting +my views in various connections and aspects, it is almost necessary to +do so. Writers on theology, or education, or any other important topic, +do the same--probably to a far greater extent, in many instances, than I +have yet done. I repeat no idea for the _sake_ of repeating it. Not a +word is inserted but what seems to me necessary, in order that I may be +intelligible. Moreover, like the preacher of truth on many other +subjects, it is not so much my object to produce something new in every +paragraph, as to explain, illustrate, and enforce what is already known. + +It may also be thought that I make too many books. But, as I do not +claim to be so much an originator of _new_ things as an instrument for +diffusing the _old_, it will not be expected that I should be twenty +years on a volume, like Bishop Butler. I had, however, been collecting +my stock of materials for this and other works--published or +unpublished--more than twenty-five years. Besides, it might be safely +and truly said that the study and reading and writing, in the +preparation of this volume, the "House I Live In," and the "Young +House-Keeper," have consumed at least three of the best years of my +life, at fourteen or fifteen hours a day. Several of my other works, as +the "Young Mother," the "Mother's Medical Guide," and the "Young Wife," +have also been the fruit of years of toil and investigation and +observation, of which those who think only of the labor of merely +_writing them out_, know nothing. Even the "Mother in her Family"--at +least some parts of it--though in general a lighter work, has been the +result of much care and labor. The circumstance of publishing several +books at the same, or nearly the same time, has little or nothing to do +with their preparation. + +When I commenced putting together the materials of this little treatise +on diet--thirteen years ago--it was my intention simply to show the +SAFETY of a vegetable and fruit diet, both for those who are afflicted +with many forms of chronic disease, and for the healthy. But I soon +became convinced that I ought to go farther, and show its SUPERIORITY +over every other. This I have attempted to do--with what success, the +reader must and will judge for himself. + +I have said, it was not my original intention to prove a vegetable and +fruit diet to be any thing more than _safe_. But I wish not to be +understood as entertaining, even at that time, any doubts in regard to +the superiority of such a diet: the only questions with me were, Whether +the public mind was ready to hear and weigh the proofs, and whether this +volume was the place in which to present them. Both these questions, +however, as I went on, were settled, in the affirmative. I believed--and +still believe--that the public mind, in this country, is prepared for +the free discussion of all topics--provided they are discussed +candidly--which have a manifest bearing on the well-being of man; and I +have governed myself accordingly. + +An apology may be necessary for retaining, unexplained, a few medical +terms. But I did not feel at liberty to change them, in the +correspondence of Dr. North, for more popular language; and, having +retained them thus far, it did not seem desirable to explain them +elsewhere. Nor was I willing to deface the pages of the work with +explanatory notes. The fact is, the technical terms alluded to, are, +after all, very few in number, and may be generally understood by the +connection in which they appear. + + THE AUTHOR. + WEST NEWTON Mass. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + +TO THE SECOND EDITION. + + +The great question in regard to diet, viz., whether any food of the +animal kind is absolutely necessary to the most full and perfect +development of man's whole nature, being fairly up, both in Europe and +America, and there being no practical, matter-of-fact volume on the +subject, of moderate size, in the market, numerous friends have been for +some time urging me to get up a new and revised edition of a work which, +though imperfect, has been useful to many, while it has been for some +time out of print. Such an edition I have at length found time to +prepare--to which I have added, in various ways, especially in the form +of new facts, nearly fifty pages of new and original matter. + + WEST NEWTON, Mass., 1849. + + + + +CONTENTS + Page + +CHAPTER I. + +ORIGIN OF THIS WORK. + + Experience of the Author, and his Studies.--Pamphlet in + 1832.--Prize-Question of the Boylston Medical + Committee.--Collection of Materials for an Essay.--Dr. + North.--His Letter and Questions.--Results, 13-20 + + +CHAPTER II. + +LETTERS TO DR. NORTH. + + Letter of Dr. Parmly.--Dr. W. A. Alcott.--Dr. D. S. + Wright.--Dr. H. N. Preston.--Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. Caleb + Bannister.--Dr. Lyman Tenny.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Joseph + Ricketson, Esq.--Joseph Congdon, Esq.--George W. Baker, + Esq.--John Howland, Jr., Esq.--Dr. Wm. H. Webster.--Josiah + Bennet, Esq.--Wm. Vincent, Esq.--Dr. George H. Perry.--Dr. L. + W. Sherman, 21-55 + + +CHAPTER III. + +REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS. + + Correspondence.--The "prescribed course of Regimen."--How many + victims to it?--Not one.--Case of Dr. Harden considered.--Case + of Dr. Preston.--Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the + treatment of Scrofula.--No reports of Injury from the + prescribed System.--Case of Dr. Bannister.--Singular testimony + of Dr. Wright.--Vegetable food for Laborers.--Testimony, on the + whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could + reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances 56-66 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE. + + Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Dr. J. + Porter.--Dr. N. J. Knight.--Dr. Lester Keep.--Second letter + from Dr. Keep.--Dr. Henry H. Brown.--Dr. Franklin Knox.--From a + Physician.--Additional statements by the Author. 66-91 + + +CHAPTER V. + +TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.--Dr. + Geoffroy.--Vauquelin and Percy.--Dr. Pemberton.--Sir John + Sinclair.--Dr. James.--Dr. Cranstoun.--Dr. Taylor.--Drs. + Hufeland and Abernethy.--Sir Gilbert Blane.--Dr. Gregory.--Dr. + Cullen.--Dr. Rush.--Dr. Lambe.--Prof. Lawrence.--Dr. + Salgues.--Author of "Sure Methods."--Baron Cuvier.--Dr. Luther + V. Bell.--Dr. Buchan.--Dr. Whitlaw.--Dr. Clark.--Prof. + Mussey.--Drs. Bell and Condie.--Dr. J. V. C. Smith.--Mr. + Graham.--Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.--Dr. Sweetser.--Dr. + Pierson.--Physician in New York.--Females' Encyclopedia.--Dr. + Van Cooth.--Dr. Beaumont.--Sir Everard Home.--Dr. + Jennings.--Dr. Jarvis.--Dr. Ticknor.--Dr. Coles.--Dr. + Shew.--Dr. Morrill.--Dr. Bell.--Dr. Jackson.--Dr. + Stephenson.--Dr. J. Burdell.--Dr. Smethurst.--Dr. + Schlemmer.--Dr. Curtis.--Dr. Porter, 92-175 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of + Plautus.--Plutarch.--Porphyry.--Lord Bacon.--Sir William + Temple.--Cicero.--Cyrus the Great.--Gassendi.--Prof. + Hitchcock.--Lord Kaims.--Dr. Thomas Dick.--Prof. Bush.--Thomas + Shillitoe.--Alexander Pope.--Sir Richard Phillips.--Sir Isaac + Newton.--The Abbé Gallani.--Homer.--Dr. Franklin.--Mr. + Newton.--O. S. Fowler.--Rev. Mr. Johnston.--John H. + Chandler.--Rev. J. Caswell.--Mr. Chinn.--Father + Sewall.--Magliabecchi.--Oberlin and Swartz.--James + Haughton.--John Bailies.--Francis Hupazoli.--Prof. + Ferguson.--Howard, the Philanthropist.--Gen. + Elliot.--Encyclopedia Americana.--Thomas Bell, of + London.--Linnæus, the Naturalist.--Shelley, the Poet.--Rev. + Mr. Rich.--Rev. John Wesley.--Lamartine, 176-222 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM. + + The Pythagoreans.--The Essenes.--The Bramins.--Society of Bible + Christians.--Orphan Asylum of Albany.--The Mexican + Indians.--School in Germany.--American Physiological + Society, 223-235 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED. + + General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument.--1. The + Anatomical Argument.--2. The Physiological Argument.--3. The + Medical Argument.--4. The Political Argument.--5. The + Economical Argument.--6. The Argument from Experience.--7. The + Moral Argument.--Conclusion, 236-296 + + * * * * * + +VEGETABLE COOKERY. + + +CLASS I. + +FARINACEOUS OR MEALY SUBSTANCES. + + Bread of the first order.--Bread of the second order.--Bread of + the third kind.--Boiled Grains.--Grains in other forms--baked, + parched, roasted, or torrefied.--Hominy.--Puddings proper, + 291-308 + + +CLASS II. + +FRUITS. + + The large fruits--Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc.--The smaller + fruits--Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, Currant, Whortleberry, + Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc., 308-309 + + +CLASS III. + +ROOTS. + + The Common Potato.--The Sweet Potato, 309-311 + + +CLASS IV. + +MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD. + + Buds and Young Shoots.--Leaves and Leaf Stalks.--Cucurbitaceous + Fruits.--Oily Seeds, etc., 311-312 + + + + +VEGETABLE DIET. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +ORIGIN OF THIS WORK. + + Experience of the Author, and his Studies.--Pamphlet in + 1832.--Prize Question of the Boylston Medical + Committee.--Collection of Materials for an Essay.--Dr. + North.--His Letter and Questions.--Results. + + +Twenty-three years ago, the present season, I was in the first stage of +tuberculous consumption, and evidently advancing rapidly to the second. +The most judicious physicians were consulted, and their advice at length +followed. I commenced the practice of medicine, traveling chiefly on +horseback; and, though unable to do but little at first, I soon gained +strength enough to perform a moderate business, and to combine with it a +little gardening and farming. At the time, or nearly at the time, of +commencing the practice of medicine, I laid aside my feather bed, and +slept on straw; and in December, of the same year, I abandoned spirits, +and most kinds of stimulating food. It was not, however, until nineteen +years ago, the present season, that I abandoned all drinks but water, +and all flesh, fish, and other highly stimulating and concentrated +aliments, and confined myself to a diet of milk, fruits, and +vegetables. + +In the meantime, the duties of my profession, and the nature of my +studies led me to prosecute, more diligently than ever, a subject which +I had been studying, more or less, from my very childhood--the laws of +Human Health. Among other things, I collected facts on this subject from +books which came in my way; so that when I went to Boston, in January, +1832, I had already obtained, from various writers, on materia medica, +physiology, disease, and dietetics, quite a large parcel. The results of +my reflections on these, and of my own observation and experience, were, +in part--but in part only--developed in July, of the same year, in an +anonymous pamphlet, entitled, "Rational View of the Spasmodic Cholera;" +published by Messrs. Clapp & Hull, of Boston. + +In the summer of 1833, the Boylston Medical Committee of Harvard +University offered a prize of fifty dollars, or a gold medal of that +value, to the author of the best dissertation on the following question: +"What diet can be selected which will ensure the greatest health and +strength to the laborer in the climate of New England--quality and +quantity, and the time and manner of taking it, to be considered?" + +At first, I had thoughts of attempting an essay on the subject; for it +seemed to me an important one. Circumstances, however, did not permit me +to prosecute the undertaking; though I was excited by the question of +the Boylston Medical Committee to renewed efforts to increase my stock +of information and of facts. + +In 1834, I accidentally learned that Dr. Milo L. North, a distinguished +practitioner of medicine in Hartford, Connecticut, was pursuing a course +of inquiry not unlike my own, and collecting facts and materials for a +similar purpose. In correspondence with Dr. North, a proposition was +made to unite our stock of materials; but nothing for the present was +actually done. However, I agreed to furnish Dr. North with a statement +of my own experience, and such other important facts as came within the +range of my own observations; and a statement of my experience was +subsequently intrusted to his care, as will be seen in its place, in the +body of this work. + +In February, 1835, Dr. North, in the prosecution of his efforts, +addressed the following circular, or LETTER and QUESTIONS, to the editor +of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, which were accordingly +inserted in a subsequent number of that work. They were also published +in the American Journal of Medical Science, of Philadelphia, and copied +into numerous papers, so that they were pretty generally circulated +throughout our country. + + +"To the Editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. + +"SIR,--Reports not unfrequently reach us of certain individuals who have +fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. Those persons are +said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest confidence, to have +pertinaciously followed the course, till they reached a point of +reduction from which there was no recovery. If these are facts, they +ought to be collected and published. And I beg leave, through your +Journal, to request my medical brethren, if they have been called to +advise in such cases, that they will have the kindness to answer, +briefly, the following interrogatories, by mail, as early as convenient. + +"Should the substance of their replies ever be embodied in a small +volume, they will not only receive a copy and the thanks of the author, +but will have the pleasure to know they are assisting in the settlement +of a question of great interest to the country. If it should appear +probable that their patient was laboring under a decline at the +commencement of the change of diet, this ought, in candor, to be fully +disclosed. + +"It will be perceived, by the tenor of the questions, that they are +designed to embrace not only unfortunate results of a change of diet, +but such as are favorable. There are, in our community, considerable +numbers who have entirely excluded animal food from their diet. It is +exceedingly desirable that the results of such experiments, so difficult +to be found in this land of plenty, should be ascertained and thrown +before the profession and the community. Will physicians, then, have the +kindness, if they know of any persons in their vicinity who have +excluded animal food from their diet for a year or over, to lend them +this number of the Journal, and ask them to forward to Milo L. North, +Hartford, Connecticut, as early as convenient, the result of this change +of diet on their health and constitution, in accordance with the +following inquiries? + +"1. Was your bodily strength either increased or diminished by excluding +all animal food from your diet? + +"2. Were the animal sensations, connected with the process of digestion, +more--or less agreeable? + +"3. Was the mind clearer; and could it continue a laborious +investigation longer than when you subsisted on mixed diet? + +"4. What constitutional infirmities were aggravated or removed? + +"5. Had you fewer colds or other febrile attacks--or the reverse? + +"6. What length of time, the trial? + +"7. Was the change to a vegetable diet, in your case, preceded by the +use of an uncommon proportion of animal food, or of high seasoning, or +of stimulants? + +"8. Was this change accompanied by a substitution of cold water for tea +and coffee, during the experiment? + +"9. Is a vegetable diet more--or less aperient than mixed? + +"10. Do you believe, from your experience, that the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet? + +"11. Have you selected, from your own observation, any articles in the +vegetable kingdom, as particularly healthy, or otherwise? + +"N.B.--Short answers to these inquiries are all that is necessary; and +as a copy of the latter is retained by the writer, it will be sufficient +to refer to them numerically, without the trouble of transcribing each +question. + + "HARTFORD, February 25, 1835." + +This circular, or letter, drew forth numerous replies from various parts +of the United States, and chiefly from medical men. In the meantime, the +prize of the Boylston Medical Committee was awarded to Luther V. Bell, +M.D., of Derry, New Hampshire, and was published in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal, and elsewhere, and read with considerable +interest. + +In the year 1836, while many were waiting--some with a degree of +impatience--to hear from Dr. North, his health so far failed him, that +he concluded to relinquish, for the present, his inquiries; and, at his +particular request, I consented to have the following card inserted in +the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: + + "DR. NORTH, of Hartford, Connecticut, tenders his grateful + acknowledgments to the numerous individuals, who were so kind + as to forward to him a statement of the effects of vegetable + diet on their own persons, in reply to some specific inquiries + inserted in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of March + 11, 1835, and in the Philadelphia Journal of the same year. + Although many months elapsed before the answers were all + received, yet the writer is fully aware that these + communications ought to have been published before this. His + apology is a prolonged state of ill health, which has now + become so serious as to threaten to drive him to a southern + climate for the winter. In this exigency, he has solicited Dr. + W. A. Alcott, of Boston, to receive the papers and give them to + the public as soon as his numerous engagements will permit. + This arrangement will doubtless be fully satisfactory, both to + the writers of the communications and to the public. + + "HARTFORD, November 4, 1836." + + + +Various circumstances, beyond my control, united to defer the +publication of the contemplated work to the year 1838. It is hoped, +however, that nothing was lost by delay. It gave further opportunity for +reflection, as well as for observation and experiment; and if the work +is of any value at all to the community, it owes much of that value to +the fact that what the public may be disposed to regard as unnecessary, +afforded another year for investigation. Not that any new discoveries +were made in that time, but I was, at least, enabled to verify and +confirm my former conclusions, and to review, more carefully than ever, +the whole argument. It is hoped that the work will at least serve as a +pioneer to a more extensive as well as more scientific volume, by some +individual who is better able to do the subject justice. + +It will be my object to present the facts and arguments of the following +volume, not in a distorted or one-sided manner, but according to truth. +I have no private interests to subserve, which would lead me to +suppress, or falsely color, or exaggerate. If vegetable food is not +preferable to animal, I certainly do not wish to have it so regarded. +This profession of a sincere desire to know and teach the truth may be +an apology for placing the letters in the order in which they +appear--which certainly is such as to give no unfair advantages to those +who believe in the superiority of the vegetable system--and for the +faithfulness with which their whole contents, whether favoring one side +or other of the argument, have been transcribed. + +The title of the work requires a word of explanation. It is not +intended, or even intimated, that there are no facts here but what rest +on medical authority; but rather, that the work originated with the +medical profession, and contains, for the most part, testimony which is +exclusively medical--either given by medical men, or under their +sanction. In fact, though designed chiefly for popular reading, it is in +a good degree a medical work; and will probably stand or fall, according +to the sentence of approbation or disapprobation which shall be +pronounced by the medical profession. + +The following chapter will contain the letters addressed to Dr. North. +They are inserted, with a single exception, in the precise order of +their date. The first, however, does not appear to have been elicited by +Dr. North's circular; but rather by a request in some previous letter. +It will be observed that several of the letters include more than one +case or experiment; and a few of them many. Thus the whole series +embraces, at the least calculation, from thirty to forty experiments. + +The replies of nearly every individual are numbered to correspond with +the questions, as suggested by Dr. North; so that, if there should +remain a doubt, in any case, in regard to the precise point referred to +by the writer of the letter, the reader has only to turn to the circular +in the present chapter, and read the question there, which corresponds +to the number of the doubtful one. Thus, for example, the various +replies marked 6, refer to the length or duration of the experiment or +experiments which had been made; and those marked 9, to the aperient +effects of a diet exclusively vegetable. And so of all the rest. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LETTERS TO DR. NORTH. + + Letter of Dr. Parmly.--Dr. W. A. Alcott.--Dr. D. S. + Wright.--Dr. H. N. Preston.--Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. Caleb + Bannister.--Dr. Lyman Tenny.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Joseph + Ricketson, Esq.--Joseph Congdon, Esq.--George W. Baker, + Esq.--John Howland, Jr., Esq.--Dr. Wm. H. Webster.--Josiah + Bennet, Esq.--Wm. Vincent, Esq.--Dr. Geo. H. Perry.--Dr. L. W. + Sherman. + + +LETTER I.--FROM DR. PARMLY, DENTIST. + +To Dr. North. + +MY DEAR SIR,--For two years past, I have abstained from the use of all +the diffusible stimulants, using no animal food, either flesh, fish, or +fowl; nor any alcoholic or vinous spirits; no form of ale, beer, or +porter; no cider, tea, or coffee; but using milk and water as my only +liquid aliment, and feeding sparingly, or rather, moderately, upon +farinaceous food, vegetables, and fruit, seasoned with unmelted butter, +slightly boiled eggs, and sugar or molasses; with no condiment but +common salt. + +I adopted this regimen in company with several friends, male and female, +some of whom had been afflicted either with dyspepsia or some other +chronic malady. In every instance within the circle of my acquaintance, +the _symptoms_ of disease disappeared before this system of diet; and I +have every reason to believe that the disease itself was wholly or in +part eradicated. + +In answer to your inquiry, whether I ascribe the cure, in the cases +alleged, to the abstinence from animal food or from stimulating drinks, +or from both, I cannot but give it as my confident opinion that the +result is to be attributed to a general abandonment of the _diffusive +stimuli_, under every shape and form. + +An increase of flesh was one of the earliest effects of the +_anti-stimulating_ regimen, in those cures in which the system was in +low condition. The animal spirits became more cheerful, buoyant, and +uniformly pleasurable. Mental and bodily labor was endured with much +less fatigue, and both intellectual and corporeal exertion was more +vigorous and efficient. + +In the language of Addison, this system of ultra temperance has had the +happy effect of "filling the mind with inward joy, and spreading delight +through all its faculties." + +But, although I have thus made the experiment of abstaining wholly from +the use of liquid and solid stimulants, and from every form of animal +food, I am not fully convinced that it should be deemed improper, on any +account, to use the more slightly stimulating forms of animal food. +Perhaps fish and fowl, with the exception of ducks and geese, turtle and +lobster, may be taken without detriment, in moderate quantities. And I +regard good mutton as being the lightest, and, at the same time, the +most nutritious of all meats, and as producing less inconvenience than +any other kind, where the energies of the stomach are enfeebled. And yet +there are unquestionably many constitutions which would be benefited by +living, as I and others have done, on purely vegetable diet and ripe +fruits. + +In relation to many of the grosser kinds of animal food, all alcoholic +spirits, all distilled and fermented liquors, tea and coffee, opium and +tobacco,--I feel confident in pronouncing them not only useless, but +noxious to the animal machine. + + Yours, etc., + ELEAZER PARMLY + + NEW YORK, January 31, 1835. + + +LETTER II--FROM DR. W. A. ALCOTT. + + BOSTON, December 19, 1834. + +DEAR SIR,--I received your communication, and hasten to reply to as many +of your inquiries as I can. Allow me to take them up in the very order +in which you have presented them. + +Answer to question 1. I was bred to a very active life, from my earliest +childhood. This active course was continued till about the time of my +leaving off the use of flesh and fish; since which period my habits +have, unfortunately, been more sedentary. I think my muscular strength +is somewhat less now than it was before I omitted flesh meat, but in +what proportion I am unable to say; for indeed it varies greatly. When +more exercise is used, my strength increases--sometimes almost +immediately; when less exercise is used, my strength again diminishes, +but not so rapidly. These last circumstances indicate a more direct +connection between my loss of muscular strength and my neglect of +exercise than between the former and my food. + +2. Rather more agreeable; unless I use too large a quantity of food; to +which however I am rather more inclined than formerly, as my appetite is +keener, and food relishes far better. A sedentary life, moreover, as I +am well satisfied, tends to bring my moral powers into subjection to the +physical. + +3. My mind has been clearer, since I commenced the experiment to which +you allude, than before; but I doubt whether I can better endure a +"laborious investigation." A little rest or exercise, perhaps less than +formerly, restores vigor. I am sometimes tempted to _break my day into +two_, by sleeping at noon. But I am not so apt to be cloyed with study, +or reflection, as formerly. + +4. Several. 1. An eruptive complaint, sometimes, at one period of my +life, very severe. 2. Irritation of the lungs; probably, indeed most +certainly, incipient phthisis. 3. Rheumatic attacks, though they had +never been very severe. + +The eruptive disease, however, and the rheumatic attacks, are not wholly +removed; but they are greatly diminished. The irritation at the lungs +has nearly left me. This is the more remarkable from the fact that I +have been, during almost the whole period of my experiment, in or about +Boston. I was formerly somewhat subject to palpitations; these are now +less frequent. I am also less exposed to epidemics. Formerly, like other +scrofulous persons, I had nearly all that appeared; now I have very few. + +You will observe that I merely state the facts, without affirming, +positively, that my change of diet has been the cause, though I am quite +of opinion that this has not been without its influence. Mental quiet +and total abstinence from all drinks but water, may also have had much +influence, as well as other causes. + +5. Very few colds. Last winter I had a violent inflammation of the ear, +which was attended with some fever; but abstinence and emollient +applications soon restored me. In July last, I had a severe attack of +diarrhoea unattended with much fever, which I attributed to drinking +too much water impregnated with earthy salts, and to which I had been +unaccustomed. When I have a cold, of late, it affects, principally, the +nasal membrane; and, if I practice abstinence, soon disappears. In this +respect, more than in any other, I am confident that since I commenced +the use of a vegetable diet I have been a very great gainer. + +6. The experiment was fully begun four years ago last summer; though I +had been making great changes in my physical habits for four years +before. For about three years, I used neither flesh nor fish, nor even +eggs more than two or three times a year. The only animal food I used +was milk; and for some long periods, not even that. But at the end of +three years I ate a very small quantity of flesh meat once a day, for +three or four weeks, and then laid it aside. This was in the time of the +cholera. The only effect I perceived from its use was a slight increase +of peristaltic action. In March last, I used a little dried fish once or +twice a day, for a few days; but with no peculiar effects. After my +attack of diarrhoea, in July last, I used a little flesh several +times; but for some months past I have laid it aside entirely, with no +intention of resuming it. Nothing peculiar was observed, as to its +effects, during the last autumn. + +7. I never used a large proportion of animal food, except milk, since I +was a child; but I have been in the habit, at various periods of my +life, of drinking considerable cider. For some months before I laid +aside flesh and fish, I had been accustomed to the use of more animal +food than usual, but less cider; though, for a part of the time, I made +up the deficiency of cider with ale and coffee. For several months +previous to the beginning of the experiment, I had drank nothing but +water. + +8. Rather less. But here, again, I fear I am in danger of attributing to +one cause what is the effect of another. My neglect of exercise may be +more in fault than the rice and bread and milk which I use. Still I must +think that vegetable food is, in my own case, less aperient than animal. + +9. In regard to students, my reply is, Yes, most certainly. So I think +in regard to laborers, were they trained to it. But how far _early +habits_ may create a demand for the continuance of animal food through +life, I am quite at a loss for an opinion. Were I a hard laborer, I +should use no animal food. When I travel on foot forty or fifty miles a +day, I use vegetable food, and in less than the usual quantity. This I +used to do before I commenced my experiment. + +10. I use bread made of unbolted wheat meal, in moderate quantity, when +I can get it; plain Indian cakes once a day; milk once a day; rice once +a day. My plan is to use as few things as possible at the same meal, but +to have considerable variety at different meals. I use no new bread or +pastry, no cheese, and but little butter; and very little fruit, except +apples in moderate quantity. + +11. The answer to this question, though I think it would be important +and interesting, with many other particulars, I must defer for the +present. The experiments of Dr. F., a young man in this neighborhood, +and of several other individuals, would, I know be in point; but I have +not at my command the time necessary to present them. + + +LETTER III.--FROM DR. D. S. WRIGHT. + + WHITEHALL, Washington Co., N. Y., March 17, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--I noticed a communication from you in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal of the 5th instant, in which you signify a wish to +collect facts in relation to the effects of a vegetable diet upon the +human system, etc. I submit for your consideration my own experience; +premising, however, that I am a practicing physician in this place--am +thirty-three years old--of a sanguine, bilious temperament--have from +youth up usually enjoyed good health--am not generally subject to +fevers, etc. + +I made a radical change in my diet three years ago this present month, +from a mixed course of animal and vegetable food, to a strictly +vegetable diet, on which I subsisted pretty uniformly for the most part +of one year. I renewed it again about ten moths ago. + +My reasons for adopting it were: 1st. I had experienced the beneficial +effects of it for several years before, during the warm weather, in +obviating a dull cephalalgic pain, and oppression in the epigastrium. +2dly. I had recently left the salubrious atmosphere of the mountains in +Essex county, in this state, for this place of _musquitoes_ and +_miasmata_. 3dly, and prominently. I had frequent exposures to the +variolous infection, and I had a _dreadful_ apprehension that I might +have an attack of the varioloid, as at that time I had never +experimentally tried the protective powers of the vaccine virus, and +had _too_ little confidence in those who recommended its prophylactic +powers. The results I submit you, in reply to your interrogatories. + +1. I think each time I tried living on vegetable food exclusively, that +for the first month I could not endure fatigue _as well_. Afterward I +could. + +2. The digestive organs were always more agreeably excited. + +3. The mind uniformly clearer, and could endure laborious investigations +longer, and with less effort. + +4. I am constitutionally healthy and robust. + +5. I believe I have more colds, principally seated on the mucous +membranes of the lungs, fauces, and cavities of the head. (I do not, +however, attribute it to diet.) + +6. The first trial was one year. I am now ten months on the same plan, +and shall continue it. + +7. I never used a large quantity of animal food or stimulants, of any +description. + +8. I have for several years used tea and coffee, usually once a +day--believe them healthy. + +9. Vegetable diet is less aperient than a mixed diet, if we except +_Indian corn_. + +10. I do not think that common laborers, in health, could do as well +without animal food; but I think students might. + +11. I have selected _potatoes_, when _baked_ or _roasted_, and all +articles of food usually prepared from _Indian meal_, as the most +healthy articles on which I subsist; particularly the latter, whose +aperient and nutritive qualities render it, in my estimation, an +invaluable article for common use. + + Yours, etc., + D. S. WRIGHT. + + +LETTER IV.--FROM DR. H. N. PRESTON.[1] + + PLYMOUTH, Mass., March 26, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--When I observed your questions in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal, of the 11th of March, I determined to give you +personal experience, in reply to your valuable queries. + +In the spring of 1832, while engaged in more than usual professional +labor, I began to suffer from indigestion, which gradually increased, +unabated by any medicinal or dietetic course, until I was reduced to the +very confines of the grave. The disease became complicated, for a time, +with chronic bronchitis. I would remark, that, at the time of my +commencing a severe course of diet, I was able to attend to my practice +daily. + +In answer to your inquiries, I would say to the 1st--very much +diminished, and rapidly. + +2. Rather less; distinct local uneasiness--less disposition to +drowsiness; but decidedly more troubled with cardialgia, and +eructations. + +3. I think not. + +4. My disease was decidedly increased; as cough, headache, and +emaciation; and being of a scrofulous diathesis, was lessening my +prospect of eventual recovery. + +5. My febrile attacks increased with my increased debility. + +6. Almost four months; when I became convinced death would be the +result, unless I altered my course. + +7. I had taken animal food moderately, morning and noon--very little +high seasoning--no stimulants, except tea and coffee. The latter was my +favorite beverage; and I usually drank two cups with my breakfast and +dinner, and black tea with my supper. + +8. I drank but one cup of weak coffee with my breakfast, none with +dinner, and generally a cup of milk and water with supper. + +9. With me _much less aperient_; indeed, costiveness became a very +serious and distressing accompaniment. + +10. From somewhat extensive observation, for the last seven years, I +should say, of laborers never; students seldom. + +11. Among dyspeptics, potatoes nearly boiled, then mashed together, +rolled into balls, and laid over hot coals, until a second time cooked, +as easy as any vegetable. If any of the luxuries of the table have been +noticed as particularly injurious, it has been cranberries, prepared in +any form, as stewed in sauce, tarts, pies, etc. + +Crude as these answers are, they are at your service; and I am prompted +to give them from the fact, that very few persons, I presume, have been +so far reduced as myself, with dyspepsia and its concomitants. In fact, +I was pronounced, by some of the most scientific physicians of Boston, +as past all prospect of cure, or even much relief, from medicine, diet, +or regimen. My attention has naturally been turned with anxious +solicitude to the subject of diet, in all its forms. Since my unexpected +restoration to health, my opportunities for observation among dyspeptics +have been much enlarged; and I most unhesitatingly say, that my success +is much more encouraging, in the management of such cases, since +pursuing a more liberal diet, than before. Plain animal diet, avoiding +condiments and tea, using mucilaginous drink, as the Irish Moss, is +preferable to "absolute diet,"--cases of decided chronic gastritis +excepted. + + Yours, etc., + H. N. PRESTON. + + +LETTER V.--FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS. + + PHILLIPS, Somerset Co., Me., April 28, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--I have a brother-in-law, who owes his life to abstinence from +animal food, and strict adherence to the simplest vegetable diet. My own +existence is prolonged, only (according to human probabilities) by +entire abstinence from flesh-meat of every description, and feeding +principally upon the coarsest farinacea. + +Numberless other instances have come under my observation within the +last three years, in which a strict adherence to a simple vegetable diet +has done for the wretched invalid what the best medical treatment had +utterly failed to do; and in no one instance have I known permanently +injurious results to follow from this course, but in many instances have +had to lament the want of firmness and decision, and a gradual return to +the "_flesh-pots of Egypt_." + +With these views, I very cheerfully comply with your general invitation, +on page 77, volume 12, of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. The +answers to your interrogatories will apply to the case first referred +to, to my own case, and to nearly every one which has occurred within my +notice. + +1. Increased, uniformly; and in nearly every instance, without even the +usual debility consequent upon withdrawing the stimulus of animal food. + +2. More agreeable in every instance. + +3. Affirmative, _in toto_. + +4. None aggravated, except flatulence in one or two instances. All the +horrid train of dyspeptic symptoms uniformly mitigated, and obstinate +constipation removed. + +5. Fewer colds and febrile attacks. + +6. Three years, with my brother; with myself, eighteen months partially, +and three months wholly; the others, from one to six months. + +7. Negative. + +8. Cold water--my brother and myself; others, hot and cold water +alternately. + +9. More aperient,--no exceptions. + +10. I believe the health of _students_ would uniformly be promoted--and +the days of the laborer, to say the least, would be lengthened. + +11. I have; and that is, simple bread made of wheat meal, ground in +corn-stones, and mixed up precisely as it comes from the mill--with the +substitution of fine flour when the bowels become too active. + + Yours, etc., + HORACE A. BARROWS. + + +LETTER VI.--FROM DR. CALEB BANNISTER. + + PHELPS, N. Y., May 4, 1835. + +SIR,--My age is fifty-three. My ancestors had all melted away with +hereditary consumption. At the age of twenty, I began to be afflicted +with pain in different parts of the thorax, and other premonitory +symptoms of phthisis pulmonalis. Soon after this, my mother and eldest +sister died with the disease. For myself, having a severe attack of ague +and fever, all my consumptive symptoms became greatly aggravated; the +pain was shifting--sometimes between the shoulders, sometimes in the +side, or breast, etc. System extremely irritable, pulse hard and easily +excited, from about ninety to one hundred and fifty, by the stimulus of +a very small quantity of food; and, to be short, I was given up, on all +hands, as lost. + +From reading "Rush" I was induced to try a milk diet, and succeeded in +regaining my health, so that for twenty-four years I have been entirely +free from any symptom of phthisis; and although subject, during that +time, to many attacks of fever and other epidemics, have steadily +followed the business of a country physician. + +I would further remark, before proceeding to the direct answer to your +questions, that soon perceiving the benefit resulting from the course I +had commenced, and finding the irritation to diminish in proportion as I +diminished not only the quality, but quantity of my food, I took less +than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to +about the quantity of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen +arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking only my usual +quantity in _bulk_. + +A seton was worn in the side, and a little exercise on horseback taken +three times every day, as strength would allow, during the whole +progress. The appetite was, at all times, not only _craving_, it was +_voracious_; insomuch that all my sufferings from all other sources, +dwindled to a point when compared with it. + +The quantity that I ate at a time so far from satisfying my appetite, +only served to increase it; and this inconvenience continued during the +whole term, without the least abatement;--and the only means by which I +could resist its cravings, was to live entirely by myself, and keep out +of sight of all kinds of food except the scanty pittance on which I +subsisted. And now to the proposed questions. + +1. Increased. + +2. More agreeable, hunger excepted. + +3. To the first part of this question, I should say evidently clearer; +to the latter part, such was the state of debility when I commenced, and +such was it through the whole course, I am not able to give a decisive +answer. + +4. This question, you will perceive, is already answered in my +preliminary remarks. + +5. Fewer, insomuch that I had none. + +6. Two full years. + +7. My living, from early life, had been conformable to the habits of the +farmers of New England, from which place I emigrated, and my habits in +regard to stimulating drinks were always moderate; but I occasionally +took them, in conformity to the customs of those "_times of ignorance_." + +8. I literally drank _nothing_; the milk wholly supplying the place of +all liquids. + +9. State of the bowels good before adopting the course, and after. + +10. I do not. + +11. I have not. + + CALEB BANNISTER. + + +LETTER VII.--FROM DR. LYMAN TENNY. + + FRANKLIN, Vermont, June 22, 1835. + +SIR,--In answer to your inquiries, in the Boston Medical and Surgical +Journal, vol. xii., page 78, I can say that I have lived entirely upon a +bread and milk diet, without using any animal food other than the milk. + +1. At first, my bodily strength was diminished to a certain degree, and +required a greater quantity of food, and rather oftener, than when upon +a mixed diet of animal food (strictly so called) and vegetables. + +2. The animal sensations, attending upon the process of digestion, were +rather more agreeable than when upon a mixed diet. + +3. My mind was more clear, but I could not continue a laborious +investigation as long as when I used animal food more plentifully. + +4. At this time there were no constitutional infirmities which I was +laboring under, except those which more or less accompany the rapid +growth of the body; such as a general lassitude, impaired digestion, +etc., which were neither removed nor aggravated, but kept about so, +until I ate just what I pleased, without any regard to my indigestion, +etc., when I began to improve in the strength of my whole system. + +5. I do not recollect whether I was subject to more or fewer colds; but +I can say I was perfectly free from all febrile attacks, although +febrile diseases often prevailed in my vicinity. But since that time, a +period of six years, I have had three attacks of fever. + +6. The length of time I was upon this diet was about two years. + +7. Before entering upon this diet, I was in the habit of taking a +moderate quantity of animal food, but without very high seasoning or +stimulants. + +8. While using this diet, I confined myself entirely and exclusively to +cold water as a drink--using neither tea, coffee, nor spirits of any +kind whatever. + +9. I am inclined to think that a vegetable diet is more aperient than an +animal one; indeed, I may say I know it to be a fact. + +10. From what I have experienced, I do not think that laborers would be +any more healthy by excluding animal food from their diet entirely; but +I believe it would be much getter if they would use less. As to +students, I believe their health would be promoted if they were to +exclude it almost, if not entirely. + +11. I never have selected any vegetables which I thought to be more +healthy than others: nor indeed do I believe there is any one that is +more healthy than another; but believe that all those vegetables which +we use in the season of them, are adapted to supply and satisfy the +wants of the system. + +We are carnivorous, as well as granivorous animals, having systems +requiring animal, as well as vegetable food, to keep all the organs of +the body in tune; and perhaps we need a greater variety than other +animals. + + Yours, etc., + LYMAN TENNY. + + +LETTER VIII.--FROM DR. J. M. B. HARDEN. + + LIBERTY COUNTY, Georgia, July 15, 1835. + +SIR,--Having observed, in the May number of the "American Journal of the +Medical Sciences," certain inquiries in relation to diet, proposed by +you to the physicians of the United States, I herewith transmit to you +an account of a case exactly in point, which I hope may prove +interesting to yourself, and in some degree "assist in the settlement of +a question of _great interest_ to the _country_." + +The case, to which allusion is made, occurred in the person of a very +intelligent and truly scientific gentleman of this county, whose regular +habits, both of mind and body, added to his sound and discriminating +judgment, will tend to heighten the value and importance of the +experiment involved in the case I am about to detail. + +Before proceeding to give his answers to your interrogatories, it may be +well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was +forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his +business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great +deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he himself declares, +to walk seldom less than ten miles a day, and frequently more; and this +exercise was continued during the whole period of the experiment. His +health for two years previously had been very feeble, arising, as he +supposed, from a diseased _spleen_; which organ is at this time +enlarged, and somewhat indurated. His digestive powers have _always_ +been _good_, and he had been in the habit of making his meals at times +entirely of _animal food_. His bowels have always been regular, and +rather inclined to looseness, but never disordered. He is five feet +eight inches high, of a very thin and spare habit of body, with thin +dark hair, inclining to baldness; complexion rather dark than fair; eyes +dark hazel; of _very studious_ habits when free from active engagements; +with great powers of mental abstraction and attention, and of a temper +_remarkably even_. + +In answer to your interrogatories, he replies,-- + +1. That his bodily strength was increased, and general health became +better. + +2. He perceived no difference. + +3. He is assured of the affirmative. + +4. His spleen was diminished in size, and frequent and long-continued +attacks of _lumbago_ were rendered _much milder_, and have so continued. + +5. Had fewer colds and febrile attacks. + +6. Three years. + +7. No; with the slight exception mentioned above. + +8. No. + +9. In his case rather less. + +10. Undoubtedly. + +11. No; has made his meals of cabbages entirely, and found them as +easily digested as any other article of diet. I may remark, that _honey_ +to him is a poison, producing, _invariably_, symptoms of cholera. + +After three years' trial of this diet, without having any previous +apparent disease, but on the contrary as strong as usual, he was taken, +somewhat suddenly, in the winter of 1832 and 3, with symptoms of extreme +debility, attended with oedematous swellings of the lower extremities, +and painful cramps, at night confined to the gastrocnemii of both legs, +and some feverishness, indicated more by the beatings of the _carotids_ +than by any other symptom. His countenance became very pallid, and +indeed he had every appearance of a man in a very low state of health. +Yet, during the whole period of this apparent state of disease, there +were no symptoms indicative of disorder in any function, save the +general function of innervation, and perhaps that of the lymphatics or +absorbents of the lower extremities. Nor was there any manifest disease +of any organ, unless it was the spleen, which was not then remarkably +enlarged. I was myself disposed to attribute his symptoms to the spleen, +and possibly to the want of animal food; but he himself attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of the vapor of +arseniuretted and sulphuretted hydrogen gases, to which he was +subjected during some chemical experiments on the ores of cobalt, to +which he has been for a long time turning his attention; a circumstance +which I had not known until lately. + +However it may be, he again returned to a mixed diet (to which however +he ascribes no agency in his recovery), and, after six months' +continuance in this state, he rapidly recovered his usual health and +strength, which, up to this day--two full years after the expiration of +six months--have continued good. In the treatment of his case no +medicine of any kind was given, to which any good effect can be +attributed; and indeed he may be said to have undergone no medical +treatment at all. + + Yours, etc., + J. M. B. HARDEN. + + +LETTER IX.--FROM JOSEPH RICKETSON, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, 8th month, 26th, 1835. + +RESPECTED FRIEND,--Perhaps before giving answers to thy queries in the +American Journal of Medical Science, it may not be amiss to give thee +some account of my family and manner of living, to enable thee to judge +of the effect of a vegetable diet on the constitution. + +I have a wife, a mother aged eighty-eight, and two female domestics. It +is now near three years since we adopted what is called the Graham or +vegetable diet, though not in its fullest extent. We exclude animal food +from our diet, but sometimes we indulge in shell and other fish. We use +no kind of stimulating liquors, either as drink or in cookery, nor any +other stimulants except occasionally a little spice. We do not, as +Professor Hitchcock would recommend, nor as I believe would be most +conducive to good health, live entirely simple; sometimes, however, for +an experiment, I have eaten only rice and milk; at other times only +potatoes and milk for my dinner; and have uniformly found I could endure +as much fatigue, and walk as far without inconvenience, as when I have +eaten a greater variety. We, however, endeavor to make our varieties +mostly at different meals. + +For breakfast and tea we have some hot water poured upon milk, to which +we add a little sugar, and cold bread and butter; but in cold weather we +toast the bread, and prefer having it so cool as not to melt the butter. +We seldom eat a meal without some kind of dried or preserved fruit, such +as peaches, plums, quinces, or apples; and in the season, when easily to +be procured, we use, freely, baked apples, also berries, particularly +blackberries stewed, which, while cooking, are sweetened and thickened a +little. Our dinners are nearly the same as our other meals, except that +we use cold milk, without any water. We have puddings sometimes made of +stale bread, at others of Graham or other flour, or rice, or ground +rice, usually baked; we have also hasty puddings, made of Indian meal, +or Graham flour, which we eat with milk or melted sugar and cream; +occasionally we have other simple puddings, such as tapioca, etc. +Custards, with or without a crust, pies made of apple, and other fruits +either green or preserved; but we have no more shortening in the crust +than just to make it a little tender. + +I have two sons; one lived with us about fifteen months after we adapted +this mode of living; it agreed remarkably well with him; he grew strong +and fleshy. He married since that time, and, in some measure, returned +to the usual manner of living; but he is satisfied it does not agree so +well with him as the Graham diet. The coarse bread he cannot well do +without. My other son was absent when we commenced this way of living; +he has been at home about six weeks, and has not eaten any animal food +except when he dined out. He has evidently _lost_ flesh, and is not very +well; _he_ thinks he shall not be able to live without animal food, but +I think his indisposition is more owing to the season of the year than +diet. He never drank any tea or coffee until about four years since, +when he took some coffee for a while, but no tea. For the last two years +he has not drank either, when he could get milk. He is generally +healthy, and so is his brother: both were literally brought up on +gingerbread and milk, never taking animal food of choice, until they +were fifteen or sixteen years of age. + +Dr. Keep, of Fairhaven, Connecticut, was here about a year since, in +very bad health, since which I learn he has recovered by abstaining from +animal food and other injurious diet. As he is a scientific man, I think +he can give thee some useful information. + +1. The strength of both myself and wife has very materially increased, +so that we can now walk ten miles as easily as we could five before; +possibly it may in part be attributed to practice. Our health is, in +every respect, much improved. One of our women enjoys perfect health; +the other was feeble when we commenced this way of living, and she has +not gained much if any in the time; but this may be owing to her +attendance on my mother, both day and night, who, being blind and +feeble, takes no exercise except to walk across the room; but we are +very sure she would not have lived to this time had she not adopted this +way of living. + +2. The process of digestion is much more agreeable, if we do not indulge +in eating too much. We seldom have occasion to think of it after rising +from the table. + +3. I do not perceive much effect on the mind, other than what would +naturally be produced by the restoration of health; but have no doubt a +laborious investigation might be continued as long, if not longer, on +this than any other diet. + +4. I was formerly very much afflicted with the headache, and sometimes +was troubled with rheumatism. I have very seldom, for the last two years +especially, been troubled with either; and when I have had a turn of +headache, it is light indeed compared with what it was before we adopted +this system of living. My wife was very dyspeptic, and often had severe +turns of palpitation of the heart; the latter is entirely removed, and +she seldom experiences any inconvenience from the former. Our nurse was +formerly, and still is, troubled with severe turns of headache, though +not so bad as formerly; and I think she would have much less of it if +she were placed in a different situation. + +5. We scarcely know what it is to have a cold; my wife in particular. +Previously to our change of diet, I was very subject to severe colds, +attended with a hard cough, which lasted, sometimes, for several weeks. + +6. As before stated, we exclude animal food from our diet, as well as +tea and coffee. + +7. Before we adopted a vegetable diet, we always had meat for dinner, +and generally with breakfast; and not unfrequently with tea. Tea and +coffee we drank very strong. + +8. We have substituted milk and water sweetened, for tea and coffee. + +9. Most vegetables I find have a tendency (especially when Graham or +unbolted wheaten flour is used) to keep the bowels open; to counteract +which, we use rice once or twice a week. Potatoes, when eaten freely, +are flatulent, but not inconvenient when eaten moderately. + +10. I think the health of students, by the exclusion of animal food from +their diet, would be promoted, especially if they excluded tea and +coffee also; and I can see no good reason why it should not be +beneficial to laboring people. I have conversed with two or three +mechanics, who confirm me in this belief. + +11. Graham bread, as we call it, eaten with milk, or baked potatoes and +milk, for most people, I think would be healthy; to which should be +added such a proportion of rice as may be found necessary. + + Thy friend, + JOSEPH RICKETSON. + + +LETTER X.--FROM JOSEPH CONGDON, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, Sept., 1835. + +ANSWERS to Dr. North's inquiries on diet. + +1. Increase of strength and activity, connected with, and perhaps in +some good degree a consequence of, an increase of daily exercise. + +2. Process of digestion more regular and agreeable. + +3. Mental activity greater; no decisive experiments on the ability to +_continue_ a laborious investigation. + +4. Dyspepsia of long continuance, and also difficult breathing; +inflammation of the eyes. + +5. Fewer colds; febrile attacks very slight; great elasticity in +recovering from disease. Some part of the effect should undoubtedly be +ascribed to greater attention to the skin by bathing and friction. + +6. Twenty-six months of _entire abstinence_ from all animal substances, +excepting butter and milk. Salt is used regularly. + +7. Through life inclined to a vegetable diet, with few stimulants. + +8. Drinks have been milk, milk and water, or cold water. + +9. A _well-selected_ vegetable diet appears to produce a very regular +action of the stomach and bowels. + +10. I think the health of laborers and students would be promoted by a +_great_ reduction of the usual quantity of animal food, and perhaps by +discontinuing its use entirely. I feel no want. + +11. From my experience, I can very highly recommend bread made of coarse +wheat flour. Among fruits, the blackberry, as peculiarly adapted to the +state of the body, at the time of the year when it is in season. My +range of food has been confined. I avoid green vegetables. Age 35. + + JOSEPH CONGDON. + + +LETTER XI.--FROM GEORGE W. BAKER, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, 9th month, 10, 1835. + +DR. M. L. NORTH,--Agreeably to request, the following answers are +forwarded, which I believe to be correct as far as my experience has +tested. + +1. At first it was diminished; but after a few months it was restored, +and I think increased. + +2. More. + +3. It could. + +4. Pretty free from constitutional infirmities before the change, and no +increase since. + +5. I have had no cold, of any consequence, for the last three years; at +which time I substituted cold water for tea and coffee, and commenced +using cold water for washing about my head and neck and for shaving, +which I continued through the year. + +6. I have not eaten animal food for about eighteen months. + +7. Two years previous to the entire change the quantity was great, but +there had been a gradual diminution. + +8. It was. (See fifth answer.) + +9. More so, in my case. + +10. I believe the health of both laborers and students would be +improved. + +11. I have generally avoided eating cucumbers; otherwise I have not. + + Thy assured friend, + GEO. W. BAKER. + + +LETTER XII--FROM JOHN HOWLAND, JR., ESQ. + + NEW BEFORD, 9th month, 10th day, 1835. + +FRIEND,--As I have lived nearly three years upon a vegetable diet, I +cheerfully comply with thy request. + +1. My bodily strength has been increased; and I can now endure much more +exercise than formerly, without fatigue. + +2. They are more agreeable; and I am now free from that dull, heavy +feeling, which I used to experience after my meals. + +3. My mind is much clearer; and I am free from that depression of +spirits, to which I was formerly subject. + +4. I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed. +I had frequent and severe attacks of headache, which I now rarely have; +and when they do occur they are very light, compared with what they +formerly were. + +5. I have had fewer colds, and those much lighter than formerly. + +6. About three years. + +7. I used to eat animal food for breakfast and dinner, with coffee for +drink, at those meals; and tea for my third meal, with bread and butter. + +8. Milk for breakfast, and cold water for the other two meals. + +9. I have found it more so; inasmuch as the use of it, with the +substitution of bread, made from _coarse, unbolted wheat flour_, instead +of superfine, has removed my costiveness entirely. + +10. I do. + +11. I consider potatoes and rice as the most healthy, and confine myself +principally to the former. + +I would remark that during the season of fruits, I eat freely of them, +with milk; and consider them to be healthy. + + JOHN HOWLAND, JR. + + +LETTER XIII.--FROM DR. W. H. WEBSTER. + + BATAVIA, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835. + +SIR,--Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical +Sciences, Philadelphia. + +I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case +somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my +own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my +health, as a kind of key to my answers. + +It is about fifteen years since I was called a _dyspeptic_; this was +while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my +medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely +swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next +month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left +college more dead than alive--a confirmed dyspeptic. + +In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the +winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my +indulgence in the luxuries of the table--especially in animal food, and +distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of +the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became +very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to +extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon +the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, +which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the +greatest share of that time, with the most excruciating torture. On +getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition +indeed--reduced to a skeleton--a voracious appetite, which could not be +indulged, and which had scarcely deserted me through the whole eight +months. I could not regain my flesh or strength but by almost +imperceptible degrees; indeed, loaf-sugar and crackers were almost the +only food I could use with impunity for the first year. + +It is now nearly four years since I have eaten animal food, unless it be +here and there a little, as an experiment, with the sole exception of +oysters, in which I can indulge, but with all due deference to the +stricter rules of temperance. Still my appetite for animal food seems +unabated. I have ever been a man unusually temperate in the use of +intoxicating drinks; and by no means intemperate in the luxuries of the +table. I take no meat, no alcoholic or fermented drinks, not even cider; +and, for a year past, my health has been better than for three years +previous; and I think that about one third the amount of nourishment +usually taken by men of my age, might subserve the purposes of food for +_me_ better than a larger quantity. The more I eat, the more I desire to +eat; and abstinence is my best medicine. + +But I have already surpassed my limits, and here are my answers. + +1. My strength is invariably diminished by animal food, and in almost +direct proportion to the quantity, with the exception named above. + +2. Pain has been the uniform attendant upon the digestion of an animal +diet, with feverish restlessness and constipation. + +3. Decidedly more fit for energetic action. + +4. An irritation, or subacute inflammation of the digestive apparatus, +which is aggravated by animal food. + +5. Can endure hardship, exposure, and fatigue, much better without meat. + +6. About four years, with the exception stated above. + +7. It was not. + +8. Partially at the commencement; but not of late, if not taken hot. + +9. Much more aperient. + +10. Both classes take too much; and students and sedentaries should take +little or none. + +11. For myself farinaceous articles first, then the succulent sub-acid +ripe fruits, then the less oily nuts are most healthful--and animal +food, strong coffee and tea, and unripe or hard fruits, in any +considerable quantities, are most pernicious. + + Yours, etc., + W. H. WEBSTER. + + +LETTER XIV.--FROM JOSIAH BENNET, ESQ. + + MOUNT-JOY, Pa., Oct. 27, 1835. + +SIR,--I hereby transmit to you, answers to a series of dietetic queries +which you have recently submitted. + +1. My physical strength was at least equal (I am rather inclined to +think greater) after abstaining from animal food. I was, I am certain, +not subject to such general debility and lassitude of the system, after +considerable bodily exercise. + +2. More agreeable--not being subject to a sense of vertigo, which +frequently (with me) followed the use of animal food. There is, +generally, more cheerfulness and vivacity. + +3. The mind is more clear, and is not so liable to be confused when +intent upon any intricate subject; and, of course, "can continue a +laborious investigation longer." There is at no time such a propensity +to incogitancy. + +4. I am not aware of being the subject of any "constitutional +infirmities;" yet, that the change of diet had a very great effect upon +the system, is obvious, from the fact of my having been, formerly, +subject to an eruptive disease of the skin, principally on the shoulders +and upper part of the back, for a number of years, which is not the case +at present, nor do I think will be, as long as I continue my present +mode of living. + +5. I think I have not had as many colds and febrile attacks as before, +nor have they been so severe; yet I cannot be very decisive on this +point, on account of the length of time in the trial not being fully +sufficient. + +6. Between seven and eight months. I must here state that animal food +was not _entirely_ excluded. I probably partook, in very moderate +quantities, once or twice a week. + +7. The quantity of animal food which would be considered "an uncommon +proportion," I am unable to determine; but I was accustomed to make use +of it, not _less_ than twice, and sometimes three times a day, +moderately seasoned. No other stimulants, of any account. + +8. Cold water has been the only substitute for tea and coffee, with the +exception of an occasional cup; probably as often as once or twice a +week. I was, on several occasions, by personal experience, induced to +believe that the use of strong coffee retarded the process of +digestion. + +9. More aperient. Previous to the general exclusion of animal food from +my diet, I was subject to inveterate costiveness; cases of which are now +neither frequent nor severe. + +10. I do firmly believe it would. + +11. My diet, principally, during the trial, consisted of wheat bread, of +the proper age, with a moderate quantity of fresh butter. Potatoes, +beans, and some other esculent roots, etc., I found to be nutritious and +healthy. The following substances I found to produce a contrary effect, +or to possess different qualities: cabbage, when not well boiled; +cucumbers, raw or pickled; radishes, beets, and the whole catalogue of +preserves. Fresh bread was particularly hurtful to me. + + Yours, etc., + JOSIAH BENNETT. + + +LETTER XV.--FROM WILLIAM VINCENT, ESQ.[2] + + HOPKINTON, R. I., Dec. 23, 1835. + +SIR,--The following answer to the interrogations in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal of March 1835, on diet, etc., as proposed by +yourself, has been through the press of business, neglected until this +late period. Trusting they may be of some use, I now forward them. + +1. Rather increased, if any change. + +2. ---- + +3. I think I have retained the vigor of my mind more, in consequence of +an abstemious diet. + +4. I thought I had the appearance of scurvy, which gradually +disappeared. + +5. ---- + +6. From May 20, 1811, (more than twenty-four years.) + +7. Small in quantity, and dressed and cooked simply. + +8. I have drank nothing but warm tea, for seven years. + +9. Bowels uniformly open. + +10. I should not think it would. + +11. I have lived principally on bread, butter, and cheese, and a few +dried vegetables. + +I was born March 31, 1764. In 1833, when mowing, to quench thirst, I +drank about a gill of cold water, _after_ about as much milk and water; +and the same year, some molasses and water; but they did not answer the +purpose. But when I rinsed my mouth with cold water, it allayed my +thirst. + + (Signed) + WM. VINCENT. + + +LETTER XVI.--FROM L. R. BRADLEY, BY DR. GEO. H. PERRY. + + HOPKINTON, R. I., Dec. 23, 1835. + +SIR,--I deem it necessary, first, to mention the situation of my health, +at the time of commencing abstinence from animal food. I was recovering +from an illness of a _nervous fever_. A sudden change respecting my food +not sitting well, rendered it necessary for me to abstain from all +kinds, excepting dry wheat bread and gruel, for several weeks. By +degrees I returned to my former course of diet, but as yet not to its +full extent, as I cannot partake of animal food of any kind whatever, +nor of vegetables cooked therewith. + +1. Diminished. + +2. ---- + +3. I do not perceive the mind to be clearer, and the power of +investigation less. + +4. Distress in the stomach and pain in the head removed. + +5. ---- + +6. Six years and ten months. + +7. Unusual proportion of animal food. + +8. The first year, I drank only warm water, sweetened; since that, tea. + +9. ---- + +10. I do not. + +11. I find _beets_ particularly hard to digest. + + L. R. B. + +The foregoing statements and answers are in her own way and manner. + + Yours, etc., + GEO. H. PERRY. + + +LETTER XVII.--FROM DR. L. W. SHERMAN. + + FALMOUTH, Mass., March 28, 1835. + +SIR,--In compliance with the request you recently made in the Medical +Journal, I inclose the following answers to the queries relative to +regimen you have propounded. They are given by a lady, whose experience, +intelligence, and discernment, have eminently qualified her to answer +them. She, with myself, is equally interested with you in having this +important question settled, and is extremely happy that you have +undertaken to do it. This lady is now fifty years of age; her +constitution naturally is good; her early habits were active, and her +diet simple, until twenty years of age. After that, until within a few +years, her living consisted of all kinds of meats and delicacies, with +wine after dinners, etc., etc. + +1. Her bodily strength was greatly increased by excluding animal food +from her diet. + +2. The animal sensations connected with the process of digestion have +been decidedly more agreeable. + +3. The mind is much clearer, the spirits much better, the temper more +even, and "less irritability pervades the system." The mind can continue +a laborious investigation longer than when she subsisted on a mixed +diet. + +4. Her health, which was before feeble, has, by the change, been +decidedly improved. + +5. She has certainly had fewer colds, and no febrile attacks of any +consequence, since she has practiced rigid abstinence from meats. + +6. She has abstained entirely for three years, and has taken but little +for seven or eight years; and whenever she has, from necessity (in being +from home, where she could procure nothing else), indulged in eating +meat, she has universally suffered severely in consequence. + +7. The change to a vegetable diet was preceded, in her case, by the use +of an uncommon proportion of animal food, highly seasoned with +stimulants. + +8. Tea and coffee she has not used for thirteen years. She has used, for +substitutes, water, milk and water, barley water, and gruel. She found +tea and coffee to have an exceedingly pernicious effect upon her nervous +and digestive system. + +9. A vegetable diet is more aperient than a mixed. Habitual constipation +has been entirely removed by the change. + +10. She sincerely believes, from her experience, that the health of +laborers and students would be generally promoted by the exclusion of +animal food from their diet. + +11. She considers _hominy_, as prepared at the South, particularly +healthy; and subsists upon this, with bread made from coarse flour, with +broccoli, cauliflower, and all kinds of vegetables in their season. + +Be assured, dear sir, that these answers have come from a high source, +to which private reference may at any time be made, and consequently are +entitled to the highest consideration. + + Yours, etc., + L. W. SHERMAN. + +NOTE.--If I have not been minute enough in the relation of this case, I +shall hereafter be happy to answer any questions you may think proper to +propose. It is a very interesting and important case, in my opinion. The +lady has been under my care a number of times, while laboring under +slight indisposition. She has always been very regular and systematic in +all her habits. She is healthy and robust in appearance, and looks as +though she might not be more than forty. This is the only case of the +kind within my knowledge. I have practiced on her plan for a few weeks +at a time, and, so far as my experience goes, it precisely comports with +hers. But I love the "good things" of this world too well to abstain +from their use, until some formidable disease demands their prohibition. + + Yours, etc., + L. W. S. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Dr. Preston has since deceased. + +[2] Mr. Vincent is of Stonington, Ct. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS. + + Correspondence.--The "prescribed course of Regimen."--How many + victims to it?--Not one.--Case of Dr. Harden considered.--Case + of Dr. Preston.--Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the + treatment of Scrofula.--No reports of Injury from the + prescribed System.--Case of Dr. Bannister.--Singular testimony + of Dr. Wright.--Vegetable food for Laborers.--Testimony, on the + whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could + reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances. + + +"Reports not unfrequently reach us," says Dr. North, "of certain +individuals who have fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. +These persons are said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest +confidence, to have pertinaciously followed the course, till they +reached a point of reduction from which there was no recovery." "If +these are facts," he adds, "they ought to be known and published." + +It was in this view, that Dr. North, himself a medical practitioner of +high respectability, sent forth to every corner of the land, through +standard and orthodox medical journals, to regular and experienced +physicians--his "medical brethren"--his list of inquiries. These +inquiries, designed to elicit truth, were couched in just such language +as was calculated to give free scope and an acceptable channel for the +communication of every fact which seemed to be opposed to the VEGETABLE +SYSTEM; for this, we believe, was distinctly understood, by every +medical man, to be the "prescribed course of regimen" alluded to. + +The results of Dr. North's inquiries, and of an opportunity so favorable +for "putting down," by the exhibition of sober facts, the vegetable +system, are fully presented in the foregoing chapter. Let it not be said +by any, that the attempt was a partial or unfair one. Let it be +remembered that every effort was made to obtain _truth in facts_, +without partiality, favor, or affection. Let it be remembered, too, that +nearly two years elapsed before Dr. North gave up his papers to the +author; during which time, and indeed up to the present hour--a period, +in the whole, of more than fourteen years--a door has been opened to +every individual who had any thing to say, bearing upon the subject. + +Let us now review the contents of the foregoing chapter. Let us see, in +the first place, what number of persons have here been reported, by +medical men, as having fallen victims to the said "prescribed course of +regimen." + +The matter is soon disposed of. Not a case of the description is found +in the whole catalogue of returns to Dr. N. This is a triumph which the +friends of the vegetable system did not expect. From the medical +profession of this country, hostile as many of them are known to be to +the "prescribed course of regimen," they must naturally have expected to +hear of at least a few persons who were supposed to have fallen victims +to it. But, I say again, not one appears. + +It is true that Dr. Preston, of Plymouth, Mass., thinks he should have +fallen a victim to his abstinence from flesh meat, had he not altered +his course; and Dr. Harden, of Georgia, relates a case of sudden loss of +strength, and great debility, which he thought, _at the time_, might +"possibly" be ascribed to the want of animal food: though the +individual himself attributed it to quite another cause. These are the +only two, of a list of thirty or forty, which were detailed, that bear +the slightest resemblance to those which report had brought to the ear +of Dr. N., and about which he so anxiously and earnestly solicited +inquiry of his medical brethren. + +As to the case mentioned by Dr. Harden, no one who examined it with +care, will believe for a moment, that it affords the slightest evidence +against a diet exclusively vegetable. The gentleman who made the +experiment had pursued it faithfully three years, without the slightest +loss of strength, but with many advantages, when, of a sudden, extreme +debility came on. Is it likely that a diet on which he had so long been +doing well, should produce such a sudden falling off? The gentleman +himself appears not to have had the slightest suspicion that the +debility had any connection with the diet. He attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of poisonous +gases, to which he was subjected in the process of some chemical +experiments. + +But why, then, it may be asked, did he return to a mixed diet, if he had +imbibed no doubts in regard to a diet exclusively vegetable; and, above +all, how happened he to recover on it? To this it may be replied, that +there is every reason to believe, from the tenor of the letter, that he +acted against his own inclination, and contrary to his own views, at the +request of his friends, and of Dr. Harden, his physician; though Dr. +Harden does not expressly say so. Besides, it does not appear that under +his mixed diet there was any favorable change, till something like six +months had elapsed. This was a period, in all probability, just +sufficient to allow the poison of the gases to disappear; after which +he might have been expected to recover on any diet not positively bad. +If this is not a true solution of the case, how happens it that there +was no disease of any organ or function, except the nervous function? +There is every reason for believing that Dr. Harden, at the date of his +letter, had undergone a change of opinion, and was himself beginning to +doubt whether the regimen had any agency in producing the debility.[3] + +The case of Dr. Preston is somewhat more difficult. At first view, it +seems to sustain the old notion of medical men, that, with a scrofulous +habit, a diet exclusively vegetable cannot be made to agree. This, I +say, seems to be a natural conclusion, _at first view_. But, on looking +a little farther, we may find some facts that justify a different +opinion. + +Dr. Preston was evidently timid and fearful--foreboding ill--during the +whole progress of his experiment. We think his story fully justifies +this conclusion. In such circumstances, what could have been expected? +There is no course of regimen in the world which will succeed happily in +a state of mind like this. + +It should be carefully observed by the reader, that Dr. Preston speaks +of entering upon a "severe course of diet;" and also, that, in +attempting to give an opinion as to the best kind of vegetable food, he +speaks of potatoes, prepared in a certain specified manner, as being +preferable to any other. Now, I think it obvious, that Dr. Preston's +"severe course" partook largely of _crude_ vegetables, instead of the +richer and better farinaceous articles--as the various sorts of bread, +rice, pulse, etc.--and, if so, it is not to be wondered at that it was +so unsuccessful. In short, I do not think he made any thing like a fair +experiment in vegetable diet. His testimony, therefore, though +interesting, seems to be entitled to very little weight. + +This conclusion is stated with the more confidence, from the fact that +some of the best medical writers, not only of ancient times, but of the +present day, appear to entertain serious doubts in regard to the +soundness of the popular opinion in favor of the "beef-steak-and-porter" +system of curing scrofulous patients. Dr. Clark, in the progress of his +"Treatise on Consumption," almost expresses a belief that a judicious +vegetable diet is preferable even for the scrofulous. He would not, of +course, recommend a diet of _crude_ vegetables, but one, rather, which +would partake largely of farinaceous grains and fruits. Nor do I suppose +he would, in every case, entirely exclude milk. + +Dr. Cheyne, in his writings, not only gives it as his opinion that a +milk diet, long continued, or a milk and vegetable diet and mild +mercurials, are the best means of curing scrofula; but he also says, +expressly, that "in all countries where animal food and strong fermented +liquors are too freely used, there is scarcely an individual that hath +not scrofulous glands." A sad story to relate, or to read! But, Dr. +Lambe, of London, and other British physicians, entertain similar +sentiments; and Dr. Lambe practices medicine largely, while entertaining +these sentiments. I could mention more than one distinguished physician, +in Boston and elsewhere, who prescribes a vegetable and milk diet in +scrofula. + +But, granting even the most that the friends of animal food can claim, +what would the case of Dr. Preston prove? That the healthy are ever +injured by the vegetable system? By no means. That the sickly would +generally be? Certainly not. Dr. Preston himself even specifies one +disease, in which he thinks a vegetable diet would be useful. What, +then, is the bearing of _this single and singular case_? Why, at the +most, it only shows that there are some forms of dyspepsia which require +animal food. Dr. Preston does not produce a single fact unfavorable to a +diet exclusively vegetable for the healthy.[4] + +It is also worthy of particular notice, that not a fact is brought, or +an experiment related, in a list of from thirty to forty cases, reported +too by medical men, which goes to prove that any injury has arisen to +the healthy, from laying aside the use of animal food. This kind of +information, though not the principal thing, was at least a secondary +object with Dr. North; as we see by his questions, which were intended +to be put to those who had excluded animal food from their diet for a +year or more. + +But, let us take a general view of the replies to the inquiries of Dr. +North. The sum of his first three questions, was,--What were the effects +of excluding animal food from your diet on your bodily strength, your +mental faculties, and your appetite and animal spirits? + +The answers to the three questions, of which this is the same, are, as +will be seen, remarkable. In almost every instance the reply indicates +that bodily and mental labor was endured with less fatigue than before, +and that an increased activity of mind and body was accompanied with +increased cheerfulness and animal enjoyment. In nearly every instance, +strength of body was actually increased; especially after the first +month. A result so uniformly in favor of the vegetable system is +certainly more than could have been expected. + +One physician who made the experiment, indeed, says, that though his +mind was clearer than before, he could not endure, so long, a laborious +investigation. Another individual says, he perceived no difference in +this respect. A third says, she found her bodily strength and powers of +investigation somewhat diminished, though her disease was removed. With +these exceptions, the testimony on this point is, as I have already +said, most decidedly--I might say most overwhelmingly--in favor of the +disuse of animal food. + +To the question, whether any constitutional infirmities were aggravated +or removed by the new course of regimen, the replies are almost equally +favorable to the vegetable system. It is true that one of the +physicians, Dr. Parmly, thinks the beneficial effects which appeared in +the circle of his observation were the results of a simultaneous +discontinuance of fermented drinks, tea and coffee, and condiments. But +I believe every one who reads his letter will be surprised at his +conclusions. No matter, however; we have his facts, and we are quite +willing they should be carefully considered. The singular case of Dr. +Preston, I now leave wholly out of the account. It was, as I have since +learned, the story of a _very singular man_. + +Among the diseases and difficulties which were removed, or supposed to +be removed, by the new diet, were dyspepsia, with the constipation which +usually attends it, general lassitude, rheumatism, periodical headache, +palpitations, irritation of the first passages, eruptive diseases of the +skin, scurvy, and consumption. + +The case of Dr. Bannister, who was, in early life, decidedly +consumptive, is one of the most remarkable on record. Though evidently +consumptive, and near the borders of the grave, between the ages of +twenty and twenty-nine, he so far recovered as to be, at the age of +fifty-three, entirely free from every symptom of phthisis for +twenty-four years; during which whole period, he was sufficiently +vigorous to follow the laborious business of a country physician. + +The confidence of Dr. Wright in the prophylactic powers of a diet +exclusively vegetable, so far as the mere opinion of one medical man is +to be received as testimony in the case, is also remarkable. He not only +regards the vegetable system as a defence against the diseases of +miasmatic regions, but also against the varioloid disease. On the latter +point, he goes, it seems, almost as far as Mr. Graham, who appears to +regard it not only as, in some measure, a preventive of epidemic +diseases generally, in which he is most undoubtedly correct, but also of +the small-pox. + +The testimony on another point which is presented in the replies to Dr. +North's questions, is almost equally uniform. In nearly every instance, +the individuals who have abandoned animal food have found themselves +less subject to colds than before; and some appear to have fallen into +the habit of escaping them altogether. When it is considered how serious +are the consequences of taking cold--when it is remembered that +something like one half of the diseases of our climate have their origin +in this source--it is certainly no trifling evidence in favor of a +course of regimen, that, besides being highly favorable in every other +respect, it should prove the means of freeing mankind from exposure to a +malady at once troublesome in itself and disastrous in its +consequences. + +In reply to the question,--Is a vegetable diet more or less aperient +than a mixed one,--the answers have been the same, in nearly every +instance, that it is more so. + +The answers to the question whether it was believed the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet, are rather various. It will be observed, however, that +many of the replies, in this case, are medical _opinions_, and come from +men who, though they felt themselves bound to state facts, were +doubtless, with very few exceptions, prejudiced against an exclusively +vegetable regimen for the healthy. It is, therefore, to me, a matter of +surprise, to find some of them in favor of the said prescribed course of +regimen, both for students and laborers, and many of them in favor of +the discontinuance of animal food by students. Those who have themselves +made the experiment, with hardly an exception, are decidedly in favor of +a vegetable regimen for all classes of mankind, particularly the +sedentary. And in regard to the necessity of diminishing the proportion +of animal food consumed by all classes, there seems to be but one voice. + +On one more important point there is a very general concurrence of +opinion. I allude to the choice of articles from the vegetable kingdom. +The farinacea are considered as the best; especially wheat, ground +without bolting. The preference of Dr. Preston is an exception; and +there are one or two others. + +On the whole--I repeat it--the testimony is far more favorable to the +"prescribed course of regimen," both for the healthy and diseased than +under the circumstances connected with the inquiry the most +thorough-going vegetable eater could possibly have anticipated. If this +is a fair specimen--and I know no reason why it may not be regarded as +such--of the results of similar experiments and similar observations +among medical men throughout our country, could their observations and +experiments be collected, it certainly confirms the views which some +among us have long entertained on this subject, and which will be still +more strongly confirmed by evidence which will be produced in the +following chapters. Had similar efforts been made forty or fifty years +ago, to ascertain the views of physicians and others respecting the +benefits or safety of excluding wine and other fermented drinks in the +treatment of several diseases, in which not one in ten of our modern +practitioners would now venture to use them, as well as among the +healthy, I believe the results would have been of a very different +character. The opinions, at least, of the physicians themselves, would +most certainly have been, nearly without a dissenting voice, that the +entire rejection of wine and fermented liquors was dangerous to the +sick, and unsafe to many of the healthy, especially the hard laborer. +And there is quite as much reason to believe that animal food will be +discarded from our tables in the progress of a century to come, as there +was, in 1800, for believing that all drinks but water would be laid +aside in the progress of the century which is now passing. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] See a more recent letter from Dr. Harden, in the next chapter. + +[4] Besides, it is worthy of notice, that Dr. Preston did not long +survive on his own plan. He died about the year 1840. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE. + + Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Dr. J. + Porter.--Dr. N. J. Knight.--Dr. Lester Keep.--Second letter + from Dr. Keep.--Dr. Henry H. Brown.--Dr. Franklin Knox.--From a + Physician.--Additional statements by the Author. + + +During the years 1837 and 1838 I wrote to several of the physicians +whose names, experiments, and facts appear in Chapter II. Their answers, +so far as received, are now to be presented. + +I have also received interesting letters from several other physicians +in New England and elsewhere--but particularly in New England--on the +same general subject, which, with an additional statement of my own +case, I have added to the foregoing. I might have added a hundred +authentic cases, of similar import. I might also have obtained an +additional amount of the same sort of intelligence, had it not been for +the want of time, amid numerous other pressing avocations, for +correspondence of this kind. Besides, if what I have obtained is not +satisfactory, I have many doubts whether more would be so. + +The first letter I shall insert is from Dr. H. A. Barrows, of Phillips, +in Maine. It is dated October 10, 1837, and may be considered as a +sequel to that written by him to Dr. North, though it is addressed to +the author of this volume. + + +LETTER I.--FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS. + +DEAR SIR,--As to food, my course of living has been quite uniform for +the last two or three years--principally as follows. Wheat meal bread, +potatoes, butter, and baked sweet apples for breakfast and dinners; for +suppers, old dry flour bread, which, eaten very leisurely without +butter, sauce, or drink, sits the lightest and best of any thing I eat. +But I cannot make this my principal diet, because the bowels will not +act (_without physic_) unless they have the spur of wheat bran two +thirds of the time. I have at times practiced going to bed without any +third meal; and have found myself amply rewarded for this kind of +fasting, and the consequent respite thereby afforded the stomach, in +quiet sleep and improved condition the next day. And as to drink, I +still use cold water, which I take with as great a zest, and as keen a +relish, as the inebriate does his stimulus. I seldom drink any thing +with my meals; and if I could live without drinking any thing between +meals, I think I should be rid of the principal "thorn in my side," the +acetous fermentation so constantly going on in my epigastric storehouse. + +As to exercise, I take abundance; perform all my practice (except in the +winter) on horseback, and find this the very best kind of exercise for +me. I seldom eat oftener than at intervals of six hours, and am apt to +eat too much--have at various times attempted Don Cornaro's method of +weighing food, but have found it rather dry business, probably on +account of its conflicting with my appetite; but I actually find that my +stomach does not bear watching at all well. + +My brother continues to practice nearly total abstinence from animal +food. I have seen him but once in two and a half years, but learn his +health has greatly improved, so that he was able to take charge of a +high school in the fall of 1836, of an academy in the spring of the +present year, and also again this fall. During his vacation last July, +he took a tour into the interior of Worcester county, Mass., and came +home entirely on foot by way of the Notch of the White Hills, traveling +nearly three hundred miles. This speaks something in favor of rigid +abstinence--as when he commenced this regimen he was extremely low. + + Yours sincerely, + H. A. BARROWS. + + +LETTER II.--FROM DR. JOHN M. B. HARDEN. + + GEORGIA, Liberty Co., Oct. 19, 1837. + +DEAR SIR,--I stated in my letter to Dr. North, if I recollect correctly, +that the use of animal food was resumed in consequence of a protracted +indisposition brought on, _as was supposed_, by the inhalation of +arseniuretted hydrogen gas. The gentleman had begun to recover some time +previously; and in a short time after he commenced the use of the animal +food, he was restored to his usual health. He has continued the use of +it ever since to the same extent as in the former part of his life. He +has lately passed his fifty-fifth year, and is now in the enjoyment of +as good health as he has ever known. + +I know of a gentleman in an adjoining county, who with his lady has been +living for some time past on a purely vegetable diet. They have not +continued it long enough, however, to make the experiment a fair one. + +No case of injury from the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen has come +under my own personal observation, if we except the one above alluded +to. I find, however, that Gehlen, a celebrated French chemist, fell a +victim to it in the year 1815. His death is thus announced in the +"Philosophical Magazine" for that year. "We lament to have to announce +the death of Gehlen, many years the editor of an excellent Journal on +Chemistry and other sciences, and a profound chemist. He fell a victim +to his ardent desire to promote the advancement of chemical knowledge. +He was preparing, in company with Mr. Rehland, his colleague, some +arsenated hydrogen gas, and while watching for the full development of +this air from its acid solution, trying every moment to judge from its +particular smell when that operation would be completed, he inhaled the +fatal poison which has robbed science of his valuable services." Vide +Tillock's Phil. Mag., vol. 46, p. 316. Some further notice is taken of +his death in a paper extracted from the "Annales de Chimie et de +Physique," and published in a subsequent volume of the same Magazine. +Vide vol. 49, p. 280, in which are given his last experiments on that +subject, by M. Gay Lussac. I regret that no account is given in the same +work of the symptoms arising from the poison in his case. I presume, +however, they are on record. + +In the subject of the case I mention, the general and prominent symptoms +were an immediate and great diminution of muscular strength, with pallor +of countenance and constant febricula, the arteries of the head beating +with violence, particularly when lying down at night, the pulse always +moderately increased in frequency, and full, but not tense; and +digestion for the most part good. This state continued for about three +months, during which time he was attending to his usual business, +although not able to take as much exercise as before. At the end of this +time he began to recover slowly, but it was six months before he was +restored entirely. + + Yours, etc., + JOHN M. B. HARDEN. + + +LETTER III.--FROM DR. JOSHUA PORTER. + + NORTH BROOKFIELD, Oct. 26, 1827. + +Though I would by no means favor the propensity for book-making, so +prevalent in our day, yet I have been long of the opinion that a work on +vegetable diet for general readers was greatly needed. I need it in my +family; and there are many others in this vicinity who would be +materially benefited by such a work. + +I have had no means of ascertaining the good or bad effects of a "diet +exclusively vegetable in cases of phthisis, scrofula, and dyspepsia," +for I have had none of the above diseases to contend with. But, since +your letter was received, I have been called to prescribe for a man who +has been a flesh eater for more than half a century. He was confined to +his house, had been losing strength for several months, still keeping up +his old habits. The disease which was preying upon him was chronic +inflammation of the right leg; the flesh had been so long swollen and +inflamed that it had become hard to the touch. There were ulcers on his +thigh, and some had made their appearance on the hip. This disease had +been of _seven months'_ standing, though not in so aggravated a form as +it now appeared. During this time, all the local applications had been +made that could be thought of by the good ladies in the neighborhood; +and after every thing of the kind had failed, they concluded to send for +"the doctor." + +After examining the patient attentively, I became convinced that the +disease, which developed itself locally, was of a constitutional origin, +and of course could not be cured by local remedies. All local +applications were discontinued; the patient was put on a vegetable diet +after the alimentary canal was freely evacuated. I saw this man three +days afterward. The dark purple appearance of the leg had somewhat +subsided; the red and angry appearance about the base of the ulcers was +gone, his strength improved, etc. Three days after I called, I found him +in his garden at work. + +He is now--two weeks since my first prescription--almost well. All the +ulcers have healed, with the exception of one or two. This man, who +thinks it wicked not to use the good things God has given us--such as +meat, cider, tobacco, etc.--is very willing to subsist, for the present, +on vegetable food, because he finds it the only remedy for his disease. + +Early in the spring of 1830, while a student at Amherst College, I was +attacked with dyspepsia, which rendered my life wretched for more than a +year, and finally drove me from college; but it had now so completely +gained the mastery, that no means I resorted to for relief afforded even +a palliation of my sufferings. After I had suffered nearly two years in +this way, I was made more wretched, if possible, by frequent attacks of +colic, with pains and cramps extending to my back; and so severe had +these pains become, that the prescriptions of the most eminent +physicians afforded only partial relief. + +On the 13th of February, 1833, after suffering from the most violent +paroxysm I had ever endured, I left my home for Brunswick, Maine, to +attend a course of medical lectures. For several days I boarded at a +public house, and ate freely of several substantial dishes that were +before me. The consequence was a fresh attack of colic. From some +circumstances that came up at this time, I was convinced that flesh +meats had much to do with my sufferings, and the resolution was formed +at once to change my diet and "starve" out dyspepsia. + +I took a room by myself, and made arrangements for receiving a pint of +milk per day; this, with coarse rye and Indian bread, constituted my +only food. After living in this way a week or two, I had a free and +natural evacuation. Thus nature began to effect what medicine alone had +done for nearly three years. The skin became moist, and my voracious +appetite began to subside. I returned home to my friends at the close of +the term well, and have been well ever since--have never had a colic +pain or any costiveness since that time. My powers of digestion are +good, and though I do not live so rigidly now as when at Brunswick, I +always feel best when my food is vegetables and milk. I can endure +fatigue and exposure as well as any man. On this mild diet, too, my +muscular strength has considerably increased; and every day is adding +new vigor to my constitution. + +Having experienced so much benefit from a mild diet, and being +rationally convinced that man was a fruit-eating animal naturally, I +made my views public by a course of lectures on physiology, which I +delivered in the Lyceum soon after I came to this place (three years +ago). The consequence was, that quite a number of those who heard my +lectures commenced training their families as well as themselves to the +use of vegetables, etc., and I am happy to inform you that, at this day, +many of our most active influential business-doing men are living in the +plainest and most simple manner. + +One of my neighbors has taken no flesh for more than three years. He is +of the ordinary height, and sanguine temperament, and usually weighed, +when he ate flesh, one hundred and eighty pounds. After he changed his +diet, his countenance began to change, and his cheeks fell in; and his +meat-eating friends had serious apprehensions that he would survive but +a short time, unless he returned to his former habits. But he +persevered, and is now more vigorous and more athletic than any man in +the region, or than he himself has ever been before. + +His muscular strength is very great. A few days since, a number of the +most athletic young men in our village were trying their strength at +lifting a cask of lime, weighing five hundred pounds. All failed to do +it, with the exception of one, who partly raised it from the ground. +After they were gone, this vegetable eater without any difficulty raised +the cask four or five times. More than three years ago this man lost his +daughter, who fell a prey to cholera infantum; he has now a daughter +rather more than a year old, whom he has trained on strictly +physiological principles; and though very feeble at birth, and for three +months subsequently, she is now the most healthy child in the town. This +child had some of the first symptoms of consumption last August, owing +to the too free indulgence of the mother in improper articles of food; +but being treated with demulcents, at the same time correcting the +mother's system, she recovered, and is now the "picture of health." + +I was conversing with this gentleman the other day respecting his +health--says he is perfectly well, weighs one hundred and sixty-five +pounds; and though he was called well when eating flesh, he was not so +in reality; for every few weeks he was troubled with headache and a +sense of fullness in the region of the stomach, for which he was obliged +to take an active cathartic. For a few months before he adopted the +vegetable system, he had decided symptoms of congestion in the head, +such as precede apoplexy. I questioned him as to his appetite. He +informed me, that when he ate meat he had such an unconquerable desire +for food about eleven o'clock, that he could not wait till noon. This he +calls "meat hunger," for it disappeared soon after he came to the +present style of living. He has no craving now; but when he begins to +eat, the zest is exquisite. + + Yours, + JOSHUA PORTER. + + +LETTER IV.--FROM DR. N. J. KNIGHT, OF TRURO. + + Dated at TRURO, October, 1837. + +DR. ALCOTT: SIR,--I hasten to comply so far with your request as to show +my decided approbation of a fruit and farinaceous diet, both in health +and sickness. The manner in which nutritious vegetables are presented to +us for our consumption and support, evince to a demonstration the +simplicity of our corporeal systems. Through every medium of correct +information, we learn that the most distinguished men, both in ancient +and modern times, were pre-eminently distinguished for their +abstemiousness, and the simplicity of their diet. + +It was not, however, a consideration of this kind that first induced me +to relinquish flesh meat and fish. Some three years previous to my +forming a determination to subsist upon farinacea, I had been laboring +under an aggravated case of dyspepsia; and about six months previous, +also, an attack of acute rheumatism. + +I was harassed with constant constipation of the bowels, and ejection of +food after eating, together with occasional pain in the head. + +Under all these circumstances, I came to this determination, which I +committed to paper: "November 9, 1831. This day ceased from +strengthening this mortal body by any part of that which ever drew +breath." To the above I rigidly adhered until last November, when my +health had become so perfect that I thought myself invincible, so far as +disease was concerned. All pains and aches had left me, and all the +functions of the body seemed to be performed in a healthy manner. + +My diet had consisted of rye and Indian bread, stale flour bread, sweet +bread without shortening, milk, some ripe fruit, and occasionally a +little butter. + +During this time, while I devoted myself to considerable laborious +practice and hard study, there was no deficiency of muscular strength or +mental energy. I am fully satisfied my mind was never so active and +strong. + +Since last November I have, at times, taken animal food, in order that I +might be absolutely satisfied that my mode of living acted decidedly in +favor of my perfect health, and that a different course would produce +organic derangement. + +I had only taken animal food about two months after the usual custom, +before I had a severe attack, and only escaped an inflammatory fever by +the most rigid antiphlogistic treatment. + +I again lived as I ought, and felt well; and having continued so some +time, I resorted the second time to an animal diet. + +In two months' time, I was taken with the urticaria febrilis, of +Bateman, which lasted me more than two weeks, and my suffering was +sufficient to forever exclude from my stomach every kind of animal food. + +I am now satisfied, to all intents and purposes, that mankind would live +longer, and enjoy more perfectly the "sane mind in a sound body," should +they never taste flesh meat or fish. + +A simple farinaceous diet I have ever found more efficient in the cure +of chronic complaints, where there was not much organic lesion, than +every other medical agent. + +Mrs. A., infected with scrofula of the left breast, and in a state of +ulceration, applied to me two years since. The ulcer was then the size +of a half-dollar, and discharged a considerable quantity of imperfect +pus. The axillary glands were much enlarged, and, doubting the +practicability of operating with the knife in such cases, I told her the +danger of her disease, and ordered her to subsist upon bread and milk +and some fruit, drink water, and keep the body of as uniform temperature +as possible. I ordered the sore to be kept clean by ablutions of tepid +water. In less than three months, the ulcer was all healed, and her +general health much improved. The axillary glands are still enlarged, +though less so than formerly. + +She still lives simply, and enjoys good health; but she tells me if she +tastes flesh meat, it produces a twinging in the breast. + +Many cases, like the above, have come under my observation and immediate +attention, and suffice it to say, I have never failed to ameliorate the +condition of every individual that has applied to me, who was suffering +under chronic affections, if they would follow my prescriptions--unless +the system was incapable of reaction. + + Yours, truly, + N. J. KNIGHT. + + +LETTER V.--FROM DR. LESTER KEEP. + + FAIR HAVEN, Jan. 22, 1838. + +DEAR SIR,--Agreeably to your request, I will inform you that from +September, 1834, to June, 1836, I used no meat at all, except +occasionally in my intercourse with society, I used a little to avoid +attracting notice. + +When I commenced my studies, life was burdensome. I knew not, for +months, and I may say years, what enjoyment comfortable health affords. +In a great many ways I can now see that I very greatly erred in my +course of living. I am surprised that the system will hold out in its +powers during so long a process in the use of what I should now consider +the means best calculated to break it down. + +I cannot now particularize. But in college, and during my professional +studies, and since, during six or eight years of practice in an arduous +profession, I have been greatly guilty, and neglected those means best +calculated to promote and preserve health; and used those means best +fitted to destroy it. The summers of 1832, 1833, and 1834, were pretty +much lost, from wretched health. I was growing worse every year, and no +medicines that I could prepare for myself, or that were prescribed by +various brother physicians, had any thing more than a temporary effect +to relieve me. All of the year 1834, until September, I used opium for +relief; and I used three and four grains of sulphate of morphine per +day, equal to about sixteen grains of opium. Spirit, wine, and ale I had +tried, and journeys through many portions of the State of Maine, with +the hope that a more northern climate would invigorate and restore a +system that I feared was broken down forever, and that at the age of +thirty-seven. But, without further preamble, I will say, I omitted at +once and entirely the use of tea, coffee, meat, butter, grease of all +sorts, cakes, pies, etc., wine, cider, spirits, opium (which I feared I +must use as long as I lived), and tobacco, the use of which I learned in +college. Of course, from so sudden and so great a change, a most horrid +condition must ensue for many days, for the relief of which I used the +warm bath at first several times a day. I had set no time to omit these +articles, and made no resolutions, except to give this course a trial, +to find out whether I had many native powers of system left, and what +was their character and condition when unaffected by the list of agents +mentioned. + +I pursued this plan of living faithfully for one year and a half, and +with unspeakable joy I found a gradual return of original vigor and +health. Now, I cannot say that the omission of meat of all kinds, for a +year and a half, caused this improvement in health; it is possible that +it had but little to do with it. I know I was guilty of many bad habits; +and probably all combined caused my bad condition. + +At the close of the year and a half, I married my present second wife, +and then commenced living as do others, in most respects, and continued +this course most of the time until I received your letter. I then again +omitted the use of all animal food, tea, coffee, and tobacco; and for +the last month, it is a clear case, my health is better; that is, more +vigorous to bear cold. I also bear labor and care better. + +I have not investigated the subject of dietetics very much, but I have +no doubt that the inhabitants of our whole land make too much use of +animal food. No doubt it obstructs the vital powers, and tends to +unbalance the healthful play and harmony of the various organs and their +functions. There is too much nutriment in a small space. An unexpected +quantity is taken; for with most people a sense of fullness is the test +of a sufficient quantity. + +I am satisfied that I am better without animal food than with the +quantity I ordinarily use. If I should use but a small quantity once or +twice a day, it is possible it would not be injurious. This I have not +tried; for I am so excessively fond of meat, that I always eat _more_ +than a small quantity, when I eat it at all. Healthy, vigorous men, day +laborers in the field, or forest, may perhaps require some meat to +sustain the system, during hard and exhausting labor. Of this I cannot +say. + +I am now pretty well convinced, from two or three years' observation, +that a large portion of my business, as a physician, arises from +intemperance in the use of food. Too much and too rich nutriment is +used, and my constant business is, to counteract its bad effects. + +Two cases are now in mind of the great benefit of dieting for the +recovery of health, the particulars of which I cannot now give you. One +of them I think would be willing to speak for himself on the subject. + + I am, sir, yours, etc., + LESTER KEEP. + + +LETTER VI.--SECOND LETTER FROM DR. KEEP. + + FAIR HAVEN, Ct., Jan. 26, 1838. + +SIR,--Since I wrote you, a few days ago, I have learned of several +individuals who have, for some length of time, used no flesh meat at +all. + +Amos Townsend, Cashier of the New Haven Bank, has, as I am told, lived +almost entirely upon bread, crackers, or something of that kind, and but +little of that. He can dictate a letter, count money, and hold +conversation with an individual, all at the same time, with no +embarrassment; and I know him to have firm health. + +Our minister, Rev. B. L. Swan, during the whole of two years of his +theological studies at Princeton, made crackers and water his only food, +and was in good health. + +Mr. Hanover Bradley, of this village, who has been several years a +missionary among the Indians, has, for I think, eight or ten years, +lived entirely on vegetable food. He had been long a dyspeptic. + +There are some other cases of less importance, and probably very many in +New Haven; but I am situated a mile from the city, and have never +inquired for vegetable livers. + + Yours, etc., + LESTER KEEP. + + +LETTER VII.--FROM DR. HENRY H. BROWN + + WEST RANDOLPH, Vt., Feb. 3, 1838. + +DEAR SIR,--It has been about two years and a half since I adopted an +exclusively vegetable diet, with no drink but water; and my food has +been chiefly prepared by the most simple forms of cookery. Previously to +this, I used a large proportion of flesh meat, and drank tea and coffee. +I had much impaired my health by such indulgences. I hardly need to say +that my health has greatly improved, and is now quite good and uniform. + +I think that physicians, in prescribing for the removal of disease, +should pay much more regard to the diet of their patients, and +administer less of powerful medicine, than is customary with gentlemen +of this profession at large. + + Yours, etc., + HENRY H. BROWN. + + +LETTER VIII.--FROM DR. FRANKLIN KNOX. + + KINSTON,[5] N. C., June 23, 1837. + +DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 22d July has been hitherto unanswered, +through press of business. + +I consider an exclusive vegetable diet as of the utmost consequence in +most diseases, especially in those chronic affections or morbid states +of the system which are not commonly considered as diseases; and I think +that, in these cases, such a diet is too often overlooked, even by +physicians. + + Yours, truly, + F. KNOX. + + +LETTER IX.--FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE PHYSICIAN. + +[The following letter, received last autumn, is from a medical +gentleman, in a distant part of the country, whose name, for particular +reasons, we stand pledged not to give to the world. The facts, however, +may be relied on; and they are exceedingly important and interesting.] + +DEAR SIR,--Your letter was duly received. I proceed to say that, since I +settled in this town, my attacks of epilepsy[6] have occurred in the +following order: + + 1833. + Nov. 18. One at 11 P. M. Severe. + " 19. " " " + " 24. Nineteen, from 4 A. M. to 3 P. M. Frightful. + + 1835. + Jan. 13. One at 4 A. M. } + " 15. " " } Milder. + " 16. Two at 2 and 4 A. M. } + +Thus it appears that I have enjoyed a longer immunity since the last, +than for some years prior. I have maintained total abstinence from +flesh, fish, or fowl, for two and a half years, namely, from March 1835 +to the present time. That this happy immunity from a most obstinate +disease is to be attributed solely to my abstinence from animal food, I +do not feel prepared to assert; but that my general health has been +better, my attacks of disease far milder, my vigor of mind and body +greater, my mental perceptions clearer and more acute, and my enjoyment +of life, on the whole, very essentially increased, I am fully prepared +to prove. + +I have, however, found it nearly as essential for me to abstain from +many kinds of vegetable food as from animal, namely, from all kinds of +flatulent vegetables; from all kinds of fruits and berries, except the +very mildest--as, perfectly ripe and well baked sweet apples--and from +all kinds of pies, sauces, and preserves. Of these, however, I am not +able to say, as I do of the animal varieties, that I have practiced +total abstinence; by no means. I have often ventured to indulge, and +generally suffer more or less for my temerity. My severest sufferings +for the last two years have been in the form of colic, of which I have +had frequent slight attacks; but none to confine me over twenty-four +hours. + + * * * * * + +ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS.--BY THE AUTHOR.[7] + +From the age of five or six months to that of two years, I was literally +crammed with flesh meat; usually of the most gross kind. Such a course +was believed, by the fond parents and others, as likely to be productive +of the most healthful and happy consequences. The result was an +accumulation of adipose substance, that rendered me one of the most +unsightly, not to say monstrous productions of nature. I ought not to +say _nature_, perhaps; for, if not perverted, she produces no such +monsters. At the age of six months, my weight was twenty-five pounds; +and it rose soon after to thirty or more. + +When I was about two years of age, I had the whooping-cough, and, having +been brought up to the height, and more than the height of my condition, +by over-feeding with fat meat, I suffered exceedingly. I? recovered, at +length, but I had lost my relish, as I am informed, for flesh meat; and +from this time till the age of fourteen, I seldom ate any but the +leanest muscle. I was tolerably healthy, but, from the age of two years, +was slender; so much so that, at five or six, I only weighed fifty +pounds; and was constantly either found fault with, or pitied, because I +did not eat meat in quality and quantity like other people. Nor was it +without much effort, even at the age of fourteen, that I could bring +myself to be reconciled to it. I was also trained to the early use of +much cider, and to the moderate use of tea and spirits. I have spoken of +my slender constitution;--I believe this was in part the result of +excessive early labor, and that it was not wholly owing to a premature +use of flesh meat. + +I had suffered so much, however, from the belief that I was feeble from +the latter cause, that I had no sooner become reconciled to the use of +flesh and fish--which was at the age of fourteen--than I indulged in it +quite freely. About this time I had a severe attack of measles, which +came very near carrying me off. I was left with anasarca, or general +dropsy, and with weak eyes. To cure the former the physicians plied me, +for a long time, with blue pill, and with mercurial medicine in other +forms, and also with digitalis; and finally filled my stomach to +overflowing with diuretic drinks. However, in spite of them all, I +recovered during the next year; except that a foundation was laid for +premature decay of the teeth, and for a severe eruptive disease. This +last, and the weakness of the eyes, were, for some time, very +troublesome. + +The eruptive complaint was soon discovered to be less severe, even in +hot weather, and while I was using a great deal of exercise, in +proportion as I abstained from all drinks but water, and ate none but +mild food. Owing to the discovery of this fact and to other causes, I +chiefly discontinued the use of stimulating food and drink, during the +hottest part of the season; though I committed much error in regard to +the quantity of my food, and drank quite too freely of cold water. Still +I always found my health best, and my body and mind most vigorous at the +end of summer, or the beginning of autumn, notwithstanding the very hard +labor to which I was subjected on the farm. This increase of vigor was, +at that time, attributed chiefly to a free use of summer fruits; for, so +deeply had the belief been infixed by early education, that highly +stimulating food and drink were indispensable to the full health and +strength of mankind, and especially to people who were laboring hard, +that, though I sometimes suspected they were not true friends to the +human system, my conscience always condemned the suspicion, and +pronounced me guilty of a species of high treason for harboring it. + +This brings up my dietetic history, to the period at which it commences, +in the letter to Dr. North. The study of medicine, however, from the age +of twenty-four to twenty-seven, and the subsequent study and practice of +it for a few years, joined to the changes I made at the same time in my +physical habits, and my observations on their effects, led me to reject, +one after another, and one group after another, the whole tribe of extra +stimulants--solid and fluid. + +The sequel of my story remains to be told. It is now nearly fifteen +years since I wrote the letter, which is found at page 23d, to Dr. +North. During this long period, and for several years before, amounting, +in all, to about nineteen years, I have not only abstained entirely from +flesh, fish, and fowl--not having eaten a pound of any one of these +during the whole time, except the very few pounds I used in the time of +the first visitation of our country with cholera, as before +mentioned--but I have almost entirely abstained from butter, cheese, +eggs, and milk. Butter, especially, I _never_ taste at all. The +occasional use of milk, in very small quantities, once a day, has, +however, been resorted to; not from necessity, indeed, or to gratify any +strong desire or inclination for it, but from a conviction of its happy +medicinal effects on my much-injured frame. Hot food of every kind, and +liquids, with the exception just made, I rarely touch. Nearly every +thing is taken in as solid a form and in as simple a state as possible; +with no condiments, except a very little salt, and with no sweets, +sauces, gravies, jellies, preserves, etc. I seldom use more than one +sort of food at a time, unless it be to add fruit as a second article; +and this is rarely done, except in the morning. I have for ten or twelve +years used no drinks with my meals; and sometimes for months together +have had very little thirst at all.[8] + +And as to the effects, they are such, and have all along been such, as +to make me wonder at myself, whenever I think of it. Instead of being +constantly subject to cold, and nearly dying with consumption in the +spring, I am almost free from any tendency to take cold at all. During +the winter of 1837-8, by neglecting to keep the temperature of my room +low enough, and by neglecting also to take sufficient exercise in the +open air, I became unusually tender, and suffered to some extent from +colds. But I was well again during the spring, and felt as if I had +recovered or nearly recovered my former hardihood. + +In regard to other complaints, I may say still more. Of rheumatism, I +have scarcely had a twinge in twelve or fourteen years. My eruptive +complaint is, I believe, _entirely_ gone. The weakness of my eyes has +been wholly gone for many years. Indeed, the strength and perfection of +my sight and of all my senses, till nearly fifty years of age--hearing +perhaps excepted, in which I perceive no alteration--appeared to be +constantly improving. My stomach and intestines perform their respective +duties in the most appropriate, correct, and healthful manner. My +appetite is constantly good, and as constantly improving;--that is, +going on toward perfection. I can detect, especially by taste, almost +any thing which is in the least offensive or deleterious in food or +drink; and yet I can receive, without immediate apparent disturbance, +and readily digest, almost any thing which ever entered a human +stomach--knives, pencils, clay, chalk, etc., perhaps excepted. I can eat +a full meal of cabbage, or any other very objectionable crude aliment, +or even cheese or pastry--a single meal, I mean--with apparent impunity; +not when fatigued, of course, or in any way debilitated, but in the +morning and when in full strength. It is true, I make no experiments of +this sort, except occasionally _as_ experiments. + +In my former statements I gave it as my opinion that vegetable food was +less aperient than animal. My opinion now is, that if we were trained on +vegetable food, and had never received substances into the stomach which +were unduly stimulating, we should find the intestinal or peristaltic +action quite sufficient. The apparent sluggishness of the bowels, when +we first exchange an animal diet for a vegetable one, is probably owing +to our former abuses. At present, I find my plain vegetable food, in +moderate and reasonable quantity, quite as aperient as it ought to be, +and, if I exceed a proper quantity, too much so. + +I have now no remaining doubts of the vast importance that would result +to mankind, from an universal training from childhood, to the exclusive +use of vegetable food. I believe such a course of training, along with a +due attention to air, exercise, cleanliness, etc., would be the means of +improving our race, physically, intellectually, and morally, beyond any +thing of which the world has yet conceived. But my reasons for this +belief will be seen more fully in another place. They are founded in +science and the observation of facts around me, much more than on a +narrow individual experience. + +There is one circumstance which I must not omit, because it is full of +admonition and instruction. I have elsewhere stated that, twenty-three +years ago, I had incipient phthisis. Of this fact, and of the fact that +there were considerable inroads made by disease on the upper lobe of +the right lung, I have not the slightest doubt. The symptoms were such +at the time, and subsequently, as could not have been mistaken. Besides, +what was, as I conceive, pretty fully established by the symptoms which +existed, is rendered still more certain by auscultation. The sounds +which are heard during respiration, in the region to which I have +alluded, leave no doubt on the minds of skillful medical men, of their +origin. Still I doubt whether the disease has made any considerable +progress for many years. + +But, during the winter of 1837-8, my employments became excessively +laborious; and, for the whole winter and spring, were sufficient for at +least two healthy and strong men. They were also almost wholly +sedentary. At the end of May, I took a long and rather fatiguing journey +through a country by no means the most healthy, and came home somewhat +depressed in mind and body, especially the former. I was also unusually +emaciated, and I began to have fears of a decline. Still, however, my +appetite was good, and I had a good share of bodily strength. The more I +directed my attention to myself, the worse I became; and I actually soon +began to experience darting pains in the chest, together with other +symptoms of a renewal of pulmonary disease. Perceiving my danger, +however, from the state of my mind, I at length made a powerful effort +to shake off the mental disturbance--which succeeded. This, together +with moderate labor and rather more exercise than before, seemed +gradually to set me right. + +Again, in the spring of 1848, after lecturing for weeks and +months--often in bad and unventilated rooms and subjecting myself, +unavoidably, to many of those abuses which exist every where in +society, I was attacked with a cough, followed by great debility, from +which it cost me some three months or more of labor with the spade and +hoe, to recover. With this and the exceptions before named, I have now, +for about twenty years, been as healthy as ever I was in my life, except +the slight tendency to cold during the winter of which I have already +taken notice. I never was more cheerful or more happy; never saw the +world in a brighter aspect; never before was it more truly "morning all +day" with me. I have paid, in part, the penalty of my transgressions; +and may, perhaps, go on, in life, many years longer. + +I now fear nothing in the future, so far as health and disease are +concerned, so much as excessive alimentation. To this evil--and it is a +most serious and common one in this land of abundance and busy +activity--I am much exposed, both from the keenness of my appetite, and +the exceeding richness of the simple vegetables and fruits of which I +partake. But, within a few years past, I seem to have gotten the +victory, in a good measure, even in this respect. By eating only a few +simple dishes at a time, and by measuring or weighing them with the +eye--for I weigh them in no other way--I am usually able to confine +myself to nearly the proper limits. + +This caution, and these efforts at self-government, are not needed +because their neglect involves any immediate suffering; for, as I have +already stated, there was never a period in my life before, when I was +so completely independent--apparently so, I mean--of external +circumstances. I can eat what I please, and as much or as little as I +please. I can observe set hours, or be very irregular. I can use a +pretty extensive variety at the same meal, and a still greater variety +at different meals, or I can live perpetually on a single article--nay, +on almost any thing which could be named in the animal or vegetable +kingdom--and be perfectly contented and happy in the use of it. I could +in short, eat, work, think, sleep, converse, or play almost all the +while; or I could abstain from any or all of these, almost all the +while. Let me be understood, however. I do not mean to say that either +of these courses would be best for me, in the end; but only that I have +so far attained to independence of external circumstances that, for a +time, I believe I should be able to do or bear all I have mentioned. + +One thing more, in this connection, and I shall have finished my +remarks. I sleep too little; but it is because I allow my mind to run +over the world so much, and lay so many schemes for human improvement or +for human happiness; and because I allow my sympathies to become so +deeply enlisted in human suffering and human woe. I should be most +healthy, in the end, by spending six hours or more in sleep; whereas I +do not probably exceed four or five. I have indeed obtained a respite +from the grave of twenty-three years, through a partial repentance and +amendment of life, and the mercy of God; but did I obey all his laws as +well as I do a part of them, I know of no reason why my life might not +be lengthened, not merely fifteen years, as was Hezekiah's, or +twenty-three merely, but forty or fifty. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] Dr. Knox has since removed to St. Louis, Missouri. + +[6] The reader will find another remarkable cure of epilepsy in a +subsequent chapter of this volume. The case was that of Dr. Taylor, of +England. + +[7] See pages 13 and 23. + +[8] This fact, and certain discussions on the subject of temperance, led +me to abstain, about the years 1841 and 1842, entirely from all drink +for a long time. Indeed, I made two of these experiments; in one of +which I abstained nine months and nineteen days, and in the other +fourteen months and one or two days; except that in the latter case I +ate, literally, for one or two successive days, while working hard at +haying, one or two bowls a day of bread and water. But these were +experiments _merely_--the experiments made by a medical man who +preferred making experiments on himself to making them on others; and +they never deserved the misconstruction which was put upon them by +several persons, who, in other respects, were very sensible men. "The +author" never believed with Dr. Lambe, of London, that man is not a +drinking animal. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.--Dr. + Geoffroy.--Vanquelin and Percy.--Dr. Pemberton.--Sir John + Sinclair.--Dr. James.--Dr. Cranstoun.--Dr. Taylor.--Drs. + Hufeland and Abernethy.--Sir Gilbert Blane.--Dr. Gregory.--Dr. + Cullen.--Dr. Rush.--Dr. Lambe.--Prof. Lawrence.--Dr. + Salgues.--Author of "Sure Methods."--Baron Cuvier.--Dr. Luther + V. Bell.--Dr. Buchan.--Dr. Whitlaw.--Dr. Clark.--Prof. + Mussey.--Drs. Bell and Condie.--Dr. J. V. C. Smith.--Mr. + Graham.--Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.--Dr. Sweetser.--Dr. + Pierson.--Physician in New York.--Females' Encyclopedia.--Dr. + Van Cooth.--Dr. Beaumont.--Sir Everard Home.--Dr. + Jennings.--Dr. Jarvis.--Dr. Ticknor.--Dr. Coles.--Dr. + Shew.--Dr. Morrill.--Dr. Bell.--Dr. Jackson.--Dr. + Stephenson.--Dr. J. Burdell.--Dr. Smethurst.--Dr. + Schlemmer.--Dr. Curtis.--Dr. Porter. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +The number of physicians, and surgeons, and medical men, whose testimony +is brought to bear on the subject of diet, in the chapter which follows, +is by no means as great as it might have been. There are few writers on +anatomy, physiology, materia medica, or disease, who have not, either +directly or indirectly, given their testimony in favor of a mild and +vegetable diet for persons affected with certain chronic diseases. And +there is scarcely a writer on hygiene, or even on diet, who has not done +much more than this, and at times hinted at the safety of such a diet +for those who are in health; particularly the studious and sedentary. +But my object has been, not so much to collect all the evidence I could, +as to make a judicious selection--a selection which should present the +subject upon which it bears, in as many aspects as possible. I have +aimed in general, also, to procure the testimony of intelligent and +philanthropic men; or, at least of men whose names have by some means or +other been already brought before the public. If there are a few +exceptions to this rule, if a few are men whose names have been hitherto +unknown, it is on account of the _aspect_, as I have already said, of +their testimony, or on account of their peculiar position, as regards +country, age of the world, etc., or to secure their authority for +certain anecdotes or facts. + +In the arrangement of the testimony, I have been guided by no particular +rule, unless it has been to present first that of some of the older and +most accredited writers, such as Cheyne, Cullen, and Rush. The testimony +of certain living men and authors, particularly of our own country, has +been presented toward the close of the chapter, and in a very brief and +condensed form, from design. The propriety of inserting their names at +all was for a time considered doubtful. It is believed, however, that +they could not, in strict justice, have been entirely omitted. But let +not the meagre sketch of their views I have given, satisfy us. We want a +full development of their principles from their own pens--such a +development as, I hope, will not long be withheld from a world which is +famishing for the want of it. But now to the testimony. + + +DR. GEORGE CHEYNE. + +This distinguished physician, and somewhat voluminous writer, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. He may justly be esteemed the father of +what is now called the "vegetable system" of living; although it is +evident he did not see every thing clearly. "In the early part of his +life," says Prof. Hitchcock, in his work on Dyspepsia, "he was a +voluptuary; and before he attained to middle age, was so corpulent that +it was necessary to open the whole side of his carriage that he might +enter; and he saw death inevitable, without a change of his course. He +immediately abandoned all ardent spirits, wine, and fermented liquors, +and confined himself wholly to milk, vegetables, and water. This course, +with active exercise, reduced him from the enormous weight of four +hundred and forty-eight pounds, to one hundred and forty; and restored +his health and the vigor of his mind. After a few years, he ventured to +change his abstemious diet for one more rich and stimulating. But the +effect was a recurrence of his former corpulence and ill health. A +return to milk, water, and vegetables restored him again; and he +continued in uninterrupted health to the age of seventy-two." + +The following is his account of himself, at the age of about seventy: + +"It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered upon +a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, I took this +light food as my appetite directed, without any measure, and found +myself easy under it. After some time, I found it became necessary to +lessen the quantity; and I have latterly reduced it to one half, at +most, of what I at first seemed to bear. And if it shall please God to +spare me a few years longer, in order, in that case, to preserve that +freedom and clearness which, by his, blessing, I now enjoy, I shall +probably find myself obliged to deny myself one half of my present daily +substance--which is precisely three Winchester pints of new cows' milk, +and six ounces of biscuit made of fine flour, without salt or yeast, and +baked in a quick oven." + +It is exceedingly interesting to find an aged physician, especially one +who had formerly been in the habit of using six pints of milk, and +twelve ounces of unfermented biscuit, and of regarding that as a low +diet, reducing himself to one half this quantity in his old age, with +evident advantages; and cheerfully looking forward to a period, as not +many years distant, when he should be obliged to restrict himself to +half even of that quantity. How far he finally carried his temperance, +we do not exactly know. We only know that, after thirty years of health +and successful medical practice, he strenuously contended for the +superiority of a vegetable and milk diet over any other, whether for the +feeble or the healthy. But his numerous works abound with the most +earnest exhortations to temperance in all things, and with the most +interesting facts and cogent reasonings; and--I repeat it--if there be +any individual, since the days of Pythagoras, whose name ought to be +handed down to posterity as the father of the vegetable system of +living, it is that of Dr. Cheyne. + +Among his works are, a work on Fevers; an Essay on the true Nature and +proper Method of treating the Gout; a work on the Philosophical +Principles of Religion; an Essay of Health and Long Life; a work called +the English Malady; and another entitled the Natural Method of Cure in +the Diseases of the Body, and the Distempers of the Mind depending +thereon. The latter, and his Essay of Long Life are, in my view, his +greatest works; though the history of his own experience is chiefly +contained in his English Malady. + +I shall now proceed to make such extracts from his works, as seem to me +most striking and important to the general reader. They are somewhat +numerous, and there may be a few repetitions; but I was more anxious to +preserve his exact language--which is rather prolix--than to abridge too +much, at the risk of misrepresenting his sentiments. + +"When I see milk, oil, emulsion, mild watery fluids, and such like soft +liquors run through leathern tubes or pipes (for such animal veins and +arteries indeed are) for years, without destroying them, and observe on +the other hand that brine, inflammable or urinous spirits, and the like +acrimonious and burning fluids corrode, destroy, and consume them in a +very short time; when I consider the rending, burning, and tearing pains +and tortures of the gout, stone, colic, cancer, rheumatism, convulsions, +and such like insufferably painful distempers; when I see the crises of +almost all acute distempers happen either by rank and fetid sweats, +thick lateritious and lixivious sediments in the urine, black, putrid, +and fetid dejections, attended with livid and purple spots, corrosive +ulcers, impostumes in the joints or muscles, or a gangrene and +mortification in this or that part of the body; when I see the sharp, +the corroding and burning ichor of scorbutic and scrofulous sores, +fretting, galling, and blistering the adjacent parts, with the +inflammation, swelling, hardness, scabs, scurf, scales, and other +loathsome cutaneous foulnesses that attend, the white gritty and chalky +matter, and hard stony or flinty concretions which happen to all those +long troubled with severe gouts, gravel, jaundice, or colic--the +obstructions and hardnesses, the putrefaction and mortification that +happen in the bowels, joints, and members in some of these diseases, and +the rottenness in the bones, ligaments, and membranes that happen in +others; all the various train of pains, miseries, and torments that can +afflict any part of the compound, and for which there is scarce any +reprieve to be obtained, but by swallowing a kind of poison (opiates, +etc.); when I behold with compassion and sorrow, such scenes of misery +and woe, and see them happen only to the rich, the lazy, the luxurious, +and the inactive, those who fare daintily and live voluptuously, those +who are furnished with the rarest delicacies, the richest foods, and the +most generous wines, such as can provoke the appetites, senses, and +passions, in the most exquisite and voluptuous manner; to those who +leave no desire or degree of appetite unsatisfied, and not to the poor, +the low, the meaner sort, those destitute of the necessaries, +conveniences, and pleasures of life; to the frugal, industrious, +temperate, laborious, and active, inhabiting barren and uncultivated +countries, deserts, and forests under the poles or under the line;--I +must, if I am not resolved to resist the strongest conviction, conclude +that it must be something received into the body that can produce such +terrible appearances in it--some flagrant and notable difference in the +food that so sensibly distinguishes them from the latter; and that it is +the miserable man himself that creates his miseries and begets his +torture, or at least those from whom he has derived his bodily organs. + +"Nothing is so light and easy to the stomach, most certainly, as the +farinaceous or mealy vegetables; such as peas, beans, millet, oats, +barley, rye, wheat, sago, rice, potatoes, and the like." + +Milk is not included in the foregoing list of light articles; although +Dr. C. was evidently extremely fond of prescribing it in chronic +diseases. It does not fully appear, so far as I can learn from his +writings, that he regarded it as by any means indispensable to those +who were perfectly healthy, except during infancy and childhood. The +following extract will give us--more than any other, perhaps--his real +sentiments, though modestly expressed in the form of a conjecture, +rather than a settled belief. + +"I have sometimes indulged the conjecture that animal food, and _made_ +or artificial liquors, in the original frame of our nature and design of +our creation, were not intended for human creatures. They seem to me +neither to have those strong and fit organs for digesting them (at +least, such as birds and beasts of prey have that live on flesh); nor, +naturally, to have those voracious and brutish appetites, that require +animal food and strong liquors to satisfy them; nor those cruel and hard +hearts, or those diabolical passions, which could easily suffer them to +tear and destroy their fellow-creatures; at least, not in the first and +early ages, before every man had corrupted his way, and God was forced +to exterminate the whole race by an universal deluge, and was also +obliged to shorten their lives from nine hundred or one thousand years +to seventy. He wisely foresaw that animal food and artificial liquors +would naturally contribute toward this end, and indulged or permitted +the generation that was to plant the earth again after the flood the use +of them for food; knowing that, though it would shorten their lives and +plait a scourge of thorns for the backs of the lazy and voluptuous, it +would be cautiously avoided by those who knew it was their duty and +happiness to keep their passions low, and their appetites in subjection. +And this very era of the flood is that mentioned in holy writ for the +indulgence of animal food and artificial liquors, after the trial had +been made how insufficient alone a vegetable diet--which was the first +food appointed for human kind after their creation--was, in the long +lives of men, to restrain their wickedness and malice, and after finding +that nothing but shortening their duration could possibly prevent the +evil. + +"It is true, there is scarce a possibility of preventing the destroying +of animal life, as things are now constituted, since insects breed and +nestle in the very vegetables themselves; and we scarcely ever devour a +plant or root, wherein we do not destroy innumerable animalculæ. But, +besides what I have said of nature's being quite altered and changed +from what was originally intended, there is a great difference between +destroying and extinguishing animal life by choice and election, to +gratify our appetites, and indulge concupiscence, and the casual and +unavoidable crushing of those who, perhaps, otherwise would die within +the day, or at most the year, and who obtain but an inferior kind of +existence and life, at the best. + +"Whatever there may be, in this conjecture, it is evident to those who +understand the animal economy of the frame of human bodies, together +with the history, both of those who have lived abstemiously, and of +those who have lived freely, that indulging in flesh meat and strong +liquors, inflames the passions and shortens life, begets chronical +distempers and a decrepit age. + +"For remedying the distempers of the body, to make a man live as long as +his original frame was designed to last, with the least pain and fewest +diseases, and without the loss of his senses, I think Pythagoras and +Cornaro by far the two greatest men that ever were:--the first, by +vegetable food and unfermented liquors; the latter, by the lightest and +least of animal food, and naturally fermented liquors. Both lived to a +great age. But, what is chiefly to be regarded in their conduct and +example, both preserved their senses, cheerfulness, and serenity to the +last; and, which is still more to be regarded, both, at least the last, +dissolved without pain or struggle; the first having lost his life in a +tumult, as it is said by some, after a great age of perfect health. + +"A plain, natural, and philosophical reason why vegetable food is +preferable to all other food is, that abounding with few or no salts, +being soft and cool, and consisting of parts that are easily divided and +formed into chyle without giving any labor to the digestive powers, it +has not that force to open the lacteals, to distend their orifices and +excite them to an unnatural activity, to let them pass too great a +quantity of hot and rank chyle into the blood, and so overcharge and +inflame the lymphatics and capillaries, which is the natural and +ordinary effect of animal food; and therefore cannot so readily produce +diseases. There is not a sufficient stimulus in the salts and spirits of +vegetable food to create an unnatural appetite, or violent cramming; at +least, not sufficient to force open and extend the mouths of the +lacteals, more than naturally they are or ought to be. Such food +requires little or no force of digestion, a little gentle heat and +motion being sufficient to dissolve it into its integral particles: so +that, in a vegetable diet, though the sharp humors, in the first +passages, are extended, relaxed stomach, and sometimes a delightful +piquancy in the food, may tempt one to exceed in quantity; yet rarely, +if spices and sauces--as too much butter, oil, and sugar--are not joined +to seeds[9] and vegetables, can the mischief go farther than the stomach +and bowels, to create a pressed load, sickness, vomiting, or purging, +by its acquiring an acrimony from its not being received into the +lacteals;--so that on more being admitted into the blood than the +expenses of living require, life and health can never be endangered by a +vegetable diet. But all the contrary happens under a high animal diet." + +Now I will not undertake to vouch--as indeed I cannot, conscientiously, +do it--for the correctness of all Dr. C.'s notions in physiology or +pathology. The great object I have in view, by the introduction of these +quotations, may be accomplished without it. His preference for vegetable +food, or for what he calls a milk and seed diet, is the point which I +wish to make most prominent. + +In the following paragraphs, he takes up and considers some of the +popular objections of the day, to his doctrines and practice. + +"One of the most terrible objections some weak persons make against this +regimen and method, is, that upon accidental trials, they have always +found milk, fruit, and vegetables so inflate, blow them up, and raise +such tumults and tempests in their stomach and bowels, that they have +been terrified and affrighted from going on. I own the truth and fact to +be such, in some as is represented; and that in stomachs and entrails +inured only to hot and high meats and drinks, and consequently in an +inflammatory state and full of choler and phlegm, this sensation will +sometimes happen--just as a bottle of cider or fretting wine, when the +cork is pulled out, will fly up, and fume, and rage; and if you throw in +a little ferment or acid (such as milk, seeds, fruit, and vegetables _to +them_), the effervescence and tempest will exasperate to a hurricane. + +"But what are wind, flatulence, phlegm, and choler? What, indeed, but +stopped perspiration, superfluous nourishment, inconcocted chyle, of +high food and strong liquors, fermented and putrifying? And when these +are shut up and corked, with still more and more solid, strong, hot, and +styptic meats and drinks, is the corruption and putrefaction thereby +lessened? Will it not then, at last, either burst the vessel, or throw +out the cork or stopples, and raise still more lasting and cruel +tempests and tumults? Are milk and vegetables, seeds and fruits, harder +of digestion, more corrosive, or more capable of producing chyle, blood, +and juices, less fit to circulate, to perspire, and be secreted? + +"But what is to be done? The cure is obvious. Begin by degrees; eat less +animal food--the most tender and young--and drink less strong fermented +liquors, for a month or two. Then proceed to a _trimming_ diet, of one +day, seed and vegetables, and another day, tender, young animal +food;--and, by degrees, slide into a total milk, seed, and vegetable +diet; cooling the stomach and entrails gradually, to fit them for this +soft, mild, sweetening regimen; and in time your diet will give you all +the gratification you ever had from strong, high, and rank food, and +spirituous liquors. And you will, at last, enjoy ease, free spirits, +perfect health, and long life into the bargain. + +"Seeds of all kinds are fittest to begin with, in these cases, when +dried, finely ground, and dressed; and, consequently, the least +flatulent. Lessen the quantity, even of these, below what your appetite +would require, at least for a time. Bear a little, and forbear. + +"Virtue and good health are not to be obtained, without some labor and +pains, against contrary habits. It was a wild bounce of a Pythagorean, +who defied any one to produce an instance of a person, who had long +lived on milk and vegetables, who ever cut his own throat, hanged, or +made way with himself; who had ever suffered at Tyburn, gone to Newgate, +or to Moorfields; (and, he added rather profanely,) or, would go to +eternal misery hereafter. + +"Another weighty objection against a vegetable diet, I have heard, has +been made by learned men; and is, that vegetables require great labor, +strong exercise, and much action, to digest and turn them into proper +nutriment; as (say they) is evident from their being the common diet of +day-laborers, handicraftsmen, and farmers. This objection I should have +been ashamed to mention, but that I have heard it come from men of +learning; and they might have as justly said, that freestone is harder +than marble, and that the juice of vegetables makes stronger glue than +that of fish and beef! + +"Do not children and young persons, that is, tender persons, live on +milk and seeds, even before they are capable of much labor and exercise? +Do not all the eastern and southern people live almost entirely on them? +The Asiatics, Moors, and Indians, whose climates incapacitate them for +much labor, and whose indolence is so justly a reproach to them,--are +these lazier and less laborious men than the Highlanders and native +Irish? + +"The truth is, hardness of digestion principally depends on the +minuteness of the component particles, as is evident in marble and +precious stones. And animal substances being made of particles that pass +through innumerable very little, or infinitely small excretory ducts, +must be of a much finer texture, and consequently harder, or tougher, in +their composition, than any vegetable substance can be. And the flesh of +animals that live on animals, is like double distilled spirits, and so +requires much labor to break, grind, and digest it. And, indeed, if +day-laborers, and handicraftsmen were allowed the high, strong food of +men of condition, and the quiet and much-thinking persons were confined +to the farmer and ploughman's food, it would be much happier for both. + +"Another objection, still, against a milk and vegetable diet is, that it +breeds phlegm, and so is unfit for tender persons, of cold +constitutions; especially those whose predominant failing is too much +phlegm. But this objection has as little foundation as either of the +preceding. Phlegm is nothing but superfluous chyle and nourishment, as +the taking down more food than the expenses of living and the waste of +the solids and fluids require. The people that live most on such +foods--the eastern and southern people and those of the northern I have +mentioned--are less troubled with phlegm than any others. Superfluity +will always produce redundancy, whether it be of phlegm or choler; and +that which will digest the most readily, will produce the least +phlegm--such as milk, seeds, and vegetables. By cooling and relaxing the +solids, the phlegm will be more readily thrown up and discharged--more, +I say, by such a diet than by a hot, high, caustic, and restringent one; +but that discharge is a benefit to the constitution, and will help it +the sooner and faster to become purified, and so to get into perfect +good health. Whereas, by shutting them up, the can or cask must fly and +burst so much the sooner. + +"The only material and solid objections against a milk, seed, and +vegetable diet, are the following: + +"_First_, That it is particular and unsocial, in a country where the +common diet is of another nature. But I am sure sickness, lowness, and +oppression, are much more so. These difficulties, after all, happen only +at first, while the cure is about; for, when good health comes, all +these oddnesses and specialities will vanish, and then all the contrary +to these will be the case. + +"_Secondly_, That it is weakening, and gives a man less strength and +force, than common diet. It is true that this may be the result, at +first, while the cure is imperfect. But then the greater activity and +gayety which will ensue on the return of health, under a milk and +vegetable diet, will liberally supply that defect. + +"_Thirdly_, The most material objection against such a diet is, that it +cools, relaxes, softens, and unbends the solids, at first, faster than +it corrects and sweetens the juices, and brings on greater degrees of +lowness than it is designed to cure; and so sinks, instead of raising. +But this objection is not universally true; for there are many I have +treated, who, without any such inconvenience, or consequent lowness, +have gone into this regimen, and have been free from any oppression, +sinking, or any degree of weakness, ever after; and they were not only +those who have been generally temperate and clean, free from humors and +sharpnesses, but who, on the decline of life, or from a naturally weak +constitution or frame, have been oppressed and sunk from their weakness +and their incapacity to digest common animal food and fermented liquors. + +"I very much question if any diet, either hot or cool, has any great +influence on the solids, after the fluids have been entirely sweetened +and balmified. Sweeten and thin the juices, and the rest will follow, as +a matter of course." + +At page 90 of Dr. Cheyne's Natural Method of Curing Diseases, he thus +says: + +"People think they cannot possibly subsist on a little meat, milk, and +vegetables, or on any low diet, and that they must infallibly perish if +they should be confined to water only; not considering that nine tenths +of the whole mass of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet, or +pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of their senses, limbs, +and faculties, without diseases, or but few, and those from accidents or +epidemical causes; and that there have been nations, and now are numbers +of tribes, who voluntarily confine themselves to vegetables only; as the +Essenes among the Jews, some Hermits and Solitaries among the Christians +of the first ages, a great number of monks in the Chartreux now in +Europe, Banians among the Indians and Chinese, the Guebres among the +Persians, and of old, the Druids among ourselves." + +To illustrate the foregoing, I may here introduce the following extracts +from the sixth London edition of Dr. Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long +Life. + +"It is surprising to what a great age the Eastern Christians, who +retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, +lived healthful on a very little food. We are informed, by Cassian, that +the common measure for twenty-four hours was about twelve ounces, with +only pure water for drink. St. Anthony lived to one hundred and five +years on mere bread and water, adding only a few herbs at last. On a +similar diet, James the Hermit lived to one hundred and four years. +Arsenius, the tutor of the emperor Arcadius, to one hundred and +twenty--sixty-five years in society, and fifty-five in the desert. St. +Epiphanius, to one hundred and fifteen; St. Jerome, about one hundred; +Simon Stylites, to one hundred and nine; and Romualdus, to one hundred +and twenty. + +"It is wonderful in what sprightliness, strength, activity, and freedom +of spirits, a low diet, even here in England, will preserve those who +have habituated themselves to it. Buchanan informs us of one Laurence, +who preserved himself to one hundred and forty, by the mere force of +temperance and labor. Spotswood mentions one Kentigern (afterward called +St. Mongah, or Mungo, from whom the famous well in Wales is named), who +lived to one hundred and eighty-five years; and who, after he came to +years of understanding, never tasted wine or strong drink, and slept on +the cold ground. + +"My worthy friend, Mr. Webb, is still alive. He, by the quickness of the +faculties of the mind, and the activity of the organs of his body, shows +the great benefit of a low diet--living altogether on vegetable food and +pure water. Henry Jenkins lived to one hundred and sixty-nine years on a +low, coarse, and simple diet. Thomas Parr died at the age of one hundred +and fifty-two years and nine months. His diet was coarse bread, milk, +cheese, whey, and small beer; and his historian tells us, that he might +have lived a good while longer if he had not changed his diet and air; +coming out of a clear, thin air, into the thick air of London, and being +taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully +of the best wines, and, as a necessary consequence, died in a short +time. Dr. Lister mentions eight persons in the north of England, the +youngest of whom was above one hundred years old, and the oldest was one +hundred and forty. He says, it is to be observed that the food of all +this mountainous country is exceeding coarse." + +Dr. C., in his Natural Method, at page 91, thus continues his remarks: + +"And there are whole villages in this kingdom, even of those who live on +the plains, who scarce eat animal food, or drink fermented liquors a +dozen times a year. It is true, most of these cannot be said to live at +ease and commodiously, and many may be said to live in barbarity and +ignorance. All I would infer from this is, that they do live, and enjoy +life, health, and outward serenity, with few or no bodily diseases but +from accidents and epidemical causes; and that, being reduced by +voluntary and necessary poverty, they are not able to manage with care +and caution the rest of the non-naturals, which, for perfect health and +cheerfulness, must all be equally attended to, and prudently conducted; +and their ignorance and brutality is owing to the want of the +convenience of due and sufficient culture and education in their youth. + +"But the only conclusion I would draw from these historical facts is, +that a low diet, or living on vegetables, will not destroy life or +health, or cause nervous and cephalic distempers; but, on the contrary, +cure them, as far as they are curable. I pretend to demonstrate from +these facts, that abstinence and a low diet is the great antidote and +universal remedy of distempers acquired by excess, intemperance, and a +mistaken regimen of high meats and drinks; and that it will greatly +alleviate and render tolerable the original distempers derived from +diseased parents; and that it is absolutely necessary for the deep +thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties sound and +entire, ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of +life; and that it is, lastly, the true and real antidote and +preservative from heavy-headedness, irregular and disorderly +intellectual functions, from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and +senses, and from all nervous distempers, as far as the ends of +Providence and the condition of mortality will allow. + +"Let two people be taken as nearly alike as the diversity and the +individuality of nature will admit, of the same age, stature, +complexion, and strength of body, and under the same chronical +distemper, and I am willing to take the seeming worse of the two; let +all the most promising nostrums, drops, drugs, and medicines known among +the learned and experienced physicians, ancient or modern, regular +physicians or quacks, be administered to the best of the two, by any +professor at home or abroad; I will manage my patient with only a few +naturally indicated and proper evacuations and sweetening innocent +alternatives, which shall neither be loathsome, various, nor +complicated, require no confinement, under an appropriate diet, or, in a +word, under the 'lightest and the least,' or at worst under a milk and +seed diet; and I will venture reputation and life, that my method cures +sooner, more perfectly and durably, is much more easily and pleasantly +passed through, in a shorter time, and with less danger of a relapse +than the other, with all the assistance of the best skill and +experience, under a full and free, though even a commonly reputed +moderate diet, but of rich foods and generous liquors; much more, under +a voluptuous diet." + +But I am unwilling to dismiss this subject without inserting a few more +extracts from Dr. Cheyne, to show his views of the treatment of +diseases. And first, of the scurvy, and other diseases which he supposes +to arise from it. + +"There is no chronical distemper, whatsoever, more universal, more +obstinate, and more fatal in Britain than the scurvy, taken in its +general extent. Scarce any one chronical distemper but owes its origin +to a scorbutic tendency, or is so complicated with it, that it furnishes +the most cruel and most obstinate symptoms. To it we owe all the +dropsies that happen after the meridian of life; all diabetes, asthmas, +consumptions of several kinds; many sorts of colics and diarrhoeas; +some kinds of gouts and rheumatisms, all palsies, various kinds of +ulcers, and possibly the cancer itself; and most cutaneous foulnesses, +weakly constitutions, and bad digestions; vapors, melancholy, and almost +all nervous distempers whatsoever. And what a plentiful source of +miseries the last are, the afflicted best can tell. And scarce any one +chronical distemper whatever, but has some degree of this evil +faithfully attending it. The reason why the scurvy is peculiar to this +country and so fruitful of miseries, is, that it is produced by causes +mostly special and particular to this island, to wit: the indulging so +much in animal food and strong fermented liquors, sedentary and confined +employments, etc. + +"Though the inhabitants of Britain live, for the most part, as long as +those of a warmer climate, and probably rather longer, yet scarce any +one, especially those of the better sort, but becomes crazy and suffers +under some chronical distemper or other, before he arrives at old age. + +"Nothing less than a very moderate use of animal food, and that of the +least exciting kind, and a more moderate use of spirituous liquors, due +exercise, etc., can keep this hydra under. And nothing else than a total +abstinence from animal food and alcoholic liquors can totally extirpate +it." + +The following are extracted from his "Natural Methods." I do not lay +them down as recipes, to be followed in the treatment of diseases; but +to show the views of Dr. Cheyne in regard to vegetable regimen. + +"1. _Cancer._--Any cancer that can be cut out, contracted, and healed up +with common, that is, soft, cool, and gently astringent dressings, and +at last left as an issue on the part, may, by a cow's milk and seed diet +continued ever afterward, be made as easy to the patient, and his life +and health as long preserved, almost, as if he had never been afflicted +with it; especially if under fifty years of age. + +"2. _Cancer._--A total ass's milk diet--about two quarts a day, without +any other meat or drink--will in time cure a cancer in any part of the +body, with mere common dressings, provided the patient is not quite worn +out with it before it is begun, or too far gone in the common duration +of life and even in that case, it will lessen the pain, lengthen life, +and make death easier, especially if joined with small interspersed +bleedings, millepedes, crabs' eyes prepared, nitre and rhubarb, properly +managed. But the diet, even after the cure, must be continued, and never +after greatly altered, unless it be into cow's milk with seeds. + +"3. _Consumption._--A total milk and seed diet, gentle and frequent +bleedings, as symptoms exasperate, a little ipecacuanha or thumb vomit +repeated once or twice a week, chewing quill bark in the morning, and a +few grains of rhubarb at night, will totally cure consumptions, even +when attended with tubercles, and hemoptoe, and hectic, in the first +stage; will greatly relieve, if not cure, in the second stage, +especially if riding and a warm clear air be joined; and make death +easier in the third and last stage. + +"4. _Fits._--A total cow's milk diet--about two quarts a day--without +any other food, will at last totally cure all kinds of fits, +epileptical, hysterical, or apoplectic, if entered upon before fifty. +But the patient, if near fifty, must ever after continue in the same +diet, with the addition only of seeds; otherwise his fits will return +oftener and more severely, and at last cut him off. + +"5. _Palsy._--A total cow's milk diet, without any other food, will bid +fairest to cure a hemiplegia or even a dead palsy, and consequently all +the lesser degrees of a partial one, if entered upon before fifty. And +this distemper I take to be the most obstinate, intractable, and +disheartening one that can afflict the human machine; and is chiefly +produced by intemperate cookery, with its necessary attendant, habitual +luxury. + +"6. _Gout._--A total milk and seed diet, with gentle vomits before and +after the fits, chewing bark in the morning and rhubarb at night, with +bleeding about the equinoxes, will perfectly cure the gout in persons +under fifty, and greatly relieve those farther advanced in life; but +must be continued ever after, if such desire to get well. + +"7. _Gravel._--Soap lees, softened with a little oil of sweet almonds, +drunk about a quarter of an ounce twice a day on a fasting stomach; or +soap and egg-shell pills, with a total milk and seed diet, and Bristol +water beverage, will either totally dissolve the stone in kidneys or +bladder, or render it almost as easy as the nail on one's finger, if the +patient is under fifty, and much relieve him, even after that age. + +"In about thirty years' practice, in which I have, in some degree or +other, advised this method in proper cases, I have had but two patients +in whose total recovery I have been mistaken, and these were both +scrofulous cases, where the glands and tubercles were so many, so hard, +and so impervious that even the ponderous remedies and diet joined could +not discuss them; and they were both also too far gone before they +entered upon them;--and I have found deep scrofulous vapors the most +obstinate of any of this tribe of these distempers. And indeed nothing +can possibly reach such, but the ponderous medicines, joined with a +liquid, cool, soft, milk and seed regimen; and if these two do not, in +due time, I can boldly affirm it, nothing ever will." + +Dr. Cheyne goes on to speak of the cure, on similar principles, of a +great many other difficult or dangerous diseases, as asthma, pleurisy, +hemorrhage, mania, jaundice, bilious colic, rheumatism, scurvy, and +venereal disease; but he modestly owns that, in his opinion on these, he +does not feel such entire confidence as in the former cases, for want of +sufficient experiments. He, however, closes one of his chapters with the +following pretty strong statement: + +"I am morally certain, and am myself entirely convinced, that a milk and +seed, or milk and turnip diet, duly persisted in, with the occasional +helps mentioned (elsewhere) on exacerbations, will either totally cure +or greatly relieve every chronical distemper I ever saw or read of." + +Another chapter is thus concluded, and with it I shall conclude my +extracts from his writings. + +"Some, perhaps, may controvert, nay, ridicule the doctrine laid down in +these propositions. I shall neither reply to, nor be moved with any +thing that shall be said against them. If they are of nature and truth, +they will stand; if not, I consent they should come to nought. I have +satisfied my own conscience--the rest belongs to Providence. Possibly +time and bodily sufferings may justify them;--if not to this generation, +perhaps to some succeeding one. I myself am convinced, by long and many +repeated experience, of their justness and solidity. If what has been +advocated through this whole treatise does not convince others, nothing +I can add will be sufficient. I will leave only this reflection with my +readers. + +"All physicians, ancient and modern, allow that a milk and seed diet +will totally cure before fifty, and infinitely alleviate after it, the +consumption, the rheumatism, the scurvy, the gout--these highest, most +mortal, most painful, and most obstinate distempers; and nothing is more +certain in mathematics, than that which will cure the greater will +certainly cure the lesser distempers." + + +DR. GEOFFROY. + +Dr. Geoffroy, a distinguished French physician and professor of +chemistry and medicine in some of the institutions of France, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. The bearing of the following extract will +be readily seen. It is from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for the +year 1730; and I am indebted for it to the labors of Dr. Cheyne. + +"M. Geoffroy has given a method for determining the proportion of +nourishment or true matter of the flesh and blood, contained in any sort +of food. He took a pound of meat that had been freed from the fat, +bones, and cartilages, and boiled it for a determined time in a close +vessel, with three pints of water; then, pouring off the liquor, he +added the same quantity of water, boiling it again for the same time; +and this operation he repeated several times, so that the last liquor +appeared, both in smell and taste, to be little different from common +water. Then, putting all the liquor together, and filtrating, to +separate the too gross particles, he evaporated it over a slow fire, +till it was brought to an extract of a pretty moderate consistence. + +"This experiment was made upon several sorts of food, the result of +which may be seen in the following table. The weights are in ounces, +drachms, and grains; sixty grains to a drachm, and eight drachms to an +ounce. + + Kind of Food. Amount of Extract. + oz. dr. gr. + One lb. Beef 0. 7. 8. + " Veal 1. 1. 48. + " Mutton 1. 3. 16. + " Lamb 1. 1. 39. + " Chicken 1. 4. 34. + " Pigeon 1. 0. 12. + " Pheasant 1. 2. 8. + " Partridge 1. 4. 34. + " Calves' Feet 1. 2. 26. + " Carp 1. 0. 8. + " Whey 1. 1. 3. + " Bread 4. 1. 0. + +"The relative proportion of the nourishment will be as follows: + + Beef 7 + Veal 9 + Mutton 11 + Lamb 9 + Chicken 12 + Pigeon 8 + Pheasant 10 + Partridge 12 + Calves' Feet 10 + Carp 8 + Whey 9 + Bread 33 + +"From the foregoing decisive experiments it is evident that white, +young, tender animal food, bread, milk, and vegetables are the best and +most effectual substances for nutrition, accretion, and sweetening bad +juices. They may not give so strong and durable mechanical force, +because being easily and readily digestible, and quickly passing all the +animal functions, so as to turn into good blood and muscular flesh, they +are more transitory, fugitive, and of prompt secretion; yet they will +perform all the animal functions more readily and pleasantly, with fewer +resistances and less labor, and leave the party to exercise the rational +and intellectual operations with pleasure and facility. They will leave +Nature to its own original powers, prevent and cure diseases, and +lengthen out life." + +Now if this experiment proves what Dr. C. supposes in favor of the +lighter meats and vegetables taken together, how much more does it prove +for bread alone? For it cannot escape the eye of the least observing +that this article, though placed last in the list of Dr. Geoffroy, is by +far the highest in point of nutriment; nay, that it is about three times +as high as any of the rest. I am not disposed to lay so much stress on +these experiments as Dr. C. does; nevertheless, they prove something +Connected with the more recent experiments of Messrs. Percy and +Vauquelin and others, how strikingly do they establish one fact, at +least, viz., that bread and the other farinaceous vegetables cannot +possibly be wanting in nutriment; and how completely do they annihilate +the old-fashioned doctrine--one which is still abroad and very +extensively believed--that animal food is a great deal more nourishing +than vegetable! No careful inquirer can doubt that bread, peas, beans, +rice, etc., are twice as nutritious--to say the least--as flesh or fish. + + +MESSRS. PERCY AND VAUQUELIN. + +As I have alluded, in the preceding article, to the experiments of +Messrs. Percy and Vauquelin, two distinguished French chemists, their +testimony in this place seems almost indispensable, even though we +should not regard it, in the most strict import of the term, as medical +testimony. The result of their experiments, as communicated by them to +the French minister of the interior, is as follows: + +In bread, every one hundred pounds is found to contain eighty pounds of +nutritious matter; butcher's meat, averaging the different sorts, +contains only thirty-five pounds in one hundred; French beans (in the +grain), ninety-two pounds in one hundred; broad beans, eighty-nine +pounds; peas, ninety-three pounds; lentils (a species of half pea little +known with us), fifty-four pounds in one hundred; greens and turnips +only eight pounds of solid nutritious substance in one hundred; carrots, +fourteen pounds; and one hundred pounds of potatoes yield only +twenty-five pounds of nutriment. + +I will just affix to the foregoing one more table. It is inserted in +several other works which I have published; but for the benefit of +those who may never yet have seen it, and to show how strikingly it +corresponds with the results of the experiments of Geoffroy, Percy, and +Vauquelin, I deem it proper to insert it. + +Of the best wheat, one hundred pounds contain about eighty-five pounds +of nutritious matter; of rice, ninety pounds; of rye, eighty; of barley, +eighty-three; of beans, eighty-nine to ninety-two; peas, ninety-three; +lentils, ninety-four; meat (average), thirty-five; potatoes, +twenty-five; beets, fourteen; carrots, ten; cabbage, seven; greens, six; +and turnips, four. + + +DR. PEMBERTON. + +Dr. Pemberton, after speaking of the general tendency, in our highly fed +communities, to scrofula and consumption, makes the following remarks, +which need no comment: + +"If a child is born of scrofulous parents, I would strongly recommend +that it be entirely nourished from the breast of a healthy nurse, for at +least a year. After this, the food should consist of milk and +farinaceous vegetables. By a perseverance in this diet for three years, +I have imagined that the threatened scrofulous appearances have +certainly been postponed, if not altogether prevented." + + +SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. + +Sir John Sinclair, an eminent British surgeon, says, "I have wandered a +good deal about the world, my health has been tried in all ways, and, by +the aid of temperance and hard work, I have worn out two armies in two +wars, and probably could wear out another before my period of old age +arrives. I eat no animal food, drink no wine or malt liquor, or spirits +of any kind; I wear no flannel; and neither regard wind nor rain, heat +nor cold, when business is in the way." + + +DR. JAMES, OF WISCONSIN. + +Dr. James, of Wisconsin, but formerly of Albany, and editor of a +temperance paper in that city, one of the most sensible, intelligent, +and refined of men, and one of the first in his profession, is a +vegetable eater, and a man of great simplicity in all his physical, +intellectual, and moral habits. I do not know that his views have ever +been presented to the public, but I state them with much confidence, +from a source in which I place the most implicit reliance. + + +DR. CRANSTOUN. + +Dr. Cranstoun, a worthy medical gentleman in England, became subject, by +some means or other, to a chronic dysentery, on which he exhausted, as +it were, the whole materia medica, in vain. At length, after suffering +greatly for four or five years, he was completely cured by a milk and +vegetable diet. The following is his own brief account of his cure, in a +letter to Dr. Cheyne: + +"I resolutely, as soon as capable of a diet, held myself close to your +rules of bland vegetable food and elementary drink, and, without any +other medicine, save frequent chewing of rhubarb and a little bark, I +passed last winter and this summer without a relapse of the dysentery; +and, though by a very slow advance, I find now more restitution of the +body and regularity in the economy, on this primitive aliment, than ever +I knew from the beginning of this trouble. This encourages much my +perseverance in the same method, and that so religiously, as, to my +knowledge, now for more than a year and a half I have not tasted of any +thing that had animal life. There is plenty in the vegetable kingdom." + + +DR. TAYLOR, OF ENGLAND. + +This gentleman, who had studied the works of Dr. Sydenham, and was +therefore rather favorably inclined toward a milk and vegetable diet, +became at last subject to epileptic fits. Not being willing, however, to +give up his high living and his strong drinks, he tried the effects of +medicine, and even consulted all the most eminent of his brethren of the +medical profession in and about London; but all to no purpose, and the +fits continued to recur. He used frequently to be attacked with them +while riding along the road, in pursuance of the business of his +profession. In these cases he would fall from his horse, and often +remain senseless till some passenger or wagon came along and carried him +to the nearest house. At length his danger, not only from accidents, but +from the frequency and violence of the attacks, became so imminent that +he was obliged to follow the advice of his master, Sydenham. He first +laid aside the use of all fermented and distilled liquors; then, finding +his fits became less frequent and violent, he gave up all flesh meat, +and confined himself entirely to cows' milk. + +In pursuance of this plan, in a year or two the epilepsy entirely left +him. "And now," says Dr. Cheyne, from whom I take the account, "for +seventeen years he has enjoyed as good health as human nature is capable +of, except that once, in a damp air and foggy weather in riding through +Essex, he was seized with an ague, which he got over by chewing the +bark." He assured Dr. C. that at this time--and he was considerably +advanced in life--he could play six hours at cricket without fatigue or +distress, and was more active and clear in his faculties than ever he +had been before in his whole life. He also said he had cured a great +many persons, by means of the same diet, of inveterate distempers. + + +DRS. HUFELAND AND ABERNETHY. + +The celebrated Dr. Hufeland taught that a simple vegetable diet was most +conducive to health and long life. The distinguished Dr. Abernethy has +expressed an opinion not very unlike it, in the following eccentric +manner: + +"If you put improper food into the stomach it becomes disordered, and +the whole system is affected. Vegetable matter ferments and becomes +gaseous, while _animal_ substances are changed into a putrid, +abominable, and acrid stimulus. Now, some people acquire preposterous +noses; others, blotches on the face and different parts of the body; +others, inflammation of the eyes; all arising from the irritations of +the stomach. I am often asked why I don't practice what I preach. I +reply by reminding the inquirer of the parson and sign-post--both point +the way, but neither follows its course." + + +DR. GREGORY. + +Dr. Gregory, a distinguished professor and practitioner of medicine in +Scotland, in a work published more than seventy years ago, strongly +recommends plain and simple food for children. Till they are three years +old, he says, their diet should consist of plain milk, panada, good +bread, barley meal porridge, and rice. He also complains of pampering +them with animal food. The same arguments which are good for forming +them to the habits of vegetable food exclusively for the first three +years of life, would be equally good for its continuance. + + +DR. CULLEN, OF EDINBURGH. + +The name of Dr. Cullen is well known, and he has long been regarded as +high authority. Yet this distinguished writer and teacher expressly +says, that a very temperate and _sparing_ use of animal food is the +surest means of preserving health and obtaining long life. But I will +quote his own language, in various parts of his writings. And first, +from his Materia Medica: + +"Vegetable aliment, as never over-distending the vessels or loading the +system, never interrupts the stronger emotions of the mind, while the +heat, fullness, and weight of animal food, is an enemy to its vigorous +efforts. Temperance, then, does not consist so much in the quantity, for +that will always be regulated by our appetite, as in the _quality_, +viz., a large proportion of vegetable aliment." + +I will not stop here to oppose Dr. C.'s views in regard to the quantity +of our food; for this is not the place. It is sufficient to show that he +admits the importance of _quality_, and gives the preference to a diet +of vegetables. + +He seems in favor, in another place in his works, of sleeping after +eating--perhaps a heresy, too--and inclines to the opinion that the +practice would be hardly hurtful if we ate less animal food. + +But his "First Lines of the Practice of Physic," abounds in testimonies +in favor of vegetable food. In speaking, for example, of the cure of +rheumatic affections, he has the following language: + +"The cure, therefore, requires, in the first place, an antiphlogistic +regimen, and particularly, a total abstinence from animal food, and from +all fermented or spirituous liquors." + +"Antiphlogistic regimen," in medical language, means that food and drink +which is most cooling and quieting to the stomach and to the general +system. + +In the treatment of gout, Dr. Cullen recommends a course like that which +has been stated, except that instead of proposing vegetable food as a +means of cure, he recommends it as _preventive_. He says-- + +"The gout may be entirely prevented by constant bodily exercise, and by +a low diet; and I am of opinion that this prevention may take place even +in persons who have a hereditary disposition to the disease. I must add, +here, that even when the disposition has discovered itself by severe +paroxysms of inflammatory gout, I am persuaded that labor and abstinence +will absolutely prevent any returns of it for the rest of life." + +Again, in reference to the same subject, he thus observes: + +"I am firmly persuaded that any man who, early in life, will enter upon +the constant practice of bodily labor and of abstinence from animal +food, will be preserved entirely from the disease." + +And yet once more. + +"If an abstinence from animal food be entered upon early in life, while +the vigor of the system is yet entire, I have no doubt of its being both +safe and effectual." + +To guard against the common opinion that by vegetable food, he meant +raw, or crude, or bad vegetables, Dr. C. explains his meaning by +assuring the reader that by a vegetable diet he means the "farinaceous +seeds," and "milk;" and admits that green, crude, and bad vegetables are +not only less useful, but actually liable to produce the very diseases, +which good, mealy vegetable food will prevent or cure. + +This is an important distinction. Many a person, who wishes to be +abstemious, seems to think that if he only abstains from flesh and fish, +that is enough. No matter, he supposes, what vegetables he uses, so they +are vegetables; nor how much he abuses himself by excess in quantity. +Nay, he will even load his stomach with milk, or butter, or eggs; +sometimes with fish (we have often been asked if we considered fish as +animal food); and sometimes, worse still, with hot bread, hot buckwheat +cakes, hot short-cakes, swimming, almost, in butter;--yes, and sometimes +he will even cover his potatoes with gravy, mustard, salt, etc. + +It is in vain for mankind to abstain from animal food, as they call it, +and yet run into these worse errors. The lean parts of animals not much +fattened, and only rarely cooked, eaten once a day in small quantity, +are far less unwholesome than many of the foregoing. + +But to return to Dr. C. In speaking of the proper drink for persons +inclined to gout, he thus remarks: + +"With respect to drink, fermented liquors are useful only when they are +joined with animal food, and that by their acescency; and their stimulus +is only necessary from custom. When, therefore, animal food is to be +avoided, fermented liquors are unnecessary, and by increasing the +acescency of vegetables, these liquors may be hurtful. The stimulus of +fermented or spirituous liquors is not necessary to the young and +vigorous: and, when much employed, impairs the tone of the system." + +Dr. C. might have added--what indeed we should infer by parity of +reasoning--that when fermented liquors are avoided, animal food is no +longer necessary, and by increasing the alkaline state of the stomach +and fluids, may be hurtful. The truth is, they go best together. If we +use flesh and fish, which are alkaline, a small quantity of gently acid +drink, as weak cider or wine, taken either _with_ our meals, or +_between_ them, may be useful. It is better, however, to abstain from +both. + +For if a purely vegetable aliment, with water alone for drink, is safe +to all young persons inclining at all to gout, to whom is it unsafe? If +it tends to render a young person at all weaker, that very weakness +would predispose to the gout, in some of its forms, if a person were +constitutionally inclined to that disease--if not to some other +complaint, to which he was more inclined. It cannot, therefore, be +unsafe to any, if Dr. C. is right. + +But if those who are trained to it, _lose_ nothing, even in the high +latitude of Scotland--where Dr. C. wrote--by confining themselves to +good vegetables and water, then they must necessarily _gain_, on his own +principles, by this way of living, because they get rid of any sort of +necessity (he might have added, lose their appetite) for fermented +liquors. + +More than this, as the doctor himself concludes, in another place, they +prevent many acute diseases. His words are these:--"It is animal food +which especially predisposes to the plethoric and inflammatory state; +and that food is therefore to be especially avoided." It is true, he is +here speaking of gouty persons: but his principles are also fairly +susceptible, as I have shown, of a general application. + +In short, it is an undeniable fact, that even a thorough-going vegetable +eater might prove every thing he wished, from old established writers on +medicine and health, though themselves were feeders on animal food; just +as a teetotaler may prove the doctrine of abstinence from all drinks but +water, from the writings of medical men, though themselves are still, in +many cases, pouring down their cider, their beer, or their wine--or at +least, their tea and coffee. + + +DR. BENJAMIN RUSH. + +I find nothing in the writings of this great man which shows, with +certainty, what his views were, in regard to animal food. The +presumption is, that he was sparing in its use, and that he encouraged a +very limited use of it in others. This is presumed, 1, from the general +tenor of his writings--deeply imbued as they are with the great doctrine +of temperance in all things; and, 2, from the fondness he seems to have +manifested in mentioning the temperance and even abstinence of +individuals of whom he was speaking. + +Of Ann Woods, for example, who died at the age of ninety-six years, he +says, "Her diet was simple, consisting chiefly of weak tea, milk, +cheese, butter, and vegetables. Meat of all kinds, except veal, +disagreed with her stomach. She found great benefit from frequently +changing her aliment. Her drinks were water, cider and water, and +molasses and vinegar in water. She never used spirits. Her memory (at +her death) was but little impaired. She was cheerful, and thankful that +her condition in life was happier than that of hundreds of other +people." + +In his account of Benjamin Lay, a philosopher of the sect of the +Friends, in Pennsylvania, Dr. R. relates, that "he was extremely +temperate in his diet, living chiefly upon vegetables. Turnips boiled +and afterward roasted, were his favorite dinner. His drink was pure +water. He lived above eighty years." It appears, also, that he was +exceedingly healthy. + +He relates of Anthony Benezet, a distinguished teacher of Philadelphia, +who lived to an advanced age, that his sympathy was so great with every +thing that was capable of feeling pain, that he resolved, toward the +close of his life, to eat no animal food. He also relates the following +singular anecdote of him. Upon coming into his brother's house, one day, +when the family were dining upon poultry, he was asked by his brother's +wife to sit down and dine with them. What! said he, would you have me +eat my neighbors? + +Dr. Caleb Bannister, in another part of this work, tells us that he was +led to adopt a milk and vegetable diet, in incipient consumption, from +reading the writings of Dr. Rush; and I have little doubt that Dr. R. +himself lived quite abstemiously, if not altogether on vegetables. + +Nor is this _incidental_ testimony from Dr. Rush quite all. In his work +"On the Diseases of the Mind," he speaks often of the evils of eating +high-seasoned food, and especially animal food. And in stating what were +the proper remedies for debility in young men, when induced by certain +forms of licentiousness, he expressly insists on a diet consisting +simply of vegetables, and prepared without condiments; and he even +encourages the disuse of salt. Had Dr. Rush lived to this day, he +would, ere now, in all probability, have fully adopted and defended the +vegetable system. With views like his on the subject of intemperance, +and a mind ever open to conviction, the result could hardly have been +otherwise. + + +DR. WILLIAM LAMBE, OF LONDON. + +Dr. William Lambe, of London, is distinguished both as a physician and a +general scholar, and is a prominent member of the "College of +Physicians." He was a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, and a +fellow-student with the immortal Clarkson. + +Dr. Lambe is the author of several valuable works, among which are his +"Reports on Cancer," and a more recent work entitled, "Additional +Reports on the Effects of a Peculiar Regimen, in Cases of Cancer, +Scrofula, Consumption, Asthma, and other chronic diseases." He has also +made and published numerous experiments, especially in chemistry, which +is, with him, a favorite science; and it is said that he has spent +fortunes in this way. + +Dr. L. is now eighty-four years of age, and has lived on vegetable diet +forty-two years. He commenced this course to cure himself of internal +gout, and continued it because he found it better for his health. He is +now only troubled with it slightly, at his extremities, which he thinks +highly creditable to a vegetable course--having thrown it off from his +vital organs. He is cheerful and active, and able to discharge the +duties of an extensive medical practice. He walks into town, a distance +of three miles from his residence, every morning, and back at night; and +thinks himself as likely to live twenty years longer as he was, twenty +years ago, to live to his present age. + +The following is a condensed account of Dr. L.'s views, as obtained from +his "Additional Reports," above mentioned. Some of the first paragraphs +relate to the effects of vegetable food on those who are predisposed to +scrofula, consumption, etc. + +"We see daily examples of young persons becoming consumptive who never +went without animal food a single day of their lives. If the use of +animal food were necessary to prevent consumption, we should expect, +where people lived almost entirely upon such a diet, the disease would +be unknown. + +"Now, the Indian tribes visited by Mr. Hearne live in this manner. They +do not cultivate the earth. They subsist by hunting, and the scanty +produce of spontaneous vegetation. But, among these tribes consumption +is common. Their diseases, as Mr. Hearne informs us, are principally +fluxes, scurvy, and consumption. + +"In the last four years, several cases of glandular swellings have +occurred to me at the general dispensary, and I have made particular +inquiries into the mode of living of such children. In the majority, +they had animal food. In opposition to the accusation of vegetable food +causing tumefaction of the abdomen, I must testify, that twice in my own +family I have seen such swellings disappear under a vegetable regimen, +which had been formed under a diet of animal food. + +"Increasing the strength, for a time, is no proof of the salubrity of +diet. The increased strength may not continue, though the diet should be +continued. On the contrary, there is a sort of oscillation; the strength +just rising, then sinking again. This is what is experienced by the +trainers of boxers. A certain time is necessary to get these men into +condition; but this condition cannot be maintained for many weeks +together, though the process by which it was formed is continued. The +same is found to hold in the training of race-horses, and +fighting-cocks. + +"It seems certain that animal food predisposes to disease. Timoric, in +his account of the plague at Constantinople, asserts that the Armenians, +who live chiefly on vegetable food, were far less disposed to the +disease than other people. The typhus fever is greatly exasperated by +full living. + +"It seems, moreover, highly probable that the power inherent in the +human living body, of restoring itself under accidents or wounds, is +strongest in those who use most a vegetable regimen. + +"Contagions act with greater virulence upon bodies prepared by a full +diet of animal food. + +"Since fishing has declined in the isles of Ferro, and the inhabitants +have lived chiefly on vegetables, the elephantiasis has ceased among +them. + +"Those monks who, by the rules of their institution, abstain from the +flesh of animals, enjoy a longer mean term of life, as the consequence. +Of this there can be no doubt. Of one hundred and fifty-two monks, taken +promiscuously in all times and all sorts of climates, there lives +produced a total, according to Baillot (a writer of eminence), of 11,589 +years, or an average of seventy-six years and a little more than three +months. + +"Those Bramins who abstain most scrupulously from the flesh of animals +attain to the greatest longevity. + +"Life is prolonged, under incurable diseases, about one tenth by +vegetable diet; so that a person who would otherwise die at seventy, +will reach seventy-seven. In general, however, the proportion is about +one sixth. + +"Abstaining from animal food palliates, when it does not cure, all +constitutional diseases. + +"The use of animal food hurries on life with an unnatural and unhealthy +rapidity. We arrive at puberty too soon; the passions are developed too +early; in the male, they acquire an impetuosity approaching to madness; +females become mothers too early, and too frequently; and, finally, the +system becomes prematurely exhausted and destroyed, and we become +diseased and old, when we ought to be in middle life. + +"It affords no trifling ground of suspicion against the use of animal +food that it so obviously inclines us to corpulency. Corpulency itself +is a species of disease, and a still surer harbinger of other diseases. +It is so even in animals. When a sheep has become fat, the butcher knows +it must be killed or it will rot and decline. It is rare indeed for the +corpulent to be long-lived. They are at the same time sleepy, lethargic, +and short-breathed. Even Hippocrates says, 'Those who are uncommonly fat +die more quickly than the lean.' + +"As a general, rule, the florid are less healthy than those who have +little color; an increase of color having ever been judged, by common +sense, to be a sign of impending illness. Some, however, who are lean +upon animal food, thrive upon vegetables, and improve in color. + +"All the notions of vegetable diet affording only a deficient +nutriment--notions which are countenanced by the language of Cullen and +other great physicians--are wholly groundless. + +"Man is herbivorous in his structure. + +"I have observed no ill consequences from the relinquishment of animal +food. The apprehended danger of the change, with which men scare +themselves and their neighbors, is a mere phantom of the imagination. +The danger, in truth, lies wholly on the other side. + +"There is no organ of the body which, under the use of vegetable food, +does not receive an increase of sensibility, or of that power which is +thought to be imparted to it by the nervous system. + +"Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, and others of the masters of ancient +wisdom, adhered to the Pythagorean diet (vegetable diet), and are known +to have arrived at old age with the enjoyment of uninterrupted health. +Celsus affirms that the bodies which are filled with much animal food +become the most quickly old and diseased. It was proverbial that the +ancient athletæ were the most stupid of men. The cynic Diogenes, being +asked what was the cause of this stupidity, is reported to have +answered, 'Because they are wholly formed of the flesh of swine and +oxen.' Theophrastus says that feeding upon flesh destroys the reason, +and makes the mind more dull. + +"Animal food is unfavorable to the intellectual powers. The effect is, +in some measure, instantaneous; it being hardly possible to apply to any +thing requiring thought after a full meal of meat; so that it has been +not improperly said of vegetable feeders, that _with them it is morning +all day long_. But the senses, the memory, the understanding, and the +imagination have also been observed to improve by a vegetable diet. + +"It will not be disputed that, for consumptive symptoms, a vegetable +diet, or at least a vegetable and milk diet, is the most proper. + +"It has been said, that the great fondness men have for animal food, is +proof enough that nature intended them to eat it. As if men were not +fond of wine, ardent spirits, and other things which we know cut short +their days! + +"In every period of history it has been known that vegetables alone are +sufficient for the support of life; and the bulk of mankind live upon +them at this hour. The adherence to the use of animal food is no more +than a gross persistence in the customs of savage life, and an +insensibility to the progress of reason and the operation of +intellectual improvement. This habit must be considered as one of the +numerous relics of that ancient barbarism which has overspread the face +of the globe, and which still taints the manners of civilized nations. + +"The use of fermented liquors is, in some measure, a necessary +concomitant and appendage to the use of animal food. Animal food, in a +great number of persons, loads the stomach, causes some degree of +oppression, fullness, and uneasiness; and, if the measure of it be in +excess, some nausea and tendency to sickness. Such persons say meat is +too heavy for the stomach. Fish is still more apt to nauseate. The use +of fermented liquors takes off these uneasy feelings, and is thought to +assist digestion. In short, in the use of animal food, man having +deviated from the simple aliment offered him by the hand of nature, and +which is the best suited to his organs of digestion, he has brought upon +himself a premature decay, and much intermediate suffering connected +with it. To this use of animal food almost all nations that have emerged +from a state of barbarism, have united the use of spirituous and +fermented liquors." + +It is but justice to Dr. L., however, as the above was written by him +over thirty years ago, to say, that though he still adheres to the same +views, he thinks pure distilled water a very important addition to the +vegetable diet, in the cure of chronic diseases. The following are his +remarks in a letter to Mr. Graham, dated ten or twelve years ago. + +"My doctrine is, that for the preservation of health, and more +particularly for the successful treatment of chronic diseases, it is +necessary to attend to the _whole_ ingesta--to the _fluid_ with as much +care as the solid. And I am persuaded that the errors into which men +have fallen with regard to supposed mischiefs or inconveniences (as +weakness, for example), as resulting from a restriction to a vegetable +diet, have, to a very considerable extent arisen from a want of a proper +attention to the quality of the water they drank. So far back as the +year 1803, I found that the use of pure distilled, instead of common +water, relieved a state of habitual suffering of the stomach and bowels. +On this account, I always require that _distilled_ water shall be joined +to the use of a vegetable diet; and consider this to be essential to the +treatment." + + +PROFESSOR LAWRENCE. + +Professor Lawrence is the author of a work entitled Lectures on +Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. He is a member of +the Royal College of Surgeons, London, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery +to the College, and Surgeon to several Hospitals. In his work above +mentioned, after much discussion in regard to the natural dietetic +character of man, he thus remarks: + +"That animal food renders man strong and courageous, is fully disproved +by the inhabitants of northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, +Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Kamtschadales, as well as by +the Esquimaux in the northern, and the natives of Terra del Fuego in the +southern extremity of America, which are the smallest, weakest, and +least brave people of the globe, although they live almost entirely upon +flesh, and that often raw. + +"Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice, as +that of animal matter is with physical force and courage. _That men can +be perfectly nourished, and their bodily and mental capabilities fully +developed in any climate, by a diet purely vegetable, admits of abundant +proof from experience._ In the periods of their greatest simplicity, +manliness, and bravery, the Greeks and Romans appear to have lived +almost entirely on plain vegetable preparations. Indifferent bread, +fruits, and other produce of the earth, are the chief nourishment of the +modern Italians, and of the mass of the population in most countries in +Europe. Of those more immediately known to ourselves, the Irish and +Scotch may be mentioned, who are certainly not rendered weaker than +their English fellow-subjects by their free use of vegetable aliment. +The Negroes, whose great bodily powers are well known, feed chiefly on +vegetable substances; and the same is the case with the South Sea +Islanders, whose agility and strength were so great that the stoutest +and most expert English sailors had no chance with them in wrestling and +boxing." + +The concession of Prof. L., which I have placed in italic, is sufficient +for our purpose; we ask no more. Nevertheless, I am willing to hear his +views of the indications afforded by our anatomical character, which +are, as will be seen, equally decisive in favor of vegetable eating. + +"Physiologists have usually represented that our species holds a middle +rank, in the masticatory and digestive apparatus, between the +flesh-eating and herbivorous animals--a statement which seems rather to +have been deduced from what we have learned by experience on the +subject, than to result from an actual comparison of men and animals. + +"The teeth and jaws of men are, in all respects, much more similar to +those of monkeys than of any other animal. The number is the same as in +man, and the form so closely similar, that they might easily be mistaken +for human. In most of them, except the ourang-outang, the canine teeth +are much larger and stronger than in us; and so far, these animals have +a more carnivorous character than man. + +"Thus we find, that whether we consider the teeth and jaws, or the +immediate instruments of digestion, the human structure closely +resembles that of the simiæ (monkey race), all of which, in their +natural state, are completely herbivorous. Man possesses a tolerably +large coecum, and a cellular colon; which I believe are not found in +any herbivorous animal." + +The ourang-outang naturally prefers fruits and nuts, as the professor +himself shows by extracts from the statements of travelers and +naturalists. He is also fond of bread. On board a ship or elsewhere, _in +confinement_, he may, however, be taught, like men, to eat almost any +thing;--not only to eat milk and suck eggs, but even to eat raw flesh. + +It is true, indeed, after all these foregoing statements and concessions +in regard to man's native character and the wholesomeness of a diet +exclusively vegetable--and after admitting that the human body and mind +can be fully and perfectly nourished and _developed_ on it, this +distinguished writer goes on to say that it is still doubtful which +diet--animal, vegetable, or mixed--is on the whole _most_ conducive to +health, and strength--which is best calculated to avert or remove +disease--whether errors in quantity or quality are most pernicious, etc. +He says the solution of these and other analogous questions, can only be +expected from experimental investigation. He proceeds to say-- + +"_Mankind are so averse to relinquish their favorite indulgences, and to +desert established habits_, that we cannot entertain very sanguine +expectations of any important discovery in this department. We must add +to this, that there are many other causes affecting human health, +besides diet. Before venturing to draw any inferences on a subject beset +with so many obstacles, it would be necessary to observe the effects of +a purely animal and a purely vegetable diet on several individuals of +different habits, pursuits, and modes of life; to note their state, both +bodily and mental; and to learn the condition of two or three +generations fed in the same manner." + +Now, the only difference between this opinion and what I conceive to be +the truth in the case is, that just such experimental investigations as +those to which he refers have, to all intents and purposes, been already +made; as, I trust, will be distinctly shown in the sequel of this work. + + +DR. SALGUES. + +Dr. Salgues, Physician, and Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, etc., +etc., to the Institute of France, some years ago wrote a book, entitled +"Rules for Preserving the Health of the Aged," which contained many very +judicious remarks on diet. There is nothing in the volume, however, +which is decidedly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable, unless it +is a few anecdotes; and I have introduced his name chiefly as a sort of +authority for those anecdotes. They are the following: + +"Josephus informs us that the Essenes were very long lived; many lived +upward of one hundred years, solely from their simple habits and +sobriety. Aristotle and Plato speak of Herodicus the philosopher, who, +although of a feeble and consumptive habit, lived, in consequence of his +sobriety, upward of one hundred years. Phabrinus, mentioned by Athenius, +lived more than one hundred years, drinking milk only. Zoroaster, +according to Pliny, remained twenty years in a desert, living on a small +quantity of cheese only." + + +THE AUTHOR OF "SURE METHODS," ETC. + +The British author of "Sure Methods of Improving Health and Prolonging +Life," supposed by many to be the distinguished Dr. Johnson, speaks +thus: + +"It must be confessed that, in temperate climates, at least, an animal +diet is, in one respect, more wasting than a vegetable, because it +excites, by its stimulating qualities, a temporary fever after every +meal, by which the springs of life are urged into constant, +preternatural, and weakening exertions. Again; persons who live chiefly +on animal food are subject to various acute and fatal disorders, as the +scurvy, malignant ulcers, inflammatory fevers, etc., and are likewise +liable to corpulency, more especially when united to inordinate +quantities of liquid aliment. There appears to be also a tendency in an +animal diet to promote the formation of many chronic diseases; and we +seldom find those who indulge much in this diet to be remarkable for +longevity. + +"In favor of vegetables, it may be justly said, that man could hardly +live entirely on animal food, but we know he may on vegetable. Vegetable +aliment has likewise no tendency to produce those constitutional +disorders which animal food so frequently occasions. And this is a great +advantage, more especially in our country (he means in Great Britain), +where the general sedentary mode of living so powerfully contributes to +the formation and establishment of numerous severe chronic maladies. Any +unfavorable effects vegetable food may have on the body, are almost +wholly confined to the stomach and bowels, and rarely injure the system +at large. This food has also a beneficial influence on the powers of the +mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, and liveliness of +imagination, and acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live +principally on meat. It should also be added, that a vegetable diet, +when it consists of articles easily digested, as potatoes, turnips, +bread, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., is certainly favorable to long life." + + +BARON CUVIER.[10] + +Perhaps it is not generally known that Baron Cuvier, the prince of +naturalists, in the progress of his researches came to the most decisive +conclusion, that, so far as any thing can be ascertained or proved by +the investigation of science in regard to the natural dietetic character +of man, he is a fruit and vegetable eater. I have not seen his own +views; but the following are said, by an intelligent writer, to be a +tolerably faithful transcript of them, and to be derived from his +Comparative Anatomy. + +"Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man +be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons. + +"The ourang-outang perfectly resembles man, both in the order and number +of his teeth. The ourang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape +tribe, all of which are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species +of animals, which live on different food, in which this analogy exists. +In many frugivorous animals, the canine teeth are more pointed and +distinct than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to +that of the ourang-outang, is greater than to that of any other animal. + +"The intestines are also identical with those of herbivorous animals, +which present a large surface for absorption, and have ample and +cellulated colons. The coecum also, though short, is larger than that +of carnivorous animals; and even here the ourang-outang retains its +accustomed similarity. + +"The structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to a pure +vegetable diet, in every essential particular. It is true, that the +reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long +accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds, +as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from being any argument in +its favor. A lamb, which was fed for some time on flesh by a ship's +crew, refused its natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are +numerous instances of horses, sheep, oxen, and even wood-pigeons, having +been taught to live upon flesh, until they have loathed their natural +aliment." + +No one will deny that Baron Cuvier was in favor of flesh eating; but it +was not because he ever believed, for one moment, that man was +_naturally_ a flesh-eating animal. Man is a reasoning animal (he +argues), and intended to be so. If left to the guidance of his +instincts, the same yielding to the law of his structure which would +exclude flesh meats, should also exclude cookery. Or, in other words, if +he is not permitted to depart from the line of life which his structure +indicates, he must no more cook his vegetables than eat animal food. +Besides, he is made, as Cuvier supposes, for artificial society, and the +Creator designed him to _improve_ his food; and, if I understand his +reasoning, he is better able, with his present structure of teeth, jaws, +stomach, intestines, etc., to make this improvement, and rise above his +nature, and yield to the force and indications of reason and experience, +than if he possessed any other known living structure. + +To this structure, however, as well as to the same power of adaptation, +the monkey race, and especially the ourang-outang, closely typo +approximates. Cuvier's reasoning, in my view, applies only to the +adaptability (if I may be allowed the expression) of the human animal, +without deciding how far he should avail himself of his power to make +changes. + + +DR. LUTHER V. BELL. + +I have alluded, in another part of this work, to the prize essay of Dr. +Bell, awarded to him by the Boylston Medical Committee on the subject of +the diet of laborers in New England. Dr. Bell is a physician of +respectable talents, and is at present the Physician to an Insane +Hospital in Charlestown, near this city. + +Dr. Bell admits, with the most distinguished naturalists and +physiologists of Europe,--Cuvier, Lawrence, Blumenbach, Bell of London, +Richerand, Marc, etc.,--that the structure of man resembles closely that +of the monkey race; and hence objects to the conclusion to which some of +these men have arrived (by jumping over, as it were), that man is an +omnivorous animal. He freely allows--I use his own words--"that man does +approximate more closely to the frugivorous animals than to any others, +in physical organization." But then he insists that the conclusion which +ought to be drawn from this similarity "is, that he is designed to have +his food in about the same state of mechanical cohesion, requiring about +the same energy of masticatory organs, as if it consisted of fruits, +etc., alone." + +But, wherefore should we draw even this conclusion, if structure and +instinct prove nothing, and if we are to be governed solely by reason, +without regard to structure and instinct? For my own part, I believe +reason is never true reason, when it turns wholly out of doors either +instinct or the indications of organization. In other words, an +enlightened reason would look both to the structure and organization of +man, and to a large and broad experience, for the solution of a question +so important as what diet is, on the whole, best for man. And the +experience of the world, both in the present and all former ages, leads +me to a conclusion entirely different from that to which Dr. Bell, and +those who entertain the same views with him, seem to have arrived--a +conclusion which is indicated by structure, and confirmed by facts and +universal experience. But this subject will be further discussed and +developed in another place. It is sufficient for my present purpose, to +bring testimony in favor of the safety of vegetable eating, and of the +doctrine that man is naturally a vegetable and fruit-eating animal; and +especially if I produce, to this end, the testimony of flesh-eaters +themselves. + + +DR. WILLIAM BUCHAN, AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC MEDICINE." + +"Indulgence in animal food, renders men dull and unfit for the pursuits +of science, especially when it is accompanied with the free use of +strong liquors. I am inclined to think that _consumptions_, so common in +England, are, in part, owing to the great use of animal food. But the +disease most common to this country is the scurvy. One finds a dash of +it in almost every family, and in some the taint is very deep. A disease +so general must have a general cause, and there is none so obvious as +the great quantity of animal food which is devoured. As a proof that +scurvy arises from this cause, we are in possession of no remedy for +that disease equal to the free use of fresh vegetables. By the +uninterrupted use of animal food, a putrid diathesis is induced in the +system, which predisposes to a variety of disorders. I am fully +convinced that many of those obstinate complaints for which we are at a +loss to account, and which we find it still more difficult to cure, are +the effects of a scorbutic taint, lurking in the habit. + +"The choleric disposition of the English is almost proverbial. Were I to +assign a cause, it would be, their living so much on animal food. There +is no doubt but this induces a ferocity of temper unknown to men whose +food is taken chiefly from the vegetable kingdom.[11] + +"Experience proves that not a few of the diseases incident to the +inhabitants of this country, are owing to their mode of living. The +vegetable productions they consume, fall considerably short of the +proportion they ought to bear to the animal part of their food. The +major part of the aliment ought to consist of vegetable substances. +There is a continual tendency in animal food, as well as in the human +body itself, to putrefaction; which can only be counteracted by the free +use of vegetables. All who value health, ought to be contented with +making one meal of animal food in twenty-four hours; and this ought to +consist of one kind only. + +"The most obstinate scurvy has often been cured by a vegetable diet; +nay, milk alone, will frequently do more in that disease than any +medicine. Hence it is evident that if vegetables and milk were more used +in diet, we should have less scurvy, and likewise fewer putrid and +inflammatory fevers. + +"Such as abound with blood (and such are almost all of us), should be +sparing in the use of every thing which is highly nourishing--as fat +meat, rich wines, strong ales, and the like. Their food should consist +chiefly of bread and other vegetable substances; and their drink ought +to be water, whey, or small beer." + +Dr. B. also insists on a vegetable diet, as a preventive of many +diseases; particularly of consumption. When there is a tendency to this +disease, in the young, he says "it should be counteracted by strictly +adhering to a diet of the farinacea, and ripe fruits. Animal food and +fermented liquors ought to be rigidly prohibited. Even milk often proves +too nutritious." + + +DR. CHARLES WHITLAW. + +Dr. Whitlaw is the author of a work entitled "New Medical Discoveries," +in two volumes, and of a "Treatise on Fever." He has also established +medical vapor baths in London, New York, and elsewhere; and is a +gentleman of much skill and eminence in his profession. Dr. Whitlaw +says-- + +"All philosophers have given their testimony in favor of vegetable food, +from Pythagoras to Franklin. Its beneficial influence on the powers of +the mind has been experienced by all sedentary and literary men. + +"But, that which ought to convince every one of the salubrity of a diet +consisting of vegetables, is the consideration of the dreadful effects +of totally abstaining from it, unless it be for a very short time; +accounts of which we meet with, fully and faithfully recorded, in the +most interesting and most authentic narratives of human affairs--wars, +sieges of places, long encampments, distant voyages, the peopling of +uncultivated and maritime countries, remarkable pestilences, and the +lives of illustrious men. To this cause the memorable plague at Athens +was attributed; and indeed all the other plagues and epidemical +distempers, of which we have any faithful accounts, will be found to +have originated in a deprivation of vegetable food. + +"The only objections I have ever heard urged (the only plausible ones, +he must mean, I think), is the notion of its inadequacy to the +sustenance of the body. But this is merely a strong prejudice into which +the generality of mankind have fallen, owing to their ignorance of the +laws of life and health. Agility and constant vigor of body are the +effect of health, which is much better preserved by a herbaceous, +aqueous, and sparing tender diet, than by one which is fleshy, vinous, +unctuous, and hard of digestion. + +"So fully were the Romans, at one time, persuaded of the superior +goodness of vegetable diet, that, besides the private example of many of +their great men, they established laws respecting food, among which were +the _lex fannia_, and the _lex licinia_, which allowed but very little +animal food; and, for a period of five hundred years, diseases were +banished along with the physician from the Roman empire. Nor has our own +age been destitute of examples of men, brave from the vigor both of +their bodies and their minds, who at the same time have been drinkers of +water and eaters of vegetables.[12] + +"Nothing is more certain than that animal food is inimical to health. +This is evident from its stimulating qualities producing, as it were, a +temporary fever after every meal; and not only so, but from its +corruptible qualities it gives rise to many fatal diseases; and those +who indulge in its use seldom arrive at an advanced age. + +"We have the authority of the Scripture for asserting that the proper +aliment of man is vegetables. See Genesis. And as disease is not +mentioned as a part of the cause, we have reason to believe that the +antediluvians were strangers to this evil. Such a phenomenon as disease +could hardly exist among a people who lived entirely on a vegetable +food; consequently all the individuals made mention of in that period of +the world, are said to have died of old age; whereas, since the day of +Noah, when mankind were permitted to eat animal food, such an occurrence +as a man dying of old age, or a natural decay of the bodily functions, +does not occur probably once in half a century. + +"Its injurious effects on the mind are equally certain. The Tartars, who +live principally on animal food, are cruel and ferocious in their +disposition, gloomy and sullen minded, delighting in exterminating wars +and plunder; while the Bramins and Hindoos, who live entirely on +vegetable aliment, possess a mildness and gentleness of character and +disposition directly the reverse of the Tartar; and I have no doubt, had +India possessed a more popular form of government, and a more +enlightened priesthood, her people, with minds so fitted for +contemplation, would have far outstripped the other nations of the world +in manufactures, and in the arts and sciences. + +"But we need only look at the peasantry of Ireland, who, living as they +do, chiefly on a vegetable--and to say the least of it, a very +suspicious kind of aliment, I mean the potatoe--are yet as robust and +vigorous a race of men as inherit any portion of the globe. + +"The greater part of our bodily disease is brought on by improper food. +This opinion has been strongly confirmed by my daily experience in the +treatment of those diseases to which the people of England are +peculiarly subject, such as scrofula, consumption, leprosy, etc. These +disorders are making fearful and rapid strides; so much so, that not a +single family may now be considered exempt from their melancholy +ravages." + +This is fearful testimony, but it is the result of much observation and +of twenty years' experience. But the same causes are producing the same +effects--at least, so far as scrofula and consumption are concerned--in +this country, at the present time, of which Dr. W. complains so loudly +in England. I could add much more from his writings, but what I have +said is sufficient. + + +DR. JAMES CLARK. + +Dr. Clark, physician to the king and queen of Belgium, in a Treatise on +Pulmonary Consumption, has the following remarks: + +"There is no greater evil in the management of children than that of +giving them animal diet very early. By persevering in the use of an +over-stimulating diet, the digestive organs become irritated, and the +various secretions immediately connected with and necessary to digestion +are diminished, especially the biliary secretion; and constipation of +the bowels and congestion of the abdominal viscera succeed. Children so +fed, moreover, become very liable to attacks of fever and of +inflammation, affecting particularly the mucous membranes; and measles +and the other diseases incident to childhood are generally severe in +their attack." + +The suggestion that a mild or vegetable diet will render certain +diseases incident to childhood more mild than otherwise they would be, +is undoubtedly an important one; and as just as it is important. But +the remark might be extended, in its application. Both children and +adults would escape all sorts of diseases, especially colds and +epidemics, with much more certainty, or, if attacked, the attacks would +be much more mild, on an exclusively vegetable diet than on a mixed one. +Dr. Clark does not, indeed, say so; but I may say it, and with +confidence. And Dr. C. could not probably show any reason why, on his +own principles, it should not be so. + + +PROF. MUSSEY, OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. + +Prof. R. D. Mussey, of Hanover, New Hampshire, whose science and skill +as a surgeon and physician are well known and attested all over New +England, has for many years taught, both directly and indirectly, in his +public lectures, that man is naturally a fruit and vegetable eater. This +he proves, first, from the structure of his teeth and intestines--next +from his physiological character, and finally, from various facts and +considerations too numerous to detail here. + +He thinks the Bible doctrines are in favor of the disuse of flesh and +fish; that the Jews were required to abstain from pork, and from all fat +and blood, for physiological no less than other reasons. An infant, he +says, naturally has a disrelish for animal food. He says that, in all +probability, animal food was not permitted, though used, before the +flood; and that its use, contrary to the wish of the Creator, was +probably one cause of human degeneracy. Animal food, he says, is apt to +produce diseases of the skin--makes people passionate and +violent--excites the nervous system too much--renders the senses and +faculties more dull--and favors the accumulation of what is mired +tartar on the teeth, and thus causes their early and certain decay. The +blood and breath of carnivorous animals emit an unpleasant odor, while +those of vegetable eaters do not. The fact that man _does eat_ flesh no +more proves its necessity, than the fact that cows, and sheep, and +horses can be taught it, proves its necessity to them. The Africans bear +the cold better the first winter after their arrival in a northern +climate than afterward. May not this be owing to their simple vegetable +living? + + +DR. CONDIE, OF PHILADELPHIA. + +The Journal of Health, edited by some of the ablest physicians of +Philadelphia, has the following remarkable language on the subject of +vegetable food. See vol. 1, page 277. + +"It is well known that vegetable substances, particularly the +farinaceous, are fully sufficient, of themselves, for maintaining a +healthy existence. We have every reason for believing that the fruits of +the earth constituted, originally, the only food of man. Animal food is +digested in a much shorter period than vegetables; from which +circumstance, as well as its approaching much nearer in its composition +to the substance of the body into which it is to be converted, it might +at first be supposed the most appropriate article of nourishment. It +has, however, been found that vegetable matter can be as readily and +perfectly _assimilated_ by the stomach into appropriate _nutriment_ as +the most tender animal substances; and confessedly with a less heating +effect upon the system generally. + +"As a general rule, it will be found that those who make use of a diet +consisting chiefly of vegetable matter have a vast advantage in looks, +in strength, and spirits, over those who partake largely of animal food. +They are remarkable for the firm, healthy plumpness of their muscles, +and the transparency of their skins. This assertion, though at variance +with popular opinion, is amply supported by experience." + +At page 7 of the same volume of the Journal of Health we find the +following remarks. The editors were alluding to those persons who think +they cannot preserve their health and strength without flesh or fish, +and who believe their children would also suffer without it: + +"For the information of all such misguided persons, we beg leave to +state, that the large majority of mankind do not eat any animal food; +or, if any, they use it so sparingly, and at such long intervals, that +it cannot be said to form their nourishment. Millions in Asia are +sustained by rice alone, with perhaps a little vegetable oil for +seasoning. + +"In Italy and southern Europe, generally, bread, made of the flour of +wheat or Indian corn, with lettuce and the like mixed with oil, +constitutes the food of the most robust part of its population. + +"The Lazzaroni of Naples, with forms so actively and finely +proportioned, cannot even calculate on this much. Coarse bread and +potatoes is their chief reliance. Their drink of luxury is a glass of +iced water, slightly acidulated. + +"Hundreds of thousands--we might say millions--of Irish do not see +flesh-meat or fish from one week's end to another. Potatoes and oatmeal +are their articles of food: if milk can be added it is thought a luxury. +Yet where shall we find a more healthy and robust population, or one +more enduring of bodily fatigue, and exhibiting more mental vivacity? +What a contrast between these people and the inhabitants of the extreme +north--the timid Laplanders, Esquimaux, and Samoideans, whose food is +almost entirely animal?" + +Again, at page 187 we are told that "the more simple the aliment, and +the less _altered_ by culinary processes, the slower is the change in +digestion; but, at the same time, the less is the stimulation and wear +of the powers of life. The Bramins of Hindostan, who live on exceedingly +simple food, are long livers, even in a hot and exhausting climate. The +peasants of Switzerland and of Scotland, nourished on bread, milk, and +cheese, attain a very old age, and enjoy great bodily strength. + +"Where there is too much excitement of the body, generally, from +fullness of the blood-vessels, or of any one of the organs, owing to a +wrong direction of the blood to it (and in one or the other of these +conditions we find almost every body now-a-days), animal food, by being +long retained in the stomach, and calling into greater action other +parts during digestion, as well as furnishing them with more blood +afterward, must be obviously improper. The more of this kind of food is +taken under such circumstances, the greater will be the oppression; and +the weakness, different from that of a healthy person long hungered, +will only be increased by the increased amount of blood carried to the +diseased part." + +It is true that the editors of the Journal of Health connect with the +foregoing paragraphs the statement that, "if it be desirable to give +nutriment in a small bulk, to obtund completely the sensation of hunger +and restore strength to the body, a small quantity of animal will be +preferable to much vegetable food." But then it is only in a few +diseased cases that any such thing is desirable. And even then, if we +look carefully at the language used, the comparison is not made between +animal and vegetable food in moderate or reasonable quantities, but +between a _small quantity_ of the former and _much_ of the latter. + + +DR. J. V. C. SMITH, OF BOSTON. + +The following remarks are extracted from the Boston Medical +Intelligencer, at a period when Dr. J. V. C. Smith was the editor. They +have the appearance of being from Dr. Smith's own pen. Dr. S. is at +present the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: + +"It is true[13] that animal food contains a greater portion of +nutriment, in a given quantity, than vegetables; but the digestive +functions of the human system become prematurely exhausted by constant +action, and the whole system eventually sinks under great or +uninterrupted excitement. If, for the various ragouts with which modern +tables are so abundantly furnished, men would substitute _wholesome +vegetables and pure water_, we should see health walking in paths that +are now crowded with the bloated victims of voluptuous appetite. +Millions of Gentoos have lived to an advanced age without having tasted +any thing that ever possessed life, and been wholly free from a chain of +maladies which have scourged every civilized nation on the globe. The +wandering Arabs, who have traversed the barren desert of Sahara, +subsisting on the scanty pittance of milk from the half-famished camel +that carried them, have seen two hundred years roll round without a day +of sickness." + + +SYLVESTER GRAHAM. + +Although Mr. Graham does not, so far as I know, lay claim to the +"honors" of any medical institution, it cannot be doubted that his +knowledge of physiology, to say nothing of anatomy, pathology, and +medicine, is such as to entitle him to a high rank among medical men; +and I have, therefore, without hesitation, concluded to insert his +testimony in this place. + +Of his views, however, on the subject before us, it seems almost +superfluous to speak, as they are set forth, and have been set forth for +many years, so conspicuously, not only in his public lectures, but in +his writings, that the bare mention of his name, in almost any part of +the country, is to awaken the prejudices, if not the hostilities, of +every foe, and of some friends (supposed friends, I mean), of +"temperance in all things." It is sufficient, perhaps, for my present +purpose, to say of him, that, after the most rigid and profound +examination of the subject which he is capable of making--and his +capabilities are by no means very limited--it is his unhesitating +belief, that in every climate, and in all circumstances in which it is +proper for man to be placed, an exclusively farinaceous and fruit diet +is the best adapted to the development and improvement of all his powers +of body, mind, and soul; provided, however, he were trained to it from +the first. And even at any period of life, unless in the case of certain +forms of diseases, he believes it would be preferable to exchange, in a +proper manner, every form of mixed diet for one purely vegetable. Such +opinions as these, as a part of his views in relation to the physical +duties of man, he publicly, and strenuously, and eloquently, announces +and defends. + + +DR. JOHN M. ANDREW. + +Dr. Andrew is a practitioner of medicine in Remsen, Oneida county, State +of New York. His letter was intended for chapter iv., but came too late. +This fact is the only apology for inserting it in this place. Several +interesting cases of dietetic reform accompanied the letter, but I must +omit them, for want of room, in this work. + + REMSEN, April 28, 1838. + +DEAR SIR--It is now about sixteen months since I adopted an exclusively +vegetable diet. I have, however, never been very much inclined to animal +food; and, indeed, before I ever heard of the Graham system I laid it +aside, during summer, when farming--which, by the by, had always been my +occupation till I commenced my professional course, about four years +ago. I have, to the best of my knowledge, enjoyed what is commonly +called good health, and possessed a degree of strength surpassed only by +few; and in connection with the assiduous cultivation of my mental +faculties, I have carefully sought to improve my physical powers, which +I deem of incalculable worth to the student, as well as to the laborer. + +My attention was first called to the subject of vegetable eating by +Professor Mussey, in a lecture before the medical class of the Western +Medical College of New York, while fulfilling the duties of the +professorship, to which he was called in 1836. In that lecture our +adaptations, and the design of the Creator in regard to our mode of +subsistence, were clearly held forth, and such was the impression made +on my mind, that I was induced at once to adopt the vegetable system, +both in practice and theory. In my change of diet I did not suffer any +inconvenience. The fact that I had, for some length of time, been living +mostly on vegetables, will account for that circumstance, however. + +But the great advantages derived from the change were soon perceptible, +though not appreciated by others. I met with much opposition from my +friends, frequently being told that I was fast losing my flesh and all +my youthful vigor and vivacity. And yet, for one year and more, I have +not lost a pound of flesh. + +I was gazed upon as an anomaly in society; some anxiously looking, and +others fearfully expecting my downfall and destruction; but both are +alike disappointed. The system, though I have not been able to follow it +so strictly as I could wish, from the circumstances in which I have been +placed, has far exceeded my expectations. One year and more has rolled +away, and I thank God I can look back, with some degree of satisfaction, +on the time spent in the enjoyment of that alone which sweetens the cup +of life. My most able advocacy has been my manual exertions and I have +demonstrated the utility of the _system_ alike to the professional and +laboring classes of community. + +I do not go beyond the truth when I say, that I cannot find a man to vie +with me in the field, with the scythe, the fork, or the axe. I do not +want any thing but potatoes and salt; and I can cut and put up four +cords of wood in a day, with no very great exertion. I have frequently +been told, by friends, that my _potato and salt system_ would not stand +the test of the field; but I have silenced their clamor by actual +demonstration with all the implements above named. + +At present, no consideration would induce me to return to my former mode +of living. + + JOHN M. ANDREW. + + +DR. WILLIAM SWEETSER, OF BOSTON. + +Dr. Sweetser is the author of a "Treatise on Consumption," and of a +"Treatise on Digestion." He has also been a medical professor in the +University of Vermont, and a public lecturer on health, in Boston. + +In his work on consumption, while speaking of the prevailing belief of a +necessity for the use of animal food to those children who possess the +scrofulous or consumptive tendency, he thus remarks: + +"A diet of milk and mild farinaceous articles, with perhaps light animal +decoctions, appears best suited to the early years of life. Whenever +there exists an evident inflammatory tendency, as is the case in some +scrofulous systems, solid animal food, if used at all, should be taken +with the greatest precaution. + +"And again--how often is it that fat, plethoric, meat-eating children, +their faces looking as though the blood was just ready to ooze out, are +with the greatest complacency exhibited by their parents as patterns of +health! But let it ever be remembered, that the condition of the system +popularly called rude or full health, and which is the result of high +feeding, is too often closely bordering on a state of disease." + +In his work on digestion he seems to regard man as naturally an +omnivorous animal; and, taking this for granted, he speaks as follows +respecting his diet: + +"One would hardly assert that even in temperate climates his (man's) +system requires animal food. I doubt whether any instance can be +adduced--unless man be regarded as such--of an omnivorous animal +incapable of being adequately nourished by a sufficient and proper +vegetable diet. + +"Man, dwelling in a temperate climate, and with the power to choose, +almost uniformly employs a mixture of animal and vegetable food; but how +much early education may have to do in forming his taste for a mixed +diet it is difficult to estimate. Habit has certainly great influence in +attaching us to particular kinds of aliment. One who has long been +accustomed to animal food cannot at once abstain from it without +experiencing some feebleness for the want of its stimulation, and +perhaps even temporary emaciation. And, on the other hand, he who has +long been confined to a vegetable diet is apt to lose his relish for +flesh, and, on recurring suddenly to its use, to find it too exciting. + +"The liberal use of animal food has been generally thought requisite in +arctic climes, to stimulate the functions, and thus furnish a more +abundant supply of animal heat, to preserve against the extremity of +external temperature. Northern voyagers mostly believe that fat animal +food and oils are essential to the maintenance of health and life in the +inhabitants of those frozen regions. But to me it would seem that their +habits, in respect to diet, prove the _capabilities_, rather than the +necessities, of their systems. They learn to eat their coarse fare +because they can get no other. Their food, moreover, as is generally the +case in savage life, is precarious; and thus, being at times exposed to +extreme want, they are stimulated to greater excesses when their +supplies are ample. + +"The fact of man's dwelling in them (the arctic regions), and eating +what he can get there, no more proves him to be naturally a +flesh-eating animal than the circumstance of some cattle learning to eat +fish, when they are in situations where they can obtain no other food, +proves them to be piscivorous. + +"Haller conceived it necessary that human life should be sustained by +animal and vegetable food, so apportioned that neither should be in +excess; and he asserts that abstinence from animal food causes great +weakness in the body, and usually a troublesome diarrhoea. But such an +opinion is certainly incorrect, since not only particular individuals, +but even numbers of people, dwelling in temperate climates, from various +causes, subsist almost wholly on vegetable substances, and yet preserve +their health and vigor. + +"Were we educated to its exclusive use, I am persuaded that a vegetable +diet would afford us ample support; but whether, if restrained from +animal food, we should, _as a consequence_, in the course of time, and +under equally favoring circumstances in other respects, rise still +higher in our moral and physical nature, remains, as I conceive, to be +proved." + +These views of Dr. S. were repeated, in substance, in a course of +lectures given by him at the Masonic Temple, in Boston, in 1838. It will +be seen that he concedes what the friends of the vegetable system deem a +very important point, viz., that man's whole powers, physical, +intellectual, and moral, can be well developed on a diet exclusively +vegetable. We do not ask him to grant more. If man is as well off on +vegetable food as without it, we have moral reasons of so much weight to +place against animal food, as, when duly considered, will be, by all +candid persons, sufficient to lead to its rejection. + +True, we do not believe, with Dr. S.--at least I do not--that "whether a +diet purely vegetable, or one comprehending both animal and vegetable +food, would be most conducive to health, longevity, and intellectual, +moral, and physical development, is a question only to be determined by +a long course of experiments, made by various individuals in equal +health, and placed, in all other respects, under as nearly similar +circumstances as practicable." I believe this course of experiment does +not remain _to be_ made, but that it has been made, most fully, during +the last four or five thousand years, and that the question is settled +in favor--wholly so--of vegetable food. Still I do not ask physicians +and other medical men to grant more than Dr. S. has; it is quite as much +as we ought to expect of them. + + +DR. A. L. PIERSON. + +Dr. Pierson, of Salem, in Massachusetts, a physician and surgeon of +considerable eminence, in a lecture some time ago, before the American +Institute of Instruction, observed that "young men who were anxious to +avail themselves of the advantages of a liberal education, and were +therefore compelled to consult economy, had found out that it was not +necessary to pay three or four dollars a week for mere board, when the +most vigorous and uniform health may be secured by a diet of mere +vegetable food and water." + +I know not that Dr. P. avows himself an advocate for the exclusive use +of vegetable food, but if what I have quoted is not enough to satisfy us +in regard to his opinion of its safety, and its full power to develop +body and mind, I know not what would be. If the most vigorous and +uniform health can be secured on vegetable food, what individual in the +world--in view of the moral considerations at least--would ever resort +to the carcasses of animals? + + +STATEMENT OF DR. C. BYINGTON, OF PHILADELPHIA. + +A physician of some eminence, residing in Philadelphia, has been heard +to say that it was his decided opinion that mankind would live longest, +and be healthiest and happiest, on mere bread and water. I may add here, +that there was every evidence but one that he was sincere in this +statement, although I do not fully accord with him, believing that the +best health requires variety of food--not, indeed, at the same meal, but +at different ones. The exception I make in regard to his sincerity, is +in reference to the fact, that while he professed to believe a bread and +vegetable diet to be best for mankind, he did not adopt it. + + +TESTIMONY OF A PHYSICIAN IN NEW YORK. + +In the work entitled "Hints to a Fashionable Lady," by a physician--his +name not given--we find the following testimony: + +"Young persons invariably do best on simple but moderately nutritious +fare. Too large a proportion of animal food and fatty substances are +pernicious to the complexion. On the contrary, a diet which is +principally vegetable, with the luxuries of the dairy (not butter, +surely, for that is elsewhere prohibited), is most advantageous. Nowhere +are finer complexions to be found than in those parts of England, +Scotland, and Ireland, where the living is almost exclusively vegetable. + +"Those who subsist entirely on vegetable food have seldom, if ever, a +constantly bad breath, or an offensive perspiration. It has been +ascertained that the teeth are uniformly best in those countries where +least animal food is used." + + +THE FEMALE'S CYCLOPEDIA. + +From a fugitive volume, entitled "The Female's Cyclopedia," I have +concluded to make the following extract, because I have reason to +believe the writer to have been a physician: + +"Animal food certainly gives most strength; but its stimulancy excites +fever, and produces plethora and its consequences. The system is sooner +worn out by a repetition of its stimuli, and those who indulge greatly +in such diet are more likely to be carried off early by inflammatory +diseases; or if, by judicious exercise, they qualify its effects, they +yet acquire such an accumulation of putrescent fluids as becomes the +foundation for the most inveterate chronic diseases in after age. + +"The most valuable state of the mind, however, appears to be connected +with somewhat less of firmness and vigor of body. Vegetable aliment, as +never over-distending the vessels or loading the system, does not +interrupt the stronger emotions of the mind; while the heat, fullness, +and weight of animal food, are inimical to its vigorous exertion. +Temperance, therefore, does not so much consist in the quantity--since +the appetite will regulate that--as in the quality; namely, in a large +proportion of vegetable aliment." + + +DR. VAN COOTH. + +Dr. Van Cooth, a learned European writer--I believe a Hollander--has +recently maintained, incidentally, in a learned medical dissertation, +that the great body of the ancient Egyptians and Persians "confined +themselves to a vegetable diet." To be sure, Dr. V. does not seem to be +a vegetable eater himself, but the friends of the latter system are not +the less indebted to him for the concession. The physical and moral +superiority of those vegetable eating nations, in the days of their +glory, are well known; and every intelligent reader of history, and +honest inquirer after truth, will make his own inferences from the facts +which I have mentioned. + + +DR. WILLIAM BEAUMONT. + +The work of this gentleman, entitled "Experiments and Observations on +the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion," is well known--at +least to the medical community. The following are some of the +conclusions to which his experiments conducted him: + +"Solid aliment, thoroughly masticated, is far more salutary than soups, +broths, etc. + +"Fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every kind, are difficult of +digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to derange that organ and +induce disease. + +"Spices, pepper, stimulating and heating condiments of every kind, +retard digestion and injure the stomach. + +"Coffee and tea debilitate the stomach and impair digestion. + +"Simple water is the only fluid called for by the wants of the economy; +the artificial drinks are all more or less injurious--some more so than +others; but none can claim exemption from the general charge." + +If it should be said that this testimony of Dr. Beaumont is by no means +directly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. I admit it. But he +certainly goes very far toward conceding every thing which I claim, +when he says that "fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every +kind, are difficult of digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to +derange that organ and induce disease;" and especially when he speaks so +highly of farinaceous substances and good fruits. Pray, what animal food +can be eaten which does not contain, at least, a small quantity of oil? +And if this oil tends to induce disease, and farinaceous food does not, +why should not animal food be excluded? + + +SIR EVERARD HOME. + +This distinguished philosopher and medical gentleman, though, like many +others, he insisted that vegetable food did not produce full muscular +development, yet admitted the natural character of man to be that of a +vegetable eater, in the following, or nearly the following, terms: + +"In the history of man--in the Bible--we are told that dominion over the +animal world was bestowed upon him at his creation; but the divine +permission to indulge in animal food was not given till after the flood. +The observations I have to make accord strongly with this tradition; +for, while mankind remained in a state of innocence, there is every +ground to believe that their only food was the produce of the vegetable +kingdom." + + +DR. JENNINGS. + +Dr. Jennings is the author of a work published at Oberlin, Ohio, in +1847, entitled "Medical Reform." In this volume, at page 198, we find +the following facts and statements. The author is comparing the effects +of animal food on the human system with those of alcohol, from which we +learn his views concerning the former: + +"Position I.--Animal food, in common with alcohol, creates a feverish +diathesis, evidences of which are--1. An impaired state of the +respiratory function. 2. The pulse is rendered more frequent and +irregular, both by alcohol and meat. 3. A feverish heat is generated in +the system, and persons are made more thirsty, by the use of both these +substances. 4. Both substances equally induce what is called the +digestive fever. + +"Position II.--Alcoholic drinks lay the foundation for occasional +disturbances in the system, of different kinds and grades, as bilious +bowel affections, etc., and so do flesh meats. In the production of +colds, animal food is far the most efficient. + +"Position III.--Animal food tends, quite as strongly as the moderate use +of alcoholic liquors, to weaken and disturb the balance of action +between the secerning and excerning systems of vessels, by which some +persons become leaner and others fleshier than they should be. + +"Position IV.--With about equal potency alcohol and flesh meats weaken +the force of the capillaries of the system, on which healthy action so +much depends. + +"Position V.--A flesh diet, in common with the use of strong drink, +impairs the tone of the nutritive apparatus, by which its ability to +work up raw material and manufacture it into sound, well finished vital +fabric, is diminished, and of course the appetite or call for food is +satisfied with a less quantity of the raw material. This fact has given +rise to the opinion that animal food contains more nutriment than +vegetable. + +"Position VI.--The total abandonment of an habitual use of animal food +is attended with all the perplexing, uncomfortable, and distressing +difficulties that follow the giving up of an habitual use of strong +drink. A change from one kind of simple nutriment to another has no +such effect. It is only when the constant use of some stimulating +substance is abandoned that such difficulties are experienced." + + +DR. JARVIS. + +This gentleman, in his "Practical Physiology," at page 86, has the +following thoughts: + +"Some have contended that man was designed to eat only of the fruits and +vegetables of the earth; while others maintain, with equal confidence, +that he should add to these the flesh of beasts. There are many +individuals, both in this and other countries, who confine themselves to +vegetable diet. They believe they enjoy better health, and maintain +greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet. +The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to +determine its value. It has not proved a failure, nor has it +demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that flesh is injurious."[14] + + +DR. TICKNOR. + +"From the fact," says this author, "that animal food is proper and +necessary for health in polar regions, and that a vegetable diet is +equally proper and necessary in the torrid zone, we may conclude that in +winter, in our own climate, an animal diet is the best; while vegetables +are more conducive to health in the summer season." + +It would not be difficult to prove, from the very concessions of Dr. T., +that vegetable food is better adapted to health, in _general_, than +animal; but I forbear to do so, in this place. The subject will be fully +discussed in the concluding chapter. + + +DR. COLES. + +The author of a small volume recently published at Boston, entitled the +"Philosophy of Health; or, Health without Medicine," is more decided in +his views on diet than any late writer I have seen, except Dr. Jennings +and O. S. Fowler. He says, at page 35: + +"Man, in his original, holy state, was provided for from the vegetables +of that happy garden which was given him to prune. This was the +Creator's original plan; * * * * the eating of flesh was one of the +consequences of the fall. Living on vegetable food is undoubtedly the +most natural and healthy method of subsistence." + +Again, at page 45--"The objections, then, against meat-eating are +threefold--intellectual, moral, and physical. Its tendency is to check +intellectual activity, to depreciate moral sentiment, and to derange the +fluids of the body." + + +DR. SHEW. + +This active physician is zealously devoted to the propagation of +hydropathy. He uses no medicine in the management of disease--nothing at +all but water. To this, however, he adds great attention to diet. In his +Journal,[15] and elsewhere, he is a zealous and able advocate of the +vegetable system, preferring it himself, and recommending it to his +patients and followers. + +Dr. Shew's opinion, in this particular, is entitled to the more weight +from the fact of his having been very familiar with disease and diet, +both in the old world and the new. He has been twice to Germany; and has +spent much time at Graefenberg, with Priessnitz, the founder of the +system which he so zealously defends and practices, and so strongly +advocates. + + +DR. MORRILL. + +Dr. C. Morrill, in a recent work entitled, "Physiology of Woman, and her +Diseases," says much in favor of an exclusively vegetable diet in some +of the diseases of woman; and among other things, makes the following +general remarks: + +"Even by those who labor (referring here to the healthy), meat should be +taken moderately, and but once a day. The sedentary, generally, do not +need it." + + +DR. BELL. + +This gentleman's testimony has been given elsewhere. I only subjoin the +following: "By far the greater number of the inhabitants of the earth +have used, in all ages, and continue to use, at this time, vegetable +aliment alone." + + +DR. BRADLEY. + +Dr. D. B. Bradley, the distinguished missionary at Bangkok, in Siam, +though not exactly a vegetable eater, is favorably disposed to the +vegetable system. He has read Graham and myself with great care, and is +an anxious inquirer after all truth. + + +DR. STEPHENSON. + +Dr. Chauncy Stephenson, of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in what he calls +his "New System of Medicine," commends to all his readers, for their +sustenance, "pure air, a proper temperature, good vegetable food, and +pure cold water." And lest he should be misunderstood, he immediately +adds--"The best articles of food for general use are good, well-baked +cold bread, made of rye and Indian corn, wheat or barley meal; rice, +good ripe fruits of all kinds, both fresh and dried, and a proper +proportion of good roots, such as potatoes, parsneps, turnips, onions, +etc." Even milk he regards as a questionable food for adults or middle +aged persons. + +Again, he says: "Animal food, in general, digests sooner than most kinds +of vegetables; and not being so much in accordance with man's nature, +constitution, and moral character, it is very liable, finally, to +generate disease, inflammation, or fever, even when it is not taken to +excess." He closes by advising all persons to content themselves with +"pure vegetable food;" and that in the least quantity compatible with +good health. + + +DR. J. BURDELL, + +A distinguished dentist of New York, has long been a vegetable eater, +and a zealous defender of the faith (in this particular) which he +professes. + + +DR. THOMAS SMETHURST, + +In a work entitled Hydrotherapia, says, "Children thrive best upon a +simple, moderately nourishing vegetable diet." And if children thus +thrive the best, why not adults? + + +DR. SCHLEMMER. + +Dr. C. V. Schlemmer, a German by birth, but now an adopted son of old +England, in giving an account of the diet of himself, his three sons of +eleven, ten, and four years of age, with their tutor, observes: "Raw +peas, beans, and fruit are our food: our teeth are our mills; the +stomach is the kitchen." And all of them, as he affirms, enjoy the best +of health. For himself, as he says, he has practiced in this way six +years. + + +DR. CURTIS, AND OTHERS. + +Dr. Curtis, a distinguished botanic physician of Ohio, with several +other physicians, both of the old and the new school, whom I have not +named, do not hesitate to regard a pure vegetable diet, in the abstract, +as by far the best for all mankind, both in health and disease. + +Dr. Porter, of Waltham, for example, when I meet him, always concedes +that a well-selected vegetable diet is superior to every other. He has +repeatedly told me of an experiment he made, of three months, on mere +bread and water. Never, says he, was I more vigorous in body and mind, +than at the end of this experiment. But the reader well knows that I am +not an advocate of a diet of mere bread and water. I regard fruits, or +fruit juices--unfermented--almost as necessary, to adults, as bread. + + +PROF. C. U. SHEPARD. + +The reputation of this gentleman, in the scientific world, is so well +known, that no apology can be necessary for inserting his testimony. As +a chemist, he is second to very few, if any, men in this country. The +following are his remarks: + +"Start not back at the idea of subsisting upon the potato alone, ye who +think it necessary to load your tables with all the dainty viands of the +market--with fish, flesh, and fowl, seasoned with oil and spices, and +eaten, perhaps, with wines;--start not back, I say, with disgust, until +you are able to display in your own pampered persons a firmer muscle, a +more beau-ideal outline, and a healthier red than the potato-fed +peasantry of Ireland and Scotland once showed you, as you passed by +their cabin doors! + +"No; the chemical physiologist will tell you that the well ripened +potato, when properly cooked, contains every element that man requires +for nutrition; and in the best proportion in which they are found in any +plant whatever. There is the abounding supply of starch for enabling him +to maintain the process of breathing, and for generating the necessary +warmth of body; there is the nitrogen for contributing to the growth and +renovation of organs; the lime and phosphorus for the bones; and all the +salts which a healthy circulation demands. In fine, the potato may well +be called the universal plant." + + +BLACKWOOD, IN HIS MAGAZINE. + +"Chemistry," says Blackwood's Magazine, "has already told us many +remarkable things in regard to the vegetable food we eat--that it +contains, for example, a certain per centage of the actual fat and lean +we consume in our beef, or mutton, or pork--and, therefore, that he who +lives on vegetable food may be as strong as the man who lives on animal +food, because both in reality feed on the same things, in a somewhat +different form." + +There is this difference, however, that in the one case--that is, in the +use of the vegetables which contain the elements referred to--we save +the trouble of running it through the body of the living animal, and +losing seven eighths of it, as we do, practically in the process; +whereas in the other we do not. We also save ourselves the necessity of +training the young and the old to scenes of butchery and blood. + + +PROF. JOHNSTON. + +This gentleman, in a recent edition of his "Elements of Agricultural +Chemistry and Geology," tells us that from experiments made in the +laboratory of the Agricultural Association of Scotland, wheat and oats, +when analyzed, contain of nutritious properties the following +proportion: + + Musc. matter. Fat. Starch. + Wheat, 10 pounds, 3 pounds, 50 pounds. + Oats, 18 " 6 " 65 " + +Thus oats, and even wheat, are quite rich in that which forms muscular +matter in the human body. + + +SIMEON COLLINS, OF WESTFIELD, MASS. + +This gentleman, in his fifty-first year, states that having been for +several years afflicted with a severe cough, which he supposed bordered +upon consumption, he "discontinued the use of flesh meat, fish, fowl, +butter, gravy, tea, and coffee, and made use of a plain vegetable diet." +"My bread," says he, "is made of unbolted wheat meal; my drink is pure +cold water; my bed, for winter and summer, is made of the everlasting +flower; and my health is, and ever has been, perfect, since I got fairly +cleansed from the filthiness of flesh meat, and other pernicious +articles of diet in common use. + +"My business requires a great degree of activity, and I can truly say +that I am a stranger to weariness or languor. At the time of entering +upon this system, I had a wife and five children, the youngest eight +years of age;--they all soon entered upon the same course of living with +myself, and soon were all benefited in health. I have now six +children--the youngest fifteen months old, and as happy as a lark. +Previous to the time of our adopting the present system of living, my +expenses for medicine and physicians would range from $20 to $30 a +year--for the last four years it has been nothing worth naming." + + +REV. JOSEPH EMERSON. + +Mr. Emerson was a teacher of eminence, known throughout the United +States, but particularly so in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He died in +the latter state, in 1833, aged about fifty-five. He had long been a +miserable dyspeptic, but was probably kept alive amid certain strange +violations of physical law, such as studying hard till midnight, for +example, for many years, by his great care in regard to his diet. Mrs. +Banister, late Miss Z. P. Grant (the associate, at Ipswich, of Miss +Lyon, who died recently at South Hadley, who was his pupil), thus speaks +of his rigid habits: + +"He not only uniformly rejected whatever food he had decided to be +injurious to him, but whatever he deemed necessary for his food or +drink, was always taken, whether at home or abroad. As his diet, for +several years, consisted generally, either of bread and milk, or of +bread and butter, what solid food he wanted could be supplied at any +table."[16] + +It is also testified of him, by his brother, Prof. Emerson, of Andover, +that "for more than thirty years he adopted the practice of eating but +one kind at a meal." If I do not misremember, for I knew him well, he +was in favor of banishing flesh and fish, and substituting milk and +fruits in their stead, on Bible ground.--I refer here to the Divine +arrangement in the first chapter of Genesis; and which has never, that I +am aware, been altered. + + +TAK SISSON. + +Tak Sisson, as he was called, was a slave in the family of a man in +Rhode Island, before and during the Revolution. + +From early childhood he could never be prevailed on to eat any flesh or +fish, but he subsisted on vegetable food and milk; neither could he be +persuaded to eat high seasoned food of any kind. When he was a child, +his parents used to scold him severely, and threaten to whip him because +he refused to eat flesh. They said to him (as I have been told a +thousand times), that if he did not eat meat he would never be good for +any thing, but would always be a poor, puny creature. + +But Tak persevered in his vegetable and unstimulating diet, and, to the +surprise of all, grew fast, and his body was finely developed and +athletic. He was very stout and robust, and altogether the most +vigorous and dexterous of any of the family. He finally became more than +six feet high, and every way well proportioned, and remarkable for his +agility and strength. He was so uncommonly shrewd, bright, strong, and +active, that he became notorious for his shrewdness, and for his feats +of strength and agility. Indeed, he was so full of his playful mischief +as greatly to annoy his overseer. + +During the Revolutionary War it became an object to take Gen. Prescott. +A door was to be forced where he was quartered and sleeping, and Tak was +selected for the work. Having taken his lesson from the American +officer, he proceeded to the door, plunged his thick head against it, +burst it open, roused Gen. P., like a tiger sprung upon him, seized him +in his brawny arms, and in a low, stern voice, said, "One word, and you +are a dead man." Then hastily snatching the general's cloak and wrapping +it round him, at the same time telling a companion to take care of the +rest of his clothes, he took him in his arms, as if a child, and ran +with him to a boat which was waiting, and escaped with his prisoner +without rousing even the British sentinels. + +Tak lived on his vegetable fare to a very advanced age, and was +remarkable, through life, for his activity, strength, and shrewdness. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] By seed, Dr. C. means the farinaceous grains; wheat, corn, rye, etc. + +[10] Cuvier was not a medical man, but I have classed him with medical +men, on account of his profound knowledge of Comparative Anatomy and +Physiology. + +[11] "Unless," as a writer in the Graham Journal very justly observes, +"these latter indulge, habitually and freely, in the use of intoxicating +substances." + +[12] Such was Gen. Elliot, so distinguished at the famous siege of +Gibraltar. Such, too, was Mr. Shillitoe, of whom honorable mention will +be made in another place;--besides many more. + +[13] So he thinks, but I think otherwise. Animal food, as I have shown +elsewhere, is not so nutritious as some of the farinaceous vegetables. + +[14] Dr. J. here overlooks one important fact, viz., that the testimony +of all those who have tried the exclusive use of vegetable food is +_positive_ in its nature; while that of others, who have not tried it, +is, and necessarily must be, negative. + +[15] The Water-Cure Journal. + +[16] An aged lady, of Dedham--a pillar in every good cause--has, for +twelve or fifteen years, carried abroad with her, when traveling, some +plain bread and apples; and no entreaties will prevail with her, at home +or abroad, to eat luxuries. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of + Plautus.--Plutarch.--Porphyry.--Lord Bacon.--Sir William + Temple.--Cicero.--Cyrus the Great.--Gassendi.--Prof. + Hitchcock.--Lord Kaims.--Dr. Thomas Dick.--Prof. Bush.--Thomas + Shillitoe.--Alexander Pope.--Sir Richard Phillips.--Sir Isaac + Newton.--The Abbé Gallani.--Homer.--Dr. Franklin.--Mr. + Newton.--O. S. Fowler.--Rev. Mr. Johnston.--John H. + Chandler.--Rev. J. Caswell.--Mr. Chinn.--Father + Sewall.--Magliabecchi.--Oberlin and Swartz.--James + Haughton.--John Bailies.--Francis Hupazoli.--Prof. + Ferguson.--Howard, the Philanthropist.--Gen. + Elliot.--Encyclopedia Americana.--Thomas Bell, of + London.--Linnæus, the Naturalist.--Shelley, the Poet.--Rev. Mr. + Rich.--Rev. John Wesley.--Lamartine. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +This chapter might have been much more extended than it is. I might have +mentioned, for example, the cases of Daniel and his three brethren, at +the court of the Babylonian monarch, who certainly maintained their +health--if they did not even improve it--by vegetable food, and by a +form of it, too, which has by many been considered rather doubtful. I +might have mentioned the case of Paul,[17] who, though he occasionally +appears to have eaten flesh, said, expressly, that he would abstain from +it while the world stood, where a great moral end was to be gained; and +no one can suppose he would have done so, had he feared any injury would +thereby result to his constitution of body or mind. + +The case of William Penn, if I remember rightly what he says in his "No +Cross no Crown," would have been in point. Jefferson, the third +President of the United States, was, according to his own story, almost +a vegetable eater, during the whole of his long life. He says he +abstained principally from animal food; using it, if he used it at all, +only as a condiment for his vegetables. And does any one, who has read +his remarks, doubt that his "convictions" were in favor of the exclusive +use of vegetable food? + +However, to prevent the volume from much exceeding the limits originally +assigned it, I will be satisfied--and I hope the public will--with the +following selections of testimonies, ancient and modern; some of more, +some of less importance; but all of them, as it appears to me, worthy of +being collected and incorporated into a volume like this, and faithfully +and carefully examined. + + +PLAUTUS. + +Plautus, a distinguished dramatic Roman writer, who flourished about two +thousand years ago, gives the following remarkable testimony against the +use of animal food, and of course in favor of the salubrity of +vegetables; addressed, indeed, to his own countrymen and times, but +scarcely less applicable to our own: + +"You apply the term wild to lions, panthers, and serpents; yet, in your +own savage slaughters, you surpass them in ferocity; for the blood shed +by them is a matter of necessity, and requisite for their subsistence. + +"But, that man is not, by nature, destined to devour animal food, is +evident from the construction of the human frame, which bears no +resemblance to wild beasts or birds of prey. Man is not provided with +claws or talons, with sharpness of fang or tusk, so well adapted to tear +and lacerate; nor is his stomach so well braced and muscular, nor his +animal spirits so warm, as to enable him to digest this solid mass of +animal flesh. On the contrary, nature has made his teeth smooth, his +mouth narrow, and his tongue soft; and has contrived, by the slowness of +his digestion, to divert him from devouring a species of food so ill +adapted to his frame and constitution. But, if you still maintain that +such is your natural mode of subsistence, then follow nature in your +mode of killing your prey, and employ neither knife, hammer, nor +hatchet--but, like wolves, bears, and lions, seize an ox with your +teeth, grasp a boar round the body, or tear asunder a lamb or a hare, +and, like the savage tribe, devour them still panting in the agonies of +death. + +"We carry our luxury still farther, by the variety of sauces and +seasonings which we add to our beastly banquets--mixing together oil, +wine, honey, pickles, vinegar, and Syrian and Arabian ointments and +perfumes, as if we intended to bury and embalm the carcasses on which we +feed. The difficulty of digesting such a mass of matter, reduced in our +stomachs to a state of liquefaction and putrefaction, is the source of +endless disorders in the human frame. + +"First of all, the wild, mischievous animals were selected for food; and +then the birds and fishes were dragged to slaughter; next, the human +appetite directed itself against the laborious ox, the useful and +fleece-bearing sheep, and the cock, the guardian of the house. At last, +by this preparatory discipline, man became matured for human massacres, +slaughters, and wars." + + +PLUTARCH. + +"It is best to accustom ourselves to eat no flesh at all, for the earth +affords plenty enough of things not only fit for nourishment, but for +enjoyment and delight; some of which may be eaten without much +preparation, and others may be made pleasant by adding divers other +things to them. + +"You ask me," continues Plutarch, "'for what reason Pythagoras abstained +from eating the flesh of brutes?' For my part, I am astonished to think, +on the contrary, what appetite first induced man to taste of a dead +carcass; or what motive could suggest the notion of nourishing himself +with the flesh of animals which he saw, the moment before, bleating, +bellowing, walking, and looking around them. How could he bear to see an +impotent and defenceless creature slaughtered, skinned, and cut up for +food? How could he endure the sight of the convulsed limbs and muscles? +How bear the smell arising from the dissection? Whence happened it that +he was not disgusted and struck with horror when he came to handle the +bleeding flesh, and clear away the clotted blood and humors from the +wounds? + +"We should therefore rather wonder at the conduct of those who first +indulged themselves in this horrible repast, than at such as have +humanely abstained from it." + + +PORPHYRY, OF TYRE. + +Porphyry, of Tyre, lived about the middle of the third century, and +wrote a book on abstinence from animal food. This book was addressed to +an individual who had once followed the vegetable system, but had +afterward relinquished it. The following is an extract from it: + +"You owned, when you lived among us, that a vegetable diet was +preferable to animal food, both for preserving the health and for +facilitating the study of philosophy; and now, since you have eat flesh, +your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was +true. It was not from those who lived on vegetables that robbers or +murderers, sycophants or tyrants, have proceeded; but from +_flesh-eaters_. The necessaries of life are few and easily acquired, +without violating justice, liberty, health, or peace of mind; whereas +luxury obliges those vulgar souls who take delight in it to covet +riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to misspend their +time, to ruin their health and to renounce the joy of an upright +conscience." + +He takes pains to persuade men of the truth of the two following +propositions: + +1st. "That a conquest over the appetites and passions will greatly +contribute to preserve health and to remove distempers. + +2d. "That a simple vegetable food, being easily procured and easily +digested, is a mighty help toward obtaining this conquest over +ourselves." + +To prove the first proposition, he appeals to experience, and proves +that many of his acquaintance who had disengaged themselves from the +care of amassing riches, and turning their thoughts to spiritual +subjects, had got rid entirely of their bodily distempers. + +In confirmation of the second proposition, he argues in the following +manner: "Give me a man who considers, seriously, what he is, whence he +came, and whither he must go, and from these considerations resolves not +to be led astray nor governed by his passions; and let such a man tell +me whether a rich animal diet is more easily procured or incites less to +irregular passions and appetites than a light vegetable diet! But if +neither he, nor a physician, nor indeed any reasonable man whatsoever, +dares to affirm this, why do we oppress ourselves with animal food, and +why do we not, together with luxury and flesh meat, throw off the +incumbrances and snares which attend them?" + + +LORD BACON. + +Lord Bacon, in his treatise on Life and Death, says, "It seems to be +approved by experience, that a spare and almost a Pythagorean diet, such +as is prescribed by the strictest monastic life, or practiced by +hermits, is most favorable to long life." + + +SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. + +"The patriarchs' abodes were not in cities, but in open countries and +fields. Their lives were pastoral, and employed in some sorts of +agriculture. They were of the same race, to which their marriages were +generally confined. Their diet was simple, as that of the ancients is +generally represented. Among them flesh and wine were seldom used, +except at sacrifices at solemn feasts. + +"The Brachmans, among the old Indians, were all of the same races, lived +in fields and in woods, after the course of their studies was ended, and +fed only upon rice, milk, and herbs. + +"The Brazilians, when first discovered, lived the most natural, original +lives of mankind, so frequently described in ancient countries, before +laws, or property, or arts made entrance among them; and so their +customs may be concluded to have been yet more simple than either of the +other two. They lived without business or labor, further than for their +necessary food, by gathering fruits, herbs, and plants. They knew no +other drink but water; were not tempted to eat or drink beyond common +appetite and thirst; were not troubled with either public or domestic +cares, and knew no pleasures but the most simple and natural. + +"From all these examples and customs, it may probably be concluded that +the common ingredients of health and long life are, great temperance, +open air, easy labor, little care, simplicity of diet--rather fruits and +plants than flesh, which easier corrupts--and water, which preserves the +radical moisture without too much increasing the radical heat. Whereas +sickness, decay, and death proceed commonly from the one preying too +fast upon the other, and at length wholly extinguishing it." + + +CICERO. + +This eminent man sometimes, if not usually, confined himself to +vegetable food. Of this we have evidence, in his complaints about the +refinements of cookery--that they were continually tempting him to +excess, etc. He says, that after having withstood all the temptations +that the noblest lampreys and oysters could throw in his way, he was at +last overpowered by paltry beets and mallows. A victory, by the way, +which, in the case of the eater of plain food, is very often achieved. + + +CYRUS THE GREAT. + +This distinguished warrior was brought up, like the inferior Persians, +on bread, cresses, and water; and, notwithstanding the temptations of a +luxurious and voluptuous court, he rigorously adhered to his simple +diet. Nay, he even carried his simple habits nearly through life with +him; and it was not till he had completely established one of the +largest and most powerful empires of antiquity that he began to yield +to the luxuries of the times. Had he pursued his steady course of +temperance through life, the historian, instead of recording his death +at only seventy, might have told us that he died at a hundred or a +hundred and fifty. + + +PETER GASSENDI. + +Two hundred and twenty years ago, Peter Gassendi, a famous French +philosopher--and by the way, one of the most learned men of his +time--wrote a long epistle to Van Helmont, a Dutch chemist, on the +question whether the teeth of mankind indicate that they are naturally +flesh-eaters. + +In this epistle, too long for insertion here,[18] Gassendi maintains, +with great ingenuity, that the human teeth were not made for flesh. He +does not evade any of the facts in the case, but meets them all fairly +and discusses them freely. And after having gone through with all parts +of the argument, and answered every other conceivable objection, he thus +concludes: + +"And here I feel that it may be objected to me: Why, then, do you not, +yourself, abstain from flesh and feed only on fruits and vegetables? I +must plead the force of habit, for my excuse. In persons of mature age +nature appears to be so wholly changed, that this artificial habit +cannot be renounced without some detriment. But I confess that if I were +wise, and relinquishing the use of flesh, should gradually accustom +myself to the gifts of the kind earth, I have little doubt that I should +enjoy more regular health, and acquire greater activity of mind. For +truly our numerous diseases, and the dullness of our faculties, seem +principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may +say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the +whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. +In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads of +man's nature." + +I know how it strikes many when they find such men as Gassendi, +admitting the doctrines for which I contend, in theory, and even +strenuously defending them, and yet setting them at naught in practice. +Surely, say they, such persons cannot be sincere. For myself, however, I +draw a very different conclusion. Their conduct is perfectly in harmony +with that of the theoretic friends of cold water, plain dress, and +abstemiousness in general. They are compelled to admit the truth; but it +is so much against their habits, as in the case of Gassendi, besides +being still more strongly opposed to their lusts and appetites, that +they cannot, or rather, will not conform to what they believe, in their +daily practice. Their testimony, to me, is the strongest that can be +obtained, because they testify against themselves, and in spite of +themselves. + + +PROF. HITCHCOCK. + +This gentleman, a distinguished professor in Amherst College, is the +author of a work, entitled "Dyspepsia Forestalled and Resisted," which +has been read by many, and execrated by not a few of those who are so +wedded to their lusts as to be unwilling to be told of their errors. + +I am not aware that Professor H. has any where, in his writings, urged a +diet exclusively vegetable, for all classes of the community, although +I believe he does not hesitate to urge it on all students; and one might +almost infer, from his works of various kinds, that if he is not already +a believer in the doctrines of its universal superiority to a mixed +diet, he is not very far from it. In a sermon of his, in the National +Preacher, for November, 1834, he calls a diet exclusively vegetable, a +"proper course of living." + +I propose to add here a few anecdotes of his, which I know not how to +find elsewhere. + +"Pythagoras restricted himself to vegetable food altogether, his dinner +being bread, honey, and water; and he lived upward of eighty years. +Matthew (St. Matthew, I suppose he means), according to Clement, lived +upon vegetable diet. Galen, one of the most distinguished of the ancient +physicians, lived one hundred and forty years, and composed between +seven and eight hundred essays on medical and philosophical subjects; +and he was always, after the age of twenty-eight, extremely sparing in +the quantity of his food. The Cardinal de Salis, Archbishop of Seville, +who lived one hundred and ten years, was invariably sparing in his diet. +One Lawrence, an Englishman, by temperance and labor lived one hundred +and forty years; and one Kentigern, who never tasted spirits or wine, +and slept on the ground and labored hard, died at the age of one hundred +and eighty-five. Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, who died at the age of one +hundred and sixty-nine, was a poor fisherman, as long as he could follow +this pursuit; and ultimately he became a beggar, living on the coarsest +and most sparing diet. Old Parr, who died at the age of one hundred and +fifty-three, was a farmer, of extremely abstemious habits, his diet +being solely milk, cheese, coarse bread, small beer, and whey. At the +age of one hundred and twenty he married a second wife by whom he had a +child. But being taken to court, as a great curiosity, in his one +hundred and fifty-second year, he very soon died--as the physicians +decidedly testified, after dissection, in consequence of a change from a +parsimonious to a plentiful diet. Henry Francisco, of this country, who +lived to about one hundred and forty, was, except for a certain period, +remarkably abstemious, eating but little, and particularly abstaining +almost entirely from animal food; his favorite articles being tea, bread +and butter, and baked apples. Mr. Ephraim Pratt, of Shutesbury, Mass., +who died at the age of one hundred and seventeen years, lived very much +upon milk, and that in small quantity; and his son, Michael Pratt, +attained to the age of one hundred and three, by similar means." + +Speaking, in another place, of a milk diet, Professor H. observes, that +"a diet chiefly of milk produces a most happy serenity, vigor, and +cheerfulness of mind--very different from the gloomy, crabbed, and +irritable temper, and foggy intellect, of the man who devours flesh, +fish, and fowl, with ravenous appetite, and adds puddings, pies, and +cakes to the load." + + +LORD KAIMS. + +Henry Home, otherwise called Lord Kaims, the author of the "Elements of +Criticism," and of "Six Sketches on the History of Man," has, in the +latter work, written eighty years ago, the following statements +respecting the inhabitants of the torrid zone: + +"We have no evidence that either the hunter or shepherd state were ever +known there. The inhabitants at present subsist upon vegetable food, +and probably did so from the beginning." + +In speaking of particular nations or tribes of this zone, he tells us +that "the inhabitants of Biledulgerid and the desert of Sahara, have but +two meals a day--one in the morning and one in the evening;" and "being +temperate," he adds, "and strangers to the diseases of luxury and +idleness, they generally live to a great age."[19] Sixty, with them, is +the prime of life, as thirty is in Europe. "Some of the inland tribes of +Africa," he says, "make but one meal a day, which is in the evening." +And yet "their diet is plain, consisting mostly of rice, fruits, and +roots. An inhabitant of Madagascar will travel two or three days without +any other food than a sugar-cane." So also, he might have added, will +the Arab travel many days, and at almost incredible speed, with nothing +but a little gum-arabic; and the Peruvians and other inhabitants of +South America, with a little parched corn. But I have one more extract +from Lord Kaims: + +"The island of Otaheite is healthy, the people tall and well made; and +by temperance--vegetables and fish being their chief nourishment--they +live to a good old age, with scarcely an ailment. There is no such thing +known among them as rotten teeth; the very smell of wine or spirits is +disagreeable; and they never deal in tobacco or spiceries. In many +places Indian corn is the chief nourishment, which every man plants for +himself." + + +DR. THOMAS DICK. + +Dr. Dick, author of the "Philosophy of Religion," and several other +works deservedly popular, gives this remarkable testimony: + +"To take the life of any sensitive being, and to feed on its flesh, +appears incompatible with a state of innocence, and therefore no such +grant was given to Adam in paradise, nor to the antediluvians. It +appears to have been a grant suited only to the degraded state of man, +after the deluge; and it is probable that, as he advances in the scale +of moral perfection in the future ages of the world, the use of animal +food will be gradually laid aside, and he will return again to the +productions of the vegetable kingdom, as the original food of man--as +that which is best suited to the rank of rational and moral +intelligence. And perhaps it may have an influence, in combination with +other favorable circumstances, in promoting health and longevity." + + +PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH. + +Professor Bush, a writer of some eminence, in his "Notes on Genesis," +while speaking of the permission to man in regard to food, in Genesis i. +29, has the following language: + +"It is not perhaps to be understood, from the use of the word _give_, +that a _permission_ was now granted to man of using that for food which +it would have been unlawful for him to use without that permission; for, +by the very constitution of his being, he was made to be sustained by +that food which was most congenial to his animal economy; and this it +must have been lawful for him to employ, unless self-destruction had +been his duty. The true import of the phrase, therefore, doubtless is, +that God had _appointed_, _constituted_, _ordained_ this, as the staple +article of man's diet. He had formed him with a nature to which a +vegetable aliment was better suited than any other. It cannot perhaps be +inferred from this language that the use of flesh-meat was absolutely +forbidden; but it clearly implies that the fruits of the field were the +diet most adapted to the constitution which the Creator had given." + + +THOMAS SHILLITOE. + +Mr. Shillitoe was a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, at +Tottenham, near London. The first twenty-five years of his life were +spent in feeble health, made worse by high living. This high living was +continued about twenty years longer, when, finding himself fast failing, +he yielded to the advice of a medical friend, and abandoned all drinks +but water, and all food but the plainest kinds, by which means he so +restored his constitution that he lived to be nearly ninety years of +age; and at eighty could walk with ease from Tottenham to London, six +miles, and back again. The following is a brief account of this +distinguished man, when at the age of eighty, and nearly in his own +words: + +It is now nearly thirty years since I ate fish, flesh, or fowl, or took +fermented liquor of any kind whatsoever. I find, from continued +experience, that abstinence is the best medicine. I don't meddle with +fermented liquors of any kind, even as medicine. I find I am capable of +doing better without them than when I was in the daily use of them. + +"One way in which I was favored to experience help in my willingness to +abandon all these things, arose from the effect my abstinence had on my +natural temper. My natural disposition is very irritable. I am persuaded +that ardent spirits and high living have more or less effect in tending +to raise into action those evil propensities which, if given way to, war +against the soul, and render us displeasing to Almighty God." + + +ALEXANDER POPE. + +Pope, the poet, ascribes all the bad passions and diseases of the human +race to their subsisting on the flesh, blood, and miseries of animals. +"Nothing," he says, "can be more shocking and horrid than one of our +kitchens, sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of +creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung +up here and there. It gives one an image of a giant's den in romance, +bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were +slain by his cruelty." + + +SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS. + +Sir Richard Phillips, in his "Million of Facts," says that "the mixed +and fanciful diet of man is considered as the cause of numerous +diseases, from which animals are exempt. Many diseases have abated with +changes of natural diet, and others are virulent in particular +countries, arising from peculiarities. The Hindoos are considered the +freest from disease of any part of the human race. The laborers on the +African coast, who go from tribe to tribe to perform the manual labor, +and whose strength is wonderful, live entirely on plain rice. The Irish, +Swiss, and Gascons, the slaves of Europe, feed also on the simplest +diet; the former chiefly on potatoes." + +He states, also, that the diseases of cattle often afflict those who +subsist on them. "In 1599," he observes, "the Venetian government, to +stop a fatal disease among the people, prohibited the sale of meat, +butter, or cheese, on Pain of death." + + +SIR ISAAC NEWTON. + +This distinguished philosopher and mathematician is said to have +abstained rigorously, at times, from all but purely vegetable food, and +from all drinks but water; and it is also stated that some of his +important labors were performed at these seasons of strict temperance. +While writing his treatise on Optics, it is said he confined himself +entirely to bread, with a little sack and water; and I have no doubt +that his remarkable equanimity of temper, and that government of his +animal appetites, throughout, for which he was so distinguished to the +last hour of his life, were owing, in no small degree, to his habits of +rigid temperance. + + +THE ABBE GALLANI. + +The Abbé Gallani ascribes all social crimes to animal destruction--thus, +treachery to angling and ensnaring, and murder to hunting and shooting. +And he asserts that the man who would kill a sheep, an ox, or any +unsuspecting animal, would, but for the law, kill his neighbor. + + +HOMER. + +Even Homer, three thousand years ago, says Dr. Cheyne, could observe +that the Homolgians--those Pythagoreans, those milk and vegetable +eaters--were the longest lived and the honestest of men. + + +DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. + +Dr. Franklin, in his younger days, often, for some time together, lived +exclusively on a vegetable diet, and that, too, in small quantity. +During his after life he also observed seasons of abstinence from animal +food, or _lents_, as he called them, of considerable length. His food +and drink were, moreover, especially in early life, exceedingly simple; +his meal often consisting of nothing but a biscuit and a slice of bread, +with a bunch of raisins, and perhaps a basin of gruel. Now, Dr. F. +testifies of himself; that he found his progress in science to be in +proportion to that clearness of mind and aptitude of conception which +can only be produced by total abstinence from animal food. He also +derived many other advantages from his abstinence, both physical and +moral. + + +MR. NEWTON. + +This author wrote a work entitled "Defence of Vegetable Regimen." It is +often quoted by Shelley, the poet, and others. I know nothing of the +author or of his works, except through Shelley, who gives us some of his +views, and informs us that seventeen persons, of all ages, consisting of +Mr. Newton's family and the family of Dr. Lambe, who is elsewhere +mentioned in this work, had, at the time he wrote, lived seven years on +a pure vegetable diet, and without the slightest illness. Of the +seventeen, some of them were infants, and one of them was almost dead +with asthma when the experiment was commenced, but was already nearly +cured by it; and of the family of Mr. N., Shelley testifies that they +were "the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to +conceive"--the girls "perfect models for a sculptor"--and their +dispositions "the most gentle and conciliating." + +The following paragraph is extracted from Mr. Newton's "Defence," and +will give us an idea of his sentiments. He was speaking of the fable of +Prometheus: + +"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory +as time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, the +drift of the fable seems to be this: Man, at his creation, was endowed +with the gift of perpetual youth, that is, he was not formed to be a +sickly, suffering creature, as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and +to sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth, without +disease or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food, and of +fire, with which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste. +Jupiter and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these +inventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the +newly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet, ensued; other +drink than water was resorted to, and man forfeited the inestimable gift +of health, which he had received from heaven; he became diseased, the +partaker of a precarious existence, and no longer descended into his +grave slowly." + + +O. S. FOWLER. + +O. S. Fowler, the distinguished phrenologist, in his work on Physiology, +devotes nearly one hundred pages to the discussion of the great diet +question. He endeavors to show that, in every point of view, a flesh +diet--or a diet partaking of flesh, fish, or fowl, in any degree--is +inferior to a well-selected vegetable diet; and, as I think, +successfully. He finally says: + +"I wish my own children had never tasted, and would never taste, a +mouthful of meat. Increased health, efficiency, talents, virtue, and +happiness, would undoubtedly be the result. But for the fact that my +table is set for others than my own wife and children, it would never +be furnished with meat, so strong are my convictions against its +utility." + +I believe that L. N. Fowler, the brother and associate of the former, is +of the same opinion; but my acquaintance with him is very limited. Both +the Fowlers, with Mr. Wells, their associate in book-selling, seem +anxiously engaged in circulating books which involve the discussion of +this great question. + + +REV. MR. JOHNSTON. + +Mr. Johnston, who for some fifteen or twenty years has been an American +missionary in different foreign places--Trebizond, Smyrna, etc.--is, +from conviction, a vegetable eater. The author holds in his possession +several letters from this gentleman, on the subject of health, from +which, but for want of room, he would be glad to make numerous extracts. +He once sent, or caused to be sent, to him, at Trebizond, a barrel of +choice American apples, for which the missionary, amid numerous Eastern +luxuries, was almost starving. Happy would it be for many other American +and British missionaries, if they had the same simple taste and natural +appetite. + + +JOHN H. CHANDLER. + +This young man has been for eight or ten years in the employ of the +Baptist Foreign Missionary Board, and is located at Bangkok, in Siam. +For several years before he left this country he was a vegetable eater, +sometimes subsisting on mere fruit for one or two of his daily meals. +And yet, as a mechanic, his labor was hard--sometimes severe. + +Since he has been in Siam he has continued his reformed habits, as +appears from his letters and from reports. The last letter I had from +him was dated June 10, 1847. The following are extracts from it: + +"I experienced the same trials (that is, from others) on my arrival in +Burmah, in regard to vegetable diet, that I did in the United States. +This I did not expect, and was not prepared for it. Through the blessing +of God we were enabled to endure, and have persevered until now. + +"Myself and wife are more deeply convinced than ever that vegetable diet +is the best adapted to sustain health. I cannot say that we have been +much more free from sickness than our associates; but one thing we can +say--we have been equally well off, and our expenses have been much +less." + +After going on to say how much his family--himself and wife--saved by +their plain living, viz., an average of about one dollar a week, he +makes additional remarks, of which I will only quote the following: + +"My labors, being mostly mechanical, are far more fatiguing than those +of my brethren; and I do not think any of them could endure a greater +amount of labor than I do." + +It deserves to be noticed, in this connection, that Mr. Chandler has +slender muscles, and would by no means be expected to accomplish as much +as many men of greater vigor; and yet we have reason to believe that he +performs as much labor as any man in the service of the board. + + +REV. JESSE CASWELL. + +Mr. Caswell went out to India about thirteen years ago, a dyspeptic, +and yet perhaps somewhat better than while engaged in his studies at +Andover. For several years after his arrival he suffered much from +sickness, like his fellow-laborers. His station was Bangkok. He was an +American missionary, sent out by the American Board, as it is called, of +Boston. + +About six years ago he wrote me for information on the subject of +health. He had read my works, and those of Mr. Graham, and seemed not +only convinced of the general importance of studying the science of +human life, but of the superiority of a well selected vegetable diet, +especially at the East. He was also greatly anxious that missionaries +should be early taught what he had himself learned. The following is one +of his first paragraphs: + +"I feel fully convinced that you are engaged in a work second to few if +any of the great enterprises of the day. If there be any class of men +standing in special need of correct physiological knowledge, that class +consists of missionaries of the cross. What havoc has disease made with +this class, and for the most part, as I feel convinced, because, before +and after leaving their native land, they live so utterly at variance +with the laws of their nature." + +He then proceeds to say, that the American missionaries copy the example +of the English, and that they all eat too much high-seasoned food, and +too much flesh and fish; and argues against the practice by adducing +facts. The following is one of them: + +"My Siamese teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who +live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can +endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way. +* * * The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this +they generally eat _a very little_, with their rice." + +The next year I had another letter from him. He had been sick, but was +better, and thought he had learned a great deal, during his sickness, +about the best means of preserving health. He had now fully adopted what +he chose to call the Graham system, and was rejoicing--he and his wife +and children--in its benefits. He says, "If a voice from an obscure +corner of the earth can do any thing toward encouraging your heart and +staying your hands, that voice you shall have." He suggests the +propriety of my sending him a copy of "Vegetable Diet." "I think," says +he, "it might do great good." He wished to lend it among his friends. + +It must suffice to say, that he continued to write me, once or twice a +year, as long as he lived. He also insisted strongly on the importance +of physiological information among students preparing for the ministry, +and especially for missions. He even wrote once or twice to Rev. Dr. +Anderson, and solicited attention to the subject. But the board would +neither hear to him nor to me, except to speak kind words, for nothing +effective was ever done. They even refused a well-written communication +on the subject, intended for the Missionary Herald. Let me also say, +that as early as March, 1845, he told me that Dr. Bradley, his associate +(now in this country), with his family, were beginning to live on the +vegetable system; and added, that one of the sisters of the mission, who +was no "Grahamite," had told him she thought there was not one third as +much flesh used in all the mission families that there was a year +before. + +Mr. Caswell became exceedingly efficient, over-exerted himself in +completing a vocabulary of the Siamese language, and in other labors, +and died in September last. He was, according to the testimony of Dr. +Bradley, a "_noble man_;" and probably his life and health, and that of +his family, were prolonged many years by his improved habits. But his +early transgressions--like those of thousands--at length found him out. +I allude to his errors in regard to exercise, eating, drinking, +sleeping, taking medicine, etc. + + +MR. SAMUEL CHINN. + +This individual has represented the town of Marblehead, Mass., in the +state legislature, and is a man of respectability. He is now, says the +"Lynn Washingtonian," above forty years of age, a strong, healthy man, +and, to use his own language, "has neither ache nor pain." For the ten +years next preceding our last account from him he had lived on a simple +vegetable diet, condemning to slaughter no flocks or herds that "range +the valley free," but leaving them to their native, joyous hill-sides +and mountains. But Mr. Chinn, not contented with abstinence from animal +food, goes nearly the full length of Dr. Schlemmer and his sect, and +abjures cookery. For four years he subsisted--we believe he does so +now--on nothing but unground wheat and fruit. His breakfast, it is said, +he uniformly makes of fruit; his other two meals of unground wheat; +patronizing neither millers nor cooks. A few years since, being +appointed a delegate to a convention in Worcester, fifty-eight miles +distant, he filled his pocket with wheat, walked there during the day, +attended the convention, and the next day walked home again, with +comparative ease. + + +FATHER SEWALL. + +This venerable man--Jotham Sewall, of Maine, as he styles himself, one +of the fathers of that state--is now about ninety years of age, and yet +is, what he has long been, an active home missionary. He is a man of +giant size and venerable appearance, of a green old age, and remarkably +healthy. He is an early riser, a man of great cheerfulness, and of the +most simple habits. He has abstained from tea and coffee--poisonous +things, as he calls them--forty-seven years. His only drinks are water +and sage tea. These, with bread, milk, and fruits, and perhaps a little +salt, are the only things that enter his stomach. How long he has +abstained from flesh and fish I have not learned, but I believe some +thirty or forty years. + +Such is the appearance of this venerable man, that no one is surprised +to find in him those gigantic powers of mind, and that readiness to give +wise counsel on every important occasion, for which he has so long been +distinguished. It has sometimes seemed to me that no one would doubt the +efficacy of a well-selected vegetable diet to give strength, mental or +bodily, who had known Father Sewall. + + +MAGLIABECCHI, + +An Italian, who died in the beginning of the eighteenth century, abjured +cookery at the age of forty years, and confined himself chiefly to +fruits, grains, and water. He never allowed himself a bed, but slept on +a kind of settee, wrapped in a long morning gown, which served him for +blanket and clothing the year round. + +I would not be understood as encouraging the anti-cookery system of Dr. +Schlemmer and Magliabecchi; but it is interesting to know _what can be +done_. Magliabecchi lived to the age of from eighty to one hundred +years. + + +OBERLIN AND SWARTZ. + +These two distinguished men were essentially vegetable eaters. Of the +habits of Oberlin, the venerable pastor and father of Waldbach, I am not +able to speak, however, with so much certainty as of those of Swartz. +His income, during the early part of his residence in India, was only +forty-eight pounds a year, which, being estimated by its ability to +procure supplies for his necessities, was only equal to about one +hundred dollars. He not only accepted of very narrow quarters, but ate, +drank, and dressed, in the plainest manner. "A dish of rice and +vegetables," says his biographer, "satisfied his appetite for food." + + +THE IRISH. + +Much has been said of the dietetic habits of the Irish, of late years, +especially of their potato. Now, we have abundant facts which go to +prove that good potatoes form a wholesome aliment, equal, if not +superior, to many forms of European and American diet. Yet it cannot be +that a diet consisting wholly of potatoes is as well for the race as one +partaking of greater variety. + +Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and +Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, whom he +visited: + +"He was upward of eighty years when I had last seen him, and he was now +in his ninety-fourth year. He found the old gentleman seated on a kind +of rustic seat, in the garden, by the side of some bee-hives. He was +asleep. On his waking I was astonished to see the little change time had +wrought on him; a little more stoop in his shoulders, a wrinkle more, +perhaps, in his forehead, a more perfect whiteness of his hair, was all +the difference since I had seen him last. Flesh meat in my venerable +friend's house was an article never to be met with. _For sixty years +past he had not tasted it_, nor did he by any means like to see it taken +by others. His food was vegetables, bread, milk, butter, and honey. His +whole life was a series of benevolent actions, and Providence rewarded +him, even here, by a peace of mind which passeth all understanding, by a +judgment vigorous and unclouded, and by a length of days beyond the +common course of men." + +James Haughton, I believe of Dublin--a correspondent of Henry C. Wright, +of Philadelphia, who is himself in theory a vegetable eater--has, for +some time past, rejected flesh, and pursued a simple course of living, +as he says, with great advantage. I have been both amused and instructed +by his letters. + +I have met with several Irish people of intelligence who were vegetable +eaters, but their names are not now recollected. They have not, however, +in any instance, confined themselves to potatoes. One of the most +distinguished of these was a female laborer in the family of a merchant +at Barnstable. She was, from choice, a very rigid vegetable eater; and +yet no person in the whole neighborhood was more efficient as a laborer. +Those who know her, and are in the habit of thinking no person can work +hard without flesh and fish, often express their astonishment that she +should be able to live so simply and yet perform so much labor. + + +JOHN BAILIES. + +John Bailies, of England, who reached the great age of one hundred and +twenty-eight, is said to have been a strict vegetarian. His food, for +the most part, consisted of brown bread and cheese; and his drink of +water and milk. He had survived the whole town of Northampton (as he was +wont to say), where he resided, three or four times over; and it was his +custom to say that they were all killed by tea and coffee. Flesh meat at +that time had not come into suspicion, otherwise he would doubtless have +attributed part of the evil to this agency. + + +FRANCIS HUPAZOLI. + +This gentleman was a Sardinian ecclesiastic, at the first; afterward a +merchant at Scio; and finally Venetian consul at Smyrna. Much has been +said of Lewis Cornaro, who, having broken down his constitution at the +age of forty, renewed it by his temperance, and lasted unto nearly the +age of a century. His story is interesting and instructive; but little +more so than that of Hupazoli. + +His habits were all remarkable for simplicity and truth, except one. He +was greatly licentious; and his licentiousness, at the age of +eighty-five, had nearly carried him off. Yet such was the mildness of +his temper, and so correct was he in regard to exercise, rest, rising, +eating, drinking, etc., that he lived on, to the great age of one +hundred and fifteen years, and then died, not of old age, but of +disease. + +Hupazoli did not entirely abstain from flesh; and yet he used very +little, and that was wild game. His living was chiefly on fruits. +Indeed, he ate but little at any time; and his supper was particularly +light. His drink was water. He never took any medicine in his whole +life, not even tobacco; nor was he so much as ever bled. In fact, till +late in life, he was never sick. + + +MARY CAROLINE HINCKLEY. + +This young woman, a resident of Hallowell, in Maine, and somewhat +distinguished as a poet, is, from her own conviction and choice both, a +vegetable eater. Her story, which I had from her friends, is +substantially as follows: + +When about eleven years of age she suddenly changed her habits of +eating, and steadfastly refused, at the table, all kinds of food which +partook of flesh and fish. The family were alarmed, and afraid she was +ill. When they made inquiry concerning it, she hesitated to assign the +reasons for her conduct; but, on being pressed closely, she confessed +that she abstained for conscience' sake; that she had become fully +convinced, from reading and reflection, that she ought not to eat animal +food. + +It was in vain that the family and neighbors remonstrated with her, and +endeavored, in various ways, to induce her to vary from her purpose. She +continued to use no fowl, flesh, or fish; and in this habit she +continues, as I believe, to this day, a period of some twelve or fifteen +years. + + +JOHN WHITCOMB. + +John Whitcomb, of Swansey, N. H., at the age of one hundred and four was +in possession of sound mind and memory, and had a fresh countenance; and +so good was his health, that he rose and bathed himself in cold water +even in mid-winter. His wounds, moreover, would heal like those of a +child. And yet this man, for eighty years, refused to drink any thing +but water; and for thirty years, at the close of life, confined himself +chiefly to bread and milk as his diet. + + +CAPT. ROSS, OF THE BRITISH NAVY. + +It is sometimes said that animal food is indispensably necessary in the +polar regions. We have seen, however, in the testimony of Professor +Sweetser, that this view of the case is hardly correct. But we have +positive testimony on this subject from Capt. Ross himself. + +This navigator, with his company, spent the winter of 1830-31 above 70° +of north latitude, without beds, clothing (that is, extra clothing), or +animal food, and with no evidence of any suffering from the mere disuse +of flesh and fish. + + +HENRY FRANCISCO. + +This individual, who died at Whitehall, N. Y., in the year 1820, at the +age of one hundred and twenty-five years, was, during the latter part of +his life, quite a Grahamite, as the moderns would call him. His favorite +articles of food were tea, bread and butter, and baked apples; and he +was even abstemious in the use of these. + + +PROFESSOR FERGUSON. + +Professor Adam Ferguson, an individual not unknown in the literary +world, was, till he was fifty years of age, regarded as quite healthy. +Brought up in fashionable society, he was very often invited to +fashionable dinners and parties, at which he ate heartily and drank +wine--sometimes several bottles. Indeed, he habitually ate and drank +freely; and, as he had by nature a very strong constitution, he thought +nothing which he ate or drank injured him. + +Things went on in this manner, as I have already intimated, till he was +fifty years of age. One day, about this time, having made a long +journey in the cold, he returned very much fatigued, and in this +condition went to dine with a party, where he ate and drank in his usual +manner. Soon after dinner, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, +followed by palsy; but by bleeding, and other energetic measures, he was +partially restored. + +He was now, by the direction of his physician, put upon what was called +a low diet. It consisted of vegetable food and milk. For nearly forty +years he tasted no meat, drank nothing but water and a little weak tea, +and took no suppers. If he ventured, at any time, upon more stimulating +food or drink, he soon had a full pulse, and hot, restless nights. His +bowels, however, seemed to be much affected by the fit of palsy; and not +being inclined, so far as I can learn, to the use of fruit and coarse +bread, he was sometimes compelled to use laxatives. + +When he was about seventy years of age, however, all his paralytic +symptoms had disappeared; and his health was so excellent, for a person +of his years, as to excite universal admiration. This continued till he +was nearly ninety. His mind, up to this time, was almost as entire as in +his younger days; none of his bodily functions, except his sight, were +much impaired. So perfect, indeed, was the condition of his physical +frame, that nobody, who had not known his history, would have suspected +he had ever been apoplectic or paralytic. + +When about ninety years of age, his health began slightly to decline. A +little before his death, he began to take a little meat. This, however, +did not save him--nature being fairly worn out. On the contrary, it +probably hastened his dissolution. His bowels became irregular, his +pulse increased, and he fell into a bilious fever, of which he died at +the great age of ninety-three. + +Probably there are, on record, few cases of longevity more instructive +than this. Besides showing the evil tendency of living at the expense of +life, it also shows, in a most striking manner, the effects of simple +and unstimulating food and drink, even in old age; and the danger of +recurring to the use of that which is more stimulating in very advanced +life. In this last respect, it confirms the experience of Cornaro, who +was made sick by attempting, in his old age, and at the solicitation of +kind friends, to return to the use of a more stimulating diet; and of +Parr, who was destroyed in the same way, after having attained to more +than a hundred and fifty years. + +But the fact that living at the expense of life, cuts down, here and +there, in the prime of life, or even at the age of fifty, a few +individuals, though this of itself is no trivial evil, is not all. Half +of what we call the infirmities of old age--and thus charge them upon +Him who made the human frame _subject_ to age--have their origin in the +same source; I mean in this living too fast, and exhausting prematurely +the vital powers. When will the sons of men learn wisdom in this matter? +Never, I fear, till they are taught, as commonly as they now are reading +and writing, the principles of physiology. + + +HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. + +Although individual cases of abstinence from animal food prove but +little, yet they prove something in the case of a man so remarkable as +John Howard. If he, with a constitution not very strong, and in the +midst of the greatest fatigues of body and mind, could best sustain +himself on a bread and water, or bread and tea diet, who is there that +would not be well sustained on vegetable food? And yet it is certain +that Howard was a vegetable eater for many years of the latter part of +his life; and that had he not exposed himself in a remarkable manner, +there is no known reason why he might not have lasted with a +constitution no better than his was, to a hundred years of age. + + +GEN. ELLIOTT. + +The following extract exhibits in few words, the dietetic history of +that brave and wise commander, General George Augustus Elliott, of the +British army: + +"During the whole of his active life, Gen. Elliott had inured himself to +the most rigid habits of order and watchfulness; seldom sleeping more +than four hours a day, and never eating any thing but vegetable food, or +drinking any thing but water. During eight of the most anxious days of +the memorable siege of Gibraltar, he confined himself to four ounces of +rice a day. He was universally regarded as one of the most abstemious +men of his age. + +"And yet his abstemiousness did not diminish his vigor; for, at the +above-mentioned siege of Gibraltar, when he was sixty-six years of age, +he had nearly all the activity and fire of his youth. Nor did he die of +any wasting disease, such as full feeders are wont to say men bring upon +them by their abstinence. On the contrary, owing to a hereditary +tendency, perhaps, of his family, he died at the age of seventy-three, +of apoplexy." + + +ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA. + +The following testimony is from the Encyclopedia. I do not suppose the +writer was the friend of a diet exclusively vegetable; but his testimony +is therefore the more interesting. His only serious mistake is in regard +to the tendency of vegetable food to form weak fibres. + +"Sometimes a particular kind of food is called wholesome, because it +produces a beneficial effect of a particular character on the system of +an individual. In this case, however, it is to be considered as a +medicine; and can be called wholesome only for those whose systems are +in the same condition. + +"Aliments abounding in fat are unwholesome, because fat resists the +operation of the gastric juice. + +"The addition of too much spice makes many an innocent aliment +injurious, because spices resist the action of the digestive organs, and +produce an irritation of particular parts of the system. + +"The kind of aliment influences the health, and even the character of +man. He is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable +aliment; but can live exclusively on either. + +"Experience proves that animal food most readily augments the solid +parts of the blood, the fibrine, and therefore the strength of the +muscular system; but disposes the body, at the same time, to +inflammatory, putrid, and scorbutic diseases; and the character to +violence and coarseness. On the contrary, vegetable food renders the +blood lighter and more liquid, but forms weak fibres, disposes the +system to the diseases which spring from feebleness, and tends to +produce a gentle character. + +"Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use +of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is +indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of +some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, +cheese, and butter, are vigorous people. + +"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal +aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The +latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when +their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes +in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on +vegetable food." + + +MR. THOMAS BELL, OF LONDON. + +Mr. Thomas Bell, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal +College of Surgeons in London, Lecturer on the Anatomy and Diseases of +the Teeth, at Guy's Hospital, and Surgeon Dentist to that institution, +in his physiological observations on the natural food of man, deduced +from the character of the teeth, says, "The opinion which I venture to +give, has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me +sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say, that every +fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was +originally formed a frugiverous (fruit-eating) animal, and therefore, +probably, tropical or nearly so, with regard to his geographical +situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his +teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin +and general structure of his limbs." + +LINNÆUS, THE NATURALIST. + +Linnæus, in speaking of fruits and esculent vegetables, says--"This +species of food is that which is most suitable to man, as is evinced by +the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands." + + +SHELLEY, THE POET. + +The following are the views of that eccentric, though in many respects +sensible writer, Shelley, as presented in a note to his work, called +Queen Mab. I have somewhat abridged them, not solely to escape part of +his monstrous religious sentiments, but for other reasons. I have +endeavored, however, to preserve, undisturbed, his opinions and +reasonings, which I hope will make a deep and abiding impression: + +"The depravity of the physical and moral nature of man, originated in +his unnatural habits of life. The language spoken by the mythology of +nearly all religions seems to prove that, at some distant period, man +forsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of +his being to unnatural appetites. Milton makes Raphael thus exhibit to +Adam the consequence of his disobedience: + + '----Immediately, a place + Before his eyes appeared; and, noisome, dark, + A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid + Numbers of all diseased; all maladies + Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms + Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, + Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, + Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, + Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, + And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, + Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, + Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.' + +"The fable of Prometheus, too, is explained in a manner somewhat +similar. Before the time of Prometheus, according to Hesiod, mankind +were exempt from suffering; they enjoyed a vigorous youth; and death, +when at length it came, approached like sleep, and gently closed the +eyes. Prometheus (who represents the human race) effected some great +change in the condition of his nature, and applied fire to culinary +purposes. From this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of +disease. It consumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and +infinite variety, inducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and +violent death. All vice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence. + +"Man, and the animals which he has infected with his society, or +depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the bison, +and the wolf are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die, +either from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic hog, +the sheep, the cow, and the dog are subject to an incredible number of +distempers, and, like the corrupters of their nature, have physicians, +who thrive upon their miseries. + +"The supereminence of man is like Satan's supereminence of pain,--and +the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, and crime, have +reason to curse the untoward event, that, by enabling him to communicate +his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow animals. But +the steps that have been taken are irrevocable. + +"The whole of human science is comprised in one question: How can the +advantages of intellect and civilization be reconciled with the liberty +and pure pleasures of natural life? How can we take the benefits and +reject the evils of the system, which is now interwoven with our being? +I believe that _abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors +would, in a great measure, capacitate us for the solution of this +important question_. + +"It is true, that mental and bodily derangement is attributable in part +to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern +diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the +sexes, whence the misery and diseases of celibacy, unenjoying +prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty, necessarily spring; +the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the exhalations of chemical +processes: the muffling of our bodies in superfluous apparel; the absurd +treatment of infants; all these, and innumerable other causes, +contribute their mite to the mass of human evil. + +"Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugiverous animals +in every thing, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws +wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the +living fibre. A mandarin of the first class, with nails two inches long, +would probably find them, alone, inefficient to hold even a hare. It is +only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparations +that it is rendered susceptible of mastication and digestion, and that +the sight of its bloody juices does not excite intolerable loathing, +horror, and disgust. Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a +decisive experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a +living lamb with his teeth, and, plunging his head into its vitals, +slake his thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of +horror, let him revert to the irresistible instincts of nature that +would rise in judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such +work as this. Then, and then only, would he be consistent. + +"Young children evidently prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and other +fruit, to the flesh of animals, until, by the gradual depravation of the +digestive organs, the free use of vegetables has, for a time, produced +serious inconveniences. _For a time_, I say, since there never was an +instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food to +vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate the body, +by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to restore to the +mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not one in fifty possesses +on the present system. A love of strong liquor is also with difficulty +taught to infants. Almost every one remembers the wry faces which the +first glass of port produced. Unsophisticated instinct is invariably +unerring; but to decide on the fitness of animal food from the perverted +appetites which its constrained adoption produces, is to make the +criminal a judge in his own cause; it is even worse--it is appealing to +the infatuated drunkard in a question of the salubrity of brandy. + +"Except in children, however, there remain no traces of that instinct +which determines, in all other animals, what aliment is natural or +otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning adults +of our species, that it has become necessary to urge considerations +drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are naturally +frugiverous. + +"Crime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of disease +shall be discovered, the root, from which all vice and misery have so +long overshadowed the globe, will be bare to the axe. All the exertions +of man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear +profit of his species. No sane mind, in a sane body, resolves upon a +crime. It is a man of violent passions, blood-shot eyes, and swollen +veins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder. The system of a simple +diet is not a reform of legislation, while the furious passions and evil +propensities of the human heart, in which it had its origin, are +unassuaged. It strikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment +which may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small +societies, families, and even individuals. In no case has a return to a +vegetable diet produced the slightest injury; in most it has been +attended with changes undeniably beneficial. + +"Should ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, he might +trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural habits, as +clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to sensation. What +prolific sources of disease are not those mineral and vegetable poisons, +that have been introduced for its extirpation! How many thousands have +become murderers and robbers, bigots and domestic tyrants, dissolute and +abandoned adventurers, from the use of fermented liquors, who, had they +slaked their thirst only with pure water, would have lived but to +diffuse the happiness of their own unperverted feelings! How many +groundless opinions and absurd institutions have not received a general +sanction from the sottishness and intemperance of individuals! + +"Who will assert that, had the populace of Paris satisfied their hunger +at the ever-furnished table of vegetable nature, they would have lent +their brutal suffrage to the proscription-list of Robespierre? Could a +set of men, whose passions were not perverted by unnatural stimuli, +look with coolness on an _auto da fe_? Is it to be believed that a being +of gentle feelings, rising from his meal of roots, would take delight in +sports of blood? + +"Was Nero a man of temperate life? Could you read calm health in his +cheek, flushed with ungovernable propensities of hatred for the human +race? Did Muley Ismail's pulse beat evenly? was his skin transparent? +did his eyes beam with healthfulness, and its invariable concomitants, +cheerfulness and benignity? + +"Though history has decided none of these questions, a child could not +hesitate to answer in the negative. Surely the bile-suffused cheek of +Bonaparte, his wrinkled brow, and yellow eye, the ceaseless inquietude +of his nervous system, speak no less plainly the character of his +unresting ambition than his murders and his victories. It is impossible, +had Bonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders, that he could +have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the +Bourbons. + +"The desire of tyranny could scarcely be excited in the individual; the +power to tyrannize would certainly not be delegated by a society neither +frenzied by inebriation nor rendered impotent and irrational by disease. +Pregnant, indeed, with inexhaustible calamity is the renunciation of +instinct, as it concerns our physical nature. Arithmetic cannot +enumerate, nor reason perhaps suspect, the multitudinous sources of +disease in civilized life. Even common water, that apparently innoxious +_pabulum_, when corrupted by the filth of populous cities, is a deadly +and insidious destroyer. + +"There is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet +and pure water has not infallibly mitigated, wherever the experiment +has been fairly tried. Debility is gradually converted into strength, +disease into healthfulness; madness, in all its hideous variety, from +the ravings of the fettered maniac, to the unaccountable irrationalities +of ill-temper, that make a hell of domestic life, into a calm and +considerate evenness of temper, that alone might offer a certain pledge +of the future moral reformation of society. + +"On a natural system of diet, old age would be our last and our only +malady; the term of our existence would be protracted; we should enjoy +life, and no longer preclude others from the enjoyment of it; all +sensational delights would be infinitely more exquisite and perfect; the +very sense of being would then be a continued pleasure, such as we now +feel it in some few and favored moments of our youth. + +"By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those +who love happiness and truth, to give a fair trial to the vegetable +system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject whose merits an +experience of six months should set forever at rest. + +"But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a +sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its +ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier by +the short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments, by +medicine, than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are +invariably sensual and indocile; yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded, +that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved--when +it is as clear, that those who live naturally are exempt from premature +death, as that nine is not one, the most sottish of mankind will feel a +preference toward a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and +painful life. + +"On the average, out of sixty persons, four die in three years. Hopes +are entertained, that in April, 1814,[20] a statement will be given that +sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on vegetables and +pure water, are then in _perfect health_. More than two years have now +elapsed; _not one of them has died_; no such example will be found in +any sixty persons taken at random. + +"When these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by +all who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence +from aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal. + +"In proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of +evidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on +vegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old +age, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented +liquors as slow but certain poisons. + +"The change which would be produced by simple habits on political +economy, is sufficiently remarkable. The monopolizing eater of animal +flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by devouring an acre at a +meal, and many loaves of bread would cease to contribute to gout, +madness, and apoplexy, in the shape of a pint of porter, or a dram of +gin, when appeasing the long-protracted famine of the hard-working +peasant's hungry babes. + +"The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the +carcass of an ox, would afford ten times the sustenance, undepraving +indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if gathered immediately +from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile districts of the habitable +globe are now actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and +waste of aliment absolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the +wealthy that can, to any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural +craving for dead flesh, and they pay for the greater license of the +privilege, by subjection to supernumerary diseases. + +"Again--the spirit of the nation that should take the lead in this great +reform would insensibly become agricultural; commerce, with its vices, +selfishness, and corruption, would gradually decline; more natural +habits would produce gentler manners, and the excessive complication of +political relations would be so far simplified that every individual +might feel and understand why he loved his country, and took a personal +interest in its welfare. + +"On a natural system of diet, we should require no spices from India; no +wines from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those +multitudinous articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is +rifled, and which are the cause of so much individual rivalship, and +such calamitous and sanguinary national disputes. + +"Let it ever be remembered, that it is the direct influence of excess of +commerce to make the interval between the rich and the poor wider and +more unconquerable. Let it be remembered, that it is a foe to every +thing of real worth and excellence in the human character. The odious +and disgusting aristocracy of wealth, is built upon the ruins of all +that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner +of a barbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it impossible to realize a +state of society, where all the energies of man shall be directed to the +production of his solid happiness? + +"None must be intrusted with power (and money is the completest species +of power), who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the +general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors, +directly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant +cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to +starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping curtailers of +population, pasturage would include a waste too great to be afforded. +The labor requisite to support a family is far lighter than is usually +supposed. The peasantry work, not only for themselves, but for the +aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers. + +"The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any +other. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of +legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are +produced, is to suppose that by taking away the effect, the cause will +cease to operate. + +"But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on the proselytism of +individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit to the community, upon +the total change of the dietetic habits in its members. It proceeds +securely from a number of particular cases to one that is universal, and +has this advantage over the contrary mode, that one error does not +invalidate all that has gone before. + +"Let not too much, however, be expected from this system. The +healthiest among us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most +symmetrical, athletic, and long-lived is a being inexpressibly inferior +to what he would have been had not the unnatural habits of his ancestors +accumulated for him a certain portion of malady and deformity. In the +most perfect specimen of civilized man, something is still found wanting +by the physiological critic. Can a return to nature, then, +instantaneously eradicate predispositions that have been slowly taking +root in the silence of innumerable ages? Indubitably not. All that I +contend for is, that from the moment of relinquishing all unnatural +habits, no new disease is generated; and that the predisposition to +hereditary maladies gradually perishes for want of its accustomed +supply. In cases of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, +such is the invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water. + +"Those who may be induced by these remarks to give the vegetable system +a fair trial, should, in the first place, date the commencement of their +practice from the moment of their conviction. All depends upon breaking +through a pernicious habit resolutely and at once. Dr. Trotter asserts, +that no drunkard was ever reformed by gradually relinquishing his dram. +Animal flesh, in its effects on the human stomach, is analogous to a +dram; it is similar to the kind, though differing in the degree of its +operation. The proselyte to a pure diet must be warned to expect a +temporary diminution of muscular strength. The subtraction of a powerful +stimulus will suffice to account for this event. But it is only +temporary, and is succeeded by an equable capability for exertion, far +surpassing his former various and fluctuating strength. + +"Above all, he will acquire an easiness of breathing, by which such +exertion is performed, with a remarkable exemption from that painful and +difficult panting now felt by almost every one, after hastily climbing +an ordinary mountain. He will be equally capable of bodily exertion or +mental application, after, as before his simple meal. He will feel none +of the narcotic effects of ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct +consequence of exhausting stimuli, would yield to the power of natural +and tranquil impulses. He will no longer pine under the lethargy of +_ennui_, that unconquerable weariness of life, more to be dreaded than +death itself. + +"He will no longer be incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying +those organs from which he expects his gratification. The pleasures of +taste to be derived from a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, +lettuce, with a dessert of apples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, +raspberries, and in winter, oranges, apples, and pears, is far greater +than is supposed. Those who wait until they can eat this plain fare with +the sauce of appetite, will scarcely join with the hypocritical +sensualist at a lord mayor's feast, who declaims against the pleasures +of the table." + + +REV. EZEKIEL RICH. + +This gentleman, once a teacher in Troy, N. H., now nearly seventy years +of age, is a giant, both intellectually and physically, like Father +Sewall, of Maine. The following is his testimony--speaking of what he +calls his system: + +"Such a system of living was formed by myself, irrespective of Graham or +Alcott, or any other modern dietetic philosophers and reformers, +although I agree with them in many things. It allows but little use of +flesh, condiments, concentrated articles, complex cooking, or hot and +stimulating drinks. On the other hand, it requires great use of milk, +the different bread stuffs, fruits, esculent roots and pulse, all well, +simply, and neatly cooked." + + +REV. JOHN WESLEY. + +The habits of this distinguished individual, though often adverted to, +are yet not sufficiently known. For the last half of his long life +(eighty-eight years) he was a thorough going vegetarian. He also +testifies that for three or four successive years he lived entirely on +potatoes; and during that whole time he never relaxed his arduous +ministerial labors, nor ever enjoyed better health. + + +LAMARTINE. + +Lamartine was educated a vegetarian of the strictest sort--an education +which certainly did not prevent his possessing as fine a physical frame +as can be found in the French republic. Of his mental and moral +characteristics it is needless that I should speak. True it is that +Lamartine ate flesh and fish at one period of his life; but we have the +authority of Douglas Jerrold's London Journal for assuring our readers +that he is again a vegetarian. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Some, however, represent the great apostle to have been a rigid +vegetable eater. On this point I have no settled opinion. + +[18] It may be found at full length at page 233 of the 6th volume of the +Library of Health. + +[19] Instances, he says, are not rare (but this I doubt), of two hundred +children born to a man by his different wives, in some parts of the +interior of Africa. + +[20] A date but little later than that of the work whence this article +is extracted. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM. + + The Pythagoreans.--The Essenes.--The Bramins.--Society of Bible + Christians.--Orphan Asylum of Albany.--The Mexican + Indians.--School in Germany.--American Physiological Society. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +The following chapter did not come within the scope of my plan, as it +was originally formed. But in prosecuting the labors of preparing a +volume on vegetable diet, it has more and more seemed to me desirable to +add a short account of some of the communities and associations of men, +both of ancient and modern times, who, amid a surrounding horde of +flesh-eaters, have withstood the power of temptation, and proved, in +some measure, true to their own nature, and the first impulses of mercy, +humanity, and charity. I shall not, of course, attempt to describe all +the sects and societies of the kind to which I refer, but only a few of +those which seem to me most important. + +One word may be necessary in explanation of the term communities. I mean +by it, smaller communities, or associations. There have been, and still +are, many whole nations which might be called vegetable-eating +communities; but of such it is not my purpose to speak at present. + + +THE PYTHAGOREANS. + +Pythagoras appears to have flourished about 550 years before Christ. He +was, probably, a native of the island of Samos; but a part of his +education, which was extensive and thorough, was received in Egypt. He +taught a new philosophy; and, according to some, endeavored to enforce +it by laying claim to supernatural powers. But, be this as it may have +been, he was certainly a man of extraordinary qualities and powers, as +well as of great and commanding influence. In an age of great luxury and +licentiousness, he taught, both by example and precept, the most rigid +doctrines of sobriety, temperance, and purity. He abstained from all +animal food, and limited himself entirely to vegetables; of which he +usually preferred bread and honey. Nor did he allow the free use of +every kind of vegetable; for beans, and I believe every species of +pulse, were omitted. Water was his only drink. He lived, it is said, to +the age of eighty; and even then did not perish from disease or old age, +but from starvation in a place where he had sought a retreat from the +fury of his enemies. + +His disciples are said to have been exceedingly numerous, in almost all +quarters of the then known world, especially in Greece and Italy. It is +impossible, however, to form any conjecture of their numbers. The +largest school or association of his rigid followers is supposed to have +been at the city of Crotona, in South Italy. Their number was six +hundred. They followed all his dietetic and philosophical rules with the +utmost strictness. The association appears to have been, for a time, +exceedingly flourishing. It was a society of philosophers, rather than +of common citizens. They held their property in one common stock, for +the benefit of the whole. The object of the association was chiefly to +aid each other in promoting intellectual cultivation. Pythagoras did +not teach abstinence from all hurtful food and drink, and an exclusive +use of that which was the _best_, for the sole purpose of making men +better, or more healthy, or longer-lived _animals_; he had a higher and +nobler purpose. It was to make them better rationals, more truly noble +and god-like--worthy the name of rational men, and of the relation in +which they stood to their common Father. And yet, after all, his +doctrines appear to have been mingled with much bigotry and +superstition. + + +THE ESSENES. + +The following account of this singular sect of the ancient Jews is +abridged from an article in the Annals of Education, for July, 1836. The +number of this vegetable-eating sect is not known, though, according to +Philo, there were four thousand of them in the single province of Judea. + +"Pliny, says that the Essenes of Judea fed on the fruit of the +palm-tree. But, however this may have been, it is agreed, on all hands, +that, like the ancient Pythagoreans, they lived exclusively on vegetable +food, and that they were abstinent in regard to the quantity even of +this. They would not kill a living creature, even for sacrifices. It is +also understood that they treated diseases of every kind--though it does +not appear that they were subject to many--with roots and herbs. +Josephus says they were long-lived, and that many of them lived over a +hundred years. This he attributes to their 'regular course of life,' and +especially to 'the simplicity of their diet.'" + + +THE BRAMINS. + +The Bramins, or Brahmins, are, as is probably well known, the first of +the four _castes_ among the Hindoos. They are the priests of the people, +and are remarkable, in their way, for their sanctity. Of their number I +am not at present apprised, but it must be very great. But, however +great it may be, they are vegetable eaters of the strictest sect. They +are not even allowed to eat eggs; and I believe milk and its products +are also forbidden them; but of this I am not quite certain. Besides +adhering to the strictest rules of temperance, they are also required to +observe frequent fasts of the most severe kind, and to practice regular +and daily, and sometimes thrice daily ablutions. They subsist much on +green herbs, roots, and fruits; and at some periods of their ministry, +they live much in the open air. And yet those of them who are true +Bramins--who live up to the dignity of their profession--are among the +most healthy, vigorous, and long-lived of their race. The accounts of +their longevity may, in some instances, be exaggerated; but it is +certain that, other things being equal, they do not in this respect fall +behind any other caste of their countrymen. + + +SOCIETY OF BIBLE CHRISTIANS. + +This society has existed in Great Britain nearly half a century. They +abstain from flesh, fish, and fowl--in short, from every thing that has +animal life--and from all alcoholic liquors. Of their number in the +kingdom I am not well informed. In Manchester they have three churches +that have regular preachers; and frequent meetings have been held for +discussing the diet question within a few years, some of which have +been well attended, and all of which have been interesting. Among those +who have adopted "the pledge" at their meetings, are some of the most +distinguished men in the kingdom, and a few of the members of +parliament. Through these and other instrumentalities, the question is +fairly up in England, and will not cease to be discussed till fairly +settled. + +A branch or colony from the parent society, under the pastoral care of +Rev. Wm. Metcalfe, consisting of only eight members, came in 1817 and +established itself in Philadelphia. They were incorporated as a society +in 1830. In 1846 the number of their church members was about seventy, +besides thirty who adhered to their abstemious habits, but were not in +full communion. During the thirty years ending in 1846, twelve of their +number died--four children and eight adults. The average age of the +latter was fifty-seven years. Of the seventy now belonging to the +society, nineteen are between forty and eighty years of age; and forty, +in all, over twenty-five. Of the whole number, twelve have abstained +from animal food thirty-seven years, seven from twenty to thirty years, +and fifty-one never tasted animal food or drank intoxicating drinks. + +And yet they are all--if we except Mr. Metcalfe, their minister--of the +laboring class, and hard laborers, too. Their strength and power of +endurance is fully equal to their neighbors in similar circumstances, +and in several instances considerably superior. Mr. Fowler, the +phrenologist, testifies, concerning one of them, that he is regarded as +the strongest man in Philadelphia. I have long had acquaintance with +this sect, through Mr. M., of Philadelphia, and Mr. Simpson, one of +their leading men in England, and have not a doubt of the truth of what +has been publicly stated concerning them. They are a modest people, and +make few pretensions; and yet they are a very meritorious people. + +One thing very much to their advantage, as it shows the health-giving, +health-preserving tendency of their practice and principles, remains to +be related. When the yellow fever prevailed in Philadelphia, in 1818 and +1819, the infection seemed specially rife in the immediate vicinity of +the Bible Christians. So, also, in 1832, with the cholera. And yet none +of them fled. There they remained during the whole period of suffering, +and afforded their sick neighbors all the relief in their power. Their +minister, in particular, was unwearied in his efforts to do good. Yet +not one of their little number ever sickened or died of either yellow +fever or cholera. + +Till within a few years, they have been governed solely by regard to +religious principle, having known little of Physiology or any other +science bearing on health. Of late, however, they have turned their +attention to the subject, and have among them a respectable +Physiological society, which holds its regular meetings, and is said to +be flourishing. + +From one of their publications, entitled "Vegetable Cookery," I have +extracted the following very brief summary of their views concerning the +use of animals for sustenance. + +"The Society of Bible Christians abstain from animal food, not only in +obedience to the Divine command, but because it is an observance, which, +if more generally adopted, would prevent much cruelty, luxury, and +disease, besides many other evils which cause misery in society. It +would be productive of much good, by promoting health, long life, and +happiness, and thus be a most effectual means of reforming mankind. It +would entirely abolish that greatest of curses, _war_; for those who are +so conscientious as not to kill animals, will never murder human beings. +On all these accounts the system cannot be too much recommended. The +practice of abstaining cannot be wrong; it must therefore be some +consolation to be on the side of duty. If we err, we err on the sure +side; it is innocent; it is infinitely better authorized and more nearly +associated with religion, virtue, and humanity, than the contrary +practice--and we have the sanction of the wisest and the best of men--of +the whole Christian world, for several hundred years after the +commencement of the Christian era." + + +ORPHAN ASYLUM OF ALBANY. + +I class this as a community, because it is properly so, and because I +cannot conveniently class it otherwise. The facts which are to be +related are too valuable to be lost. They were first published, I +believe, in the Northampton Courier; and subsequently in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal, and in the Moral Reformer. In the present +case, the account is greatly abridged. + +The Orphan Asylum of Albany was established about the close of the year +1829, or the beginning of the year 1830. Shortly after its +establishment, it contained seventy children, and subsequently many +more. The average number, from its commencement to August 1836, was +eighty. + +For the first three years, the diet of the inmates consisted of fine +bread, rice, Indian puddings, potatoes, and other vegetables and fruits, +with milk; to which was added flesh or flesh-soup once a day. +Considerable attention was also paid to bathing and cleanliness, and to +clothing, air, and exercise. Bathing, however, was performed in a +perfect manner, only once in three weeks. As many of them were received +in poor health, not a few continued sickly. + +In the fall of 1833, the diet and regimen of the inmates were materially +changed. Daily ablution of the whole body, in the use of the cold shower +or sponge bath--or, in cases of special disease, the tepid bath was one +of the first steps taken; then the fine bread was laid aside for that +made of unbolted wheat meal; and soon after flesh and flesh-soups were +wholly banished; and thus they continued to advance, till, in about +three months more, they had come fully upon the vegetable system, and +had adopted reformed habits in regard to sleeping, air, clothing, +exercise, etc. On this course, then, they continued to August, 1836, +and, for aught I know, to the present time. The results were as follows: + +During the first three years, or while the old system was followed, from +four to six children were continually on the sick list, and sometimes +more; and one or two assistant nurses were necessary. A physician was +needed once, twice, or three times a week, uniformly; and deaths were +frequent. During this whole period there were between thirty and forty +deaths. + +After the new system was fairly adopted, the nursery was soon entirely +vacated, and the services of the nurse and physician no longer needed; +and for more than two years no case of sickness or death took place. In +the succeeding twelve months there were three deaths, but they were new +inmates, and were diseased when they were received; and two of them were +idiots. The Report of the Managers says, "Under this system of +dietetics (though the change ought not to be wholly attributed to the +diet) the health of the children has not only been preserved, but those +who came to the asylum weakly, have become healthy and strong, and +greatly increased in activity, cheerfulness, and happiness." The +superintendents also state, that "since the new regimen has been fully +adopted, there has been a remarkable increase of health, strength, +activity, vivacity, cheerfulness, and contentment among the children. +Indeed, they appear to be, uniformly, perfectly healthy and happy; and +the strength and activity they exhibit are truly surprising. The change +of temper is very great. They have become less turbulent, irritable, +peevish, and discontented; and far more manageable, gentle, peaceable, +and kind to each other." One of them further observes, "There has been a +great increase in their mental activity and power; the quickness and +acumen of their perception, the vigor of their apprehension, and the +power of their retention daily astonish me." + +Such an account hardly needs comment; and I leave it to make its own +impression on the candid and unbiassed mind and heart of the reader. + + +THE MEXICAN INDIANS. + +The Indian tribes of Mexico, according to the traveler Humboldt, live on +vegetable food. A spot of ground, which, if cultivated with wheat, as in +Europe, would sustain only ten persons, and which by its produce, if +converted into pork or beef, would little more than support one, will in +Mexico, when used for banana, sustain equally well two hundred and +fifty. + +The reader will do well to take the above fact, and the estimates +appended to it, along with him when he comes to examine what I have +called the economical argument of the great diet question, in our last +chapter, under the head, "The Moral Argument." We shall do well to +remember another suggestion of Humboldt, that the habit of eating +animals diminishes our natural horror of cannibalism. + + +SCHOOL IN GERMANY. + +There is, in the Annals of Education for August, 1836, an account of a +school in which the same simple system which was pursued in the Orphan +Asylum at Albany was adopted, and with the same happy results. I say the +_same_ system; I believe plain meat was allowed occasionally, but it was +seldom. Their food was exceedingly simple, consisting chiefly of bread +and other vegetables, fruits and milk. Great attention was also paid to +daily cold bathing. The following is the teacher's statement in regard +to the results: + +"I am at present the foster father of nearly seventy young people, who +were born in all the varieties of climate from Lisbon to Moscow, and +whose early education was necessarily very different. These young men +are all healthy; not a single eruption is visible on their faces; and +three years often pass, during which not a single one of them is +confined to his bed; and in the twenty-one years that I have been +engaged in this institution, not one pupil has died. Yet, I am no +physician. During the first ten years of my residence here, no physician +entered my house; and, not till the number of my pupils was very much +increased, and I grew anxious not to overlook any thing in regard to +them, did I begin to seek at all for medical advice. + +"It is the mode of treating the young men here, which is the cause of +their superior health; and this is the reason why death has not yet +entered our doors. Should we ever deviate from our present +principles--should we approach nearer the mode of living common in +wealthy families--we should soon be obliged to establish, in our +institution, as it is in others, medicine closets and nurseries. Instead +of the freshness which now adorns the cheeks of our youth, paleness +would appear, and our church-yards would contain the tombs of promising +young men, who, in the bloom of their years, had fallen victims to +disease." + + +THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. + +This association was formed in 1837. When first formed, it consisted of +one hundred and twenty-four males, and forty-one females; in all, one +hundred and sixty-five. Their number soon increased to more than two +hundred. + +Most of these individuals were more or less feeble, and a very large +proportion of them were actually suffering from chronic disease when +they became members of the society. Not a few joined it, indeed, as a +last resort, after having tried every thing else, as drowning men are +said to catch at straws. + +Nearly if not quite all the members of this society, as well as most of +their families, abstained for a time from animal food. Some of them even +adopted the vegetable system a year or so earlier. And there were a few +who adopted it much sooner--one or two of them eight years earlier. + +Of the individuals belonging to the Physiological Society or to their +families, and adhering to the same principles, two adults only died, +and one child, during the first two years. I will not be quite positive, +but there were four in all, two adults, and two children; but this was +the extent of mortality among them for about fifteen months. + +The whole number of those who belonged to the society, with those +members of their families who adhered to their principles (estimating +families, as is usually done, at five members to each), is believed to +have been from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty. The +average mortality for the same number of healthy persons, during the +same period, in Boston and the adjacent places, was about six or seven; +though in some places it was much greater. In a single parish in +Roxbury--and without any remarkable sickness--the mortality, for the +same number of persons, was equal to ten or twelve. + +Now, we must not forget, what I have already stated, that this society +of vegetable-eaters--the two hundred adults, I mean--were generally +invalids, and some of them given over by physicians. Instead, therefore, +of only half the usual proportion of deaths among them, we might +naturally enough have expected twice or three times the usual number. +And this expectation would have appeared still better founded when it +was considered that many made the change in their habits, and especially +in their diet, very suddenly. + +But the whole story is not yet told. Not only was the number of deaths +very small, as above stated, but there were a great number of remarkable +recoveries. Some, who had very obstinate complaints, appeared, for a +time, to be entirely well. Others were getting well as fast as could be +expected. Some, who were broken down and prematurely old, seemed to +renew their youth. Many became free from colds and eruptive complaints, +to which they were formerly subject. And those who had acute diseases, +of whom, however, the number was very small, did not suffer so much as +is usually the case with flesh-eaters in circumstances otherwise +apparently similar. + +But a reverse at length came. They were led into their abstemious course +by mere impulse in very many cases, and though a library was formed and +meetings held, nobody, hardly, would read, and the meetings grew thin. +They had no Joe Smith or Gen. Taylor to lead them--and mankind without +leaders and without deep-toned principle, soon grow tired of war. Few +will fight in such circumstances. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED. + + General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument--1. The + Anatomical Argument.--2. The Physiological Argument.--3. The + Medical Argument.--4. The Political Argument.--5. The + Economical Argument.--6. The Argument from Experience.--7. The + Moral Argument.--Conclusion. + + +In the progress of a work like this, it may not be amiss to present, in +a very brief manner, the general arguments in defence of a diet +exclusively vegetable. Some of them have, indeed, already been adverted +to in the testimony of the preceding chapters; but not all. Besides, it +seemed to me desirable to collect the whole in a general view. + +There are various ways of doing this, according to the different aspects +in which the subject is viewed. Every one has his own point of +observation. I have mine. Conformably to the view I have taken, +therefore, I shall endeavor to arrange my remarks under the nine +following heads, viz., the ANATOMICAL, the PHYSIOLOGICAL, the MEDICAL, +the POLITICAL, the ECONOMICAL, the EXPERIMENTAL, the MORAL, the +MILLENNIAL, and the BIBLE ARGUMENTS. + +Dr. Cheyne relied principally on what I have called the medical +argument--though what I mean by this may not be quite obvious, till I +shall have presented it in its proper place. Not that he wholly +overlooked any thing else; but this, as it seems to me, was with him the +grand point. Nearly the same might be said of Dr. Lambe, and of several +others. + +Dr. Mussey seems to place the anatomical and physiological arguments in +the foreground. It is true he makes much use of the medical and the +moral arguments; but the former appear to be his favorites. Dr. Whitlaw, +and some others, incline to make the moral and political arguments more +prominent. Mr. Graham, who has probably done more to reduce the subject +of vegetable dietetics to a _system_ than any other individual,--though +he makes much use of _all_ the rest, especially the moral and +medical,--appears to dwell with most interest on the physiological +argument. This seems to be, with him, the strong-hold--the grand +citadel. And it must be confessed that the point of defence is very +strong indeed, as we shall see in the sequel. + +If I have a favorite, with the rest, it is the moral argument, or +perhaps a combination of this with the economical. But then I dwell on +the latter with so much interest, chiefly on account of the former. I +would give very little to be able to bring the world of mankind back to +nature's true simplicity, if it were only to make them better and more +perfect animals; though I know not but an attempt of this sort would be +as truly laudable as the attempt so often made to improve the breed of +our domestic animals. I suppose man, considered as a mere animal, is +superior, in point of importance to all the others. But, after all, I +would reform his dietetic habits principally to make him better, +morally; to make him better, in the discharge of his varied duties to +his fellow-beings and to God. I would elevate him, that he may become as +truly god-like, or godly as he now too often is, by his unnatural +habits, earthly or beastly. I would render him a rational being, fitted +to fill the space which he appears to have been originally designed to +fill--the gap in the great chain of being between the higher quadrupeds +and the beings we are accustomed to regard as angelic. I would restore +him to his true dignity. I would make him a child of God, and an _heir_ +of a glorious immortality. + +But I now proceed to the discussion of the subject which I have assigned +to this chapter. + + +I. THE ANATOMICAL ARGUMENT. + +There has been a time when the teeth and intestines of man were supposed +to indicate the necessity of a mixed diet--a diet partly animal and +partly vegetable. Four out of thirty-two teeth were found to resemble +slightly, the teeth of carnivorous animals. In like manner, the length +of the intestinal tube was thought to be midway between that of the +flesh-eating, and that of the herb-eating quadrupeds. But, unfortunately +for this mode of defending an animal diet, it has been found out that +the fruit and vegetable-eating monkey race, and the herb-eating camel, +have the said four-pointed teeth much more pointed than those of man and +that the intestines, compared with the real length of the body, instead +of assigning to man a middle position, would place him among the +herbivorous animals. In short--for I certainly need not dwell on this +part of my subject, after having adduced so fully the views of Prof. +Lawrence and Baron Cuvier--there is no intelligent naturalist or +comparative anatomist, at present, who attempts to resort for one moment +to man's structure, in support of the hypothesis that he is a +flesh-eater. None, so far as I know, will affirm, or at least with any +show of reason maintain, that anatomy, so far as that goes, is in favor +of flesh eating. We come, then, to another and more important division +of our subject. + + +II. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. + +One of the advantages of vegetable-eaters over others, is in the +superior appetite which they enjoy. There are many flesh-eaters who have +what they call a good appetite. But I never knew a person of this +description, who made the change from a mixed diet to one purely +vegetable, who did not afterward acknowledge that he never once knew, +while he was an eater of animal food, a truly perfect appetite. This +testimony in favor of vegetable diet is positive; whereas that of the +multitude, who have never made the change I speak of, but who are +therefore the more ready to laugh at the conclusions, is merely +negative. + +A person of perfect appetite can eat at all times, and under all +circumstances. He can eat of one thing or another, and in greater or +less quantity. Were there no objections to it, he could make an entire +meal of the coarsest and most indigestible substances; or, he could eat +ten or fifteen times a day; or, he could eat a quantity at once which +would astonish even a Siberian; or, on the contrary, he could abstain +from food entirely, for a short time; and any of these without serious +inconvenience. He would, indeed, feel a slight want of something (in the +case of total abstinence), when the usual hour arrived for taking a +meal; but the sensation is not an abiding one; when the hour has passed +by, it entirely disappears. Nor is there ever, at least for a day or two +of abstinence, that gnawing at the stomach, as some express it, which is +so often felt by the flesh-eater and the devourer of other mixed and +injurious dishes and which is so generally mistaken for true and +genuine hunger. + +I have said that the vegetable-eater finds no serious inconvenience from +the quality or quantity of his food; but I mean to speak here of the +_immediate_ effects solely. No doubt every error of this sort produces +mischief, sooner or later. The more perfect the appetite is, the greater +should be our moral power of commanding it, and of controlling the +quality and quantity of our food and drink, as well as the times and +seasons of receiving it. + +These statements, I am aware, are contrary to the received and current +opinion; but that they are true, can be proved, not by one person +merely,--though if that person were to be entirely relied on, his +positive affirmation would outweigh a thousand _negative_ +testimonies,--but by many hundreds. It is more generally supposed that +he who confines himself to a simple diet, soon brings his stomach into +such a state that the slightest departure from his usual habits for once +only, produces serious inconveniences; and this indeed is urged as an +argument against simplicity itself. Yet, how strange! How much more +natural to suppose that the more perfect the health of the stomach, the +better it will bear, for a time, with slight or even serious departures +from truth and nature! How much more natural to suppose that perfect +health is the very best defence against all the causes which tend to +invite or to provoke disease! And what it would be natural to infer, is +proved by experience to be strictly true. The thorough-going +vegetable-eater can make a meal for once, or perhaps feed for a day or +so, on substances which would almost kill many others; and can do so +with comparative impunity. He can make a whole meal of cheese, cabbage, +fried pudding, fried dough-nuts, etc., etc.; and if it be not in +remarkable excess, he will feel no immediate inconvenience, unless from +the mental conviction that he must pay the full penalty at some distant +day. + +I repeat it, the appetite of the vegetable-eater, if true to his +principles, and temperate in regard to quantity, is always, at all +moments of his life, perfect. To be sure, he is not always _hungry_. +Hunger, indeed, as I have already intimated--what most people call +hunger, a morbid sensation, or gnawing--is unknown to him. But there is +scarce a moment of his life, at least, when he is awake, in which he +could not enjoy the pleasures of eating, even the coarsest viands, with +a high relish; provided, however, he knew it was _proper_ for him to +eat. Nor is his appetite fickle, demanding this or that particular +article, and disconcerted if it cannot be obtained. It is satisfied with +any thing to which the judgment directs; and though gratified, in a high +degree, with dainties, when nothing better and more wholesome cannot be +obtained, never demanding them in a peremptory manner. + +The vegetable-eater has a more quiet, happy, and perfect digestion than +the flesh-eater. On this point there has been much mistake, even among +physiologists. Richerand and many others suppose that a degree of +constitutional disturbance is indispensable during the process of +digestion; and some have even said that the system was subjected at +every meal--nay, at every healthy meal--to a species of miniature fever. +The remarks of Richerand are as follows. I have slightly abridged them, +but have not altered the sense: + +"While the alimentary solution is going on, a slight shivering is felt; +the pulse becomes quicker and more contracted; the vital power seems to +forsake the other organs, to concentrate itself on that which is the +seat of the digestive process. As the stomach empties itself, the +shivering is followed by a gentle warmth; the pulse increases in +fullness and frequency; and the insensible perspiration is augmented. +Digestion brings on, therefore, a general action, analogous to a febrile +paroxysm." + +And what is it, indeed, _but_ a febrile paroxysm? Nay, Richerand himself +confirms this by adding, "this fever of digestion, noticed already by +the ancients, is particularly observable in women of great sensibility." +That is, the fever is more violent in proportion to the want of power in +the person it attacks to resist its influence; just as it is with fever +in all other circumstances, or when induced by any other causes. + +But, can any one believe the Author of Nature has so made us, that in a +steady and rational obedience to his laws, it is indispensable that we +should be thrown into a fever three times a day, one thousand and +ninety-five times in a year, and seventy-six thousand six hundred and +fifty in seventy years? No wonder, if this were true, that the vitality +of our organs was ordained to wear out soon; for we see by what means +the result would be accomplished. + +The fever, however, of which Richerand speaks, does very generally +exist, because mankind very generally depart from nature and her laws. +But it is not necessary. The simple vegetable-eater--if he lives right +in all other respects--if he errs not as to quantity, knows nothing of +it; nor should it be known by any body. We should leave it to the +animals below man to err, in quantity and quality, to an excess which +constitutes a surfeit or a fever, and causes fullness and drowsiness, +and a recumbent posture. The self-styled lord of the animal world should +rise superior to habits which have marked, in every age, certain orders +of the lower animals. + +But the chyle which is produced from vegetable aliment is better--all +other things being equal--than that which is produced from any other +food. For proof of this, we need but the testimony of Oliver and other +physiologists. They tell us, unhesitatingly, that under the same +circumstances, chyle which is formed from vegetables will be preserved +from putrefaction many days longer--the consequence of greater purity +and a more perfect vitality--than that which is formed from any +admixture of animal food. Is it not, then, better for the purposes of +health and longevity? Can it, indeed, be otherwise? I will say nothing +at present, for want of space to devote to it, of the indications which +are afforded by the other sensible properties of the chyle which is +produced from vegetables. The single fact I have presented is enough on +that point. + +The best solids and fluids are produced by vegetable eating. On this +single topic a volume might be written, without exhausting it, while I +must confine myself to a page or two. + +In the first place, it forms better bones and more solid muscles, and +consequently gives to the frame greater solidity and strength. Compare, +in evidence of the truth of this statement, the vegetable-eating +millions of middle and southern Europe, with the other millions, who, +supposed to be more fortunate, can get a little flesh or fish once a +day. Especially, make this comparison in Ireland, where the vegetable +food selected is far from being of the first or best order; and whose +sight is so obtuse as not to perceive the difference? I do not say, +compare the enervated inhabitant of a hot climate, as Spain or Italy, +with the inhabitant of England, or Scotland, or Russia, for that would +be an unfair comparison, wholly so; but compare Italian with Italian, +Frenchman with Frenchman, German with German, Scotchman with Scotchman, +and Hibernian with Hibernian. + +In like manner, compare the millions of Japanese of the interior, who +subsist through life chiefly on rice, with the few millions of the +coasts who eat a little fish with their rice. Make a similar comparison +in China and in Hindostan. Notice, in particular, the puny Chinese, who +live in southern China, on quite a large proportion of shell-fish, +compared with the Chinese of the interior. Extend your observations to +Hindostan. Do not talk of the effeminate habits and weak constitutions +of the rice and curry eaters there--bad as the admixture of rice and +curry may be--for that is to compare the Hindoo with other nations; but +compare Hindoo with Hindoo, which is the only fair way. Compare the +porters of the Mediterranean, both of Asia and Europe, who feed on bread +and figs, and carry weights to the extent of eight hundred or one +thousand pounds, with the porters who eat flesh, fish, and oil. Compare +African with African, American Indian with American Indian; nay, even +New Englander with New Englander; for we have a few here who are trained +to vegetable eating. In short, go where you will, and institute a fair +comparison, and the results will be, without a single exception, in +favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. It is necessary, however, in +making the comparison, to place _good_ vegetable food in opposition to +good animal food; for no one will pretend that a diet of crude, +miserable, or imperfect, or sickly vegetables will be as wholesome as +one consisting of rich farinaceous articles and fruits; nor even as many +kinds of plain meat. + +The only instance which, on a proper comparison, will probably be +adduced to prove the incorrectness of these views, will be that of a few +tribes of American Indians, who, though they have extremely robust +bodies, are eaters of much flesh. But they live also in the open air, +and have many other good habits, and are healthy in spite of the +inferiority of their diet. But perfect, physically, as they seem to be, +and probably are, examine the vegetable-eaters among them, of the same +tribe, and they will be found still more so. + +In the next place, the fluids are all in a better and more healthy +state. In proof of this, I might mention in the first place that +superior agility, ease of motion, speed, and power of endurance which so +distinguish vegetable-eaters, wherever a fair comparison is instituted. +They possess a suppleness like that of youth, even long after what is +called the juvenile period of life is passed over. They are often seen +running and jumping, unless restrained by the arbitrary customs of +society, in very advanced age. Their wounds heal with astonishing +rapidity in as many days as weeks, or even months, in the latter case. +All this could not happen, were there not a good state of the fluids of +the system conjoined, to a happy state of the solids. + +The vegetable-eater, if temperate in the use of his vegetables, and if +all his other habits are good, will endure, better than the flesh-eater, +the extremes of heat and cold. This power of endurance has ever been +allowed to be a sure sign of a good state of health. The most vigorous +man, as it is well known, will endure best both extremes of temperature. +But it is a proof also of the greater purity of his solids and fluids. + +The secretions and excretions of his body are in a better state; and +this, again, proves that his blood and other fluids are healthy. He does +not so readily perspire excessively as other men, neither is there any +want of free and easy perspiration. Profuse sweating on every trifling +exertion of the body or mind, is as much a disease as an habitually dry +skin. But the vegetable-eater escapes both of these extremes. The +saliva, the tears, the milk, the gastric juice, the bile, and the other +secretions and excretions--particularly the dejections--are as they +should be. Nay, the very exhalations of the lungs are purer, as is +obvious from the breath. That of a vegetable-eater is perfectly sweet, +while that of a flesh-eater is often as offensive as the smell of a +charnel-house. This distinction is discernible even among the brute +animals. Those which feed on grass, grain, etc., have a breath +incomparably sweeter than those which prey on animals. Compare the +camel, and horse, and cow, and sheep, and rabbit, with the tiger (if you +choose to approach him), the wolf, the dog, the cat, and the hawk. One +comparison will be sufficient; you will never forget it. But there is as +much difference between the odor of the breath of a flesh-eating human +being and a vegetable-eater, as between those of the dog and the lamb. +This, however, is a secret to all but vegetable-eaters themselves, since +none but they are so situated as to be able to make the comparison. But, +betake yourself to mealy vegetables and fruits a few years, and live +temperately on them, and then you will perceive the difference, +especially in riding in a stage-coach. This, I confess, is rather a +draw-back upon the felicity of vegetable-eaters; but it is some +consolation to know what a mass of corruption we ourselves have escaped. + +There is one more secretion to which I wish to direct your attention, +which is, the fat or oil. The man who lives rightly, and rejects animal +food among the rest, will never be overburdened with fat. He will +neither be too corpulent nor too lean. Both these conditions are +conditions of disease, though, as a general rule, corpulence is most to +be dreaded; it is, at least, the most disgusting. Fat, I repeat it, is a +secretion. The cells in which it is deposited serve for relieving the +system of many of the crudities and abuses, not to say poisons, which +are poured into it--cheated; as it were, in some degree into the blood, +secreted into the fat cells, and buried in the fat to be out of the way, +and where they can do but little mischief. Yet, even here they are not +wholly harmless. The fat man is almost always more exposed to disease, +and to _severe_ epidemic disease in particular, than the lean man. Let +us leave it to the swine and other kindred quadrupeds, to dispose of +gross half poisonous matter, by converting it into, or burying it in +fat; let us employ our vital forces and energies in something better. +Above all, let us not descend to swallow, as many have been inclined to +do, besides the ancient Israelites, this gross secretion, and reduce +ourselves to the painful necessity of carrying about, from day to day, a +huge mass of double-refined disease, pillaged from the foulest and +filthiest of animals. + +Vegetable-eaters--especially if they avoid condiments, as well as flesh +and fish--are not apt to be thirsty. It is a common opinion among the +laboring portion of the community, that they who perspire freely, must +drink freely. And yet I have known one or two hard laborers who were +accustomed to sweat profusely and freely, who hardly ever drank any +thing, except a little tea or milk at their meals, and yet were +remarkably strong and healthy, and attained to a great age. One of this +description (Frederick Lord, of Hartford, Conn.), lived to about the age +of eighty-five. How the system is supplied, in such cases, with fluid, I +do not know; but I know it is not necessary to drink perpetually for the +purpose; for if but one healthy man can dispense with drinking, others +may. The truth is, we seldom drink from real thirst. We drink chiefly +either from habit, or because we have created a morbid or diseased +thirst by improper food or drink, among which animal food is pretty +conspicuous. + +I have intimated that, in order to escape thirst, the vegetable-eater +must abstain also from condiments. This he will be apt to do. It is he +who eats flesh and fish, and drinks something besides water, who feels +such an imperious necessity for condiments. The vegetable and milk +eater, and water-drinker, do not need them. + +It is in this view, that the vegetable system lies at the foundation of +all reform in the matter of temperance. So long as the use of animal +food is undisturbed and its lawfulness unquestioned, all our efforts to +heal the maladies of society are superficial. The wound is not yet +probed to the bottom. But, renounce animal food, restore us to our +proper condition, and feed us on milk and farinaceous articles, and our +fondness for excitement and our hankering for exciting drinks and +condiments will, in a few generations, die away. Animal food is a root +of all evil, so far as temperance is concerned, in its most popular and +restricted sense. + +The pure vegetable-eaters, especially those who are trained as such, +seldom drink at all. Some use a little water with their meals, and a few +drink occasionally between them, especially if they labor much in the +open air, and perspire freely. Some taste nothing in the form of drink +for months, unless we call the abundant juices of apples and other +fruits, and milk, etc., by that name--of which, by the way, they are +exceedingly fond. The reason is, they are seldom thirsty. Dr. Lambe, of +London, doubts whether man is naturally a drinking animal; but I do not +carry the matter so far. Still I believe that ninety-nine hundredths of +the drink which is used, _as_ now used, does more harm than good. + +He who avoids flesh and fish, escapes much of that languor and +faintness, at particular hours, which others feel. He has usually a +clear and quiet head in the morning. He is ready, and willing, and glad +to rise in due season; and his morning feelings are apt to last all day. +He has none of that faintness between his meals which many have, and +which tempts thousands to luncheons, drams, tobacco, snuff, and opium, +and ultimately destroys so much health and life. The truth is, that +vegetable food is not only more quiet and unstimulating than any other, +but it holds out longer also. I know the contrary of this is the general +belief; but it is not well founded. Animal food stimulates most, and as +the stimulus goes off soon, we are liable to feel dull after it, and to +fancy we need the stimulus of drink or something else to keep us up till +the arrival of another meal. And, having acquired a habit of relying on +our food to stimulate us immediately, much more than to give us real, +lasting, permanent strength, it is no wonder we feel, for a time, a +faintness if we discontinue its use. This only shows the power of habit, +and the over-stimulating character of our accustomed food. Nor does the +simple vegetable-eater suffer, during the spring, as other people say +they do. All is cheerful and happy with him, even then. Nor, lastly, is +he subject to hypochondria or depression of spirits. He is always lively +and cheerful; and all with him is bright and happy. As it has been +expressed elsewhere, with the truly temperate man it is "morning all +day." + +The system of diet in question, greatly improves, exalts, and perfects +the senses. The sight, smell, and taste are rendered greatly superior by +it. The difference in favor of the hearing and the touch may not be so +obvious; nevertheless, it is believed to be considerable. But the change +in the other senses--the first three which I have named--even when we +reform as late as at thirty-five or forty, is wonderful. I do not wish +to encourage, by this, a delay of the work of reformation; we can never +begin it too early. + +Vegetable diet favors beauty of form and feature. The forms of the +natives of some of the South Sea Islands, to say nothing of their +features, are exceedingly fine. They are tall and well proportioned. So +it is with the Japanese and Chinese, especially of the interior, where +they subsist almost wholly on rice and fruits. The Japanese are the +finest men, physically speaking, in Asia. The New Hollanders, on the +contrary, who live almost wholly on flesh and fish, are among the most +meagre and ugly of the human race, if we except the flesh-eating savages +of the north, and the Greenlanders and Laplanders. In short, the +principle I have here advanced will hold, as a _general rule_, I +believe, other things being equal, throughout the world. If it be asked +whether I would exalt beauty and symmetry into virtues, I will only say +that they are not without their use in a virtuous people; and I look +forward to a period in the world's history, when all will be +comparatively well formed and beautiful. Beauty is exceedingly +influential, as every one must have observed who has been long in the +world; at least, if he has had his eyes open. And it is probably right +that it should be so. Our beauty is almost as much within our control, +as a race, as our conduct. + +A vegetable diet, moreover, promotes and preserves a clearness and a +generally healthful state of the mental faculties. I believe that much +of the moral as well as intellectual error in the world, arises from a +state of mind which is produced by the introduction of improper liquids +and solids into the stomach, or, at least, by their application to the +nervous system. Be this as it may, however, there is nothing better for +the brain than a temperate diet of well-selected vegetables, with water +for drink. This Sir Isaac Newton and hundreds of others could abundantly +attest. + +It also favors an evenness and tranquillity of temper, which is of +almost infinite value. The most fiery and vindictive have been enabled, +by this means, when all other means had failed, to transform themselves +into rational beings, and to become, in this very respect, patterns to +those around them. If this were its only advantage, in a physiological +point of view, it would be of more value than worlds. It favors, too, +simplicity of character. It makes us, in the language of the Bible, to +remain, or to become, as little children, and it preserves our juvenile +character and habits through life, and gives us a green old age. + +Finally and lastly, it gives us an independence of external things and +circumstances, that can never be attained without it. In vain may we +resort to early discipline and correct education--in vain to moral and +religious training--in vain, I had almost said, to the promises and +threatenings of heaven itself, so long as we continue the use of food so +unnatural to man as the flesh of animals, with the condiments and +sauces, and improper drinks which follow in its train. Our hope, under +God, is, in no small degree, on a radical change in man's dietetic +habits--in a return to that simple path of truth and nature, from which, +in most civilized countries, those who have the pecuniary means of doing +it have unwisely departed. + + +III. THE MEDICAL ARGUMENT. + +If perfect health is the best preventive and security against disease, +and if a well-selected and properly administered vegetable diet is best +calculated to promote and preserve that perfect health, then this part +of the subject--what I have ventured to call the medical argument--is at +once disposed of. The superiority of the diet I recommend is established +beyond the possibility of debate. Now that this is the case--namely, +that this diet is best calculated to promote perfect health--I have no +doubt. For the sake of others, however, it may be well to adduce a few +facts, and present a few brief considerations. + +It is now pretty generally known, that Howard, the philanthropist, was, +for about forty years a vegetable-eater, subsisting for much of this +time on bread and tea, and that he went through every form of exposure +to disease, contagious and non-contagious, perfectly unharmed. And had +it not been for other physical errors than those which pertain to diet, +I know of no reason why his life might not have been preserved many +years longer--perhaps to this time. + +Rev. Josiah Brewer, late a missionary in Smyrna, was very much exposed +to disease, and, like Mr. Howard, to the plague itself; and yet I am not +aware that he ever had a single sick day as the consequence of his +exposure. I do not know with certainty that he abstains entirely from +flesh meat, but he is said to be rigidly temperate in other respects. + +Those who have read Rush's Inquiries and other writings, are aware that +he was very much exposed to the yellow fever in Philadelphia, during the +years in which it prevailed there. Now, there is great reason for +believing that he owed his exemption from the disease, in part, at +least, to his great temperance. + +Mr. James, a teacher in Liberia, in Africa, had abstained for a few +years from animal food, prior to his going out to Africa. Immediately +after his arrival there, and during the sickly season, one of his +companions who went out with him, died of the fever. Mr. James was +attacked slightly, but recovered. + +Another vegetable-eater--the Rev. Mr. Crocker--went out to a sickly part +of Africa some years since, and remained at his station a long time in +perfect health, while many of his friends sickened or died. At length, +however, he fell. + +Gen. Thomas Sheldon, of this state, a vegetable-eater, spent several +years in the most sickly parts of the Southern United States, with an +entire immunity from disease; and he gives it as his opinion that it is +no matter where we are, so that our dietetic and other habits are +correct. + +Mr. G. McElroy, of Kentucky, spent several months of the most sickly +season in the most unhealthy parts of Africa, in the year 1835, and yet +enjoyed the best of health the whole time. While there and on his +passage home, he abstained wholly from animal food, living on rice and +other farinaceous vegetables and fruits. + +In view of these facts and many others, Mr. Graham remarks: "Under a +proper regimen our enterprising young men of New England may go to New +Orleans or Liberia, or any where else they choose, and stay as long as +they choose, and yet enjoy good health." And there is no doubt he is +right. + +But it is hardly worth while to cite single facts in proof of a point of +this kind. There is abundant testimony to be had, going to show that a +vegetable diet is a security against disease, especially against +epidemics, whether in the form of a mere influenza or malignant fever. +Nay, there is reason to believe that a person living according to _all_ +the Creator's laws, physical and moral, could hardly receive or +communicate disease of any kind. How could a person in perfect health, +and obeying to an iota all the laws of health--how could he contract +disease? What would there be in his system which could furnish a nidus +for its reception? + +I am well aware that not a few people suppose the most healthy are as +much exposed to disease as others, and that there are some who even +suppose they are much more so. "Death delights in a shining mark," or +something to this effect, is a maxim which has probably had its origin +in the error to which I have adverted. To the same source may be traced +the strange opinion that a fatal or malignant disease makes its first +and most desperate attacks upon the healthy and the robust. The fact +is--and this explains the whole riddle--those who are regarded, by the +superficial and short-sighted in this matter, as the most healthy and +robust, are usually persons whose unhealthy habits have already sown the +seeds of disease; and nothing is wanting but the usual circumstances of +epidemics to rouse them into action. More than all this, these +strong-looking but inwardly-diseased persons are almost sure to die +whenever disease does attack them, simply on account of the previous +abuses of their constitutions. + +During the prevalence of the cholera in New York, about the year 1832, +all the Grahamites, as they were called, who had for some time abstained +from animal food--and their number was quite respectable--and who +persevered in it, either wholly escaped the disease, or had it very +lightly; and this, too, notwithstanding a large proportion of them were +very much exposed to its attacks, living in the parts of the city where +it most prevailed, or in families where others were dying almost daily. +This could not be the result of mere accident; it is morally impossible. + +But flesh-eaters--admitting the flesh were wholesome--are not only much +more liable to contract disease, but if they contract it, to suffer more +severely than others. There is yet another important consideration which +belongs to the medical argument. Animal food is much more liable than +vegetable food, to those changes or conditions which we call poisonous, +and which are always, in a greater or less degree, the sources of +disease; it is also more liable to poisonous mixtures or adulterations. + +It is true, that in the present state of the arts, and of agriculture +and civic life generally, vegetables themselves are sometimes the +sources of disease. I refer not to the spurred rye and other substances, +which occasionally find their way into our fields and get mixed with our +grains, etc., and which are known to be very active poisons,--so much as +to the acrid or otherwise improper juices which are formed by forced +vegetation, especially about cities, whether by means of hot-beds, +green-houses, or new, strong, or highly-concentrated manures. I refer +also to the crude, unripe, and imperfect fruits and other things with +which our markets are filed now-a-days; and especially to _decaying_ +fruits and vegetables. But I cannot enlarge; a volume would be too +little to do this part of the subject justice. Nothing is more wanted +than light on this subject, and a consequent reform in our fashionable +agriculture and horticulture. + +And yet, although I admit, most cheerfully, the danger we are in of +contracting disease by using diseased vegetables, the danger is neither +so frequent nor so imminent, in proportion to the quantity of it +consumed, as from animal food. Let us briefly take a view of the facts. + +Milk, in its nature, approaches nearest to the line of the vegetable +kingdom, and is therefore, in my view, the least objectionable form of +animal food. I am even ready to admit that for persons affected with +certain forms of chronic disease, and for all children, milk is +excellent. And yet, excellent as it is, it is very liable to be +injurious. We are told, by the most respectable medical men of France, +that all the cows about Paris have tubercles (the seeds or beginning of +consumption) in their lungs which is probably owing to the unnatural +state in which they are kept, as regards the kind, and quantity, and +hours of receiving their food; and especially as regards air, exercise, +and water. Cows cannot be healthy, nor any other domestic animals, any +more than men, when long subjected to the unnatural and unhealthy +influences of bad air, want of exercise, etc. Hence, then, most of our +cows about our towns and cities must be diseased, in a greater or less +degree--if not with consumption, with something else. And of course +their milk must be diseased--not, perhaps, as much as their blood and +flesh, but more or less so. But if milk is diseased, the butter and +cheese made from it must be diseased also. + +But milk is sometimes diseased through the vegetables which are eaten by +the cow. Every one knows how readily the sensible properties of certain +acrid plants are perceived in the milk. Hence as I have elsewhere +intimated, we are doubly exposed to danger from eating animal food; +first, from the diseases of the animal itself, and secondly, from the +diseases which are liable to be induced upon us by the vegetables they +use, some of which are not poisonous to them, but are so to us. So that, +in avoiding animal food, we escape at least a part of the danger. + +Besides the general fact, that almost all medical and dietetic writers +object to fat, and to butter among the rest, as difficult of digestion +and tending to cutaneous and other diseases,--and besides the general +admission in society at large that it makes the skin "break out,"--it +must be obvious that it is liable to retain, in a greater or less +degree, all the poisonous properties which existed in the milk from +which it was made. Next to fat pork, butter seems to me one of the worst +things that ever entered a human stomach; and if it will not, like pork, +quite cause the leprosy, it will cause almost every other skin disease +which is known. + +Cheese is often poisoned now-a-days by design. I do not mean to say that +the act of poisoning is accompanied by malice toward mankind; far from +it. It is added to color it, as in the form of anatto; or to give it +freshness and tenderness, as in the case of arsenic.[21] + +Eggs, when not fresh, are more or less liable to disease. I might even +say more. When not fresh, they _are_ diseased. On this point we have the +testimony of Drs. Willich and Dunglison. The truth is, that the yolk of +the egg has a strong tendency to decomposition, and this decomposing or +putrefying process _begins_ long before it is perceived, or even +suspected, by most people. There is much reason for believing that a +large proportion of the eggs eaten in civic life,--except when we keep +the poultry ourselves,--are, when used, more or less in a state of +decomposition. And yet, into how many hundred forms of food do they +enter in fashionable life, or in truth, in almost every condition of +society! The French cooks are said to have six hundred and eighty-five +methods of cooking the egg, including all the various sorts of pastry, +etc., of which it forms a component part. + +One of the grand objections against animal food, of almost all sorts, +is, that it tends with such comparative rapidity to decomposition. Such +is at least the case with eggs, flesh, and fish of every kind. The usual +way of preventing the decomposition is by processes scarcely less +hurtful--by the addition of salt, pyroligneous acid, saltpetre, lime, +etc. These, to be sure, prevent putrefaction; but they render every +thing to which they are applied, unless it is the egg, the more +indigestible. + +It is a strange taste in mankind, by the way, which leads them to prefer +things in a state of incipient decomposition. And yet such a taste +certainly prevails widely. Many like the flesh beaten; hence the origin +of the cruel practice of the East of whipping animals to death.[22] And +most persons like fresh meat kept till it begins to be _tender_; that +is, begins to putrefy. So most persons like fermented beer better than +that which is unfermented, although fermentation is a step toward +putrefaction; and they like vinegar, too, which is also far advanced in +the same road. + +That diseased food causes diseases in the persons who use it, needs not, +one would think, a single testimony; and yet, I will name a few. + +Dr. Paris, speaking of fish, says,--"It is not improbable that certain +cutaneous diseases may be produced, or at least aggravated by such +diet." Dr. Dunglison says, bacon and cured meats are often poisonous. He +speaks of the poisonous tendency of eggs, and says that all _made_ +dishes are more or less "rebellious." In Aurillac, in France, not many +years since, fifteen or sixteen persons were attacked with symptoms of +cholera after eating the milk of a certain goat. The goat died with +cholera about twenty-four hours after, and two men, no less eminent +than Professors Orfila and Marc, gave it as their undoubted opinion that +the cholera symptoms alluded to, were caused by the milk. I have myself +known oysters at certain times and seasons to produce the same symptoms. +During the progress of a mortal disease among the poultry on Edisto +Island, S. C., in 1837, all the dogs and vultures that tasted of the +flesh of the dead poultry sickened and died. Chrisiston mentions an +instance in which five persons were poisoned by eating beef; and +Dunglison one in which fourteen persons were made sick, and some died, +from eating the meat of a calf. Between the years 1793 and 1827, it is +on record that there were in the kingdom of Wurtemberg alone, no less +than two hundred and thirty-four cases of poisoning, and one hundred and +ten deaths, from eating sausages. But I need not multiply this sort of +evidence, the world abounds with it; though for one person who is +poisoned so much as to be made sick immediately, hundreds perhaps are +only slightly affected; and the punishment may seem to be deferred for +many years. + +The truth, in short, is, that every fashionable process of fattening and +even of domesticating animals, induces disease; and as most of the +animals we use for food are domesticated or fattened, or both, it +follows that most of our animal food, whether milk, butter, cheese, +eggs, or flesh, is diseased food, and must inevitably, sooner or later, +induce disease in those who receive it. Those which are most fattened +are the worst, of course; as the hog, the goose, the sheep, and the ox. +The more the animal is removed from a natural state, in fattening, the +more does the fat accumulate, and the more it is diseased. Hence the +complaints against every form of animal oil or fat, in every age, by +men who, notwithstanding their complaints, for the most part, continue +to set mankind an example of its use. + +Let me here introduce a single paragraph from Dr. Cheyne, which is very +much to my present purpose. + +"About London, we can scarce have any but crammed poultry or stall-fed +butchers' meat. It were sufficient to disgust the stoutest stomach to +see the foul, gross, and nasty manner in which, and the fetid, putrid, +and unwholesome materials _with_ which they are fed. Perpetual foulness +and cramming, gross food and nastiness, we know, will putrefy the +juices, and corrupt the muscular substance of human creatures--and sure +they can do no less in brute animals--and thus make our food poison. The +same may be said of hot-beds, and forcing plants and vegetables. The +only way of having sound and healthful animals, is to leave them to +their own natural liberty in the free air, and their own proper element, +with plenty of food and due cleanliness; and a shelter from the injuries +of the weather, whenever they have a mind to retire to it." + +The argument then is, that, for healthy adults at least, a well-selected +vegetable diet, other things being equal, is a preventive of disease, +and a security against its violence, should it attack us, in a far +greater degree than a diet which includes animal food in any of its +numerous forms. It will either prevent the common diseases of childhood, +including those which are deemed contagious, or render their attacks +extremely mild: it will either prevent or mitigate the symptoms of the +severe diseases of adults, not excepting malignant fevers, small-pox, +plague, etc.; and it will either prevent such diseases as cancer, gout, +epilepsy, scrofula, and consumption, or prolong life under them. + +Who that has ever thought of the condition of our domestic animals, +especially about towns and cities--their want of good air, abundant +exercise, good water, and natural food, to say nothing of the butter-cup +and the other poisonous products of over-stimulating or fresh manures +which they sometimes eat--has not been astonished to find so little +disease among us as there actually is? Animal food, in its best state, +is a great deal more stimulating and heating to the system than +vegetable food;--but how much more injurious is it made, in the +circumstances in which most animals are placed? Do we believe that even +a New Zealand cannibal would willingly eat flesh, if he knew it was from +an animal that when killed was laboring under a load of liver complaint, +gout, consumption, or fever? And yet, such is the condition of most of +the animals we slay for food. They would often die of their diseases if +we did not put the knife to their throats to prevent it. + +One more consideration. If the exclusive use of vegetable food will +prevent a multitude of the worst and most incurable diseases to which +human nature, in other circumstances, seems liable; if it will modify +the diseases which a mixed diet, or absolute intemperance, or gluttony +had induced,--by what rule can we limit its influence? How know we that +what is so efficacious in regard to the larger diseases, will not be +equally so in the case of all smaller ones? And why, then, may not its +universal adoption, after a few generations, banish disease entirely +from the world? Every person of common observation, knows that, as a +general rule, they who approach the nearest to a pure vegetable and +water diet, are most exempt from disease, and the longest-lived and most +happy. How, then, can it otherwise happen than that a still closer +approximation will afford a greater exemption still, and so on +indefinitely? At what point of an approach toward such diet and regimen, +and toward perfect health at the same time, is it that we stop, and more +temperance still will injure us? In short, where do we cross the line? + + +IV. THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT. + +I have dwelt at such length on the physiological and medical arguments +in defence of the vegetable system, that I must compress my remaining +views into the smallest space possible; especially those which relate to +its political, national, or general advantages. + +Political economists tell us that the produce of an acre of land in +wheat, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and in fruits, will sustain +animal life sixteen times as long as when the produce of the same acre +is converted into flesh, by feeding and fattening animals upon it. + +But, if we admit that this estimate is too high, and if the real +difference is only eight to one, instead of sixteen to one, the results +may perhaps surprise us; and if we have not done it before, may lead us +to reflection. Let us see what some of them are. + +The people of the United States are believed to eat, upon the average, +an amount of animal food equal at least to one whole meal once a day, +and those of Great Britain one in two days. But taking this estimate to +be correct, Great Britain, by substituting vegetable for animal food, +might sustain forty-nine instead of twenty-one millions of inhabitants, +and the United States sixty-six millions instead of twenty; and this, +too, in their present comfort, and without clearing up any more new +land. Here, then, we are consuming that unnecessarily--if animal food is +unnecessary--which would sustain seventy-nine millions of human beings +in life, health, and happiness. + +Now, if life is a blessing at all--if it is a blessing to twenty-two +millions in Great Britain, and twenty millions in the United +States--then to add to this population an increase of seventy-nine +millions, would be to increase, in the same proportion, the aggregate of +human happiness. And if, in addition to this, we admit the very +generally received principle, that there is a tendency, from the nature +of things, in the population of any country, to keep up with the means +of support, we, of Great Britain and America, keep down, at the present +moment, by flesh-eating, sixty-three millions of inhabitants. + +We do not destroy them, in the full sense of the term, it is true, for +they never had an existence. But we prevent their coming into the +possession of a joyous and happy existence; and though we have no name +for it, is it not a crime? What! no crime for thirty-five millions of +people to prevent and preclude the existence of sixty-three millions? + +I see no way of avoiding the force of this argument, except by denying +the premises on which I have founded my conclusions. But they are far +more easily denied than disproved. The probability, after all, is, that +my estimates are too low, and that the advantages of an exclusively +vegetable diet, in a national or political point of view, are even +greater than is here represented. I do not deny, that some deduction +ought to be made on account of the consumption of fish, which does not +prevent the growth or use of vegetable products; but my belief is, that, +including them, the animal food we use amounts to a great deal more than +one meal a day, or one third of our whole living. + +Suppose there was no _crime_ in shutting human beings out of existence +by flesh-eating, at the amazing rate I have mentioned--still, is it not, +I repeat it, a great national or political loss? Or, will it be said, in +its defence, as has been said in defence of war, if not of intemperance +and some of the forms of licentiousness, that as the world is, it is a +blessing to keep down its population, otherwise it would soon be +overstocked? The argument would be as good in one case as in the other; +that is, it is not valid in either. The world might be made to sustain, +in comfort, even in the present comparatively infant state of the arts +and sciences, at least forty or fifty times its present number of +inhabitants. It will be time enough a thousand or two thousand years to +come, to begin to talk about the danger of the world's being +over-peopled; and, above all, to talk about justifying what we know is, +in the abstract, very wrong, to prevent a distant imagined evil; one, in +fact, which may not, and probably will not ever exist. + + +V. THE ECONOMICAL ARGUMENT. + +The economy of the vegetable system is so intimately connected with its +political or national advantages; that is, so depends on, or grows out +of them, that I hesitated for some time before I decided to consider it +separately. Whatever is shown clearly to be for the general good policy +and well-being of society, cannot be prejudicial to the best interests +of the individuals who compose that society. Still, there are some minor +considerations that I wish to present under this head, that could not +so well have been introduced any where else. + +There is, indeed, one reason for omitting wholly the consideration of +the pecuniary advantages of the system which I am attempting to defend. +The public, to some extent, at once consider him who adverts to this +topic, as parsimonious or mean. But, conscious as I am of higher objects +in consulting economy than the saving of money, that it may be expended +on things of no more value than the mere indulgence or gratification of +the appetites or the passions, in a world where there are minds to +educate and souls to save, I have ventured to treat on the subject. + +It must be obvious, at a single glance, that if the vegetable products +of an acre of land--such as wheat, rye, corn, barley, potatoes, beans, +peas, turnips, beets, apples, strawberries, etc.--will sustain a family +in equal health eight times as long as the pork, or beef, or mutton, +which the same vegetables would make by feeding them to domestic +animals, it must be just as mistaken a policy for the individual to make +the latter disposition of these products as for a nation to do so. +Nations are made of individuals; and, as I have already said, whatever +is best, in the end, for the one, must also be the best, as a general +rule, for the other. + +But who has not been familiar from his very infancy with the maxim, that +"a good garden will half support a family?" And who that is at all +informed in regard to the manners and customs of the old world, does not +know that the maxim has been verified there, time immemorial? But again: +who has not considered, that if a garden of a given size will half +support a family, one twice as large would support it wholly? + +The truth is, it needs but a very small spot indeed, of good soil, for +raising all the necessaries of a family. I think I have shown, in +another work,[23] that five hundred and fifty pounds of Indian or corn +meal, or ten bushels of the corn, properly cooked, will support, or more +than support, an adult individual a year. Four times this amount is a +very large allowance for a family of five persons; nay, even three times +is sufficient. But how small a spot of good soil is required for raising +thirty bushels of corn! + +It is true, no family would wish to be confined a whole year to this one +kind of food; nor do I wish to have it so; not that I think any serious +mischiefs would arise as the consequence; but I should prefer, for my +own part, a greater variety. But this does not materially alter the +case. Suppose an acre and a half of land were required for the +production of thirty bushels of corn. Let the cultivator, if he chooses, +raise only fifteen bushels of corn, and sow the remainder with barley, +or rye, or wheat. Or, if he prefer it, let him plant the one half of the +piece with beans, peas, potatoes, beets, onions, etc. The one half of +the space devoted to the production of some sort of grain would still +half support his family; and it would require more than ordinary +gluttony in a family of five persons to consume the produce of the other +half, if the crops were but moderately abundant. A quarter of an acre of +it ought to produce, at least, sixty bushels of potatoes; but this +alone, would give such a family about ten pounds of potatoes, or one +sixth of a bushel a day, for every day in the year, which is a tolerable +allowance of food, without the grain and other vegetables. + +But suppose a whole family were to live wholly on grain, as corn, or +even wheat, for the year; the whole expenditure would hardly, exceed +fifty dollars, in dear places and in the dearest times. Of course, I am +speaking now of expenses for food and drink merely, the latter of which +usually costs nothing, or need not. How small a sum is this to expend in +New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, in the maintenance of a family! +And yet, it is amply sufficient for the vegetable-eater, unless his +family live exclusively on wheat bread, or milk, when it might fall a +little short. Of corn, at a dollar a bushel, it would give him eight +pounds a day--far more than a family ought to consume, if they ate +nothing else; and of potatoes, at forty cents a bushel, above twenty +pounds, or one third of a bushel--more than sufficient for the family of +an Hibernian. + +Now, let me ask how much beef, or lamb, or pork, or sausages, or eggs, +or cheese, this would buy? At ten cents a pound for each, which is +comparatively low, it would buy five hundred pounds; about one pound and +six ounces for the whole family, or four or five ounces each a day. This +would be an average amount of nutriment equal to that of about two +ounces of grain, or bread of grain, a day, to each individual. In so far +as laid out in butter, or chicken, or turkey, at twenty cents a pound, +it would give also about two or three ounces a day! + +Further remarks under this head can hardly be necessary. He who +considers the subject in its various aspects, will be likely to see the +weight of the argument. There is a wide difference between a system +which will give to each member of a family, upon the average, only about +four or five ounces of food a day, and one which will give each of them +more than twenty-five ounces a day, each ounce of the latter containing +twice the nutriment of the former, and being much more savory and +healthy at the same time. There is a wide difference, in matters of +economy, at least, between ONE and TEN. + +I will only add, under this head, a few tables. The first is to show the +comparative amount of nutritious matter contained in some of the leading +articles of human food, both animal and vegetable. It is derived from +the researches of such men as MM. Percy and Vauquelin, of France, and +Sir Humphrey Davy, of England. + + 100 pounds of Wheat contain 85 pounds of nutritious matter. + " " Rice " 90 " " " + " " Rye " 80 " " " + " " Barley " 83 " " " + " " Peas " 93 " " " + " " Lentils " 94 " " " + " " Beans 89 to 92 " " " + " " Bread (average) 80 " " " + " " Meat (average) 35 " " " + " " Potatoes contain 25 " " " + " " Beets " 14 " " " + " " Carrots 10 to 14 " " " + " " Cabbage " 7 " " " + " " Greens, turnips 4 to 8 " " + +Of course, it does not follow that every individual will be able to +extract just this amount of nutriment from each article; for, in this +respect, as well as in others, much will depend on circumstances. + +The second table is from Mr. James Simpson, of Manchester, England, in a +small work entitled, "The Products of the Vegetable Kingdom versus +Animal Food," recently published in London. Its facts are derived from +Dr. Playfair, Boussingault, and other high authorities. It will be seen +to refute, entirely, the popular notions concerning the Liebig theory. +The truth is, Liebig's views are misunderstood. His views are not so +much opposed to mine as many suppose. Besides, neither he nor I are +infallible. + + Flesh Heat Ashes + forming forming for + Solid matter. Water. principle. principle. the bones. + Potatoes, 28 per ct. 72 per ct. 2 per ct. 25 per ct. 1 per ct. + Turnips, 11 " 89 " 1 " 9 " 1 " + Barley Meal, 84-1/2 " 15-1/2 " 14 " 68-1/2 " 2 " + Beans, 86 " 14 " 31 " 51-1/2 " 3 " + Oats, 82 " 18 " 11 " 68 " 3 " + Wheat, 85-1/2 " 14-1/2 " 21 " 62 " 2-1/2 " + Peas, 84 " 16 " 29 " 51-1/2 " 3-1/2 " + Carrots, 13 " 87 " 2 " 10 " 1 " + Veal, 25 " 75 " { + Beef, 25 " 75 " { 25 + Mutton, 25 " 75 " { + Lamb, 25 " 75 " { + Blood, 20 " 80 " 20 + + +VI. THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPERIENCE. + +A person trained in the United States or in England--but especially one +who was trained in New England--might very naturally suppose that all +the world were flesh-eaters; and that the person who abstains from an +article which is at almost every one's table, was quite singular. He +would, perhaps, suppose there must be something peculiar in his +structure, to enable him to live without either flesh or fish; +particularly, if he were a laborer. Little would he dream--little does a +person who has not had much opportunity for reading, and who has not +been taught to reflect, and who has never traveled a day's journey from +the place which gave him birth, even so much as dream--that almost all +the world, or at least almost all the hard-laboring part of it, are +vegetable-eaters, and always have been; and that it is only in a few +comparatively small portions of the civilized and half-civilized world, +that the bone and sinew of our race ever eat flesh or fish for any thing +more than as a condiment or seasoning to the rest of their food, or even +taste it at all. And yet such is the fact. + +It is true, that in a vast majority of cases, as I have already +intimated, laborers are vegetable-eaters from necessity: they cannot get +flesh. Almost all mankind, as they are usually trained, are fond of +extra stimulants, if they can get them; and whether they are called +savages or civilized men, will indulge in them more or less, if they are +to be had, unless their intellectual and moral natures have been so well +developed and cultivated, as to have acquired the ascendency. Spirits, +wine, cider, beer, coffee, tea, condiments, tobacco, opium, snuff, flesh +meat, and a thousand other things, which excite, for a time, more +pleasurable sensations than water and plain vegetables and fruits, will +be sought with more or less eagerness according to the education which +has been received, and according to our power of self-government. + +I have said that most persons are vegetable-eaters from necessity, not +from choice. There are some tribes in the equatorial regions who seem to +be exceptions to this rule; and yet I am not quite satisfied they are +so. Some children, among us, who are trained to a very simple diet, will +seem to shrink from tea or coffee, or alcohol, or camphor, and even from +any thing which is much heated, when first presented to them. But, train +the same children to the ordinary, complex, high-seasoned diet of this +country, and it will not take long to find out that they are ready to +acquire the habit of relishing the excitement of almost all sorts of +_unnaturals_ which can be presented to them. And if there are tribes of +men who at first refuse flesh meat, I apprehend they do so for the same +reasons which lead a child among us, who is trained simply to refuse hot +food and drink, or at least, hot tea and coffee, when the latter are +first presented to him. + +Gutzlaff, the Chinese traveler and missionary, has found that the +Chinese of the interior, who have scarcely ever tasted flesh or fish, +soon acquire a wonderful relish for it, just as our children do for +spirituous or exciting drinks and drugs, and as savages do for tobacco +and spirits. But he has also made another discovery, which is, that +flesh-eating almost ruins them for labor. Instead of being strong, +robust, and active, they soon become lazy, self-indulgent, and +effeminate. This is a specimen--perhaps a tolerably fair one--of the +natural tendency of such food in all ages and countries. Man every where +does best, nationally and individually, other things being equal, on a +well-chosen diet of vegetables, fruits, and water. In proportion as +individuals or families, or tribes or nations, depart from this--other +things being equal--in the same proportion do they degenerate +physically, intellectually, and morally. + +Such a statement may startle some of my New England readers, perhaps, +who have never had opportunity to become acquainted with facts as they +are. But can it be successfully controverted? Is it not true, that, with +a few exceptions--and those more apparent than real--nations have +flourished, and continued to flourish, in proportion as they have +retained the more natural dietetic habits to which I have alluded; and +that they have been unhappy or short-lived, as nations, in proportion as +exciting food and drink have been used? Is it not true, that those +individuals, families, tribes, and nations, which have used what I call +excitements, liquid or solid, have been subjected by them to the same +effects which follow the use of spirits--first, invigoration, and +subsequently decline, and ultimately a loss of strength? Why is it that +the more wealthy, all over Europe, who get flesh more or less, +deteriorate in their families so rapidly? Why is it that every thing is, +in this respect, so stationary among the middle classes and the poor? + +In short--for the case appears to me a plain one--it is the simple +habits of some, whether we speak of nations, families, or individuals, +which have preserved the world from going to utter decay. In ancient +times, the Egyptians, the most enlightened and one of the most enduring +of nations, were what might properly be called a vegetable-eating +nation; so were the ancient Persians, in the days of their greatest +glory; so the Essenes, among the Jews; so the Romans, as I have said +elsewhere, and the Greeks. If either Moses or Herodotus is to be +credited, men lived, in ancient times, about a thousand years. Indeed, +empire seems to have departed from among the ancient nations precisely +when simplicity departed. So it is with nations still. A flesh-eating +nation may retain the supremacy of the world a short time, as several +European and American nations have done; just as the laborer, whose +brain and nerves are stimulated by ardent spirits, may for a time +retain--through the medium of an artificial strength--the ascendency +among his fellow-laborers; but the triumph of both the nation and the +individual must be short, and the debility which follows proportionable. +And if the United States, as a nation, seem to form an exception to the +truth of this remark, it is only because the stage of debility has not +yet arrived. Let us be patient, however, for it is not far off. + +But to come to the specification of facts. The Japanese of the interior, +according to some of the British geographers, live principally on rice +and fruits--a single handful of rice often forming the basis of their +frugal meal. Flesh, it is said, they either cannot get, or do not like; +and to milk, even, they have the same sort of aversion which most of us +have to blood. It is only a few of them, comparatively, and those +principally who live about the coasts, who ever use either flesh or +fish. And yet we have the concurring testimony of all geographers and +travelers, that in their physical and intellectual development, at +least, to say nothing of their moral peculiarities, they are the finest +men in all Asia. In what other country of Asia are schools and early +education in such high reputation as in Japan? Where are the inhabitants +so well formed, so stout made, and so robust? Compare them with the +natives of New Holland, in the same, or nearly the same longitude, and +about as far south of the equator as the Japanese are north of it, and +what a contrast! The New Hollanders, though eating flesh liberally, are +not only mere savages, but they are among the most meagre and wretched +of the human race. On the contrary, the Japanese, in mind and body, are +scarcely behind the middle nations of Europe. + +Nearly the same remarks will apply to China, and with little +modification, to Hindostan. In short, the hundreds of millions of +southern Asia are, for the most part, vegetable-eaters; and a large +proportion of them live chiefly, if not wholly on rice, though by no +means the most favorable vegetable for exclusive use. What countries +like these have maintained their ancient, moral, intellectual, and +political landmarks? Grant that they have made but little improvement +from century to century; it is something not to have deteriorated. Let +us proceed with our general view of the world, ancient and modern. + +The Jews of Palestine, two thousand years ago, lived chiefly on +vegetable food. Flesh, of certain kinds, was indeed admissible, by their +law; but, except at their feasts and on special occasions, they ate +chiefly bread, milk, honey, and fruits. + +Lawrence says that "the Greeks and Romans, in the periods of their +greatest simplicity, manliness, and bravery, appear to have lived almost +entirely on plain vegetable preparations." + +The Irish of modern days, as well as the Scotch, are confined almost +wholly to vegetable food. So are the Italians, the Germans, and many +other nations of modern Europe. Yet, where shall we look for finer +specimens of bodily health, strength, and vigor, than in these very +countries? The females, especially, where shall we look for their +equals? The men, even--the Scotch and Irish, for example--are they +weaker than their brethren, the English, who use more animal food? + +It will be said, perhaps, the vegetable-eating Europeans are not always +distinguished for vigorous minds. True; but this, it may be maintained, +arises from their degraded physical condition, generally; and that +neglect of mental and moral cultivation which accompanies it. A few, +even here, like comets in the material system, have occasionally broken +out, and emitted no faint light in the sphere in which they were +destined to move. + +But we are not confined to Europe. The South Sea Islanders, in many +instances, feed almost wholly on vegetable substances; yet their agility +and strength are so great, that it is said "the stoutest and most expert +English sailors, had no chance with them in wrestling and boxing." + +We come, lastly, to Africa, the greater part of whose millions feed on +rice, dates, etc.; yet their bodily powers are well known. + +In short, more than half of the 800,000,000 of human beings which +inhabit our globe live on vegetables; or, if they get meat at all, it is +so rarely that it can hardly have any effect on their structure or +character. Out of Europe and the United States--I might even say, out of +the latter--the use of animal food is either confined to a few meagre, +weak, timid nations, like the Esquimaux, the Greenlanders, the +Laplanders, the Samoiedes, the Kamtschadales, the Ostiacs, and the +natives of Siberia and Terra del Fuego; or those wealthier classes, or +individuals of every country, who are able to range lawlessly over the +Creator's domains, and select, for their tables, whatever fancy or +fashion, or a capricious appetite may dictate, or physical power afford +them. + + +VII. THE MORAL ARGUMENT. + +In one point of view, nearly every argument which can be brought to show +the superiority of a vegetable diet over one that includes flesh or +fish, is a moral argument. + +Thus, if man is so constituted by his structure, and by the laws of his +animal economy, that all the functions of the body, and of course all +the faculties of the mind, and the affections of the soul, are in better +condition--better subserve our own purposes, and the purposes of the +great Creator--as well as hold out longer, on the vegetable system--then +is it desirable, in a moral point of view, to adopt it. If mankind lose, +upon the average, about two years of their lives by sickness, as some +have estimated it,[24] saying nothing of the pain and suffering +undergone, or of the mental anguish and soul torment which grow out of +it, and often render life a burden; and if the simple primitive custom +of living on vegetables and fruits, along with other good physical and +mental habits, which seem naturally connected with it, will, in time, +nearly if not wholly remove or prevent this amazing loss, then is the +argument deduced therefrom, in another part of this chapter, a moral +argument. + +If, as I have endeavored to show, the adoption of the vegetable system +by nations and individuals, would greatly advance the happiness of all, +in every known respect, and if, on this account, such a change in our +flesh-eating countries would be sound policy, and good economy,--then we +have another moral argument in its favor. + +But, again; if it be true that all nations have been the most virtuous +and flourishing, other things being equal, in the days of their +simplicity in regard to food, drink, etc.; and if we can, in every +instance, connect the decline of a nation with the period of their +departure, as a nation, into the maze of luxurious and enervating +habits; and if this doctrine is, as a general rule, obviously applicable +to smaller classes of men, down to single families, then is the argument +we derive from it in its nature a moral one. Whatever really tends, +without the possibility of mistake, to the promotion of human happiness, +here and hereafter, is, without doubt, moral. + +But this, though much, is not all. The destruction of animals for food, +in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause +every reflecting individual--not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities +of our nature--to shudder. I recall: daily observation shows that such +is not the fact; nor should it, upon second thought, be expected. Where +all are dark, the color is not perceived; and so universally are the +moral sensibilities which really belong to human nature deadened by the +customs which prevail among us, that few, if any, know how to estimate, +rightly, the evil of which I speak. They have no more a correct idea of +a true sensibility--not a _morbid_ one--on this subject, than a blind +man has of colors; and for nearly the same reasons. And on this account +it is, that I seem to shrink from presenting, at this time, those +considerations which, I know, cannot, from the very nature of the case, +be properly understood or appreciated, except by a very few. + +Still there are some things which, I trust, may be made plain. It must +be obvious that the custom of rendering children familiar with the +taking away of life, even when it is done with a good degree of +tenderness, cannot have a very happy effect. But, when this is done, not +only without tenderness or sympathy, but often with manifestations of +great pleasure, and when children, as in some cases, are almost +constant witnesses of such scenes, how dreadful must be the results! + +In this view, the world, I mean our own portion of it, sometimes seems +to me like one mighty slaughter-house--one grand school for the +suppression of every kind, and tender, and brotherly feeling--one grand +process of education to the entire destitution of all moral +principle--one vast scene of destruction to all moral sensibility, and +all sympathy with the woes of those around us. Is it not so? + +I have seen many boys who shuddered, at first, at the thought of taking +the life, even of a snake, until compelled to it by what they conceived +to be duty; and who shuddered still more at taking the life of a lamb, a +calf, a pig, or a fowl. And yet I have seen these same boys, in +subsequent life, become so changed, that they could look on such scenes +not merely with indifference, but with gratification. Is this change of +feeling desirable? How long is it after we begin to look with +indifference on pain and suffering in brutes, before we begin to be less +affected than before by human suffering? + +I am not ignorant that sentiments like these are either regarded as +morbid, and therefore pitiable, or as affected, and therefore +ridiculous. Who that has read the story of Anthony Benezet, as related +by Dr. Rush, has not smiled at what he must have regarded a feeling +wholly misplaced, if nothing more? And yet it was a feeling which I +think is very far from deserving ridicule, however homely the manner of +expressing it. But I have related this interesting story in another part +of the work. + +I am not prepared to maintain, strongly, the old-fashioned doctrine, +that a butcher who commences his employment at adult age, is necessarily +rendered hardhearted or unfeeling; or, that they who eat flesh have +their sensibilities deadened, and their passions inflamed by it--though +I am not sure that there is not some truth in it. I only maintain, that +to render children familiar with the taking away of animal +life,--especially the lives of our own domestic animals, often endeared +to us by many interesting circumstances of their history, or of our own, +in relation to them,--cannot be otherwise than unhappy in its tendency. + +How shocking it must be to the inhabitants of Jupiter, or some other +planet, who had never before witnessed these sad effects of the ingress +of sin among us, to see the carcasses of animals, either whole or by +piece-meal, hoisted upon our very tables before the faces of children of +all ages, from the infant at the breast, to the child of ten or twelve, +or fourteen, and carved, and swallowed; and this not merely once, but +from day to day, through life! What could they--what would they--expect +from such an education of the young mind and heart? What, indeed, but +mourning, desolation, and woe! + +On this subject the First Annual Report of the American Physiological +Society thus remarks--and I wish the remark might have its due weight on +the mind of the reader: + +"How can it be right to be instrumental in so much unnecessary +slaughter? How can it be right, especially for a country of vegetable +abundance like ours, to give daily employment to twenty thousand or +thirty thousand butchers? How can it be right to train our children to +behold such slaughter? How can it be right to blunt the edge of their +moral sensibilities, by placing before them, at almost every meal, the +mangled corpses of the slain; and not only placing them there, but +rejoicing while we feast upon them?" + +One striking evidence of the tendency which an habitual shedding of +blood has on the mind and heart, is found in the fact that females are +generally so reluctant to take away life, that notwithstanding they are +trained to a fondness for all sorts of animal food, very few are willing +to gratify their desires for a stimulating diet, by becoming their own +butchers. I have indeed seen females who would kill a fowl or a lamb +rather than go without it; but they are exceedingly rare. And who would +not regard female character as tarnished by a familiarity with such +scenes as those to which I have referred? But if the keen edge of female +delicacy and sensibility would be blunted by scenes of bloodshed, are +not the moral sensibilities of our own sex affected in a similar way? +And must it not, then, have a deteriorating tendency? + +It cannot be otherwise than that the circumstances of which I have +spoken, which so universally surround infancy and childhood, should take +off, gradually, the keen edge of moral sensibility, and lessen every +virtuous or holy sympathy. I have watched--I believe impartially--the +effect on certain sensitive young persons in the circle of my +acquaintance. I have watched myself. The result has confirmed the +opinion I have just expressed. No child, I think, can walk through a +common market or slaughter-house without receiving moral injury; nor am +I quite sure that any virtuous adult can. + +How have I been struck with the change produced in the young mind by +that merriment which often accompanies the slaughter of an innocent +fowl, or lamb, or pig! How can the Christian, with the Bible in hand, +and the merciful doctrines of its pages for his text, + + "Teach me to feel another's woe," + +--the beast's not excepted--and yet, having laid down that Bible, go at +once from the domestic altar to make light of the convulsions and exit +of a poor domestic animal? + +Is it said, that these remarks apply only to the _abuse_ of a thing, +which, in its place, is proper? Is it said, that there is no necessity +of levity on these occasions? Grant that there is none; still the result +is almost inevitable. But there is, in any event, one way of avoiding, +or rather preventing both the abuse and the occasion for abuse, by +ceasing to kill animals for food; and I venture to predict that the evil +never will be prevented otherwise. + +The usual apology for hunting and fishing, in all their various and +often cruel forms,--whereby so many of our youth, from the setters of +snares for birds, and the anglers for trout, to the whalemen, are +educated to cruelty, and steeled to every virtuous and holy +sympathy,--is, the necessity of the animals whom we pursue for food. I +know, indeed, that this is not, in most cases, the true reason, but it +is the reason given--it is the substance of the reason. It serves as an +apology. They who make it may often be ignorant of the true reason, or +they or others may wish to conceal it; and, true to human nature, they +are ready to give every reason for their conduct, but the real and most +efficient one. + +It must not, indeed, be concealed that there is one more apology usually +made for these cruel sports; and made too, in some instances, by good +men; I mean, by men whose intentions are in the main pure and excellent. +These sports are healthy, they tell us. They are a relief to mind and +body. Perhaps no good man, in our own country, has defended them with +more ingenuity, or with more show of reason and good sense, than Dr. +Comstock, in his recent popular work on Human Physiology. And yet, there +is scarcely a single advantage which he has pointed out, as being +derived from the "pleasures of the chase," that may not be gained in a +way which savors less of blood. The doctor himself is too much in love +with botany, geology, mineralogy, and the various branches of natural +history, not to know what I mean when I say this. He knows full well the +excitement, and, on his own principles, the consequent relief of body +and mind from their accustomed and often painful round, which grows out +of clambering over mountains and hills, and fording streams, and +climbing trees and rocks, to need any very broad hints on the subject; +to say nothing of the delights of agriculture and horticulture. How +could he, then, give currency to practices which, to say the least,--and +by his own concessions, too,--are doubtful in regard to their moral +tendencies, by inserting his opinions in favor of sports, for which he +himself happens to be partial, in a school-book? Is this worthy of those +who would educate the youth of our land on the principles of the Bible? + + +VIII. THE MILLENNIAL ARGUMENT + +I believe it is conceded by most intelligent men, that all the arguments +we bring against the use of animal food, which are derived from anatomy, +physiology, or the laws of health, or even of psychology, are well +founded. But they still say, "Man is not what he once was; he is +strangely perverted; that custom, or habit, which soon becomes second +nature, and often proves stronger to us than first nature, has so +changed him that he is more a creature of art than of nature, or at +least of _first_ nature. And though animal food was not necessary to him +at first--perhaps not in accordance with his best interests--yet it has +become so by long use; and as a creature of art rather than of nature, +he now seems to require it." + +This reasoning, at first view, appears very _specious_. But upon second +view, we see it is wanting--greatly so--in solidity. It takes for +granted, as I understand it, that what we call civilization, has +rendered animal food necessary to man. But is it not obvious that the +condition of things which is thus supposed to render this species of +food necessary, is not likely to disappear--nay, that it is every +century becoming more and more the law, so to speak, of the land? Who is +to stop the labor-saving machine, the railroad car, or the lightning +flash of intelligence? + +And do not these considerations, if they prove any thing, prove quite +too much? For if, in the onward career of what is thus called +civilization, we have gone from a diet which scarcely required the use +of animal food in order to render it both palatable and healthful, to +one in whose dishes it is generally blended in some one or more of its +forms, must we not expect that a still further progress in the same +course will render the same kind of diet still more indispensable? If +flesh, fish, fowl, butter, cheese, eggs, lard, etc., are much more +necessary to us now, than they were a thousand years ago, will they not +be still more necessary a thousand years hence? + +I do not see how we can avoid such a conclusion. And yet such a +conclusion will involve us in very serious difficulties. In Japan and +China--the former more especially--if the march of civilization should +be found to have rendered animal food more necessary, it has at the same +time rendered it less accessible to the mass of the population. The +great increase of the human species has crowded out the animals, even +the domestic ones. Some of the old historians and geographers tell us +that there are not so many domestic animals in the whole kingdom of +Japan, as in a single township of Sweden. And must not all nations, as +society progresses and the millennium dawns, crowd out the animals in +the same way? It cannot be otherwise. True, there may remain about the +same supply as at present from the rivers and seas, and perchance from +the air; but what can these do for the increasing hundreds of millions +of such large countries? What do they for Japan? In short, if the +reasoning above were good and valid, it would seem to show that +precisely at the point of civilization where animal food becomes most +necessary, at precisely that point it becomes most scarce. + +These things do not seem to me to go well together. We must reject the +one or the other. If we believe in a millennium, we must, inevitably, +give up our belief in animal food, at least the belief that its +necessity grows out of the increasing wants of society. Or if, on the +other hand, we believe in the increasing necessity of animal food, we +must banish from our minds all hope of what we call a millennium, at +least for the present. + + +IX. THE BIBLE ARGUMENT. + +It is not at all uncommon for those who find themselves driven from all +their strong-holds, in this matter, to fly to the Bible. Our Saviour ate +flesh and fish, say they; and the God of the New Testament, as well as +of the Old, in this and other ways, not only permitted but sanctioned +its use. + +But, to say nothing of the folly of going, for proof of every thing we +wish to prove, to a book which was never given for this purpose, or of +the fact that in thus adducing Scripture to prove our favorite +doctrines, we often go too far, and prove too much; is it true that the +Saviour ate flesh and fish? Or, if this could be proved, is it true that +his example binds us forever to that which other evidence as well as +science show to be of doubtful utility? Paul did not think so, most +certainly. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, he says, +if it cause our brother to offend. Did not Paul understand, at least as +well as we, the precepts and example of our Saviour? + +And as to a permission to Noah and his descendants, the Jews, to use +animal food--was it not for the hardness of the human heart, as our +Saviour calls it? From the beginning, was it so? Is not man, in the +first chapter of Genesis, constituted a vegetable-eater? Was his +constitution ever altered? And if so, when and where? Will they who fly +to the Bible for their support, in this particular, please to tell us? + +But it is idle to go to the Bible, on this subject. I mean, it is idle +to pretend to do so, when we mean not so much. Men who _incline_ to wine +and other alcoholic drinks, plead the example and authority of the +Bible. Yet you will hardly find a man who drinks wine simply because he +believes the Bible justifies its use. He drinks it for other reasons, +and then makes the foolish excuse that the Bible is on his side. So in +regard to the use of flesh meat. Find a man who really uses flesh or +fish _because_ the Bible requires him to do so, and I will then discuss +the question with him on Bible ground. Till that time, further argument +on this direction is unnecessary. + + +CONCLUSION. + +But I must conclude this long essay. There is one consideration, +however, which I am unwilling to omit, although, in deciding on the +merits of the question before us, it may not have as much +weight--regarded as a part of the moral argument--on every mind, as it +has on my own. + +Suppose the great Creator were to make a new world somewhere in the +regions of infinite space, and to fit it out in most respects like our +own. It is to be the place and abode of such minerals, vegetables, and +animals as our own. Instead, however, of peopling it gradually, he fills +it at once with inhabitants; and instead of having the arts and the +sciences in their infancy, he creates every thing in full maturity. In a +word, he makes a world which shall be exactly a copy of our own, with +the single exception that the 800,000,000 of free agents in it shall be +supposed to be wholly ignorant in regard to the nature of the food +assigned them. But the new world is created, we will suppose, at +sunrise, in October. The human inhabitants thereof have stomachs, and +soon, that is, by mid-day or before night, feel the pangs of hunger. +Now, what will they eat? + +The world being mature, every thing in it is, of course, mature. Around, +on every hand, are cornfields with their rich treasures; above, that is, +in the boughs of the orchards, hang the rich russets, pippins, and the +various other excellent kinds of the apple, with which our own country +and other temperate climates abound. In tropical regions, of course, +almost every vegetable production is flourishing at that season, as well +as the corn and the apple. Or, he has but to look on the surface of the +earth on which he stands, and there are the potatoe, the turnip, the +beet, and many other esculent roots; to say nothing of the squash, the +pumpkin, the melon, the chestnut, the walnut, the beechnut, the +butternut, the hazelnut, etc.,--most of which are nourishing, and more +or less wholesome, and are in full view. Around him, too, are the +animals. I am willing even to admit the domestic animal--the horse, the +ox, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the turkey, the goose, the +hen, yes, and even the pig. And now, I ask again, what will he eat? He +is destitute of experience, and he has no example. But he has a stomach, +and he is hungry: he has hands and he has teeth; the world is all before +him, and he is the lord of it, at least so far as to use such food in it +as he pleases. + +Does any one believe that, in these circumstances, man would prey upon +the animals around him? Does any person believe--can he for one moment +believe--he would forthwith imbrue his hands in blood, whether that of +his own species or of some other? Would he pass by the mellow apple, +hanging in richest profusion every where, inviting him as it were by its +beauties? Would he pass by the fields, with their golden ears? Would he +despise the rich products of field, and forest, and garden, and hasten +to seize the axe or the knife, and, ere the blood had ceased to flow, or +the muscles to quiver, give orders to his fair but affrighted companion +within to prepare the fire, and make ready the gridiron or the spider? +Or, without the knowledge even of this, or the patience to wait for the +tedious process of cooking to be completed, would he eat raw the +precious morsel? Does any one believe this? Can any one--I repeat the +question--can any one believe it? + +On the contrary, would not every living human being revolt, at first, +from the idea, let it be suggested as it might, of plunging his hands in +blood? Can there be a doubt that he would direct his attention at +first--yes, and for a long time afterward--to the vegetable world for +his food? Would it not take months and years to reconcile his +feelings--his moral nature--to the thought of flesh-mangling or +flesh-eating? At least, would not this be the result, if he were a +disciple of Christianity? Although professing Christians, as the world +is now constituted, do not hesitate to commit such depredations, would +they do so in the circumstances we have supposed? + +I am sure there can be but one opinion on this subject; although I +confess it impossible for me to say how it may strike other minds +constituted somewhat differently from my own. With me, this +consideration of the subject has weight and importance. It is not +necessary, however. The argument--the moral argument, I mean--is +sufficient, as it seems to me, without it. What then shall we say of the +anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the +economical, the experimental, the Bible, the millennial, and the moral +arguments, when united? Have they not force? Are they not a nine-fold +cord, not easily broken? Is it not too late in the day of human +improvement to meet them with no argument but ignorance, and with no +other weapon but ridicule? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] For proof that arsenic or ratsbane is sometimes added to cheese, +see the Library of Health, volume ii., page 69. In proof of the +poisonous tendency of milk and butter, see Whitlaw's Theory of Fever, +and Clark's Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption. + +[22] See Dunglison's Hygiene, page 250. + +[23] The Young Housekeeper. + +[24] Or, more nearly, perhaps, a year and a half, in this country. In +England, it is one year and five-sevenths. + + + + +OUTLINES + +OF A + +NEW SYSTEM OF FOOD AND COOKERY. + + +In the work of revising and preparing the foregoing volume for +publication, the writer was requested to add to it a system of vegetable +cookery. At first he refused to do so, both on account of the difficulty +of bringing so extensive a subject within the compass of twenty or +thirty pages, and because it did not seem to him to be called for, in +connection with the present volume. But he has yielded his own judgment +to the importunity of the publishers and other friends of the work, and +prepared a mere outline or skeleton of what he may hereafter fill up, +should circumstances and the necessary leisure permit. + +But there is one difficulty to be met with at the very threshold of the +subject. Vegetable eaters are not so hard driven to find whereon to +subsist, as many appear to suppose. For the question is continually +asked, "If you dispense wholly with flesh and fish, pray what can you +find to eat?" Now, while we are aware that one small sect of the +vegetarians--the followers of Dr. Schlemmer--eat every thing in a raw +state, we are, for ourselves, full believers in plain and simple +cookery. That a potato, for example, is better cooked than uncooked, +both for man and beast, we have not the slightest doubt. We believe that +a system of preparing food which renders the raw material more +palatable, more digestible, and more nutritious, or perhaps all this at +once, must be legitimate, and even preferable--if not for the +individual, at least for the race. + +But the difficulty alluded to is, how to select a few choice dishes from +the wide range--short of flesh and fish--which God and nature permit. +For if we believed in the use of eggs when commingled with food, we +should hardly deem it proper to go the whole length of our French +brethren, who have nearly seven hundred vegetable dishes, of which eggs +form a component part; nor the whole length even to which our own +powers of invention might carry us; no, nor even the whole length to +which the writer of an English work now before us, and entitled +"Vegetable Cookery," has gone--the extent of about a thousand plain +receipts. We believe the whole nature of man, and even his appetite, +when unperverted, is best served and most fully satisfied with a range +of dishes which shall hardly exceed hundreds. + +It is held by Dr. Dunglison, Dr. Paris, and many of the old school +writers, that all made dishes--all mixtures of food--are "more or less +rebellious;" that is, more or less indigestible, and consequently more +or less hurtful. If they mean by this, that in spite of the +accommodating power of the stomach to the individual, they are hurtful +to the race, I go with them most fully. But I do _not_ believe that _all +made dishes, to all persons_, are so directly injurious as many suppose. +God has made man, in a certain sense, omnivorous. His physical stomach +can receive and assimilate, like his mental stomach, a great variety of +substances; and both can go on, without apparent disease, for a great +many years, and perhaps for a tolerably long life in this way. + +There is, however, a higher question for man to ask as a rational being +and as a Christian, than whether this or that dish will hurt him +directly. It is, whether a dish or article is _best_ for him--best for +body, mind, and heart--best for the whole human nature--best for the +whole interests of the whole race--best for time, and best for eternity. +Startle not, reader, at this assertion. If West could properly say, "I +paint for eternity," the true disciple of Christ and truth can say, "I +eat and drink for eternity." And a higher authority than any that is +merely human has even required us to do so. + +This places the subject of preparing food on high ground. And were I to +carry out my plan fully, I should exclude from a Christian system of +food and cookery all mixtures, properly so called, and all medicines or +condiments. Not that all mixtures are equally hurtful to the well-being +of the race, nor all medicines. Indeed, considering our training and +habits, some of both, to most persons, have become necessary. I know of +many whose physical inheritance is such, that salt, if not a few other +medicinal substances, have become at least present necessaries to them. +And to those mixtures of substances closely allied, as farina with +farina--meal of one kind with meal of another--I could scarcely have any +objection, myself. Nature objects to incompatibles, and therefore I do; +and medicine, and all those kinds of food which are opposed one to +another, are incompatible with each other. When one is in the stomach, +the other should not be. + +I have spoken of carrying out my plan, but this I cannot now fully do. +It would not be borne, till, as Lord Bacon used to say, "some time be +passed over." But, on the other hand, I am unwilling to give directions, +as I did ten or twelve years ago, in my Young Housekeeper, such as shall +pander to a perverted--most abominably perverted--public taste. Man is +made for progress, and it is high time the public standard were raised +in regard to food and cookery. + +Although grains and fruits are the natural food of man, yet there are a +variety of shapes in which the grains or farinacea may be presented to +us; and there are a few substances fit for food which do not properly +belong to either of these classes. I shall treat first of the different +kinds of food prepared from grain or farinaceous substances; secondly, +of fruits; thirdly, of roots; and fourthly, speak of a few articles that +do not properly belong to any of the three. + +While, therefore, as will be seen by the remarks already made, I have +many things to say that the community cannot yet bear, it need not +escape the observation of the most careless reader, that I aim at +nothing less than an entire ultimate subversion of the present system of +cookery, believing it to be utterly at war with the laws of God, and of +man's whole nature. + + +CLASS I.--FARINACEOUS, OR MEALY SUBSTANCES. + +The principal of these are wheat, oats, Indian corn, rice, rye, barley, +buckwheat, millet, chestnuts, peas, beans, and lentils. They are +prepared in various forms. + + +DIVISION I.--BREAD. + +The true idea of bread is that coarse or cracked and unbolted meal, +formed into a mass of dough by means of water, and immediately baked in +loaves of greater or less thickness, according to the fancy. + +Some use bolted meal; most raise bread by fermentation; many use salt; +some saleratus, or carbonate of potash; and, in the country, many use +milk instead of water to form the paste. I might also mention several +other additions, which, like saleratus, it is becoming fashionable to +make. + +All these things are a departure, greater or less, from the true idea +of a bread; and bread made with any of these changes, is so much the +less perfectly adapted to the promotion of health, happiness, and +longevity. + +Bolting is objectionable, because bread made from bolted meal, +especially when eaten hot, is more apt, when the digestive powers are +not very vigorous, to form a paste, which none but very strong stomachs +can entirely overcome. Besides, it takes out a part of the sweetness, or +life, as it is termed, of the flour. They who say fine flour bread is +sweetest, are led into this mistake by the force of habit, and by the +fact that the latter comes in contact, more readily than coarse bread, +with the papillæ of the tongue, and seems to have more taste to it +because it touches at more points. + +Raising bread by inducing fermentation, wastes a part of the saccharine +matter; and the more it is raised, the greater is the waste. By +lessening the attraction of cohesion, it makes it more easy of +digestion, it is true; but the loss of nutriment and of pleasure to the +true appetite more than counterbalances this. Bakers, in striving to get +a large loaf, rob the bread of most of its sweetness. + +Salt is objectionable, because it hardens the bread, and renders it more +difficult of digestion. Our ancestors, in this country, did not use it +at all; and many are the families that will not use it now. + +Those who use salt in bread, tell us how _flat_ it would taste without +it. This idea of flatness has two sources. 1. We have so long given our +bread the taste of salt, as we have most other things, that it seems +tasteless without it. 2. The flatness spoken of in an article of food is +oftentimes the true taste of the article, unaltered by any stimulus. If +any two articles need to be stimulated with salt, however, it is rice +and beans--bread never. + +If saleratus is used in bread where no acidity is present, it is a +medicine; or, if you please, a poison both to the stomach and +intestines. If it meets and neutralizes an acid either in the bread-tray +or the stomach, the residuum is a new chemical compound diffused through +the bread, which is more or less injurious, according to its nature and +quantity. + +Milk is objectionable on the score of its tendency to render the bread +more indigestible than when it was wet with water, and perhaps by +rendering it too nutritious. For good bread without the milk is already +too nutritious for health, if eaten exclusively, for a long time. That +man should not live on bread alone, is as true physically as it is +morally. + +No bread should be eaten while new and hot--though the finer it is, the +worse for health when thus eaten. Old bread, heated again, is less +hurtful. But if eaten both new and hot, and with butter or milk, or any +thing which soaks and fills it, the effect is very bad. Mrs. Howland, in +her Economical Housekeeper, says much about _ripe_ bread. And I should +be glad to say as much, had I room, about ripe bread, and about the true +philosophy of bread and bread-making, as she has. + + +SECTION A.--_Bread of the first order._ + +This is made of coarse meal--as coarse as it can well be ground, +provided the kernels are all broken. The grain should be well washed, +and it may be ground in the common way, or according to the oriental +mode, in hand-mills. The latter mode is preferable, because you can thus +have it fresh. Meal is somewhat injured by being kept long ground. + +If great pains is not taken to have the grain clean when ground, it +needs to be passed through a coarse sieve, that all foreign bodies may +be carefully separated. The hulls of corn, and especially the husks of +oats and buckwheat, should also be separated in some way. In no case, +however, should meal be bolted. Good health requires that we eat the +innutritious and coarser parts as well as the finer. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take a sufficient quantity of good, recent wheat meal;[25] +wet it well, but not too soft, with pure water; form it into thin cakes, +and bake it as hard as the teeth will bear. Remember, however, that the +saliva aids the teeth greatly, especially when you masticate your food +slowly. The cakes should be very thin--the thinner the better. Many, +however, prefer them an inch thick, or even more. + +RECEIPT 2.--Oat meal prepared in the same manner. Procure what is called +the Scotch kiln dried oat meal, if you can. No matter if it is +manufactured in New England, if it is well done. + +RECEIPT 3.--Indian meal cakes, otherwise called hoe cakes, or Johnny +cakes, are next in point of value to bread made of wheat and oats. They +are most healthy, however, in cold weather. + +RECEIPT 4.--Rye cakes come next. Warm instead of cold water is often +used to wet all the above. Some even choose to scald the meal. Fancy may +be indulged in this particular, only you must remember that warm water +in warm weather may soon give rise, if the mass stands long, to a degree +of fermentation, which, for the best bread, should be avoided. + +RECEIPT 5.--Barley meal bread comes next in order in the unleavened +series. In regard to this species of bread, however, I do not speak from +experience, but from report. + +RECEIPT 6.--Of millet bread I know still less. Cakes made of it, as +above, must certainly be wholesome. + +RECEIPT 7.--Buckwheat cakes are last in the series of the best breads. +The meal is always too fine, and hence makes heavy bread, except when +hot. Few use it without fermentation. + +Unleavened bread may be made as above, of all the various kinds of +grain, finely ground; but it is apt to be heavy, whereas, when made +properly, of coarse meal, it is only firm, never heavy; that is, it +never has a lead-like appearance. They may make and use it who have iron +stomachs. + + +SECTION B.--_Bread of the second order._ + +This consists essentially of mixtures of the various coarse meals. True +it is, that made or mixed food is objectionable; but the union of one +farinaceous substance with another to form bread, can hardly be +considered a mixture. It is, essentially, the addition of farina to +farina, with some change in the proportion of the gluten and other +properties. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat meal and Indian, in about the proportion of two parts +of wheat to one of Indian. + +RECEIPT 2.--Wheat meal and oat meal, about equal parts. + +RECEIPT 3.--Wheat meal and Indian, equal parts. + +RECEIPT 4.--Wheat meal and rye meal; two parts, quarts, or pounds of the +former to one of the latter. + +RECEIPT 5.--Rye and Indian, equal parts of each. + +RECEIPT 6.--Rye, two thirds; Indian, one third. + +RECEIPT 7.--Wheat meal and rice. Three quarts of wheat meal to one pint +of good clean rice, boiled till it is soft. + +RECEIPT 8.--Three parts of wheat meal to one of Indian. + +RECEIPT 9.--Four parts of wheat to one of Indian. + +The proportion of the ingredients above may be varied to a great extent. +I have inserted some of the best. The following are _irregulars_, but +may as well be mentioned here as any where. + +RECEIPT 10.--Two quarts of wheat meal to one pound of well boiled ripe +beans, made soft by pounding or otherwise. + +RECEIPT 11.--Seven pounds of wheat meal and two and a half pounds of +good, mealy, and well boiled and pounded potatoes. + +RECEIPT 12.--Equal parts of coarse meal from rye, barley, and buckwheat. +This is chiefly used in Westphalia. + +RECEIPT 13.--Seven parts of wheat meal (as in Receipt 11), with two +pounds of split peas boiled to a soup, and used to wet the flour. + +RECEIPT 14.--Wheat meal and apples, in the proportion of about three of +the former (some use two) to one of the latter. The apples must be first +pared and cored, and stewed or baked. See my "Young Housekeeper," +seventh edition, page 396. + +RECEIPT 15.--Wheat meal and boiled chestnuts; three quarts of the former +to one of the latter. + +RECEIPT 16.--Wheat meal, four quarts, and one quart of well boiled and +pounded marrow squash. + +RECEIPT 17.--Wheat, corn, or barley meal; three quarts to one quart of +powdered comfrey root. This is inserted from the testimony of Rev. E. +Rich, of Troy, N. H. + +RECEIPT 18.--Wheat meal, three pounds, to one pound of pounded corn, +boiled and pounded green. This is the most doubtful form which has yet +been mentioned. + +RECEIPT 19.--Receipt 7 describes rice bread. Bell, in his work on Diet +and Regimen, says the best and most economical rice bread is made thus: +Wheat meal, three pounds; rice, well boiled, one pound--wet with the +water in which the rice is boiled. + +I wish to say here, once for all, that any kind of bread may be salted, +if you will _have_ salt, except the patented bread mentioned in the +beginning of the next section, which is salted in the process. Molasses +in small quantity may also be added, if preferred. + + +SECTION C.--_Bread of the third kind._ + +Of this there are several kinds. Those which are made by a simple +effervescence, provided the residuum is not injurious, are best, and +shall accordingly be placed first in order. Next will follow various +kinds of bread made by the ordinary process of fermentation, salting, +etc. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat meal, seven pounds; carbonate of soda or saleratus[26] +three quarters of an ounce to one ounce; water, two and three quarter +pints; muriatic acid, 420 to 560 drops. Mix the soda with the meal as +intimately as possible, by means of a wooden spoon or stick. Then mix +the acid and water, and add it slowly to the mass, stirring it +constantly. Make three loaves of it, and bake it in a quick oven. + +RECEIPT 2.--Wheat meal, one pound; sesquicarbonate of soda, forty +grains; muriatic acid, fifty drops; cold water, half a pint, or a +sufficient quantity. Mix in the same way, and with the same caution, as +in Receipt 1. Make one loaf of it, and bake in a quick oven.[27] + +RECEIPT 3.--Wheat meal, one quart; cream of tartar, two tea-spoonfuls; +saleratus, one tea-spoonful; and two and a half teacups full of milk. +Mix well, and bake thirty minutes. If the meal is fresh, as it ought to +be, the milk may be omitted. + +RECEIPT 4.--Coarse rye meal, Indian meal, and oat meal, may be formed +into bread in nearly a similar manner. So, in fact, may fine meal and +all sorts of mixtures. + +RECEIPT 5.--Professor Silliman more than intimates, that carbonic acid +gas _might_ be made to inflate bread, without either an effervescence or +a fermentation. The plan is, to force carbonic acid, by some means or +other, into the mass of dough, or, as bakers call it, the sponge. I do +not know that the experiment has yet been made. + +RECEIPT 6.--Coarse Indian meal may be formed into small, rather thin +loaves, and prepared and baked as in Receipt 3. + +Let us now proceed to common fermented bread: + +RECEIPT 7.--Wheat meal, six pounds; good yeast, a teacup full; and a +sufficient quantity of pure water. Knead thoroughly. Bake it in small +loaves, unless you have a very strong heat. + +RECEIPT 8.--Another way: Wheat meal, six quarts; molasses and yeast, +each a teacup full. Mould into loaves half the thickness you mean they +shall be after they are baked. Place them in the pans, in a temperature +which will cause a moderate fermentation. When risen enough, place them +in the oven. A strong heat is required. + +RECEIPT 9.--Rye bread may be made in a similar way. It must, however, be +well kneaded, to secure an intimate mixture with the yeast. Does not +require quite so strong a heat as the former. + +RECEIPT 10.--Oat meal bread may be prepared by mixing good kiln dried +oat meal, a little salt and warm water, and a spoonful of yeast. Beat +till it is quite smooth, and rather a thick batter; cover and let it +stand to rise; then bake it on a hot iron plate, or on a bake stove. Be +careful not to burn it. + +RECEIPT 11.--Barley, or black bread, as it is called in Europe, makes a +wholesome article of food. It may be fermented or unfermented. + +RECEIPT 12.--Corn bread is sometimes made thus: Six pints meal, four +pints water, one spoonful of salt; mix well, and bake in oblong rolls +two inches thick. Bake in a hot oven. + +It should be added to this division of my subject, that in baking bread +sweet oil may be used (a vegetable oil) as a substitute for animal oil, +to prevent the bread from adhering too closely. Or you may sift a +quantity of Indian meal into the pans. If you use sweet, or olive oil, +be sure to get that which is not rancid. Much of the olive oil of the +shops is unfit to be used. + + +DIVISION II.--WHOLE GRAINS. + +Some have maintained that since man is made to live on grain, fruits, +etc., and since the most perfect mastication is secured by the use of +uncooked grains, it is useless, and worse than useless, to resort to +cookery at all, especially the cookery of bread. I have mentioned Dr. +Schlemmer and his followers already as holding this opinion. Many of +these people confine themselves to the use of uncooked grains and +fruits. They do not cook their beans and peas. Nor can it be denied that +they enjoy thus far very good health. + +Now, while I admit that man, as an individual, can get along very well +in this way, I am most fully persuaded that many kinds of farinaceous +food are improved by cookery. Of the potato, I have already, +incidentally, spoken. But are not wheat and corn, and many other grains, +as well as the potato, improved by cookery? A barrel of flour (one +hundred and ninety-six pounds) will make about two hundred and seventy +pounds of good dry bread. It does not appear that the bread contains +more water than the grain did from which it was made. Whence, then, the +increase of weight by seventy-four pounds? Is not the water--a part of +it, at least--which is used in making bread, rendered solid, as water is +in slacking lime; or at least so incorporated with the flour or meal as +to add both to its weight, and to its nutritious properties? + +Or if, in the present infancy of the science of domestic chemistry, we +are not able to give a satisfactory answer to the question, is not an +affirmative highly probable? Such an answer would give no countenance, I +believe, to the custom of raising our bread, since the increase of +weight in making unfermented cakes or loaves, is about as great as in +the case of fermented ones. + +One of the strongest arguments ever yet brought against bread-making is, +that it relieves us from the necessity of mastication. But to this we +reply, that such cakes as may be made (and such loaves even) require +more mastication than the uncooked grains. Pereira, in his excellent +work on Diet, endeavors to support the doctrine that cooking bursts the +grains of the farinacea, so as to bring them the better within the power +of the stomach. This is specious, if not sound. In any event, I think it +pretty certain, that though man can do very well on raw grains, yet +there is a gain by cookery which more than repays the trouble. But +though baking the flour or meal into cakes or bread, is the best method +of preparation, there are other methods, secondary to this, which +deserve our notice. One of these I will now describe. + + +SECTION A.--_Boiled Grains._ + +These require less mastication than those which are submitted to other +processes; but they are more easy of digestion, and to some more +palatable, and even more digestible. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take good perfect wheat; wash clean, and boil till soft in +pure soft water. Those who are accustomed to salt their food, use sugar, +etc., will naturally salt and sweeten this. + +RECEIPT 2.--Rye or barley may be prepared in the same way, but it is not +quite so sweet. + +RECEIPT 3.--Indian corn may be boiled, but the process requires six +hours or more, even after it has soaked all night, and there has been a +frequent change of the water. And with all this boiling, the skins +sometimes adhere rather strongly, unless you boil with them some ashes, +or other alkali. + +RECEIPT 4.--Rice, carefully cleaned, and well boiled, is good food. +Imperfectly boiled, it is apt to disorder the bowels. And so +unstimulating is it, and so purely nutritious, that they who eat it +exclusively, without salt or curry, or any other condiment, are apt to +become constipated. Potatoes go well with it. + +RECEIPT 5.--Chestnuts, well selected, and well boiled, are highly +palatable, greatly nutritious, and easy of digestion. They are best, +however, soon after they are ripe. + +RECEIPT 6.--Boiled peas, when ripe, either whole or split, make a +healthy dish. They are best, however, when they have been cooked several +days. When boiled enough, drain them through a sieve, but not very dry. + +Some housekeepers soak ripe peas over night, in water in which they have +dissolved a little saleratus. If you boil new or unripe peas, be careful +not to cook them too much. + +RECEIPT 7.--Beans, whether ripe or green (unless in bread or pudding), +are not so wholesome as peas. They lead to flatulence, acidity, and +other stomach disorders. And yet, eaten in moderate quantities, when +ripe, they are to the hard, healthy laborer very tolerable food. Eaten +green, they are most palatable, but least healthy. + +RECEIPT 8.--Green corn boiled is bad food. Sweet corn, cooked in this +way, is the best. + +RECEIPT 9.--Lentils are nutritious, highly so; but I know little about +them practically. + + +SECTION B.--_Grains, etc., in other forms. They may be baked, parched, +roasted, or torrefied._ + +RECEIPT 1.--Dry slowly, with a pretty strong heat, till they become so +dry and brittle as to fall readily into powder. Corn is most frequently +prepared in this way for food; but this and several other grains are +often torrefied for coffee. Care should be taken to avoid burning. + +RECEIPT 2.--Roasted grains are more wholesome. It is not usual or easy +to roast them properly, however, except the chestnut, as the expanded +air bursts or parches them. By cutting through the skin or shell, this +result may be avoided, as it often is in the case of the chestnut. To +roast well, they should be laid on the hearth or an iron plate, covered +with ashes, and by building a fire slowly, all burning may be prevented. + +RECEIPT 3.--Corn and buckwheat are often parched, and they form, +especially the former, a very good food. In South America, and in some +semi-barbarous nations, parched corn is a favorite dish. + +RECEIPT 4.--Green corn is often roasted in the ear. It is less +wholesome, however, than when boiled. Sweet corn is the best for either +purpose. + +RECEIPT 5.--Of baking grains I have little to say, because I _know_ +little on that subject.[28] + + +DIVISION III.--CAKES + +This species of farinaceous food is much used, and is fast coming into +vogue. The term, in its largest sense, would include the unleavened +bread or cakes, of which I have spoken so freely in Division 1. They +are for the most part, however, made by the addition of butter, eggs, +aromatics, milk, etc., to the dough; and in proportion as they depart +from simple bread, are more and more unhealthy. I shall mention but a +few, though hundreds might be named which would still be vegetable food, +as good olive oil, in preparing them, may be substituted for butter. I +shall treat of them under one head or section. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take of dough, prepared according to the English patented +process, mentioned in Division I., Section C, Receipt 1 and Receipt 2, +and bake in a thin form and in the usual manner. + +RECEIPT 2.--Fruit cakes, if people will have them, may be made in the +same manner. No butter would be necessary, even to butter eaters, when +prepared in this patented way. If any have doubts, let them consult +Pereira on Food and Diet, page 153. + +RECEIPT 3.--Gingerbread may be made in the same way, and without alum or +potash. It is thus comparatively harmless. Coarse meal always makes +better gingerbread than fine flour. + +RECEIPT 4.--Buckwheat cakes may be raised in the same general way. + +RECEIPT 5.--Cakes of millet, rice, etc., are said to have been made by +this process; but on this point I cannot speak from experience. + +RECEIPT 6.--Biscuits, crackers, wafers, etc., are a species of cake, and +might be made so as to be comparatively wholesome. + +RECEIPT 7.--Biscuits may be made of coarse corn meal, with the addition +of an egg and a little water. Make it into a stiff paste, and roll very +thin. + + +DIVISION IV.--PUDDINGS. + +These are a species of bread, only made thinner. They are usually +unfermented. I shall speak of two kinds--hominy and puddings proper. + +SECTION A.--_Hominy._ + +This is usually eaten hot; but it improves on keeping a day or two. It +may be warmed over, if necessary. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat hominy, or cracked wheat, may be made into a species +of pudding thus: Stir the hominy into boiling water (a little salted, if +it must be so), very gradually. Boil from fifteen minutes to one hour. +If boiled too long, it has a raw taste. + +RECEIPT 2.--Corn hominy, or, as it is sometimes called, samp. Two quarts +of hominy; four quarts of water; stir well, that the hulls may rise; +then pour off the water through a sieve, that the hulls may separate. +Pour the same water again upon the hominy, stir well, and pour off again +several times. Finally, pour back the water, add a little salt, if you +use salt at all, and if necessary, a little more water, and hang it over +a slow fire to boil. During the first hour it should be stirred almost +constantly. Boil from three to six hours. + +RECEIPT 3.--Another way: Take white Indian corn broken coarsely, put it +over the fire with plenty of water, adding more boiling water as it +wastes. It requires long boiling. Some boil it for six hours the day +before it is wanted, and from four to six the next day. Salt, if used at +all, may be added on the plate. + +RECEIPT 4.--Another way still of making hominy is to soak it over night, +and boil it slowly for four or five hours, in the same water, which +should be soft. + +There are other ways of making hominy, but I have no room to treat of +them. + + +SECTION B.--_Puddings proper._ + +These are of various kinds. Indeed, a single work I have before me on +Vegetable Cookery has not less than 127 receipts for dishes of this +sort, to say nothing of its pancakes, fritters, etc. I shall select a +few of the best, and leave the rest. + +The greatest objection to puddings is, that they are usually swallowed +in large quantity, unmasticated, after we have eaten enough of something +else. They are also eaten new and hot, and with butter, or some other +mixture almost as injurious. Some puddings, from half a day to a day and +a half old, are almost as good for us as bread. + +One of the best puddings I know of, is a stale loaf of bread, steamed. +Another is good sweet kiln dried oat meal, without any cooking at all. +But there are some good cooked puddings, I say again, such as the +following: + +RECEIPT 1.--Boiled Indian pudding: Indian meal, a quart; water, a pint; +molasses, a teacup full. Mix it well, and boil four hours. + +RECEIPT 2.--Another Indian pudding. Indian meal, three pints; scald it, +make it thin, and boil it about six hours. + +RECEIPT 3.--Another of the same: To one quart of boiling milk, while +boiling, add a teacup full of Indian meal; mix well, and add a little +molasses. Boil three hours in a strong heat. + +RECEIPT 4.--Hominy: Take a quart of milk and half a pint of Indian +meal; mix it well, and add a pint and a half of cooked hominy. Bake well +in a moderate oven. + +RECEIPT 5.--Baked Indian pudding may be made by putting together and +baking well a quart of milk, a pint of Indian meal, and a pint of water. +Add salt or molasses, if you please. + +RECEIPT 6.--Oat meal pudding: Pour a quart of boiling milk over a pint +of the best fine oat meal; let it soak all night; next day add two +beaten eggs; rub over, with pure sweet oil, a basin that will just hold +it; cover it tight with a floured cloth, and boil it an hour and a half. +When cold, slice and toast, or rather dry it, and eat it as you would +oat cake itself. + +This may be the proper place to say, that all coarse meal puddings are +healthiest when twelve or twenty hours old; but are all improved--and so +is brown bread--by drying, or almost toasting on the stove. + +RECEIPT 7.--Rice pudding: To one quart of new milk add a teacup full of +rice, sweetened a little. No dressings are necessary without you choose +them. Bake it well. + +RECEIPT 8.--Wheat meal pudding may be made by wetting the coarse meal +with milk, and sweetening it a little with molasses. Bake in a moderate +heat. + +RECEIPT 9.--Boiled rice pudding may be made by boiling half a pound of +rice in a moderate quantity of water, and adding, when tender, a +coffee-cup full of milk, sweetening a little, and baking, or rather +simmering half an hour. Add salt if you prefer it. + +RECEIPT 10.--_Polenta_--Corn meal, mixed with cheese--grated, as I +suppose, but we are not told in what proportion it is used--baked well, +makes a pudding which the Italians call polenta. It is not very +digestible. + +RECEIPT 11.--Pudding may be made of any of the various kinds of meal I +have mentioned, except those containing rye, by adding from one fourth +to one third of the meal of the comfrey root. See Division I of this +class, Section B, Receipt 17. + +RECEIPT 12.--Bread pudding: Take a loaf of rather stale bread, cut a +hole in it, add as much new milk as it will soak up through the opening, +tie it up in a cloth, and boil it an hour. + +RECEIPT 13.--Another of the same: Slice bread thinly, and put it in +milk, with a little sweetening; add a little flour, and bake it an hour +and a half. + +RECEIPT 14.--Another still: Three pints of milk, one pound of baker's +bread, four spoonfuls of sugar, and three of molasses. Cut the bread in +slices; interpose a few raisins, if you choose, between each two +slices, and then pour on the milk and sweetening. If baked, an hour and +a half is sufficient. If boiled, two or three hours. Use a tin pudding +boiler. + +RECEIPT 15.--Rice and apple pudding: Boil six ounces of rice in a pint +of milk, till it is soft; then fill a dish about half full of apples +pared and cored; sweeten; put the rice over them as a crust, and bake +it. + +RECEIPT 16.--Stirabout is made in Scotland by stirring oat meal in +boiling water till it becomes a thick pudding or porridge. This, with +cakes of oat meal and potatoes, forms the principal food of many parts +of Scotland. + +RECEIPT 17.--Hasty pudding is best made as follows: Mix five or six +spoonfuls of sifted meal in half a pint of cold water; stir it into a +quart of water, while boiling; and from time to time sprinkle and stir +in meal till it becomes thick enough. It should boil half or three +quarters of an hour. It may be made of Indian or rye meal. + +RECEIPT 18.--Potato pudding: Take two pounds of well boiled and well +mashed potato, one pound of wheat meal; make a stiff paste, by mixing +well; and tie it in a wet cloth dusted with flour. Boil it two hours. + +RECEIPT 19.--Apple pudding may be made by alternating a layer of +prepared apples with a layer of dough made of wheat meal, till you have +filled a tin pudding boiler. Boil it three hours. + +RECEIPT 20.--Sago pudding: Take half a pint of sago and a quart of milk. +Boil half the milk, and pour it on the sago; let it stand half an hour; +then add the remainder of the milk. Sweeten to your taste. + +RECEIPT 21.--Tapioca pudding may be prepared in a similar manner. + +RECEIPT 22.--To make cracker pudding, to a quart of milk add four thick +large coarse meal crackers broken in pieces, a little sugar, and a +little flour, and bake it one hour and thirty minutes. + +RECEIPT 23.--Sweet apple pudding is made by cutting in pieces six sweet +apples, and putting them and half a pint of Indian meal, with a little +salt, into a pint of milk, and baking it about three hours. + +RECEIPT 24.--Sunderland pudding is thus made: Take about two thirds of a +good-sized teacup full of flour, three eggs, and a pint of milk. Bake +about fifteen minutes in cups. Dress it as you please--sweet sauce is +preferred. + +RECEIPT 25.--Arrow root pudding may be made by adding two ounces of +arrow root, previously well mixed with a little cold milk, to a pint of +milk boiling hot. Set it on the fire; let it boil fifteen or twenty +minutes, stirring it constantly. When cool, add three eggs and a little +sugar, and bake it in a moderate oven. + +RECEIPT 26.--Boiled arrow root pudding: Mix as before, only do not let +it quite boil. Stir it briskly for some time, after putting it on the +fire the second time, at a heat of not over 180 degrees. When cooled, +add three eggs and a little salt. + +RECEIPT 27.--Cottage pudding: Two pounds of potatoes, pared, boiled, and +mashed, one pint of milk, three eggs, and two ounces of sugar, and if +you choose, a little salt. Bake it three quarters of an hour. + +RECEIPT 28.--Snow balls: Pare and core as many large apples as there are +to be balls; wash some rice--about a large spoonful to an apple will be +enough; boil it in a little water with a pinch of salt, and drain it. +Spread it on cloths, put on the apples, and boil them an hour. Before +they are turned out of the cloths, dip them into cold water. + +Macaroni is made into puddings a great deal, and so is vermicelli; but +they are at best very indifferent dishes. Those who live solely to eat +may as well consult "Vegetable Cookery," where they will find +indulgences enough and too many, even though flesh and fish are wholly +excluded. They will find soups, pancakes, omelets, fritters, jellies, +sauces, pies, puddings, dumplings, tarts, preserves, salads, +cheese-cakes, custards, creams, buns, flummery, pickles, syrups, +sherbets, and I know not what. You will find them by hundreds. And you +will find directions, too, for preparing almost every vegetable +production of both hemispheres. And if you have brains of your own you +may invent a thousand new dishes every day for a long time without +exhausting the vegetable kingdom. + + +DIVISION V.--PIES. + +Pies, as commonly made, are vile compounds. The crust is usually the +worst part. The famous Peter Parley (S. G. Goodrich, Esq.), in his +Fireside Education, represents pies, cakes, and sweetmeats as totally +unfit for the young. + +Within a few years attempts have been made to get rid of the crust of +pies--the abominations of the crust, I mean--by using Indian meal sifted +into the pans, etc.; but the plan has not succeeded. It is the pastry +that gives pies their charm. Divest them of this, and people will almost +as readily accept of plain ripe fruit, especially when baked, stewed, or +in some other way cooked. + +As pies are thus objectionable, and are, withal, a mongrel race, +partaking of the nature both of bread and fruit, and yet, as such, unfit +for the company of either, I will almost omit them. I will only mention +two or three. + +RECEIPT 1.--Squashes, boiled, mashed, strained, and mixed with milk or +milk and water, in small quantity, may be made into a tolerable pie. +They may rest on a thick layer of Indian meal. + +RECEIPT 2.--Pumpkins may be made into pies in a similar manner; but in +general they are not so sweet as squashes. + +RECEIPT 3.--Potato pie: Cut potatoes into squares, with one or two +turnips sliced; add milk or cream, just to cover them; salt a little, +and cover them with a bread crust. Sweet potatoes make far better pies +than any other kind. + +Almost any thing may be made into pies. Plain apple pies--so plain as to +become mere apple sauce--are far from being very objectionable. See the +next Class of Foods. + + +CLASS II.--FRUITS. + +So far as fruits, at least in an uncooked state, have been used as food, +they have chiefly been regarded as a dessert, or at most as a condiment. +Until within a few years, few regarded them as a principal article--as +standing next to bread in point of importance. In treating of these +substances as food, I shall simply divide them into Domestic and +Foreign. + + +DIVISION I.--DOMESTIC FRUITS. + + +SECTION A.--_The large fruits--Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc._ + +RECEIPT 1.--The apple. May be baked in tin pans, or in a common bake +pan. The sweet apple requires a more intense heat than the sour. The +skin may be removed before baking, but it is better to have it remain. +The best apple pie in the world is a baked apple. + +RECEIPT 2.--It may be roasted before the fire, by being buried in ashes, +or by throwing it upon hot coals, and quickly turning it. The last +process is sometimes called _hunting_ it. + +RECEIPT 3.--It may be boiled, either in water alone, or in water and +sugar, or in water and molasses. In this case the skin is often removed, +that the saccharine matter may the better penetrate the body of the +apple. + +RECEIPT 4.--It may also be pared and cored, and then stewed, either +alone or with molasses, to form plain apple sauce--a comparatively +healthy dish. + +RECEIPT 5.--Lastly, it may be pared and cored, placed in a deep vessel, +covered with a plain crust, as wheat meal formed into dough, and baked +slowly. This forms a species of pie. + +RECEIPT 6.--The pear is not, in every instance, improved by cookery. +Several species, however, are fit for nothing, till mid-winter, when +they are either boiled, baked, or stewed. + +The peach can hardly be cooked to advantage. It is sometimes cut up, and +sprinkled with sugar and other substances. + +RECEIPT 7.--A tolerably pleasant sauce can be made by stewing or baking +the quince, and adding sugar or molasses, but it is not very wholesome. + + +SECTION B.--_The smaller fruits. The Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, +Currant, Whortleberry, Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc._ + +None of these, so far as I know, are improved by cookery. It is common +to stew green currants, to make jams, preserves, sauces, etc., but this +is all wrong. The great Creator has, in this instance, at least, done +his own work, without leaving any thing for man to do. + +There is one general law in regard to fruits, and especially these +smaller fruits. Those which melt and dissolve most easily in the mouth, +and leave no residuum, are the most healthy; while those which do not +easily dissolve--which contain large seeds, tough or stringy portions, +or hulls, or scales--are in the same degree indigestible. + +I have said that fruits were next to bread in point of importance. They +are to be taken, always, as part of our regular meals, and never between +meals. Nor should they be eaten at the end of a meal, but either in the +middle or at the beginning. And finally, they should be taken either at +breakfast or dinner. According to the old adage, fruit is gold in the +morning, silver at noon, and lead at night. + + +DIVISION II.--FOREIGN FRUITS. + +The more important of these are the banana, pine-apple, and orange, and +fig, raisin, prune, and date. The first three need no cooking, two of +the last four may be cooked. The date is one of the best--the orange one +of the worst, because procured while green, and also because it is +stringy. + +RECEIPT 1.--The prune. Few things sit easier on the feeble or delicate +stomach than the stewed prune. It should be stewed slowly, in very +little water. + +RECEIPT 2.--The good raisin is almost as much improved by stewing as the +prune. + +I do not know that the fig has ever yet been subjected to the processes +of modern cookery. It is, however, with bread, a good article of food. + +Fruits, in their juices, may be regarded as the milk of adults and old +people, but are less useful to young children and to the _very_ old. But +to be useful they must be perfectly ripe, and eaten in their season. +Thus used, they prevent a world of summer diseases--used improperly, +they invite disease, and do much other mischief. + +In general, fruits and milk do not go very well together. The baked +sweet apple and whortleberry seem to be least objectionable. + + +CLASS III.--ROOTS. + + +DIVISION I.--MEALY ROOTS. + +These are the potato, in its numerous varieties, the artichoke, the +ground-nut, and the comfrey. Of these the potato is by far the most +important. + + +SECTION A.--_The Common Potato._ + +This may be roasted, baked, boiled, steamed, or fried. It is also made +into puddings and pies. Roasting in the ashes is the best method of +cooking it; frying by far the worst. I take this opportunity to enter my +protest against all frying of food. Com. Nicholson, of revolutionary +memory, would never, as his daughters inform me, have a frying-pan in +his house. + +The potato is best when well roasted in the ashes, but also excellent +when baked, and very tolerable when boiled or steamed. + +There are many ways of preparing the potato and cooking it. Some always +pare it. It may be well to pare it late in the winter and in the spring, +but not at other times. For, in paring, we lose a portion of the richest +part of the potato, as in the case of paring the apple. There is much +tact required to pare a potato properly, that is, thinly. + +RECEIPT 1.--To boil a potato, see that the kettle is clean, the water +pure and soft, and the potatoes clean. Put them in as soon as the water +boils.[29] When they are soft, which can be determined by piercing them +with a fork, pour off the water, and let them steam about five minutes. + +RECEIPT 2.--To roast in the ashes, wash them clean, then dry them, then +remove the heated embers and ashes quite to the bottom of the +fire-place, and place them as closely together as possible, but not on +top of each other. Cover as quickly as possible, and fill the crevices +with hot embers and small coals. Let them be as nearly of a size as +possible, and cover them to the depth of an inch. Then build a hot fire +over them. They will be cooked in from half an hour to three quarters of +an hour, according to the size and heat of the fire. + +RECEIPT 3.--Baking potatoes in a stove or oven, is a process so +generally known, that it hardly needs description. + +RECEIPT 4.--Steaming is better than boiling. Some fry them; others stew +them with vegetables for soup, etc. + + +SECTION B.--_The Sweet Potato._ + +This was once confined to the Southern States, but it is now raised in +tolerable perfection in New Jersey and on Long Island. It is richer than +the common potato in saccharine matter, and probably more nutritious; +but not, it is believed, quite so wholesome. Still it is a good article +of food. + +RECEIPT 1.--Roasting is the best process of cooking these. They may be +prepared in the ashes or before a fire. The last process is most common. +They cook in far less time than a common potato. + +RECEIPT 2.--Baking and roasting by the fire are nearly or quite the same +thing as respects the sweet potato. Steaming is a little different, and +boiling greatly so. The boiled sweet potato is, however, a most +excellent article. + + +DIVISION II.--SWEET AND WATERY ROOTS. + +These are far less healthy than the mealy ones; and yet are valuable, +because, like potatoes, they furnish the system with a good deal of +innutritious matter, to be set off against the almost pure nutriment of +bread, rice, beans, peas, etc. + +RECEIPT 1.--The beet is best when boiled thoroughly, which requires some +care and a good deal of time. It may be roasted, baked, or stewed, +however. It is rich in sugar, but is not very easily digested. + +RECEIPT 2.--The parsnep. The boiled parsnep is more easily _dissolved_ +in the stomach than the beet; but my readers must know that many things +which are dissolved in the stomach are nevertheless very imperfectly +digested. + +RECEIPT 3.--The turnip, well boiled, is watery, but easily digested and +wholesome. It may also be roasted or baked, and some eat it raw. + +RECEIPT 4.--The carrot is richer than the turnip, but not therefore more +digestible. It may be boiled, stewed, fried, or made into pies, +puddings, etc. It is a very tolerable article of food. + +RECEIPT 5.--The radish, fashionable as it is, is nearly useless. + +RECEIPT 6.--For the sick, and even for others, arrow root jellies, +puddings, etc., are much valued. This, with sago, tapioca, etc., is most +useful for that class of sick persons who have strong appetites.[30] + + +CLASS IV.--MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD. + +Under this head I shall treat briefly of the proper use of a few +substances commonly and very properly used as food, but which cannot +well come under any of the foregoing classes. They are chiefly found in +the various chapters of my Young Housekeeper, as well as in Dr. +Pereira's work on Food and Diet, under the heads of "Buds and Young +Shoots," "Leaves and Leaf Stalks," "Cucurbitaceous Fruits," and "Oily +Seeds." + +RECEIPT 1.--Asparagus, well boiled, is nutritious and wholesome. Salt is +often added, and sometimes butter. The former, to many, is needless; the +latter, to all, injurious. + +RECEIPT 2.--Some of the varieties of the squash are nutritious and +wholesome, especially when boiled. Its use in pies and puddings is also +well known. + +RECEIPT 3.--A few varieties of the pumpkin, especially the sweet +pumpkin, are proper for the table. Made into plain sauce, they are +highly valued by most, but they are best known as ingredients of pies +and puddings. A few eat them when merely baked. + +RECEIPT 4.--The tomato is fashionable, but a sour apple, if equal pains +were taken with it, and it were equally fashionable, might be equally +useful. It adds, however, to nature's vast variety! + +RECEIPT 5.--Watermelons, coming as they do at the end of the hot season, +when eaten with bread, are happily adapted (as most other ripe fruits +are, when eaten in the same way, and at their own proper season) to +prevent disease, and promote health and happiness. + +RECEIPT 6.--Muskmelons are richer than watermelons, but not more +wholesome. Of the canteloupe I know but little. + +RECEIPT 7.--The cucumber. Taken at the moment when ripe--neither green +nor acid--the cucumber is almost, but not quite as valuable as the +melon. It should be eaten in the same way, rejecting the rind. The +Orientals of modern days sometimes boil them, but in former times they +ate them uncooked, though always ripe. Unripe cucumbers are a _modern_ +dish, and will erelong go out of fashion. + +RECEIPT 8.--Onions have medicinal properties, but this should be no +recommendation to healthy people. Raw, they are unwholesome; boiled, +they are better; fried, they are positively pernicious. + +RECEIPT 9.--Nuts are said to be adapted to man in a state of nature; but +I write for those who are in an artificial state, not a natural state. +Of the chestnut I have spoken elsewhere. The hazelnut is next best, then +perhaps the peanut and the beechnut. The butternut, and walnut or +hickory-nut, are too oily. Nor do I see how they can be improved by +cookery. + +RECEIPT 10.--Cabbage, properly boiled, and without condiments, is +tolerable, but rather stringy, and of course rather indigestible. + +RECEIPT 11.--Greens and salads are stringy and indigestible. Besides, +they are much used, as condiments are, to excite or provoke an +appetite--a thing usually wrong. A feeble appetite, say at the opening +of the spring, however common, is a great blessing. If let alone, nature +will erelong set to rights those things, which have gone wrong perhaps +all winter; and then appetite will return in a natural way. + +But the worst thing about greens, salads, and some other things, is, +they are eaten with vinegar. Vinegar and all substances, I must again +say, which resist or retard putrefaction, retard also the work of +digestion. It is a universal law, and ought to be known as such, that +whatever tends to preserve our food--except perhaps ice and the +air-pump--tends also to interfere with the great work of digestion. +Hence, all pickling, salting, boiling down, sweetening, etc., are +objectionable. Pereira says, "By drying, salting, smoking, and pickling, +the digestibility of fish is greatly impaired;" and this, except as +regards _drying_, is but the common doctrine. It should, however, be +applied generally as well as to fish. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] Formerly called Graham meal. + +[26] I shall use these terms indiscriminately, as they mean in practice +the same thing. + +[27] Both these processes are patented in Great Britain. The bread thus +retains its sweetness--no waste of its saccharine matter, and no +residuum except muriate of soda or common salt. Sesquicarbonate of soda +is made of three parts or atoms of the carbonic acid, and two of the +soda. + +[28] Keep butter and all greasy substances away from every preparation +of food which belongs to this division--especially from green peas, +beans, corn, etc. + +[29] Some prepare them, and soak them in water over the night. + +[30] In general, the appetites of the sick are taken away by design. In +such cases there should be none of the usual forms of indulgence. A +little bread--the crust is best--is the most proper indulgence. 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A. Alcott. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .tocnum {position: absolute; top: auto; right: 10%;} + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: .5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i11 {display: block; margin-left: 5.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i15 {display: block; margin-left: 7.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i23 {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical +Men, and by Experience in All Ages, by William Andrus Alcott + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages + +Author: William Andrus Alcott + +Release Date: November 15, 2009 [EBook #30478] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VEGETABLE DIET *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1>VEGETABLE DIET:</h1> + +<h4>AS SANCTIONED BY</h4> + +<h2>MEDICAL MEN,</h2> + +<h4>AND BY</h4> + +<h2>EXPERIENCE IN ALL AGES.</h2> + +<h4>INCLUDING A</h4> + +<h3>SYSTEM OF VEGETABLE COOKERY.</h3> + +<h2>BY DR. WM. A. ALCOTT,</h2> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF THE YOUNG MAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG WOMAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG MOTHER, +YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER, AND LATE EDITOR OF THE LIBRARY OF HEALTH.</p> + +<p class="center">SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.</p> + +<p class="center"> +NEW YORK:<br /> +FOWLER AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS,<br /> +No. 308 BROADWAY<br /> +1859.<br /> +<br /> +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By fowlers & wells</span>,<br /> +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New<br /> +York.<br /> +<br /> +BANES & PALMER, STEREOTYPERS,<br /> +201 William st. corner Frankfort, N. Y.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>The following volume embraces the testimony, direct or indirect, of more +than a <span class="smcap">hundred</span> individuals—besides that of societies and +communities—on the subject of vegetable diet. Most of this one hundred +persons are, or were, persons of considerable distinction in society; +and more than <span class="smcap">fifty</span> of them were either medical men, or such as have +made physiology, hygiene, anatomy, pathology, medicine, or surgery a +leading or favorite study.</p> + +<p>As I have written other works besides this—especially the "Young +House-Keeper"—which treat, more or less, of diet, it may possibly be +objected, that I sometimes repeat the same idea. But how is it to be +avoided? In writing for various classes of the community, and presenting +my views in various connections and aspects, it is almost necessary to +do so. Writers on theology, or education, or any other important topic, +do the same—probably to a far greater extent, in many instances, than I +have yet done. I repeat no idea for the <i>sake</i> of repeating it. Not a +word is inserted but what seems to me necessary, in order that I may be +intelligible. Moreover, like the preacher of truth on many other +subjects, it is not so much my object to produce something new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> in every +paragraph, as to explain, illustrate, and enforce what is already known.</p> + +<p>It may also be thought that I make too many books. But, as I do not +claim to be so much an originator of <i>new</i> things as an instrument for +diffusing the <i>old</i>, it will not be expected that I should be twenty +years on a volume, like Bishop Butler. I had, however, been collecting +my stock of materials for this and other works—published or +unpublished—more than twenty-five years. Besides, it might be safely +and truly said that the study and reading and writing, in the +preparation of this volume, the "House I Live In," and the "Young +House-Keeper," have consumed at least three of the best years of my +life, at fourteen or fifteen hours a day. Several of my other works, as +the "Young Mother," the "Mother's Medical Guide," and the "Young Wife," +have also been the fruit of years of toil and investigation and +observation, of which those who think only of the labor of merely +<i>writing them out</i>, know nothing. Even the "Mother in her Family"—at +least some parts of it—though in general a lighter work, has been the +result of much care and labor. The circumstance of publishing several +books at the same, or nearly the same time, has little or nothing to do +with their preparation.</p> + +<p>When I commenced putting together the materials of this little treatise +on diet—thirteen years ago—it was my intention simply to show the +<span class="smcap">safety</span> of a vegetable and fruit diet, both for those who are afflicted +with many forms of chronic disease, and for the healthy. But I soon +became convinced that I ought to go farther, and show its <span class="smcap">superiority</span> +over every other. This I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> have attempted to do—with what success, the +reader must and will judge for himself.</p> + +<p>I have said, it was not my original intention to prove a vegetable and +fruit diet to be any thing more than <i>safe</i>. But I wish not to be +understood as entertaining, even at that time, any doubts in regard to +the superiority of such a diet: the only questions with me were, Whether +the public mind was ready to hear and weigh the proofs, and whether this +volume was the place in which to present them. Both these questions, +however, as I went on, were settled, in the affirmative. I believed—and +still believe—that the public mind, in this country, is prepared for +the free discussion of all topics—provided they are discussed +candidly—which have a manifest bearing on the well-being of man; and I +have governed myself accordingly.</p> + +<p>An apology may be necessary for retaining, unexplained, a few medical +terms. But I did not feel at liberty to change them, in the +correspondence of Dr. North, for more popular language; and, having +retained them thus far, it did not seem desirable to explain them +elsewhere. Nor was I willing to deface the pages of the work with +explanatory notes. The fact is, the technical terms alluded to, are, +after all, very few in number, and may be generally understood by the +connection in which they appear.</p> + +<p class="right">THE AUTHOR.<br /> +<span class="smcap">West Newton</span> Mass.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>ADVERTISEMENT</h2> + +<h3>TO THE SECOND EDITION.</h3> + + +<p>The great question in regard to diet, viz., whether any food of the +animal kind is absolutely necessary to the most full and perfect +development of man's whole nature, being fairly up, both in Europe and +America, and there being no practical, matter-of-fact volume on the +subject, of moderate size, in the market, numerous friends have been for +some time urging me to get up a new and revised edition of a work which, +though imperfect, has been useful to many, while it has been for some +time out of print. Such an edition I have at length found time to +prepare—to which I have added, in various ways, especially in the form +of new facts, nearly fifty pages of new and original matter.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">West Newton</span>, Mass., 1849.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p><span class="tocnum">Page</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<h4>ORIGIN OF THIS WORK.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Experience of the Author, and his Studies.—Pamphlet in +1832.—Prize-Question of the Boylston Medical +Committee.—Collection of Materials for an Essay.—Dr. +North.—His Letter and Questions.—Results, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-20</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<h4>LETTERS TO DR. NORTH.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Letter of Dr. Parmly.—Dr. W. A. Alcott.—Dr. D. S. +Wright.—Dr. H. N. Preston.—Dr. H. A. Barrows.—Dr. Caleb +Bannister.—Dr. Lyman Tenny.—Dr. J. M. B. Harden.—Joseph +Ricketson, Esq.—Joseph Congdon, Esq.—George W. Baker, +Esq.—John Howland, Jr., Esq.—Dr. Wm. H. Webster.—Josiah +Bennet, Esq.—Wm. Vincent, Esq.—Dr. George H. Perry.—Dr. L. +W. Sherman, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_21'>21</a>-55</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<h4>REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Correspondence.—The "prescribed course of Regimen."—How many +victims to it?—Not one.—Case of Dr. Harden considered.—Case +of Dr. Preston.—Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the +treatment of Scrofula.—No reports of Injury from the +prescribed System.—Case of Dr. Bannister.—Singular testimony +of Dr. Wright.—Vegetable food for Laborers.—Testimony, on the +whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could +reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_56'>56</a>-66</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h4>ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.—Dr. J. M. B. Harden.—Dr. J. +Porter.—Dr. N. J. Knight.—Dr. Lester Keep.—Second letter +from Dr. Keep.—Dr. Henry H. Brown.—Dr. Franklin Knox.—From a +Physician.—Additional statements by the Author. <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_66'>66</a>-91</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<h4>TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks.—Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.—Dr. +Geoffroy.—Vauquelin and Percy.—Dr. Pemberton.—Sir John +Sinclair.—Dr. James.—Dr. Cranstoun.—Dr. Taylor.—Drs. +Hufeland and Abernethy.—Sir Gilbert Blane.—Dr. Gregory.—Dr. +Cullen.—Dr. Rush.—Dr. Lambe.—Prof. Lawrence.—Dr. +Salgues.—Author of "Sure Methods."—Baron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> Cuvier.—Dr. Luther +V. Bell.—Dr. Buchan.—Dr. Whitlaw.—Dr. Clark.—Prof. +Mussey.—Drs. Bell and Condie.—Dr. J. V. C. Smith.—Mr. +Graham.—Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.—Dr. Sweetser.—Dr. +Pierson.—Physician in New York.—Females' Encyclopedia.—Dr. +Van Cooth.—Dr. Beaumont.—Sir Everard Home.—Dr. +Jennings.—Dr. Jarvis.—Dr. Ticknor.—Dr. Coles.—Dr. +Shew.—Dr. Morrill.—Dr. Bell.—Dr. Jackson.—Dr. +Stephenson.—Dr. J. Burdell.—Dr. Smethurst.—Dr. +Schlemmer.—Dr. Curtis.—Dr. Porter, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_92'>92</a>-175</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<h4>TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks.—Testimony of +Plautus.—Plutarch.—Porphyry.—Lord Bacon.—Sir William +Temple.—Cicero.—Cyrus the Great.—Gassendi.—Prof. +Hitchcock.—Lord Kaims.—Dr. Thomas Dick.—Prof. Bush.—Thomas +Shillitoe.—Alexander Pope.—Sir Richard Phillips.—Sir Isaac +Newton.—The Abbé Gallani.—Homer.—Dr. Franklin.—Mr. +Newton.—O. S. Fowler.—Rev. Mr. Johnston.—John H. +Chandler.—Rev. J. Caswell.—Mr. Chinn.—Father +Sewall.—Magliabecchi.—Oberlin and Swartz.—James +Haughton.—John Bailies.—Francis Hupazoli.—Prof. +Ferguson.—Howard, the Philanthropist.—Gen. +Elliot.—Encyclopedia Americana.—Thomas Bell, of +London.—Linnæus, the Naturalist.—Shelley, the Poet.—Rev. +Mr. Rich.—Rev. John Wesley.—Lamartine, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_176'>176</a>-222</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3> + +<h4>SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Pythagoreans.—The Essenes.—The Bramins.—Society of Bible +Christians.—Orphan Asylum of Albany.—The Mexican +Indians.—School in Germany.—American Physiological +Society, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_223'>223</a>-235</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<h4>VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument.—1. The +Anatomical Argument.—2. The Physiological Argument.—3. The +Medical Argument.—4. The Political Argument.—5. The +Economical Argument.—6. The Argument from Experience.—7. The +Moral Argument.—Conclusion, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_236'>236</a>-296</span></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h2>VEGETABLE COOKERY.</h2> + + +<h3>CLASS I.</h3> + +<h4>FARINACEOUS OR MEALY SUBSTANCES.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Bread of the first order.—Bread of the second order.—Bread of +the third kind.—Boiled Grains.—Grains in other forms—baked, +parched, roasted, or torrefied.—Hominy.—Puddings proper, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_291'>291</a>-308</span></p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>CLASS II.</h3> + +<h4>FRUITS.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The large fruits—Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc.—The smaller +fruits—Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, Currant, Whortleberry, +Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc., <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_308'>308</a>-309</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CLASS III.</h3> + +<h4>ROOTS.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Common Potato.—The Sweet Potato, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_309'>309</a>-311</span></p></div> + + +<h3>CLASS IV.</h3> + +<h4>MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Buds and Young Shoots.—Leaves and Leaf Stalks.—Cucurbitaceous +Fruits.—Oily Seeds, etc., <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_311'>311</a>-312</span></p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<h2>VEGETABLE DIET.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>ORIGIN OF THIS WORK.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Experience of the Author, and his Studies.—Pamphlet in +1832.—Prize Question of the Boylston Medical +Committee.—Collection of Materials for an Essay.—Dr. +North.—His Letter and Questions.—Results.</p></div> + + +<p>Twenty-three years ago, the present season, I was in the first stage of +tuberculous consumption, and evidently advancing rapidly to the second. +The most judicious physicians were consulted, and their advice at length +followed. I commenced the practice of medicine, traveling chiefly on +horseback; and, though unable to do but little at first, I soon gained +strength enough to perform a moderate business, and to combine with it a +little gardening and farming. At the time, or nearly at the time, of +commencing the practice of medicine, I laid aside my feather bed, and +slept on straw; and in December, of the same year, I abandoned spirits, +and most kinds of stimulating food. It was not, however, until nineteen +years ago, the present season, that I abandoned all drinks but water, +and all flesh, fish, and other highly stimulating and concentrated +aliments, and confined myself to a diet of milk, fruits, and +vegetables.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the meantime, the duties of my profession, and the nature of my +studies led me to prosecute, more diligently than ever, a subject which +I had been studying, more or less, from my very childhood—the laws of +Human Health. Among other things, I collected facts on this subject from +books which came in my way; so that when I went to Boston, in January, +1832, I had already obtained, from various writers, on materia medica, +physiology, disease, and dietetics, quite a large parcel. The results of +my reflections on these, and of my own observation and experience, were, +in part—but in part only—developed in July, of the same year, in an +anonymous pamphlet, entitled, "Rational View of the Spasmodic Cholera;" +published by Messrs. Clapp & Hull, of Boston.</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1833, the Boylston Medical Committee of Harvard +University offered a prize of fifty dollars, or a gold medal of that +value, to the author of the best dissertation on the following question: +"What diet can be selected which will ensure the greatest health and +strength to the laborer in the climate of New England—quality and +quantity, and the time and manner of taking it, to be considered?"</p> + +<p>At first, I had thoughts of attempting an essay on the subject; for it +seemed to me an important one. Circumstances, however, did not permit me +to prosecute the undertaking; though I was excited by the question of +the Boylston Medical Committee to renewed efforts to increase my stock +of information and of facts.</p> + +<p>In 1834, I accidentally learned that Dr. Milo L. North, a distinguished +practitioner of medicine in Hartford, Connecticut, was pursuing a course +of inquiry not unlike my own, and collecting facts and materials for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +similar purpose. In correspondence with Dr. North, a proposition was +made to unite our stock of materials; but nothing for the present was +actually done. However, I agreed to furnish Dr. North with a statement +of my own experience, and such other important facts as came within the +range of my own observations; and a statement of my experience was +subsequently intrusted to his care, as will be seen in its place, in the +body of this work.</p> + +<p>In February, 1835, Dr. North, in the prosecution of his efforts, +addressed the following circular, or <span class="smcap">letter</span> and <span class="smcap">questions</span>, to the editor +of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, which were accordingly +inserted in a subsequent number of that work. They were also published +in the American Journal of Medical Science, of Philadelphia, and copied +into numerous papers, so that they were pretty generally circulated +throughout our country.</p> + + +<h4>"To the Editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.</h4> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Reports not unfrequently reach us of certain individuals who have +fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. Those persons are +said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest confidence, to have +pertinaciously followed the course, till they reached a point of +reduction from which there was no recovery. If these are facts, they +ought to be collected and published. And I beg leave, through your +Journal, to request my medical brethren, if they have been called to +advise in such cases, that they will have the kindness to answer, +briefly, the following interrogatories, by mail, as early as convenient.</p> + +<p>"Should the substance of their replies ever be embodied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> in a small +volume, they will not only receive a copy and the thanks of the author, +but will have the pleasure to know they are assisting in the settlement +of a question of great interest to the country. If it should appear +probable that their patient was laboring under a decline at the +commencement of the change of diet, this ought, in candor, to be fully +disclosed.</p> + +<p>"It will be perceived, by the tenor of the questions, that they are +designed to embrace not only unfortunate results of a change of diet, +but such as are favorable. There are, in our community, considerable +numbers who have entirely excluded animal food from their diet. It is +exceedingly desirable that the results of such experiments, so difficult +to be found in this land of plenty, should be ascertained and thrown +before the profession and the community. Will physicians, then, have the +kindness, if they know of any persons in their vicinity who have +excluded animal food from their diet for a year or over, to lend them +this number of the Journal, and ask them to forward to Milo L. North, +Hartford, Connecticut, as early as convenient, the result of this change +of diet on their health and constitution, in accordance with the +following inquiries?</p> + +<p>"1. Was your bodily strength either increased or diminished by excluding +all animal food from your diet?</p> + +<p>"2. Were the animal sensations, connected with the process of digestion, +more—or less agreeable?</p> + +<p>"3. Was the mind clearer; and could it continue a laborious +investigation longer than when you subsisted on mixed diet?</p> + +<p>"4. What constitutional infirmities were aggravated or removed?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"5. Had you fewer colds or other febrile attacks—or the reverse?</p> + +<p>"6. What length of time, the trial?</p> + +<p>"7. Was the change to a vegetable diet, in your case, preceded by the +use of an uncommon proportion of animal food, or of high seasoning, or +of stimulants?</p> + +<p>"8. Was this change accompanied by a substitution of cold water for tea +and coffee, during the experiment?</p> + +<p>"9. Is a vegetable diet more—or less aperient than mixed?</p> + +<p>"10. Do you believe, from your experience, that the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet?</p> + +<p>"11. Have you selected, from your own observation, any articles in the +vegetable kingdom, as particularly healthy, or otherwise?</p> + +<p>"N.B.—Short answers to these inquiries are all that is necessary; and +as a copy of the latter is retained by the writer, it will be sufficient +to refer to them numerically, without the trouble of transcribing each +question.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Hartford</span>, February 25, 1835."</p> + +<p>This circular, or letter, drew forth numerous replies from various parts +of the United States, and chiefly from medical men. In the meantime, the +prize of the Boylston Medical Committee was awarded to Luther V. Bell, +M.D., of Derry, New Hampshire, and was published in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal, and elsewhere, and read with considerable +interest.</p> + +<p>In the year 1836, while many were waiting—some with a degree of +impatience—to hear from Dr. North, his health so far failed him, that +he concluded to relinquish, for the present, his inquiries; and, at his +particular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> request, I consented to have the following card inserted in +the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dr. North</span>, of Hartford, Connecticut, tenders his grateful +acknowledgments to the numerous individuals, who were so kind +as to forward to him a statement of the effects of vegetable +diet on their own persons, in reply to some specific inquiries +inserted in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of March +11, 1835, and in the Philadelphia Journal of the same year. +Although many months elapsed before the answers were all +received, yet the writer is fully aware that these +communications ought to have been published before this. His +apology is a prolonged state of ill health, which has now +become so serious as to threaten to drive him to a southern +climate for the winter. In this exigency, he has solicited Dr. +W. A. Alcott, of Boston, to receive the papers and give them to +the public as soon as his numerous engagements will permit. +This arrangement will doubtless be fully satisfactory, both to +the writers of the communications and to the public.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Hartford</span>, November 4, 1836."</p></div> + + +<p>Various circumstances, beyond my control, united to defer the +publication of the contemplated work to the year 1838. It is hoped, +however, that nothing was lost by delay. It gave further opportunity for +reflection, as well as for observation and experiment; and if the work +is of any value at all to the community, it owes much of that value to +the fact that what the public may be disposed to regard as unnecessary, +afforded another year for investigation. Not that any new discoveries +were made in that time, but I was, at least, enabled to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> verify and +confirm my former conclusions, and to review, more carefully than ever, +the whole argument. It is hoped that the work will at least serve as a +pioneer to a more extensive as well as more scientific volume, by some +individual who is better able to do the subject justice.</p> + +<p>It will be my object to present the facts and arguments of the following +volume, not in a distorted or one-sided manner, but according to truth. +I have no private interests to subserve, which would lead me to +suppress, or falsely color, or exaggerate. If vegetable food is not +preferable to animal, I certainly do not wish to have it so regarded. +This profession of a sincere desire to know and teach the truth may be +an apology for placing the letters in the order in which they +appear—which certainly is such as to give no unfair advantages to those +who believe in the superiority of the vegetable system—and for the +faithfulness with which their whole contents, whether favoring one side +or other of the argument, have been transcribed.</p> + +<p>The title of the work requires a word of explanation. It is not +intended, or even intimated, that there are no facts here but what rest +on medical authority; but rather, that the work originated with the +medical profession, and contains, for the most part, testimony which is +exclusively medical—either given by medical men, or under their +sanction. In fact, though designed chiefly for popular reading, it is in +a good degree a medical work; and will probably stand or fall, according +to the sentence of approbation or disapprobation which shall be +pronounced by the medical profession.</p> + +<p>The following chapter will contain the letters addressed to Dr. North. +They are inserted, with a single<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> exception, in the precise order of +their date. The first, however, does not appear to have been elicited by +Dr. North's circular; but rather by a request in some previous letter. +It will be observed that several of the letters include more than one +case or experiment; and a few of them many. Thus the whole series +embraces, at the least calculation, from thirty to forty experiments.</p> + +<p>The replies of nearly every individual are numbered to correspond with +the questions, as suggested by Dr. North; so that, if there should +remain a doubt, in any case, in regard to the precise point referred to +by the writer of the letter, the reader has only to turn to the circular +in the present chapter, and read the question there, which corresponds +to the number of the doubtful one. Thus, for example, the various +replies marked 6, refer to the length or duration of the experiment or +experiments which had been made; and those marked 9, to the aperient +effects of a diet exclusively vegetable. And so of all the rest.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>LETTERS TO DR. NORTH.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Letter of Dr. Parmly.—Dr. W. A. Alcott.—Dr. D. S. +Wright.—Dr. H. N. Preston.—Dr. H. A. Barrows.—Dr. Caleb +Bannister.—Dr. Lyman Tenny.—Dr. J. M. B. Harden.—Joseph +Ricketson, Esq.—Joseph Congdon, Esq.—George W. Baker, +Esq.—John Howland, Jr., Esq.—Dr. Wm. H. Webster.—Josiah +Bennet, Esq.—Wm. Vincent, Esq.—Dr. Geo. H. Perry.—Dr. L. W. +Sherman.</p></div> + + +<h4>LETTER I.—FROM DR. PARMLY, DENTIST.</h4> + +<h4>To Dr. North.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>,—For two years past, I have abstained from the use of all +the diffusible stimulants, using no animal food, either flesh, fish, or +fowl; nor any alcoholic or vinous spirits; no form of ale, beer, or +porter; no cider, tea, or coffee; but using milk and water as my only +liquid aliment, and feeding sparingly, or rather, moderately, upon +farinaceous food, vegetables, and fruit, seasoned with unmelted butter, +slightly boiled eggs, and sugar or molasses; with no condiment but +common salt.</p> + +<p>I adopted this regimen in company with several friends, male and female, +some of whom had been afflicted either with dyspepsia or some other +chronic malady. In every instance within the circle of my acquaintance, +the <i>symptoms</i> of disease disappeared before this system of diet; and I +have every reason to believe that the disease itself was wholly or in +part eradicated.</p> + +<p>In answer to your inquiry, whether I ascribe the cure,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> in the cases +alleged, to the abstinence from animal food or from stimulating drinks, +or from both, I cannot but give it as my confident opinion that the +result is to be attributed to a general abandonment of the <i>diffusive +stimuli</i>, under every shape and form.</p> + +<p>An increase of flesh was one of the earliest effects of the +<i>anti-stimulating</i> regimen, in those cures in which the system was in +low condition. The animal spirits became more cheerful, buoyant, and +uniformly pleasurable. Mental and bodily labor was endured with much +less fatigue, and both intellectual and corporeal exertion was more +vigorous and efficient.</p> + +<p>In the language of Addison, this system of ultra temperance has had the +happy effect of "filling the mind with inward joy, and spreading delight +through all its faculties."</p> + +<p>But, although I have thus made the experiment of abstaining wholly from +the use of liquid and solid stimulants, and from every form of animal +food, I am not fully convinced that it should be deemed improper, on any +account, to use the more slightly stimulating forms of animal food. +Perhaps fish and fowl, with the exception of ducks and geese, turtle and +lobster, may be taken without detriment, in moderate quantities. And I +regard good mutton as being the lightest, and, at the same time, the +most nutritious of all meats, and as producing less inconvenience than +any other kind, where the energies of the stomach are enfeebled. And yet +there are unquestionably many constitutions which would be benefited by +living, as I and others have done, on purely vegetable diet and ripe +fruits.</p> + +<p>In relation to many of the grosser kinds of animal food, all alcoholic +spirits, all distilled and fermented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> liquors, tea and coffee, opium and +tobacco,—I feel confident in pronouncing them not only useless, but +noxious to the animal machine.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Eleazer Parmly</span></p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, January 31, 1835.</p> + +<h4>LETTER II—FROM DR. W. A. ALCOTT.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, December 19, 1834.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I received your communication, and hasten to reply to as many +of your inquiries as I can. Allow me to take them up in the very order +in which you have presented them.</p> + +<p>Answer to question 1. I was bred to a very active life, from my earliest +childhood. This active course was continued till about the time of my +leaving off the use of flesh and fish; since which period my habits +have, unfortunately, been more sedentary. I think my muscular strength +is somewhat less now than it was before I omitted flesh meat, but in +what proportion I am unable to say; for indeed it varies greatly. When +more exercise is used, my strength increases—sometimes almost +immediately; when less exercise is used, my strength again diminishes, +but not so rapidly. These last circumstances indicate a more direct +connection between my loss of muscular strength and my neglect of +exercise than between the former and my food.</p> + +<p>2. Rather more agreeable; unless I use too large a quantity of food; to +which however I am rather more inclined than formerly, as my appetite is +keener, and food relishes far better. A sedentary life, moreover, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> I +am well satisfied, tends to bring my moral powers into subjection to the +physical.</p> + +<p>3. My mind has been clearer, since I commenced the experiment to which +you allude, than before; but I doubt whether I can better endure a +"laborious investigation." A little rest or exercise, perhaps less than +formerly, restores vigor. I am sometimes tempted to <i>break my day into +two</i>, by sleeping at noon. But I am not so apt to be cloyed with study, +or reflection, as formerly.</p> + +<p>4. Several. 1. An eruptive complaint, sometimes, at one period of my +life, very severe. 2. Irritation of the lungs; probably, indeed most +certainly, incipient phthisis. 3. Rheumatic attacks, though they had +never been very severe.</p> + +<p>The eruptive disease, however, and the rheumatic attacks, are not wholly +removed; but they are greatly diminished. The irritation at the lungs +has nearly left me. This is the more remarkable from the fact that I +have been, during almost the whole period of my experiment, in or about +Boston. I was formerly somewhat subject to palpitations; these are now +less frequent. I am also less exposed to epidemics. Formerly, like other +scrofulous persons, I had nearly all that appeared; now I have very few.</p> + +<p>You will observe that I merely state the facts, without affirming, +positively, that my change of diet has been the cause, though I am quite +of opinion that this has not been without its influence. Mental quiet +and total abstinence from all drinks but water, may also have had much +influence, as well as other causes.</p> + +<p>5. Very few colds. Last winter I had a violent inflammation of the ear, +which was attended with some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> fever; but abstinence and emollient +applications soon restored me. In July last, I had a severe attack of +diarrhœa unattended with much fever, which I attributed to drinking +too much water impregnated with earthy salts, and to which I had been +unaccustomed. When I have a cold, of late, it affects, principally, the +nasal membrane; and, if I practice abstinence, soon disappears. In this +respect, more than in any other, I am confident that since I commenced +the use of a vegetable diet I have been a very great gainer.</p> + +<p>6. The experiment was fully begun four years ago last summer; though I +had been making great changes in my physical habits for four years +before. For about three years, I used neither flesh nor fish, nor even +eggs more than two or three times a year. The only animal food I used +was milk; and for some long periods, not even that. But at the end of +three years I ate a very small quantity of flesh meat once a day, for +three or four weeks, and then laid it aside. This was in the time of the +cholera. The only effect I perceived from its use was a slight increase +of peristaltic action. In March last, I used a little dried fish once or +twice a day, for a few days; but with no peculiar effects. After my +attack of diarrhœa, in July last, I used a little flesh several +times; but for some months past I have laid it aside entirely, with no +intention of resuming it. Nothing peculiar was observed, as to its +effects, during the last autumn.</p> + +<p>7. I never used a large proportion of animal food, except milk, since I +was a child; but I have been in the habit, at various periods of my +life, of drinking considerable cider. For some months before I laid +aside flesh and fish, I had been accustomed to the use of more animal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +food than usual, but less cider; though, for a part of the time, I made +up the deficiency of cider with ale and coffee. For several months +previous to the beginning of the experiment, I had drank nothing but +water.</p> + +<p>8. Rather less. But here, again, I fear I am in danger of attributing to +one cause what is the effect of another. My neglect of exercise may be +more in fault than the rice and bread and milk which I use. Still I must +think that vegetable food is, in my own case, less aperient than animal.</p> + +<p>9. In regard to students, my reply is, Yes, most certainly. So I think +in regard to laborers, were they trained to it. But how far <i>early +habits</i> may create a demand for the continuance of animal food through +life, I am quite at a loss for an opinion. Were I a hard laborer, I +should use no animal food. When I travel on foot forty or fifty miles a +day, I use vegetable food, and in less than the usual quantity. This I +used to do before I commenced my experiment.</p> + +<p>10. I use bread made of unbolted wheat meal, in moderate quantity, when +I can get it; plain Indian cakes once a day; milk once a day; rice once +a day. My plan is to use as few things as possible at the same meal, but +to have considerable variety at different meals. I use no new bread or +pastry, no cheese, and but little butter; and very little fruit, except +apples in moderate quantity.</p> + +<p>11. The answer to this question, though I think it would be important +and interesting, with many other particulars, I must defer for the +present. The experiments of Dr. F., a young man in this neighborhood, +and of several other individuals, would, I know be in point;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> but I have +not at my command the time necessary to present them.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER III.—FROM DR. D. S. WRIGHT.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Whitehall</span>, Washington Co., N. Y., March 17, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I noticed a communication from you in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal of the 5th instant, in which you signify a wish to +collect facts in relation to the effects of a vegetable diet upon the +human system, etc. I submit for your consideration my own experience; +premising, however, that I am a practicing physician in this place—am +thirty-three years old—of a sanguine, bilious temperament—have from +youth up usually enjoyed good health—am not generally subject to +fevers, etc.</p> + +<p>I made a radical change in my diet three years ago this present month, +from a mixed course of animal and vegetable food, to a strictly +vegetable diet, on which I subsisted pretty uniformly for the most part +of one year. I renewed it again about ten moths ago.</p> + +<p>My reasons for adopting it were: 1st. I had experienced the beneficial +effects of it for several years before, during the warm weather, in +obviating a dull cephalalgic pain, and oppression in the epigastrium. +2dly. I had recently left the salubrious atmosphere of the mountains in +Essex county, in this state, for this place of <i>musquitoes</i> and +<i>miasmata</i>. 3dly, and prominently. I had frequent exposures to the +variolous infection, and I had a <i>dreadful</i> apprehension that I might +have an attack of the varioloid, as at that time I had never +experimentally tried the protective powers of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> vaccine virus, and +had <i>too</i> little confidence in those who recommended its prophylactic +powers. The results I submit you, in reply to your interrogatories.</p> + +<p>1. I think each time I tried living on vegetable food exclusively, that +for the first month I could not endure fatigue <i>as well</i>. Afterward I +could.</p> + +<p>2. The digestive organs were always more agreeably excited.</p> + +<p>3. The mind uniformly clearer, and could endure laborious investigations +longer, and with less effort.</p> + +<p>4. I am constitutionally healthy and robust.</p> + +<p>5. I believe I have more colds, principally seated on the mucous +membranes of the lungs, fauces, and cavities of the head. (I do not, +however, attribute it to diet.)</p> + +<p>6. The first trial was one year. I am now ten months on the same plan, +and shall continue it.</p> + +<p>7. I never used a large quantity of animal food or stimulants, of any +description.</p> + +<p>8. I have for several years used tea and coffee, usually once a +day—believe them healthy.</p> + +<p>9. Vegetable diet is less aperient than a mixed diet, if we except +<i>Indian corn</i>.</p> + +<p>10. I do not think that common laborers, in health, could do as well +without animal food; but I think students might.</p> + +<p>11. I have selected <i>potatoes</i>, when <i>baked</i> or <i>roasted</i>, and all +articles of food usually prepared from <i>Indian meal</i>, as the most +healthy articles on which I subsist; particularly the latter, whose +aperient and nutritive qualities render it, in my estimation, an +invaluable article for common use.</p> + + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">D. S. Wright.</span></p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> +<h4>LETTER IV.—FROM DR. H. N. PRESTON.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Plymouth</span>, Mass., March 26, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—When I observed your questions in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal, of the 11th of March, I determined to give you +personal experience, in reply to your valuable queries.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1832, while engaged in more than usual professional +labor, I began to suffer from indigestion, which gradually increased, +unabated by any medicinal or dietetic course, until I was reduced to the +very confines of the grave. The disease became complicated, for a time, +with chronic bronchitis. I would remark, that, at the time of my +commencing a severe course of diet, I was able to attend to my practice +daily.</p> + +<p>In answer to your inquiries, I would say to the 1st—very much +diminished, and rapidly.</p> + +<p>2. Rather less; distinct local uneasiness—less disposition to +drowsiness; but decidedly more troubled with cardialgia, and +eructations.</p> + +<p>3. I think not.</p> + +<p>4. My disease was decidedly increased; as cough, headache, and +emaciation; and being of a scrofulous diathesis, was lessening my +prospect of eventual recovery.</p> + +<p>5. My febrile attacks increased with my increased debility.</p> + +<p>6. Almost four months; when I became convinced death would be the +result, unless I altered my course.</p> + +<p>7. I had taken animal food moderately, morning and noon—very little +high seasoning—no stimulants, except tea and coffee. The latter was my +favorite beverage;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and I usually drank two cups with my breakfast and +dinner, and black tea with my supper.</p> + +<p>8. I drank but one cup of weak coffee with my breakfast, none with +dinner, and generally a cup of milk and water with supper.</p> + +<p>9. With me <i>much less aperient</i>; indeed, costiveness became a very +serious and distressing accompaniment.</p> + +<p>10. From somewhat extensive observation, for the last seven years, I +should say, of laborers never; students seldom.</p> + +<p>11. Among dyspeptics, potatoes nearly boiled, then mashed together, +rolled into balls, and laid over hot coals, until a second time cooked, +as easy as any vegetable. If any of the luxuries of the table have been +noticed as particularly injurious, it has been cranberries, prepared in +any form, as stewed in sauce, tarts, pies, etc.</p> + +<p>Crude as these answers are, they are at your service; and I am prompted +to give them from the fact, that very few persons, I presume, have been +so far reduced as myself, with dyspepsia and its concomitants. In fact, +I was pronounced, by some of the most scientific physicians of Boston, +as past all prospect of cure, or even much relief, from medicine, diet, +or regimen. My attention has naturally been turned with anxious +solicitude to the subject of diet, in all its forms. Since my unexpected +restoration to health, my opportunities for observation among dyspeptics +have been much enlarged; and I most unhesitatingly say, that my success +is much more encouraging, in the management of such cases, since +pursuing a more liberal diet, than before. Plain animal diet, avoiding +condiments and tea, using mucilaginous drink, as the Irish Moss, is +preferable to "absolute diet,"—cases of decided chronic gastritis +excepted.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">H. N. Preston</span>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER V.—FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Phillips</span>, Somerset Co., Me., April 28, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I have a brother-in-law, who owes his life to abstinence from +animal food, and strict adherence to the simplest vegetable diet. My own +existence is prolonged, only (according to human probabilities) by +entire abstinence from flesh-meat of every description, and feeding +principally upon the coarsest farinacea.</p> + +<p>Numberless other instances have come under my observation within the +last three years, in which a strict adherence to a simple vegetable diet +has done for the wretched invalid what the best medical treatment had +utterly failed to do; and in no one instance have I known permanently +injurious results to follow from this course, but in many instances have +had to lament the want of firmness and decision, and a gradual return to +the "<i>flesh-pots of Egypt</i>."</p> + +<p>With these views, I very cheerfully comply with your general invitation, +on page 77, volume 12, of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. The +answers to your interrogatories will apply to the case first referred +to, to my own case, and to nearly every one which has occurred within my +notice.</p> + +<p>1. Increased, uniformly; and in nearly every instance, without even the +usual debility consequent upon withdrawing the stimulus of animal food.</p> + +<p>2. More agreeable in every instance.</p> + +<p>3. Affirmative, <i>in toto</i>.</p> + +<p>4. None aggravated, except flatulence in one or two instances. All the +horrid train of dyspeptic symptoms uniformly mitigated, and obstinate +constipation removed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>5. Fewer colds and febrile attacks.</p> + +<p>6. Three years, with my brother; with myself, eighteen months partially, +and three months wholly; the others, from one to six months.</p> + +<p>7. Negative.</p> + +<p>8. Cold water—my brother and myself; others, hot and cold water +alternately.</p> + +<p>9. More aperient,—no exceptions.</p> + +<p>10. I believe the health of <i>students</i> would uniformly be promoted—and +the days of the laborer, to say the least, would be lengthened.</p> + +<p>11. I have; and that is, simple bread made of wheat meal, ground in +corn-stones, and mixed up precisely as it comes from the mill—with the +substitution of fine flour when the bowels become too active.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Horace A. Barrows</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER VI.—FROM DR. CALEB BANNISTER.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Phelps, N. Y.</span>, May 4, 1835.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—My age is fifty-three. My ancestors had all melted away with +hereditary consumption. At the age of twenty, I began to be afflicted +with pain in different parts of the thorax, and other premonitory +symptoms of phthisis pulmonalis. Soon after this, my mother and eldest +sister died with the disease. For myself, having a severe attack of ague +and fever, all my consumptive symptoms became greatly aggravated; the +pain was shifting—sometimes between the shoulders, sometimes in the +side, or breast, etc. System extremely irritable, pulse hard and easily +excited, from about ninety to one hundred and fifty, by the stimulus of +a very small quantity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> of food; and, to be short, I was given up, on all +hands, as lost.</p> + +<p>From reading "Rush" I was induced to try a milk diet, and succeeded in +regaining my health, so that for twenty-four years I have been entirely +free from any symptom of phthisis; and although subject, during that +time, to many attacks of fever and other epidemics, have steadily +followed the business of a country physician.</p> + +<p>I would further remark, before proceeding to the direct answer to your +questions, that soon perceiving the benefit resulting from the course I +had commenced, and finding the irritation to diminish in proportion as I +diminished not only the quality, but quantity of my food, I took less +than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to +about the quantity of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen +arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking only my usual +quantity in <i>bulk</i>.</p> + +<p>A seton was worn in the side, and a little exercise on horseback taken +three times every day, as strength would allow, during the whole +progress. The appetite was, at all times, not only <i>craving</i>, it was +<i>voracious</i>; insomuch that all my sufferings from all other sources, +dwindled to a point when compared with it.</p> + +<p>The quantity that I ate at a time so far from satisfying my appetite, +only served to increase it; and this inconvenience continued during the +whole term, without the least abatement;—and the only means by which I +could resist its cravings, was to live entirely by myself, and keep out +of sight of all kinds of food except the scanty pittance on which I +subsisted. And now to the proposed questions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>1. Increased.</p> + +<p>2. More agreeable, hunger excepted.</p> + +<p>3. To the first part of this question, I should say evidently clearer; +to the latter part, such was the state of debility when I commenced, and +such was it through the whole course, I am not able to give a decisive +answer.</p> + +<p>4. This question, you will perceive, is already answered in my +preliminary remarks.</p> + +<p>5. Fewer, insomuch that I had none.</p> + +<p>6. Two full years.</p> + +<p>7. My living, from early life, had been conformable to the habits of the +farmers of New England, from which place I emigrated, and my habits in +regard to stimulating drinks were always moderate; but I occasionally +took them, in conformity to the customs of those "<i>times of ignorance</i>."</p> + +<p>8. I literally drank <i>nothing</i>; the milk wholly supplying the place of +all liquids.</p> + +<p>9. State of the bowels good before adopting the course, and after.</p> + +<p>10. I do not.</p> + +<p>11. I have not.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Caleb Bannister.</span></p> + +<h4>LETTER VII.—FROM DR. LYMAN TENNY.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Franklin</span>, Vermont, June 22, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—In answer to your inquiries, in the Boston Medical and Surgical +Journal, vol. xii., page 78, I can say that I have lived entirely upon a +bread and milk diet, without using any animal food other than the milk.</p> + +<p>1. At first, my bodily strength was diminished to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> certain degree, and +required a greater quantity of food, and rather oftener, than when upon +a mixed diet of animal food (strictly so called) and vegetables.</p> + +<p>2. The animal sensations, attending upon the process of digestion, were +rather more agreeable than when upon a mixed diet.</p> + +<p>3. My mind was more clear, but I could not continue a laborious +investigation as long as when I used animal food more plentifully.</p> + +<p>4. At this time there were no constitutional infirmities which I was +laboring under, except those which more or less accompany the rapid +growth of the body; such as a general lassitude, impaired digestion, +etc., which were neither removed nor aggravated, but kept about so, +until I ate just what I pleased, without any regard to my indigestion, +etc., when I began to improve in the strength of my whole system.</p> + +<p>5. I do not recollect whether I was subject to more or fewer colds; but +I can say I was perfectly free from all febrile attacks, although +febrile diseases often prevailed in my vicinity. But since that time, a +period of six years, I have had three attacks of fever.</p> + +<p>6. The length of time I was upon this diet was about two years.</p> + +<p>7. Before entering upon this diet, I was in the habit of taking a +moderate quantity of animal food, but without very high seasoning or +stimulants.</p> + +<p>8. While using this diet, I confined myself entirely and exclusively to +cold water as a drink—using neither tea, coffee, nor spirits of any +kind whatever.</p> + +<p>9. I am inclined to think that a vegetable diet is more aperient than an +animal one; indeed, I may say I know it to be a fact.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>10. From what I have experienced, I do not think that laborers would be +any more healthy by excluding animal food from their diet entirely; but +I believe it would be much getter if they would use less. As to +students, I believe their health would be promoted if they were to +exclude it almost, if not entirely.</p> + +<p>11. I never have selected any vegetables which I thought to be more +healthy than others: nor indeed do I believe there is any one that is +more healthy than another; but believe that all those vegetables which +we use in the season of them, are adapted to supply and satisfy the +wants of the system.</p> + +<p>We are carnivorous, as well as granivorous animals, having systems +requiring animal, as well as vegetable food, to keep all the organs of +the body in tune; and perhaps we need a greater variety than other +animals.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lyman Tenny.</span></p> + +<h4>LETTER VIII.—FROM DR. J. M. B. HARDEN.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Liberty County</span>, Georgia, July 15, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Having observed, in the May number of the "American Journal of the +Medical Sciences," certain inquiries in relation to diet, proposed by +you to the physicians of the United States, I herewith transmit to you +an account of a case exactly in point, which I hope may prove +interesting to yourself, and in some degree "assist in the settlement of +a question of <i>great interest</i> to the <i>country</i>."</p> + +<p>The case, to which allusion is made, occurred in the person of a very +intelligent and truly scientific gentleman of this county, whose regular +habits, both of mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> and body, added to his sound and discriminating +judgment, will tend to heighten the value and importance of the +experiment involved in the case I am about to detail.</p> + +<p>Before proceeding to give his answers to your interrogatories, it may be +well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was +forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his +business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great +deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he himself declares, +to walk seldom less than ten miles a day, and frequently more; and this +exercise was continued during the whole period of the experiment. His +health for two years previously had been very feeble, arising, as he +supposed, from a diseased <i>spleen</i>; which organ is at this time +enlarged, and somewhat indurated. His digestive powers have <i>always</i> +been <i>good</i>, and he had been in the habit of making his meals at times +entirely of <i>animal food</i>. His bowels have always been regular, and +rather inclined to looseness, but never disordered. He is five feet +eight inches high, of a very thin and spare habit of body, with thin +dark hair, inclining to baldness; complexion rather dark than fair; eyes +dark hazel; of <i>very studious</i> habits when free from active engagements; +with great powers of mental abstraction and attention, and of a temper +<i>remarkably even</i>.</p> + +<p>In answer to your interrogatories, he replies,—</p> + +<p>1. That his bodily strength was increased, and general health became +better.</p> + +<p>2. He perceived no difference.</p> + +<p>3. He is assured of the affirmative.</p> + +<p>4. His spleen was diminished in size, and frequent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> and long-continued +attacks of <i>lumbago</i> were rendered <i>much milder</i>, and have so continued.</p> + +<p>5. Had fewer colds and febrile attacks.</p> + +<p>6. Three years.</p> + +<p>7. No; with the slight exception mentioned above.</p> + +<p>8. No.</p> + +<p>9. In his case rather less.</p> + +<p>10. Undoubtedly.</p> + +<p>11. No; has made his meals of cabbages entirely, and found them as +easily digested as any other article of diet. I may remark, that <i>honey</i> +to him is a poison, producing, <i>invariably</i>, symptoms of cholera.</p> + +<p>After three years' trial of this diet, without having any previous +apparent disease, but on the contrary as strong as usual, he was taken, +somewhat suddenly, in the winter of 1832 and 3, with symptoms of extreme +debility, attended with œdematous swellings of the lower extremities, +and painful cramps, at night confined to the gastrocnemii of both legs, +and some feverishness, indicated more by the beatings of the <i>carotids</i> +than by any other symptom. His countenance became very pallid, and +indeed he had every appearance of a man in a very low state of health. +Yet, during the whole period of this apparent state of disease, there +were no symptoms indicative of disorder in any function, save the +general function of innervation, and perhaps that of the lymphatics or +absorbents of the lower extremities. Nor was there any manifest disease +of any organ, unless it was the spleen, which was not then remarkably +enlarged. I was myself disposed to attribute his symptoms to the spleen, +and possibly to the want of animal food; but he himself attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of the vapor of +arseniuretted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> and sulphuretted hydrogen gases, to which he was +subjected during some chemical experiments on the ores of cobalt, to +which he has been for a long time turning his attention; a circumstance +which I had not known until lately.</p> + +<p>However it may be, he again returned to a mixed diet (to which however +he ascribes no agency in his recovery), and, after six months' +continuance in this state, he rapidly recovered his usual health and +strength, which, up to this day—two full years after the expiration of +six months—have continued good. In the treatment of his case no +medicine of any kind was given, to which any good effect can be +attributed; and indeed he may be said to have undergone no medical +treatment at all.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">J. M. B. Harden</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER IX.—FROM JOSEPH RICKETSON, ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New Bedford</span>, 8th month, 26th, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Respected Friend</span>,—Perhaps before giving answers to thy queries in the +American Journal of Medical Science, it may not be amiss to give thee +some account of my family and manner of living, to enable thee to judge +of the effect of a vegetable diet on the constitution.</p> + +<p>I have a wife, a mother aged eighty-eight, and two female domestics. It +is now near three years since we adopted what is called the Graham or +vegetable diet, though not in its fullest extent. We exclude animal food +from our diet, but sometimes we indulge in shell and other fish. We use +no kind of stimulating liquors, either as drink or in cookery, nor any +other stimulants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> except occasionally a little spice. We do not, as +Professor Hitchcock would recommend, nor as I believe would be most +conducive to good health, live entirely simple; sometimes, however, for +an experiment, I have eaten only rice and milk; at other times only +potatoes and milk for my dinner; and have uniformly found I could endure +as much fatigue, and walk as far without inconvenience, as when I have +eaten a greater variety. We, however, endeavor to make our varieties +mostly at different meals.</p> + +<p>For breakfast and tea we have some hot water poured upon milk, to which +we add a little sugar, and cold bread and butter; but in cold weather we +toast the bread, and prefer having it so cool as not to melt the butter. +We seldom eat a meal without some kind of dried or preserved fruit, such +as peaches, plums, quinces, or apples; and in the season, when easily to +be procured, we use, freely, baked apples, also berries, particularly +blackberries stewed, which, while cooking, are sweetened and thickened a +little. Our dinners are nearly the same as our other meals, except that +we use cold milk, without any water. We have puddings sometimes made of +stale bread, at others of Graham or other flour, or rice, or ground +rice, usually baked; we have also hasty puddings, made of Indian meal, +or Graham flour, which we eat with milk or melted sugar and cream; +occasionally we have other simple puddings, such as tapioca, etc. +Custards, with or without a crust, pies made of apple, and other fruits +either green or preserved; but we have no more shortening in the crust +than just to make it a little tender.</p> + +<p>I have two sons; one lived with us about fifteen months after we adapted +this mode of living; it agreed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> remarkably well with him; he grew strong +and fleshy. He married since that time, and, in some measure, returned +to the usual manner of living; but he is satisfied it does not agree so +well with him as the Graham diet. The coarse bread he cannot well do +without. My other son was absent when we commenced this way of living; +he has been at home about six weeks, and has not eaten any animal food +except when he dined out. He has evidently <i>lost</i> flesh, and is not very +well; <i>he</i> thinks he shall not be able to live without animal food, but +I think his indisposition is more owing to the season of the year than +diet. He never drank any tea or coffee until about four years since, +when he took some coffee for a while, but no tea. For the last two years +he has not drank either, when he could get milk. He is generally +healthy, and so is his brother: both were literally brought up on +gingerbread and milk, never taking animal food of choice, until they +were fifteen or sixteen years of age.</p> + +<p>Dr. Keep, of Fairhaven, Connecticut, was here about a year since, in +very bad health, since which I learn he has recovered by abstaining from +animal food and other injurious diet. As he is a scientific man, I think +he can give thee some useful information.</p> + +<p>1. The strength of both myself and wife has very materially increased, +so that we can now walk ten miles as easily as we could five before; +possibly it may in part be attributed to practice. Our health is, in +every respect, much improved. One of our women enjoys perfect health; +the other was feeble when we commenced this way of living, and she has +not gained much if any in the time; but this may be owing to her +attendance on my mother, both day and night, who, being blind and +feeble, takes no exercise except to walk across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> the room; but we are +very sure she would not have lived to this time had she not adopted this +way of living.</p> + +<p>2. The process of digestion is much more agreeable, if we do not indulge +in eating too much. We seldom have occasion to think of it after rising +from the table.</p> + +<p>3. I do not perceive much effect on the mind, other than what would +naturally be produced by the restoration of health; but have no doubt a +laborious investigation might be continued as long, if not longer, on +this than any other diet.</p> + +<p>4. I was formerly very much afflicted with the headache, and sometimes +was troubled with rheumatism. I have very seldom, for the last two years +especially, been troubled with either; and when I have had a turn of +headache, it is light indeed compared with what it was before we adopted +this system of living. My wife was very dyspeptic, and often had severe +turns of palpitation of the heart; the latter is entirely removed, and +she seldom experiences any inconvenience from the former. Our nurse was +formerly, and still is, troubled with severe turns of headache, though +not so bad as formerly; and I think she would have much less of it if +she were placed in a different situation.</p> + +<p>5. We scarcely know what it is to have a cold; my wife in particular. +Previously to our change of diet, I was very subject to severe colds, +attended with a hard cough, which lasted, sometimes, for several weeks.</p> + +<p>6. As before stated, we exclude animal food from our diet, as well as +tea and coffee.</p> + +<p>7. Before we adopted a vegetable diet, we always had meat for dinner, +and generally with breakfast; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> not unfrequently with tea. Tea and +coffee we drank very strong.</p> + +<p>8. We have substituted milk and water sweetened, for tea and coffee.</p> + +<p>9. Most vegetables I find have a tendency (especially when Graham or +unbolted wheaten flour is used) to keep the bowels open; to counteract +which, we use rice once or twice a week. Potatoes, when eaten freely, +are flatulent, but not inconvenient when eaten moderately.</p> + +<p>10. I think the health of students, by the exclusion of animal food from +their diet, would be promoted, especially if they excluded tea and +coffee also; and I can see no good reason why it should not be +beneficial to laboring people. I have conversed with two or three +mechanics, who confirm me in this belief.</p> + +<p>11. Graham bread, as we call it, eaten with milk, or baked potatoes and +milk, for most people, I think would be healthy; to which should be +added such a proportion of rice as may be found necessary.</p> + +<p class="right">Thy friend,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Joseph Ricketson</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER X.—FROM JOSEPH CONGDON, ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New Bedford</span>, Sept., 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Answers</span> to Dr. North's inquiries on diet.</p> + +<p>1. Increase of strength and activity, connected with, and perhaps in +some good degree a consequence of, an increase of daily exercise.</p> + +<p>2. Process of digestion more regular and agreeable.</p> + +<p>3. Mental activity greater; no decisive experiments on the ability to +<i>continue</i> a laborious investigation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>4. Dyspepsia of long continuance, and also difficult breathing; +inflammation of the eyes.</p> + +<p>5. Fewer colds; febrile attacks very slight; great elasticity in +recovering from disease. Some part of the effect should undoubtedly be +ascribed to greater attention to the skin by bathing and friction.</p> + +<p>6. Twenty-six months of <i>entire abstinence</i> from all animal substances, +excepting butter and milk. Salt is used regularly.</p> + +<p>7. Through life inclined to a vegetable diet, with few stimulants.</p> + +<p>8. Drinks have been milk, milk and water, or cold water.</p> + +<p>9. A <i>well-selected</i> vegetable diet appears to produce a very regular +action of the stomach and bowels.</p> + +<p>10. I think the health of laborers and students would be promoted by a +<i>great</i> reduction of the usual quantity of animal food, and perhaps by +discontinuing its use entirely. I feel no want.</p> + +<p>11. From my experience, I can very highly recommend bread made of coarse +wheat flour. Among fruits, the blackberry, as peculiarly adapted to the +state of the body, at the time of the year when it is in season. My +range of food has been confined. I avoid green vegetables. Age 35.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Joseph Congdon</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER XI.—FROM GEORGE W. BAKER, ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New Bedford</span>, 9th month, 10, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dr. M. L. North</span>,—Agreeably to request, the following answers are +forwarded, which I believe to be correct as far as my experience has +tested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<p>1. At first it was diminished; but after a few months it was restored, +and I think increased.</p> + +<p>2. More.</p> + +<p>3. It could.</p> + +<p>4. Pretty free from constitutional infirmities before the change, and no +increase since.</p> + +<p>5. I have had no cold, of any consequence, for the last three years; at +which time I substituted cold water for tea and coffee, and commenced +using cold water for washing about my head and neck and for shaving, +which I continued through the year.</p> + +<p>6. I have not eaten animal food for about eighteen months.</p> + +<p>7. Two years previous to the entire change the quantity was great, but +there had been a gradual diminution.</p> + +<p>8. It was. (See fifth answer.)</p> + +<p>9. More so, in my case.</p> + +<p>10. I believe the health of both laborers and students would be +improved.</p> + +<p>11. I have generally avoided eating cucumbers; otherwise I have not.</p> + +<p class="right">Thy assured friend,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Geo. W. Baker</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER XII—FROM JOHN HOWLAND, JR., ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">New Beford</span>, 9th month, 10th day, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Friend</span>,—As I have lived nearly three years upon a vegetable diet, I +cheerfully comply with thy request.</p> + +<p>1. My bodily strength has been increased; and I can now endure much more +exercise than formerly, without fatigue.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>2. They are more agreeable; and I am now free from that dull, heavy +feeling, which I used to experience after my meals.</p> + +<p>3. My mind is much clearer; and I am free from that depression of +spirits, to which I was formerly subject.</p> + +<p>4. I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed. +I had frequent and severe attacks of headache, which I now rarely have; +and when they do occur they are very light, compared with what they +formerly were.</p> + +<p>5. I have had fewer colds, and those much lighter than formerly.</p> + +<p>6. About three years.</p> + +<p>7. I used to eat animal food for breakfast and dinner, with coffee for +drink, at those meals; and tea for my third meal, with bread and butter.</p> + +<p>8. Milk for breakfast, and cold water for the other two meals.</p> + +<p>9. I have found it more so; inasmuch as the use of it, with the +substitution of bread, made from <i>coarse, unbolted wheat flour</i>, instead +of superfine, has removed my costiveness entirely.</p> + +<p>10. I do.</p> + +<p>11. I consider potatoes and rice as the most healthy, and confine myself +principally to the former.</p> + +<p>I would remark that during the season of fruits, I eat freely of them, +with milk; and consider them to be healthy.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John Howland, Jr</span>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER XIII.—FROM DR. W. H. WEBSTER.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Batavia</span>, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical +Sciences, Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case +somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my +own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my +health, as a kind of key to my answers.</p> + +<p>It is about fifteen years since I was called a <i>dyspeptic</i>; this was +while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my +medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely +swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next +month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left +college more dead than alive—a confirmed dyspeptic.</p> + +<p>In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the +winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my +indulgence in the luxuries of the table—especially in animal food, and +distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of +the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became +very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to +extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon +the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, +which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the +greatest share of that time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> with the most excruciating torture. On +getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition +indeed—reduced to a skeleton—a voracious appetite, which could not be +indulged, and which had scarcely deserted me through the whole eight +months. I could not regain my flesh or strength but by almost +imperceptible degrees; indeed, loaf-sugar and crackers were almost the +only food I could use with impunity for the first year.</p> + +<p>It is now nearly four years since I have eaten animal food, unless it be +here and there a little, as an experiment, with the sole exception of +oysters, in which I can indulge, but with all due deference to the +stricter rules of temperance. Still my appetite for animal food seems +unabated. I have ever been a man unusually temperate in the use of +intoxicating drinks; and by no means intemperate in the luxuries of the +table. I take no meat, no alcoholic or fermented drinks, not even cider; +and, for a year past, my health has been better than for three years +previous; and I think that about one third the amount of nourishment +usually taken by men of my age, might subserve the purposes of food for +<i>me</i> better than a larger quantity. The more I eat, the more I desire to +eat; and abstinence is my best medicine.</p> + +<p>But I have already surpassed my limits, and here are my answers.</p> + +<p>1. My strength is invariably diminished by animal food, and in almost +direct proportion to the quantity, with the exception named above.</p> + +<p>2. Pain has been the uniform attendant upon the digestion of an animal +diet, with feverish restlessness and constipation.</p> + +<p>3. Decidedly more fit for energetic action.</p> + +<p>4. An irritation, or subacute inflammation of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> digestive apparatus, +which is aggravated by animal food.</p> + +<p>5. Can endure hardship, exposure, and fatigue, much better without meat.</p> + +<p>6. About four years, with the exception stated above.</p> + +<p>7. It was not.</p> + +<p>8. Partially at the commencement; but not of late, if not taken hot.</p> + +<p>9. Much more aperient.</p> + +<p>10. Both classes take too much; and students and sedentaries should take +little or none.</p> + +<p>11. For myself farinaceous articles first, then the succulent sub-acid +ripe fruits, then the less oily nuts are most healthful—and animal +food, strong coffee and tea, and unripe or hard fruits, in any +considerable quantities, are most pernicious.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">W. H. Webster</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER XIV.—FROM JOSIAH BENNET, ESQ.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Mount-Joy</span>, Pa., Oct. 27, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I hereby transmit to you, answers to a series of dietetic queries +which you have recently submitted.</p> + +<p>1. My physical strength was at least equal (I am rather inclined to +think greater) after abstaining from animal food. I was, I am certain, +not subject to such general debility and lassitude of the system, after +considerable bodily exercise.</p> + +<p>2. More agreeable—not being subject to a sense of vertigo, which +frequently (with me) followed the use of animal food. There is, +generally, more cheerfulness and vivacity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>3. The mind is more clear, and is not so liable to be confused when +intent upon any intricate subject; and, of course, "can continue a +laborious investigation longer." There is at no time such a propensity +to incogitancy.</p> + +<p>4. I am not aware of being the subject of any "constitutional +infirmities;" yet, that the change of diet had a very great effect upon +the system, is obvious, from the fact of my having been, formerly, +subject to an eruptive disease of the skin, principally on the shoulders +and upper part of the back, for a number of years, which is not the case +at present, nor do I think will be, as long as I continue my present +mode of living.</p> + +<p>5. I think I have not had as many colds and febrile attacks as before, +nor have they been so severe; yet I cannot be very decisive on this +point, on account of the length of time in the trial not being fully +sufficient.</p> + +<p>6. Between seven and eight months. I must here state that animal food +was not <i>entirely</i> excluded. I probably partook, in very moderate +quantities, once or twice a week.</p> + +<p>7. The quantity of animal food which would be considered "an uncommon +proportion," I am unable to determine; but I was accustomed to make use +of it, not <i>less</i> than twice, and sometimes three times a day, +moderately seasoned. No other stimulants, of any account.</p> + +<p>8. Cold water has been the only substitute for tea and coffee, with the +exception of an occasional cup; probably as often as once or twice a +week. I was, on several occasions, by personal experience, induced to +believe that the use of strong coffee retarded the process of +digestion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>9. More aperient. Previous to the general exclusion of animal food from +my diet, I was subject to inveterate costiveness; cases of which are now +neither frequent nor severe.</p> + +<p>10. I do firmly believe it would.</p> + +<p>11. My diet, principally, during the trial, consisted of wheat bread, of +the proper age, with a moderate quantity of fresh butter. Potatoes, +beans, and some other esculent roots, etc., I found to be nutritious and +healthy. The following substances I found to produce a contrary effect, +or to possess different qualities: cabbage, when not well boiled; +cucumbers, raw or pickled; radishes, beets, and the whole catalogue of +preserves. Fresh bread was particularly hurtful to me.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Josiah Bennett</span>.</p> + +<h4>LETTER XV.—FROM WILLIAM VINCENT, ESQ.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hopkinton, R. I</span>., Dec. 23, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—The following answer to the interrogations in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal of March 1835, on diet, etc., as proposed by +yourself, has been through the press of business, neglected until this +late period. Trusting they may be of some use, I now forward them.</p> + +<p>1. Rather increased, if any change.</p> + +<p>2. ——</p> + +<p>3. I think I have retained the vigor of my mind more, in consequence of +an abstemious diet.</p> + +<p>4. I thought I had the appearance of scurvy, which gradually +disappeared.</p> + +<p>5. ——</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> +<p>6. From May 20, 1811, (more than twenty-four years.)</p> + +<p>7. Small in quantity, and dressed and cooked simply.</p> + +<p>8. I have drank nothing but warm tea, for seven years.</p> + +<p>9. Bowels uniformly open.</p> + +<p>10. I should not think it would.</p> + +<p>11. I have lived principally on bread, butter, and cheese, and a few +dried vegetables.</p> + +<p>I was born March 31, 1764. In 1833, when mowing, to quench thirst, I +drank about a gill of cold water, <i>after</i> about as much milk and water; +and the same year, some molasses and water; but they did not answer the +purpose. But when I rinsed my mouth with cold water, it allayed my +thirst.</p> + +<p class="right">(Signed)</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Wm. Vincent.</span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER XVI.—FROM L. R. BRADLEY, BY DR. GEO. H. PERRY.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hopkinton, R. I.</span>, Dec. 23, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I deem it necessary, first, to mention the situation of my health, +at the time of commencing abstinence from animal food. I was recovering +from an illness of a <i>nervous fever</i>. A sudden change respecting my food +not sitting well, rendered it necessary for me to abstain from all +kinds, excepting dry wheat bread and gruel, for several weeks. By +degrees I returned to my former course of diet, but as yet not to its +full extent, as I cannot partake of animal food of any kind whatever, +nor of vegetables cooked therewith.</p> + +<p>1. Diminished.</p> + +<p>2. —<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>3. I do not perceive the mind to be clearer, and the power of +investigation less.</p> + +<p>4. Distress in the stomach and pain in the head removed.</p> + +<p>5. ——</p> + +<p>6. Six years and ten months.</p> + +<p>7. Unusual proportion of animal food.</p> + +<p>8. The first year, I drank only warm water, sweetened; since that, tea.</p> + +<p>9. ——</p> + +<p>10. I do not.</p> + +<p>11. I find <i>beets</i> particularly hard to digest.</p> + +<p class="right">L. R. B.</p> + +<p>The foregoing statements and answers are in her own way and manner.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Geo. H. Perry.</span></p> + + +<h3>LETTER XVII.—FROM DR. L. W. SHERMAN.</h3> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Falmouth</span>, Mass., March 28, 1835.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—In compliance with the request you recently made in the Medical +Journal, I inclose the following answers to the queries relative to +regimen you have propounded. They are given by a lady, whose experience, +intelligence, and discernment, have eminently qualified her to answer +them. She, with myself, is equally interested with you in having this +important question settled, and is extremely happy that you have +undertaken to do it. This lady is now fifty years of age; her +constitution naturally is good; her early habits were active, and her +diet simple, until twenty years of age. After that, until within a few +years, her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> living consisted of all kinds of meats and delicacies, with +wine after dinners, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>1. Her bodily strength was greatly increased by excluding animal food +from her diet.</p> + +<p>2. The animal sensations connected with the process of digestion have +been decidedly more agreeable.</p> + +<p>3. The mind is much clearer, the spirits much better, the temper more +even, and "less irritability pervades the system." The mind can continue +a laborious investigation longer than when she subsisted on a mixed +diet.</p> + +<p>4. Her health, which was before feeble, has, by the change, been +decidedly improved.</p> + +<p>5. She has certainly had fewer colds, and no febrile attacks of any +consequence, since she has practiced rigid abstinence from meats.</p> + +<p>6. She has abstained entirely for three years, and has taken but little +for seven or eight years; and whenever she has, from necessity (in being +from home, where she could procure nothing else), indulged in eating +meat, she has universally suffered severely in consequence.</p> + +<p>7. The change to a vegetable diet was preceded, in her case, by the use +of an uncommon proportion of animal food, highly seasoned with +stimulants.</p> + +<p>8. Tea and coffee she has not used for thirteen years. She has used, for +substitutes, water, milk and water, barley water, and gruel. She found +tea and coffee to have an exceedingly pernicious effect upon her nervous +and digestive system.</p> + +<p>9. A vegetable diet is more aperient than a mixed. Habitual constipation +has been entirely removed by the change.</p> + +<p>10. She sincerely believes, from her experience, that the health of +laborers and students would be generally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> promoted by the exclusion of +animal food from their diet.</p> + +<p>11. She considers <i>hominy</i>, as prepared at the South, particularly +healthy; and subsists upon this, with bread made from coarse flour, with +broccoli, cauliflower, and all kinds of vegetables in their season.</p> + +<p>Be assured, dear sir, that these answers have come from a high source, +to which private reference may at any time be made, and consequently are +entitled to the highest consideration.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">L. W. Sherman.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—If I have not been minute enough in the relation of this case, I +shall hereafter be happy to answer any questions you may think proper to +propose. It is a very interesting and important case, in my opinion. The +lady has been under my care a number of times, while laboring under +slight indisposition. She has always been very regular and systematic in +all her habits. She is healthy and robust in appearance, and looks as +though she might not be more than forty. This is the only case of the +kind within my knowledge. I have practiced on her plan for a few weeks +at a time, and, so far as my experience goes, it precisely comports with +hers. But I love the "good things" of this world too well to abstain +from their use, until some formidable disease demands their prohibition.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right">L. W. S.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Dr. Preston has since deceased.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Mr. Vincent is of Stonington, Ct.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Correspondence.—The "prescribed course of Regimen."—How many +victims to it?—Not one.—Case of Dr. Harden considered.—Case +of Dr. Preston.—Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the +treatment of Scrofula.—No reports of Injury from the +prescribed System.—Case of Dr. Bannister.—Singular testimony +of Dr. Wright.—Vegetable food for Laborers.—Testimony, on the +whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could +reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances.</p></div> + + +<p>"Reports not unfrequently reach us," says Dr. North, "of certain +individuals who have fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. +These persons are said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest +confidence, to have pertinaciously followed the course, till they +reached a point of reduction from which there was no recovery." "If +these are facts," he adds, "they ought to be known and published."</p> + +<p>It was in this view, that Dr. North, himself a medical practitioner of +high respectability, sent forth to every corner of the land, through +standard and orthodox medical journals, to regular and experienced +physicians—his "medical brethren"—his list of inquiries. These +inquiries, designed to elicit truth, were couched in just such language +as was calculated to give free scope and an acceptable channel for the +communication of every fact which seemed to be opposed to the <span class="smcap">vegetable +system</span>; for this, we believe, was distinctly understood, by every +medical man, to be the "prescribed course of regimen" alluded to.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>The results of Dr. North's inquiries, and of an opportunity so favorable +for "putting down," by the exhibition of sober facts, the vegetable +system, are fully presented in the foregoing chapter. Let it not be said +by any, that the attempt was a partial or unfair one. Let it be +remembered that every effort was made to obtain <i>truth in facts</i>, +without partiality, favor, or affection. Let it be remembered, too, that +nearly two years elapsed before Dr. North gave up his papers to the +author; during which time, and indeed up to the present hour—a period, +in the whole, of more than fourteen years—a door has been opened to +every individual who had any thing to say, bearing upon the subject.</p> + +<p>Let us now review the contents of the foregoing chapter. Let us see, in +the first place, what number of persons have here been reported, by +medical men, as having fallen victims to the said "prescribed course of +regimen."</p> + +<p>The matter is soon disposed of. Not a case of the description is found +in the whole catalogue of returns to Dr. N. This is a triumph which the +friends of the vegetable system did not expect. From the medical +profession of this country, hostile as many of them are known to be to +the "prescribed course of regimen," they must naturally have expected to +hear of at least a few persons who were supposed to have fallen victims +to it. But, I say again, not one appears.</p> + +<p>It is true that Dr. Preston, of Plymouth, Mass., thinks he should have +fallen a victim to his abstinence from flesh meat, had he not altered +his course; and Dr. Harden, of Georgia, relates a case of sudden loss of +strength, and great debility, which he thought, <i>at the time</i>, might +"possibly" be ascribed to the want of animal food:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> though the +individual himself attributed it to quite another cause. These are the +only two, of a list of thirty or forty, which were detailed, that bear +the slightest resemblance to those which report had brought to the ear +of Dr. N., and about which he so anxiously and earnestly solicited +inquiry of his medical brethren.</p> + +<p>As to the case mentioned by Dr. Harden, no one who examined it with +care, will believe for a moment, that it affords the slightest evidence +against a diet exclusively vegetable. The gentleman who made the +experiment had pursued it faithfully three years, without the slightest +loss of strength, but with many advantages, when, of a sudden, extreme +debility came on. Is it likely that a diet on which he had so long been +doing well, should produce such a sudden falling off? The gentleman +himself appears not to have had the slightest suspicion that the +debility had any connection with the diet. He attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of poisonous +gases, to which he was subjected in the process of some chemical +experiments.</p> + +<p>But why, then, it may be asked, did he return to a mixed diet, if he had +imbibed no doubts in regard to a diet exclusively vegetable; and, above +all, how happened he to recover on it? To this it may be replied, that +there is every reason to believe, from the tenor of the letter, that he +acted against his own inclination, and contrary to his own views, at the +request of his friends, and of Dr. Harden, his physician; though Dr. +Harden does not expressly say so. Besides, it does not appear that under +his mixed diet there was any favorable change, till something like six +months had elapsed. This was a period, in all probability, just +sufficient to allow the poison of the gases to disappear; after which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +he might have been expected to recover on any diet not positively bad. +If this is not a true solution of the case, how happens it that there +was no disease of any organ or function, except the nervous function? +There is every reason for believing that Dr. Harden, at the date of his +letter, had undergone a change of opinion, and was himself beginning to +doubt whether the regimen had any agency in producing the debility.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>The case of Dr. Preston is somewhat more difficult. At first view, it +seems to sustain the old notion of medical men, that, with a scrofulous +habit, a diet exclusively vegetable cannot be made to agree. This, I +say, seems to be a natural conclusion, <i>at first view</i>. But, on looking +a little farther, we may find some facts that justify a different +opinion.</p> + +<p>Dr. Preston was evidently timid and fearful—foreboding ill—during the +whole progress of his experiment. We think his story fully justifies +this conclusion. In such circumstances, what could have been expected? +There is no course of regimen in the world which will succeed happily in +a state of mind like this.</p> + +<p>It should be carefully observed by the reader, that Dr. Preston speaks +of entering upon a "severe course of diet;" and also, that, in +attempting to give an opinion as to the best kind of vegetable food, he +speaks of potatoes, prepared in a certain specified manner, as being +preferable to any other. Now, I think it obvious, that Dr. Preston's +"severe course" partook largely of <i>crude</i> vegetables, instead of the +richer and better farinaceous articles—as the various sorts of bread, +rice, pulse, etc.—and, if so, it is not to be wondered at that it was +so unsuccessful. In short, I do not think he made any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> thing like a fair +experiment in vegetable diet. His testimony, therefore, though +interesting, seems to be entitled to very little weight.</p> + +<p>This conclusion is stated with the more confidence, from the fact that +some of the best medical writers, not only of ancient times, but of the +present day, appear to entertain serious doubts in regard to the +soundness of the popular opinion in favor of the "beef-steak-and-porter" +system of curing scrofulous patients. Dr. Clark, in the progress of his +"Treatise on Consumption," almost expresses a belief that a judicious +vegetable diet is preferable even for the scrofulous. He would not, of +course, recommend a diet of <i>crude</i> vegetables, but one, rather, which +would partake largely of farinaceous grains and fruits. Nor do I suppose +he would, in every case, entirely exclude milk.</p> + +<p>Dr. Cheyne, in his writings, not only gives it as his opinion that a +milk diet, long continued, or a milk and vegetable diet and mild +mercurials, are the best means of curing scrofula; but he also says, +expressly, that "in all countries where animal food and strong fermented +liquors are too freely used, there is scarcely an individual that hath +not scrofulous glands." A sad story to relate, or to read! But, Dr. +Lambe, of London, and other British physicians, entertain similar +sentiments; and Dr. Lambe practices medicine largely, while entertaining +these sentiments. I could mention more than one distinguished physician, +in Boston and elsewhere, who prescribes a vegetable and milk diet in +scrofula.</p> + +<p>But, granting even the most that the friends of animal food can claim, +what would the case of Dr. Preston prove? That the healthy are ever +injured by the vegetable system? By no means. That the sickly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> would +generally be? Certainly not. Dr. Preston himself even specifies one +disease, in which he thinks a vegetable diet would be useful. What, +then, is the bearing of <i>this single and singular case</i>? Why, at the +most, it only shows that there are some forms of dyspepsia which require +animal food. Dr. Preston does not produce a single fact unfavorable to a +diet exclusively vegetable for the healthy.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p>It is also worthy of particular notice, that not a fact is brought, or +an experiment related, in a list of from thirty to forty cases, reported +too by medical men, which goes to prove that any injury has arisen to +the healthy, from laying aside the use of animal food. This kind of +information, though not the principal thing, was at least a secondary +object with Dr. North; as we see by his questions, which were intended +to be put to those who had excluded animal food from their diet for a +year or more.</p> + +<p>But, let us take a general view of the replies to the inquiries of Dr. +North. The sum of his first three questions, was,—What were the effects +of excluding animal food from your diet on your bodily strength, your +mental faculties, and your appetite and animal spirits?</p> + +<p>The answers to the three questions, of which this is the same, are, as +will be seen, remarkable. In almost every instance the reply indicates +that bodily and mental labor was endured with less fatigue than before, +and that an increased activity of mind and body was accompanied with +increased cheerfulness and animal enjoyment. In nearly every instance, +strength of body was actually increased; especially after the first +month. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> result so uniformly in favor of the vegetable system is +certainly more than could have been expected.</p> + +<p>One physician who made the experiment, indeed, says, that though his +mind was clearer than before, he could not endure, so long, a laborious +investigation. Another individual says, he perceived no difference in +this respect. A third says, she found her bodily strength and powers of +investigation somewhat diminished, though her disease was removed. With +these exceptions, the testimony on this point is, as I have already +said, most decidedly—I might say most overwhelmingly—in favor of the +disuse of animal food.</p> + +<p>To the question, whether any constitutional infirmities were aggravated +or removed by the new course of regimen, the replies are almost equally +favorable to the vegetable system. It is true that one of the +physicians, Dr. Parmly, thinks the beneficial effects which appeared in +the circle of his observation were the results of a simultaneous +discontinuance of fermented drinks, tea and coffee, and condiments. But +I believe every one who reads his letter will be surprised at his +conclusions. No matter, however; we have his facts, and we are quite +willing they should be carefully considered. The singular case of Dr. +Preston, I now leave wholly out of the account. It was, as I have since +learned, the story of a <i>very singular man</i>.</p> + +<p>Among the diseases and difficulties which were removed, or supposed to +be removed, by the new diet, were dyspepsia, with the constipation which +usually attends it, general lassitude, rheumatism, periodical headache, +palpitations, irritation of the first passages, eruptive diseases of the +skin, scurvy, and consumption.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>The case of Dr. Bannister, who was, in early life, decidedly +consumptive, is one of the most remarkable on record. Though evidently +consumptive, and near the borders of the grave, between the ages of +twenty and twenty-nine, he so far recovered as to be, at the age of +fifty-three, entirely free from every symptom of phthisis for +twenty-four years; during which whole period, he was sufficiently +vigorous to follow the laborious business of a country physician.</p> + +<p>The confidence of Dr. Wright in the prophylactic powers of a diet +exclusively vegetable, so far as the mere opinion of one medical man is +to be received as testimony in the case, is also remarkable. He not only +regards the vegetable system as a defence against the diseases of +miasmatic regions, but also against the varioloid disease. On the latter +point, he goes, it seems, almost as far as Mr. Graham, who appears to +regard it not only as, in some measure, a preventive of epidemic +diseases generally, in which he is most undoubtedly correct, but also of +the small-pox.</p> + +<p>The testimony on another point which is presented in the replies to Dr. +North's questions, is almost equally uniform. In nearly every instance, +the individuals who have abandoned animal food have found themselves +less subject to colds than before; and some appear to have fallen into +the habit of escaping them altogether. When it is considered how serious +are the consequences of taking cold—when it is remembered that +something like one half of the diseases of our climate have their origin +in this source—it is certainly no trifling evidence in favor of a +course of regimen, that, besides being highly favorable in every other +respect, it should prove the means of freeing mankind from exposure to a +malady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> at once troublesome in itself and disastrous in its +consequences.</p> + +<p>In reply to the question,—Is a vegetable diet more or less aperient +than a mixed one,—the answers have been the same, in nearly every +instance, that it is more so.</p> + +<p>The answers to the question whether it was believed the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet, are rather various. It will be observed, however, that +many of the replies, in this case, are medical <i>opinions</i>, and come from +men who, though they felt themselves bound to state facts, were +doubtless, with very few exceptions, prejudiced against an exclusively +vegetable regimen for the healthy. It is, therefore, to me, a matter of +surprise, to find some of them in favor of the said prescribed course of +regimen, both for students and laborers, and many of them in favor of +the discontinuance of animal food by students. Those who have themselves +made the experiment, with hardly an exception, are decidedly in favor of +a vegetable regimen for all classes of mankind, particularly the +sedentary. And in regard to the necessity of diminishing the proportion +of animal food consumed by all classes, there seems to be but one voice.</p> + +<p>On one more important point there is a very general concurrence of +opinion. I allude to the choice of articles from the vegetable kingdom. +The farinacea are considered as the best; especially wheat, ground +without bolting. The preference of Dr. Preston is an exception; and +there are one or two others.</p> + +<p>On the whole—I repeat it—the testimony is far more favorable to the +"prescribed course of regimen," both for the healthy and diseased than +under the circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> connected with the inquiry the most +thorough-going vegetable eater could possibly have anticipated. If this +is a fair specimen—and I know no reason why it may not be regarded as +such—of the results of similar experiments and similar observations +among medical men throughout our country, could their observations and +experiments be collected, it certainly confirms the views which some +among us have long entertained on this subject, and which will be still +more strongly confirmed by evidence which will be produced in the +following chapters. Had similar efforts been made forty or fifty years +ago, to ascertain the views of physicians and others respecting the +benefits or safety of excluding wine and other fermented drinks in the +treatment of several diseases, in which not one in ten of our modern +practitioners would now venture to use them, as well as among the +healthy, I believe the results would have been of a very different +character. The opinions, at least, of the physicians themselves, would +most certainly have been, nearly without a dissenting voice, that the +entire rejection of wine and fermented liquors was dangerous to the +sick, and unsafe to many of the healthy, especially the hard laborer. +And there is quite as much reason to believe that animal food will be +discarded from our tables in the progress of a century to come, as there +was, in 1800, for believing that all drinks but water would be laid +aside in the progress of the century which is now passing.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See a more recent letter from Dr. Harden, in the next +chapter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Besides, it is worthy of notice, that Dr. Preston did not +long survive on his own plan. He died about the year 1840.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.—Dr. J. M. B. Harden.—Dr. J. +Porter.—Dr. N. J. Knight.—Dr. Lester Keep.—Second letter +from Dr. Keep.—Dr. Henry H. Brown.—Dr. Franklin Knox.—From a +Physician.—Additional statements by the Author.</p></div> + + +<p>During the years 1837 and 1838 I wrote to several of the physicians +whose names, experiments, and facts appear in Chapter II. Their answers, +so far as received, are now to be presented.</p> + +<p>I have also received interesting letters from several other physicians +in New England and elsewhere—but particularly in New England—on the +same general subject, which, with an additional statement of my own +case, I have added to the foregoing. I might have added a hundred +authentic cases, of similar import. I might also have obtained an +additional amount of the same sort of intelligence, had it not been for +the want of time, amid numerous other pressing avocations, for +correspondence of this kind. Besides, if what I have obtained is not +satisfactory, I have many doubts whether more would be so.</p> + +<p>The first letter I shall insert is from Dr. H. A. Barrows, of Phillips, +in Maine. It is dated October 10, 1837, and may be considered as a +sequel to that written by him to Dr. North, though it is addressed to +the author of this volume.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER I.—FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—As to food, my course of living has been quite uniform for +the last two or three years—principally as follows. Wheat meal bread, +potatoes, butter, and baked sweet apples for breakfast and dinners; for +suppers, old dry flour bread, which, eaten very leisurely without +butter, sauce, or drink, sits the lightest and best of any thing I eat. +But I cannot make this my principal diet, because the bowels will not +act (<i>without physic</i>) unless they have the spur of wheat bran two +thirds of the time. I have at times practiced going to bed without any +third meal; and have found myself amply rewarded for this kind of +fasting, and the consequent respite thereby afforded the stomach, in +quiet sleep and improved condition the next day. And as to drink, I +still use cold water, which I take with as great a zest, and as keen a +relish, as the inebriate does his stimulus. I seldom drink any thing +with my meals; and if I could live without drinking any thing between +meals, I think I should be rid of the principal "thorn in my side," the +acetous fermentation so constantly going on in my epigastric storehouse.</p> + +<p>As to exercise, I take abundance; perform all my practice (except in the +winter) on horseback, and find this the very best kind of exercise for +me. I seldom eat oftener than at intervals of six hours, and am apt to +eat too much—have at various times attempted Don Cornaro's method of +weighing food, but have found it rather dry business, probably on +account of its conflicting with my appetite; but I actually find that my +stomach does not bear watching at all well.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>My brother continues to practice nearly total abstinence from animal +food. I have seen him but once in two and a half years, but learn his +health has greatly improved, so that he was able to take charge of a +high school in the fall of 1836, of an academy in the spring of the +present year, and also again this fall. During his vacation last July, +he took a tour into the interior of Worcester county, Mass., and came +home entirely on foot by way of the Notch of the White Hills, traveling +nearly three hundred miles. This speaks something in favor of rigid +abstinence—as when he commenced this regimen he was extremely low.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours sincerely,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">H. A. Barrows.</span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER II.—FROM DR. JOHN M. B. HARDEN.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Georgia</span>, Liberty Co., Oct. 19, 1837.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I stated in my letter to Dr. North, if I recollect correctly, +that the use of animal food was resumed in consequence of a protracted +indisposition brought on, <i>as was supposed</i>, by the inhalation of +arseniuretted hydrogen gas. The gentleman had begun to recover some time +previously; and in a short time after he commenced the use of the animal +food, he was restored to his usual health. He has continued the use of +it ever since to the same extent as in the former part of his life. He +has lately passed his fifty-fifth year, and is now in the enjoyment of +as good health as he has ever known.</p> + +<p>I know of a gentleman in an adjoining county, who with his lady has been +living for some time past on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> purely vegetable diet. They have not +continued it long enough, however, to make the experiment a fair one.</p> + +<p>No case of injury from the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen has come +under my own personal observation, if we except the one above alluded +to. I find, however, that Gehlen, a celebrated French chemist, fell a +victim to it in the year 1815. His death is thus announced in the +"Philosophical Magazine" for that year. "We lament to have to announce +the death of Gehlen, many years the editor of an excellent Journal on +Chemistry and other sciences, and a profound chemist. He fell a victim +to his ardent desire to promote the advancement of chemical knowledge. +He was preparing, in company with Mr. Rehland, his colleague, some +arsenated hydrogen gas, and while watching for the full development of +this air from its acid solution, trying every moment to judge from its +particular smell when that operation would be completed, he inhaled the +fatal poison which has robbed science of his valuable services." Vide +Tillock's Phil. Mag., vol. 46, p. 316. Some further notice is taken of +his death in a paper extracted from the "Annales de Chimie et de +Physique," and published in a subsequent volume of the same Magazine. +Vide vol. 49, p. 280, in which are given his last experiments on that +subject, by M. Gay Lussac. I regret that no account is given in the same +work of the symptoms arising from the poison in his case. I presume, +however, they are on record.</p> + +<p>In the subject of the case I mention, the general and prominent symptoms +were an immediate and great diminution of muscular strength, with pallor +of countenance and constant febricula, the arteries of the head beating +with violence, particularly when lying down at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> night, the pulse always +moderately increased in frequency, and full, but not tense; and +digestion for the most part good. This state continued for about three +months, during which time he was attending to his usual business, +although not able to take as much exercise as before. At the end of this +time he began to recover slowly, but it was six months before he was +restored entirely.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John M. B. Harden</span>.</p> + +<h4>LETTER III.—FROM DR. JOSHUA PORTER.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">North Brookfield</span>, Oct. 26, 1827.</p> + +<p>Though I would by no means favor the propensity for book-making, so +prevalent in our day, yet I have been long of the opinion that a work on +vegetable diet for general readers was greatly needed. I need it in my +family; and there are many others in this vicinity who would be +materially benefited by such a work.</p> + +<p>I have had no means of ascertaining the good or bad effects of a "diet +exclusively vegetable in cases of phthisis, scrofula, and dyspepsia," +for I have had none of the above diseases to contend with. But, since +your letter was received, I have been called to prescribe for a man who +has been a flesh eater for more than half a century. He was confined to +his house, had been losing strength for several months, still keeping up +his old habits. The disease which was preying upon him was chronic +inflammation of the right leg; the flesh had been so long swollen and +inflamed that it had become hard to the touch. There were ulcers on his +thigh, and some had made their appearance on the hip. This disease had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +been of <i>seven months'</i> standing, though not in so aggravated a form as +it now appeared. During this time, all the local applications had been +made that could be thought of by the good ladies in the neighborhood; +and after every thing of the kind had failed, they concluded to send for +"the doctor."</p> + +<p>After examining the patient attentively, I became convinced that the +disease, which developed itself locally, was of a constitutional origin, +and of course could not be cured by local remedies. All local +applications were discontinued; the patient was put on a vegetable diet +after the alimentary canal was freely evacuated. I saw this man three +days afterward. The dark purple appearance of the leg had somewhat +subsided; the red and angry appearance about the base of the ulcers was +gone, his strength improved, etc. Three days after I called, I found him +in his garden at work.</p> + +<p>He is now—two weeks since my first prescription—almost well. All the +ulcers have healed, with the exception of one or two. This man, who +thinks it wicked not to use the good things God has given us—such as +meat, cider, tobacco, etc.—is very willing to subsist, for the present, +on vegetable food, because he finds it the only remedy for his disease.</p> + +<p>Early in the spring of 1830, while a student at Amherst College, I was +attacked with dyspepsia, which rendered my life wretched for more than a +year, and finally drove me from college; but it had now so completely +gained the mastery, that no means I resorted to for relief afforded even +a palliation of my sufferings. After I had suffered nearly two years in +this way, I was made more wretched, if possible, by frequent attacks of +colic, with pains and cramps extending to my back;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> and so severe had +these pains become, that the prescriptions of the most eminent +physicians afforded only partial relief.</p> + +<p>On the 13th of February, 1833, after suffering from the most violent +paroxysm I had ever endured, I left my home for Brunswick, Maine, to +attend a course of medical lectures. For several days I boarded at a +public house, and ate freely of several substantial dishes that were +before me. The consequence was a fresh attack of colic. From some +circumstances that came up at this time, I was convinced that flesh +meats had much to do with my sufferings, and the resolution was formed +at once to change my diet and "starve" out dyspepsia.</p> + +<p>I took a room by myself, and made arrangements for receiving a pint of +milk per day; this, with coarse rye and Indian bread, constituted my +only food. After living in this way a week or two, I had a free and +natural evacuation. Thus nature began to effect what medicine alone had +done for nearly three years. The skin became moist, and my voracious +appetite began to subside. I returned home to my friends at the close of +the term well, and have been well ever since—have never had a colic +pain or any costiveness since that time. My powers of digestion are +good, and though I do not live so rigidly now as when at Brunswick, I +always feel best when my food is vegetables and milk. I can endure +fatigue and exposure as well as any man. On this mild diet, too, my +muscular strength has considerably increased; and every day is adding +new vigor to my constitution.</p> + +<p>Having experienced so much benefit from a mild diet, and being +rationally convinced that man was a fruit-eating animal naturally, I +made my views public by a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> course of lectures on physiology, which I +delivered in the Lyceum soon after I came to this place (three years +ago). The consequence was, that quite a number of those who heard my +lectures commenced training their families as well as themselves to the +use of vegetables, etc., and I am happy to inform you that, at this day, +many of our most active influential business-doing men are living in the +plainest and most simple manner.</p> + +<p>One of my neighbors has taken no flesh for more than three years. He is +of the ordinary height, and sanguine temperament, and usually weighed, +when he ate flesh, one hundred and eighty pounds. After he changed his +diet, his countenance began to change, and his cheeks fell in; and his +meat-eating friends had serious apprehensions that he would survive but +a short time, unless he returned to his former habits. But he +persevered, and is now more vigorous and more athletic than any man in +the region, or than he himself has ever been before.</p> + +<p>His muscular strength is very great. A few days since, a number of the +most athletic young men in our village were trying their strength at +lifting a cask of lime, weighing five hundred pounds. All failed to do +it, with the exception of one, who partly raised it from the ground. +After they were gone, this vegetable eater without any difficulty raised +the cask four or five times. More than three years ago this man lost his +daughter, who fell a prey to cholera infantum; he has now a daughter +rather more than a year old, whom he has trained on strictly +physiological principles; and though very feeble at birth, and for three +months subsequently, she is now the most healthy child in the town. This +child had some of the first symptoms of consumption<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> last August, owing +to the too free indulgence of the mother in improper articles of food; +but being treated with demulcents, at the same time correcting the +mother's system, she recovered, and is now the "picture of health."</p> + +<p>I was conversing with this gentleman the other day respecting his +health—says he is perfectly well, weighs one hundred and sixty-five +pounds; and though he was called well when eating flesh, he was not so +in reality; for every few weeks he was troubled with headache and a +sense of fullness in the region of the stomach, for which he was obliged +to take an active cathartic. For a few months before he adopted the +vegetable system, he had decided symptoms of congestion in the head, +such as precede apoplexy. I questioned him as to his appetite. He +informed me, that when he ate meat he had such an unconquerable desire +for food about eleven o'clock, that he could not wait till noon. This he +calls "meat hunger," for it disappeared soon after he came to the +present style of living. He has no craving now; but when he begins to +eat, the zest is exquisite.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Joshua Porter</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER IV.—FROM DR. N. J. KNIGHT, OF TRURO.</h4> + +<p class="right">Dated at <span class="smcap">Truro</span>, October, 1837.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Alcott: Sir</span>,—I hasten to comply so far with your request as to show +my decided approbation of a fruit and farinaceous diet, both in health +and sickness. The manner in which nutritious vegetables are presented to +us for our consumption and support, evince to a demonstration the +simplicity of our corporeal systems.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> Through every medium of correct +information, we learn that the most distinguished men, both in ancient +and modern times, were pre-eminently distinguished for their +abstemiousness, and the simplicity of their diet.</p> + +<p>It was not, however, a consideration of this kind that first induced me +to relinquish flesh meat and fish. Some three years previous to my +forming a determination to subsist upon farinacea, I had been laboring +under an aggravated case of dyspepsia; and about six months previous, +also, an attack of acute rheumatism.</p> + +<p>I was harassed with constant constipation of the bowels, and ejection of +food after eating, together with occasional pain in the head.</p> + +<p>Under all these circumstances, I came to this determination, which I +committed to paper: "November 9, 1831. This day ceased from +strengthening this mortal body by any part of that which ever drew +breath." To the above I rigidly adhered until last November, when my +health had become so perfect that I thought myself invincible, so far as +disease was concerned. All pains and aches had left me, and all the +functions of the body seemed to be performed in a healthy manner.</p> + +<p>My diet had consisted of rye and Indian bread, stale flour bread, sweet +bread without shortening, milk, some ripe fruit, and occasionally a +little butter.</p> + +<p>During this time, while I devoted myself to considerable laborious +practice and hard study, there was no deficiency of muscular strength or +mental energy. I am fully satisfied my mind was never so active and +strong.</p> + +<p>Since last November I have, at times, taken animal food, in order that I +might be absolutely satisfied that my mode of living acted decidedly in +favor of my perfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> health, and that a different course would produce +organic derangement.</p> + +<p>I had only taken animal food about two months after the usual custom, +before I had a severe attack, and only escaped an inflammatory fever by +the most rigid antiphlogistic treatment.</p> + +<p>I again lived as I ought, and felt well; and having continued so some +time, I resorted the second time to an animal diet.</p> + +<p>In two months' time, I was taken with the urticaria febrilis, of +Bateman, which lasted me more than two weeks, and my suffering was +sufficient to forever exclude from my stomach every kind of animal food.</p> + +<p>I am now satisfied, to all intents and purposes, that mankind would live +longer, and enjoy more perfectly the "sane mind in a sound body," should +they never taste flesh meat or fish.</p> + +<p>A simple farinaceous diet I have ever found more efficient in the cure +of chronic complaints, where there was not much organic lesion, than +every other medical agent.</p> + +<p>Mrs. A., infected with scrofula of the left breast, and in a state of +ulceration, applied to me two years since. The ulcer was then the size +of a half-dollar, and discharged a considerable quantity of imperfect +pus. The axillary glands were much enlarged, and, doubting the +practicability of operating with the knife in such cases, I told her the +danger of her disease, and ordered her to subsist upon bread and milk +and some fruit, drink water, and keep the body of as uniform temperature +as possible. I ordered the sore to be kept clean by ablutions of tepid +water. In less than three months, the ulcer was all healed, and her +general health much improved. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> axillary glands are still enlarged, +though less so than formerly.</p> + +<p>She still lives simply, and enjoys good health; but she tells me if she +tastes flesh meat, it produces a twinging in the breast.</p> + +<p>Many cases, like the above, have come under my observation and immediate +attention, and suffice it to say, I have never failed to ameliorate the +condition of every individual that has applied to me, who was suffering +under chronic affections, if they would follow my prescriptions—unless +the system was incapable of reaction.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, truly,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">N. J. Knight</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER V.—FROM DR. LESTER KEEP.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Fair Haven</span>, Jan. 22, 1838.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Agreeably to your request, I will inform you that from +September, 1834, to June, 1836, I used no meat at all, except +occasionally in my intercourse with society, I used a little to avoid +attracting notice.</p> + +<p>When I commenced my studies, life was burdensome. I knew not, for +months, and I may say years, what enjoyment comfortable health affords. +In a great many ways I can now see that I very greatly erred in my +course of living. I am surprised that the system will hold out in its +powers during so long a process in the use of what I should now consider +the means best calculated to break it down.</p> + +<p>I cannot now particularize. But in college, and during my professional +studies, and since, during six or eight years of practice in an arduous +profession, I have been greatly guilty, and neglected those means best +calculated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> to promote and preserve health; and used those means best +fitted to destroy it. The summers of 1832, 1833, and 1834, were pretty +much lost, from wretched health. I was growing worse every year, and no +medicines that I could prepare for myself, or that were prescribed by +various brother physicians, had any thing more than a temporary effect +to relieve me. All of the year 1834, until September, I used opium for +relief; and I used three and four grains of sulphate of morphine per +day, equal to about sixteen grains of opium. Spirit, wine, and ale I had +tried, and journeys through many portions of the State of Maine, with +the hope that a more northern climate would invigorate and restore a +system that I feared was broken down forever, and that at the age of +thirty-seven. But, without further preamble, I will say, I omitted at +once and entirely the use of tea, coffee, meat, butter, grease of all +sorts, cakes, pies, etc., wine, cider, spirits, opium (which I feared I +must use as long as I lived), and tobacco, the use of which I learned in +college. Of course, from so sudden and so great a change, a most horrid +condition must ensue for many days, for the relief of which I used the +warm bath at first several times a day. I had set no time to omit these +articles, and made no resolutions, except to give this course a trial, +to find out whether I had many native powers of system left, and what +was their character and condition when unaffected by the list of agents +mentioned.</p> + +<p>I pursued this plan of living faithfully for one year and a half, and +with unspeakable joy I found a gradual return of original vigor and +health. Now, I cannot say that the omission of meat of all kinds, for a +year and a half, caused this improvement in health; it is possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> that +it had but little to do with it. I know I was guilty of many bad habits; +and probably all combined caused my bad condition.</p> + +<p>At the close of the year and a half, I married my present second wife, +and then commenced living as do others, in most respects, and continued +this course most of the time until I received your letter. I then again +omitted the use of all animal food, tea, coffee, and tobacco; and for +the last month, it is a clear case, my health is better; that is, more +vigorous to bear cold. I also bear labor and care better.</p> + +<p>I have not investigated the subject of dietetics very much, but I have +no doubt that the inhabitants of our whole land make too much use of +animal food. No doubt it obstructs the vital powers, and tends to +unbalance the healthful play and harmony of the various organs and their +functions. There is too much nutriment in a small space. An unexpected +quantity is taken; for with most people a sense of fullness is the test +of a sufficient quantity.</p> + +<p>I am satisfied that I am better without animal food than with the +quantity I ordinarily use. If I should use but a small quantity once or +twice a day, it is possible it would not be injurious. This I have not +tried; for I am so excessively fond of meat, that I always eat <i>more</i> +than a small quantity, when I eat it at all. Healthy, vigorous men, day +laborers in the field, or forest, may perhaps require some meat to +sustain the system, during hard and exhausting labor. Of this I cannot +say.</p> + +<p>I am now pretty well convinced, from two or three years' observation, +that a large portion of my business, as a physician, arises from +intemperance in the use of food. Too much and too rich nutriment is +used,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> and my constant business is, to counteract its bad effects.</p> + +<p>Two cases are now in mind of the great benefit of dieting for the +recovery of health, the particulars of which I cannot now give you. One +of them I think would be willing to speak for himself on the subject.</p> + +<p class="right">I am, sir, yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lester Keep</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER VI.—SECOND LETTER FROM DR. KEEP.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Fair Haven</span>, Ct., Jan. 26, 1838.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Since I wrote you, a few days ago, I have learned of several +individuals who have, for some length of time, used no flesh meat at +all.</p> + +<p>Amos Townsend, Cashier of the New Haven Bank, has, as I am told, lived +almost entirely upon bread, crackers, or something of that kind, and but +little of that. He can dictate a letter, count money, and hold +conversation with an individual, all at the same time, with no +embarrassment; and I know him to have firm health.</p> + +<p>Our minister, Rev. B. L. Swan, during the whole of two years of his +theological studies at Princeton, made crackers and water his only food, +and was in good health.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hanover Bradley, of this village, who has been several years a +missionary among the Indians, has, for I think, eight or ten years, +lived entirely on vegetable food. He had been long a dyspeptic.</p> + +<p>There are some other cases of less importance, and probably very many in +New Haven; but I am situated a mile from the city, and have never +inquired for vegetable livers.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lester Keep</span>.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>LETTER VII.—FROM DR. HENRY H. BROWN</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">West Randolph</span>, Vt., Feb. 3, 1838.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—It has been about two years and a half since I adopted an +exclusively vegetable diet, with no drink but water; and my food has +been chiefly prepared by the most simple forms of cookery. Previously to +this, I used a large proportion of flesh meat, and drank tea and coffee. +I had much impaired my health by such indulgences. I hardly need to say +that my health has greatly improved, and is now quite good and uniform.</p> + +<p>I think that physicians, in prescribing for the removal of disease, +should pay much more regard to the diet of their patients, and +administer less of powerful medicine, than is customary with gentlemen +of this profession at large.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Henry H. Brown</span>.</p> + + +<h4>LETTER VIII.—FROM DR. FRANKLIN KNOX.</h4> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Kinston</span>,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> N. C., June 23, 1837.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Your letter of the 22d July has been hitherto unanswered, +through press of business.</p> + +<p>I consider an exclusive vegetable diet as of the utmost consequence in +most diseases, especially in those chronic affections or morbid states +of the system which are not commonly considered as diseases; and I think +that, in these cases, such a diet is too often overlooked, even by +physicians.</p> + +<p class="right">Yours, truly,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">F. Knox</span>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<h4>LETTER IX.—FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE PHYSICIAN.</h4> + +<p>[The following letter, received last autumn, is from a medical +gentleman, in a distant part of the country, whose name, for particular +reasons, we stand pledged not to give to the world. The facts, however, +may be relied on; and they are exceedingly important and interesting.]</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Your letter was duly received. I proceed to say that, since I +settled in this town, my attacks of epilepsy<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> have occurred in the +following order:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>1833.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Nov.</td><td align='left'>18.</td><td align='left'>One at</td><td align='left'>11 P. M.</td><td align='left'>Severe.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>19.</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>24.</td><td align='left'>Nineteen, from</td><td align='left'>4 A. M. to 3 P. M.</td><td align='left'>Frightful.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>1835.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Jan.</td><td align='left'>13.</td><td align='left'>One at</td><td align='left'>4 A. M.</td><td align='left'>}</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>15.</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>} Milder.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>16.</td><td align='left'>Two at 2 and</td><td align='left'>4 A. M.</td><td align='left'>}</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Thus it appears that I have enjoyed a longer immunity since the last, +than for some years prior. I have maintained total abstinence from +flesh, fish, or fowl, for two and a half years, namely, from March 1835 +to the present time. That this happy immunity from a most obstinate +disease is to be attributed solely to my abstinence from animal food, I +do not feel prepared to assert; but that my general health has been +better, my attacks of disease far milder, my vigor of mind and body +greater, my mental perceptions clearer and more acute, and my enjoyment +of life, on the whole, very essentially increased, I am fully prepared +to prove.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> +<p>I have, however, found it nearly as essential for me to abstain from +many kinds of vegetable food as from animal, namely, from all kinds of +flatulent vegetables; from all kinds of fruits and berries, except the +very mildest—as, perfectly ripe and well baked sweet apples—and from +all kinds of pies, sauces, and preserves. Of these, however, I am not +able to say, as I do of the animal varieties, that I have practiced +total abstinence; by no means. I have often ventured to indulge, and +generally suffer more or less for my temerity. My severest sufferings +for the last two years have been in the form of colic, of which I have +had frequent slight attacks; but none to confine me over twenty-four +hours.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h4>ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS.—BY THE AUTHOR.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></h4> + +<p>From the age of five or six months to that of two years, I was literally +crammed with flesh meat; usually of the most gross kind. Such a course +was believed, by the fond parents and others, as likely to be productive +of the most healthful and happy consequences. The result was an +accumulation of adipose substance, that rendered me one of the most +unsightly, not to say monstrous productions of nature. I ought not to +say <i>nature</i>, perhaps; for, if not perverted, she produces no such +monsters. At the age of six months, my weight was twenty-five pounds; +and it rose soon after to thirty or more.</p> + +<p>When I was about two years of age, I had the whooping-cough, and, having +been brought up to the height, and more than the height of my condition, +by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> over-feeding with fat meat, I suffered exceedingly. I? recovered, at +length, but I had lost my relish, as I am informed, for flesh meat; and +from this time till the age of fourteen, I seldom ate any but the +leanest muscle. I was tolerably healthy, but, from the age of two years, +was slender; so much so that, at five or six, I only weighed fifty +pounds; and was constantly either found fault with, or pitied, because I +did not eat meat in quality and quantity like other people. Nor was it +without much effort, even at the age of fourteen, that I could bring +myself to be reconciled to it. I was also trained to the early use of +much cider, and to the moderate use of tea and spirits. I have spoken of +my slender constitution;—I believe this was in part the result of +excessive early labor, and that it was not wholly owing to a premature +use of flesh meat.</p> + +<p>I had suffered so much, however, from the belief that I was feeble from +the latter cause, that I had no sooner become reconciled to the use of +flesh and fish—which was at the age of fourteen—than I indulged in it +quite freely. About this time I had a severe attack of measles, which +came very near carrying me off. I was left with anasarca, or general +dropsy, and with weak eyes. To cure the former the physicians plied me, +for a long time, with blue pill, and with mercurial medicine in other +forms, and also with digitalis; and finally filled my stomach to +overflowing with diuretic drinks. However, in spite of them all, I +recovered during the next year; except that a foundation was laid for +premature decay of the teeth, and for a severe eruptive disease. This +last, and the weakness of the eyes, were, for some time, very +troublesome.</p> + +<p>The eruptive complaint was soon discovered to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> less severe, even in +hot weather, and while I was using a great deal of exercise, in +proportion as I abstained from all drinks but water, and ate none but +mild food. Owing to the discovery of this fact and to other causes, I +chiefly discontinued the use of stimulating food and drink, during the +hottest part of the season; though I committed much error in regard to +the quantity of my food, and drank quite too freely of cold water. Still +I always found my health best, and my body and mind most vigorous at the +end of summer, or the beginning of autumn, notwithstanding the very hard +labor to which I was subjected on the farm. This increase of vigor was, +at that time, attributed chiefly to a free use of summer fruits; for, so +deeply had the belief been infixed by early education, that highly +stimulating food and drink were indispensable to the full health and +strength of mankind, and especially to people who were laboring hard, +that, though I sometimes suspected they were not true friends to the +human system, my conscience always condemned the suspicion, and +pronounced me guilty of a species of high treason for harboring it.</p> + +<p>This brings up my dietetic history, to the period at which it commences, +in the letter to Dr. North. The study of medicine, however, from the age +of twenty-four to twenty-seven, and the subsequent study and practice of +it for a few years, joined to the changes I made at the same time in my +physical habits, and my observations on their effects, led me to reject, +one after another, and one group after another, the whole tribe of extra +stimulants—solid and fluid.</p> + +<p>The sequel of my story remains to be told. It is now nearly fifteen +years since I wrote the letter, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> is found at page 23d, to Dr. +North. During this long period, and for several years before, amounting, +in all, to about nineteen years, I have not only abstained entirely from +flesh, fish, and fowl—not having eaten a pound of any one of these +during the whole time, except the very few pounds I used in the time of +the first visitation of our country with cholera, as before +mentioned—but I have almost entirely abstained from butter, cheese, +eggs, and milk. Butter, especially, I <i>never</i> taste at all. The +occasional use of milk, in very small quantities, once a day, has, +however, been resorted to; not from necessity, indeed, or to gratify any +strong desire or inclination for it, but from a conviction of its happy +medicinal effects on my much-injured frame. Hot food of every kind, and +liquids, with the exception just made, I rarely touch. Nearly every +thing is taken in as solid a form and in as simple a state as possible; +with no condiments, except a very little salt, and with no sweets, +sauces, gravies, jellies, preserves, etc. I seldom use more than one +sort of food at a time, unless it be to add fruit as a second article; +and this is rarely done, except in the morning. I have for ten or twelve +years used no drinks with my meals; and sometimes for months together +have had very little thirst at all.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> +<p>And as to the effects, they are such, and have all along been such, as +to make me wonder at myself, whenever I think of it. Instead of being +constantly subject to cold, and nearly dying with consumption in the +spring, I am almost free from any tendency to take cold at all. During +the winter of 1837-8, by neglecting to keep the temperature of my room +low enough, and by neglecting also to take sufficient exercise in the +open air, I became unusually tender, and suffered to some extent from +colds. But I was well again during the spring, and felt as if I had +recovered or nearly recovered my former hardihood.</p> + +<p>In regard to other complaints, I may say still more. Of rheumatism, I +have scarcely had a twinge in twelve or fourteen years. My eruptive +complaint is, I believe, <i>entirely</i> gone. The weakness of my eyes has +been wholly gone for many years. Indeed, the strength and perfection of +my sight and of all my senses, till nearly fifty years of age—hearing +perhaps excepted, in which I perceive no alteration—appeared to be +constantly improving. My stomach and intestines perform their respective +duties in the most appropriate, correct, and healthful manner. My +appetite is constantly good, and as constantly improving;—that is, +going on toward perfection. I can detect, especially by taste, almost +any thing which is in the least offensive or deleterious in food or +drink; and yet I can receive, without immediate apparent disturbance, +and readily digest, almost any thing which ever entered a human +stomach—knives, pencils, clay, chalk, etc., perhaps excepted. I can eat +a full meal of cabbage, or any other very objectionable crude aliment, +or even cheese or pastry—a single meal, I mean—with apparent impunity; +not when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> fatigued, of course, or in any way debilitated, but in the +morning and when in full strength. It is true, I make no experiments of +this sort, except occasionally <i>as</i> experiments.</p> + +<p>In my former statements I gave it as my opinion that vegetable food was +less aperient than animal. My opinion now is, that if we were trained on +vegetable food, and had never received substances into the stomach which +were unduly stimulating, we should find the intestinal or peristaltic +action quite sufficient. The apparent sluggishness of the bowels, when +we first exchange an animal diet for a vegetable one, is probably owing +to our former abuses. At present, I find my plain vegetable food, in +moderate and reasonable quantity, quite as aperient as it ought to be, +and, if I exceed a proper quantity, too much so.</p> + +<p>I have now no remaining doubts of the vast importance that would result +to mankind, from an universal training from childhood, to the exclusive +use of vegetable food. I believe such a course of training, along with a +due attention to air, exercise, cleanliness, etc., would be the means of +improving our race, physically, intellectually, and morally, beyond any +thing of which the world has yet conceived. But my reasons for this +belief will be seen more fully in another place. They are founded in +science and the observation of facts around me, much more than on a +narrow individual experience.</p> + +<p>There is one circumstance which I must not omit, because it is full of +admonition and instruction. I have elsewhere stated that, twenty-three +years ago, I had incipient phthisis. Of this fact, and of the fact that +there were considerable inroads made by disease on the upper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> lobe of +the right lung, I have not the slightest doubt. The symptoms were such +at the time, and subsequently, as could not have been mistaken. Besides, +what was, as I conceive, pretty fully established by the symptoms which +existed, is rendered still more certain by auscultation. The sounds +which are heard during respiration, in the region to which I have +alluded, leave no doubt on the minds of skillful medical men, of their +origin. Still I doubt whether the disease has made any considerable +progress for many years.</p> + +<p>But, during the winter of 1837-8, my employments became excessively +laborious; and, for the whole winter and spring, were sufficient for at +least two healthy and strong men. They were also almost wholly +sedentary. At the end of May, I took a long and rather fatiguing journey +through a country by no means the most healthy, and came home somewhat +depressed in mind and body, especially the former. I was also unusually +emaciated, and I began to have fears of a decline. Still, however, my +appetite was good, and I had a good share of bodily strength. The more I +directed my attention to myself, the worse I became; and I actually soon +began to experience darting pains in the chest, together with other +symptoms of a renewal of pulmonary disease. Perceiving my danger, +however, from the state of my mind, I at length made a powerful effort +to shake off the mental disturbance—which succeeded. This, together +with moderate labor and rather more exercise than before, seemed +gradually to set me right.</p> + +<p>Again, in the spring of 1848, after lecturing for weeks and +months—often in bad and unventilated rooms and subjecting myself, +unavoidably, to many of those abuses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> which exist every where in +society, I was attacked with a cough, followed by great debility, from +which it cost me some three months or more of labor with the spade and +hoe, to recover. With this and the exceptions before named, I have now, +for about twenty years, been as healthy as ever I was in my life, except +the slight tendency to cold during the winter of which I have already +taken notice. I never was more cheerful or more happy; never saw the +world in a brighter aspect; never before was it more truly "morning all +day" with me. I have paid, in part, the penalty of my transgressions; +and may, perhaps, go on, in life, many years longer.</p> + +<p>I now fear nothing in the future, so far as health and disease are +concerned, so much as excessive alimentation. To this evil—and it is a +most serious and common one in this land of abundance and busy +activity—I am much exposed, both from the keenness of my appetite, and +the exceeding richness of the simple vegetables and fruits of which I +partake. But, within a few years past, I seem to have gotten the +victory, in a good measure, even in this respect. By eating only a few +simple dishes at a time, and by measuring or weighing them with the +eye—for I weigh them in no other way—I am usually able to confine +myself to nearly the proper limits.</p> + +<p>This caution, and these efforts at self-government, are not needed +because their neglect involves any immediate suffering; for, as I have +already stated, there was never a period in my life before, when I was +so completely independent—apparently so, I mean—of external +circumstances. I can eat what I please, and as much or as little as I +please. I can observe set hours, or be very irregular. I can use a +pretty extensive variety at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> same meal, and a still greater variety +at different meals, or I can live perpetually on a single article—nay, +on almost any thing which could be named in the animal or vegetable +kingdom—and be perfectly contented and happy in the use of it. I could +in short, eat, work, think, sleep, converse, or play almost all the +while; or I could abstain from any or all of these, almost all the +while. Let me be understood, however. I do not mean to say that either +of these courses would be best for me, in the end; but only that I have +so far attained to independence of external circumstances that, for a +time, I believe I should be able to do or bear all I have mentioned.</p> + +<p>One thing more, in this connection, and I shall have finished my +remarks. I sleep too little; but it is because I allow my mind to run +over the world so much, and lay so many schemes for human improvement or +for human happiness; and because I allow my sympathies to become so +deeply enlisted in human suffering and human woe. I should be most +healthy, in the end, by spending six hours or more in sleep; whereas I +do not probably exceed four or five. I have indeed obtained a respite +from the grave of twenty-three years, through a partial repentance and +amendment of life, and the mercy of God; but did I obey all his laws as +well as I do a part of them, I know of no reason why my life might not +be lengthened, not merely fifteen years, as was Hezekiah's, or +twenty-three merely, but forty or fifty.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Dr. Knox has since removed to St. Louis, Missouri.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The reader will find another remarkable cure of epilepsy in +a subsequent chapter of this volume. The case was that of Dr. Taylor, of +England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See pages 13 and 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> This fact, and certain discussions on the subject of +temperance, led me to abstain, about the years 1841 and 1842, entirely +from all drink for a long time. Indeed, I made two of these experiments; +in one of which I abstained nine months and nineteen days, and in the +other fourteen months and one or two days; except that in the latter +case I ate, literally, for one or two successive days, while working +hard at haying, one or two bowls a day of bread and water. But these +were experiments <i>merely</i>—the experiments made by a medical man who +preferred making experiments on himself to making them on others; and +they never deserved the misconstruction which was put upon them by +several persons, who, in other respects, were very sensible men. "The +author" never believed with Dr. Lambe, of London, that man is not a +drinking animal.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks.—Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.—Dr. +Geoffroy.—Vanquelin and Percy.—Dr. Pemberton.—Sir John +Sinclair.—Dr. James.—Dr. Cranstoun.—Dr. Taylor.—Drs. +Hufeland and Abernethy.—Sir Gilbert Blane.—Dr. Gregory.—Dr. +Cullen.—Dr. Rush.—Dr. Lambe.—Prof. Lawrence.—Dr. +Salgues.—Author of "Sure Methods."—Baron Cuvier.—Dr. Luther +V. Bell.—Dr. Buchan.—Dr. Whitlaw.—Dr. Clark.—Prof. +Mussey.—Drs. Bell and Condie.—Dr. J. V. C. Smith.—Mr. +Graham.—Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.—Dr. Sweetser.—Dr. +Pierson.—Physician in New York.—Females' Encyclopedia.—Dr. +Van Cooth.—Dr. Beaumont.—Sir Everard Home.—Dr. +Jennings.—Dr. Jarvis.—Dr. Ticknor.—Dr. Coles.—Dr. +Shew.—Dr. Morrill.—Dr. Bell.—Dr. Jackson.—Dr. +Stephenson.—Dr. J. Burdell.—Dr. Smethurst.—Dr. +Schlemmer.—Dr. Curtis.—Dr. Porter.</p></div> + + +<h3>GENERAL REMARKS.</h3> + +<p>The number of physicians, and surgeons, and medical men, whose testimony +is brought to bear on the subject of diet, in the chapter which follows, +is by no means as great as it might have been. There are few writers on +anatomy, physiology, materia medica, or disease, who have not, either +directly or indirectly, given their testimony in favor of a mild and +vegetable diet for persons affected with certain chronic diseases. And +there is scarcely a writer on hygiene, or even on diet, who has not done +much more than this, and at times hinted at the safety of such a diet +for those who are in health; particularly the studious and sedentary. +But my object has been, not so much to collect all the evidence I could, +as to make a judicious selection—a selection which should present the +subject upon which it bears, in as many aspects as possible. I have +aimed in general,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> also, to procure the testimony of intelligent and +philanthropic men; or, at least of men whose names have by some means or +other been already brought before the public. If there are a few +exceptions to this rule, if a few are men whose names have been hitherto +unknown, it is on account of the <i>aspect</i>, as I have already said, of +their testimony, or on account of their peculiar position, as regards +country, age of the world, etc., or to secure their authority for +certain anecdotes or facts.</p> + +<p>In the arrangement of the testimony, I have been guided by no particular +rule, unless it has been to present first that of some of the older and +most accredited writers, such as Cheyne, Cullen, and Rush. The testimony +of certain living men and authors, particularly of our own country, has +been presented toward the close of the chapter, and in a very brief and +condensed form, from design. The propriety of inserting their names at +all was for a time considered doubtful. It is believed, however, that +they could not, in strict justice, have been entirely omitted. But let +not the meagre sketch of their views I have given, satisfy us. We want a +full development of their principles from their own pens—such a +development as, I hope, will not long be withheld from a world which is +famishing for the want of it. But now to the testimony.</p> + + +<h3>DR. GEORGE CHEYNE.</h3> + +<p>This distinguished physician, and somewhat voluminous writer, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. He may justly be esteemed the father of +what is now called the "vegetable system" of living; although it is +evident he did not see every thing clearly. "In the early part of his +life," says Prof. Hitchcock, in his work on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> Dyspepsia, "he was a +voluptuary; and before he attained to middle age, was so corpulent that +it was necessary to open the whole side of his carriage that he might +enter; and he saw death inevitable, without a change of his course. He +immediately abandoned all ardent spirits, wine, and fermented liquors, +and confined himself wholly to milk, vegetables, and water. This course, +with active exercise, reduced him from the enormous weight of four +hundred and forty-eight pounds, to one hundred and forty; and restored +his health and the vigor of his mind. After a few years, he ventured to +change his abstemious diet for one more rich and stimulating. But the +effect was a recurrence of his former corpulence and ill health. A +return to milk, water, and vegetables restored him again; and he +continued in uninterrupted health to the age of seventy-two."</p> + +<p>The following is his account of himself, at the age of about seventy:</p> + +<p>"It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered upon +a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, I took this +light food as my appetite directed, without any measure, and found +myself easy under it. After some time, I found it became necessary to +lessen the quantity; and I have latterly reduced it to one half, at +most, of what I at first seemed to bear. And if it shall please God to +spare me a few years longer, in order, in that case, to preserve that +freedom and clearness which, by his, blessing, I now enjoy, I shall +probably find myself obliged to deny myself one half of my present daily +substance—which is precisely three Winchester pints of new cows' milk, +and six ounces of biscuit made of fine flour, without salt or yeast, and +baked in a quick oven."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is exceedingly interesting to find an aged physician, especially one +who had formerly been in the habit of using six pints of milk, and +twelve ounces of unfermented biscuit, and of regarding that as a low +diet, reducing himself to one half this quantity in his old age, with +evident advantages; and cheerfully looking forward to a period, as not +many years distant, when he should be obliged to restrict himself to +half even of that quantity. How far he finally carried his temperance, +we do not exactly know. We only know that, after thirty years of health +and successful medical practice, he strenuously contended for the +superiority of a vegetable and milk diet over any other, whether for the +feeble or the healthy. But his numerous works abound with the most +earnest exhortations to temperance in all things, and with the most +interesting facts and cogent reasonings; and—I repeat it—if there be +any individual, since the days of Pythagoras, whose name ought to be +handed down to posterity as the father of the vegetable system of +living, it is that of Dr. Cheyne.</p> + +<p>Among his works are, a work on Fevers; an Essay on the true Nature and +proper Method of treating the Gout; a work on the Philosophical +Principles of Religion; an Essay of Health and Long Life; a work called +the English Malady; and another entitled the Natural Method of Cure in +the Diseases of the Body, and the Distempers of the Mind depending +thereon. The latter, and his Essay of Long Life are, in my view, his +greatest works; though the history of his own experience is chiefly +contained in his English Malady.</p> + +<p>I shall now proceed to make such extracts from his works, as seem to me +most striking and important to the general reader. They are somewhat +numerous,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> and there may be a few repetitions; but I was more anxious to +preserve his exact language—which is rather prolix—than to abridge too +much, at the risk of misrepresenting his sentiments.</p> + +<p>"When I see milk, oil, emulsion, mild watery fluids, and such like soft +liquors run through leathern tubes or pipes (for such animal veins and +arteries indeed are) for years, without destroying them, and observe on +the other hand that brine, inflammable or urinous spirits, and the like +acrimonious and burning fluids corrode, destroy, and consume them in a +very short time; when I consider the rending, burning, and tearing pains +and tortures of the gout, stone, colic, cancer, rheumatism, convulsions, +and such like insufferably painful distempers; when I see the crises of +almost all acute distempers happen either by rank and fetid sweats, +thick lateritious and lixivious sediments in the urine, black, putrid, +and fetid dejections, attended with livid and purple spots, corrosive +ulcers, impostumes in the joints or muscles, or a gangrene and +mortification in this or that part of the body; when I see the sharp, +the corroding and burning ichor of scorbutic and scrofulous sores, +fretting, galling, and blistering the adjacent parts, with the +inflammation, swelling, hardness, scabs, scurf, scales, and other +loathsome cutaneous foulnesses that attend, the white gritty and chalky +matter, and hard stony or flinty concretions which happen to all those +long troubled with severe gouts, gravel, jaundice, or colic—the +obstructions and hardnesses, the putrefaction and mortification that +happen in the bowels, joints, and members in some of these diseases, and +the rottenness in the bones, ligaments, and membranes that happen in +others; all the various train of pains, miseries, and torments that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> can +afflict any part of the compound, and for which there is scarce any +reprieve to be obtained, but by swallowing a kind of poison (opiates, +etc.); when I behold with compassion and sorrow, such scenes of misery +and woe, and see them happen only to the rich, the lazy, the luxurious, +and the inactive, those who fare daintily and live voluptuously, those +who are furnished with the rarest delicacies, the richest foods, and the +most generous wines, such as can provoke the appetites, senses, and +passions, in the most exquisite and voluptuous manner; to those who +leave no desire or degree of appetite unsatisfied, and not to the poor, +the low, the meaner sort, those destitute of the necessaries, +conveniences, and pleasures of life; to the frugal, industrious, +temperate, laborious, and active, inhabiting barren and uncultivated +countries, deserts, and forests under the poles or under the line;—I +must, if I am not resolved to resist the strongest conviction, conclude +that it must be something received into the body that can produce such +terrible appearances in it—some flagrant and notable difference in the +food that so sensibly distinguishes them from the latter; and that it is +the miserable man himself that creates his miseries and begets his +torture, or at least those from whom he has derived his bodily organs.</p> + +<p>"Nothing is so light and easy to the stomach, most certainly, as the +farinaceous or mealy vegetables; such as peas, beans, millet, oats, +barley, rye, wheat, sago, rice, potatoes, and the like."</p> + +<p>Milk is not included in the foregoing list of light articles; although +Dr. C. was evidently extremely fond of prescribing it in chronic +diseases. It does not fully appear, so far as I can learn from his +writings, that he regarded it as by any means indispensable to those +who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> were perfectly healthy, except during infancy and childhood. The +following extract will give us—more than any other, perhaps—his real +sentiments, though modestly expressed in the form of a conjecture, +rather than a settled belief.</p> + +<p>"I have sometimes indulged the conjecture that animal food, and <i>made</i> +or artificial liquors, in the original frame of our nature and design of +our creation, were not intended for human creatures. They seem to me +neither to have those strong and fit organs for digesting them (at +least, such as birds and beasts of prey have that live on flesh); nor, +naturally, to have those voracious and brutish appetites, that require +animal food and strong liquors to satisfy them; nor those cruel and hard +hearts, or those diabolical passions, which could easily suffer them to +tear and destroy their fellow-creatures; at least, not in the first and +early ages, before every man had corrupted his way, and God was forced +to exterminate the whole race by an universal deluge, and was also +obliged to shorten their lives from nine hundred or one thousand years +to seventy. He wisely foresaw that animal food and artificial liquors +would naturally contribute toward this end, and indulged or permitted +the generation that was to plant the earth again after the flood the use +of them for food; knowing that, though it would shorten their lives and +plait a scourge of thorns for the backs of the lazy and voluptuous, it +would be cautiously avoided by those who knew it was their duty and +happiness to keep their passions low, and their appetites in subjection. +And this very era of the flood is that mentioned in holy writ for the +indulgence of animal food and artificial liquors, after the trial had +been made how insufficient alone a vegetable diet—which was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> first +food appointed for human kind after their creation—was, in the long +lives of men, to restrain their wickedness and malice, and after finding +that nothing but shortening their duration could possibly prevent the +evil.</p> + +<p>"It is true, there is scarce a possibility of preventing the destroying +of animal life, as things are now constituted, since insects breed and +nestle in the very vegetables themselves; and we scarcely ever devour a +plant or root, wherein we do not destroy innumerable animalculæ. But, +besides what I have said of nature's being quite altered and changed +from what was originally intended, there is a great difference between +destroying and extinguishing animal life by choice and election, to +gratify our appetites, and indulge concupiscence, and the casual and +unavoidable crushing of those who, perhaps, otherwise would die within +the day, or at most the year, and who obtain but an inferior kind of +existence and life, at the best.</p> + +<p>"Whatever there may be, in this conjecture, it is evident to those who +understand the animal economy of the frame of human bodies, together +with the history, both of those who have lived abstemiously, and of +those who have lived freely, that indulging in flesh meat and strong +liquors, inflames the passions and shortens life, begets chronical +distempers and a decrepit age.</p> + +<p>"For remedying the distempers of the body, to make a man live as long as +his original frame was designed to last, with the least pain and fewest +diseases, and without the loss of his senses, I think Pythagoras and +Cornaro by far the two greatest men that ever were:—the first, by +vegetable food and unfermented liquors; the latter, by the lightest and +least of animal food, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> naturally fermented liquors. Both lived to a +great age. But, what is chiefly to be regarded in their conduct and +example, both preserved their senses, cheerfulness, and serenity to the +last; and, which is still more to be regarded, both, at least the last, +dissolved without pain or struggle; the first having lost his life in a +tumult, as it is said by some, after a great age of perfect health.</p> + +<p>"A plain, natural, and philosophical reason why vegetable food is +preferable to all other food is, that abounding with few or no salts, +being soft and cool, and consisting of parts that are easily divided and +formed into chyle without giving any labor to the digestive powers, it +has not that force to open the lacteals, to distend their orifices and +excite them to an unnatural activity, to let them pass too great a +quantity of hot and rank chyle into the blood, and so overcharge and +inflame the lymphatics and capillaries, which is the natural and +ordinary effect of animal food; and therefore cannot so readily produce +diseases. There is not a sufficient stimulus in the salts and spirits of +vegetable food to create an unnatural appetite, or violent cramming; at +least, not sufficient to force open and extend the mouths of the +lacteals, more than naturally they are or ought to be. Such food +requires little or no force of digestion, a little gentle heat and +motion being sufficient to dissolve it into its integral particles: so +that, in a vegetable diet, though the sharp humors, in the first +passages, are extended, relaxed stomach, and sometimes a delightful +piquancy in the food, may tempt one to exceed in quantity; yet rarely, +if spices and sauces—as too much butter, oil, and sugar—are not joined +to seeds<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> and vegetables, can the mischief go farther than the stomach +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> bowels, to create a pressed load, sickness, vomiting, or purging, +by its acquiring an acrimony from its not being received into the +lacteals;—so that on more being admitted into the blood than the +expenses of living require, life and health can never be endangered by a +vegetable diet. But all the contrary happens under a high animal diet."</p> + +<p>Now I will not undertake to vouch—as indeed I cannot, conscientiously, +do it—for the correctness of all Dr. C.'s notions in physiology or +pathology. The great object I have in view, by the introduction of these +quotations, may be accomplished without it. His preference for vegetable +food, or for what he calls a milk and seed diet, is the point which I +wish to make most prominent.</p> + +<p>In the following paragraphs, he takes up and considers some of the +popular objections of the day, to his doctrines and practice.</p> + +<p>"One of the most terrible objections some weak persons make against this +regimen and method, is, that upon accidental trials, they have always +found milk, fruit, and vegetables so inflate, blow them up, and raise +such tumults and tempests in their stomach and bowels, that they have +been terrified and affrighted from going on. I own the truth and fact to +be such, in some as is represented; and that in stomachs and entrails +inured only to hot and high meats and drinks, and consequently in an +inflammatory state and full of choler and phlegm, this sensation will +sometimes happen—just as a bottle of cider or fretting wine, when the +cork is pulled out, will fly up, and fume, and rage; and if you throw in +a little ferment or acid (such as milk, seeds, fruit, and vegetables <i>to +them</i>), the effervescence and tempest will exasperate to a hurricane.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But what are wind, flatulence, phlegm, and choler? What, indeed, but +stopped perspiration, superfluous nourishment, inconcocted chyle, of +high food and strong liquors, fermented and putrifying? And when these +are shut up and corked, with still more and more solid, strong, hot, and +styptic meats and drinks, is the corruption and putrefaction thereby +lessened? Will it not then, at last, either burst the vessel, or throw +out the cork or stopples, and raise still more lasting and cruel +tempests and tumults? Are milk and vegetables, seeds and fruits, harder +of digestion, more corrosive, or more capable of producing chyle, blood, +and juices, less fit to circulate, to perspire, and be secreted?</p> + +<p>"But what is to be done? The cure is obvious. Begin by degrees; eat less +animal food—the most tender and young—and drink less strong fermented +liquors, for a month or two. Then proceed to a <i>trimming</i> diet, of one +day, seed and vegetables, and another day, tender, young animal +food;—and, by degrees, slide into a total milk, seed, and vegetable +diet; cooling the stomach and entrails gradually, to fit them for this +soft, mild, sweetening regimen; and in time your diet will give you all +the gratification you ever had from strong, high, and rank food, and +spirituous liquors. And you will, at last, enjoy ease, free spirits, +perfect health, and long life into the bargain.</p> + +<p>"Seeds of all kinds are fittest to begin with, in these cases, when +dried, finely ground, and dressed; and, consequently, the least +flatulent. Lessen the quantity, even of these, below what your appetite +would require, at least for a time. Bear a little, and forbear.</p> + +<p>"Virtue and good health are not to be obtained, without some labor and +pains, against contrary habits. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> was a wild bounce of a Pythagorean, +who defied any one to produce an instance of a person, who had long +lived on milk and vegetables, who ever cut his own throat, hanged, or +made way with himself; who had ever suffered at Tyburn, gone to Newgate, +or to Moorfields; (and, he added rather profanely,) or, would go to +eternal misery hereafter.</p> + +<p>"Another weighty objection against a vegetable diet, I have heard, has +been made by learned men; and is, that vegetables require great labor, +strong exercise, and much action, to digest and turn them into proper +nutriment; as (say they) is evident from their being the common diet of +day-laborers, handicraftsmen, and farmers. This objection I should have +been ashamed to mention, but that I have heard it come from men of +learning; and they might have as justly said, that freestone is harder +than marble, and that the juice of vegetables makes stronger glue than +that of fish and beef!</p> + +<p>"Do not children and young persons, that is, tender persons, live on +milk and seeds, even before they are capable of much labor and exercise? +Do not all the eastern and southern people live almost entirely on them? +The Asiatics, Moors, and Indians, whose climates incapacitate them for +much labor, and whose indolence is so justly a reproach to them,—are +these lazier and less laborious men than the Highlanders and native +Irish?</p> + +<p>"The truth is, hardness of digestion principally depends on the +minuteness of the component particles, as is evident in marble and +precious stones. And animal substances being made of particles that pass +through innumerable very little, or infinitely small excretory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> ducts, +must be of a much finer texture, and consequently harder, or tougher, in +their composition, than any vegetable substance can be. And the flesh of +animals that live on animals, is like double distilled spirits, and so +requires much labor to break, grind, and digest it. And, indeed, if +day-laborers, and handicraftsmen were allowed the high, strong food of +men of condition, and the quiet and much-thinking persons were confined +to the farmer and ploughman's food, it would be much happier for both.</p> + +<p>"Another objection, still, against a milk and vegetable diet is, that it +breeds phlegm, and so is unfit for tender persons, of cold +constitutions; especially those whose predominant failing is too much +phlegm. But this objection has as little foundation as either of the +preceding. Phlegm is nothing but superfluous chyle and nourishment, as +the taking down more food than the expenses of living and the waste of +the solids and fluids require. The people that live most on such +foods—the eastern and southern people and those of the northern I have +mentioned—are less troubled with phlegm than any others. Superfluity +will always produce redundancy, whether it be of phlegm or choler; and +that which will digest the most readily, will produce the least +phlegm—such as milk, seeds, and vegetables. By cooling and relaxing the +solids, the phlegm will be more readily thrown up and discharged—more, +I say, by such a diet than by a hot, high, caustic, and restringent one; +but that discharge is a benefit to the constitution, and will help it +the sooner and faster to become purified, and so to get into perfect +good health. Whereas, by shutting them up, the can or cask must fly and +burst so much the sooner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The only material and solid objections against a milk, seed, and +vegetable diet, are the following:</p> + +<p>"<i>First</i>, That it is particular and unsocial, in a country where the +common diet is of another nature. But I am sure sickness, lowness, and +oppression, are much more so. These difficulties, after all, happen only +at first, while the cure is about; for, when good health comes, all +these oddnesses and specialities will vanish, and then all the contrary +to these will be the case.</p> + +<p>"<i>Secondly</i>, That it is weakening, and gives a man less strength and +force, than common diet. It is true that this may be the result, at +first, while the cure is imperfect. But then the greater activity and +gayety which will ensue on the return of health, under a milk and +vegetable diet, will liberally supply that defect.</p> + +<p>"<i>Thirdly</i>, The most material objection against such a diet is, that it +cools, relaxes, softens, and unbends the solids, at first, faster than +it corrects and sweetens the juices, and brings on greater degrees of +lowness than it is designed to cure; and so sinks, instead of raising. +But this objection is not universally true; for there are many I have +treated, who, without any such inconvenience, or consequent lowness, +have gone into this regimen, and have been free from any oppression, +sinking, or any degree of weakness, ever after; and they were not only +those who have been generally temperate and clean, free from humors and +sharpnesses, but who, on the decline of life, or from a naturally weak +constitution or frame, have been oppressed and sunk from their weakness +and their incapacity to digest common animal food and fermented liquors.</p> + +<p>"I very much question if any diet, either hot or cool, has any great +influence on the solids, after the fluids<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> have been entirely sweetened +and balmified. Sweeten and thin the juices, and the rest will follow, as +a matter of course."</p> + +<p>At page 90 of Dr. Cheyne's Natural Method of Curing Diseases, he thus +says:</p> + +<p>"People think they cannot possibly subsist on a little meat, milk, and +vegetables, or on any low diet, and that they must infallibly perish if +they should be confined to water only; not considering that nine tenths +of the whole mass of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet, or +pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of their senses, limbs, +and faculties, without diseases, or but few, and those from accidents or +epidemical causes; and that there have been nations, and now are numbers +of tribes, who voluntarily confine themselves to vegetables only; as the +Essenes among the Jews, some Hermits and Solitaries among the Christians +of the first ages, a great number of monks in the Chartreux now in +Europe, Banians among the Indians and Chinese, the Guebres among the +Persians, and of old, the Druids among ourselves."</p> + +<p>To illustrate the foregoing, I may here introduce the following extracts +from the sixth London edition of Dr. Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long +Life.</p> + +<p>"It is surprising to what a great age the Eastern Christians, who +retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, +lived healthful on a very little food. We are informed, by Cassian, that +the common measure for twenty-four hours was about twelve ounces, with +only pure water for drink. St. Anthony lived to one hundred and five +years on mere bread and water, adding only a few herbs at last. On a +similar diet, James the Hermit lived to one hundred and four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> years. +Arsenius, the tutor of the emperor Arcadius, to one hundred and +twenty—sixty-five years in society, and fifty-five in the desert. St. +Epiphanius, to one hundred and fifteen; St. Jerome, about one hundred; +Simon Stylites, to one hundred and nine; and Romualdus, to one hundred +and twenty.</p> + +<p>"It is wonderful in what sprightliness, strength, activity, and freedom +of spirits, a low diet, even here in England, will preserve those who +have habituated themselves to it. Buchanan informs us of one Laurence, +who preserved himself to one hundred and forty, by the mere force of +temperance and labor. Spotswood mentions one Kentigern (afterward called +St. Mongah, or Mungo, from whom the famous well in Wales is named), who +lived to one hundred and eighty-five years; and who, after he came to +years of understanding, never tasted wine or strong drink, and slept on +the cold ground.</p> + +<p>"My worthy friend, Mr. Webb, is still alive. He, by the quickness of the +faculties of the mind, and the activity of the organs of his body, shows +the great benefit of a low diet—living altogether on vegetable food and +pure water. Henry Jenkins lived to one hundred and sixty-nine years on a +low, coarse, and simple diet. Thomas Parr died at the age of one hundred +and fifty-two years and nine months. His diet was coarse bread, milk, +cheese, whey, and small beer; and his historian tells us, that he might +have lived a good while longer if he had not changed his diet and air; +coming out of a clear, thin air, into the thick air of London, and being +taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully +of the best wines, and, as a necessary consequence, died in a short +time. Dr. Lister mentions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> eight persons in the north of England, the +youngest of whom was above one hundred years old, and the oldest was one +hundred and forty. He says, it is to be observed that the food of all +this mountainous country is exceeding coarse."</p> + +<p>Dr. C., in his Natural Method, at page 91, thus continues his remarks:</p> + +<p>"And there are whole villages in this kingdom, even of those who live on +the plains, who scarce eat animal food, or drink fermented liquors a +dozen times a year. It is true, most of these cannot be said to live at +ease and commodiously, and many may be said to live in barbarity and +ignorance. All I would infer from this is, that they do live, and enjoy +life, health, and outward serenity, with few or no bodily diseases but +from accidents and epidemical causes; and that, being reduced by +voluntary and necessary poverty, they are not able to manage with care +and caution the rest of the non-naturals, which, for perfect health and +cheerfulness, must all be equally attended to, and prudently conducted; +and their ignorance and brutality is owing to the want of the +convenience of due and sufficient culture and education in their youth.</p> + +<p>"But the only conclusion I would draw from these historical facts is, +that a low diet, or living on vegetables, will not destroy life or +health, or cause nervous and cephalic distempers; but, on the contrary, +cure them, as far as they are curable. I pretend to demonstrate from +these facts, that abstinence and a low diet is the great antidote and +universal remedy of distempers acquired by excess, intemperance, and a +mistaken regimen of high meats and drinks; and that it will greatly +alleviate and render tolerable the original distempers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> derived from +diseased parents; and that it is absolutely necessary for the deep +thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties sound and +entire, ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of +life; and that it is, lastly, the true and real antidote and +preservative from heavy-headedness, irregular and disorderly +intellectual functions, from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and +senses, and from all nervous distempers, as far as the ends of +Providence and the condition of mortality will allow.</p> + +<p>"Let two people be taken as nearly alike as the diversity and the +individuality of nature will admit, of the same age, stature, +complexion, and strength of body, and under the same chronical +distemper, and I am willing to take the seeming worse of the two; let +all the most promising nostrums, drops, drugs, and medicines known among +the learned and experienced physicians, ancient or modern, regular +physicians or quacks, be administered to the best of the two, by any +professor at home or abroad; I will manage my patient with only a few +naturally indicated and proper evacuations and sweetening innocent +alternatives, which shall neither be loathsome, various, nor +complicated, require no confinement, under an appropriate diet, or, in a +word, under the 'lightest and the least,' or at worst under a milk and +seed diet; and I will venture reputation and life, that my method cures +sooner, more perfectly and durably, is much more easily and pleasantly +passed through, in a shorter time, and with less danger of a relapse +than the other, with all the assistance of the best skill and +experience, under a full and free, though even a commonly reputed +moderate diet, but of rich foods and generous liquors; much more, under +a voluptuous diet."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>But I am unwilling to dismiss this subject without inserting a few more +extracts from Dr. Cheyne, to show his views of the treatment of +diseases. And first, of the scurvy, and other diseases which he supposes +to arise from it.</p> + +<p>"There is no chronical distemper, whatsoever, more universal, more +obstinate, and more fatal in Britain than the scurvy, taken in its +general extent. Scarce any one chronical distemper but owes its origin +to a scorbutic tendency, or is so complicated with it, that it furnishes +the most cruel and most obstinate symptoms. To it we owe all the +dropsies that happen after the meridian of life; all diabetes, asthmas, +consumptions of several kinds; many sorts of colics and diarrhœas; +some kinds of gouts and rheumatisms, all palsies, various kinds of +ulcers, and possibly the cancer itself; and most cutaneous foulnesses, +weakly constitutions, and bad digestions; vapors, melancholy, and almost +all nervous distempers whatsoever. And what a plentiful source of +miseries the last are, the afflicted best can tell. And scarce any one +chronical distemper whatever, but has some degree of this evil +faithfully attending it. The reason why the scurvy is peculiar to this +country and so fruitful of miseries, is, that it is produced by causes +mostly special and particular to this island, to wit: the indulging so +much in animal food and strong fermented liquors, sedentary and confined +employments, etc.</p> + +<p>"Though the inhabitants of Britain live, for the most part, as long as +those of a warmer climate, and probably rather longer, yet scarce any +one, especially those of the better sort, but becomes crazy and suffers +under some chronical distemper or other, before he arrives at old age.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nothing less than a very moderate use of animal food, and that of the +least exciting kind, and a more moderate use of spirituous liquors, due +exercise, etc., can keep this hydra under. And nothing else than a total +abstinence from animal food and alcoholic liquors can totally extirpate +it."</p> + +<p>The following are extracted from his "Natural Methods." I do not lay +them down as recipes, to be followed in the treatment of diseases; but +to show the views of Dr. Cheyne in regard to vegetable regimen.</p> + +<p>"1. <i>Cancer.</i>—Any cancer that can be cut out, contracted, and healed up +with common, that is, soft, cool, and gently astringent dressings, and +at last left as an issue on the part, may, by a cow's milk and seed diet +continued ever afterward, be made as easy to the patient, and his life +and health as long preserved, almost, as if he had never been afflicted +with it; especially if under fifty years of age.</p> + +<p>"2. <i>Cancer.</i>—A total ass's milk diet—about two quarts a day, without +any other meat or drink—will in time cure a cancer in any part of the +body, with mere common dressings, provided the patient is not quite worn +out with it before it is begun, or too far gone in the common duration +of life and even in that case, it will lessen the pain, lengthen life, +and make death easier, especially if joined with small interspersed +bleedings, millepedes, crabs' eyes prepared, nitre and rhubarb, properly +managed. But the diet, even after the cure, must be continued, and never +after greatly altered, unless it be into cow's milk with seeds.</p> + +<p>"3. <i>Consumption.</i>—A total milk and seed diet, gentle and frequent +bleedings, as symptoms exasperate, a little ipecacuanha or thumb vomit +repeated once or twice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> a week, chewing quill bark in the morning, and a +few grains of rhubarb at night, will totally cure consumptions, even +when attended with tubercles, and hemoptoe, and hectic, in the first +stage; will greatly relieve, if not cure, in the second stage, +especially if riding and a warm clear air be joined; and make death +easier in the third and last stage.</p> + +<p>"4. <i>Fits.</i>—A total cow's milk diet—about two quarts a day—without +any other food, will at last totally cure all kinds of fits, +epileptical, hysterical, or apoplectic, if entered upon before fifty. +But the patient, if near fifty, must ever after continue in the same +diet, with the addition only of seeds; otherwise his fits will return +oftener and more severely, and at last cut him off.</p> + +<p>"5. <i>Palsy.</i>—A total cow's milk diet, without any other food, will bid +fairest to cure a hemiplegia or even a dead palsy, and consequently all +the lesser degrees of a partial one, if entered upon before fifty. And +this distemper I take to be the most obstinate, intractable, and +disheartening one that can afflict the human machine; and is chiefly +produced by intemperate cookery, with its necessary attendant, habitual +luxury.</p> + +<p>"6. <i>Gout.</i>—A total milk and seed diet, with gentle vomits before and +after the fits, chewing bark in the morning and rhubarb at night, with +bleeding about the equinoxes, will perfectly cure the gout in persons +under fifty, and greatly relieve those farther advanced in life; but +must be continued ever after, if such desire to get well.</p> + +<p>"7. <i>Gravel.</i>—Soap lees, softened with a little oil of sweet almonds, +drunk about a quarter of an ounce twice a day on a fasting stomach; or +soap and egg-shell pills, with a total milk and seed diet, and Bristol +water beverage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> will either totally dissolve the stone in kidneys or +bladder, or render it almost as easy as the nail on one's finger, if the +patient is under fifty, and much relieve him, even after that age.</p> + +<p>"In about thirty years' practice, in which I have, in some degree or +other, advised this method in proper cases, I have had but two patients +in whose total recovery I have been mistaken, and these were both +scrofulous cases, where the glands and tubercles were so many, so hard, +and so impervious that even the ponderous remedies and diet joined could +not discuss them; and they were both also too far gone before they +entered upon them;—and I have found deep scrofulous vapors the most +obstinate of any of this tribe of these distempers. And indeed nothing +can possibly reach such, but the ponderous medicines, joined with a +liquid, cool, soft, milk and seed regimen; and if these two do not, in +due time, I can boldly affirm it, nothing ever will."</p> + +<p>Dr. Cheyne goes on to speak of the cure, on similar principles, of a +great many other difficult or dangerous diseases, as asthma, pleurisy, +hemorrhage, mania, jaundice, bilious colic, rheumatism, scurvy, and +venereal disease; but he modestly owns that, in his opinion on these, he +does not feel such entire confidence as in the former cases, for want of +sufficient experiments. He, however, closes one of his chapters with the +following pretty strong statement:</p> + +<p>"I am morally certain, and am myself entirely convinced, that a milk and +seed, or milk and turnip diet, duly persisted in, with the occasional +helps mentioned (elsewhere) on exacerbations, will either totally cure +or greatly relieve every chronical distemper I ever saw or read of."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another chapter is thus concluded, and with it I shall conclude my +extracts from his writings.</p> + +<p>"Some, perhaps, may controvert, nay, ridicule the doctrine laid down in +these propositions. I shall neither reply to, nor be moved with any +thing that shall be said against them. If they are of nature and truth, +they will stand; if not, I consent they should come to nought. I have +satisfied my own conscience—the rest belongs to Providence. Possibly +time and bodily sufferings may justify them;—if not to this generation, +perhaps to some succeeding one. I myself am convinced, by long and many +repeated experience, of their justness and solidity. If what has been +advocated through this whole treatise does not convince others, nothing +I can add will be sufficient. I will leave only this reflection with my +readers.</p> + +<p>"All physicians, ancient and modern, allow that a milk and seed diet +will totally cure before fifty, and infinitely alleviate after it, the +consumption, the rheumatism, the scurvy, the gout—these highest, most +mortal, most painful, and most obstinate distempers; and nothing is more +certain in mathematics, than that which will cure the greater will +certainly cure the lesser distempers."</p> + + +<h3>DR. GEOFFROY.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Geoffroy, a distinguished French physician and professor of +chemistry and medicine in some of the institutions of France, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. The bearing of the following extract will +be readily seen. It is from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for the +year 1730; and I am indebted for it to the labors of Dr. Cheyne.</p> + +<p>"M. Geoffroy has given a method for determining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> the proportion of +nourishment or true matter of the flesh and blood, contained in any sort +of food. He took a pound of meat that had been freed from the fat, +bones, and cartilages, and boiled it for a determined time in a close +vessel, with three pints of water; then, pouring off the liquor, he +added the same quantity of water, boiling it again for the same time; +and this operation he repeated several times, so that the last liquor +appeared, both in smell and taste, to be little different from common +water. Then, putting all the liquor together, and filtrating, to +separate the too gross particles, he evaporated it over a slow fire, +till it was brought to an extract of a pretty moderate consistence.</p> + +<p>"This experiment was made upon several sorts of food, the result of +which may be seen in the following table. The weights are in ounces, +drachms, and grains; sixty grains to a drachm, and eight drachms to an +ounce.</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td colspan="2">Kind of Food.</td><td colspan="3">Amount of Extract.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>oz.</td><td align='left'>dr.</td><td align='left'>gr.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One lb.</td><td align='left'>Beef</td><td align='left'>0.</td><td align='left'>7.</td><td align='left'>8.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Veal</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>48.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Mutton</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>3.</td><td align='left'>16.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Lamb</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>39.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Chicken</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>4.</td><td align='left'>34.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Pigeon</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>0.</td><td align='left'>12.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Pheasant</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>2.</td><td align='left'>8.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Partridge</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>4.</td><td align='left'>34.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Calves' Feet</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>2.</td><td align='left'>26.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Carp</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>0.</td><td align='left'>8.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Whey</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>3.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Bread</td><td align='left'>4.</td><td align='left'>1.</td><td align='left'>0.</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>"The relative proportion of the nourishment will be as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Beef</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Veal</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mutton</td><td align='right'>11</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lamb</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Chicken</td><td align='right'>12</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Pigeon</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Pheasant</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Partridge</td><td align='right'>12</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Calves' Feet</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Carp</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Whey</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Bread</td><td align='right'>33</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>"From the foregoing decisive experiments it is evident that white, +young, tender animal food, bread, milk, and vegetables are the best and +most effectual substances for nutrition, accretion, and sweetening bad +juices. They may not give so strong and durable mechanical force, +because being easily and readily digestible, and quickly passing all the +animal functions, so as to turn into good blood and muscular flesh, they +are more transitory, fugitive, and of prompt secretion; yet they will +perform all the animal functions more readily and pleasantly, with fewer +resistances and less labor, and leave the party to exercise the rational +and intellectual operations with pleasure and facility. They will leave +Nature to its own original powers, prevent and cure diseases, and +lengthen out life."</p> + +<p>Now if this experiment proves what Dr. C. supposes in favor of the +lighter meats and vegetables taken together, how much more does it prove +for bread alone? For it cannot escape the eye of the least observing +that this article, though placed last in the list of Dr. Geoffroy, is by +far the highest in point of nutriment; nay, that it is about three times +as high as any of the rest. I am not disposed to lay so much stress on +these experiments as Dr. C. does; nevertheless, they prove something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +Connected with the more recent experiments of Messrs. Percy and +Vauquelin and others, how strikingly do they establish one fact, at +least, viz., that bread and the other farinaceous vegetables cannot +possibly be wanting in nutriment; and how completely do they annihilate +the old-fashioned doctrine—one which is still abroad and very +extensively believed—that animal food is a great deal more nourishing +than vegetable! No careful inquirer can doubt that bread, peas, beans, +rice, etc., are twice as nutritious—to say the least—as flesh or fish.</p> + + +<h3>MESSRS. PERCY AND VAUQUELIN.</h3> + +<p>As I have alluded, in the preceding article, to the experiments of +Messrs. Percy and Vauquelin, two distinguished French chemists, their +testimony in this place seems almost indispensable, even though we +should not regard it, in the most strict import of the term, as medical +testimony. The result of their experiments, as communicated by them to +the French minister of the interior, is as follows:</p> + +<p>In bread, every one hundred pounds is found to contain eighty pounds of +nutritious matter; butcher's meat, averaging the different sorts, +contains only thirty-five pounds in one hundred; French beans (in the +grain), ninety-two pounds in one hundred; broad beans, eighty-nine +pounds; peas, ninety-three pounds; lentils (a species of half pea little +known with us), fifty-four pounds in one hundred; greens and turnips +only eight pounds of solid nutritious substance in one hundred; carrots, +fourteen pounds; and one hundred pounds of potatoes yield only +twenty-five pounds of nutriment.</p> + +<p>I will just affix to the foregoing one more table. It is inserted in +several other works which I have published;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> but for the benefit of +those who may never yet have seen it, and to show how strikingly it +corresponds with the results of the experiments of Geoffroy, Percy, and +Vauquelin, I deem it proper to insert it.</p> + +<p>Of the best wheat, one hundred pounds contain about eighty-five pounds +of nutritious matter; of rice, ninety pounds; of rye, eighty; of barley, +eighty-three; of beans, eighty-nine to ninety-two; peas, ninety-three; +lentils, ninety-four; meat (average), thirty-five; potatoes, +twenty-five; beets, fourteen; carrots, ten; cabbage, seven; greens, six; +and turnips, four.</p> + + +<h3>DR. PEMBERTON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Pemberton, after speaking of the general tendency, in our highly fed +communities, to scrofula and consumption, makes the following remarks, +which need no comment:</p> + +<p>"If a child is born of scrofulous parents, I would strongly recommend +that it be entirely nourished from the breast of a healthy nurse, for at +least a year. After this, the food should consist of milk and +farinaceous vegetables. By a perseverance in this diet for three years, +I have imagined that the threatened scrofulous appearances have +certainly been postponed, if not altogether prevented."</p> + + +<h3>SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.</h3> + +<p>Sir John Sinclair, an eminent British surgeon, says, "I have wandered a +good deal about the world, my health has been tried in all ways, and, by +the aid of temperance and hard work, I have worn out two armies in two +wars, and probably could wear out another before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> my period of old age +arrives. I eat no animal food, drink no wine or malt liquor, or spirits +of any kind; I wear no flannel; and neither regard wind nor rain, heat +nor cold, when business is in the way."</p> + + +<h3>DR. JAMES, OF WISCONSIN.</h3> + +<p>Dr. James, of Wisconsin, but formerly of Albany, and editor of a +temperance paper in that city, one of the most sensible, intelligent, +and refined of men, and one of the first in his profession, is a +vegetable eater, and a man of great simplicity in all his physical, +intellectual, and moral habits. I do not know that his views have ever +been presented to the public, but I state them with much confidence, +from a source in which I place the most implicit reliance.</p> + + +<h3>DR. CRANSTOUN.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Cranstoun, a worthy medical gentleman in England, became subject, by +some means or other, to a chronic dysentery, on which he exhausted, as +it were, the whole materia medica, in vain. At length, after suffering +greatly for four or five years, he was completely cured by a milk and +vegetable diet. The following is his own brief account of his cure, in a +letter to Dr. Cheyne:</p> + +<p>"I resolutely, as soon as capable of a diet, held myself close to your +rules of bland vegetable food and elementary drink, and, without any +other medicine, save frequent chewing of rhubarb and a little bark, I +passed last winter and this summer without a relapse of the dysentery; +and, though by a very slow advance, I find now more restitution of the +body and regularity in the economy, on this primitive aliment, than ever +I knew from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> the beginning of this trouble. This encourages much my +perseverance in the same method, and that so religiously, as, to my +knowledge, now for more than a year and a half I have not tasted of any +thing that had animal life. There is plenty in the vegetable kingdom."</p> + + +<h3>DR. TAYLOR, OF ENGLAND.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, who had studied the works of Dr. Sydenham, and was +therefore rather favorably inclined toward a milk and vegetable diet, +became at last subject to epileptic fits. Not being willing, however, to +give up his high living and his strong drinks, he tried the effects of +medicine, and even consulted all the most eminent of his brethren of the +medical profession in and about London; but all to no purpose, and the +fits continued to recur. He used frequently to be attacked with them +while riding along the road, in pursuance of the business of his +profession. In these cases he would fall from his horse, and often +remain senseless till some passenger or wagon came along and carried him +to the nearest house. At length his danger, not only from accidents, but +from the frequency and violence of the attacks, became so imminent that +he was obliged to follow the advice of his master, Sydenham. He first +laid aside the use of all fermented and distilled liquors; then, finding +his fits became less frequent and violent, he gave up all flesh meat, +and confined himself entirely to cows' milk.</p> + +<p>In pursuance of this plan, in a year or two the epilepsy entirely left +him. "And now," says Dr. Cheyne, from whom I take the account, "for +seventeen years he has enjoyed as good health as human nature is capable +of, except that once, in a damp air and foggy weather in riding through +Essex, he was seized with an ague, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> he got over by chewing the +bark." He assured Dr. C. that at this time—and he was considerably +advanced in life—he could play six hours at cricket without fatigue or +distress, and was more active and clear in his faculties than ever he +had been before in his whole life. He also said he had cured a great +many persons, by means of the same diet, of inveterate distempers.</p> + + +<h3>DRS. HUFELAND AND ABERNETHY.</h3> + +<p>The celebrated Dr. Hufeland taught that a simple vegetable diet was most +conducive to health and long life. The distinguished Dr. Abernethy has +expressed an opinion not very unlike it, in the following eccentric +manner:</p> + +<p>"If you put improper food into the stomach it becomes disordered, and +the whole system is affected. Vegetable matter ferments and becomes +gaseous, while <i>animal</i> substances are changed into a putrid, +abominable, and acrid stimulus. Now, some people acquire preposterous +noses; others, blotches on the face and different parts of the body; +others, inflammation of the eyes; all arising from the irritations of +the stomach. I am often asked why I don't practice what I preach. I +reply by reminding the inquirer of the parson and sign-post—both point +the way, but neither follows its course."</p> + + +<h3>DR. GREGORY.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Gregory, a distinguished professor and practitioner of medicine in +Scotland, in a work published more than seventy years ago, strongly +recommends plain and simple food for children. Till they are three years +old, he says, their diet should consist of plain milk, panada,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> good +bread, barley meal porridge, and rice. He also complains of pampering +them with animal food. The same arguments which are good for forming +them to the habits of vegetable food exclusively for the first three +years of life, would be equally good for its continuance.</p> + + +<h3>DR. CULLEN, OF EDINBURGH.</h3> + +<p>The name of Dr. Cullen is well known, and he has long been regarded as +high authority. Yet this distinguished writer and teacher expressly +says, that a very temperate and <i>sparing</i> use of animal food is the +surest means of preserving health and obtaining long life. But I will +quote his own language, in various parts of his writings. And first, +from his Materia Medica:</p> + +<p>"Vegetable aliment, as never over-distending the vessels or loading the +system, never interrupts the stronger emotions of the mind, while the +heat, fullness, and weight of animal food, is an enemy to its vigorous +efforts. Temperance, then, does not consist so much in the quantity, for +that will always be regulated by our appetite, as in the <i>quality</i>, +viz., a large proportion of vegetable aliment."</p> + +<p>I will not stop here to oppose Dr. C.'s views in regard to the quantity +of our food; for this is not the place. It is sufficient to show that he +admits the importance of <i>quality</i>, and gives the preference to a diet +of vegetables.</p> + +<p>He seems in favor, in another place in his works, of sleeping after +eating—perhaps a heresy, too—and inclines to the opinion that the +practice would be hardly hurtful if we ate less animal food.</p> + +<p>But his "First Lines of the Practice of Physic," abounds in testimonies +in favor of vegetable food. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> speaking, for example, of the cure of +rheumatic affections, he has the following language:</p> + +<p>"The cure, therefore, requires, in the first place, an antiphlogistic +regimen, and particularly, a total abstinence from animal food, and from +all fermented or spirituous liquors."</p> + +<p>"Antiphlogistic regimen," in medical language, means that food and drink +which is most cooling and quieting to the stomach and to the general +system.</p> + +<p>In the treatment of gout, Dr. Cullen recommends a course like that which +has been stated, except that instead of proposing vegetable food as a +means of cure, he recommends it as <i>preventive</i>. He says—</p> + +<p>"The gout may be entirely prevented by constant bodily exercise, and by +a low diet; and I am of opinion that this prevention may take place even +in persons who have a hereditary disposition to the disease. I must add, +here, that even when the disposition has discovered itself by severe +paroxysms of inflammatory gout, I am persuaded that labor and abstinence +will absolutely prevent any returns of it for the rest of life."</p> + +<p>Again, in reference to the same subject, he thus observes:</p> + +<p>"I am firmly persuaded that any man who, early in life, will enter upon +the constant practice of bodily labor and of abstinence from animal +food, will be preserved entirely from the disease."</p> + +<p>And yet once more.</p> + +<p>"If an abstinence from animal food be entered upon early in life, while +the vigor of the system is yet entire, I have no doubt of its being both +safe and effectual."</p> + +<p>To guard against the common opinion that by vegetable food, he meant +raw, or crude, or bad vegetables,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Dr. C. explains his meaning by +assuring the reader that by a vegetable diet he means the "farinaceous +seeds," and "milk;" and admits that green, crude, and bad vegetables are +not only less useful, but actually liable to produce the very diseases, +which good, mealy vegetable food will prevent or cure.</p> + +<p>This is an important distinction. Many a person, who wishes to be +abstemious, seems to think that if he only abstains from flesh and fish, +that is enough. No matter, he supposes, what vegetables he uses, so they +are vegetables; nor how much he abuses himself by excess in quantity. +Nay, he will even load his stomach with milk, or butter, or eggs; +sometimes with fish (we have often been asked if we considered fish as +animal food); and sometimes, worse still, with hot bread, hot buckwheat +cakes, hot short-cakes, swimming, almost, in butter;—yes, and sometimes +he will even cover his potatoes with gravy, mustard, salt, etc.</p> + +<p>It is in vain for mankind to abstain from animal food, as they call it, +and yet run into these worse errors. The lean parts of animals not much +fattened, and only rarely cooked, eaten once a day in small quantity, +are far less unwholesome than many of the foregoing.</p> + +<p>But to return to Dr. C. In speaking of the proper drink for persons +inclined to gout, he thus remarks:</p> + +<p>"With respect to drink, fermented liquors are useful only when they are +joined with animal food, and that by their acescency; and their stimulus +is only necessary from custom. When, therefore, animal food is to be +avoided, fermented liquors are unnecessary, and by increasing the +acescency of vegetables, these liquors may be hurtful. The stimulus of +fermented or spirituous liquors is not necessary to the young and +vigorous:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> and, when much employed, impairs the tone of the system."</p> + +<p>Dr. C. might have added—what indeed we should infer by parity of +reasoning—that when fermented liquors are avoided, animal food is no +longer necessary, and by increasing the alkaline state of the stomach +and fluids, may be hurtful. The truth is, they go best together. If we +use flesh and fish, which are alkaline, a small quantity of gently acid +drink, as weak cider or wine, taken either <i>with</i> our meals, or +<i>between</i> them, may be useful. It is better, however, to abstain from +both.</p> + +<p>For if a purely vegetable aliment, with water alone for drink, is safe +to all young persons inclining at all to gout, to whom is it unsafe? If +it tends to render a young person at all weaker, that very weakness +would predispose to the gout, in some of its forms, if a person were +constitutionally inclined to that disease—if not to some other +complaint, to which he was more inclined. It cannot, therefore, be +unsafe to any, if Dr. C. is right.</p> + +<p>But if those who are trained to it, <i>lose</i> nothing, even in the high +latitude of Scotland—where Dr. C. wrote—by confining themselves to +good vegetables and water, then they must necessarily <i>gain</i>, on his own +principles, by this way of living, because they get rid of any sort of +necessity (he might have added, lose their appetite) for fermented +liquors.</p> + +<p>More than this, as the doctor himself concludes, in another place, they +prevent many acute diseases. His words are these:—"It is animal food +which especially predisposes to the plethoric and inflammatory state; +and that food is therefore to be especially avoided." It is true, he is +here speaking of gouty persons: but his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> principles are also fairly +susceptible, as I have shown, of a general application.</p> + +<p>In short, it is an undeniable fact, that even a thorough-going vegetable +eater might prove every thing he wished, from old established writers on +medicine and health, though themselves were feeders on animal food; just +as a teetotaler may prove the doctrine of abstinence from all drinks but +water, from the writings of medical men, though themselves are still, in +many cases, pouring down their cider, their beer, or their wine—or at +least, their tea and coffee.</p> + + +<h3>DR. BENJAMIN RUSH.</h3> + +<p>I find nothing in the writings of this great man which shows, with +certainty, what his views were, in regard to animal food. The +presumption is, that he was sparing in its use, and that he encouraged a +very limited use of it in others. This is presumed, 1, from the general +tenor of his writings—deeply imbued as they are with the great doctrine +of temperance in all things; and, 2, from the fondness he seems to have +manifested in mentioning the temperance and even abstinence of +individuals of whom he was speaking.</p> + +<p>Of Ann Woods, for example, who died at the age of ninety-six years, he +says, "Her diet was simple, consisting chiefly of weak tea, milk, +cheese, butter, and vegetables. Meat of all kinds, except veal, +disagreed with her stomach. She found great benefit from frequently +changing her aliment. Her drinks were water, cider and water, and +molasses and vinegar in water. She never used spirits. Her memory (at +her death) was but little impaired. She was cheerful, and thankful that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +her condition in life was happier than that of hundreds of other +people."</p> + +<p>In his account of Benjamin Lay, a philosopher of the sect of the +Friends, in Pennsylvania, Dr. R. relates, that "he was extremely +temperate in his diet, living chiefly upon vegetables. Turnips boiled +and afterward roasted, were his favorite dinner. His drink was pure +water. He lived above eighty years." It appears, also, that he was +exceedingly healthy.</p> + +<p>He relates of Anthony Benezet, a distinguished teacher of Philadelphia, +who lived to an advanced age, that his sympathy was so great with every +thing that was capable of feeling pain, that he resolved, toward the +close of his life, to eat no animal food. He also relates the following +singular anecdote of him. Upon coming into his brother's house, one day, +when the family were dining upon poultry, he was asked by his brother's +wife to sit down and dine with them. What! said he, would you have me +eat my neighbors?</p> + +<p>Dr. Caleb Bannister, in another part of this work, tells us that he was +led to adopt a milk and vegetable diet, in incipient consumption, from +reading the writings of Dr. Rush; and I have little doubt that Dr. R. +himself lived quite abstemiously, if not altogether on vegetables.</p> + +<p>Nor is this <i>incidental</i> testimony from Dr. Rush quite all. In his work +"On the Diseases of the Mind," he speaks often of the evils of eating +high-seasoned food, and especially animal food. And in stating what were +the proper remedies for debility in young men, when induced by certain +forms of licentiousness, he expressly insists on a diet consisting +simply of vegetables, and prepared without condiments; and he even +encourages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> the disuse of salt. Had Dr. Rush lived to this day, he +would, ere now, in all probability, have fully adopted and defended the +vegetable system. With views like his on the subject of intemperance, +and a mind ever open to conviction, the result could hardly have been +otherwise.</p> + + +<h3>DR. WILLIAM LAMBE, OF LONDON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. William Lambe, of London, is distinguished both as a physician and a +general scholar, and is a prominent member of the "College of +Physicians." He was a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, and a +fellow-student with the immortal Clarkson.</p> + +<p>Dr. Lambe is the author of several valuable works, among which are his +"Reports on Cancer," and a more recent work entitled, "Additional +Reports on the Effects of a Peculiar Regimen, in Cases of Cancer, +Scrofula, Consumption, Asthma, and other chronic diseases." He has also +made and published numerous experiments, especially in chemistry, which +is, with him, a favorite science; and it is said that he has spent +fortunes in this way.</p> + +<p>Dr. L. is now eighty-four years of age, and has lived on vegetable diet +forty-two years. He commenced this course to cure himself of internal +gout, and continued it because he found it better for his health. He is +now only troubled with it slightly, at his extremities, which he thinks +highly creditable to a vegetable course—having thrown it off from his +vital organs. He is cheerful and active, and able to discharge the +duties of an extensive medical practice. He walks into town, a distance +of three miles from his residence, every morning, and back at night; and +thinks himself as likely to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> live twenty years longer as he was, twenty +years ago, to live to his present age.</p> + +<p>The following is a condensed account of Dr. L.'s views, as obtained from +his "Additional Reports," above mentioned. Some of the first paragraphs +relate to the effects of vegetable food on those who are predisposed to +scrofula, consumption, etc.</p> + +<p>"We see daily examples of young persons becoming consumptive who never +went without animal food a single day of their lives. If the use of +animal food were necessary to prevent consumption, we should expect, +where people lived almost entirely upon such a diet, the disease would +be unknown.</p> + +<p>"Now, the Indian tribes visited by Mr. Hearne live in this manner. They +do not cultivate the earth. They subsist by hunting, and the scanty +produce of spontaneous vegetation. But, among these tribes consumption +is common. Their diseases, as Mr. Hearne informs us, are principally +fluxes, scurvy, and consumption.</p> + +<p>"In the last four years, several cases of glandular swellings have +occurred to me at the general dispensary, and I have made particular +inquiries into the mode of living of such children. In the majority, +they had animal food. In opposition to the accusation of vegetable food +causing tumefaction of the abdomen, I must testify, that twice in my own +family I have seen such swellings disappear under a vegetable regimen, +which had been formed under a diet of animal food.</p> + +<p>"Increasing the strength, for a time, is no proof of the salubrity of +diet. The increased strength may not continue, though the diet should be +continued. On the contrary, there is a sort of oscillation; the strength +just rising, then sinking again. This is what is experienced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> by the +trainers of boxers. A certain time is necessary to get these men into +condition; but this condition cannot be maintained for many weeks +together, though the process by which it was formed is continued. The +same is found to hold in the training of race-horses, and +fighting-cocks.</p> + +<p>"It seems certain that animal food predisposes to disease. Timoric, in +his account of the plague at Constantinople, asserts that the Armenians, +who live chiefly on vegetable food, were far less disposed to the +disease than other people. The typhus fever is greatly exasperated by +full living.</p> + +<p>"It seems, moreover, highly probable that the power inherent in the +human living body, of restoring itself under accidents or wounds, is +strongest in those who use most a vegetable regimen.</p> + +<p>"Contagions act with greater virulence upon bodies prepared by a full +diet of animal food.</p> + +<p>"Since fishing has declined in the isles of Ferro, and the inhabitants +have lived chiefly on vegetables, the elephantiasis has ceased among +them.</p> + +<p>"Those monks who, by the rules of their institution, abstain from the +flesh of animals, enjoy a longer mean term of life, as the consequence. +Of this there can be no doubt. Of one hundred and fifty-two monks, taken +promiscuously in all times and all sorts of climates, there lives +produced a total, according to Baillot (a writer of eminence), of 11,589 +years, or an average of seventy-six years and a little more than three +months.</p> + +<p>"Those Bramins who abstain most scrupulously from the flesh of animals +attain to the greatest longevity.</p> + +<p>"Life is prolonged, under incurable diseases, about one tenth by +vegetable diet; so that a person who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> would otherwise die at seventy, +will reach seventy-seven. In general, however, the proportion is about +one sixth.</p> + +<p>"Abstaining from animal food palliates, when it does not cure, all +constitutional diseases.</p> + +<p>"The use of animal food hurries on life with an unnatural and unhealthy +rapidity. We arrive at puberty too soon; the passions are developed too +early; in the male, they acquire an impetuosity approaching to madness; +females become mothers too early, and too frequently; and, finally, the +system becomes prematurely exhausted and destroyed, and we become +diseased and old, when we ought to be in middle life.</p> + +<p>"It affords no trifling ground of suspicion against the use of animal +food that it so obviously inclines us to corpulency. Corpulency itself +is a species of disease, and a still surer harbinger of other diseases. +It is so even in animals. When a sheep has become fat, the butcher knows +it must be killed or it will rot and decline. It is rare indeed for the +corpulent to be long-lived. They are at the same time sleepy, lethargic, +and short-breathed. Even Hippocrates says, 'Those who are uncommonly fat +die more quickly than the lean.'</p> + +<p>"As a general, rule, the florid are less healthy than those who have +little color; an increase of color having ever been judged, by common +sense, to be a sign of impending illness. Some, however, who are lean +upon animal food, thrive upon vegetables, and improve in color.</p> + +<p>"All the notions of vegetable diet affording only a deficient +nutriment—notions which are countenanced by the language of Cullen and +other great physicians—are wholly groundless.</p> + +<p>"Man is herbivorous in his structure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have observed no ill consequences from the relinquishment of animal +food. The apprehended danger of the change, with which men scare +themselves and their neighbors, is a mere phantom of the imagination. +The danger, in truth, lies wholly on the other side.</p> + +<p>"There is no organ of the body which, under the use of vegetable food, +does not receive an increase of sensibility, or of that power which is +thought to be imparted to it by the nervous system.</p> + +<p>"Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, and others of the masters of ancient +wisdom, adhered to the Pythagorean diet (vegetable diet), and are known +to have arrived at old age with the enjoyment of uninterrupted health. +Celsus affirms that the bodies which are filled with much animal food +become the most quickly old and diseased. It was proverbial that the +ancient athletæ were the most stupid of men. The cynic Diogenes, being +asked what was the cause of this stupidity, is reported to have +answered, 'Because they are wholly formed of the flesh of swine and +oxen.' Theophrastus says that feeding upon flesh destroys the reason, +and makes the mind more dull.</p> + +<p>"Animal food is unfavorable to the intellectual powers. The effect is, +in some measure, instantaneous; it being hardly possible to apply to any +thing requiring thought after a full meal of meat; so that it has been +not improperly said of vegetable feeders, that <i>with them it is morning +all day long</i>. But the senses, the memory, the understanding, and the +imagination have also been observed to improve by a vegetable diet.</p> + +<p>"It will not be disputed that, for consumptive symptoms, a vegetable +diet, or at least a vegetable and milk diet, is the most proper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It has been said, that the great fondness men have for animal food, is +proof enough that nature intended them to eat it. As if men were not +fond of wine, ardent spirits, and other things which we know cut short +their days!</p> + +<p>"In every period of history it has been known that vegetables alone are +sufficient for the support of life; and the bulk of mankind live upon +them at this hour. The adherence to the use of animal food is no more +than a gross persistence in the customs of savage life, and an +insensibility to the progress of reason and the operation of +intellectual improvement. This habit must be considered as one of the +numerous relics of that ancient barbarism which has overspread the face +of the globe, and which still taints the manners of civilized nations.</p> + +<p>"The use of fermented liquors is, in some measure, a necessary +concomitant and appendage to the use of animal food. Animal food, in a +great number of persons, loads the stomach, causes some degree of +oppression, fullness, and uneasiness; and, if the measure of it be in +excess, some nausea and tendency to sickness. Such persons say meat is +too heavy for the stomach. Fish is still more apt to nauseate. The use +of fermented liquors takes off these uneasy feelings, and is thought to +assist digestion. In short, in the use of animal food, man having +deviated from the simple aliment offered him by the hand of nature, and +which is the best suited to his organs of digestion, he has brought upon +himself a premature decay, and much intermediate suffering connected +with it. To this use of animal food almost all nations that have emerged +from a state of barbarism, have united the use of spirituous and +fermented liquors."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is but justice to Dr. L., however, as the above was written by him +over thirty years ago, to say, that though he still adheres to the same +views, he thinks pure distilled water a very important addition to the +vegetable diet, in the cure of chronic diseases. The following are his +remarks in a letter to Mr. Graham, dated ten or twelve years ago.</p> + +<p>"My doctrine is, that for the preservation of health, and more +particularly for the successful treatment of chronic diseases, it is +necessary to attend to the <i>whole</i> ingesta—to the <i>fluid</i> with as much +care as the solid. And I am persuaded that the errors into which men +have fallen with regard to supposed mischiefs or inconveniences (as +weakness, for example), as resulting from a restriction to a vegetable +diet, have, to a very considerable extent arisen from a want of a proper +attention to the quality of the water they drank. So far back as the +year 1803, I found that the use of pure distilled, instead of common +water, relieved a state of habitual suffering of the stomach and bowels. +On this account, I always require that <i>distilled</i> water shall be joined +to the use of a vegetable diet; and consider this to be essential to the +treatment."</p> + + +<h3>PROFESSOR LAWRENCE.</h3> + +<p>Professor Lawrence is the author of a work entitled Lectures on +Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. He is a member of +the Royal College of Surgeons, London, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery +to the College, and Surgeon to several Hospitals. In his work above +mentioned, after much discussion in regard to the natural dietetic +character of man, he thus remarks:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That animal food renders man strong and courageous, is fully disproved +by the inhabitants of northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, +Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Kamtschadales, as well as by +the Esquimaux in the northern, and the natives of Terra del Fuego in the +southern extremity of America, which are the smallest, weakest, and +least brave people of the globe, although they live almost entirely upon +flesh, and that often raw.</p> + +<p>"Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice, as +that of animal matter is with physical force and courage. <i>That men can +be perfectly nourished, and their bodily and mental capabilities fully +developed in any climate, by a diet purely vegetable, admits of abundant +proof from experience.</i> In the periods of their greatest simplicity, +manliness, and bravery, the Greeks and Romans appear to have lived +almost entirely on plain vegetable preparations. Indifferent bread, +fruits, and other produce of the earth, are the chief nourishment of the +modern Italians, and of the mass of the population in most countries in +Europe. Of those more immediately known to ourselves, the Irish and +Scotch may be mentioned, who are certainly not rendered weaker than +their English fellow-subjects by their free use of vegetable aliment. +The Negroes, whose great bodily powers are well known, feed chiefly on +vegetable substances; and the same is the case with the South Sea +Islanders, whose agility and strength were so great that the stoutest +and most expert English sailors had no chance with them in wrestling and +boxing."</p> + +<p>The concession of Prof. L., which I have placed in italic, is sufficient +for our purpose; we ask no more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> Nevertheless, I am willing to hear his +views of the indications afforded by our anatomical character, which +are, as will be seen, equally decisive in favor of vegetable eating.</p> + +<p>"Physiologists have usually represented that our species holds a middle +rank, in the masticatory and digestive apparatus, between the +flesh-eating and herbivorous animals—a statement which seems rather to +have been deduced from what we have learned by experience on the +subject, than to result from an actual comparison of men and animals.</p> + +<p>"The teeth and jaws of men are, in all respects, much more similar to +those of monkeys than of any other animal. The number is the same as in +man, and the form so closely similar, that they might easily be mistaken +for human. In most of them, except the ourang-outang, the canine teeth +are much larger and stronger than in us; and so far, these animals have +a more carnivorous character than man.</p> + +<p>"Thus we find, that whether we consider the teeth and jaws, or the +immediate instruments of digestion, the human structure closely +resembles that of the simiæ (monkey race), all of which, in their +natural state, are completely herbivorous. Man possesses a tolerably +large cœcum, and a cellular colon; which I believe are not found in +any herbivorous animal."</p> + +<p>The ourang-outang naturally prefers fruits and nuts, as the professor +himself shows by extracts from the statements of travelers and +naturalists. He is also fond of bread. On board a ship or elsewhere, <i>in +confinement</i>, he may, however, be taught, like men, to eat almost any +thing;—not only to eat milk and suck eggs, but even to eat raw flesh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is true, indeed, after all these foregoing statements and concessions +in regard to man's native character and the wholesomeness of a diet +exclusively vegetable—and after admitting that the human body and mind +can be fully and perfectly nourished and <i>developed</i> on it, this +distinguished writer goes on to say that it is still doubtful which +diet—animal, vegetable, or mixed—is on the whole <i>most</i> conducive to +health, and strength—which is best calculated to avert or remove +disease—whether errors in quantity or quality are most pernicious, etc. +He says the solution of these and other analogous questions, can only be +expected from experimental investigation. He proceeds to say—</p> + +<p>"<i>Mankind are so averse to relinquish their favorite indulgences, and to +desert established habits</i>, that we cannot entertain very sanguine +expectations of any important discovery in this department. We must add +to this, that there are many other causes affecting human health, +besides diet. Before venturing to draw any inferences on a subject beset +with so many obstacles, it would be necessary to observe the effects of +a purely animal and a purely vegetable diet on several individuals of +different habits, pursuits, and modes of life; to note their state, both +bodily and mental; and to learn the condition of two or three +generations fed in the same manner."</p> + +<p>Now, the only difference between this opinion and what I conceive to be +the truth in the case is, that just such experimental investigations as +those to which he refers have, to all intents and purposes, been already +made; as, I trust, will be distinctly shown in the sequel of this work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. SALGUES.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Salgues, Physician, and Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, etc., +etc., to the Institute of France, some years ago wrote a book, entitled +"Rules for Preserving the Health of the Aged," which contained many very +judicious remarks on diet. There is nothing in the volume, however, +which is decidedly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable, unless it +is a few anecdotes; and I have introduced his name chiefly as a sort of +authority for those anecdotes. They are the following:</p> + +<p>"Josephus informs us that the Essenes were very long lived; many lived +upward of one hundred years, solely from their simple habits and +sobriety. Aristotle and Plato speak of Herodicus the philosopher, who, +although of a feeble and consumptive habit, lived, in consequence of his +sobriety, upward of one hundred years. Phabrinus, mentioned by Athenius, +lived more than one hundred years, drinking milk only. Zoroaster, +according to Pliny, remained twenty years in a desert, living on a small +quantity of cheese only."</p> + + +<h3>THE AUTHOR OF "SURE METHODS," ETC.</h3> + +<p>The British author of "Sure Methods of Improving Health and Prolonging +Life," supposed by many to be the distinguished Dr. Johnson, speaks +thus:</p> + +<p>"It must be confessed that, in temperate climates, at least, an animal +diet is, in one respect, more wasting than a vegetable, because it +excites, by its stimulating qualities, a temporary fever after every +meal, by which the springs of life are urged into constant, +preternatural, and weakening exertions. Again; persons who live chiefly +on animal food are subject to various acute and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> fatal disorders, as the +scurvy, malignant ulcers, inflammatory fevers, etc., and are likewise +liable to corpulency, more especially when united to inordinate +quantities of liquid aliment. There appears to be also a tendency in an +animal diet to promote the formation of many chronic diseases; and we +seldom find those who indulge much in this diet to be remarkable for +longevity.</p> + +<p>"In favor of vegetables, it may be justly said, that man could hardly +live entirely on animal food, but we know he may on vegetable. Vegetable +aliment has likewise no tendency to produce those constitutional +disorders which animal food so frequently occasions. And this is a great +advantage, more especially in our country (he means in Great Britain), +where the general sedentary mode of living so powerfully contributes to +the formation and establishment of numerous severe chronic maladies. Any +unfavorable effects vegetable food may have on the body, are almost +wholly confined to the stomach and bowels, and rarely injure the system +at large. This food has also a beneficial influence on the powers of the +mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, and liveliness of +imagination, and acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live +principally on meat. It should also be added, that a vegetable diet, +when it consists of articles easily digested, as potatoes, turnips, +bread, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., is certainly favorable to long life."</p> + + +<h3>BARON CUVIER.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></h3> + +<p>Perhaps it is not generally known that Baron Cuvier,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> the prince of +naturalists, in the progress of his researches came to the most decisive +conclusion, that, so far as any thing can be ascertained or proved by +the investigation of science in regard to the natural dietetic character +of man, he is a fruit and vegetable eater. I have not seen his own +views; but the following are said, by an intelligent writer, to be a +tolerably faithful transcript of them, and to be derived from his +Comparative Anatomy.</p> + +<p>"Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man +be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons.</p> + +<p>"The ourang-outang perfectly resembles man, both in the order and number +of his teeth. The ourang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape +tribe, all of which are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species +of animals, which live on different food, in which this analogy exists. +In many frugivorous animals, the canine teeth are more pointed and +distinct than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to +that of the ourang-outang, is greater than to that of any other animal.</p> + +<p>"The intestines are also identical with those of herbivorous animals, +which present a large surface for absorption, and have ample and +cellulated colons. The cœcum also, though short, is larger than that +of carnivorous animals; and even here the ourang-outang retains its +accustomed similarity.</p> + +<p>"The structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to a pure +vegetable diet, in every essential particular. It is true, that the +reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long +accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from being any argument in +its favor. A lamb, which was fed for some time on flesh by a ship's +crew, refused its natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are +numerous instances of horses, sheep, oxen, and even wood-pigeons, having +been taught to live upon flesh, until they have loathed their natural +aliment."</p> + +<p>No one will deny that Baron Cuvier was in favor of flesh eating; but it +was not because he ever believed, for one moment, that man was +<i>naturally</i> a flesh-eating animal. Man is a reasoning animal (he +argues), and intended to be so. If left to the guidance of his +instincts, the same yielding to the law of his structure which would +exclude flesh meats, should also exclude cookery. Or, in other words, if +he is not permitted to depart from the line of life which his structure +indicates, he must no more cook his vegetables than eat animal food. +Besides, he is made, as Cuvier supposes, for artificial society, and the +Creator designed him to <i>improve</i> his food; and, if I understand his +reasoning, he is better able, with his present structure of teeth, jaws, +stomach, intestines, etc., to make this improvement, and rise above his +nature, and yield to the force and indications of reason and experience, +than if he possessed any other known living structure.</p> + +<p>To this structure, however, as well as to the same power of adaptation, +the monkey race, and especially the ourang-outang, closely typo +approximates. Cuvier's reasoning, in my view, applies only to the +adaptability (if I may be allowed the expression) of the human animal, +without deciding how far he should avail himself of his power to make +changes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. LUTHER V. BELL.</h3> + +<p>I have alluded, in another part of this work, to the prize essay of Dr. +Bell, awarded to him by the Boylston Medical Committee on the subject of +the diet of laborers in New England. Dr. Bell is a physician of +respectable talents, and is at present the Physician to an Insane +Hospital in Charlestown, near this city.</p> + +<p>Dr. Bell admits, with the most distinguished naturalists and +physiologists of Europe,—Cuvier, Lawrence, Blumenbach, Bell of London, +Richerand, Marc, etc.,—that the structure of man resembles closely that +of the monkey race; and hence objects to the conclusion to which some of +these men have arrived (by jumping over, as it were), that man is an +omnivorous animal. He freely allows—I use his own words—"that man does +approximate more closely to the frugivorous animals than to any others, +in physical organization." But then he insists that the conclusion which +ought to be drawn from this similarity "is, that he is designed to have +his food in about the same state of mechanical cohesion, requiring about +the same energy of masticatory organs, as if it consisted of fruits, +etc., alone."</p> + +<p>But, wherefore should we draw even this conclusion, if structure and +instinct prove nothing, and if we are to be governed solely by reason, +without regard to structure and instinct? For my own part, I believe +reason is never true reason, when it turns wholly out of doors either +instinct or the indications of organization. In other words, an +enlightened reason would look both to the structure and organization of +man, and to a large and broad experience, for the solution of a question +so important as what diet is, on the whole, best for man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> And the +experience of the world, both in the present and all former ages, leads +me to a conclusion entirely different from that to which Dr. Bell, and +those who entertain the same views with him, seem to have arrived—a +conclusion which is indicated by structure, and confirmed by facts and +universal experience. But this subject will be further discussed and +developed in another place. It is sufficient for my present purpose, to +bring testimony in favor of the safety of vegetable eating, and of the +doctrine that man is naturally a vegetable and fruit-eating animal; and +especially if I produce, to this end, the testimony of flesh-eaters +themselves.</p> + + +<h3>DR. WILLIAM BUCHAN, AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC MEDICINE."</h3> + +<p>"Indulgence in animal food, renders men dull and unfit for the pursuits +of science, especially when it is accompanied with the free use of +strong liquors. I am inclined to think that <i>consumptions</i>, so common in +England, are, in part, owing to the great use of animal food. But the +disease most common to this country is the scurvy. One finds a dash of +it in almost every family, and in some the taint is very deep. A disease +so general must have a general cause, and there is none so obvious as +the great quantity of animal food which is devoured. As a proof that +scurvy arises from this cause, we are in possession of no remedy for +that disease equal to the free use of fresh vegetables. By the +uninterrupted use of animal food, a putrid diathesis is induced in the +system, which predisposes to a variety of disorders. I am fully +convinced that many of those obstinate complaints for which we are at a +loss to account, and which we find it still more difficult to cure, are +the effects of a scorbutic taint, lurking in the habit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The choleric disposition of the English is almost proverbial. Were I to +assign a cause, it would be, their living so much on animal food. There +is no doubt but this induces a ferocity of temper unknown to men whose +food is taken chiefly from the vegetable kingdom.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>"Experience proves that not a few of the diseases incident to the +inhabitants of this country, are owing to their mode of living. The +vegetable productions they consume, fall considerably short of the +proportion they ought to bear to the animal part of their food. The +major part of the aliment ought to consist of vegetable substances. +There is a continual tendency in animal food, as well as in the human +body itself, to putrefaction; which can only be counteracted by the free +use of vegetables. All who value health, ought to be contented with +making one meal of animal food in twenty-four hours; and this ought to +consist of one kind only.</p> + +<p>"The most obstinate scurvy has often been cured by a vegetable diet; +nay, milk alone, will frequently do more in that disease than any +medicine. Hence it is evident that if vegetables and milk were more used +in diet, we should have less scurvy, and likewise fewer putrid and +inflammatory fevers.</p> + +<p>"Such as abound with blood (and such are almost all of us), should be +sparing in the use of every thing which is highly nourishing—as fat +meat, rich wines, strong ales, and the like. Their food should consist +chiefly of bread and other vegetable substances; and their drink ought +to be water, whey, or small beer."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> +<p>Dr. B. also insists on a vegetable diet, as a preventive of many +diseases; particularly of consumption. When there is a tendency to this +disease, in the young, he says "it should be counteracted by strictly +adhering to a diet of the farinacea, and ripe fruits. Animal food and +fermented liquors ought to be rigidly prohibited. Even milk often proves +too nutritious."</p> + + +<h3>DR. CHARLES WHITLAW.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Whitlaw is the author of a work entitled "New Medical Discoveries," +in two volumes, and of a "Treatise on Fever." He has also established +medical vapor baths in London, New York, and elsewhere; and is a +gentleman of much skill and eminence in his profession. Dr. Whitlaw +says—</p> + +<p>"All philosophers have given their testimony in favor of vegetable food, +from Pythagoras to Franklin. Its beneficial influence on the powers of +the mind has been experienced by all sedentary and literary men.</p> + +<p>"But, that which ought to convince every one of the salubrity of a diet +consisting of vegetables, is the consideration of the dreadful effects +of totally abstaining from it, unless it be for a very short time; +accounts of which we meet with, fully and faithfully recorded, in the +most interesting and most authentic narratives of human affairs—wars, +sieges of places, long encampments, distant voyages, the peopling of +uncultivated and maritime countries, remarkable pestilences, and the +lives of illustrious men. To this cause the memorable plague at Athens +was attributed; and indeed all the other plagues and epidemical +distempers, of which we have any faithful accounts, will be found to +have originated in a deprivation of vegetable food.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The only objections I have ever heard urged (the only plausible ones, +he must mean, I think), is the notion of its inadequacy to the +sustenance of the body. But this is merely a strong prejudice into which +the generality of mankind have fallen, owing to their ignorance of the +laws of life and health. Agility and constant vigor of body are the +effect of health, which is much better preserved by a herbaceous, +aqueous, and sparing tender diet, than by one which is fleshy, vinous, +unctuous, and hard of digestion.</p> + +<p>"So fully were the Romans, at one time, persuaded of the superior +goodness of vegetable diet, that, besides the private example of many of +their great men, they established laws respecting food, among which were +the <i>lex fannia</i>, and the <i>lex licinia</i>, which allowed but very little +animal food; and, for a period of five hundred years, diseases were +banished along with the physician from the Roman empire. Nor has our own +age been destitute of examples of men, brave from the vigor both of +their bodies and their minds, who at the same time have been drinkers of +water and eaters of vegetables.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>"Nothing is more certain than that animal food is inimical to health. +This is evident from its stimulating qualities producing, as it were, a +temporary fever after every meal; and not only so, but from its +corruptible qualities it gives rise to many fatal diseases; and those +who indulge in its use seldom arrive at an advanced age.</p> + +<p>"We have the authority of the Scripture for asserting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> that the proper +aliment of man is vegetables. See Genesis. And as disease is not +mentioned as a part of the cause, we have reason to believe that the +antediluvians were strangers to this evil. Such a phenomenon as disease +could hardly exist among a people who lived entirely on a vegetable +food; consequently all the individuals made mention of in that period of +the world, are said to have died of old age; whereas, since the day of +Noah, when mankind were permitted to eat animal food, such an occurrence +as a man dying of old age, or a natural decay of the bodily functions, +does not occur probably once in half a century.</p> + +<p>"Its injurious effects on the mind are equally certain. The Tartars, who +live principally on animal food, are cruel and ferocious in their +disposition, gloomy and sullen minded, delighting in exterminating wars +and plunder; while the Bramins and Hindoos, who live entirely on +vegetable aliment, possess a mildness and gentleness of character and +disposition directly the reverse of the Tartar; and I have no doubt, had +India possessed a more popular form of government, and a more +enlightened priesthood, her people, with minds so fitted for +contemplation, would have far outstripped the other nations of the world +in manufactures, and in the arts and sciences.</p> + +<p>"But we need only look at the peasantry of Ireland, who, living as they +do, chiefly on a vegetable—and to say the least of it, a very +suspicious kind of aliment, I mean the potatoe—are yet as robust and +vigorous a race of men as inherit any portion of the globe.</p> + +<p>"The greater part of our bodily disease is brought on by improper food. +This opinion has been strongly confirmed by my daily experience in the +treatment of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> diseases to which the people of England are +peculiarly subject, such as scrofula, consumption, leprosy, etc. These +disorders are making fearful and rapid strides; so much so, that not a +single family may now be considered exempt from their melancholy +ravages."</p> + +<p>This is fearful testimony, but it is the result of much observation and +of twenty years' experience. But the same causes are producing the same +effects—at least, so far as scrofula and consumption are concerned—in +this country, at the present time, of which Dr. W. complains so loudly +in England. I could add much more from his writings, but what I have +said is sufficient.</p> + + +<h3>DR. JAMES CLARK.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Clark, physician to the king and queen of Belgium, in a Treatise on +Pulmonary Consumption, has the following remarks:</p> + +<p>"There is no greater evil in the management of children than that of +giving them animal diet very early. By persevering in the use of an +over-stimulating diet, the digestive organs become irritated, and the +various secretions immediately connected with and necessary to digestion +are diminished, especially the biliary secretion; and constipation of +the bowels and congestion of the abdominal viscera succeed. Children so +fed, moreover, become very liable to attacks of fever and of +inflammation, affecting particularly the mucous membranes; and measles +and the other diseases incident to childhood are generally severe in +their attack."</p> + +<p>The suggestion that a mild or vegetable diet will render certain +diseases incident to childhood more mild than otherwise they would be, +is undoubtedly an important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> one; and as just as it is important. But +the remark might be extended, in its application. Both children and +adults would escape all sorts of diseases, especially colds and +epidemics, with much more certainty, or, if attacked, the attacks would +be much more mild, on an exclusively vegetable diet than on a mixed one. +Dr. Clark does not, indeed, say so; but I may say it, and with +confidence. And Dr. C. could not probably show any reason why, on his +own principles, it should not be so.</p> + + +<h3>PROF. MUSSEY, OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.</h3> + +<p>Prof. R. D. Mussey, of Hanover, New Hampshire, whose science and skill +as a surgeon and physician are well known and attested all over New +England, has for many years taught, both directly and indirectly, in his +public lectures, that man is naturally a fruit and vegetable eater. This +he proves, first, from the structure of his teeth and intestines—next +from his physiological character, and finally, from various facts and +considerations too numerous to detail here.</p> + +<p>He thinks the Bible doctrines are in favor of the disuse of flesh and +fish; that the Jews were required to abstain from pork, and from all fat +and blood, for physiological no less than other reasons. An infant, he +says, naturally has a disrelish for animal food. He says that, in all +probability, animal food was not permitted, though used, before the +flood; and that its use, contrary to the wish of the Creator, was +probably one cause of human degeneracy. Animal food, he says, is apt to +produce diseases of the skin—makes people passionate and +violent—excites the nervous system too much—renders the senses and +faculties more dull—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> favors the accumulation of what is mired +tartar on the teeth, and thus causes their early and certain decay. The +blood and breath of carnivorous animals emit an unpleasant odor, while +those of vegetable eaters do not. The fact that man <i>does eat</i> flesh no +more proves its necessity, than the fact that cows, and sheep, and +horses can be taught it, proves its necessity to them. The Africans bear +the cold better the first winter after their arrival in a northern +climate than afterward. May not this be owing to their simple vegetable +living?</p> + + +<h3>DR. CONDIE, OF PHILADELPHIA.</h3> + +<p>The Journal of Health, edited by some of the ablest physicians of +Philadelphia, has the following remarkable language on the subject of +vegetable food. See vol. 1, page 277.</p> + +<p>"It is well known that vegetable substances, particularly the +farinaceous, are fully sufficient, of themselves, for maintaining a +healthy existence. We have every reason for believing that the fruits of +the earth constituted, originally, the only food of man. Animal food is +digested in a much shorter period than vegetables; from which +circumstance, as well as its approaching much nearer in its composition +to the substance of the body into which it is to be converted, it might +at first be supposed the most appropriate article of nourishment. It +has, however, been found that vegetable matter can be as readily and +perfectly <i>assimilated</i> by the stomach into appropriate <i>nutriment</i> as +the most tender animal substances; and confessedly with a less heating +effect upon the system generally.</p> + +<p>"As a general rule, it will be found that those who make use of a diet +consisting chiefly of vegetable matter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> have a vast advantage in looks, +in strength, and spirits, over those who partake largely of animal food. +They are remarkable for the firm, healthy plumpness of their muscles, +and the transparency of their skins. This assertion, though at variance +with popular opinion, is amply supported by experience."</p> + +<p>At page 7 of the same volume of the Journal of Health we find the +following remarks. The editors were alluding to those persons who think +they cannot preserve their health and strength without flesh or fish, +and who believe their children would also suffer without it:</p> + +<p>"For the information of all such misguided persons, we beg leave to +state, that the large majority of mankind do not eat any animal food; +or, if any, they use it so sparingly, and at such long intervals, that +it cannot be said to form their nourishment. Millions in Asia are +sustained by rice alone, with perhaps a little vegetable oil for +seasoning.</p> + +<p>"In Italy and southern Europe, generally, bread, made of the flour of +wheat or Indian corn, with lettuce and the like mixed with oil, +constitutes the food of the most robust part of its population.</p> + +<p>"The Lazzaroni of Naples, with forms so actively and finely +proportioned, cannot even calculate on this much. Coarse bread and +potatoes is their chief reliance. Their drink of luxury is a glass of +iced water, slightly acidulated.</p> + +<p>"Hundreds of thousands—we might say millions—of Irish do not see +flesh-meat or fish from one week's end to another. Potatoes and oatmeal +are their articles of food: if milk can be added it is thought a luxury. +Yet where shall we find a more healthy and robust population, or one +more enduring of bodily fatigue, and exhibiting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> more mental vivacity? +What a contrast between these people and the inhabitants of the extreme +north—the timid Laplanders, Esquimaux, and Samoideans, whose food is +almost entirely animal?"</p> + +<p>Again, at page 187 we are told that "the more simple the aliment, and +the less <i>altered</i> by culinary processes, the slower is the change in +digestion; but, at the same time, the less is the stimulation and wear +of the powers of life. The Bramins of Hindostan, who live on exceedingly +simple food, are long livers, even in a hot and exhausting climate. The +peasants of Switzerland and of Scotland, nourished on bread, milk, and +cheese, attain a very old age, and enjoy great bodily strength.</p> + +<p>"Where there is too much excitement of the body, generally, from +fullness of the blood-vessels, or of any one of the organs, owing to a +wrong direction of the blood to it (and in one or the other of these +conditions we find almost every body now-a-days), animal food, by being +long retained in the stomach, and calling into greater action other +parts during digestion, as well as furnishing them with more blood +afterward, must be obviously improper. The more of this kind of food is +taken under such circumstances, the greater will be the oppression; and +the weakness, different from that of a healthy person long hungered, +will only be increased by the increased amount of blood carried to the +diseased part."</p> + +<p>It is true that the editors of the Journal of Health connect with the +foregoing paragraphs the statement that, "if it be desirable to give +nutriment in a small bulk, to obtund completely the sensation of hunger +and restore strength to the body, a small quantity of animal will be +preferable to much vegetable food." But then it is only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> in a few +diseased cases that any such thing is desirable. And even then, if we +look carefully at the language used, the comparison is not made between +animal and vegetable food in moderate or reasonable quantities, but +between a <i>small quantity</i> of the former and <i>much</i> of the latter.</p> + + +<h3>DR. J. V. C. SMITH, OF BOSTON.</h3> + +<p>The following remarks are extracted from the Boston Medical +Intelligencer, at a period when Dr. J. V. C. Smith was the editor. They +have the appearance of being from Dr. Smith's own pen. Dr. S. is at +present the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal:</p> + +<p>"It is true<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> that animal food contains a greater portion of +nutriment, in a given quantity, than vegetables; but the digestive +functions of the human system become prematurely exhausted by constant +action, and the whole system eventually sinks under great or +uninterrupted excitement. If, for the various ragouts with which modern +tables are so abundantly furnished, men would substitute <i>wholesome +vegetables and pure water</i>, we should see health walking in paths that +are now crowded with the bloated victims of voluptuous appetite. +Millions of Gentoos have lived to an advanced age without having tasted +any thing that ever possessed life, and been wholly free from a chain of +maladies which have scourged every civilized nation on the globe. The +wandering Arabs, who have traversed the barren desert of Sahara, +subsisting on the scanty pittance of milk from the half-famished camel +that carried them, have seen two hundred years roll round without a day +of sickness."</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<h3>SYLVESTER GRAHAM.</h3> + +<p>Although Mr. Graham does not, so far as I know, lay claim to the +"honors" of any medical institution, it cannot be doubted that his +knowledge of physiology, to say nothing of anatomy, pathology, and +medicine, is such as to entitle him to a high rank among medical men; +and I have, therefore, without hesitation, concluded to insert his +testimony in this place.</p> + +<p>Of his views, however, on the subject before us, it seems almost +superfluous to speak, as they are set forth, and have been set forth for +many years, so conspicuously, not only in his public lectures, but in +his writings, that the bare mention of his name, in almost any part of +the country, is to awaken the prejudices, if not the hostilities, of +every foe, and of some friends (supposed friends, I mean), of +"temperance in all things." It is sufficient, perhaps, for my present +purpose, to say of him, that, after the most rigid and profound +examination of the subject which he is capable of making—and his +capabilities are by no means very limited—it is his unhesitating +belief, that in every climate, and in all circumstances in which it is +proper for man to be placed, an exclusively farinaceous and fruit diet +is the best adapted to the development and improvement of all his powers +of body, mind, and soul; provided, however, he were trained to it from +the first. And even at any period of life, unless in the case of certain +forms of diseases, he believes it would be preferable to exchange, in a +proper manner, every form of mixed diet for one purely vegetable. Such +opinions as these, as a part of his views in relation to the physical +duties of man, he publicly, and strenuously, and eloquently, announces +and defends.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. JOHN M. ANDREW.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Andrew is a practitioner of medicine in Remsen, Oneida county, State +of New York. His letter was intended for chapter iv., but came too late. +This fact is the only apology for inserting it in this place. Several +interesting cases of dietetic reform accompanied the letter, but I must +omit them, for want of room, in this work.</p> + + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Remsen</span>, April 28, 1838.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>—It is now about sixteen months since I adopted an exclusively +vegetable diet. I have, however, never been very much inclined to animal +food; and, indeed, before I ever heard of the Graham system I laid it +aside, during summer, when farming—which, by the by, had always been my +occupation till I commenced my professional course, about four years +ago. I have, to the best of my knowledge, enjoyed what is commonly +called good health, and possessed a degree of strength surpassed only by +few; and in connection with the assiduous cultivation of my mental +faculties, I have carefully sought to improve my physical powers, which +I deem of incalculable worth to the student, as well as to the laborer.</p> + +<p>My attention was first called to the subject of vegetable eating by +Professor Mussey, in a lecture before the medical class of the Western +Medical College of New York, while fulfilling the duties of the +professorship, to which he was called in 1836. In that lecture our +adaptations, and the design of the Creator in regard to our mode of +subsistence, were clearly held forth, and such was the impression made +on my mind, that I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> induced at once to adopt the vegetable system, +both in practice and theory. In my change of diet I did not suffer any +inconvenience. The fact that I had, for some length of time, been living +mostly on vegetables, will account for that circumstance, however.</p> + +<p>But the great advantages derived from the change were soon perceptible, +though not appreciated by others. I met with much opposition from my +friends, frequently being told that I was fast losing my flesh and all +my youthful vigor and vivacity. And yet, for one year and more, I have +not lost a pound of flesh.</p> + +<p>I was gazed upon as an anomaly in society; some anxiously looking, and +others fearfully expecting my downfall and destruction; but both are +alike disappointed. The system, though I have not been able to follow it +so strictly as I could wish, from the circumstances in which I have been +placed, has far exceeded my expectations. One year and more has rolled +away, and I thank God I can look back, with some degree of satisfaction, +on the time spent in the enjoyment of that alone which sweetens the cup +of life. My most able advocacy has been my manual exertions and I have +demonstrated the utility of the <i>system</i> alike to the professional and +laboring classes of community.</p> + +<p>I do not go beyond the truth when I say, that I cannot find a man to vie +with me in the field, with the scythe, the fork, or the axe. I do not +want any thing but potatoes and salt; and I can cut and put up four +cords of wood in a day, with no very great exertion. I have frequently +been told, by friends, that my <i>potato and salt system</i> would not stand +the test of the field; but I have silenced their clamor by actual +demonstration with all the implements above named.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>At present, no consideration would induce me to return to my former mode +of living.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John M. Andrew.</span></p> + + + +<h3>DR. WILLIAM SWEETSER, OF BOSTON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Sweetser is the author of a "Treatise on Consumption," and of a +"Treatise on Digestion." He has also been a medical professor in the +University of Vermont, and a public lecturer on health, in Boston.</p> + +<p>In his work on consumption, while speaking of the prevailing belief of a +necessity for the use of animal food to those children who possess the +scrofulous or consumptive tendency, he thus remarks:</p> + +<p>"A diet of milk and mild farinaceous articles, with perhaps light animal +decoctions, appears best suited to the early years of life. Whenever +there exists an evident inflammatory tendency, as is the case in some +scrofulous systems, solid animal food, if used at all, should be taken +with the greatest precaution.</p> + +<p>"And again—how often is it that fat, plethoric, meat-eating children, +their faces looking as though the blood was just ready to ooze out, are +with the greatest complacency exhibited by their parents as patterns of +health! But let it ever be remembered, that the condition of the system +popularly called rude or full health, and which is the result of high +feeding, is too often closely bordering on a state of disease."</p> + +<p>In his work on digestion he seems to regard man as naturally an +omnivorous animal; and, taking this for granted, he speaks as follows +respecting his diet:</p> + +<p>"One would hardly assert that even in temperate climates his (man's) +system requires animal food. I doubt whether any instance can be +adduced—unless man be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> regarded as such—of an omnivorous animal +incapable of being adequately nourished by a sufficient and proper +vegetable diet.</p> + +<p>"Man, dwelling in a temperate climate, and with the power to choose, +almost uniformly employs a mixture of animal and vegetable food; but how +much early education may have to do in forming his taste for a mixed +diet it is difficult to estimate. Habit has certainly great influence in +attaching us to particular kinds of aliment. One who has long been +accustomed to animal food cannot at once abstain from it without +experiencing some feebleness for the want of its stimulation, and +perhaps even temporary emaciation. And, on the other hand, he who has +long been confined to a vegetable diet is apt to lose his relish for +flesh, and, on recurring suddenly to its use, to find it too exciting.</p> + +<p>"The liberal use of animal food has been generally thought requisite in +arctic climes, to stimulate the functions, and thus furnish a more +abundant supply of animal heat, to preserve against the extremity of +external temperature. Northern voyagers mostly believe that fat animal +food and oils are essential to the maintenance of health and life in the +inhabitants of those frozen regions. But to me it would seem that their +habits, in respect to diet, prove the <i>capabilities</i>, rather than the +necessities, of their systems. They learn to eat their coarse fare +because they can get no other. Their food, moreover, as is generally the +case in savage life, is precarious; and thus, being at times exposed to +extreme want, they are stimulated to greater excesses when their +supplies are ample.</p> + +<p>"The fact of man's dwelling in them (the arctic regions), and eating +what he can get there, no more proves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> him to be naturally a +flesh-eating animal than the circumstance of some cattle learning to eat +fish, when they are in situations where they can obtain no other food, +proves them to be piscivorous.</p> + +<p>"Haller conceived it necessary that human life should be sustained by +animal and vegetable food, so apportioned that neither should be in +excess; and he asserts that abstinence from animal food causes great +weakness in the body, and usually a troublesome diarrhœa. But such an +opinion is certainly incorrect, since not only particular individuals, +but even numbers of people, dwelling in temperate climates, from various +causes, subsist almost wholly on vegetable substances, and yet preserve +their health and vigor.</p> + +<p>"Were we educated to its exclusive use, I am persuaded that a vegetable +diet would afford us ample support; but whether, if restrained from +animal food, we should, <i>as a consequence</i>, in the course of time, and +under equally favoring circumstances in other respects, rise still +higher in our moral and physical nature, remains, as I conceive, to be +proved."</p> + +<p>These views of Dr. S. were repeated, in substance, in a course of +lectures given by him at the Masonic Temple, in Boston, in 1838. It will +be seen that he concedes what the friends of the vegetable system deem a +very important point, viz., that man's whole powers, physical, +intellectual, and moral, can be well developed on a diet exclusively +vegetable. We do not ask him to grant more. If man is as well off on +vegetable food as without it, we have moral reasons of so much weight to +place against animal food, as, when duly considered, will be, by all +candid persons, sufficient to lead to its rejection.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>True, we do not believe, with Dr. S.—at least I do not—that "whether a +diet purely vegetable, or one comprehending both animal and vegetable +food, would be most conducive to health, longevity, and intellectual, +moral, and physical development, is a question only to be determined by +a long course of experiments, made by various individuals in equal +health, and placed, in all other respects, under as nearly similar +circumstances as practicable." I believe this course of experiment does +not remain <i>to be</i> made, but that it has been made, most fully, during +the last four or five thousand years, and that the question is settled +in favor—wholly so—of vegetable food. Still I do not ask physicians +and other medical men to grant more than Dr. S. has; it is quite as much +as we ought to expect of them.</p> + + +<h3>DR. A. L. PIERSON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Pierson, of Salem, in Massachusetts, a physician and surgeon of +considerable eminence, in a lecture some time ago, before the American +Institute of Instruction, observed that "young men who were anxious to +avail themselves of the advantages of a liberal education, and were +therefore compelled to consult economy, had found out that it was not +necessary to pay three or four dollars a week for mere board, when the +most vigorous and uniform health may be secured by a diet of mere +vegetable food and water."</p> + +<p>I know not that Dr. P. avows himself an advocate for the exclusive use +of vegetable food, but if what I have quoted is not enough to satisfy us +in regard to his opinion of its safety, and its full power to develop +body and mind, I know not what would be. If the most vigorous and +uniform health can be secured on vegetable food,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> what individual in the +world—in view of the moral considerations at least—would ever resort +to the carcasses of animals?</p> + + +<h3>STATEMENT OF DR. C. BYINGTON, OF PHILADELPHIA.</h3> + +<p>A physician of some eminence, residing in Philadelphia, has been heard +to say that it was his decided opinion that mankind would live longest, +and be healthiest and happiest, on mere bread and water. I may add here, +that there was every evidence but one that he was sincere in this +statement, although I do not fully accord with him, believing that the +best health requires variety of food—not, indeed, at the same meal, but +at different ones. The exception I make in regard to his sincerity, is +in reference to the fact, that while he professed to believe a bread and +vegetable diet to be best for mankind, he did not adopt it.</p> + + +<h3>TESTIMONY OF A PHYSICIAN IN NEW YORK.</h3> + +<p>In the work entitled "Hints to a Fashionable Lady," by a physician—his +name not given—we find the following testimony:</p> + +<p>"Young persons invariably do best on simple but moderately nutritious +fare. Too large a proportion of animal food and fatty substances are +pernicious to the complexion. On the contrary, a diet which is +principally vegetable, with the luxuries of the dairy (not butter, +surely, for that is elsewhere prohibited), is most advantageous. Nowhere +are finer complexions to be found than in those parts of England, +Scotland, and Ireland, where the living is almost exclusively vegetable.</p> + +<p>"Those who subsist entirely on vegetable food have seldom, if ever, a +constantly bad breath, or an offensive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> perspiration. It has been +ascertained that the teeth are uniformly best in those countries where +least animal food is used."</p> + + +<h3>THE FEMALE'S CYCLOPEDIA.</h3> + +<p>From a fugitive volume, entitled "The Female's Cyclopedia," I have +concluded to make the following extract, because I have reason to +believe the writer to have been a physician:</p> + +<p>"Animal food certainly gives most strength; but its stimulancy excites +fever, and produces plethora and its consequences. The system is sooner +worn out by a repetition of its stimuli, and those who indulge greatly +in such diet are more likely to be carried off early by inflammatory +diseases; or if, by judicious exercise, they qualify its effects, they +yet acquire such an accumulation of putrescent fluids as becomes the +foundation for the most inveterate chronic diseases in after age.</p> + +<p>"The most valuable state of the mind, however, appears to be connected +with somewhat less of firmness and vigor of body. Vegetable aliment, as +never over-distending the vessels or loading the system, does not +interrupt the stronger emotions of the mind; while the heat, fullness, +and weight of animal food, are inimical to its vigorous exertion. +Temperance, therefore, does not so much consist in the quantity—since +the appetite will regulate that—as in the quality; namely, in a large +proportion of vegetable aliment."</p> + + +<h3>DR. VAN COOTH.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Van Cooth, a learned European writer—I believe a Hollander—has +recently maintained, incidentally, in a learned medical dissertation, +that the great body of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> ancient Egyptians and Persians "confined +themselves to a vegetable diet." To be sure, Dr. V. does not seem to be +a vegetable eater himself, but the friends of the latter system are not +the less indebted to him for the concession. The physical and moral +superiority of those vegetable eating nations, in the days of their +glory, are well known; and every intelligent reader of history, and +honest inquirer after truth, will make his own inferences from the facts +which I have mentioned.</p> + + +<h3>DR. WILLIAM BEAUMONT.</h3> + +<p>The work of this gentleman, entitled "Experiments and Observations on +the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion," is well known—at +least to the medical community. The following are some of the +conclusions to which his experiments conducted him:</p> + +<p>"Solid aliment, thoroughly masticated, is far more salutary than soups, +broths, etc.</p> + +<p>"Fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every kind, are difficult of +digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to derange that organ and +induce disease.</p> + +<p>"Spices, pepper, stimulating and heating condiments of every kind, +retard digestion and injure the stomach.</p> + +<p>"Coffee and tea debilitate the stomach and impair digestion.</p> + +<p>"Simple water is the only fluid called for by the wants of the economy; +the artificial drinks are all more or less injurious—some more so than +others; but none can claim exemption from the general charge."</p> + +<p>If it should be said that this testimony of Dr. Beaumont is by no means +directly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. I admit it. But he +certainly goes very far toward conceding every thing which I claim, +when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> he says that "fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every +kind, are difficult of digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to +derange that organ and induce disease;" and especially when he speaks so +highly of farinaceous substances and good fruits. Pray, what animal food +can be eaten which does not contain, at least, a small quantity of oil? +And if this oil tends to induce disease, and farinaceous food does not, +why should not animal food be excluded?</p> + + +<h3>SIR EVERARD HOME.</h3> + +<p>This distinguished philosopher and medical gentleman, though, like many +others, he insisted that vegetable food did not produce full muscular +development, yet admitted the natural character of man to be that of a +vegetable eater, in the following, or nearly the following, terms:</p> + +<p>"In the history of man—in the Bible—we are told that dominion over the +animal world was bestowed upon him at his creation; but the divine +permission to indulge in animal food was not given till after the flood. +The observations I have to make accord strongly with this tradition; +for, while mankind remained in a state of innocence, there is every +ground to believe that their only food was the produce of the vegetable +kingdom."</p> + + +<h3>DR. JENNINGS.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Jennings is the author of a work published at Oberlin, Ohio, in +1847, entitled "Medical Reform." In this volume, at page 198, we find +the following facts and statements. The author is comparing the effects +of animal food on the human system with those of alcohol, from which we +learn his views concerning the former:</p> + +<p>"Position I.—Animal food, in common with alcohol,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> creates a feverish +diathesis, evidences of which are—1. An impaired state of the +respiratory function. 2. The pulse is rendered more frequent and +irregular, both by alcohol and meat. 3. A feverish heat is generated in +the system, and persons are made more thirsty, by the use of both these +substances. 4. Both substances equally induce what is called the +digestive fever.</p> + +<p>"Position II.—Alcoholic drinks lay the foundation for occasional +disturbances in the system, of different kinds and grades, as bilious +bowel affections, etc., and so do flesh meats. In the production of +colds, animal food is far the most efficient.</p> + +<p>"Position III.—Animal food tends, quite as strongly as the moderate use +of alcoholic liquors, to weaken and disturb the balance of action +between the secerning and excerning systems of vessels, by which some +persons become leaner and others fleshier than they should be.</p> + +<p>"Position IV.—With about equal potency alcohol and flesh meats weaken +the force of the capillaries of the system, on which healthy action so +much depends.</p> + +<p>"Position V.—A flesh diet, in common with the use of strong drink, +impairs the tone of the nutritive apparatus, by which its ability to +work up raw material and manufacture it into sound, well finished vital +fabric, is diminished, and of course the appetite or call for food is +satisfied with a less quantity of the raw material. This fact has given +rise to the opinion that animal food contains more nutriment than +vegetable.</p> + +<p>"Position VI.—The total abandonment of an habitual use of animal food +is attended with all the perplexing, uncomfortable, and distressing +difficulties that follow the giving up of an habitual use of strong +drink. A change from one kind of simple nutriment to another has no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +such effect. It is only when the constant use of some stimulating +substance is abandoned that such difficulties are experienced."</p> + + +<h3>DR. JARVIS.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, in his "Practical Physiology," at page 86, has the +following thoughts:</p> + +<p>"Some have contended that man was designed to eat only of the fruits and +vegetables of the earth; while others maintain, with equal confidence, +that he should add to these the flesh of beasts. There are many +individuals, both in this and other countries, who confine themselves to +vegetable diet. They believe they enjoy better health, and maintain +greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet. +The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to +determine its value. It has not proved a failure, nor has it +demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that flesh is injurious."<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + + +<h3>DR. TICKNOR.</h3> + +<p>"From the fact," says this author, "that animal food is proper and +necessary for health in polar regions, and that a vegetable diet is +equally proper and necessary in the torrid zone, we may conclude that in +winter, in our own climate, an animal diet is the best; while vegetables +are more conducive to health in the summer season."</p> + +<p>It would not be difficult to prove, from the very concessions of Dr. T., +that vegetable food is better adapted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> to health, in <i>general</i>, than +animal; but I forbear to do so, in this place. The subject will be fully +discussed in the concluding chapter.</p> + + +<h3>DR. COLES.</h3> + +<p>The author of a small volume recently published at Boston, entitled the +"Philosophy of Health; or, Health without Medicine," is more decided in +his views on diet than any late writer I have seen, except Dr. Jennings +and O. S. Fowler. He says, at page 35:</p> + +<p>"Man, in his original, holy state, was provided for from the vegetables +of that happy garden which was given him to prune. This was the +Creator's original plan; * * * * the eating of flesh was one of the +consequences of the fall. Living on vegetable food is undoubtedly the +most natural and healthy method of subsistence."</p> + +<p>Again, at page 45—"The objections, then, against meat-eating are +threefold—intellectual, moral, and physical. Its tendency is to check +intellectual activity, to depreciate moral sentiment, and to derange the +fluids of the body."</p> + + +<h3>DR. SHEW.</h3> + +<p>This active physician is zealously devoted to the propagation of +hydropathy. He uses no medicine in the management of disease—nothing at +all but water. To this, however, he adds great attention to diet. In his +Journal,<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and elsewhere, he is a zealous and able advocate of the +vegetable system, preferring it himself, and recommending it to his +patients and followers.</p> + +<p>Dr. Shew's opinion, in this particular, is entitled to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> the more weight +from the fact of his having been very familiar with disease and diet, +both in the old world and the new. He has been twice to Germany; and has +spent much time at Graefenberg, with Priessnitz, the founder of the +system which he so zealously defends and practices, and so strongly +advocates.</p> + + +<h3>DR. MORRILL.</h3> + +<p>Dr. C. Morrill, in a recent work entitled, "Physiology of Woman, and her +Diseases," says much in favor of an exclusively vegetable diet in some +of the diseases of woman; and among other things, makes the following +general remarks:</p> + +<p>"Even by those who labor (referring here to the healthy), meat should be +taken moderately, and but once a day. The sedentary, generally, do not +need it."</p> + + +<h3>DR. BELL.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman's testimony has been given elsewhere. I only subjoin the +following: "By far the greater number of the inhabitants of the earth +have used, in all ages, and continue to use, at this time, vegetable +aliment alone."</p> + + +<h3>DR. BRADLEY.</h3> + +<p>Dr. D. B. Bradley, the distinguished missionary at Bangkok, in Siam, +though not exactly a vegetable eater, is favorably disposed to the +vegetable system. He has read Graham and myself with great care, and is +an anxious inquirer after all truth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. STEPHENSON.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Chauncy Stephenson, of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in what he calls +his "New System of Medicine," commends to all his readers, for their +sustenance, "pure air, a proper temperature, good vegetable food, and +pure cold water." And lest he should be misunderstood, he immediately +adds—"The best articles of food for general use are good, well-baked +cold bread, made of rye and Indian corn, wheat or barley meal; rice, +good ripe fruits of all kinds, both fresh and dried, and a proper +proportion of good roots, such as potatoes, parsneps, turnips, onions, +etc." Even milk he regards as a questionable food for adults or middle +aged persons.</p> + +<p>Again, he says: "Animal food, in general, digests sooner than most kinds +of vegetables; and not being so much in accordance with man's nature, +constitution, and moral character, it is very liable, finally, to +generate disease, inflammation, or fever, even when it is not taken to +excess." He closes by advising all persons to content themselves with +"pure vegetable food;" and that in the least quantity compatible with +good health.</p> + + +<h3>DR. J. BURDELL,</h3> + +<p>A distinguished dentist of New York, has long been a vegetable eater, +and a zealous defender of the faith (in this particular) which he +professes.</p> + + +<h3>DR. THOMAS SMETHURST,</h3> + +<p>In a work entitled Hydrotherapia, says, "Children thrive best upon a +simple, moderately nourishing vegetable diet." And if children thus +thrive the best, why not adults?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DR. SCHLEMMER.</h3> + +<p>Dr. C. V. Schlemmer, a German by birth, but now an adopted son of old +England, in giving an account of the diet of himself, his three sons of +eleven, ten, and four years of age, with their tutor, observes: "Raw +peas, beans, and fruit are our food: our teeth are our mills; the +stomach is the kitchen." And all of them, as he affirms, enjoy the best +of health. For himself, as he says, he has practiced in this way six +years.</p> + + +<h3>DR. CURTIS, AND OTHERS.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Curtis, a distinguished botanic physician of Ohio, with several +other physicians, both of the old and the new school, whom I have not +named, do not hesitate to regard a pure vegetable diet, in the abstract, +as by far the best for all mankind, both in health and disease.</p> + +<p>Dr. Porter, of Waltham, for example, when I meet him, always concedes +that a well-selected vegetable diet is superior to every other. He has +repeatedly told me of an experiment he made, of three months, on mere +bread and water. Never, says he, was I more vigorous in body and mind, +than at the end of this experiment. But the reader well knows that I am +not an advocate of a diet of mere bread and water. I regard fruits, or +fruit juices—unfermented—almost as necessary, to adults, as bread.</p> + + +<h3>PROF. C. U. SHEPARD.</h3> + +<p>The reputation of this gentleman, in the scientific world, is so well +known, that no apology can be necessary for inserting his testimony. As +a chemist, he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> second to very few, if any, men in this country. The +following are his remarks:</p> + +<p>"Start not back at the idea of subsisting upon the potato alone, ye who +think it necessary to load your tables with all the dainty viands of the +market—with fish, flesh, and fowl, seasoned with oil and spices, and +eaten, perhaps, with wines;—start not back, I say, with disgust, until +you are able to display in your own pampered persons a firmer muscle, a +more beau-ideal outline, and a healthier red than the potato-fed +peasantry of Ireland and Scotland once showed you, as you passed by +their cabin doors!</p> + +<p>"No; the chemical physiologist will tell you that the well ripened +potato, when properly cooked, contains every element that man requires +for nutrition; and in the best proportion in which they are found in any +plant whatever. There is the abounding supply of starch for enabling him +to maintain the process of breathing, and for generating the necessary +warmth of body; there is the nitrogen for contributing to the growth and +renovation of organs; the lime and phosphorus for the bones; and all the +salts which a healthy circulation demands. In fine, the potato may well +be called the universal plant."</p> + + +<h3>BLACKWOOD, IN HIS MAGAZINE.</h3> + +<p>"Chemistry," says Blackwood's Magazine, "has already told us many +remarkable things in regard to the vegetable food we eat—that it +contains, for example, a certain per centage of the actual fat and lean +we consume in our beef, or mutton, or pork—and, therefore, that he who +lives on vegetable food may be as strong as the man who lives on animal +food, because both in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> reality feed on the same things, in a somewhat +different form."</p> + +<p>There is this difference, however, that in the one case—that is, in the +use of the vegetables which contain the elements referred to—we save +the trouble of running it through the body of the living animal, and +losing seven eighths of it, as we do, practically in the process; +whereas in the other we do not. We also save ourselves the necessity of +training the young and the old to scenes of butchery and blood.</p> + + +<h3>PROF. JOHNSTON.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, in a recent edition of his "Elements of Agricultural +Chemistry and Geology," tells us that from experiments made in the +laboratory of the Agricultural Association of Scotland, wheat and oats, +when analyzed, contain of nutritious properties the following +proportion:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Musc. matter.</td><td align='left'>Fat.</td><td align='left'>Starch.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wheat,</td><td align='left'>10 pounds,</td><td align='left'>3 pounds,</td><td align='left'>50 pounds.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oats,</td><td align='left'>18 "</td><td align='left'>6 "</td><td align='left'>65 "</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Thus oats, and even wheat, are quite rich in that which forms muscular +matter in the human body.</p> + + +<h3>SIMEON COLLINS, OF WESTFIELD, MASS.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, in his fifty-first year, states that having been for +several years afflicted with a severe cough, which he supposed bordered +upon consumption, he "discontinued the use of flesh meat, fish, fowl, +butter, gravy, tea, and coffee, and made use of a plain vegetable diet." +"My bread," says he, "is made of unbolted wheat meal; my drink is pure +cold water; my bed, for winter and summer, is made of the everlasting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +flower; and my health is, and ever has been, perfect, since I got fairly +cleansed from the filthiness of flesh meat, and other pernicious +articles of diet in common use.</p> + +<p>"My business requires a great degree of activity, and I can truly say +that I am a stranger to weariness or languor. At the time of entering +upon this system, I had a wife and five children, the youngest eight +years of age;—they all soon entered upon the same course of living with +myself, and soon were all benefited in health. I have now six +children—the youngest fifteen months old, and as happy as a lark. +Previous to the time of our adopting the present system of living, my +expenses for medicine and physicians would range from $20 to $30 a +year—for the last four years it has been nothing worth naming."</p> + + +<h3>REV. JOSEPH EMERSON.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Emerson was a teacher of eminence, known throughout the United +States, but particularly so in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He died in +the latter state, in 1833, aged about fifty-five. He had long been a +miserable dyspeptic, but was probably kept alive amid certain strange +violations of physical law, such as studying hard till midnight, for +example, for many years, by his great care in regard to his diet. Mrs. +Banister, late Miss Z. P. Grant (the associate, at Ipswich, of Miss +Lyon, who died recently at South Hadley, who was his pupil), thus speaks +of his rigid habits:</p> + +<p>"He not only uniformly rejected whatever food he had decided to be +injurious to him, but whatever he deemed necessary for his food or +drink, was always taken, whether at home or abroad. As his diet, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +several years, consisted generally, either of bread and milk, or of +bread and butter, what solid food he wanted could be supplied at any +table."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>It is also testified of him, by his brother, Prof. Emerson, of Andover, +that "for more than thirty years he adopted the practice of eating but +one kind at a meal." If I do not misremember, for I knew him well, he +was in favor of banishing flesh and fish, and substituting milk and +fruits in their stead, on Bible ground.—I refer here to the Divine +arrangement in the first chapter of Genesis; and which has never, that I +am aware, been altered.</p> + + +<h3>TAK SISSON.</h3> + +<p>Tak Sisson, as he was called, was a slave in the family of a man in +Rhode Island, before and during the Revolution.</p> + +<p>From early childhood he could never be prevailed on to eat any flesh or +fish, but he subsisted on vegetable food and milk; neither could he be +persuaded to eat high seasoned food of any kind. When he was a child, +his parents used to scold him severely, and threaten to whip him because +he refused to eat flesh. They said to him (as I have been told a +thousand times), that if he did not eat meat he would never be good for +any thing, but would always be a poor, puny creature.</p> + +<p>But Tak persevered in his vegetable and unstimulating diet, and, to the +surprise of all, grew fast, and his body was finely developed and +athletic. He was very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> stout and robust, and altogether the most +vigorous and dexterous of any of the family. He finally became more than +six feet high, and every way well proportioned, and remarkable for his +agility and strength. He was so uncommonly shrewd, bright, strong, and +active, that he became notorious for his shrewdness, and for his feats +of strength and agility. Indeed, he was so full of his playful mischief +as greatly to annoy his overseer.</p> + +<p>During the Revolutionary War it became an object to take Gen. Prescott. +A door was to be forced where he was quartered and sleeping, and Tak was +selected for the work. Having taken his lesson from the American +officer, he proceeded to the door, plunged his thick head against it, +burst it open, roused Gen. P., like a tiger sprung upon him, seized him +in his brawny arms, and in a low, stern voice, said, "One word, and you +are a dead man." Then hastily snatching the general's cloak and wrapping +it round him, at the same time telling a companion to take care of the +rest of his clothes, he took him in his arms, as if a child, and ran +with him to a boat which was waiting, and escaped with his prisoner +without rousing even the British sentinels.</p> + +<p>Tak lived on his vegetable fare to a very advanced age, and was +remarkable, through life, for his activity, strength, and shrewdness.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> By seed, Dr. C. means the farinaceous grains; wheat, corn, +rye, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Cuvier was not a medical man, but I have classed him with +medical men, on account of his profound knowledge of Comparative Anatomy +and Physiology.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> "Unless," as a writer in the Graham Journal very justly +observes, "these latter indulge, habitually and freely, in the use of +intoxicating substances."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Such was Gen. Elliot, so distinguished at the famous siege +of Gibraltar. Such, too, was Mr. Shillitoe, of whom honorable mention +will be made in another place;—besides many more.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> So he thinks, but I think otherwise. Animal food, as I +have shown elsewhere, is not so nutritious as some of the farinaceous +vegetables.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Dr. J. here overlooks one important fact, viz., that the +testimony of all those who have tried the exclusive use of vegetable +food is <i>positive</i> in its nature; while that of others, who have not +tried it, is, and necessarily must be, negative.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The Water-Cure Journal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> An aged lady, of Dedham—a pillar in every good +cause—has, for twelve or fifteen years, carried abroad with her, when +traveling, some plain bread and apples; and no entreaties will prevail +with her, at home or abroad, to eat luxuries.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks.—Testimony of +Plautus.—Plutarch.—Porphyry.—Lord Bacon.—Sir William +Temple.—Cicero.—Cyrus the Great.—Gassendi.—Prof. +Hitchcock.—Lord Kaims.—Dr. Thomas Dick.—Prof. Bush.—Thomas +Shillitoe.—Alexander Pope.—Sir Richard Phillips.—Sir Isaac +Newton.—The Abbé Gallani.—Homer.—Dr. Franklin.—Mr. +Newton.—O. S. Fowler.—Rev. Mr. Johnston.—John H. +Chandler.—Rev. J. Caswell.—Mr. Chinn.—Father +Sewall.—Magliabecchi.—Oberlin and Swartz.—James +Haughton.—John Bailies.—Francis Hupazoli.—Prof. +Ferguson.—Howard, the Philanthropist.—Gen. +Elliot.—Encyclopedia Americana.—Thomas Bell, of +London.—Linnæus, the Naturalist.—Shelley, the Poet.—Rev. Mr. +Rich.—Rev. John Wesley.—Lamartine.</p></div> + + +<h3>GENERAL REMARKS.</h3> + +<p>This chapter might have been much more extended than it is. I might have +mentioned, for example, the cases of Daniel and his three brethren, at +the court of the Babylonian monarch, who certainly maintained their +health—if they did not even improve it—by vegetable food, and by a +form of it, too, which has by many been considered rather doubtful. I +might have mentioned the case of Paul,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> who, though he occasionally +appears to have eaten flesh, said, expressly, that he would abstain from +it while the world stood, where a great moral end was to be gained; and +no one can suppose he would have done so, had he feared any injury would +thereby result to his constitution of body or mind.</p> + +<p>The case of William Penn, if I remember rightly what he says in his "No +Cross no Crown," would have been in point. Jefferson, the third +President of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> United States, was, according to his own story, almost +a vegetable eater, during the whole of his long life. He says he +abstained principally from animal food; using it, if he used it at all, +only as a condiment for his vegetables. And does any one, who has read +his remarks, doubt that his "convictions" were in favor of the exclusive +use of vegetable food?</p> + +<p>However, to prevent the volume from much exceeding the limits originally +assigned it, I will be satisfied—and I hope the public will—with the +following selections of testimonies, ancient and modern; some of more, +some of less importance; but all of them, as it appears to me, worthy of +being collected and incorporated into a volume like this, and faithfully +and carefully examined.</p> + + +<h3>PLAUTUS.</h3> + +<p>Plautus, a distinguished dramatic Roman writer, who flourished about two +thousand years ago, gives the following remarkable testimony against the +use of animal food, and of course in favor of the salubrity of +vegetables; addressed, indeed, to his own countrymen and times, but +scarcely less applicable to our own:</p> + +<p>"You apply the term wild to lions, panthers, and serpents; yet, in your +own savage slaughters, you surpass them in ferocity; for the blood shed +by them is a matter of necessity, and requisite for their subsistence.</p> + +<p>"But, that man is not, by nature, destined to devour animal food, is +evident from the construction of the human frame, which bears no +resemblance to wild beasts or birds of prey. Man is not provided with +claws or talons, with sharpness of fang or tusk, so well adapted to tear +and lacerate; nor is his stomach so well braced and muscular, nor his +animal spirits so warm, as to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> enable him to digest this solid mass of +animal flesh. On the contrary, nature has made his teeth smooth, his +mouth narrow, and his tongue soft; and has contrived, by the slowness of +his digestion, to divert him from devouring a species of food so ill +adapted to his frame and constitution. But, if you still maintain that +such is your natural mode of subsistence, then follow nature in your +mode of killing your prey, and employ neither knife, hammer, nor +hatchet—but, like wolves, bears, and lions, seize an ox with your +teeth, grasp a boar round the body, or tear asunder a lamb or a hare, +and, like the savage tribe, devour them still panting in the agonies of +death.</p> + +<p>"We carry our luxury still farther, by the variety of sauces and +seasonings which we add to our beastly banquets—mixing together oil, +wine, honey, pickles, vinegar, and Syrian and Arabian ointments and +perfumes, as if we intended to bury and embalm the carcasses on which we +feed. The difficulty of digesting such a mass of matter, reduced in our +stomachs to a state of liquefaction and putrefaction, is the source of +endless disorders in the human frame.</p> + +<p>"First of all, the wild, mischievous animals were selected for food; and +then the birds and fishes were dragged to slaughter; next, the human +appetite directed itself against the laborious ox, the useful and +fleece-bearing sheep, and the cock, the guardian of the house. At last, +by this preparatory discipline, man became matured for human massacres, +slaughters, and wars."</p> + + +<h3>PLUTARCH.</h3> + +<p>"It is best to accustom ourselves to eat no flesh at all, for the earth +affords plenty enough of things not only fit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> for nourishment, but for +enjoyment and delight; some of which may be eaten without much +preparation, and others may be made pleasant by adding divers other +things to them.</p> + +<p>"You ask me," continues Plutarch, "'for what reason Pythagoras abstained +from eating the flesh of brutes?' For my part, I am astonished to think, +on the contrary, what appetite first induced man to taste of a dead +carcass; or what motive could suggest the notion of nourishing himself +with the flesh of animals which he saw, the moment before, bleating, +bellowing, walking, and looking around them. How could he bear to see an +impotent and defenceless creature slaughtered, skinned, and cut up for +food? How could he endure the sight of the convulsed limbs and muscles? +How bear the smell arising from the dissection? Whence happened it that +he was not disgusted and struck with horror when he came to handle the +bleeding flesh, and clear away the clotted blood and humors from the +wounds?</p> + +<p>"We should therefore rather wonder at the conduct of those who first +indulged themselves in this horrible repast, than at such as have +humanely abstained from it."</p> + + +<h3>PORPHYRY, OF TYRE.</h3> + +<p>Porphyry, of Tyre, lived about the middle of the third century, and +wrote a book on abstinence from animal food. This book was addressed to +an individual who had once followed the vegetable system, but had +afterward relinquished it. The following is an extract from it:</p> + +<p>"You owned, when you lived among us, that a vegetable diet was +preferable to animal food, both for preserving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> the health and for +facilitating the study of philosophy; and now, since you have eat flesh, +your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was +true. It was not from those who lived on vegetables that robbers or +murderers, sycophants or tyrants, have proceeded; but from +<i>flesh-eaters</i>. The necessaries of life are few and easily acquired, +without violating justice, liberty, health, or peace of mind; whereas +luxury obliges those vulgar souls who take delight in it to covet +riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to misspend their +time, to ruin their health and to renounce the joy of an upright +conscience."</p> + +<p>He takes pains to persuade men of the truth of the two following +propositions:</p> + +<p>1st. "That a conquest over the appetites and passions will greatly +contribute to preserve health and to remove distempers.</p> + +<p>2d. "That a simple vegetable food, being easily procured and easily +digested, is a mighty help toward obtaining this conquest over +ourselves."</p> + +<p>To prove the first proposition, he appeals to experience, and proves +that many of his acquaintance who had disengaged themselves from the +care of amassing riches, and turning their thoughts to spiritual +subjects, had got rid entirely of their bodily distempers.</p> + +<p>In confirmation of the second proposition, he argues in the following +manner: "Give me a man who considers, seriously, what he is, whence he +came, and whither he must go, and from these considerations resolves not +to be led astray nor governed by his passions; and let such a man tell +me whether a rich animal diet is more easily procured or incites less to +irregular passions and appetites than a light vegetable diet!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> But if +neither he, nor a physician, nor indeed any reasonable man whatsoever, +dares to affirm this, why do we oppress ourselves with animal food, and +why do we not, together with luxury and flesh meat, throw off the +incumbrances and snares which attend them?"</p> + + +<h3>LORD BACON.</h3> + +<p>Lord Bacon, in his treatise on Life and Death, says, "It seems to be +approved by experience, that a spare and almost a Pythagorean diet, such +as is prescribed by the strictest monastic life, or practiced by +hermits, is most favorable to long life."</p> + + +<h3>SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.</h3> + +<p>"The patriarchs' abodes were not in cities, but in open countries and +fields. Their lives were pastoral, and employed in some sorts of +agriculture. They were of the same race, to which their marriages were +generally confined. Their diet was simple, as that of the ancients is +generally represented. Among them flesh and wine were seldom used, +except at sacrifices at solemn feasts.</p> + +<p>"The Brachmans, among the old Indians, were all of the same races, lived +in fields and in woods, after the course of their studies was ended, and +fed only upon rice, milk, and herbs.</p> + +<p>"The Brazilians, when first discovered, lived the most natural, original +lives of mankind, so frequently described in ancient countries, before +laws, or property, or arts made entrance among them; and so their +customs may be concluded to have been yet more simple than either of the +other two. They lived without business or labor, further than for their +necessary food, by gathering fruits, herbs, and plants. They knew no +other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> drink but water; were not tempted to eat or drink beyond common +appetite and thirst; were not troubled with either public or domestic +cares, and knew no pleasures but the most simple and natural.</p> + +<p>"From all these examples and customs, it may probably be concluded that +the common ingredients of health and long life are, great temperance, +open air, easy labor, little care, simplicity of diet—rather fruits and +plants than flesh, which easier corrupts—and water, which preserves the +radical moisture without too much increasing the radical heat. Whereas +sickness, decay, and death proceed commonly from the one preying too +fast upon the other, and at length wholly extinguishing it."</p> + + +<h3>CICERO.</h3> + +<p>This eminent man sometimes, if not usually, confined himself to +vegetable food. Of this we have evidence, in his complaints about the +refinements of cookery—that they were continually tempting him to +excess, etc. He says, that after having withstood all the temptations +that the noblest lampreys and oysters could throw in his way, he was at +last overpowered by paltry beets and mallows. A victory, by the way, +which, in the case of the eater of plain food, is very often achieved.</p> + + +<h3>CYRUS THE GREAT.</h3> + +<p>This distinguished warrior was brought up, like the inferior Persians, +on bread, cresses, and water; and, notwithstanding the temptations of a +luxurious and voluptuous court, he rigorously adhered to his simple +diet. Nay, he even carried his simple habits nearly through life with +him; and it was not till he had completely established one of the +largest and most powerful empires<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> of antiquity that he began to yield +to the luxuries of the times. Had he pursued his steady course of +temperance through life, the historian, instead of recording his death +at only seventy, might have told us that he died at a hundred or a +hundred and fifty.</p> + + +<h3>PETER GASSENDI.</h3> + +<p>Two hundred and twenty years ago, Peter Gassendi, a famous French +philosopher—and by the way, one of the most learned men of his +time—wrote a long epistle to Van Helmont, a Dutch chemist, on the +question whether the teeth of mankind indicate that they are naturally +flesh-eaters.</p> + +<p>In this epistle, too long for insertion here,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Gassendi maintains, +with great ingenuity, that the human teeth were not made for flesh. He +does not evade any of the facts in the case, but meets them all fairly +and discusses them freely. And after having gone through with all parts +of the argument, and answered every other conceivable objection, he thus +concludes:</p> + +<p>"And here I feel that it may be objected to me: Why, then, do you not, +yourself, abstain from flesh and feed only on fruits and vegetables? I +must plead the force of habit, for my excuse. In persons of mature age +nature appears to be so wholly changed, that this artificial habit +cannot be renounced without some detriment. But I confess that if I were +wise, and relinquishing the use of flesh, should gradually accustom +myself to the gifts of the kind earth, I have little doubt that I should +enjoy more regular health, and acquire greater activity of mind. For +truly our numerous diseases,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> and the dullness of our faculties, seem +principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may +say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the +whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. +In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads of +man's nature."</p> + +<p>I know how it strikes many when they find such men as Gassendi, +admitting the doctrines for which I contend, in theory, and even +strenuously defending them, and yet setting them at naught in practice. +Surely, say they, such persons cannot be sincere. For myself, however, I +draw a very different conclusion. Their conduct is perfectly in harmony +with that of the theoretic friends of cold water, plain dress, and +abstemiousness in general. They are compelled to admit the truth; but it +is so much against their habits, as in the case of Gassendi, besides +being still more strongly opposed to their lusts and appetites, that +they cannot, or rather, will not conform to what they believe, in their +daily practice. Their testimony, to me, is the strongest that can be +obtained, because they testify against themselves, and in spite of +themselves.</p> + + +<h3>PROF. HITCHCOCK.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, a distinguished professor in Amherst College, is the +author of a work, entitled "Dyspepsia Forestalled and Resisted," which +has been read by many, and execrated by not a few of those who are so +wedded to their lusts as to be unwilling to be told of their errors.</p> + +<p>I am not aware that Professor H. has any where, in his writings, urged a +diet exclusively vegetable, for all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> classes of the community, although +I believe he does not hesitate to urge it on all students; and one might +almost infer, from his works of various kinds, that if he is not already +a believer in the doctrines of its universal superiority to a mixed +diet, he is not very far from it. In a sermon of his, in the National +Preacher, for November, 1834, he calls a diet exclusively vegetable, a +"proper course of living."</p> + +<p>I propose to add here a few anecdotes of his, which I know not how to +find elsewhere.</p> + +<p>"Pythagoras restricted himself to vegetable food altogether, his dinner +being bread, honey, and water; and he lived upward of eighty years. +Matthew (St. Matthew, I suppose he means), according to Clement, lived +upon vegetable diet. Galen, one of the most distinguished of the ancient +physicians, lived one hundred and forty years, and composed between +seven and eight hundred essays on medical and philosophical subjects; +and he was always, after the age of twenty-eight, extremely sparing in +the quantity of his food. The Cardinal de Salis, Archbishop of Seville, +who lived one hundred and ten years, was invariably sparing in his diet. +One Lawrence, an Englishman, by temperance and labor lived one hundred +and forty years; and one Kentigern, who never tasted spirits or wine, +and slept on the ground and labored hard, died at the age of one hundred +and eighty-five. Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, who died at the age of one +hundred and sixty-nine, was a poor fisherman, as long as he could follow +this pursuit; and ultimately he became a beggar, living on the coarsest +and most sparing diet. Old Parr, who died at the age of one hundred and +fifty-three, was a farmer, of extremely abstemious habits, his diet +being solely milk,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> cheese, coarse bread, small beer, and whey. At the +age of one hundred and twenty he married a second wife by whom he had a +child. But being taken to court, as a great curiosity, in his one +hundred and fifty-second year, he very soon died—as the physicians +decidedly testified, after dissection, in consequence of a change from a +parsimonious to a plentiful diet. Henry Francisco, of this country, who +lived to about one hundred and forty, was, except for a certain period, +remarkably abstemious, eating but little, and particularly abstaining +almost entirely from animal food; his favorite articles being tea, bread +and butter, and baked apples. Mr. Ephraim Pratt, of Shutesbury, Mass., +who died at the age of one hundred and seventeen years, lived very much +upon milk, and that in small quantity; and his son, Michael Pratt, +attained to the age of one hundred and three, by similar means."</p> + +<p>Speaking, in another place, of a milk diet, Professor H. observes, that +"a diet chiefly of milk produces a most happy serenity, vigor, and +cheerfulness of mind—very different from the gloomy, crabbed, and +irritable temper, and foggy intellect, of the man who devours flesh, +fish, and fowl, with ravenous appetite, and adds puddings, pies, and +cakes to the load."</p> + + +<h3>LORD KAIMS.</h3> + +<p>Henry Home, otherwise called Lord Kaims, the author of the "Elements of +Criticism," and of "Six Sketches on the History of Man," has, in the +latter work, written eighty years ago, the following statements +respecting the inhabitants of the torrid zone:</p> + +<p>"We have no evidence that either the hunter or shepherd state were ever +known there. The inhabitants at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> present subsist upon vegetable food, +and probably did so from the beginning."</p> + +<p>In speaking of particular nations or tribes of this zone, he tells us +that "the inhabitants of Biledulgerid and the desert of Sahara, have but +two meals a day—one in the morning and one in the evening;" and "being +temperate," he adds, "and strangers to the diseases of luxury and +idleness, they generally live to a great age."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Sixty, with them, is +the prime of life, as thirty is in Europe. "Some of the inland tribes of +Africa," he says, "make but one meal a day, which is in the evening." +And yet "their diet is plain, consisting mostly of rice, fruits, and +roots. An inhabitant of Madagascar will travel two or three days without +any other food than a sugar-cane." So also, he might have added, will +the Arab travel many days, and at almost incredible speed, with nothing +but a little gum-arabic; and the Peruvians and other inhabitants of +South America, with a little parched corn. But I have one more extract +from Lord Kaims:</p> + +<p>"The island of Otaheite is healthy, the people tall and well made; and +by temperance—vegetables and fish being their chief nourishment—they +live to a good old age, with scarcely an ailment. There is no such thing +known among them as rotten teeth; the very smell of wine or spirits is +disagreeable; and they never deal in tobacco or spiceries. In many +places Indian corn is the chief nourishment, which every man plants for +himself."</p> + + +<h3>DR. THOMAS DICK.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Dick, author of the "Philosophy of Religion," and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> several other +works deservedly popular, gives this remarkable testimony:</p> + +<p>"To take the life of any sensitive being, and to feed on its flesh, +appears incompatible with a state of innocence, and therefore no such +grant was given to Adam in paradise, nor to the antediluvians. It +appears to have been a grant suited only to the degraded state of man, +after the deluge; and it is probable that, as he advances in the scale +of moral perfection in the future ages of the world, the use of animal +food will be gradually laid aside, and he will return again to the +productions of the vegetable kingdom, as the original food of man—as +that which is best suited to the rank of rational and moral +intelligence. And perhaps it may have an influence, in combination with +other favorable circumstances, in promoting health and longevity."</p> + + +<h3>PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH.</h3> + +<p>Professor Bush, a writer of some eminence, in his "Notes on Genesis," +while speaking of the permission to man in regard to food, in Genesis i. +29, has the following language:</p> + +<p>"It is not perhaps to be understood, from the use of the word <i>give</i>, +that a <i>permission</i> was now granted to man of using that for food which +it would have been unlawful for him to use without that permission; for, +by the very constitution of his being, he was made to be sustained by +that food which was most congenial to his animal economy; and this it +must have been lawful for him to employ, unless self-destruction had +been his duty. The true import of the phrase, therefore, doubtless is, +that God had <i>appointed</i>, <i>constituted</i>, <i>ordained</i> this, as the staple +article of man's diet. He had formed him with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> nature to which a +vegetable aliment was better suited than any other. It cannot perhaps be +inferred from this language that the use of flesh-meat was absolutely +forbidden; but it clearly implies that the fruits of the field were the +diet most adapted to the constitution which the Creator had given."</p> + + +<h3>THOMAS SHILLITOE.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Shillitoe was a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, at +Tottenham, near London. The first twenty-five years of his life were +spent in feeble health, made worse by high living. This high living was +continued about twenty years longer, when, finding himself fast failing, +he yielded to the advice of a medical friend, and abandoned all drinks +but water, and all food but the plainest kinds, by which means he so +restored his constitution that he lived to be nearly ninety years of +age; and at eighty could walk with ease from Tottenham to London, six +miles, and back again. The following is a brief account of this +distinguished man, when at the age of eighty, and nearly in his own +words:</p> + +<p>It is now nearly thirty years since I ate fish, flesh, or fowl, or took +fermented liquor of any kind whatsoever. I find, from continued +experience, that abstinence is the best medicine. I don't meddle with +fermented liquors of any kind, even as medicine. I find I am capable of +doing better without them than when I was in the daily use of them.</p> + +<p>"One way in which I was favored to experience help in my willingness to +abandon all these things, arose from the effect my abstinence had on my +natural temper. My natural disposition is very irritable. I am persuaded +that ardent spirits and high living have more or less effect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> in tending +to raise into action those evil propensities which, if given way to, war +against the soul, and render us displeasing to Almighty God."</p> + + +<h3>ALEXANDER POPE.</h3> + +<p>Pope, the poet, ascribes all the bad passions and diseases of the human +race to their subsisting on the flesh, blood, and miseries of animals. +"Nothing," he says, "can be more shocking and horrid than one of our +kitchens, sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of +creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung +up here and there. It gives one an image of a giant's den in romance, +bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were +slain by his cruelty."</p> + + +<h3>SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS.</h3> + +<p>Sir Richard Phillips, in his "Million of Facts," says that "the mixed +and fanciful diet of man is considered as the cause of numerous +diseases, from which animals are exempt. Many diseases have abated with +changes of natural diet, and others are virulent in particular +countries, arising from peculiarities. The Hindoos are considered the +freest from disease of any part of the human race. The laborers on the +African coast, who go from tribe to tribe to perform the manual labor, +and whose strength is wonderful, live entirely on plain rice. The Irish, +Swiss, and Gascons, the slaves of Europe, feed also on the simplest +diet; the former chiefly on potatoes."</p> + +<p>He states, also, that the diseases of cattle often afflict those who +subsist on them. "In 1599," he observes, "the Venetian government, to +stop a fatal disease among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> people, prohibited the sale of meat, +butter, or cheese, on Pain of death."</p> + + +<h3>SIR ISAAC NEWTON.</h3> + +<p>This distinguished philosopher and mathematician is said to have +abstained rigorously, at times, from all but purely vegetable food, and +from all drinks but water; and it is also stated that some of his +important labors were performed at these seasons of strict temperance. +While writing his treatise on Optics, it is said he confined himself +entirely to bread, with a little sack and water; and I have no doubt +that his remarkable equanimity of temper, and that government of his +animal appetites, throughout, for which he was so distinguished to the +last hour of his life, were owing, in no small degree, to his habits of +rigid temperance.</p> + + +<h3>THE ABBE GALLANI.</h3> + +<p>The Abbé Gallani ascribes all social crimes to animal destruction—thus, +treachery to angling and ensnaring, and murder to hunting and shooting. +And he asserts that the man who would kill a sheep, an ox, or any +unsuspecting animal, would, but for the law, kill his neighbor.</p> + + +<h3>HOMER.</h3> + +<p>Even Homer, three thousand years ago, says Dr. Cheyne, could observe +that the Homolgians—those Pythagoreans, those milk and vegetable +eaters—were the longest lived and the honestest of men.</p> + + +<h3>DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Franklin, in his younger days, often, for some time together, lived +exclusively on a vegetable diet, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> that, too, in small quantity. +During his after life he also observed seasons of abstinence from animal +food, or <i>lents</i>, as he called them, of considerable length. His food +and drink were, moreover, especially in early life, exceedingly simple; +his meal often consisting of nothing but a biscuit and a slice of bread, +with a bunch of raisins, and perhaps a basin of gruel. Now, Dr. F. +testifies of himself; that he found his progress in science to be in +proportion to that clearness of mind and aptitude of conception which +can only be produced by total abstinence from animal food. He also +derived many other advantages from his abstinence, both physical and +moral.</p> + + +<h3>MR. NEWTON.</h3> + +<p>This author wrote a work entitled "Defence of Vegetable Regimen." It is +often quoted by Shelley, the poet, and others. I know nothing of the +author or of his works, except through Shelley, who gives us some of his +views, and informs us that seventeen persons, of all ages, consisting of +Mr. Newton's family and the family of Dr. Lambe, who is elsewhere +mentioned in this work, had, at the time he wrote, lived seven years on +a pure vegetable diet, and without the slightest illness. Of the +seventeen, some of them were infants, and one of them was almost dead +with asthma when the experiment was commenced, but was already nearly +cured by it; and of the family of Mr. N., Shelley testifies that they +were "the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to +conceive"—the girls "perfect models for a sculptor"—and their +dispositions "the most gentle and conciliating."</p> + +<p>The following paragraph is extracted from Mr. Newton's "Defence," and +will give us an idea of his sentiments. He was speaking of the fable of +Prometheus:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory +as time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, the +drift of the fable seems to be this: Man, at his creation, was endowed +with the gift of perpetual youth, that is, he was not formed to be a +sickly, suffering creature, as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and +to sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth, without +disease or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food, and of +fire, with which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste. +Jupiter and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these +inventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the +newly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet, ensued; other +drink than water was resorted to, and man forfeited the inestimable gift +of health, which he had received from heaven; he became diseased, the +partaker of a precarious existence, and no longer descended into his +grave slowly."</p> + + +<h3>O. S. FOWLER.</h3> + +<p>O. S. Fowler, the distinguished phrenologist, in his work on Physiology, +devotes nearly one hundred pages to the discussion of the great diet +question. He endeavors to show that, in every point of view, a flesh +diet—or a diet partaking of flesh, fish, or fowl, in any degree—is +inferior to a well-selected vegetable diet; and, as I think, +successfully. He finally says:</p> + +<p>"I wish my own children had never tasted, and would never taste, a +mouthful of meat. Increased health, efficiency, talents, virtue, and +happiness, would undoubtedly be the result. But for the fact that my +table is set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> for others than my own wife and children, it would never +be furnished with meat, so strong are my convictions against its +utility."</p> + +<p>I believe that L. N. Fowler, the brother and associate of the former, is +of the same opinion; but my acquaintance with him is very limited. Both +the Fowlers, with Mr. Wells, their associate in book-selling, seem +anxiously engaged in circulating books which involve the discussion of +this great question.</p> + + +<h3>REV. MR. JOHNSTON.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Johnston, who for some fifteen or twenty years has been an American +missionary in different foreign places—Trebizond, Smyrna, etc.—is, +from conviction, a vegetable eater. The author holds in his possession +several letters from this gentleman, on the subject of health, from +which, but for want of room, he would be glad to make numerous extracts. +He once sent, or caused to be sent, to him, at Trebizond, a barrel of +choice American apples, for which the missionary, amid numerous Eastern +luxuries, was almost starving. Happy would it be for many other American +and British missionaries, if they had the same simple taste and natural +appetite.</p> + + +<h3>JOHN H. CHANDLER.</h3> + +<p>This young man has been for eight or ten years in the employ of the +Baptist Foreign Missionary Board, and is located at Bangkok, in Siam. +For several years before he left this country he was a vegetable eater, +sometimes subsisting on mere fruit for one or two of his daily meals. +And yet, as a mechanic, his labor was hard—sometimes severe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>Since he has been in Siam he has continued his reformed habits, as +appears from his letters and from reports. The last letter I had from +him was dated June 10, 1847. The following are extracts from it:</p> + +<p>"I experienced the same trials (that is, from others) on my arrival in +Burmah, in regard to vegetable diet, that I did in the United States. +This I did not expect, and was not prepared for it. Through the blessing +of God we were enabled to endure, and have persevered until now.</p> + +<p>"Myself and wife are more deeply convinced than ever that vegetable diet +is the best adapted to sustain health. I cannot say that we have been +much more free from sickness than our associates; but one thing we can +say—we have been equally well off, and our expenses have been much +less."</p> + +<p>After going on to say how much his family—himself and wife—saved by +their plain living, viz., an average of about one dollar a week, he +makes additional remarks, of which I will only quote the following:</p> + +<p>"My labors, being mostly mechanical, are far more fatiguing than those +of my brethren; and I do not think any of them could endure a greater +amount of labor than I do."</p> + +<p>It deserves to be noticed, in this connection, that Mr. Chandler has +slender muscles, and would by no means be expected to accomplish as much +as many men of greater vigor; and yet we have reason to believe that he +performs as much labor as any man in the service of the board.</p> + + +<h3>REV. JESSE CASWELL.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Caswell went out to India about thirteen years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> ago, a dyspeptic, +and yet perhaps somewhat better than while engaged in his studies at +Andover. For several years after his arrival he suffered much from +sickness, like his fellow-laborers. His station was Bangkok. He was an +American missionary, sent out by the American Board, as it is called, of +Boston.</p> + +<p>About six years ago he wrote me for information on the subject of +health. He had read my works, and those of Mr. Graham, and seemed not +only convinced of the general importance of studying the science of +human life, but of the superiority of a well selected vegetable diet, +especially at the East. He was also greatly anxious that missionaries +should be early taught what he had himself learned. The following is one +of his first paragraphs:</p> + +<p>"I feel fully convinced that you are engaged in a work second to few if +any of the great enterprises of the day. If there be any class of men +standing in special need of correct physiological knowledge, that class +consists of missionaries of the cross. What havoc has disease made with +this class, and for the most part, as I feel convinced, because, before +and after leaving their native land, they live so utterly at variance +with the laws of their nature."</p> + +<p>He then proceeds to say, that the American missionaries copy the example +of the English, and that they all eat too much high-seasoned food, and +too much flesh and fish; and argues against the practice by adducing +facts. The following is one of them:</p> + +<p>"My Siamese teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who +live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can +endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way. +* * *<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this +they generally eat <i>a very little</i>, with their rice."</p> + +<p>The next year I had another letter from him. He had been sick, but was +better, and thought he had learned a great deal, during his sickness, +about the best means of preserving health. He had now fully adopted what +he chose to call the Graham system, and was rejoicing—he and his wife +and children—in its benefits. He says, "If a voice from an obscure +corner of the earth can do any thing toward encouraging your heart and +staying your hands, that voice you shall have." He suggests the +propriety of my sending him a copy of "Vegetable Diet." "I think," says +he, "it might do great good." He wished to lend it among his friends.</p> + +<p>It must suffice to say, that he continued to write me, once or twice a +year, as long as he lived. He also insisted strongly on the importance +of physiological information among students preparing for the ministry, +and especially for missions. He even wrote once or twice to Rev. Dr. +Anderson, and solicited attention to the subject. But the board would +neither hear to him nor to me, except to speak kind words, for nothing +effective was ever done. They even refused a well-written communication +on the subject, intended for the Missionary Herald. Let me also say, +that as early as March, 1845, he told me that Dr. Bradley, his associate +(now in this country), with his family, were beginning to live on the +vegetable system; and added, that one of the sisters of the mission, who +was no "Grahamite," had told him she thought there was not one third as +much flesh used in all the mission families that there was a year +before.</p> + +<p>Mr. Caswell became exceedingly efficient, over-exerted himself in +completing a vocabulary of the Siamese<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> language, and in other labors, +and died in September last. He was, according to the testimony of Dr. +Bradley, a "<i>noble man</i>;" and probably his life and health, and that of +his family, were prolonged many years by his improved habits. But his +early transgressions—like those of thousands—at length found him out. +I allude to his errors in regard to exercise, eating, drinking, +sleeping, taking medicine, etc.</p> + + +<h3>MR. SAMUEL CHINN.</h3> + +<p>This individual has represented the town of Marblehead, Mass., in the +state legislature, and is a man of respectability. He is now, says the +"Lynn Washingtonian," above forty years of age, a strong, healthy man, +and, to use his own language, "has neither ache nor pain." For the ten +years next preceding our last account from him he had lived on a simple +vegetable diet, condemning to slaughter no flocks or herds that "range +the valley free," but leaving them to their native, joyous hill-sides +and mountains. But Mr. Chinn, not contented with abstinence from animal +food, goes nearly the full length of Dr. Schlemmer and his sect, and +abjures cookery. For four years he subsisted—we believe he does so +now—on nothing but unground wheat and fruit. His breakfast, it is said, +he uniformly makes of fruit; his other two meals of unground wheat; +patronizing neither millers nor cooks. A few years since, being +appointed a delegate to a convention in Worcester, fifty-eight miles +distant, he filled his pocket with wheat, walked there during the day, +attended the convention, and the next day walked home again, with +comparative ease.</p> + + +<h3>FATHER SEWALL.</h3> + +<p>This venerable man—Jotham Sewall, of Maine, as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> styles himself, one +of the fathers of that state—is now about ninety years of age, and yet +is, what he has long been, an active home missionary. He is a man of +giant size and venerable appearance, of a green old age, and remarkably +healthy. He is an early riser, a man of great cheerfulness, and of the +most simple habits. He has abstained from tea and coffee—poisonous +things, as he calls them—forty-seven years. His only drinks are water +and sage tea. These, with bread, milk, and fruits, and perhaps a little +salt, are the only things that enter his stomach. How long he has +abstained from flesh and fish I have not learned, but I believe some +thirty or forty years.</p> + +<p>Such is the appearance of this venerable man, that no one is surprised +to find in him those gigantic powers of mind, and that readiness to give +wise counsel on every important occasion, for which he has so long been +distinguished. It has sometimes seemed to me that no one would doubt the +efficacy of a well-selected vegetable diet to give strength, mental or +bodily, who had known Father Sewall.</p> + + +<h3>MAGLIABECCHI,</h3> + +<p>An Italian, who died in the beginning of the eighteenth century, abjured +cookery at the age of forty years, and confined himself chiefly to +fruits, grains, and water. He never allowed himself a bed, but slept on +a kind of settee, wrapped in a long morning gown, which served him for +blanket and clothing the year round.</p> + +<p>I would not be understood as encouraging the anti-cookery system of Dr. +Schlemmer and Magliabecchi; but it is interesting to know <i>what can be +done</i>. Magliabecchi lived to the age of from eighty to one hundred +years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>OBERLIN AND SWARTZ.</h3> + +<p>These two distinguished men were essentially vegetable eaters. Of the +habits of Oberlin, the venerable pastor and father of Waldbach, I am not +able to speak, however, with so much certainty as of those of Swartz. +His income, during the early part of his residence in India, was only +forty-eight pounds a year, which, being estimated by its ability to +procure supplies for his necessities, was only equal to about one +hundred dollars. He not only accepted of very narrow quarters, but ate, +drank, and dressed, in the plainest manner. "A dish of rice and +vegetables," says his biographer, "satisfied his appetite for food."</p> + + +<h3>THE IRISH.</h3> + +<p>Much has been said of the dietetic habits of the Irish, of late years, +especially of their potato. Now, we have abundant facts which go to +prove that good potatoes form a wholesome aliment, equal, if not +superior, to many forms of European and American diet. Yet it cannot be +that a diet consisting wholly of potatoes is as well for the race as one +partaking of greater variety.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and +Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, whom he +visited:</p> + +<p>"He was upward of eighty years when I had last seen him, and he was now +in his ninety-fourth year. He found the old gentleman seated on a kind +of rustic seat, in the garden, by the side of some bee-hives. He was +asleep. On his waking I was astonished to see the little change time had +wrought on him; a little more stoop in his shoulders, a wrinkle more, +perhaps, in his forehead,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> a more perfect whiteness of his hair, was all +the difference since I had seen him last. Flesh meat in my venerable +friend's house was an article never to be met with. <i>For sixty years +past he had not tasted it</i>, nor did he by any means like to see it taken +by others. His food was vegetables, bread, milk, butter, and honey. His +whole life was a series of benevolent actions, and Providence rewarded +him, even here, by a peace of mind which passeth all understanding, by a +judgment vigorous and unclouded, and by a length of days beyond the +common course of men."</p> + +<p>James Haughton, I believe of Dublin—a correspondent of Henry C. Wright, +of Philadelphia, who is himself in theory a vegetable eater—has, for +some time past, rejected flesh, and pursued a simple course of living, +as he says, with great advantage. I have been both amused and instructed +by his letters.</p> + +<p>I have met with several Irish people of intelligence who were vegetable +eaters, but their names are not now recollected. They have not, however, +in any instance, confined themselves to potatoes. One of the most +distinguished of these was a female laborer in the family of a merchant +at Barnstable. She was, from choice, a very rigid vegetable eater; and +yet no person in the whole neighborhood was more efficient as a laborer. +Those who know her, and are in the habit of thinking no person can work +hard without flesh and fish, often express their astonishment that she +should be able to live so simply and yet perform so much labor.</p> + + +<h3>JOHN BAILIES.</h3> + +<p>John Bailies, of England, who reached the great age of one hundred and +twenty-eight, is said to have been a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> strict vegetarian. His food, for +the most part, consisted of brown bread and cheese; and his drink of +water and milk. He had survived the whole town of Northampton (as he was +wont to say), where he resided, three or four times over; and it was his +custom to say that they were all killed by tea and coffee. Flesh meat at +that time had not come into suspicion, otherwise he would doubtless have +attributed part of the evil to this agency.</p> + + +<h3>FRANCIS HUPAZOLI.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman was a Sardinian ecclesiastic, at the first; afterward a +merchant at Scio; and finally Venetian consul at Smyrna. Much has been +said of Lewis Cornaro, who, having broken down his constitution at the +age of forty, renewed it by his temperance, and lasted unto nearly the +age of a century. His story is interesting and instructive; but little +more so than that of Hupazoli.</p> + +<p>His habits were all remarkable for simplicity and truth, except one. He +was greatly licentious; and his licentiousness, at the age of +eighty-five, had nearly carried him off. Yet such was the mildness of +his temper, and so correct was he in regard to exercise, rest, rising, +eating, drinking, etc., that he lived on, to the great age of one +hundred and fifteen years, and then died, not of old age, but of +disease.</p> + +<p>Hupazoli did not entirely abstain from flesh; and yet he used very +little, and that was wild game. His living was chiefly on fruits. +Indeed, he ate but little at any time; and his supper was particularly +light. His drink was water. He never took any medicine in his whole +life, not even tobacco; nor was he so much as ever bled. In fact, till +late in life, he was never sick.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>MARY CAROLINE HINCKLEY.</h3> + +<p>This young woman, a resident of Hallowell, in Maine, and somewhat +distinguished as a poet, is, from her own conviction and choice both, a +vegetable eater. Her story, which I had from her friends, is +substantially as follows:</p> + +<p>When about eleven years of age she suddenly changed her habits of +eating, and steadfastly refused, at the table, all kinds of food which +partook of flesh and fish. The family were alarmed, and afraid she was +ill. When they made inquiry concerning it, she hesitated to assign the +reasons for her conduct; but, on being pressed closely, she confessed +that she abstained for conscience' sake; that she had become fully +convinced, from reading and reflection, that she ought not to eat animal +food.</p> + +<p>It was in vain that the family and neighbors remonstrated with her, and +endeavored, in various ways, to induce her to vary from her purpose. She +continued to use no fowl, flesh, or fish; and in this habit she +continues, as I believe, to this day, a period of some twelve or fifteen +years.</p> + + +<h3>JOHN WHITCOMB.</h3> + +<p>John Whitcomb, of Swansey, N. H., at the age of one hundred and four was +in possession of sound mind and memory, and had a fresh countenance; and +so good was his health, that he rose and bathed himself in cold water +even in mid-winter. His wounds, moreover, would heal like those of a +child. And yet this man, for eighty years, refused to drink any thing +but water; and for thirty years, at the close of life, confined himself +chiefly to bread and milk as his diet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>CAPT. ROSS, OF THE BRITISH NAVY.</h3> + +<p>It is sometimes said that animal food is indispensably necessary in the +polar regions. We have seen, however, in the testimony of Professor +Sweetser, that this view of the case is hardly correct. But we have +positive testimony on this subject from Capt. Ross himself.</p> + +<p>This navigator, with his company, spent the winter of 1830-31 above 70° +of north latitude, without beds, clothing (that is, extra clothing), or +animal food, and with no evidence of any suffering from the mere disuse +of flesh and fish.</p> + + +<h3>HENRY FRANCISCO.</h3> + +<p>This individual, who died at Whitehall, N. Y., in the year 1820, at the +age of one hundred and twenty-five years, was, during the latter part of +his life, quite a Grahamite, as the moderns would call him. His favorite +articles of food were tea, bread and butter, and baked apples; and he +was even abstemious in the use of these.</p> + + +<h3>PROFESSOR FERGUSON.</h3> + +<p>Professor Adam Ferguson, an individual not unknown in the literary +world, was, till he was fifty years of age, regarded as quite healthy. +Brought up in fashionable society, he was very often invited to +fashionable dinners and parties, at which he ate heartily and drank +wine—sometimes several bottles. Indeed, he habitually ate and drank +freely; and, as he had by nature a very strong constitution, he thought +nothing which he ate or drank injured him.</p> + +<p>Things went on in this manner, as I have already intimated, till he was +fifty years of age. One day, about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> this time, having made a long +journey in the cold, he returned very much fatigued, and in this +condition went to dine with a party, where he ate and drank in his usual +manner. Soon after dinner, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, +followed by palsy; but by bleeding, and other energetic measures, he was +partially restored.</p> + +<p>He was now, by the direction of his physician, put upon what was called +a low diet. It consisted of vegetable food and milk. For nearly forty +years he tasted no meat, drank nothing but water and a little weak tea, +and took no suppers. If he ventured, at any time, upon more stimulating +food or drink, he soon had a full pulse, and hot, restless nights. His +bowels, however, seemed to be much affected by the fit of palsy; and not +being inclined, so far as I can learn, to the use of fruit and coarse +bread, he was sometimes compelled to use laxatives.</p> + +<p>When he was about seventy years of age, however, all his paralytic +symptoms had disappeared; and his health was so excellent, for a person +of his years, as to excite universal admiration. This continued till he +was nearly ninety. His mind, up to this time, was almost as entire as in +his younger days; none of his bodily functions, except his sight, were +much impaired. So perfect, indeed, was the condition of his physical +frame, that nobody, who had not known his history, would have suspected +he had ever been apoplectic or paralytic.</p> + +<p>When about ninety years of age, his health began slightly to decline. A +little before his death, he began to take a little meat. This, however, +did not save him—nature being fairly worn out. On the contrary, it +probably hastened his dissolution. His bowels became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> irregular, his +pulse increased, and he fell into a bilious fever, of which he died at +the great age of ninety-three.</p> + +<p>Probably there are, on record, few cases of longevity more instructive +than this. Besides showing the evil tendency of living at the expense of +life, it also shows, in a most striking manner, the effects of simple +and unstimulating food and drink, even in old age; and the danger of +recurring to the use of that which is more stimulating in very advanced +life. In this last respect, it confirms the experience of Cornaro, who +was made sick by attempting, in his old age, and at the solicitation of +kind friends, to return to the use of a more stimulating diet; and of +Parr, who was destroyed in the same way, after having attained to more +than a hundred and fifty years.</p> + +<p>But the fact that living at the expense of life, cuts down, here and +there, in the prime of life, or even at the age of fifty, a few +individuals, though this of itself is no trivial evil, is not all. Half +of what we call the infirmities of old age—and thus charge them upon +Him who made the human frame <i>subject</i> to age—have their origin in the +same source; I mean in this living too fast, and exhausting prematurely +the vital powers. When will the sons of men learn wisdom in this matter? +Never, I fear, till they are taught, as commonly as they now are reading +and writing, the principles of physiology.</p> + + +<h3>HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST.</h3> + +<p>Although individual cases of abstinence from animal food prove but +little, yet they prove something in the case of a man so remarkable as +John Howard. If he, with a constitution not very strong, and in the +midst of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> the greatest fatigues of body and mind, could best sustain +himself on a bread and water, or bread and tea diet, who is there that +would not be well sustained on vegetable food? And yet it is certain +that Howard was a vegetable eater for many years of the latter part of +his life; and that had he not exposed himself in a remarkable manner, +there is no known reason why he might not have lasted with a +constitution no better than his was, to a hundred years of age.</p> + + +<h3>GEN. ELLIOTT.</h3> + +<p>The following extract exhibits in few words, the dietetic history of +that brave and wise commander, General George Augustus Elliott, of the +British army:</p> + +<p>"During the whole of his active life, Gen. Elliott had inured himself to +the most rigid habits of order and watchfulness; seldom sleeping more +than four hours a day, and never eating any thing but vegetable food, or +drinking any thing but water. During eight of the most anxious days of +the memorable siege of Gibraltar, he confined himself to four ounces of +rice a day. He was universally regarded as one of the most abstemious +men of his age.</p> + +<p>"And yet his abstemiousness did not diminish his vigor; for, at the +above-mentioned siege of Gibraltar, when he was sixty-six years of age, +he had nearly all the activity and fire of his youth. Nor did he die of +any wasting disease, such as full feeders are wont to say men bring upon +them by their abstinence. On the contrary, owing to a hereditary +tendency, perhaps, of his family, he died at the age of seventy-three, +of apoplexy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA.</h3> + +<p>The following testimony is from the Encyclopedia. I do not suppose the +writer was the friend of a diet exclusively vegetable; but his testimony +is therefore the more interesting. His only serious mistake is in regard +to the tendency of vegetable food to form weak fibres.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes a particular kind of food is called wholesome, because it +produces a beneficial effect of a particular character on the system of +an individual. In this case, however, it is to be considered as a +medicine; and can be called wholesome only for those whose systems are +in the same condition.</p> + +<p>"Aliments abounding in fat are unwholesome, because fat resists the +operation of the gastric juice.</p> + +<p>"The addition of too much spice makes many an innocent aliment +injurious, because spices resist the action of the digestive organs, and +produce an irritation of particular parts of the system.</p> + +<p>"The kind of aliment influences the health, and even the character of +man. He is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable +aliment; but can live exclusively on either.</p> + +<p>"Experience proves that animal food most readily augments the solid +parts of the blood, the fibrine, and therefore the strength of the +muscular system; but disposes the body, at the same time, to +inflammatory, putrid, and scorbutic diseases; and the character to +violence and coarseness. On the contrary, vegetable food renders the +blood lighter and more liquid, but forms weak fibres, disposes the +system to the diseases which spring from feebleness, and tends to +produce a gentle character.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use +of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is +indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of +some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, +cheese, and butter, are vigorous people.</p> + +<p>"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal +aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The +latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when +their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes +in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on +vegetable food."</p> + + +<h3>MR. THOMAS BELL, OF LONDON.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Thomas Bell, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal +College of Surgeons in London, Lecturer on the Anatomy and Diseases of +the Teeth, at Guy's Hospital, and Surgeon Dentist to that institution, +in his physiological observations on the natural food of man, deduced +from the character of the teeth, says, "The opinion which I venture to +give, has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me +sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say, that every +fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was +originally formed a frugiverous (fruit-eating) animal, and therefore, +probably, tropical or nearly so, with regard to his geographical +situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his +teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin +and general structure of his limbs."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LINNÆUS, THE NATURALIST.</h3> + +<p>Linnæus, in speaking of fruits and esculent vegetables, says—"This +species of food is that which is most suitable to man, as is evinced by +the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands."</p> + + +<h3>SHELLEY, THE POET.</h3> + +<p>The following are the views of that eccentric, though in many respects +sensible writer, Shelley, as presented in a note to his work, called +Queen Mab. I have somewhat abridged them, not solely to escape part of +his monstrous religious sentiments, but for other reasons. I have +endeavored, however, to preserve, undisturbed, his opinions and +reasonings, which I hope will make a deep and abiding impression:</p> + +<p>"The depravity of the physical and moral nature of man, originated in +his unnatural habits of life. The language spoken by the mythology of +nearly all religions seems to prove that, at some distant period, man +forsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of +his being to unnatural appetites. Milton makes Raphael thus exhibit to +Adam the consequence of his disobedience:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i15">'——Immediately, a place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before his eyes appeared; and, noisome, dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Numbers of all diseased; all maladies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.'<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>"The fable of Prometheus, too, is explained in a manner somewhat +similar. Before the time of Prometheus, according to Hesiod, mankind +were exempt from suffering; they enjoyed a vigorous youth; and death, +when at length it came, approached like sleep, and gently closed the +eyes. Prometheus (who represents the human race) effected some great +change in the condition of his nature, and applied fire to culinary +purposes. From this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of +disease. It consumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and +infinite variety, inducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and +violent death. All vice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence.</p> + +<p>"Man, and the animals which he has infected with his society, or +depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the bison, +and the wolf are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die, +either from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic hog, +the sheep, the cow, and the dog are subject to an incredible number of +distempers, and, like the corrupters of their nature, have physicians, +who thrive upon their miseries.</p> + +<p>"The supereminence of man is like Satan's supereminence of pain,—and +the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, and crime, have +reason to curse the untoward event, that, by enabling him to communicate +his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow animals. But +the steps that have been taken are irrevocable.</p> + +<p>"The whole of human science is comprised in one question: How can the +advantages of intellect and civilization be reconciled with the liberty +and pure pleasures of natural life? How can we take the benefits<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> and +reject the evils of the system, which is now interwoven with our being? +I believe that <i>abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors +would, in a great measure, capacitate us for the solution of this +important question</i>.</p> + +<p>"It is true, that mental and bodily derangement is attributable in part +to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern +diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the +sexes, whence the misery and diseases of celibacy, unenjoying +prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty, necessarily spring; +the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the exhalations of chemical +processes: the muffling of our bodies in superfluous apparel; the absurd +treatment of infants; all these, and innumerable other causes, +contribute their mite to the mass of human evil.</p> + +<p>"Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugiverous animals +in every thing, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws +wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the +living fibre. A mandarin of the first class, with nails two inches long, +would probably find them, alone, inefficient to hold even a hare. It is +only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparations +that it is rendered susceptible of mastication and digestion, and that +the sight of its bloody juices does not excite intolerable loathing, +horror, and disgust. Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a +decisive experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a +living lamb with his teeth, and, plunging his head into its vitals, +slake his thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of +horror, let him revert to the irresistible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> instincts of nature that +would rise in judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such +work as this. Then, and then only, would he be consistent.</p> + +<p>"Young children evidently prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and other +fruit, to the flesh of animals, until, by the gradual depravation of the +digestive organs, the free use of vegetables has, for a time, produced +serious inconveniences. <i>For a time</i>, I say, since there never was an +instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food to +vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate the body, +by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to restore to the +mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not one in fifty possesses +on the present system. A love of strong liquor is also with difficulty +taught to infants. Almost every one remembers the wry faces which the +first glass of port produced. Unsophisticated instinct is invariably +unerring; but to decide on the fitness of animal food from the perverted +appetites which its constrained adoption produces, is to make the +criminal a judge in his own cause; it is even worse—it is appealing to +the infatuated drunkard in a question of the salubrity of brandy.</p> + +<p>"Except in children, however, there remain no traces of that instinct +which determines, in all other animals, what aliment is natural or +otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning adults +of our species, that it has become necessary to urge considerations +drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are naturally +frugiverous.</p> + +<p>"Crime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of disease +shall be discovered, the root, from which all vice and misery have so +long overshadowed the globe, will be bare to the axe. All the exertions +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear +profit of his species. No sane mind, in a sane body, resolves upon a +crime. It is a man of violent passions, blood-shot eyes, and swollen +veins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder. The system of a simple +diet is not a reform of legislation, while the furious passions and evil +propensities of the human heart, in which it had its origin, are +unassuaged. It strikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment +which may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small +societies, families, and even individuals. In no case has a return to a +vegetable diet produced the slightest injury; in most it has been +attended with changes undeniably beneficial.</p> + +<p>"Should ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, he might +trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural habits, as +clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to sensation. What +prolific sources of disease are not those mineral and vegetable poisons, +that have been introduced for its extirpation! How many thousands have +become murderers and robbers, bigots and domestic tyrants, dissolute and +abandoned adventurers, from the use of fermented liquors, who, had they +slaked their thirst only with pure water, would have lived but to +diffuse the happiness of their own unperverted feelings! How many +groundless opinions and absurd institutions have not received a general +sanction from the sottishness and intemperance of individuals!</p> + +<p>"Who will assert that, had the populace of Paris satisfied their hunger +at the ever-furnished table of vegetable nature, they would have lent +their brutal suffrage to the proscription-list of Robespierre? Could a +set of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> men, whose passions were not perverted by unnatural stimuli, +look with coolness on an <i>auto da fe</i>? Is it to be believed that a being +of gentle feelings, rising from his meal of roots, would take delight in +sports of blood?</p> + +<p>"Was Nero a man of temperate life? Could you read calm health in his +cheek, flushed with ungovernable propensities of hatred for the human +race? Did Muley Ismail's pulse beat evenly? was his skin transparent? +did his eyes beam with healthfulness, and its invariable concomitants, +cheerfulness and benignity?</p> + +<p>"Though history has decided none of these questions, a child could not +hesitate to answer in the negative. Surely the bile-suffused cheek of +Bonaparte, his wrinkled brow, and yellow eye, the ceaseless inquietude +of his nervous system, speak no less plainly the character of his +unresting ambition than his murders and his victories. It is impossible, +had Bonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders, that he could +have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the +Bourbons.</p> + +<p>"The desire of tyranny could scarcely be excited in the individual; the +power to tyrannize would certainly not be delegated by a society neither +frenzied by inebriation nor rendered impotent and irrational by disease. +Pregnant, indeed, with inexhaustible calamity is the renunciation of +instinct, as it concerns our physical nature. Arithmetic cannot +enumerate, nor reason perhaps suspect, the multitudinous sources of +disease in civilized life. Even common water, that apparently innoxious +<i>pabulum</i>, when corrupted by the filth of populous cities, is a deadly +and insidious destroyer.</p> + +<p>"There is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet +and pure water has not infallibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> mitigated, wherever the experiment +has been fairly tried. Debility is gradually converted into strength, +disease into healthfulness; madness, in all its hideous variety, from +the ravings of the fettered maniac, to the unaccountable irrationalities +of ill-temper, that make a hell of domestic life, into a calm and +considerate evenness of temper, that alone might offer a certain pledge +of the future moral reformation of society.</p> + +<p>"On a natural system of diet, old age would be our last and our only +malady; the term of our existence would be protracted; we should enjoy +life, and no longer preclude others from the enjoyment of it; all +sensational delights would be infinitely more exquisite and perfect; the +very sense of being would then be a continued pleasure, such as we now +feel it in some few and favored moments of our youth.</p> + +<p>"By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those +who love happiness and truth, to give a fair trial to the vegetable +system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject whose merits an +experience of six months should set forever at rest.</p> + +<p>"But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a +sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its +ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier by +the short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments, by +medicine, than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are +invariably sensual and indocile; yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded, +that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved—when +it is as clear, that those who live naturally are exempt from premature +death, as that nine is not one, the most sottish of mankind will feel a +preference toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and +painful life.</p> + +<p>"On the average, out of sixty persons, four die in three years. Hopes +are entertained, that in April, 1814,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> a statement will be given that +sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on vegetables and +pure water, are then in <i>perfect health</i>. More than two years have now +elapsed; <i>not one of them has died</i>; no such example will be found in +any sixty persons taken at random.</p> + +<p>"When these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by +all who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence +from aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal.</p> + +<p>"In proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of +evidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on +vegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old +age, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented +liquors as slow but certain poisons.</p> + +<p>"The change which would be produced by simple habits on political +economy, is sufficiently remarkable. The monopolizing eater of animal +flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by devouring an acre at a +meal, and many loaves of bread would cease to contribute to gout, +madness, and apoplexy, in the shape of a pint of porter, or a dram of +gin, when appeasing the long-protracted famine of the hard-working +peasant's hungry babes.</p> + +<p>"The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the +carcass of an ox, would afford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> ten times the sustenance, undepraving +indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if gathered immediately +from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile districts of the habitable +globe are now actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and +waste of aliment absolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the +wealthy that can, to any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural +craving for dead flesh, and they pay for the greater license of the +privilege, by subjection to supernumerary diseases.</p> + +<p>"Again—the spirit of the nation that should take the lead in this great +reform would insensibly become agricultural; commerce, with its vices, +selfishness, and corruption, would gradually decline; more natural +habits would produce gentler manners, and the excessive complication of +political relations would be so far simplified that every individual +might feel and understand why he loved his country, and took a personal +interest in its welfare.</p> + +<p>"On a natural system of diet, we should require no spices from India; no +wines from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those +multitudinous articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is +rifled, and which are the cause of so much individual rivalship, and +such calamitous and sanguinary national disputes.</p> + +<p>"Let it ever be remembered, that it is the direct influence of excess of +commerce to make the interval between the rich and the poor wider and +more unconquerable. Let it be remembered, that it is a foe to every +thing of real worth and excellence in the human character. The odious +and disgusting aristocracy of wealth, is built upon the ruins of all +that is good in chivalry or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner +of a barbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it impossible to realize a +state of society, where all the energies of man shall be directed to the +production of his solid happiness?</p> + +<p>"None must be intrusted with power (and money is the completest species +of power), who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the +general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors, +directly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant +cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to +starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping curtailers of +population, pasturage would include a waste too great to be afforded. +The labor requisite to support a family is far lighter than is usually +supposed. The peasantry work, not only for themselves, but for the +aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers.</p> + +<p>"The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any +other. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of +legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are +produced, is to suppose that by taking away the effect, the cause will +cease to operate.</p> + +<p>"But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on the proselytism of +individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit to the community, upon +the total change of the dietetic habits in its members. It proceeds +securely from a number of particular cases to one that is universal, and +has this advantage over the contrary mode, that one error does not +invalidate all that has gone before.</p> + +<p>"Let not too much, however, be expected from this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> system. The +healthiest among us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most +symmetrical, athletic, and long-lived is a being inexpressibly inferior +to what he would have been had not the unnatural habits of his ancestors +accumulated for him a certain portion of malady and deformity. In the +most perfect specimen of civilized man, something is still found wanting +by the physiological critic. Can a return to nature, then, +instantaneously eradicate predispositions that have been slowly taking +root in the silence of innumerable ages? Indubitably not. All that I +contend for is, that from the moment of relinquishing all unnatural +habits, no new disease is generated; and that the predisposition to +hereditary maladies gradually perishes for want of its accustomed +supply. In cases of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, +such is the invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water.</p> + +<p>"Those who may be induced by these remarks to give the vegetable system +a fair trial, should, in the first place, date the commencement of their +practice from the moment of their conviction. All depends upon breaking +through a pernicious habit resolutely and at once. Dr. Trotter asserts, +that no drunkard was ever reformed by gradually relinquishing his dram. +Animal flesh, in its effects on the human stomach, is analogous to a +dram; it is similar to the kind, though differing in the degree of its +operation. The proselyte to a pure diet must be warned to expect a +temporary diminution of muscular strength. The subtraction of a powerful +stimulus will suffice to account for this event. But it is only +temporary, and is succeeded by an equable capability for exertion, far +surpassing his former various and fluctuating strength.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Above all, he will acquire an easiness of breathing, by which such +exertion is performed, with a remarkable exemption from that painful and +difficult panting now felt by almost every one, after hastily climbing +an ordinary mountain. He will be equally capable of bodily exertion or +mental application, after, as before his simple meal. He will feel none +of the narcotic effects of ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct +consequence of exhausting stimuli, would yield to the power of natural +and tranquil impulses. He will no longer pine under the lethargy of +<i>ennui</i>, that unconquerable weariness of life, more to be dreaded than +death itself.</p> + +<p>"He will no longer be incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying +those organs from which he expects his gratification. The pleasures of +taste to be derived from a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, +lettuce, with a dessert of apples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, +raspberries, and in winter, oranges, apples, and pears, is far greater +than is supposed. Those who wait until they can eat this plain fare with +the sauce of appetite, will scarcely join with the hypocritical +sensualist at a lord mayor's feast, who declaims against the pleasures +of the table."</p> + + +<h3>REV. EZEKIEL RICH.</h3> + +<p>This gentleman, once a teacher in Troy, N. H., now nearly seventy years +of age, is a giant, both intellectually and physically, like Father +Sewall, of Maine. The following is his testimony—speaking of what he +calls his system:</p> + +<p>"Such a system of living was formed by myself, irrespective of Graham or +Alcott, or any other modern dietetic philosophers and reformers, +although I agree<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> with them in many things. It allows but little use of +flesh, condiments, concentrated articles, complex cooking, or hot and +stimulating drinks. On the other hand, it requires great use of milk, +the different bread stuffs, fruits, esculent roots and pulse, all well, +simply, and neatly cooked."</p> + + +<h3>REV. JOHN WESLEY.</h3> + +<p>The habits of this distinguished individual, though often adverted to, +are yet not sufficiently known. For the last half of his long life +(eighty-eight years) he was a thorough going vegetarian. He also +testifies that for three or four successive years he lived entirely on +potatoes; and during that whole time he never relaxed his arduous +ministerial labors, nor ever enjoyed better health.</p> + + +<h3>LAMARTINE.</h3> + +<p>Lamartine was educated a vegetarian of the strictest sort—an education +which certainly did not prevent his possessing as fine a physical frame +as can be found in the French republic. Of his mental and moral +characteristics it is needless that I should speak. True it is that +Lamartine ate flesh and fish at one period of his life; but we have the +authority of Douglas Jerrold's London Journal for assuring our readers +that he is again a vegetarian.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Some, however, represent the great apostle to have been a +rigid vegetable eater. On this point I have no settled opinion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> It may be found at full length at page 233 of the 6th +volume of the Library of Health.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Instances, he says, are not rare (but this I doubt), of +two hundred children born to a man by his different wives, in some parts +of the interior of Africa.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> A date but little later than that of the work whence this +article is extracted.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Pythagoreans.—The Essenes.—The Bramins.—Society of Bible +Christians.—Orphan Asylum of Albany.—The Mexican +Indians.—School in Germany.—American Physiological Society.</p></div> + + +<h3>GENERAL REMARKS.</h3> + +<p>The following chapter did not come within the scope of my plan, as it +was originally formed. But in prosecuting the labors of preparing a +volume on vegetable diet, it has more and more seemed to me desirable to +add a short account of some of the communities and associations of men, +both of ancient and modern times, who, amid a surrounding horde of +flesh-eaters, have withstood the power of temptation, and proved, in +some measure, true to their own nature, and the first impulses of mercy, +humanity, and charity. I shall not, of course, attempt to describe all +the sects and societies of the kind to which I refer, but only a few of +those which seem to me most important.</p> + +<p>One word may be necessary in explanation of the term communities. I mean +by it, smaller communities, or associations. There have been, and still +are, many whole nations which might be called vegetable-eating +communities; but of such it is not my purpose to speak at present.</p> + + +<h3>THE PYTHAGOREANS.</h3> + +<p>Pythagoras appears to have flourished about 550 years before Christ. He +was, probably, a native of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> island of Samos; but a part of his +education, which was extensive and thorough, was received in Egypt. He +taught a new philosophy; and, according to some, endeavored to enforce +it by laying claim to supernatural powers. But, be this as it may have +been, he was certainly a man of extraordinary qualities and powers, as +well as of great and commanding influence. In an age of great luxury and +licentiousness, he taught, both by example and precept, the most rigid +doctrines of sobriety, temperance, and purity. He abstained from all +animal food, and limited himself entirely to vegetables; of which he +usually preferred bread and honey. Nor did he allow the free use of +every kind of vegetable; for beans, and I believe every species of +pulse, were omitted. Water was his only drink. He lived, it is said, to +the age of eighty; and even then did not perish from disease or old age, +but from starvation in a place where he had sought a retreat from the +fury of his enemies.</p> + +<p>His disciples are said to have been exceedingly numerous, in almost all +quarters of the then known world, especially in Greece and Italy. It is +impossible, however, to form any conjecture of their numbers. The +largest school or association of his rigid followers is supposed to have +been at the city of Crotona, in South Italy. Their number was six +hundred. They followed all his dietetic and philosophical rules with the +utmost strictness. The association appears to have been, for a time, +exceedingly flourishing. It was a society of philosophers, rather than +of common citizens. They held their property in one common stock, for +the benefit of the whole. The object of the association was chiefly to +aid each other in promoting intellectual cultivation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> Pythagoras did +not teach abstinence from all hurtful food and drink, and an exclusive +use of that which was the <i>best</i>, for the sole purpose of making men +better, or more healthy, or longer-lived <i>animals</i>; he had a higher and +nobler purpose. It was to make them better rationals, more truly noble +and god-like—worthy the name of rational men, and of the relation in +which they stood to their common Father. And yet, after all, his +doctrines appear to have been mingled with much bigotry and +superstition.</p> + + +<h3>THE ESSENES.</h3> + +<p>The following account of this singular sect of the ancient Jews is +abridged from an article in the Annals of Education, for July, 1836. The +number of this vegetable-eating sect is not known, though, according to +Philo, there were four thousand of them in the single province of Judea.</p> + +<p>"Pliny, says that the Essenes of Judea fed on the fruit of the +palm-tree. But, however this may have been, it is agreed, on all hands, +that, like the ancient Pythagoreans, they lived exclusively on vegetable +food, and that they were abstinent in regard to the quantity even of +this. They would not kill a living creature, even for sacrifices. It is +also understood that they treated diseases of every kind—though it does +not appear that they were subject to many—with roots and herbs. +Josephus says they were long-lived, and that many of them lived over a +hundred years. This he attributes to their 'regular course of life,' and +especially to 'the simplicity of their diet.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>THE BRAMINS.</h3> + +<p>The Bramins, or Brahmins, are, as is probably well known, the first of +the four <i>castes</i> among the Hindoos. They are the priests of the people, +and are remarkable, in their way, for their sanctity. Of their number I +am not at present apprised, but it must be very great. But, however +great it may be, they are vegetable eaters of the strictest sect. They +are not even allowed to eat eggs; and I believe milk and its products +are also forbidden them; but of this I am not quite certain. Besides +adhering to the strictest rules of temperance, they are also required to +observe frequent fasts of the most severe kind, and to practice regular +and daily, and sometimes thrice daily ablutions. They subsist much on +green herbs, roots, and fruits; and at some periods of their ministry, +they live much in the open air. And yet those of them who are true +Bramins—who live up to the dignity of their profession—are among the +most healthy, vigorous, and long-lived of their race. The accounts of +their longevity may, in some instances, be exaggerated; but it is +certain that, other things being equal, they do not in this respect fall +behind any other caste of their countrymen.</p> + + +<h3>SOCIETY OF BIBLE CHRISTIANS.</h3> + +<p>This society has existed in Great Britain nearly half a century. They +abstain from flesh, fish, and fowl—in short, from every thing that has +animal life—and from all alcoholic liquors. Of their number in the +kingdom I am not well informed. In Manchester they have three churches +that have regular preachers; and frequent meetings have been held for +discussing the diet question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> within a few years, some of which have +been well attended, and all of which have been interesting. Among those +who have adopted "the pledge" at their meetings, are some of the most +distinguished men in the kingdom, and a few of the members of +parliament. Through these and other instrumentalities, the question is +fairly up in England, and will not cease to be discussed till fairly +settled.</p> + +<p>A branch or colony from the parent society, under the pastoral care of +Rev. Wm. Metcalfe, consisting of only eight members, came in 1817 and +established itself in Philadelphia. They were incorporated as a society +in 1830. In 1846 the number of their church members was about seventy, +besides thirty who adhered to their abstemious habits, but were not in +full communion. During the thirty years ending in 1846, twelve of their +number died—four children and eight adults. The average age of the +latter was fifty-seven years. Of the seventy now belonging to the +society, nineteen are between forty and eighty years of age; and forty, +in all, over twenty-five. Of the whole number, twelve have abstained +from animal food thirty-seven years, seven from twenty to thirty years, +and fifty-one never tasted animal food or drank intoxicating drinks.</p> + +<p>And yet they are all—if we except Mr. Metcalfe, their minister—of the +laboring class, and hard laborers, too. Their strength and power of +endurance is fully equal to their neighbors in similar circumstances, +and in several instances considerably superior. Mr. Fowler, the +phrenologist, testifies, concerning one of them, that he is regarded as +the strongest man in Philadelphia. I have long had acquaintance with +this sect, through Mr. M., of Philadelphia, and Mr. Simpson, one of +their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> leading men in England, and have not a doubt of the truth of what +has been publicly stated concerning them. They are a modest people, and +make few pretensions; and yet they are a very meritorious people.</p> + +<p>One thing very much to their advantage, as it shows the health-giving, +health-preserving tendency of their practice and principles, remains to +be related. When the yellow fever prevailed in Philadelphia, in 1818 and +1819, the infection seemed specially rife in the immediate vicinity of +the Bible Christians. So, also, in 1832, with the cholera. And yet none +of them fled. There they remained during the whole period of suffering, +and afforded their sick neighbors all the relief in their power. Their +minister, in particular, was unwearied in his efforts to do good. Yet +not one of their little number ever sickened or died of either yellow +fever or cholera.</p> + +<p>Till within a few years, they have been governed solely by regard to +religious principle, having known little of Physiology or any other +science bearing on health. Of late, however, they have turned their +attention to the subject, and have among them a respectable +Physiological society, which holds its regular meetings, and is said to +be flourishing.</p> + +<p>From one of their publications, entitled "Vegetable Cookery," I have +extracted the following very brief summary of their views concerning the +use of animals for sustenance.</p> + +<p>"The Society of Bible Christians abstain from animal food, not only in +obedience to the Divine command, but because it is an observance, which, +if more generally adopted, would prevent much cruelty, luxury, and +disease, besides many other evils which cause misery in society. It +would be productive of much good, by promoting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> health, long life, and +happiness, and thus be a most effectual means of reforming mankind. It +would entirely abolish that greatest of curses, <i>war</i>; for those who are +so conscientious as not to kill animals, will never murder human beings. +On all these accounts the system cannot be too much recommended. The +practice of abstaining cannot be wrong; it must therefore be some +consolation to be on the side of duty. If we err, we err on the sure +side; it is innocent; it is infinitely better authorized and more nearly +associated with religion, virtue, and humanity, than the contrary +practice—and we have the sanction of the wisest and the best of men—of +the whole Christian world, for several hundred years after the +commencement of the Christian era."</p> + + +<h3>ORPHAN ASYLUM OF ALBANY.</h3> + +<p>I class this as a community, because it is properly so, and because I +cannot conveniently class it otherwise. The facts which are to be +related are too valuable to be lost. They were first published, I +believe, in the Northampton Courier; and subsequently in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal, and in the Moral Reformer. In the present +case, the account is greatly abridged.</p> + +<p>The Orphan Asylum of Albany was established about the close of the year +1829, or the beginning of the year 1830. Shortly after its +establishment, it contained seventy children, and subsequently many +more. The average number, from its commencement to August 1836, was +eighty.</p> + +<p>For the first three years, the diet of the inmates consisted of fine +bread, rice, Indian puddings, potatoes, and other vegetables and fruits, +with milk; to which was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> added flesh or flesh-soup once a day. +Considerable attention was also paid to bathing and cleanliness, and to +clothing, air, and exercise. Bathing, however, was performed in a +perfect manner, only once in three weeks. As many of them were received +in poor health, not a few continued sickly.</p> + +<p>In the fall of 1833, the diet and regimen of the inmates were materially +changed. Daily ablution of the whole body, in the use of the cold shower +or sponge bath—or, in cases of special disease, the tepid bath was one +of the first steps taken; then the fine bread was laid aside for that +made of unbolted wheat meal; and soon after flesh and flesh-soups were +wholly banished; and thus they continued to advance, till, in about +three months more, they had come fully upon the vegetable system, and +had adopted reformed habits in regard to sleeping, air, clothing, +exercise, etc. On this course, then, they continued to August, 1836, +and, for aught I know, to the present time. The results were as follows:</p> + +<p>During the first three years, or while the old system was followed, from +four to six children were continually on the sick list, and sometimes +more; and one or two assistant nurses were necessary. A physician was +needed once, twice, or three times a week, uniformly; and deaths were +frequent. During this whole period there were between thirty and forty +deaths.</p> + +<p>After the new system was fairly adopted, the nursery was soon entirely +vacated, and the services of the nurse and physician no longer needed; +and for more than two years no case of sickness or death took place. In +the succeeding twelve months there were three deaths, but they were new +inmates, and were diseased when they were received; and two of them were +idiots. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> Report of the Managers says, "Under this system of +dietetics (though the change ought not to be wholly attributed to the +diet) the health of the children has not only been preserved, but those +who came to the asylum weakly, have become healthy and strong, and +greatly increased in activity, cheerfulness, and happiness." The +superintendents also state, that "since the new regimen has been fully +adopted, there has been a remarkable increase of health, strength, +activity, vivacity, cheerfulness, and contentment among the children. +Indeed, they appear to be, uniformly, perfectly healthy and happy; and +the strength and activity they exhibit are truly surprising. The change +of temper is very great. They have become less turbulent, irritable, +peevish, and discontented; and far more manageable, gentle, peaceable, +and kind to each other." One of them further observes, "There has been a +great increase in their mental activity and power; the quickness and +acumen of their perception, the vigor of their apprehension, and the +power of their retention daily astonish me."</p> + +<p>Such an account hardly needs comment; and I leave it to make its own +impression on the candid and unbiassed mind and heart of the reader.</p> + + +<h3>THE MEXICAN INDIANS.</h3> + +<p>The Indian tribes of Mexico, according to the traveler Humboldt, live on +vegetable food. A spot of ground, which, if cultivated with wheat, as in +Europe, would sustain only ten persons, and which by its produce, if +converted into pork or beef, would little more than support one, will in +Mexico, when used for banana, sustain equally well two hundred and +fifty.</p> + +<p>The reader will do well to take the above fact, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> the estimates +appended to it, along with him when he comes to examine what I have +called the economical argument of the great diet question, in our last +chapter, under the head, "The Moral Argument." We shall do well to +remember another suggestion of Humboldt, that the habit of eating +animals diminishes our natural horror of cannibalism.</p> + + +<h3>SCHOOL IN GERMANY.</h3> + +<p>There is, in the Annals of Education for August, 1836, an account of a +school in which the same simple system which was pursued in the Orphan +Asylum at Albany was adopted, and with the same happy results. I say the +<i>same</i> system; I believe plain meat was allowed occasionally, but it was +seldom. Their food was exceedingly simple, consisting chiefly of bread +and other vegetables, fruits and milk. Great attention was also paid to +daily cold bathing. The following is the teacher's statement in regard +to the results:</p> + +<p>"I am at present the foster father of nearly seventy young people, who +were born in all the varieties of climate from Lisbon to Moscow, and +whose early education was necessarily very different. These young men +are all healthy; not a single eruption is visible on their faces; and +three years often pass, during which not a single one of them is +confined to his bed; and in the twenty-one years that I have been +engaged in this institution, not one pupil has died. Yet, I am no +physician. During the first ten years of my residence here, no physician +entered my house; and, not till the number of my pupils was very much +increased, and I grew anxious not to overlook any thing in regard to +them, did I begin to seek at all for medical advice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is the mode of treating the young men here, which is the cause of +their superior health; and this is the reason why death has not yet +entered our doors. Should we ever deviate from our present +principles—should we approach nearer the mode of living common in +wealthy families—we should soon be obliged to establish, in our +institution, as it is in others, medicine closets and nurseries. Instead +of the freshness which now adorns the cheeks of our youth, paleness +would appear, and our church-yards would contain the tombs of promising +young men, who, in the bloom of their years, had fallen victims to +disease."</p> + + +<h3>THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY.</h3> + +<p>This association was formed in 1837. When first formed, it consisted of +one hundred and twenty-four males, and forty-one females; in all, one +hundred and sixty-five. Their number soon increased to more than two +hundred.</p> + +<p>Most of these individuals were more or less feeble, and a very large +proportion of them were actually suffering from chronic disease when +they became members of the society. Not a few joined it, indeed, as a +last resort, after having tried every thing else, as drowning men are +said to catch at straws.</p> + +<p>Nearly if not quite all the members of this society, as well as most of +their families, abstained for a time from animal food. Some of them even +adopted the vegetable system a year or so earlier. And there were a few +who adopted it much sooner—one or two of them eight years earlier.</p> + +<p>Of the individuals belonging to the Physiological Society or to their +families, and adhering to the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> principles, two adults only died, +and one child, during the first two years. I will not be quite positive, +but there were four in all, two adults, and two children; but this was +the extent of mortality among them for about fifteen months.</p> + +<p>The whole number of those who belonged to the society, with those +members of their families who adhered to their principles (estimating +families, as is usually done, at five members to each), is believed to +have been from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty. The +average mortality for the same number of healthy persons, during the +same period, in Boston and the adjacent places, was about six or seven; +though in some places it was much greater. In a single parish in +Roxbury—and without any remarkable sickness—the mortality, for the +same number of persons, was equal to ten or twelve.</p> + +<p>Now, we must not forget, what I have already stated, that this society +of vegetable-eaters—the two hundred adults, I mean—were generally +invalids, and some of them given over by physicians. Instead, therefore, +of only half the usual proportion of deaths among them, we might +naturally enough have expected twice or three times the usual number. +And this expectation would have appeared still better founded when it +was considered that many made the change in their habits, and especially +in their diet, very suddenly.</p> + +<p>But the whole story is not yet told. Not only was the number of deaths +very small, as above stated, but there were a great number of remarkable +recoveries. Some, who had very obstinate complaints, appeared, for a +time, to be entirely well. Others were getting well as fast as could be +expected. Some, who were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> broken down and prematurely old, seemed to +renew their youth. Many became free from colds and eruptive complaints, +to which they were formerly subject. And those who had acute diseases, +of whom, however, the number was very small, did not suffer so much as +is usually the case with flesh-eaters in circumstances otherwise +apparently similar.</p> + +<p>But a reverse at length came. They were led into their abstemious course +by mere impulse in very many cases, and though a library was formed and +meetings held, nobody, hardly, would read, and the meetings grew thin. +They had no Joe Smith or Gen. Taylor to lead them—and mankind without +leaders and without deep-toned principle, soon grow tired of war. Few +will fight in such circumstances.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument—1. The +Anatomical Argument.—2. The Physiological Argument.—3. The +Medical Argument.—4. The Political Argument.—5. The +Economical Argument.—6. The Argument from Experience.—7. The +Moral Argument.—Conclusion.</p></div> + + +<p>In the progress of a work like this, it may not be amiss to present, in +a very brief manner, the general arguments in defence of a diet +exclusively vegetable. Some of them have, indeed, already been adverted +to in the testimony of the preceding chapters; but not all. Besides, it +seemed to me desirable to collect the whole in a general view.</p> + +<p>There are various ways of doing this, according to the different aspects +in which the subject is viewed. Every one has his own point of +observation. I have mine. Conformably to the view I have taken, +therefore, I shall endeavor to arrange my remarks under the nine +following heads, viz., the <span class="smcap">anatomical</span>, the <span class="smcap">physiological</span>, the <span class="smcap">medical</span>, +the <span class="smcap">political</span>, the <span class="smcap">economical</span>, the <span class="smcap">experimental</span>, the <span class="smcap">moral</span>, the +<span class="smcap">millennial</span>, and the <span class="smcap">bible arguments</span>.</p> + +<p>Dr. Cheyne relied principally on what I have called the medical +argument—though what I mean by this may not be quite obvious, till I +shall have presented it in its proper place. Not that he wholly +overlooked any thing else; but this, as it seems to me, was with him the +grand point. Nearly the same might be said of Dr. Lambe, and of several +others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dr. Mussey seems to place the anatomical and physiological arguments in +the foreground. It is true he makes much use of the medical and the +moral arguments; but the former appear to be his favorites. Dr. Whitlaw, +and some others, incline to make the moral and political arguments more +prominent. Mr. Graham, who has probably done more to reduce the subject +of vegetable dietetics to a <i>system</i> than any other individual,—though +he makes much use of <i>all</i> the rest, especially the moral and +medical,—appears to dwell with most interest on the physiological +argument. This seems to be, with him, the strong-hold—the grand +citadel. And it must be confessed that the point of defence is very +strong indeed, as we shall see in the sequel.</p> + +<p>If I have a favorite, with the rest, it is the moral argument, or +perhaps a combination of this with the economical. But then I dwell on +the latter with so much interest, chiefly on account of the former. I +would give very little to be able to bring the world of mankind back to +nature's true simplicity, if it were only to make them better and more +perfect animals; though I know not but an attempt of this sort would be +as truly laudable as the attempt so often made to improve the breed of +our domestic animals. I suppose man, considered as a mere animal, is +superior, in point of importance to all the others. But, after all, I +would reform his dietetic habits principally to make him better, +morally; to make him better, in the discharge of his varied duties to +his fellow-beings and to God. I would elevate him, that he may become as +truly god-like, or godly as he now too often is, by his unnatural +habits, earthly or beastly. I would render him a rational being, fitted +to fill the space which he appears to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> been originally designed to +fill—the gap in the great chain of being between the higher quadrupeds +and the beings we are accustomed to regard as angelic. I would restore +him to his true dignity. I would make him a child of God, and an <i>heir</i> +of a glorious immortality.</p> + +<p>But I now proceed to the discussion of the subject which I have assigned +to this chapter.</p> + + +<h4>I. THE ANATOMICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>There has been a time when the teeth and intestines of man were supposed +to indicate the necessity of a mixed diet—a diet partly animal and +partly vegetable. Four out of thirty-two teeth were found to resemble +slightly, the teeth of carnivorous animals. In like manner, the length +of the intestinal tube was thought to be midway between that of the +flesh-eating, and that of the herb-eating quadrupeds. But, unfortunately +for this mode of defending an animal diet, it has been found out that +the fruit and vegetable-eating monkey race, and the herb-eating camel, +have the said four-pointed teeth much more pointed than those of man and +that the intestines, compared with the real length of the body, instead +of assigning to man a middle position, would place him among the +herbivorous animals. In short—for I certainly need not dwell on this +part of my subject, after having adduced so fully the views of Prof. +Lawrence and Baron Cuvier—there is no intelligent naturalist or +comparative anatomist, at present, who attempts to resort for one moment +to man's structure, in support of the hypothesis that he is a +flesh-eater. None, so far as I know, will affirm, or at least with any +show of reason maintain, that anatomy, so far as that goes, is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> favor +of flesh eating. We come, then, to another and more important division +of our subject.</p> + + +<h4>II. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>One of the advantages of vegetable-eaters over others, is in the +superior appetite which they enjoy. There are many flesh-eaters who have +what they call a good appetite. But I never knew a person of this +description, who made the change from a mixed diet to one purely +vegetable, who did not afterward acknowledge that he never once knew, +while he was an eater of animal food, a truly perfect appetite. This +testimony in favor of vegetable diet is positive; whereas that of the +multitude, who have never made the change I speak of, but who are +therefore the more ready to laugh at the conclusions, is merely +negative.</p> + +<p>A person of perfect appetite can eat at all times, and under all +circumstances. He can eat of one thing or another, and in greater or +less quantity. Were there no objections to it, he could make an entire +meal of the coarsest and most indigestible substances; or, he could eat +ten or fifteen times a day; or, he could eat a quantity at once which +would astonish even a Siberian; or, on the contrary, he could abstain +from food entirely, for a short time; and any of these without serious +inconvenience. He would, indeed, feel a slight want of something (in the +case of total abstinence), when the usual hour arrived for taking a +meal; but the sensation is not an abiding one; when the hour has passed +by, it entirely disappears. Nor is there ever, at least for a day or two +of abstinence, that gnawing at the stomach, as some express it, which is +so often felt by the flesh-eater and the devourer of other mixed and +injurious dishes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> and which is so generally mistaken for true and +genuine hunger.</p> + +<p>I have said that the vegetable-eater finds no serious inconvenience from +the quality or quantity of his food; but I mean to speak here of the +<i>immediate</i> effects solely. No doubt every error of this sort produces +mischief, sooner or later. The more perfect the appetite is, the greater +should be our moral power of commanding it, and of controlling the +quality and quantity of our food and drink, as well as the times and +seasons of receiving it.</p> + +<p>These statements, I am aware, are contrary to the received and current +opinion; but that they are true, can be proved, not by one person +merely,—though if that person were to be entirely relied on, his +positive affirmation would outweigh a thousand <i>negative</i> +testimonies,—but by many hundreds. It is more generally supposed that +he who confines himself to a simple diet, soon brings his stomach into +such a state that the slightest departure from his usual habits for once +only, produces serious inconveniences; and this indeed is urged as an +argument against simplicity itself. Yet, how strange! How much more +natural to suppose that the more perfect the health of the stomach, the +better it will bear, for a time, with slight or even serious departures +from truth and nature! How much more natural to suppose that perfect +health is the very best defence against all the causes which tend to +invite or to provoke disease! And what it would be natural to infer, is +proved by experience to be strictly true. The thorough-going +vegetable-eater can make a meal for once, or perhaps feed for a day or +so, on substances which would almost kill many others; and can do so +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> comparative impunity. He can make a whole meal of cheese, cabbage, +fried pudding, fried dough-nuts, etc., etc.; and if it be not in +remarkable excess, he will feel no immediate inconvenience, unless from +the mental conviction that he must pay the full penalty at some distant +day.</p> + +<p>I repeat it, the appetite of the vegetable-eater, if true to his +principles, and temperate in regard to quantity, is always, at all +moments of his life, perfect. To be sure, he is not always <i>hungry</i>. +Hunger, indeed, as I have already intimated—what most people call +hunger, a morbid sensation, or gnawing—is unknown to him. But there is +scarce a moment of his life, at least, when he is awake, in which he +could not enjoy the pleasures of eating, even the coarsest viands, with +a high relish; provided, however, he knew it was <i>proper</i> for him to +eat. Nor is his appetite fickle, demanding this or that particular +article, and disconcerted if it cannot be obtained. It is satisfied with +any thing to which the judgment directs; and though gratified, in a high +degree, with dainties, when nothing better and more wholesome cannot be +obtained, never demanding them in a peremptory manner.</p> + +<p>The vegetable-eater has a more quiet, happy, and perfect digestion than +the flesh-eater. On this point there has been much mistake, even among +physiologists. Richerand and many others suppose that a degree of +constitutional disturbance is indispensable during the process of +digestion; and some have even said that the system was subjected at +every meal—nay, at every healthy meal—to a species of miniature fever. +The remarks of Richerand are as follows. I have slightly abridged them, +but have not altered the sense:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>"While the alimentary solution is going on, a slight shivering is felt; +the pulse becomes quicker and more contracted; the vital power seems to +forsake the other organs, to concentrate itself on that which is the +seat of the digestive process. As the stomach empties itself, the +shivering is followed by a gentle warmth; the pulse increases in +fullness and frequency; and the insensible perspiration is augmented. +Digestion brings on, therefore, a general action, analogous to a febrile +paroxysm."</p> + +<p>And what is it, indeed, <i>but</i> a febrile paroxysm? Nay, Richerand himself +confirms this by adding, "this fever of digestion, noticed already by +the ancients, is particularly observable in women of great sensibility." +That is, the fever is more violent in proportion to the want of power in +the person it attacks to resist its influence; just as it is with fever +in all other circumstances, or when induced by any other causes.</p> + +<p>But, can any one believe the Author of Nature has so made us, that in a +steady and rational obedience to his laws, it is indispensable that we +should be thrown into a fever three times a day, one thousand and +ninety-five times in a year, and seventy-six thousand six hundred and +fifty in seventy years? No wonder, if this were true, that the vitality +of our organs was ordained to wear out soon; for we see by what means +the result would be accomplished.</p> + +<p>The fever, however, of which Richerand speaks, does very generally +exist, because mankind very generally depart from nature and her laws. +But it is not necessary. The simple vegetable-eater—if he lives right +in all other respects—if he errs not as to quantity, knows nothing of +it; nor should it be known by any body. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> should leave it to the +animals below man to err, in quantity and quality, to an excess which +constitutes a surfeit or a fever, and causes fullness and drowsiness, +and a recumbent posture. The self-styled lord of the animal world should +rise superior to habits which have marked, in every age, certain orders +of the lower animals.</p> + +<p>But the chyle which is produced from vegetable aliment is better—all +other things being equal—than that which is produced from any other +food. For proof of this, we need but the testimony of Oliver and other +physiologists. They tell us, unhesitatingly, that under the same +circumstances, chyle which is formed from vegetables will be preserved +from putrefaction many days longer—the consequence of greater purity +and a more perfect vitality—than that which is formed from any +admixture of animal food. Is it not, then, better for the purposes of +health and longevity? Can it, indeed, be otherwise? I will say nothing +at present, for want of space to devote to it, of the indications which +are afforded by the other sensible properties of the chyle which is +produced from vegetables. The single fact I have presented is enough on +that point.</p> + +<p>The best solids and fluids are produced by vegetable eating. On this +single topic a volume might be written, without exhausting it, while I +must confine myself to a page or two.</p> + +<p>In the first place, it forms better bones and more solid muscles, and +consequently gives to the frame greater solidity and strength. Compare, +in evidence of the truth of this statement, the vegetable-eating +millions of middle and southern Europe, with the other millions, who, +supposed to be more fortunate, can get a little flesh or fish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> once a +day. Especially, make this comparison in Ireland, where the vegetable +food selected is far from being of the first or best order; and whose +sight is so obtuse as not to perceive the difference? I do not say, +compare the enervated inhabitant of a hot climate, as Spain or Italy, +with the inhabitant of England, or Scotland, or Russia, for that would +be an unfair comparison, wholly so; but compare Italian with Italian, +Frenchman with Frenchman, German with German, Scotchman with Scotchman, +and Hibernian with Hibernian.</p> + +<p>In like manner, compare the millions of Japanese of the interior, who +subsist through life chiefly on rice, with the few millions of the +coasts who eat a little fish with their rice. Make a similar comparison +in China and in Hindostan. Notice, in particular, the puny Chinese, who +live in southern China, on quite a large proportion of shell-fish, +compared with the Chinese of the interior. Extend your observations to +Hindostan. Do not talk of the effeminate habits and weak constitutions +of the rice and curry eaters there—bad as the admixture of rice and +curry may be—for that is to compare the Hindoo with other nations; but +compare Hindoo with Hindoo, which is the only fair way. Compare the +porters of the Mediterranean, both of Asia and Europe, who feed on bread +and figs, and carry weights to the extent of eight hundred or one +thousand pounds, with the porters who eat flesh, fish, and oil. Compare +African with African, American Indian with American Indian; nay, even +New Englander with New Englander; for we have a few here who are trained +to vegetable eating. In short, go where you will, and institute a fair +comparison, and the results will be, without a single exception, in +favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> is necessary, however, in +making the comparison, to place <i>good</i> vegetable food in opposition to +good animal food; for no one will pretend that a diet of crude, +miserable, or imperfect, or sickly vegetables will be as wholesome as +one consisting of rich farinaceous articles and fruits; nor even as many +kinds of plain meat.</p> + +<p>The only instance which, on a proper comparison, will probably be +adduced to prove the incorrectness of these views, will be that of a few +tribes of American Indians, who, though they have extremely robust +bodies, are eaters of much flesh. But they live also in the open air, +and have many other good habits, and are healthy in spite of the +inferiority of their diet. But perfect, physically, as they seem to be, +and probably are, examine the vegetable-eaters among them, of the same +tribe, and they will be found still more so.</p> + +<p>In the next place, the fluids are all in a better and more healthy +state. In proof of this, I might mention in the first place that +superior agility, ease of motion, speed, and power of endurance which so +distinguish vegetable-eaters, wherever a fair comparison is instituted. +They possess a suppleness like that of youth, even long after what is +called the juvenile period of life is passed over. They are often seen +running and jumping, unless restrained by the arbitrary customs of +society, in very advanced age. Their wounds heal with astonishing +rapidity in as many days as weeks, or even months, in the latter case. +All this could not happen, were there not a good state of the fluids of +the system conjoined, to a happy state of the solids.</p> + +<p>The vegetable-eater, if temperate in the use of his vegetables, and if +all his other habits are good, will endure, better than the flesh-eater, +the extremes of heat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> and cold. This power of endurance has ever been +allowed to be a sure sign of a good state of health. The most vigorous +man, as it is well known, will endure best both extremes of temperature. +But it is a proof also of the greater purity of his solids and fluids.</p> + +<p>The secretions and excretions of his body are in a better state; and +this, again, proves that his blood and other fluids are healthy. He does +not so readily perspire excessively as other men, neither is there any +want of free and easy perspiration. Profuse sweating on every trifling +exertion of the body or mind, is as much a disease as an habitually dry +skin. But the vegetable-eater escapes both of these extremes. The +saliva, the tears, the milk, the gastric juice, the bile, and the other +secretions and excretions—particularly the dejections—are as they +should be. Nay, the very exhalations of the lungs are purer, as is +obvious from the breath. That of a vegetable-eater is perfectly sweet, +while that of a flesh-eater is often as offensive as the smell of a +charnel-house. This distinction is discernible even among the brute +animals. Those which feed on grass, grain, etc., have a breath +incomparably sweeter than those which prey on animals. Compare the +camel, and horse, and cow, and sheep, and rabbit, with the tiger (if you +choose to approach him), the wolf, the dog, the cat, and the hawk. One +comparison will be sufficient; you will never forget it. But there is as +much difference between the odor of the breath of a flesh-eating human +being and a vegetable-eater, as between those of the dog and the lamb. +This, however, is a secret to all but vegetable-eaters themselves, since +none but they are so situated as to be able to make the comparison. But, +betake yourself to mealy vegetables and fruits a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> years, and live +temperately on them, and then you will perceive the difference, +especially in riding in a stage-coach. This, I confess, is rather a +draw-back upon the felicity of vegetable-eaters; but it is some +consolation to know what a mass of corruption we ourselves have escaped.</p> + +<p>There is one more secretion to which I wish to direct your attention, +which is, the fat or oil. The man who lives rightly, and rejects animal +food among the rest, will never be overburdened with fat. He will +neither be too corpulent nor too lean. Both these conditions are +conditions of disease, though, as a general rule, corpulence is most to +be dreaded; it is, at least, the most disgusting. Fat, I repeat it, is a +secretion. The cells in which it is deposited serve for relieving the +system of many of the crudities and abuses, not to say poisons, which +are poured into it—cheated; as it were, in some degree into the blood, +secreted into the fat cells, and buried in the fat to be out of the way, +and where they can do but little mischief. Yet, even here they are not +wholly harmless. The fat man is almost always more exposed to disease, +and to <i>severe</i> epidemic disease in particular, than the lean man. Let +us leave it to the swine and other kindred quadrupeds, to dispose of +gross half poisonous matter, by converting it into, or burying it in +fat; let us employ our vital forces and energies in something better. +Above all, let us not descend to swallow, as many have been inclined to +do, besides the ancient Israelites, this gross secretion, and reduce +ourselves to the painful necessity of carrying about, from day to day, a +huge mass of double-refined disease, pillaged from the foulest and +filthiest of animals.</p> + +<p>Vegetable-eaters—especially if they avoid condiments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> as well as flesh +and fish—are not apt to be thirsty. It is a common opinion among the +laboring portion of the community, that they who perspire freely, must +drink freely. And yet I have known one or two hard laborers who were +accustomed to sweat profusely and freely, who hardly ever drank any +thing, except a little tea or milk at their meals, and yet were +remarkably strong and healthy, and attained to a great age. One of this +description (Frederick Lord, of Hartford, Conn.), lived to about the age +of eighty-five. How the system is supplied, in such cases, with fluid, I +do not know; but I know it is not necessary to drink perpetually for the +purpose; for if but one healthy man can dispense with drinking, others +may. The truth is, we seldom drink from real thirst. We drink chiefly +either from habit, or because we have created a morbid or diseased +thirst by improper food or drink, among which animal food is pretty +conspicuous.</p> + +<p>I have intimated that, in order to escape thirst, the vegetable-eater +must abstain also from condiments. This he will be apt to do. It is he +who eats flesh and fish, and drinks something besides water, who feels +such an imperious necessity for condiments. The vegetable and milk +eater, and water-drinker, do not need them.</p> + +<p>It is in this view, that the vegetable system lies at the foundation of +all reform in the matter of temperance. So long as the use of animal +food is undisturbed and its lawfulness unquestioned, all our efforts to +heal the maladies of society are superficial. The wound is not yet +probed to the bottom. But, renounce animal food, restore us to our +proper condition, and feed us on milk and farinaceous articles, and our +fondness for excitement and our hankering for exciting drinks and +condiments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> will, in a few generations, die away. Animal food is a root +of all evil, so far as temperance is concerned, in its most popular and +restricted sense.</p> + +<p>The pure vegetable-eaters, especially those who are trained as such, +seldom drink at all. Some use a little water with their meals, and a few +drink occasionally between them, especially if they labor much in the +open air, and perspire freely. Some taste nothing in the form of drink +for months, unless we call the abundant juices of apples and other +fruits, and milk, etc., by that name—of which, by the way, they are +exceedingly fond. The reason is, they are seldom thirsty. Dr. Lambe, of +London, doubts whether man is naturally a drinking animal; but I do not +carry the matter so far. Still I believe that ninety-nine hundredths of +the drink which is used, <i>as</i> now used, does more harm than good.</p> + +<p>He who avoids flesh and fish, escapes much of that languor and +faintness, at particular hours, which others feel. He has usually a +clear and quiet head in the morning. He is ready, and willing, and glad +to rise in due season; and his morning feelings are apt to last all day. +He has none of that faintness between his meals which many have, and +which tempts thousands to luncheons, drams, tobacco, snuff, and opium, +and ultimately destroys so much health and life. The truth is, that +vegetable food is not only more quiet and unstimulating than any other, +but it holds out longer also. I know the contrary of this is the general +belief; but it is not well founded. Animal food stimulates most, and as +the stimulus goes off soon, we are liable to feel dull after it, and to +fancy we need the stimulus of drink or something else to keep us up till +the arrival of another meal. And, having acquired a habit of relying on +our food to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> stimulate us immediately, much more than to give us real, +lasting, permanent strength, it is no wonder we feel, for a time, a +faintness if we discontinue its use. This only shows the power of habit, +and the over-stimulating character of our accustomed food. Nor does the +simple vegetable-eater suffer, during the spring, as other people say +they do. All is cheerful and happy with him, even then. Nor, lastly, is +he subject to hypochondria or depression of spirits. He is always lively +and cheerful; and all with him is bright and happy. As it has been +expressed elsewhere, with the truly temperate man it is "morning all +day."</p> + +<p>The system of diet in question, greatly improves, exalts, and perfects +the senses. The sight, smell, and taste are rendered greatly superior by +it. The difference in favor of the hearing and the touch may not be so +obvious; nevertheless, it is believed to be considerable. But the change +in the other senses—the first three which I have named—even when we +reform as late as at thirty-five or forty, is wonderful. I do not wish +to encourage, by this, a delay of the work of reformation; we can never +begin it too early.</p> + +<p>Vegetable diet favors beauty of form and feature. The forms of the +natives of some of the South Sea Islands, to say nothing of their +features, are exceedingly fine. They are tall and well proportioned. So +it is with the Japanese and Chinese, especially of the interior, where +they subsist almost wholly on rice and fruits. The Japanese are the +finest men, physically speaking, in Asia. The New Hollanders, on the +contrary, who live almost wholly on flesh and fish, are among the most +meagre and ugly of the human race, if we except the flesh-eating savages +of the north, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> Greenlanders and Laplanders. In short, the +principle I have here advanced will hold, as a <i>general rule</i>, I +believe, other things being equal, throughout the world. If it be asked +whether I would exalt beauty and symmetry into virtues, I will only say +that they are not without their use in a virtuous people; and I look +forward to a period in the world's history, when all will be +comparatively well formed and beautiful. Beauty is exceedingly +influential, as every one must have observed who has been long in the +world; at least, if he has had his eyes open. And it is probably right +that it should be so. Our beauty is almost as much within our control, +as a race, as our conduct.</p> + +<p>A vegetable diet, moreover, promotes and preserves a clearness and a +generally healthful state of the mental faculties. I believe that much +of the moral as well as intellectual error in the world, arises from a +state of mind which is produced by the introduction of improper liquids +and solids into the stomach, or, at least, by their application to the +nervous system. Be this as it may, however, there is nothing better for +the brain than a temperate diet of well-selected vegetables, with water +for drink. This Sir Isaac Newton and hundreds of others could abundantly +attest.</p> + +<p>It also favors an evenness and tranquillity of temper, which is of +almost infinite value. The most fiery and vindictive have been enabled, +by this means, when all other means had failed, to transform themselves +into rational beings, and to become, in this very respect, patterns to +those around them. If this were its only advantage, in a physiological +point of view, it would be of more value than worlds. It favors, too, +simplicity of character. It makes us, in the language of the Bible,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> to +remain, or to become, as little children, and it preserves our juvenile +character and habits through life, and gives us a green old age.</p> + +<p>Finally and lastly, it gives us an independence of external things and +circumstances, that can never be attained without it. In vain may we +resort to early discipline and correct education—in vain to moral and +religious training—in vain, I had almost said, to the promises and +threatenings of heaven itself, so long as we continue the use of food so +unnatural to man as the flesh of animals, with the condiments and +sauces, and improper drinks which follow in its train. Our hope, under +God, is, in no small degree, on a radical change in man's dietetic +habits—in a return to that simple path of truth and nature, from which, +in most civilized countries, those who have the pecuniary means of doing +it have unwisely departed.</p> + + +<h4>III. THE MEDICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>If perfect health is the best preventive and security against disease, +and if a well-selected and properly administered vegetable diet is best +calculated to promote and preserve that perfect health, then this part +of the subject—what I have ventured to call the medical argument—is at +once disposed of. The superiority of the diet I recommend is established +beyond the possibility of debate. Now that this is the case—namely, +that this diet is best calculated to promote perfect health—I have no +doubt. For the sake of others, however, it may be well to adduce a few +facts, and present a few brief considerations.</p> + +<p>It is now pretty generally known, that Howard, the philanthropist, was, +for about forty years a vegetable-eater,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> subsisting for much of this +time on bread and tea, and that he went through every form of exposure +to disease, contagious and non-contagious, perfectly unharmed. And had +it not been for other physical errors than those which pertain to diet, +I know of no reason why his life might not have been preserved many +years longer—perhaps to this time.</p> + +<p>Rev. Josiah Brewer, late a missionary in Smyrna, was very much exposed +to disease, and, like Mr. Howard, to the plague itself; and yet I am not +aware that he ever had a single sick day as the consequence of his +exposure. I do not know with certainty that he abstains entirely from +flesh meat, but he is said to be rigidly temperate in other respects.</p> + +<p>Those who have read Rush's Inquiries and other writings, are aware that +he was very much exposed to the yellow fever in Philadelphia, during the +years in which it prevailed there. Now, there is great reason for +believing that he owed his exemption from the disease, in part, at +least, to his great temperance.</p> + +<p>Mr. James, a teacher in Liberia, in Africa, had abstained for a few +years from animal food, prior to his going out to Africa. Immediately +after his arrival there, and during the sickly season, one of his +companions who went out with him, died of the fever. Mr. James was +attacked slightly, but recovered.</p> + +<p>Another vegetable-eater—the Rev. Mr. Crocker—went out to a sickly part +of Africa some years since, and remained at his station a long time in +perfect health, while many of his friends sickened or died. At length, +however, he fell.</p> + +<p>Gen. Thomas Sheldon, of this state, a vegetable-eater, spent several +years in the most sickly parts of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> Southern United States, with an +entire immunity from disease; and he gives it as his opinion that it is +no matter where we are, so that our dietetic and other habits are +correct.</p> + +<p>Mr. G. McElroy, of Kentucky, spent several months of the most sickly +season in the most unhealthy parts of Africa, in the year 1835, and yet +enjoyed the best of health the whole time. While there and on his +passage home, he abstained wholly from animal food, living on rice and +other farinaceous vegetables and fruits.</p> + +<p>In view of these facts and many others, Mr. Graham remarks: "Under a +proper regimen our enterprising young men of New England may go to New +Orleans or Liberia, or any where else they choose, and stay as long as +they choose, and yet enjoy good health." And there is no doubt he is +right.</p> + +<p>But it is hardly worth while to cite single facts in proof of a point of +this kind. There is abundant testimony to be had, going to show that a +vegetable diet is a security against disease, especially against +epidemics, whether in the form of a mere influenza or malignant fever. +Nay, there is reason to believe that a person living according to <i>all</i> +the Creator's laws, physical and moral, could hardly receive or +communicate disease of any kind. How could a person in perfect health, +and obeying to an iota all the laws of health—how could he contract +disease? What would there be in his system which could furnish a nidus +for its reception?</p> + +<p>I am well aware that not a few people suppose the most healthy are as +much exposed to disease as others, and that there are some who even +suppose they are much more so. "Death delights in a shining mark," or +something to this effect, is a maxim which has probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> had its origin +in the error to which I have adverted. To the same source may be traced +the strange opinion that a fatal or malignant disease makes its first +and most desperate attacks upon the healthy and the robust. The fact +is—and this explains the whole riddle—those who are regarded, by the +superficial and short-sighted in this matter, as the most healthy and +robust, are usually persons whose unhealthy habits have already sown the +seeds of disease; and nothing is wanting but the usual circumstances of +epidemics to rouse them into action. More than all this, these +strong-looking but inwardly-diseased persons are almost sure to die +whenever disease does attack them, simply on account of the previous +abuses of their constitutions.</p> + +<p>During the prevalence of the cholera in New York, about the year 1832, +all the Grahamites, as they were called, who had for some time abstained +from animal food—and their number was quite respectable—and who +persevered in it, either wholly escaped the disease, or had it very +lightly; and this, too, notwithstanding a large proportion of them were +very much exposed to its attacks, living in the parts of the city where +it most prevailed, or in families where others were dying almost daily. +This could not be the result of mere accident; it is morally impossible.</p> + +<p>But flesh-eaters—admitting the flesh were wholesome—are not only much +more liable to contract disease, but if they contract it, to suffer more +severely than others. There is yet another important consideration which +belongs to the medical argument. Animal food is much more liable than +vegetable food, to those changes or conditions which we call poisonous, +and which are always, in a greater or less degree, the sources of +disease;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> it is also more liable to poisonous mixtures or adulterations.</p> + +<p>It is true, that in the present state of the arts, and of agriculture +and civic life generally, vegetables themselves are sometimes the +sources of disease. I refer not to the spurred rye and other substances, +which occasionally find their way into our fields and get mixed with our +grains, etc., and which are known to be very active poisons,—so much as +to the acrid or otherwise improper juices which are formed by forced +vegetation, especially about cities, whether by means of hot-beds, +green-houses, or new, strong, or highly-concentrated manures. I refer +also to the crude, unripe, and imperfect fruits and other things with +which our markets are filed now-a-days; and especially to <i>decaying</i> +fruits and vegetables. But I cannot enlarge; a volume would be too +little to do this part of the subject justice. Nothing is more wanted +than light on this subject, and a consequent reform in our fashionable +agriculture and horticulture.</p> + +<p>And yet, although I admit, most cheerfully, the danger we are in of +contracting disease by using diseased vegetables, the danger is neither +so frequent nor so imminent, in proportion to the quantity of it +consumed, as from animal food. Let us briefly take a view of the facts.</p> + +<p>Milk, in its nature, approaches nearest to the line of the vegetable +kingdom, and is therefore, in my view, the least objectionable form of +animal food. I am even ready to admit that for persons affected with +certain forms of chronic disease, and for all children, milk is +excellent. And yet, excellent as it is, it is very liable to be +injurious. We are told, by the most respectable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> medical men of France, +that all the cows about Paris have tubercles (the seeds or beginning of +consumption) in their lungs which is probably owing to the unnatural +state in which they are kept, as regards the kind, and quantity, and +hours of receiving their food; and especially as regards air, exercise, +and water. Cows cannot be healthy, nor any other domestic animals, any +more than men, when long subjected to the unnatural and unhealthy +influences of bad air, want of exercise, etc. Hence, then, most of our +cows about our towns and cities must be diseased, in a greater or less +degree—if not with consumption, with something else. And of course +their milk must be diseased—not, perhaps, as much as their blood and +flesh, but more or less so. But if milk is diseased, the butter and +cheese made from it must be diseased also.</p> + +<p>But milk is sometimes diseased through the vegetables which are eaten by +the cow. Every one knows how readily the sensible properties of certain +acrid plants are perceived in the milk. Hence as I have elsewhere +intimated, we are doubly exposed to danger from eating animal food; +first, from the diseases of the animal itself, and secondly, from the +diseases which are liable to be induced upon us by the vegetables they +use, some of which are not poisonous to them, but are so to us. So that, +in avoiding animal food, we escape at least a part of the danger.</p> + +<p>Besides the general fact, that almost all medical and dietetic writers +object to fat, and to butter among the rest, as difficult of digestion +and tending to cutaneous and other diseases,—and besides the general +admission in society at large that it makes the skin "break out,"—it +must be obvious that it is liable to retain, in a greater<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> or less +degree, all the poisonous properties which existed in the milk from +which it was made. Next to fat pork, butter seems to me one of the worst +things that ever entered a human stomach; and if it will not, like pork, +quite cause the leprosy, it will cause almost every other skin disease +which is known.</p> + +<p>Cheese is often poisoned now-a-days by design. I do not mean to say that +the act of poisoning is accompanied by malice toward mankind; far from +it. It is added to color it, as in the form of anatto; or to give it +freshness and tenderness, as in the case of arsenic.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>Eggs, when not fresh, are more or less liable to disease. I might even +say more. When not fresh, they <i>are</i> diseased. On this point we have the +testimony of Drs. Willich and Dunglison. The truth is, that the yolk of +the egg has a strong tendency to decomposition, and this decomposing or +putrefying process <i>begins</i> long before it is perceived, or even +suspected, by most people. There is much reason for believing that a +large proportion of the eggs eaten in civic life,—except when we keep +the poultry ourselves,—are, when used, more or less in a state of +decomposition. And yet, into how many hundred forms of food do they +enter in fashionable life, or in truth, in almost every condition of +society! The French cooks are said to have six hundred and eighty-five +methods of cooking the egg, including all the various sorts of pastry, +etc., of which it forms a component part.</p> + +<p>One of the grand objections against animal food, of almost all sorts, +is, that it tends with such comparative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> rapidity to decomposition. Such +is at least the case with eggs, flesh, and fish of every kind. The usual +way of preventing the decomposition is by processes scarcely less +hurtful—by the addition of salt, pyroligneous acid, saltpetre, lime, +etc. These, to be sure, prevent putrefaction; but they render every +thing to which they are applied, unless it is the egg, the more +indigestible.</p> + +<p>It is a strange taste in mankind, by the way, which leads them to prefer +things in a state of incipient decomposition. And yet such a taste +certainly prevails widely. Many like the flesh beaten; hence the origin +of the cruel practice of the East of whipping animals to death.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> And +most persons like fresh meat kept till it begins to be <i>tender</i>; that +is, begins to putrefy. So most persons like fermented beer better than +that which is unfermented, although fermentation is a step toward +putrefaction; and they like vinegar, too, which is also far advanced in +the same road.</p> + +<p>That diseased food causes diseases in the persons who use it, needs not, +one would think, a single testimony; and yet, I will name a few.</p> + +<p>Dr. Paris, speaking of fish, says,—"It is not improbable that certain +cutaneous diseases may be produced, or at least aggravated by such +diet." Dr. Dunglison says, bacon and cured meats are often poisonous. He +speaks of the poisonous tendency of eggs, and says that all <i>made</i> +dishes are more or less "rebellious." In Aurillac, in France, not many +years since, fifteen or sixteen persons were attacked with symptoms of +cholera after eating the milk of a certain goat. The goat died with +cholera about twenty-four hours after, and two men, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> less eminent +than Professors Orfila and Marc, gave it as their undoubted opinion that +the cholera symptoms alluded to, were caused by the milk. I have myself +known oysters at certain times and seasons to produce the same symptoms. +During the progress of a mortal disease among the poultry on Edisto +Island, S. C., in 1837, all the dogs and vultures that tasted of the +flesh of the dead poultry sickened and died. Chrisiston mentions an +instance in which five persons were poisoned by eating beef; and +Dunglison one in which fourteen persons were made sick, and some died, +from eating the meat of a calf. Between the years 1793 and 1827, it is +on record that there were in the kingdom of Wurtemberg alone, no less +than two hundred and thirty-four cases of poisoning, and one hundred and +ten deaths, from eating sausages. But I need not multiply this sort of +evidence, the world abounds with it; though for one person who is +poisoned so much as to be made sick immediately, hundreds perhaps are +only slightly affected; and the punishment may seem to be deferred for +many years.</p> + +<p>The truth, in short, is, that every fashionable process of fattening and +even of domesticating animals, induces disease; and as most of the +animals we use for food are domesticated or fattened, or both, it +follows that most of our animal food, whether milk, butter, cheese, +eggs, or flesh, is diseased food, and must inevitably, sooner or later, +induce disease in those who receive it. Those which are most fattened +are the worst, of course; as the hog, the goose, the sheep, and the ox. +The more the animal is removed from a natural state, in fattening, the +more does the fat accumulate, and the more it is diseased. Hence the +complaints against every form of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> animal oil or fat, in every age, by +men who, notwithstanding their complaints, for the most part, continue +to set mankind an example of its use.</p> + +<p>Let me here introduce a single paragraph from Dr. Cheyne, which is very +much to my present purpose.</p> + +<p>"About London, we can scarce have any but crammed poultry or stall-fed +butchers' meat. It were sufficient to disgust the stoutest stomach to +see the foul, gross, and nasty manner in which, and the fetid, putrid, +and unwholesome materials <i>with</i> which they are fed. Perpetual foulness +and cramming, gross food and nastiness, we know, will putrefy the +juices, and corrupt the muscular substance of human creatures—and sure +they can do no less in brute animals—and thus make our food poison. The +same may be said of hot-beds, and forcing plants and vegetables. The +only way of having sound and healthful animals, is to leave them to +their own natural liberty in the free air, and their own proper element, +with plenty of food and due cleanliness; and a shelter from the injuries +of the weather, whenever they have a mind to retire to it."</p> + +<p>The argument then is, that, for healthy adults at least, a well-selected +vegetable diet, other things being equal, is a preventive of disease, +and a security against its violence, should it attack us, in a far +greater degree than a diet which includes animal food in any of its +numerous forms. It will either prevent the common diseases of childhood, +including those which are deemed contagious, or render their attacks +extremely mild: it will either prevent or mitigate the symptoms of the +severe diseases of adults, not excepting malignant fevers, small-pox, +plague, etc.; and it will either prevent such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> diseases as cancer, gout, +epilepsy, scrofula, and consumption, or prolong life under them.</p> + +<p>Who that has ever thought of the condition of our domestic animals, +especially about towns and cities—their want of good air, abundant +exercise, good water, and natural food, to say nothing of the butter-cup +and the other poisonous products of over-stimulating or fresh manures +which they sometimes eat—has not been astonished to find so little +disease among us as there actually is? Animal food, in its best state, +is a great deal more stimulating and heating to the system than +vegetable food;—but how much more injurious is it made, in the +circumstances in which most animals are placed? Do we believe that even +a New Zealand cannibal would willingly eat flesh, if he knew it was from +an animal that when killed was laboring under a load of liver complaint, +gout, consumption, or fever? And yet, such is the condition of most of +the animals we slay for food. They would often die of their diseases if +we did not put the knife to their throats to prevent it.</p> + +<p>One more consideration. If the exclusive use of vegetable food will +prevent a multitude of the worst and most incurable diseases to which +human nature, in other circumstances, seems liable; if it will modify +the diseases which a mixed diet, or absolute intemperance, or gluttony +had induced,—by what rule can we limit its influence? How know we that +what is so efficacious in regard to the larger diseases, will not be +equally so in the case of all smaller ones? And why, then, may not its +universal adoption, after a few generations, banish disease entirely +from the world? Every person of common observation, knows that, as a +general rule, they who approach the nearest to a pure vegetable and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +water diet, are most exempt from disease, and the longest-lived and most +happy. How, then, can it otherwise happen than that a still closer +approximation will afford a greater exemption still, and so on +indefinitely? At what point of an approach toward such diet and regimen, +and toward perfect health at the same time, is it that we stop, and more +temperance still will injure us? In short, where do we cross the line?</p> + + +<h4>IV. THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>I have dwelt at such length on the physiological and medical arguments +in defence of the vegetable system, that I must compress my remaining +views into the smallest space possible; especially those which relate to +its political, national, or general advantages.</p> + +<p>Political economists tell us that the produce of an acre of land in +wheat, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and in fruits, will sustain +animal life sixteen times as long as when the produce of the same acre +is converted into flesh, by feeding and fattening animals upon it.</p> + +<p>But, if we admit that this estimate is too high, and if the real +difference is only eight to one, instead of sixteen to one, the results +may perhaps surprise us; and if we have not done it before, may lead us +to reflection. Let us see what some of them are.</p> + +<p>The people of the United States are believed to eat, upon the average, +an amount of animal food equal at least to one whole meal once a day, +and those of Great Britain one in two days. But taking this estimate to +be correct, Great Britain, by substituting vegetable for animal food, +might sustain forty-nine instead of twenty-one millions of inhabitants, +and the United States sixty-six millions instead of twenty; and this, +too, in their present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> comfort, and without clearing up any more new +land. Here, then, we are consuming that unnecessarily—if animal food is +unnecessary—which would sustain seventy-nine millions of human beings +in life, health, and happiness.</p> + +<p>Now, if life is a blessing at all—if it is a blessing to twenty-two +millions in Great Britain, and twenty millions in the United +States—then to add to this population an increase of seventy-nine +millions, would be to increase, in the same proportion, the aggregate of +human happiness. And if, in addition to this, we admit the very +generally received principle, that there is a tendency, from the nature +of things, in the population of any country, to keep up with the means +of support, we, of Great Britain and America, keep down, at the present +moment, by flesh-eating, sixty-three millions of inhabitants.</p> + +<p>We do not destroy them, in the full sense of the term, it is true, for +they never had an existence. But we prevent their coming into the +possession of a joyous and happy existence; and though we have no name +for it, is it not a crime? What! no crime for thirty-five millions of +people to prevent and preclude the existence of sixty-three millions?</p> + +<p>I see no way of avoiding the force of this argument, except by denying +the premises on which I have founded my conclusions. But they are far +more easily denied than disproved. The probability, after all, is, that +my estimates are too low, and that the advantages of an exclusively +vegetable diet, in a national or political point of view, are even +greater than is here represented. I do not deny, that some deduction +ought to be made on account of the consumption of fish, which does not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +prevent the growth or use of vegetable products; but my belief is, that, +including them, the animal food we use amounts to a great deal more than +one meal a day, or one third of our whole living.</p> + +<p>Suppose there was no <i>crime</i> in shutting human beings out of existence +by flesh-eating, at the amazing rate I have mentioned—still, is it not, +I repeat it, a great national or political loss? Or, will it be said, in +its defence, as has been said in defence of war, if not of intemperance +and some of the forms of licentiousness, that as the world is, it is a +blessing to keep down its population, otherwise it would soon be +overstocked? The argument would be as good in one case as in the other; +that is, it is not valid in either. The world might be made to sustain, +in comfort, even in the present comparatively infant state of the arts +and sciences, at least forty or fifty times its present number of +inhabitants. It will be time enough a thousand or two thousand years to +come, to begin to talk about the danger of the world's being +over-peopled; and, above all, to talk about justifying what we know is, +in the abstract, very wrong, to prevent a distant imagined evil; one, in +fact, which may not, and probably will not ever exist.</p> + + +<h4>V. THE ECONOMICAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>The economy of the vegetable system is so intimately connected with its +political or national advantages; that is, so depends on, or grows out +of them, that I hesitated for some time before I decided to consider it +separately. Whatever is shown clearly to be for the general good policy +and well-being of society, cannot be prejudicial to the best interests +of the individuals who compose that society. Still, there are some minor +considerations that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> I wish to present under this head, that could not +so well have been introduced any where else.</p> + +<p>There is, indeed, one reason for omitting wholly the consideration of +the pecuniary advantages of the system which I am attempting to defend. +The public, to some extent, at once consider him who adverts to this +topic, as parsimonious or mean. But, conscious as I am of higher objects +in consulting economy than the saving of money, that it may be expended +on things of no more value than the mere indulgence or gratification of +the appetites or the passions, in a world where there are minds to +educate and souls to save, I have ventured to treat on the subject.</p> + +<p>It must be obvious, at a single glance, that if the vegetable products +of an acre of land—such as wheat, rye, corn, barley, potatoes, beans, +peas, turnips, beets, apples, strawberries, etc.—will sustain a family +in equal health eight times as long as the pork, or beef, or mutton, +which the same vegetables would make by feeding them to domestic +animals, it must be just as mistaken a policy for the individual to make +the latter disposition of these products as for a nation to do so. +Nations are made of individuals; and, as I have already said, whatever +is best, in the end, for the one, must also be the best, as a general +rule, for the other.</p> + +<p>But who has not been familiar from his very infancy with the maxim, that +"a good garden will half support a family?" And who that is at all +informed in regard to the manners and customs of the old world, does not +know that the maxim has been verified there, time immemorial? But again: +who has not considered, that if a garden of a given size will half +support a family, one twice as large would support it wholly?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>The truth is, it needs but a very small spot indeed, of good soil, for +raising all the necessaries of a family. I think I have shown, in +another work,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> that five hundred and fifty pounds of Indian or corn +meal, or ten bushels of the corn, properly cooked, will support, or more +than support, an adult individual a year. Four times this amount is a +very large allowance for a family of five persons; nay, even three times +is sufficient. But how small a spot of good soil is required for raising +thirty bushels of corn!</p> + +<p>It is true, no family would wish to be confined a whole year to this one +kind of food; nor do I wish to have it so; not that I think any serious +mischiefs would arise as the consequence; but I should prefer, for my +own part, a greater variety. But this does not materially alter the +case. Suppose an acre and a half of land were required for the +production of thirty bushels of corn. Let the cultivator, if he chooses, +raise only fifteen bushels of corn, and sow the remainder with barley, +or rye, or wheat. Or, if he prefer it, let him plant the one half of the +piece with beans, peas, potatoes, beets, onions, etc. The one half of +the space devoted to the production of some sort of grain would still +half support his family; and it would require more than ordinary +gluttony in a family of five persons to consume the produce of the other +half, if the crops were but moderately abundant. A quarter of an acre of +it ought to produce, at least, sixty bushels of potatoes; but this +alone, would give such a family about ten pounds of potatoes, or one +sixth of a bushel a day, for every day in the year, which is a tolerable +allowance of food, without the grain and other vegetables.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> +<p>But suppose a whole family were to live wholly on grain, as corn, or +even wheat, for the year; the whole expenditure would hardly, exceed +fifty dollars, in dear places and in the dearest times. Of course, I am +speaking now of expenses for food and drink merely, the latter of which +usually costs nothing, or need not. How small a sum is this to expend in +New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, in the maintenance of a family! +And yet, it is amply sufficient for the vegetable-eater, unless his +family live exclusively on wheat bread, or milk, when it might fall a +little short. Of corn, at a dollar a bushel, it would give him eight +pounds a day—far more than a family ought to consume, if they ate +nothing else; and of potatoes, at forty cents a bushel, above twenty +pounds, or one third of a bushel—more than sufficient for the family of +an Hibernian.</p> + +<p>Now, let me ask how much beef, or lamb, or pork, or sausages, or eggs, +or cheese, this would buy? At ten cents a pound for each, which is +comparatively low, it would buy five hundred pounds; about one pound and +six ounces for the whole family, or four or five ounces each a day. This +would be an average amount of nutriment equal to that of about two +ounces of grain, or bread of grain, a day, to each individual. In so far +as laid out in butter, or chicken, or turkey, at twenty cents a pound, +it would give also about two or three ounces a day!</p> + +<p>Further remarks under this head can hardly be necessary. He who +considers the subject in its various aspects, will be likely to see the +weight of the argument. There is a wide difference between a system +which will give to each member of a family, upon the average, only about +four or five ounces of food a day, and one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> which will give each of them +more than twenty-five ounces a day, each ounce of the latter containing +twice the nutriment of the former, and being much more savory and +healthy at the same time. There is a wide difference, in matters of +economy, at least, between <span class="smcap">one</span> and <span class="smcap">ten</span>.</p> + +<p>I will only add, under this head, a few tables. The first is to show the +comparative amount of nutritious matter contained in some of the leading +articles of human food, both animal and vegetable. It is derived from +the researches of such men as MM. Percy and Vauquelin, of France, and +Sir Humphrey Davy, of England.</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>100</td><td align='left'>pounds of</td><td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='left'>contain</td><td align='left'>85</td><td align='left'>pounds</td><td align='left'>of</td><td align='left'> nutritious matter.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Rice</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>90</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Rye</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>80</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Barley</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>83</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Peas</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>93</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Lentils</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>94</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Beans</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>89 to 92</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Bread</td><td align='left'>(average)</td><td align='left'>80</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Meat</td><td align='left'>(average)</td><td align='left'>35</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Potatoes</td><td align='left'>contain</td><td align='left'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Beets</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>14</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Carrots</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>10 to 14</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Cabbage</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>7</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>Greens, turnips</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>4 to 8</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>Of course, it does not follow that every individual will be able to +extract just this amount of nutriment from each article; for, in this +respect, as well as in others, much will depend on circumstances.</p> + +<p>The second table is from Mr. James Simpson, of Manchester, England, in a +small work entitled, "The Products of the Vegetable Kingdom versus +Animal Food," recently published in London. Its facts are derived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> from +Dr. Playfair, Boussingault, and other high authorities. It will be seen +to refute, entirely, the popular notions concerning the Liebig theory. +The truth is, Liebig's views are misunderstood. His views are not so +much opposed to mine as many suppose. Besides, neither he nor I are +infallible.</p> + + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td colspan="2">Solid matter.</td><td colspan="2">Water.</td><td colspan="2">Flesh forming principle.</td><td colspan="2">Heat forming principle.</td><td colspan="2">Ashes for the bones.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Potatoes,</td><td align='right'>28</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td><td align='right'>72</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='left'>per ct.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Turnips,</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>89</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>9</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Barley Meal,</td><td align='right'>84-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>15-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>68-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Beans,</td><td align='right'>86</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>31</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>51-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oats,</td><td align='right'>82</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>18</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>68</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wheat,</td><td align='right'>85-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>14-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>21</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>62</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>2-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Peas,</td><td align='right'>84</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>29</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>51-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>3-1/2</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Carrots,</td><td align='right'>13</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>87</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Veal,</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>{</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Beef,</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>{25</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mutton,</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>{</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lamb,</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>{</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Blood,</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>80</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>20</td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<h4>VI. THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPERIENCE.</h4> + +<p>A person trained in the United States or in England—but especially one +who was trained in New England—might very naturally suppose that all +the world were flesh-eaters; and that the person who abstains from an +article which is at almost every one's table, was quite singular. He +would, perhaps, suppose there must be something peculiar in his +structure, to enable him to live without either flesh or fish; +particularly, if he were a laborer. Little would he dream—little does a +person who has not had much opportunity for reading, and who has not +been taught to reflect, and who has never traveled a day's journey from +the place which gave him birth, even so much as dream—that almost all +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> world, or at least almost all the hard-laboring part of it, are +vegetable-eaters, and always have been; and that it is only in a few +comparatively small portions of the civilized and half-civilized world, +that the bone and sinew of our race ever eat flesh or fish for any thing +more than as a condiment or seasoning to the rest of their food, or even +taste it at all. And yet such is the fact.</p> + +<p>It is true, that in a vast majority of cases, as I have already +intimated, laborers are vegetable-eaters from necessity: they cannot get +flesh. Almost all mankind, as they are usually trained, are fond of +extra stimulants, if they can get them; and whether they are called +savages or civilized men, will indulge in them more or less, if they are +to be had, unless their intellectual and moral natures have been so well +developed and cultivated, as to have acquired the ascendency. Spirits, +wine, cider, beer, coffee, tea, condiments, tobacco, opium, snuff, flesh +meat, and a thousand other things, which excite, for a time, more +pleasurable sensations than water and plain vegetables and fruits, will +be sought with more or less eagerness according to the education which +has been received, and according to our power of self-government.</p> + +<p>I have said that most persons are vegetable-eaters from necessity, not +from choice. There are some tribes in the equatorial regions who seem to +be exceptions to this rule; and yet I am not quite satisfied they are +so. Some children, among us, who are trained to a very simple diet, will +seem to shrink from tea or coffee, or alcohol, or camphor, and even from +any thing which is much heated, when first presented to them. But, train +the same children to the ordinary, complex,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> high-seasoned diet of this +country, and it will not take long to find out that they are ready to +acquire the habit of relishing the excitement of almost all sorts of +<i>unnaturals</i> which can be presented to them. And if there are tribes of +men who at first refuse flesh meat, I apprehend they do so for the same +reasons which lead a child among us, who is trained simply to refuse hot +food and drink, or at least, hot tea and coffee, when the latter are +first presented to him.</p> + +<p>Gutzlaff, the Chinese traveler and missionary, has found that the +Chinese of the interior, who have scarcely ever tasted flesh or fish, +soon acquire a wonderful relish for it, just as our children do for +spirituous or exciting drinks and drugs, and as savages do for tobacco +and spirits. But he has also made another discovery, which is, that +flesh-eating almost ruins them for labor. Instead of being strong, +robust, and active, they soon become lazy, self-indulgent, and +effeminate. This is a specimen—perhaps a tolerably fair one—of the +natural tendency of such food in all ages and countries. Man every where +does best, nationally and individually, other things being equal, on a +well-chosen diet of vegetables, fruits, and water. In proportion as +individuals or families, or tribes or nations, depart from this—other +things being equal—in the same proportion do they degenerate +physically, intellectually, and morally.</p> + +<p>Such a statement may startle some of my New England readers, perhaps, +who have never had opportunity to become acquainted with facts as they +are. But can it be successfully controverted? Is it not true, that, with +a few exceptions—and those more apparent than real—nations have +flourished, and continued to flourish,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> in proportion as they have +retained the more natural dietetic habits to which I have alluded; and +that they have been unhappy or short-lived, as nations, in proportion as +exciting food and drink have been used? Is it not true, that those +individuals, families, tribes, and nations, which have used what I call +excitements, liquid or solid, have been subjected by them to the same +effects which follow the use of spirits—first, invigoration, and +subsequently decline, and ultimately a loss of strength? Why is it that +the more wealthy, all over Europe, who get flesh more or less, +deteriorate in their families so rapidly? Why is it that every thing is, +in this respect, so stationary among the middle classes and the poor?</p> + +<p>In short—for the case appears to me a plain one—it is the simple +habits of some, whether we speak of nations, families, or individuals, +which have preserved the world from going to utter decay. In ancient +times, the Egyptians, the most enlightened and one of the most enduring +of nations, were what might properly be called a vegetable-eating +nation; so were the ancient Persians, in the days of their greatest +glory; so the Essenes, among the Jews; so the Romans, as I have said +elsewhere, and the Greeks. If either Moses or Herodotus is to be +credited, men lived, in ancient times, about a thousand years. Indeed, +empire seems to have departed from among the ancient nations precisely +when simplicity departed. So it is with nations still. A flesh-eating +nation may retain the supremacy of the world a short time, as several +European and American nations have done; just as the laborer, whose +brain and nerves are stimulated by ardent spirits, may for a time +retain—through the medium of an artificial strength—the ascendency<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> +among his fellow-laborers; but the triumph of both the nation and the +individual must be short, and the debility which follows proportionable. +And if the United States, as a nation, seem to form an exception to the +truth of this remark, it is only because the stage of debility has not +yet arrived. Let us be patient, however, for it is not far off.</p> + +<p>But to come to the specification of facts. The Japanese of the interior, +according to some of the British geographers, live principally on rice +and fruits—a single handful of rice often forming the basis of their +frugal meal. Flesh, it is said, they either cannot get, or do not like; +and to milk, even, they have the same sort of aversion which most of us +have to blood. It is only a few of them, comparatively, and those +principally who live about the coasts, who ever use either flesh or +fish. And yet we have the concurring testimony of all geographers and +travelers, that in their physical and intellectual development, at +least, to say nothing of their moral peculiarities, they are the finest +men in all Asia. In what other country of Asia are schools and early +education in such high reputation as in Japan? Where are the inhabitants +so well formed, so stout made, and so robust? Compare them with the +natives of New Holland, in the same, or nearly the same longitude, and +about as far south of the equator as the Japanese are north of it, and +what a contrast! The New Hollanders, though eating flesh liberally, are +not only mere savages, but they are among the most meagre and wretched +of the human race. On the contrary, the Japanese, in mind and body, are +scarcely behind the middle nations of Europe.</p> + +<p>Nearly the same remarks will apply to China, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> with little +modification, to Hindostan. In short, the hundreds of millions of +southern Asia are, for the most part, vegetable-eaters; and a large +proportion of them live chiefly, if not wholly on rice, though by no +means the most favorable vegetable for exclusive use. What countries +like these have maintained their ancient, moral, intellectual, and +political landmarks? Grant that they have made but little improvement +from century to century; it is something not to have deteriorated. Let +us proceed with our general view of the world, ancient and modern.</p> + +<p>The Jews of Palestine, two thousand years ago, lived chiefly on +vegetable food. Flesh, of certain kinds, was indeed admissible, by their +law; but, except at their feasts and on special occasions, they ate +chiefly bread, milk, honey, and fruits.</p> + +<p>Lawrence says that "the Greeks and Romans, in the periods of their +greatest simplicity, manliness, and bravery, appear to have lived almost +entirely on plain vegetable preparations."</p> + +<p>The Irish of modern days, as well as the Scotch, are confined almost +wholly to vegetable food. So are the Italians, the Germans, and many +other nations of modern Europe. Yet, where shall we look for finer +specimens of bodily health, strength, and vigor, than in these very +countries? The females, especially, where shall we look for their +equals? The men, even—the Scotch and Irish, for example—are they +weaker than their brethren, the English, who use more animal food?</p> + +<p>It will be said, perhaps, the vegetable-eating Europeans are not always +distinguished for vigorous minds. True; but this, it may be maintained, +arises from their degraded physical condition, generally; and that +neglect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> of mental and moral cultivation which accompanies it. A few, +even here, like comets in the material system, have occasionally broken +out, and emitted no faint light in the sphere in which they were +destined to move.</p> + +<p>But we are not confined to Europe. The South Sea Islanders, in many +instances, feed almost wholly on vegetable substances; yet their agility +and strength are so great, that it is said "the stoutest and most expert +English sailors, had no chance with them in wrestling and boxing."</p> + +<p>We come, lastly, to Africa, the greater part of whose millions feed on +rice, dates, etc.; yet their bodily powers are well known.</p> + +<p>In short, more than half of the 800,000,000 of human beings which +inhabit our globe live on vegetables; or, if they get meat at all, it is +so rarely that it can hardly have any effect on their structure or +character. Out of Europe and the United States—I might even say, out of +the latter—the use of animal food is either confined to a few meagre, +weak, timid nations, like the Esquimaux, the Greenlanders, the +Laplanders, the Samoiedes, the Kamtschadales, the Ostiacs, and the +natives of Siberia and Terra del Fuego; or those wealthier classes, or +individuals of every country, who are able to range lawlessly over the +Creator's domains, and select, for their tables, whatever fancy or +fashion, or a capricious appetite may dictate, or physical power afford +them.</p> + + +<h4>VII. THE MORAL ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>In one point of view, nearly every argument which can be brought to show +the superiority of a vegetable diet over one that includes flesh or +fish, is a moral argument.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus, if man is so constituted by his structure, and by the laws of his +animal economy, that all the functions of the body, and of course all +the faculties of the mind, and the affections of the soul, are in better +condition—better subserve our own purposes, and the purposes of the +great Creator—as well as hold out longer, on the vegetable system—then +is it desirable, in a moral point of view, to adopt it. If mankind lose, +upon the average, about two years of their lives by sickness, as some +have estimated it,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> saying nothing of the pain and suffering +undergone, or of the mental anguish and soul torment which grow out of +it, and often render life a burden; and if the simple primitive custom +of living on vegetables and fruits, along with other good physical and +mental habits, which seem naturally connected with it, will, in time, +nearly if not wholly remove or prevent this amazing loss, then is the +argument deduced therefrom, in another part of this chapter, a moral +argument.</p> + +<p>If, as I have endeavored to show, the adoption of the vegetable system +by nations and individuals, would greatly advance the happiness of all, +in every known respect, and if, on this account, such a change in our +flesh-eating countries would be sound policy, and good economy,—then we +have another moral argument in its favor.</p> + +<p>But, again; if it be true that all nations have been the most virtuous +and flourishing, other things being equal, in the days of their +simplicity in regard to food, drink, etc.; and if we can, in every +instance, connect the decline of a nation with the period of their +departure, as a nation, into the maze of luxurious and enervating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +habits; and if this doctrine is, as a general rule, obviously applicable +to smaller classes of men, down to single families, then is the argument +we derive from it in its nature a moral one. Whatever really tends, +without the possibility of mistake, to the promotion of human happiness, +here and hereafter, is, without doubt, moral.</p> + +<p>But this, though much, is not all. The destruction of animals for food, +in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause +every reflecting individual—not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities +of our nature—to shudder. I recall: daily observation shows that such +is not the fact; nor should it, upon second thought, be expected. Where +all are dark, the color is not perceived; and so universally are the +moral sensibilities which really belong to human nature deadened by the +customs which prevail among us, that few, if any, know how to estimate, +rightly, the evil of which I speak. They have no more a correct idea of +a true sensibility—not a <i>morbid</i> one—on this subject, than a blind +man has of colors; and for nearly the same reasons. And on this account +it is, that I seem to shrink from presenting, at this time, those +considerations which, I know, cannot, from the very nature of the case, +be properly understood or appreciated, except by a very few.</p> + +<p>Still there are some things which, I trust, may be made plain. It must +be obvious that the custom of rendering children familiar with the +taking away of life, even when it is done with a good degree of +tenderness, cannot have a very happy effect. But, when this is done, not +only without tenderness or sympathy, but often with manifestations of +great pleasure, and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> children, as in some cases, are almost +constant witnesses of such scenes, how dreadful must be the results!</p> + +<p>In this view, the world, I mean our own portion of it, sometimes seems +to me like one mighty slaughter-house—one grand school for the +suppression of every kind, and tender, and brotherly feeling—one grand +process of education to the entire destitution of all moral +principle—one vast scene of destruction to all moral sensibility, and +all sympathy with the woes of those around us. Is it not so?</p> + +<p>I have seen many boys who shuddered, at first, at the thought of taking +the life, even of a snake, until compelled to it by what they conceived +to be duty; and who shuddered still more at taking the life of a lamb, a +calf, a pig, or a fowl. And yet I have seen these same boys, in +subsequent life, become so changed, that they could look on such scenes +not merely with indifference, but with gratification. Is this change of +feeling desirable? How long is it after we begin to look with +indifference on pain and suffering in brutes, before we begin to be less +affected than before by human suffering?</p> + +<p>I am not ignorant that sentiments like these are either regarded as +morbid, and therefore pitiable, or as affected, and therefore +ridiculous. Who that has read the story of Anthony Benezet, as related +by Dr. Rush, has not smiled at what he must have regarded a feeling +wholly misplaced, if nothing more? And yet it was a feeling which I +think is very far from deserving ridicule, however homely the manner of +expressing it. But I have related this interesting story in another part +of the work.</p> + +<p>I am not prepared to maintain, strongly, the old-fashioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> doctrine, +that a butcher who commences his employment at adult age, is necessarily +rendered hardhearted or unfeeling; or, that they who eat flesh have +their sensibilities deadened, and their passions inflamed by it—though +I am not sure that there is not some truth in it. I only maintain, that +to render children familiar with the taking away of animal +life,—especially the lives of our own domestic animals, often endeared +to us by many interesting circumstances of their history, or of our own, +in relation to them,—cannot be otherwise than unhappy in its tendency.</p> + +<p>How shocking it must be to the inhabitants of Jupiter, or some other +planet, who had never before witnessed these sad effects of the ingress +of sin among us, to see the carcasses of animals, either whole or by +piece-meal, hoisted upon our very tables before the faces of children of +all ages, from the infant at the breast, to the child of ten or twelve, +or fourteen, and carved, and swallowed; and this not merely once, but +from day to day, through life! What could they—what would they—expect +from such an education of the young mind and heart? What, indeed, but +mourning, desolation, and woe!</p> + +<p>On this subject the First Annual Report of the American Physiological +Society thus remarks—and I wish the remark might have its due weight on +the mind of the reader:</p> + +<p>"How can it be right to be instrumental in so much unnecessary +slaughter? How can it be right, especially for a country of vegetable +abundance like ours, to give daily employment to twenty thousand or +thirty thousand butchers? How can it be right to train our children to +behold such slaughter? How can it be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> right to blunt the edge of their +moral sensibilities, by placing before them, at almost every meal, the +mangled corpses of the slain; and not only placing them there, but +rejoicing while we feast upon them?"</p> + +<p>One striking evidence of the tendency which an habitual shedding of +blood has on the mind and heart, is found in the fact that females are +generally so reluctant to take away life, that notwithstanding they are +trained to a fondness for all sorts of animal food, very few are willing +to gratify their desires for a stimulating diet, by becoming their own +butchers. I have indeed seen females who would kill a fowl or a lamb +rather than go without it; but they are exceedingly rare. And who would +not regard female character as tarnished by a familiarity with such +scenes as those to which I have referred? But if the keen edge of female +delicacy and sensibility would be blunted by scenes of bloodshed, are +not the moral sensibilities of our own sex affected in a similar way? +And must it not, then, have a deteriorating tendency?</p> + +<p>It cannot be otherwise than that the circumstances of which I have +spoken, which so universally surround infancy and childhood, should take +off, gradually, the keen edge of moral sensibility, and lessen every +virtuous or holy sympathy. I have watched—I believe impartially—the +effect on certain sensitive young persons in the circle of my +acquaintance. I have watched myself. The result has confirmed the +opinion I have just expressed. No child, I think, can walk through a +common market or slaughter-house without receiving moral injury; nor am +I quite sure that any virtuous adult can.</p> + +<p>How have I been struck with the change produced in the young mind by +that merriment which often accompanies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> the slaughter of an innocent +fowl, or lamb, or pig! How can the Christian, with the Bible in hand, +and the merciful doctrines of its pages for his text,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Teach me to feel another's woe,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—the beast's not excepted—and yet, having laid down that Bible, go at +once from the domestic altar to make light of the convulsions and exit +of a poor domestic animal?</p> + +<p>Is it said, that these remarks apply only to the <i>abuse</i> of a thing, +which, in its place, is proper? Is it said, that there is no necessity +of levity on these occasions? Grant that there is none; still the result +is almost inevitable. But there is, in any event, one way of avoiding, +or rather preventing both the abuse and the occasion for abuse, by +ceasing to kill animals for food; and I venture to predict that the evil +never will be prevented otherwise.</p> + +<p>The usual apology for hunting and fishing, in all their various and +often cruel forms,—whereby so many of our youth, from the setters of +snares for birds, and the anglers for trout, to the whalemen, are +educated to cruelty, and steeled to every virtuous and holy +sympathy,—is, the necessity of the animals whom we pursue for food. I +know, indeed, that this is not, in most cases, the true reason, but it +is the reason given—it is the substance of the reason. It serves as an +apology. They who make it may often be ignorant of the true reason, or +they or others may wish to conceal it; and, true to human nature, they +are ready to give every reason for their conduct, but the real and most +efficient one.</p> + +<p>It must not, indeed, be concealed that there is one more apology usually +made for these cruel sports; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> made too, in some instances, by good +men; I mean, by men whose intentions are in the main pure and excellent. +These sports are healthy, they tell us. They are a relief to mind and +body. Perhaps no good man, in our own country, has defended them with +more ingenuity, or with more show of reason and good sense, than Dr. +Comstock, in his recent popular work on Human Physiology. And yet, there +is scarcely a single advantage which he has pointed out, as being +derived from the "pleasures of the chase," that may not be gained in a +way which savors less of blood. The doctor himself is too much in love +with botany, geology, mineralogy, and the various branches of natural +history, not to know what I mean when I say this. He knows full well the +excitement, and, on his own principles, the consequent relief of body +and mind from their accustomed and often painful round, which grows out +of clambering over mountains and hills, and fording streams, and +climbing trees and rocks, to need any very broad hints on the subject; +to say nothing of the delights of agriculture and horticulture. How +could he, then, give currency to practices which, to say the least,—and +by his own concessions, too,—are doubtful in regard to their moral +tendencies, by inserting his opinions in favor of sports, for which he +himself happens to be partial, in a school-book? Is this worthy of those +who would educate the youth of our land on the principles of the Bible?</p> + + +<h4>VIII. THE MILLENNIAL ARGUMENT</h4> + +<p>I believe it is conceded by most intelligent men, that all the arguments +we bring against the use of animal food, which are derived from anatomy, +physiology, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> the laws of health, or even of psychology, are well +founded. But they still say, "Man is not what he once was; he is +strangely perverted; that custom, or habit, which soon becomes second +nature, and often proves stronger to us than first nature, has so +changed him that he is more a creature of art than of nature, or at +least of <i>first</i> nature. And though animal food was not necessary to him +at first—perhaps not in accordance with his best interests—yet it has +become so by long use; and as a creature of art rather than of nature, +he now seems to require it."</p> + +<p>This reasoning, at first view, appears very <i>specious</i>. But upon second +view, we see it is wanting—greatly so—in solidity. It takes for +granted, as I understand it, that what we call civilization, has +rendered animal food necessary to man. But is it not obvious that the +condition of things which is thus supposed to render this species of +food necessary, is not likely to disappear—nay, that it is every +century becoming more and more the law, so to speak, of the land? Who is +to stop the labor-saving machine, the railroad car, or the lightning +flash of intelligence?</p> + +<p>And do not these considerations, if they prove any thing, prove quite +too much? For if, in the onward career of what is thus called +civilization, we have gone from a diet which scarcely required the use +of animal food in order to render it both palatable and healthful, to +one in whose dishes it is generally blended in some one or more of its +forms, must we not expect that a still further progress in the same +course will render the same kind of diet still more indispensable? If +flesh, fish, fowl, butter, cheese, eggs, lard, etc., are much more +necessary to us now, than they were a thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> years ago, will they not +be still more necessary a thousand years hence?</p> + +<p>I do not see how we can avoid such a conclusion. And yet such a +conclusion will involve us in very serious difficulties. In Japan and +China—the former more especially—if the march of civilization should +be found to have rendered animal food more necessary, it has at the same +time rendered it less accessible to the mass of the population. The +great increase of the human species has crowded out the animals, even +the domestic ones. Some of the old historians and geographers tell us +that there are not so many domestic animals in the whole kingdom of +Japan, as in a single township of Sweden. And must not all nations, as +society progresses and the millennium dawns, crowd out the animals in +the same way? It cannot be otherwise. True, there may remain about the +same supply as at present from the rivers and seas, and perchance from +the air; but what can these do for the increasing hundreds of millions +of such large countries? What do they for Japan? In short, if the +reasoning above were good and valid, it would seem to show that +precisely at the point of civilization where animal food becomes most +necessary, at precisely that point it becomes most scarce.</p> + +<p>These things do not seem to me to go well together. We must reject the +one or the other. If we believe in a millennium, we must, inevitably, +give up our belief in animal food, at least the belief that its +necessity grows out of the increasing wants of society. Or if, on the +other hand, we believe in the increasing necessity of animal food, we +must banish from our minds all hope of what we call a millennium, at +least for the present.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>IX. THE BIBLE ARGUMENT.</h4> + +<p>It is not at all uncommon for those who find themselves driven from all +their strong-holds, in this matter, to fly to the Bible. Our Saviour ate +flesh and fish, say they; and the God of the New Testament, as well as +of the Old, in this and other ways, not only permitted but sanctioned +its use.</p> + +<p>But, to say nothing of the folly of going, for proof of every thing we +wish to prove, to a book which was never given for this purpose, or of +the fact that in thus adducing Scripture to prove our favorite +doctrines, we often go too far, and prove too much; is it true that the +Saviour ate flesh and fish? Or, if this could be proved, is it true that +his example binds us forever to that which other evidence as well as +science show to be of doubtful utility? Paul did not think so, most +certainly. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, he says, +if it cause our brother to offend. Did not Paul understand, at least as +well as we, the precepts and example of our Saviour?</p> + +<p>And as to a permission to Noah and his descendants, the Jews, to use +animal food—was it not for the hardness of the human heart, as our +Saviour calls it? From the beginning, was it so? Is not man, in the +first chapter of Genesis, constituted a vegetable-eater? Was his +constitution ever altered? And if so, when and where? Will they who fly +to the Bible for their support, in this particular, please to tell us?</p> + +<p>But it is idle to go to the Bible, on this subject. I mean, it is idle +to pretend to do so, when we mean not so much. Men who <i>incline</i> to wine +and other alcoholic drinks, plead the example and authority of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +Bible. Yet you will hardly find a man who drinks wine simply because he +believes the Bible justifies its use. He drinks it for other reasons, +and then makes the foolish excuse that the Bible is on his side. So in +regard to the use of flesh meat. Find a man who really uses flesh or +fish <i>because</i> the Bible requires him to do so, and I will then discuss +the question with him on Bible ground. Till that time, further argument +on this direction is unnecessary.</p> + + +<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4> + +<p>But I must conclude this long essay. There is one consideration, +however, which I am unwilling to omit, although, in deciding on the +merits of the question before us, it may not have as much +weight—regarded as a part of the moral argument—on every mind, as it +has on my own.</p> + +<p>Suppose the great Creator were to make a new world somewhere in the +regions of infinite space, and to fit it out in most respects like our +own. It is to be the place and abode of such minerals, vegetables, and +animals as our own. Instead, however, of peopling it gradually, he fills +it at once with inhabitants; and instead of having the arts and the +sciences in their infancy, he creates every thing in full maturity. In a +word, he makes a world which shall be exactly a copy of our own, with +the single exception that the 800,000,000 of free agents in it shall be +supposed to be wholly ignorant in regard to the nature of the food +assigned them. But the new world is created, we will suppose, at +sunrise, in October. The human inhabitants thereof have stomachs, and +soon, that is, by mid-day or before night, feel the pangs of hunger. +Now, what will they eat?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> + +<p>The world being mature, every thing in it is, of course, mature. Around, +on every hand, are cornfields with their rich treasures; above, that is, +in the boughs of the orchards, hang the rich russets, pippins, and the +various other excellent kinds of the apple, with which our own country +and other temperate climates abound. In tropical regions, of course, +almost every vegetable production is flourishing at that season, as well +as the corn and the apple. Or, he has but to look on the surface of the +earth on which he stands, and there are the potatoe, the turnip, the +beet, and many other esculent roots; to say nothing of the squash, the +pumpkin, the melon, the chestnut, the walnut, the beechnut, the +butternut, the hazelnut, etc.,—most of which are nourishing, and more +or less wholesome, and are in full view. Around him, too, are the +animals. I am willing even to admit the domestic animal—the horse, the +ox, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the turkey, the goose, the +hen, yes, and even the pig. And now, I ask again, what will he eat? He +is destitute of experience, and he has no example. But he has a stomach, +and he is hungry: he has hands and he has teeth; the world is all before +him, and he is the lord of it, at least so far as to use such food in it +as he pleases.</p> + +<p>Does any one believe that, in these circumstances, man would prey upon +the animals around him? Does any person believe—can he for one moment +believe—he would forthwith imbrue his hands in blood, whether that of +his own species or of some other? Would he pass by the mellow apple, +hanging in richest profusion every where, inviting him as it were by its +beauties? Would he pass by the fields, with their golden ears?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> Would he +despise the rich products of field, and forest, and garden, and hasten +to seize the axe or the knife, and, ere the blood had ceased to flow, or +the muscles to quiver, give orders to his fair but affrighted companion +within to prepare the fire, and make ready the gridiron or the spider? +Or, without the knowledge even of this, or the patience to wait for the +tedious process of cooking to be completed, would he eat raw the +precious morsel? Does any one believe this? Can any one—I repeat the +question—can any one believe it?</p> + +<p>On the contrary, would not every living human being revolt, at first, +from the idea, let it be suggested as it might, of plunging his hands in +blood? Can there be a doubt that he would direct his attention at +first—yes, and for a long time afterward—to the vegetable world for +his food? Would it not take months and years to reconcile his +feelings—his moral nature—to the thought of flesh-mangling or +flesh-eating? At least, would not this be the result, if he were a +disciple of Christianity? Although professing Christians, as the world +is now constituted, do not hesitate to commit such depredations, would +they do so in the circumstances we have supposed?</p> + +<p>I am sure there can be but one opinion on this subject; although I +confess it impossible for me to say how it may strike other minds +constituted somewhat differently from my own. With me, this +consideration of the subject has weight and importance. It is not +necessary, however. The argument—the moral argument, I mean—is +sufficient, as it seems to me, without it. What then shall we say of the +anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the +economical, the experimental, the Bible, the millennial, and the moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +arguments, when united? Have they not force? Are they not a nine-fold +cord, not easily broken? Is it not too late in the day of human +improvement to meet them with no argument but ignorance, and with no +other weapon but ridicule?</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> For proof that arsenic or ratsbane is sometimes added to +cheese, see the Library of Health, volume ii., page 69. In proof of the +poisonous tendency of milk and butter, see Whitlaw's Theory of Fever, +and Clark's Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See Dunglison's Hygiene, page 250.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The Young Housekeeper.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Or, more nearly, perhaps, a year and a half, in this +country. In England, it is one year and five-sevenths.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> +<h2>OUTLINES</h2> + +<h4>OF A</h4> + +<h2>NEW SYSTEM OF FOOD AND COOKERY.</h2> + + +<p>In the work of revising and preparing the foregoing volume for +publication, the writer was requested to add to it a system of vegetable +cookery. At first he refused to do so, both on account of the difficulty +of bringing so extensive a subject within the compass of twenty or +thirty pages, and because it did not seem to him to be called for, in +connection with the present volume. But he has yielded his own judgment +to the importunity of the publishers and other friends of the work, and +prepared a mere outline or skeleton of what he may hereafter fill up, +should circumstances and the necessary leisure permit.</p> + +<p>But there is one difficulty to be met with at the very threshold of the +subject. Vegetable eaters are not so hard driven to find whereon to +subsist, as many appear to suppose. For the question is continually +asked, "If you dispense wholly with flesh and fish, pray what can you +find to eat?" Now, while we are aware that one small sect of the +vegetarians—the followers of Dr. Schlemmer—eat every thing in a raw +state, we are, for ourselves, full believers in plain and simple +cookery. That a potato, for example, is better cooked than uncooked, +both for man and beast, we have not the slightest doubt. We believe that +a system of preparing food which renders the raw material more +palatable, more digestible, and more nutritious, or perhaps all this at +once, must be legitimate, and even preferable—if not for the +individual, at least for the race.</p> + +<p>But the difficulty alluded to is, how to select a few choice dishes from +the wide range—short of flesh and fish—which God and nature permit. +For if we believed in the use of eggs when commingled with food, we +should hardly deem it proper to go the whole length of our French +brethren, who have nearly seven hundred vegetable dishes, of which eggs +form a component part; nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> the whole length even to which our own +powers of invention might carry us; no, nor even the whole length to +which the writer of an English work now before us, and entitled +"Vegetable Cookery," has gone—the extent of about a thousand plain +receipts. We believe the whole nature of man, and even his appetite, +when unperverted, is best served and most fully satisfied with a range +of dishes which shall hardly exceed hundreds.</p> + +<p>It is held by Dr. Dunglison, Dr. Paris, and many of the old school +writers, that all made dishes—all mixtures of food—are "more or less +rebellious;" that is, more or less indigestible, and consequently more +or less hurtful. If they mean by this, that in spite of the +accommodating power of the stomach to the individual, they are hurtful +to the race, I go with them most fully. But I do <i>not</i> believe that <i>all +made dishes, to all persons</i>, are so directly injurious as many suppose. +God has made man, in a certain sense, omnivorous. His physical stomach +can receive and assimilate, like his mental stomach, a great variety of +substances; and both can go on, without apparent disease, for a great +many years, and perhaps for a tolerably long life in this way.</p> + +<p>There is, however, a higher question for man to ask as a rational being +and as a Christian, than whether this or that dish will hurt him +directly. It is, whether a dish or article is <i>best</i> for him—best for +body, mind, and heart—best for the whole human nature—best for the +whole interests of the whole race—best for time, and best for eternity. +Startle not, reader, at this assertion. If West could properly say, "I +paint for eternity," the true disciple of Christ and truth can say, "I +eat and drink for eternity." And a higher authority than any that is +merely human has even required us to do so.</p> + +<p>This places the subject of preparing food on high ground. And were I to +carry out my plan fully, I should exclude from a Christian system of +food and cookery all mixtures, properly so called, and all medicines or +condiments. Not that all mixtures are equally hurtful to the well-being +of the race, nor all medicines. Indeed, considering our training and +habits, some of both, to most persons, have become necessary. I know of +many whose physical inheritance is such, that salt, if not a few other +medicinal substances, have become at least present necessaries to them. +And to those mixtures of substances closely allied, as farina with +farina—meal of one kind with meal of another—I could scarcely have any +objection, myself. Nature objects to incompatibles, and therefore I do; +and medicine, and all those kinds of food which are opposed one to +another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> are incompatible with each other. When one is in the stomach, +the other should not be.</p> + +<p>I have spoken of carrying out my plan, but this I cannot now fully do. +It would not be borne, till, as Lord Bacon used to say, "some time be +passed over." But, on the other hand, I am unwilling to give directions, +as I did ten or twelve years ago, in my Young Housekeeper, such as shall +pander to a perverted—most abominably perverted—public taste. Man is +made for progress, and it is high time the public standard were raised +in regard to food and cookery.</p> + +<p>Although grains and fruits are the natural food of man, yet there are a +variety of shapes in which the grains or farinacea may be presented to +us; and there are a few substances fit for food which do not properly +belong to either of these classes. I shall treat first of the different +kinds of food prepared from grain or farinaceous substances; secondly, +of fruits; thirdly, of roots; and fourthly, speak of a few articles that +do not properly belong to any of the three.</p> + +<p>While, therefore, as will be seen by the remarks already made, I have +many things to say that the community cannot yet bear, it need not +escape the observation of the most careless reader, that I aim at +nothing less than an entire ultimate subversion of the present system of +cookery, believing it to be utterly at war with the laws of God, and of +man's whole nature.</p> + + +<h3>CLASS I.—FARINACEOUS, OR MEALY SUBSTANCES.</h3> + +<p>The principal of these are wheat, oats, Indian corn, rice, rye, barley, +buckwheat, millet, chestnuts, peas, beans, and lentils. They are +prepared in various forms.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION I.—BREAD.</h3> + +<p>The true idea of bread is that coarse or cracked and unbolted meal, +formed into a mass of dough by means of water, and immediately baked in +loaves of greater or less thickness, according to the fancy.</p> + +<p>Some use bolted meal; most raise bread by fermentation; many use salt; +some saleratus, or carbonate of potash; and, in the country, many use +milk instead of water to form the paste. I might also mention several +other additions, which, like saleratus, it is becoming fashionable to +make.</p> + +<p>All these things are a departure, greater or less, from the true<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> idea +of a bread; and bread made with any of these changes, is so much the +less perfectly adapted to the promotion of health, happiness, and +longevity.</p> + +<p>Bolting is objectionable, because bread made from bolted meal, +especially when eaten hot, is more apt, when the digestive powers are +not very vigorous, to form a paste, which none but very strong stomachs +can entirely overcome. Besides, it takes out a part of the sweetness, or +life, as it is termed, of the flour. They who say fine flour bread is +sweetest, are led into this mistake by the force of habit, and by the +fact that the latter comes in contact, more readily than coarse bread, +with the papillæ of the tongue, and seems to have more taste to it +because it touches at more points.</p> + +<p>Raising bread by inducing fermentation, wastes a part of the saccharine +matter; and the more it is raised, the greater is the waste. By +lessening the attraction of cohesion, it makes it more easy of +digestion, it is true; but the loss of nutriment and of pleasure to the +true appetite more than counterbalances this. Bakers, in striving to get +a large loaf, rob the bread of most of its sweetness.</p> + +<p>Salt is objectionable, because it hardens the bread, and renders it more +difficult of digestion. Our ancestors, in this country, did not use it +at all; and many are the families that will not use it now.</p> + +<p>Those who use salt in bread, tell us how <i>flat</i> it would taste without +it. This idea of flatness has two sources. 1. We have so long given our +bread the taste of salt, as we have most other things, that it seems +tasteless without it. 2. The flatness spoken of in an article of food is +oftentimes the true taste of the article, unaltered by any stimulus. If +any two articles need to be stimulated with salt, however, it is rice +and beans—bread never.</p> + +<p>If saleratus is used in bread where no acidity is present, it is a +medicine; or, if you please, a poison both to the stomach and +intestines. If it meets and neutralizes an acid either in the bread-tray +or the stomach, the residuum is a new chemical compound diffused through +the bread, which is more or less injurious, according to its nature and +quantity.</p> + +<p>Milk is objectionable on the score of its tendency to render the bread +more indigestible than when it was wet with water, and perhaps by +rendering it too nutritious. For good bread without the milk is already +too nutritious for health, if eaten exclusively, for a long time. That +man should not live on bread alone, is as true physically as it is +morally.</p> + +<p>No bread should be eaten while new and hot—though the finer it is, the +worse for health when thus eaten. Old bread, heated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> again, is less +hurtful. But if eaten both new and hot, and with butter or milk, or any +thing which soaks and fills it, the effect is very bad. Mrs. Howland, in +her Economical Housekeeper, says much about <i>ripe</i> bread. And I should +be glad to say as much, had I room, about ripe bread, and about the true +philosophy of bread and bread-making, as she has.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>Bread of the first order.</i></h4> + +<p>This is made of coarse meal—as coarse as it can well be ground, +provided the kernels are all broken. The grain should be well washed, +and it may be ground in the common way, or according to the oriental +mode, in hand-mills. The latter mode is preferable, because you can thus +have it fresh. Meal is somewhat injured by being kept long ground.</p> + +<p>If great pains is not taken to have the grain clean when ground, it +needs to be passed through a coarse sieve, that all foreign bodies may +be carefully separated. The hulls of corn, and especially the husks of +oats and buckwheat, should also be separated in some way. In no case, +however, should meal be bolted. Good health requires that we eat the +innutritious and coarser parts as well as the finer.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Take a sufficient quantity of good, recent wheat meal;<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> +wet it well, but not too soft, with pure water; form it into thin cakes, +and bake it as hard as the teeth will bear. Remember, however, that the +saliva aids the teeth greatly, especially when you masticate your food +slowly. The cakes should be very thin—the thinner the better. Many, +however, prefer them an inch thick, or even more.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Oat meal prepared in the same manner. Procure what is called +the Scotch kiln dried oat meal, if you can. No matter if it is +manufactured in New England, if it is well done.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Indian meal cakes, otherwise called hoe cakes, or Johnny +cakes, are next in point of value to bread made of wheat and oats. They +are most healthy, however, in cold weather.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Rye cakes come next. Warm instead of cold water is often +used to wet all the above. Some even choose to scald the meal. Fancy may +be indulged in this particular, only you must remember that warm water +in warm weather may soon give rise, if the mass stands long, to a degree +of fermentation, which, for the best bread, should be avoided.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Barley meal bread comes next in order in the unleavened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +series. In regard to this species of bread, however, I do not speak from +experience, but from report.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Of millet bread I know still less. Cakes made of it, as +above, must certainly be wholesome.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Buckwheat cakes are last in the series of the best breads. +The meal is always too fine, and hence makes heavy bread, except when +hot. Few use it without fermentation.</p> + +<p>Unleavened bread may be made as above, of all the various kinds of +grain, finely ground; but it is apt to be heavy, whereas, when made +properly, of coarse meal, it is only firm, never heavy; that is, it +never has a lead-like appearance. They may make and use it who have iron +stomachs.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>Bread of the second order.</i></h4> + +<p>This consists essentially of mixtures of the various coarse meals. True +it is, that made or mixed food is objectionable; but the union of one +farinaceous substance with another to form bread, can hardly be +considered a mixture. It is, essentially, the addition of farina to +farina, with some change in the proportion of the gluten and other +properties.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Wheat meal and Indian, in about the proportion of two parts +of wheat to one of Indian.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Wheat meal and oat meal, about equal parts.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Wheat meal and Indian, equal parts.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Wheat meal and rye meal; two parts, quarts, or pounds of the +former to one of the latter.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Rye and Indian, equal parts of each.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Rye, two thirds; Indian, one third.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Wheat meal and rice. Three quarts of wheat meal to one pint +of good clean rice, boiled till it is soft.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Three parts of wheat meal to one of Indian.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Four parts of wheat to one of Indian.</p> + +<p>The proportion of the ingredients above may be varied to a great extent. +I have inserted some of the best. The following are <i>irregulars</i>, but +may as well be mentioned here as any where.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 10.</span>—Two quarts of wheat meal to one pound of well boiled ripe +beans, made soft by pounding or otherwise.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 11.</span>—Seven pounds of wheat meal and two and a half pounds of +good, mealy, and well boiled and pounded potatoes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 12.</span>—Equal parts of coarse meal from rye, barley, and buckwheat. +This is chiefly used in Westphalia.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 13.</span>—Seven parts of wheat meal (as in Receipt 11),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> with two +pounds of split peas boiled to a soup, and used to wet the flour.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 14.</span>—Wheat meal and apples, in the proportion of about three of +the former (some use two) to one of the latter. The apples must be first +pared and cored, and stewed or baked. See my "Young Housekeeper," +seventh edition, page 396.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 15.</span>—Wheat meal and boiled chestnuts; three quarts of the former +to one of the latter.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 16.</span>—Wheat meal, four quarts, and one quart of well boiled and +pounded marrow squash.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 17.</span>—Wheat, corn, or barley meal; three quarts to one quart of +powdered comfrey root. This is inserted from the testimony of Rev. E. +Rich, of Troy, N. H.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 18.</span>—Wheat meal, three pounds, to one pound of pounded corn, +boiled and pounded green. This is the most doubtful form which has yet +been mentioned.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 19.</span>—Receipt 7 describes rice bread. Bell, in his work on Diet +and Regimen, says the best and most economical rice bread is made thus: +Wheat meal, three pounds; rice, well boiled, one pound—wet with the +water in which the rice is boiled.</p> + +<p>I wish to say here, once for all, that any kind of bread may be salted, +if you will <i>have</i> salt, except the patented bread mentioned in the +beginning of the next section, which is salted in the process. Molasses +in small quantity may also be added, if preferred.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section C.</span>—<i>Bread of the third kind.</i></h4> + +<p>Of this there are several kinds. Those which are made by a simple +effervescence, provided the residuum is not injurious, are best, and +shall accordingly be placed first in order. Next will follow various +kinds of bread made by the ordinary process of fermentation, salting, +etc.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Wheat meal, seven pounds; carbonate of soda or saleratus<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> +three quarters of an ounce to one ounce; water, two and three quarter +pints; muriatic acid, 420 to 560 drops. Mix the soda with the meal as +intimately as possible, by means of a wooden spoon or stick. Then mix +the acid and water, and add it slowly to the mass, stirring it +constantly. Make three loaves of it, and bake it in a quick oven.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Wheat meal, one pound; sesquicarbonate of soda,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> forty +grains; muriatic acid, fifty drops; cold water, half a pint, or a +sufficient quantity. Mix in the same way, and with the same caution, as +in Receipt 1. Make one loaf of it, and bake in a quick oven.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Wheat meal, one quart; cream of tartar, two tea-spoonfuls; +saleratus, one tea-spoonful; and two and a half teacups full of milk. +Mix well, and bake thirty minutes. If the meal is fresh, as it ought to +be, the milk may be omitted.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Coarse rye meal, Indian meal, and oat meal, may be formed +into bread in nearly a similar manner. So, in fact, may fine meal and +all sorts of mixtures.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Professor Silliman more than intimates, that carbonic acid +gas <i>might</i> be made to inflate bread, without either an effervescence or +a fermentation. The plan is, to force carbonic acid, by some means or +other, into the mass of dough, or, as bakers call it, the sponge. I do +not know that the experiment has yet been made.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Coarse Indian meal may be formed into small, rather thin +loaves, and prepared and baked as in Receipt 3.</p> + +<p>Let us now proceed to common fermented bread:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Wheat meal, six pounds; good yeast, a teacup full; and a +sufficient quantity of pure water. Knead thoroughly. Bake it in small +loaves, unless you have a very strong heat.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Another way: Wheat meal, six quarts; molasses and yeast, +each a teacup full. Mould into loaves half the thickness you mean they +shall be after they are baked. Place them in the pans, in a temperature +which will cause a moderate fermentation. When risen enough, place them +in the oven. A strong heat is required.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Rye bread may be made in a similar way. It must, however, be +well kneaded, to secure an intimate mixture with the yeast. Does not +require quite so strong a heat as the former.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 10.</span>—Oat meal bread may be prepared by mixing good kiln dried +oat meal, a little salt and warm water, and a spoonful of yeast. Beat +till it is quite smooth, and rather a thick batter; cover and let it +stand to rise; then bake it on a hot iron plate, or on a bake stove. Be +careful not to burn it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 11.</span>—Barley, or black bread, as it is called in Europe, makes a +wholesome article of food. It may be fermented or unfermented.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 12.</span>—Corn bread is sometimes made thus: Six pints meal, four +pints water, one spoonful of salt; mix well, and bake in oblong rolls +two inches thick. Bake in a hot oven.</p> + +<p>It should be added to this division of my subject, that in baking bread +sweet oil may be used (a vegetable oil) as a substitute for animal oil, +to prevent the bread from adhering too closely. Or you may sift a +quantity of Indian meal into the pans. If you use sweet, or olive oil, +be sure to get that which is not rancid. Much of the olive oil of the +shops is unfit to be used.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION II.—WHOLE GRAINS.</h3> + +<p>Some have maintained that since man is made to live on grain, fruits, +etc., and since the most perfect mastication is secured by the use of +uncooked grains, it is useless, and worse than useless, to resort to +cookery at all, especially the cookery of bread. I have mentioned Dr. +Schlemmer and his followers already as holding this opinion. Many of +these people confine themselves to the use of uncooked grains and +fruits. They do not cook their beans and peas. Nor can it be denied that +they enjoy thus far very good health.</p> + +<p>Now, while I admit that man, as an individual, can get along very well +in this way, I am most fully persuaded that many kinds of farinaceous +food are improved by cookery. Of the potato, I have already, +incidentally, spoken. But are not wheat and corn, and many other grains, +as well as the potato, improved by cookery? A barrel of flour (one +hundred and ninety-six pounds) will make about two hundred and seventy +pounds of good dry bread. It does not appear that the bread contains +more water than the grain did from which it was made. Whence, then, the +increase of weight by seventy-four pounds? Is not the water—a part of +it, at least—which is used in making bread, rendered solid, as water is +in slacking lime; or at least so incorporated with the flour or meal as +to add both to its weight, and to its nutritious properties?</p> + +<p>Or if, in the present infancy of the science of domestic chemistry, we +are not able to give a satisfactory answer to the question, is not an +affirmative highly probable? Such an answer would give no countenance, I +believe, to the custom of raising our bread, since the increase of +weight in making unfermented cakes or loaves, is about as great as in +the case of fermented ones.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>One of the strongest arguments ever yet brought against bread-making is, +that it relieves us from the necessity of mastication. But to this we +reply, that such cakes as may be made (and such loaves even) require +more mastication than the uncooked grains. Pereira, in his excellent +work on Diet, endeavors to support the doctrine that cooking bursts the +grains of the farinacea, so as to bring them the better within the power +of the stomach. This is specious, if not sound. In any event, I think it +pretty certain, that though man can do very well on raw grains, yet +there is a gain by cookery which more than repays the trouble. But +though baking the flour or meal into cakes or bread, is the best method +of preparation, there are other methods, secondary to this, which +deserve our notice. One of these I will now describe.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>Boiled Grains.</i></h4> + +<p>These require less mastication than those which are submitted to other +processes; but they are more easy of digestion, and to some more +palatable, and even more digestible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Take good perfect wheat; wash clean, and boil till soft in +pure soft water. Those who are accustomed to salt their food, use sugar, +etc., will naturally salt and sweeten this.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Rye or barley may be prepared in the same way, but it is not +quite so sweet.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Indian corn may be boiled, but the process requires six +hours or more, even after it has soaked all night, and there has been a +frequent change of the water. And with all this boiling, the skins +sometimes adhere rather strongly, unless you boil with them some ashes, +or other alkali.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Rice, carefully cleaned, and well boiled, is good food. +Imperfectly boiled, it is apt to disorder the bowels. And so +unstimulating is it, and so purely nutritious, that they who eat it +exclusively, without salt or curry, or any other condiment, are apt to +become constipated. Potatoes go well with it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Chestnuts, well selected, and well boiled, are highly +palatable, greatly nutritious, and easy of digestion. They are best, +however, soon after they are ripe.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Boiled peas, when ripe, either whole or split, make a +healthy dish. They are best, however, when they have been cooked several +days. When boiled enough, drain them through a sieve, but not very dry.</p> + +<p>Some housekeepers soak ripe peas over night, in water in which they have +dissolved a little saleratus. If you boil new or unripe peas, be careful +not to cook them too much.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Beans, whether ripe or green (unless in bread or pudding), +are not so wholesome as peas. They lead to flatulence, acidity, and +other stomach disorders. And yet, eaten in moderate quantities, when +ripe, they are to the hard, healthy laborer very tolerable food. Eaten +green, they are most palatable, but least healthy.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Green corn boiled is bad food. Sweet corn, cooked in this +way, is the best.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Lentils are nutritious, highly so; but I know little about +them practically.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>Grains, etc., in other forms. They may be baked, parched, +roasted, or torrefied.</i></h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Dry slowly, with a pretty strong heat, till they become so +dry and brittle as to fall readily into powder. Corn is most frequently +prepared in this way for food; but this and several other grains are +often torrefied for coffee. Care should be taken to avoid burning.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Roasted grains are more wholesome. It is not usual or easy +to roast them properly, however, except the chestnut, as the expanded +air bursts or parches them. By cutting through the skin or shell, this +result may be avoided, as it often is in the case of the chestnut. To +roast well, they should be laid on the hearth or an iron plate, covered +with ashes, and by building a fire slowly, all burning may be prevented.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Corn and buckwheat are often parched, and they form, +especially the former, a very good food. In South America, and in some +semi-barbarous nations, parched corn is a favorite dish.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Green corn is often roasted in the ear. It is less +wholesome, however, than when boiled. Sweet corn is the best for either +purpose.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Of baking grains I have little to say, because I <i>know</i> +little on that subject.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + + +<h3>DIVISION III.—CAKES</h3> + +<p>This species of farinaceous food is much used, and is fast coming into +vogue. The term, in its largest sense, would include the unleavened +bread or cakes, of which I have spoken so freely in Division<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> 1. They +are for the most part, however, made by the addition of butter, eggs, +aromatics, milk, etc., to the dough; and in proportion as they depart +from simple bread, are more and more unhealthy. I shall mention but a +few, though hundreds might be named which would still be vegetable food, +as good olive oil, in preparing them, may be substituted for butter. I +shall treat of them under one head or section.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Take of dough, prepared according to the English patented +process, mentioned in Division I., Section C, Receipt 1 and Receipt 2, +and bake in a thin form and in the usual manner.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Fruit cakes, if people will have them, may be made in the +same manner. No butter would be necessary, even to butter eaters, when +prepared in this patented way. If any have doubts, let them consult +Pereira on Food and Diet, page 153.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Gingerbread may be made in the same way, and without alum or +potash. It is thus comparatively harmless. Coarse meal always makes +better gingerbread than fine flour.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Buckwheat cakes may be raised in the same general way.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Cakes of millet, rice, etc., are said to have been made by +this process; but on this point I cannot speak from experience.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Biscuits, crackers, wafers, etc., are a species of cake, and +might be made so as to be comparatively wholesome.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Biscuits may be made of coarse corn meal, with the addition +of an egg and a little water. Make it into a stiff paste, and roll very +thin.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION IV.—PUDDINGS.</h3> + +<p>These are a species of bread, only made thinner. They are usually +unfermented. I shall speak of two kinds—hominy and puddings proper.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>Hominy.</i></h4> + +<p>This is usually eaten hot; but it improves on keeping a day or two. It +may be warmed over, if necessary.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Wheat hominy, or cracked wheat, may be made into a species +of pudding thus: Stir the hominy into boiling water (a little salted, if +it must be so), very gradually. Boil from fifteen minutes to one hour. +If boiled too long, it has a raw taste.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Corn hominy, or, as it is sometimes called, samp. Two quarts +of hominy; four quarts of water; stir well, that the hulls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> may rise; +then pour off the water through a sieve, that the hulls may separate. +Pour the same water again upon the hominy, stir well, and pour off again +several times. Finally, pour back the water, add a little salt, if you +use salt at all, and if necessary, a little more water, and hang it over +a slow fire to boil. During the first hour it should be stirred almost +constantly. Boil from three to six hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Another way: Take white Indian corn broken coarsely, put it +over the fire with plenty of water, adding more boiling water as it +wastes. It requires long boiling. Some boil it for six hours the day +before it is wanted, and from four to six the next day. Salt, if used at +all, may be added on the plate.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Another way still of making hominy is to soak it over night, +and boil it slowly for four or five hours, in the same water, which +should be soft.</p> + +<p>There are other ways of making hominy, but I have no room to treat of +them.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>Puddings proper.</i></h4> + +<p>These are of various kinds. Indeed, a single work I have before me on +Vegetable Cookery has not less than 127 receipts for dishes of this +sort, to say nothing of its pancakes, fritters, etc. I shall select a +few of the best, and leave the rest.</p> + +<p>The greatest objection to puddings is, that they are usually swallowed +in large quantity, unmasticated, after we have eaten enough of something +else. They are also eaten new and hot, and with butter, or some other +mixture almost as injurious. Some puddings, from half a day to a day and +a half old, are almost as good for us as bread.</p> + +<p>One of the best puddings I know of, is a stale loaf of bread, steamed. +Another is good sweet kiln dried oat meal, without any cooking at all. +But there are some good cooked puddings, I say again, such as the +following:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Boiled Indian pudding: Indian meal, a quart; water, a pint; +molasses, a teacup full. Mix it well, and boil four hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Another Indian pudding. Indian meal, three pints; scald it, +make it thin, and boil it about six hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Another of the same: To one quart of boiling milk, while +boiling, add a teacup full of Indian meal; mix well, and add a little +molasses. Boil three hours in a strong heat.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Hominy: Take a quart of milk and half a pint of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> Indian +meal; mix it well, and add a pint and a half of cooked hominy. Bake well +in a moderate oven.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Baked Indian pudding may be made by putting together and +baking well a quart of milk, a pint of Indian meal, and a pint of water. +Add salt or molasses, if you please.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Oat meal pudding: Pour a quart of boiling milk over a pint +of the best fine oat meal; let it soak all night; next day add two +beaten eggs; rub over, with pure sweet oil, a basin that will just hold +it; cover it tight with a floured cloth, and boil it an hour and a half. +When cold, slice and toast, or rather dry it, and eat it as you would +oat cake itself.</p> + +<p>This may be the proper place to say, that all coarse meal puddings are +healthiest when twelve or twenty hours old; but are all improved—and so +is brown bread—by drying, or almost toasting on the stove.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—Rice pudding: To one quart of new milk add a teacup full of +rice, sweetened a little. No dressings are necessary without you choose +them. Bake it well.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Wheat meal pudding may be made by wetting the coarse meal +with milk, and sweetening it a little with molasses. Bake in a moderate +heat.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Boiled rice pudding may be made by boiling half a pound of +rice in a moderate quantity of water, and adding, when tender, a +coffee-cup full of milk, sweetening a little, and baking, or rather +simmering half an hour. Add salt if you prefer it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 10.</span>—<i>Polenta</i>—Corn meal, mixed with cheese—grated, as I +suppose, but we are not told in what proportion it is used—baked well, +makes a pudding which the Italians call polenta. It is not very +digestible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 11.</span>—Pudding may be made of any of the various kinds of meal I +have mentioned, except those containing rye, by adding from one fourth +to one third of the meal of the comfrey root. See Division I of this +class, Section B, Receipt 17.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 12.</span>—Bread pudding: Take a loaf of rather stale bread, cut a +hole in it, add as much new milk as it will soak up through the opening, +tie it up in a cloth, and boil it an hour.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 13.</span>—Another of the same: Slice bread thinly, and put it in +milk, with a little sweetening; add a little flour, and bake it an hour +and a half.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 14.</span>—Another still: Three pints of milk, one pound of baker's +bread, four spoonfuls of sugar, and three of molasses. Cut the bread in +slices; interpose a few raisins, if you choose, between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> each two +slices, and then pour on the milk and sweetening. If baked, an hour and +a half is sufficient. If boiled, two or three hours. Use a tin pudding +boiler.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 15.</span>—Rice and apple pudding: Boil six ounces of rice in a pint +of milk, till it is soft; then fill a dish about half full of apples +pared and cored; sweeten; put the rice over them as a crust, and bake +it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 16.</span>—Stirabout is made in Scotland by stirring oat meal in +boiling water till it becomes a thick pudding or porridge. This, with +cakes of oat meal and potatoes, forms the principal food of many parts +of Scotland.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 17.</span>—Hasty pudding is best made as follows: Mix five or six +spoonfuls of sifted meal in half a pint of cold water; stir it into a +quart of water, while boiling; and from time to time sprinkle and stir +in meal till it becomes thick enough. It should boil half or three +quarters of an hour. It may be made of Indian or rye meal.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 18.</span>—Potato pudding: Take two pounds of well boiled and well +mashed potato, one pound of wheat meal; make a stiff paste, by mixing +well; and tie it in a wet cloth dusted with flour. Boil it two hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 19.</span>—Apple pudding may be made by alternating a layer of +prepared apples with a layer of dough made of wheat meal, till you have +filled a tin pudding boiler. Boil it three hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 20.</span>—Sago pudding: Take half a pint of sago and a quart of milk. +Boil half the milk, and pour it on the sago; let it stand half an hour; +then add the remainder of the milk. Sweeten to your taste.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 21.</span>—Tapioca pudding may be prepared in a similar manner.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 22.</span>—To make cracker pudding, to a quart of milk add four thick +large coarse meal crackers broken in pieces, a little sugar, and a +little flour, and bake it one hour and thirty minutes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 23.</span>—Sweet apple pudding is made by cutting in pieces six sweet +apples, and putting them and half a pint of Indian meal, with a little +salt, into a pint of milk, and baking it about three hours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 24.</span>—Sunderland pudding is thus made: Take about two thirds of a +good-sized teacup full of flour, three eggs, and a pint of milk. Bake +about fifteen minutes in cups. Dress it as you please—sweet sauce is +preferred.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 25.</span>—Arrow root pudding may be made by adding two ounces of +arrow root, previously well mixed with a little cold milk, to a pint of +milk boiling hot. Set it on the fire; let it boil fifteen or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> twenty +minutes, stirring it constantly. When cool, add three eggs and a little +sugar, and bake it in a moderate oven.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 26.</span>—Boiled arrow root pudding: Mix as before, only do not let +it quite boil. Stir it briskly for some time, after putting it on the +fire the second time, at a heat of not over 180 degrees. When cooled, +add three eggs and a little salt.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 27.</span>—Cottage pudding: Two pounds of potatoes, pared, boiled, and +mashed, one pint of milk, three eggs, and two ounces of sugar, and if +you choose, a little salt. Bake it three quarters of an hour.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 28.</span>—Snow balls: Pare and core as many large apples as there are +to be balls; wash some rice—about a large spoonful to an apple will be +enough; boil it in a little water with a pinch of salt, and drain it. +Spread it on cloths, put on the apples, and boil them an hour. Before +they are turned out of the cloths, dip them into cold water.</p> + +<p>Macaroni is made into puddings a great deal, and so is vermicelli; but +they are at best very indifferent dishes. Those who live solely to eat +may as well consult "Vegetable Cookery," where they will find +indulgences enough and too many, even though flesh and fish are wholly +excluded. They will find soups, pancakes, omelets, fritters, jellies, +sauces, pies, puddings, dumplings, tarts, preserves, salads, +cheese-cakes, custards, creams, buns, flummery, pickles, syrups, +sherbets, and I know not what. You will find them by hundreds. And you +will find directions, too, for preparing almost every vegetable +production of both hemispheres. And if you have brains of your own you +may invent a thousand new dishes every day for a long time without +exhausting the vegetable kingdom.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION V.—PIES.</h3> + +<p>Pies, as commonly made, are vile compounds. The crust is usually the +worst part. The famous Peter Parley (S. G. Goodrich, Esq.), in his +Fireside Education, represents pies, cakes, and sweetmeats as totally +unfit for the young.</p> + +<p>Within a few years attempts have been made to get rid of the crust of +pies—the abominations of the crust, I mean—by using Indian meal sifted +into the pans, etc.; but the plan has not succeeded. It is the pastry +that gives pies their charm. Divest them of this, and people will almost +as readily accept of plain ripe fruit, especially when baked, stewed, or +in some other way cooked.</p> + +<p>As pies are thus objectionable, and are, withal, a mongrel race,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> +partaking of the nature both of bread and fruit, and yet, as such, unfit +for the company of either, I will almost omit them. I will only mention +two or three.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Squashes, boiled, mashed, strained, and mixed with milk or +milk and water, in small quantity, may be made into a tolerable pie. +They may rest on a thick layer of Indian meal.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Pumpkins may be made into pies in a similar manner; but in +general they are not so sweet as squashes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Potato pie: Cut potatoes into squares, with one or two +turnips sliced; add milk or cream, just to cover them; salt a little, +and cover them with a bread crust. Sweet potatoes make far better pies +than any other kind.</p> + +<p>Almost any thing may be made into pies. Plain apple pies—so plain as to +become mere apple sauce—are far from being very objectionable. See the +next Class of Foods.</p> + + +<h3>CLASS II.—FRUITS.</h3> + +<p>So far as fruits, at least in an uncooked state, have been used as food, +they have chiefly been regarded as a dessert, or at most as a condiment. +Until within a few years, few regarded them as a principal article—as +standing next to bread in point of importance. In treating of these +substances as food, I shall simply divide them into Domestic and +Foreign.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION I.—DOMESTIC FRUITS.</h3> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>The large fruits—Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc.</i></h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—The apple. May be baked in tin pans, or in a common bake +pan. The sweet apple requires a more intense heat than the sour. The +skin may be removed before baking, but it is better to have it remain. +The best apple pie in the world is a baked apple.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—It may be roasted before the fire, by being buried in ashes, +or by throwing it upon hot coals, and quickly turning it. The last +process is sometimes called <i>hunting</i> it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—It may be boiled, either in water alone, or in water and +sugar, or in water and molasses. In this case the skin is often removed, +that the saccharine matter may the better penetrate the body of the +apple.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—It may also be pared and cored, and then stewed, either +alone or with molasses, to form plain apple sauce—a comparatively +healthy dish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Lastly, it may be pared and cored, placed in a deep vessel, +covered with a plain crust, as wheat meal formed into dough, and baked +slowly. This forms a species of pie.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—The pear is not, in every instance, improved by cookery. +Several species, however, are fit for nothing, till mid-winter, when +they are either boiled, baked, or stewed.</p> + +<p>The peach can hardly be cooked to advantage. It is sometimes cut up, and +sprinkled with sugar and other substances.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—A tolerably pleasant sauce can be made by stewing or baking +the quince, and adding sugar or molasses, but it is not very wholesome.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>The smaller fruits. The Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, +Currant, Whortleberry, Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc.</i></h4> + +<p>None of these, so far as I know, are improved by cookery. It is common +to stew green currants, to make jams, preserves, sauces, etc., but this +is all wrong. The great Creator has, in this instance, at least, done +his own work, without leaving any thing for man to do.</p> + +<p>There is one general law in regard to fruits, and especially these +smaller fruits. Those which melt and dissolve most easily in the mouth, +and leave no residuum, are the most healthy; while those which do not +easily dissolve—which contain large seeds, tough or stringy portions, +or hulls, or scales—are in the same degree indigestible.</p> + +<p>I have said that fruits were next to bread in point of importance. They +are to be taken, always, as part of our regular meals, and never between +meals. Nor should they be eaten at the end of a meal, but either in the +middle or at the beginning. And finally, they should be taken either at +breakfast or dinner. According to the old adage, fruit is gold in the +morning, silver at noon, and lead at night.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION II.—FOREIGN FRUITS.</h3> + +<p>The more important of these are the banana, pine-apple, and orange, and +fig, raisin, prune, and date. The first three need no cooking, two of +the last four may be cooked. The date is one of the best—the orange one +of the worst, because procured while green, and also because it is +stringy.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—The prune. Few things sit easier on the feeble or delicate +stomach than the stewed prune. It should be stewed slowly, in very +little water.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—The good raisin is almost as much improved by stewing as the +prune.</p> + +<p>I do not know that the fig has ever yet been subjected to the processes +of modern cookery. It is, however, with bread, a good article of food.</p> + +<p>Fruits, in their juices, may be regarded as the milk of adults and old +people, but are less useful to young children and to the <i>very</i> old. But +to be useful they must be perfectly ripe, and eaten in their season. +Thus used, they prevent a world of summer diseases—used improperly, +they invite disease, and do much other mischief.</p> + +<p>In general, fruits and milk do not go very well together. The baked +sweet apple and whortleberry seem to be least objectionable.</p> + + +<h3>CLASS III.—ROOTS.</h3> + + +<h4>DIVISION I.—MEALY ROOTS.</h4> + +<p>These are the potato, in its numerous varieties, the artichoke, the +ground-nut, and the comfrey. Of these the potato is by far the most +important.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—<i>The Common Potato.</i></h4> + +<p>This may be roasted, baked, boiled, steamed, or fried. It is also made +into puddings and pies. Roasting in the ashes is the best method of +cooking it; frying by far the worst. I take this opportunity to enter my +protest against all frying of food. Com. Nicholson, of revolutionary +memory, would never, as his daughters inform me, have a frying-pan in +his house.</p> + +<p>The potato is best when well roasted in the ashes, but also excellent +when baked, and very tolerable when boiled or steamed.</p> + +<p>There are many ways of preparing the potato and cooking it. Some always +pare it. It may be well to pare it late in the winter and in the spring, +but not at other times. For, in paring, we lose a portion of the richest +part of the potato, as in the case of paring the apple. There is much +tact required to pare a potato properly, that is, thinly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—To boil a potato, see that the kettle is clean, the water +pure and soft, and the potatoes clean. Put them in as soon as the water +boils.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> When they are soft, which can be determined by piercing them +with a fork, pour off the water, and let them steam about five minutes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—To roast in the ashes, wash them clean, then dry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> them, then +remove the heated embers and ashes quite to the bottom of the +fire-place, and place them as closely together as possible, but not on +top of each other. Cover as quickly as possible, and fill the crevices +with hot embers and small coals. Let them be as nearly of a size as +possible, and cover them to the depth of an inch. Then build a hot fire +over them. They will be cooked in from half an hour to three quarters of +an hour, according to the size and heat of the fire.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—Baking potatoes in a stove or oven, is a process so +generally known, that it hardly needs description.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—Steaming is better than boiling. Some fry them; others stew +them with vegetables for soup, etc.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—<i>The Sweet Potato.</i></h4> + +<p>This was once confined to the Southern States, but it is now raised in +tolerable perfection in New Jersey and on Long Island. It is richer than +the common potato in saccharine matter, and probably more nutritious; +but not, it is believed, quite so wholesome. Still it is a good article +of food.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Roasting is the best process of cooking these. They may be +prepared in the ashes or before a fire. The last process is most common. +They cook in far less time than a common potato.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Baking and roasting by the fire are nearly or quite the same +thing as respects the sweet potato. Steaming is a little different, and +boiling greatly so. The boiled sweet potato is, however, a most +excellent article.</p> + + +<h3>DIVISION II.—SWEET AND WATERY ROOTS.</h3> + +<p>These are far less healthy than the mealy ones; and yet are valuable, +because, like potatoes, they furnish the system with a good deal of +innutritious matter, to be set off against the almost pure nutriment of +bread, rice, beans, peas, etc.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—The beet is best when boiled thoroughly, which requires some +care and a good deal of time. It may be roasted, baked, or stewed, +however. It is rich in sugar, but is not very easily digested.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—The parsnep. The boiled parsnep is more easily <i>dissolved</i> +in the stomach than the beet; but my readers must know that many things +which are dissolved in the stomach are nevertheless very imperfectly +digested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—The turnip, well boiled, is watery, but easily digested and +wholesome. It may also be roasted or baked, and some eat it raw.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—The carrot is richer than the turnip, but not therefore more +digestible. It may be boiled, stewed, fried, or made into pies, +puddings, etc. It is a very tolerable article of food.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—The radish, fashionable as it is, is nearly useless.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—For the sick, and even for others, arrow root jellies, +puddings, etc., are much valued. This, with sago, tapioca, etc., is most +useful for that class of sick persons who have strong appetites.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + + +<h3>CLASS IV.—MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD.</h3> + +<p>Under this head I shall treat briefly of the proper use of a few +substances commonly and very properly used as food, but which cannot +well come under any of the foregoing classes. They are chiefly found in +the various chapters of my Young Housekeeper, as well as in Dr. +Pereira's work on Food and Diet, under the heads of "Buds and Young +Shoots," "Leaves and Leaf Stalks," "Cucurbitaceous Fruits," and "Oily +Seeds."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 1.</span>—Asparagus, well boiled, is nutritious and wholesome. Salt is +often added, and sometimes butter. The former, to many, is needless; the +latter, to all, injurious.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 2.</span>—Some of the varieties of the squash are nutritious and +wholesome, especially when boiled. Its use in pies and puddings is also +well known.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 3.</span>—A few varieties of the pumpkin, especially the sweet +pumpkin, are proper for the table. Made into plain sauce, they are +highly valued by most, but they are best known as ingredients of pies +and puddings. A few eat them when merely baked.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 4.</span>—The tomato is fashionable, but a sour apple, if equal pains +were taken with it, and it were equally fashionable, might be equally +useful. It adds, however, to nature's vast variety!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 5.</span>—Watermelons, coming as they do at the end of the hot season, +when eaten with bread, are happily adapted (as most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> other ripe fruits +are, when eaten in the same way, and at their own proper season) to +prevent disease, and promote health and happiness.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 6.</span>—Muskmelons are richer than watermelons, but not more +wholesome. Of the canteloupe I know but little.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 7.</span>—The cucumber. Taken at the moment when ripe—neither green +nor acid—the cucumber is almost, but not quite as valuable as the +melon. It should be eaten in the same way, rejecting the rind. The +Orientals of modern days sometimes boil them, but in former times they +ate them uncooked, though always ripe. Unripe cucumbers are a <i>modern</i> +dish, and will erelong go out of fashion.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 8.</span>—Onions have medicinal properties, but this should be no +recommendation to healthy people. Raw, they are unwholesome; boiled, +they are better; fried, they are positively pernicious.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 9.</span>—Nuts are said to be adapted to man in a state of nature; but +I write for those who are in an artificial state, not a natural state. +Of the chestnut I have spoken elsewhere. The hazelnut is next best, then +perhaps the peanut and the beechnut. The butternut, and walnut or +hickory-nut, are too oily. Nor do I see how they can be improved by +cookery.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 10.</span>—Cabbage, properly boiled, and without condiments, is +tolerable, but rather stringy, and of course rather indigestible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Receipt 11.</span>—Greens and salads are stringy and indigestible. Besides, +they are much used, as condiments are, to excite or provoke an +appetite—a thing usually wrong. A feeble appetite, say at the opening +of the spring, however common, is a great blessing. If let alone, nature +will erelong set to rights those things, which have gone wrong perhaps +all winter; and then appetite will return in a natural way.</p> + +<p>But the worst thing about greens, salads, and some other things, is, +they are eaten with vinegar. Vinegar and all substances, I must again +say, which resist or retard putrefaction, retard also the work of +digestion. It is a universal law, and ought to be known as such, that +whatever tends to preserve our food—except perhaps ice and the +air-pump—tends also to interfere with the great work of digestion. +Hence, all pickling, salting, boiling down, sweetening, etc., are +objectionable. Pereira says, "By drying, salting, smoking, and pickling, +the digestibility of fish is greatly impaired;" and this, except as +regards <i>drying</i>, is but the common doctrine. It should, however, be +applied generally as well as to fish.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Formerly called Graham meal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> I shall use these terms indiscriminately, as they mean in +practice the same thing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Both these processes are patented in Great Britain. The +bread thus retains its sweetness—no waste of its saccharine matter, and +no residuum except muriate of soda or common salt. Sesquicarbonate of +soda is made of three parts or atoms of the carbonic acid, and two of +the soda.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Keep butter and all greasy substances away from every +preparation of food which belongs to this division—especially from +green peas, beans, corn, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Some prepare them, and soak them in water over the night.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> In general, the appetites of the sick are taken away by +design. In such cases there should be none of the usual forms of +indulgence. A little bread—the crust is best—is the most proper +indulgence. If, however, the appetite is raging, as in a convalescent +state it sometimes is, puddings and even gruel may be proper, because +they busy the stomach without giving it any considerable return for its +labor.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> +<h2>Fowler and Wells,</h2> + +<h3>Publishers of Scientific and Popular</h3> + +<h3>STANDARD WORKS,</h3> + +<h4>308 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.</h4> + + +<p>In order to accommodate "The People" residing in all parts of the United +States, the Publishers will forward, by return of the <span class="smcap">first mail</span>, any +book named in this List. The postage will be prepaid by them at the New +York Post-office. By this arrangement of paying postage in advance, +fifty per cent. is saved to the purchaser. The price of each work, +including postage, is given, so that the exact amount may be remitted. +Fractional parts of a dollar may be sent in postage-stamps. All letters +containing orders should be post-paid, and directed as follows: FOWLER +AND WELLS,</p> + +<p class="right">308 <span class="smcap">Broadway, New York</span>.</p> + + + +<h3><i>Works on Phrenology.</i></h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenology Proved, Illustrated and Applied</span>; accompanied by a Chart, +embracing an Analysis of the Primary Mental Powers in their Various +Degrees of Development, the Phenomena produced by their Combined +Activity, and the location of the Phrenological Organs in the Head. +Together with a View of the Moral and Theological Bearing of the +Science. By O. S. and L. N. Fowler. Price, $1 25.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This is a <span class="smcap">Practical, Standard Work</span>, and may be described as a +complete system of the principles and practice of Phrenology. +Besides important remarks on the Temperaments, it contains a +description of all the primary mental powers, in seven +different degrees of development, together with the +combinations of the faculties; in short, we regard this work as +not only the most important of any which has before been +written on the science, but as indispensably necessary to the +student who wishes to acquire a thorough knowledge of +Phrenological Science.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Constitution of Man</span>, Considered in Relation to External Objects. By +George Combe. The only authorized American Edition. With Twenty +Engravings, and a Portrait of the Author. Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 +cents.</p> + +<p>300,000 <span class="smcap">Copies</span> of this great Work have been sold, and the demand still +increases.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The "Constitution of Man" is a work with which every teacher +and every pupil should be acquainted. It contains a perfect +mine of sound wisdom and enlightened philosophy; and a faithful +study of its invaluable lessons would save many a promising +youth from a premature grave.—<i>Journal of Education, Albany, +N. Y.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3><span class="smcap">American Phrenological Journal</span>.</h3> + +<p>A Repository of Science, Literature, and General Intelligence; Devoted +to Phrenology, Physiology, Education, Mechanism, Agriculture, and to all +those Progressive Measures which are calculated to Reform, Elevate, and +Improve Mankind. Illustrated with Numerous Portraits and other +Engravings. Quarto form, suitable for binding. Published Monthly, at One +Dollar a Year.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It may be termed the standard authority in all matters +pertaining to Phrenology, while the beautiful typography of the +Journal, and the superior character of the numerous +illustrations, are not exceeded in any work with which we are +acquainted.—<i>Am. Cour.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Combe's Lectures on Phrenology</span>;</h3> + +<p>Including its application to the present and prospective condition of +the United States. With Notes, an Essay on the Phrenological Mode of +Investigation, and an Historical Sketch. By Andrew Boardman, M.D. +Illustrated. Muslin, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Education Complete</span>. Embracing Physiology Animal and Mental, applied to +the Preservation and Restoration of Health of Body and Power of Mind; +Self Culture and Perfection of Character, including the Management of +Youth; Memory and Intellectual Improvement, applied to Self Education +and Juvenile Instruction. By Fowler. In 1 vol., $2 50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Every one should read it who would preserve or restore his +health, develop his mind and improve his character.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Education</span>: Its Elementary Principles founded on the Nature of Man. By J. +G. Spurzheim, M. D. With an Appendix, containing a Description of the +Temperaments, and an Analysis of the Phrenological Faculties. Price, in +Paper, 62 cents. Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We regard this volume as one of the most important that has +been offered to the public for many years. It is full of sound +doctrines and practical wisdom.—<i>Boston Medical and Surgical +journal.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Marriage</span>: Its History and Philosophy. With a Phrenological and +Physiological Exposition of the Functions and Qualifications necessary +for Happy Marriages. By L. N. Fowler. Illustrated. Paper, 50 cents; +Muslin, 75 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It contains a full account of the marriage forms and ceremonies +of all nations and tribes, from the earliest history down to +the present time. Those who have not yet entered into +matrimonial relations, should read this book, and all may +profit by a perusal.—<i>N. Y. Illustrated Magazine.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Self-culture, and Perfection of Character;</span> including the Education and +Management of Youth, By O. S. Fowler. Price, paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 +cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Self-made, or never made</span>," is the motto. No individual can +read a page of it without being improved thereby. With this +work, in connection with <span class="smcap">Physiology Animal and Mental, and +Memory and Intellectual Improvement</span>, we may become fully +acquainted with ourselves, comprehending, as they do, the whole +man. We advise all to read these works.—<i>Conn. School +Advocate.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenological Bust</span>; designed especially for learners. Showing the Exact +Location of all the Organs of the Brain. Price, including box for +packing, $1 25. [By Express. Not mailable.]</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This is one of the most ingenious inventions of the age. A cast +made of plaster of Paris, the size of the human head, on which +the exact location of each of the phrenological organs is +represented, fully developed, with all the divisions and +classifications. Those who cannot obtain the services of a +professor, may learn in a very short time, from this model +head, the science of Phrenology, so far as the location of the +organs is concerned.—<i>N. Y. Sun.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Memory and Intellectual Improvement</span>; applied to Self-Education and +Juvenile Instruction. By O. S. Fowler.</p> + +<p>Enlarged and Improved. Illustrated. Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The science of Phrenology, now so well established, affords us +important aid in developing the human mind, according to the +laws of our being. This, the work before us is pre-eminently +calculated to promote, and we cordially recommend it to +all.—<i>Dem. Rev.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Self-instructor in Phrenology and Physiology.</span> Illustrated with 100 +Engravings; including a Chart for recording the various Degrees of +Development. By O. S. and L. N. Fowler. Price, paper, 25 cents; muslin, +50 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This treatise is emphatically a book for the million. It +contains an explanation of each faculty, full enough to be +clear, yet so short as not to weary; together with combinations +of the faculties, and engravings to show the organs, large and +small; thereby enabling all persons, with little study, to +become acquainted with practical Phrenology.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Familiar Lessons on Phrenology and Physiology;</span> for Children and Youth. +Two volumes in one. $1 25.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The natural language of each organ is illustrated, and the work +is brought out in a style well adapted to the family circle, as +well as the school-room.—<i>Teachers' Comp'n.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Moral and Intellectual Science</span>; applied to the Elevation of Society. By +Combe, Cox, and others. $2 80.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This work contains Essays on Phrenology, as a department of +physiological science, exhibiting its varied and important +applications to social and moral philosophy, to legislation, +medicine, and the arts. With Portraits of Drs. Gall, Spurzheim, +and Combe.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mental Science</span>. Lectures on the Philosophy of Phrenology. By Rev. G. S. +Weaver. Illustrated. 87 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>These Lectures were prepared for the intellectual, moral, and +social benefit of society. The author has, in this respect, +done a good work for the rising generation.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Defence of Phrenology</span>; containing the Nature and value of Phrenological +Evidence. A work for doubters. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Love and Parentage</span>; applied to the Improvement of Offspring; By O. S. +Fowler. Price 80 cents.</p> + +<p>LOVE AND PARENTAGE, AND AMATIVENESS; in one vol. Muslin, 75 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Domestic Life</span>; or, Marriage Vindicated and Free Love Exposed. By Nelson +Sizer. Price 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenology and the Scriptures</span>; showing their Harmony; An able, though +small, work. By Rev. J. Pierpont. 12 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenological Guide</span>. Designed for Students of their own Characters. With +numerous Engravings. Price 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenological Almanac</span>. Published Annually. With Calendars for all +Latitudes. Profusely Illustrated with Portraits of Distinguished +Persons. Price 6 cents. 25 copies, $1.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Chart, for Recording the Various Phrenological Developments.</span> Illustrated +with Engravings. Designed for the Use of Phrenologists. Price 6 cents. +25 copies, $1.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Symbolical Head and Phrenological Chart, in Map Form</span>, for Framing. +Showing the Natural Language of the Phrenological Organs. Price 25 +cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Works of Gall, Combe, Spurzheim</span>, and others, for sale, wholesale and +retail.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phrenological Specimens</span> for Societies and Private Cabinets. 40 casts; +net, $25.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Portraits for Lecturers</span>, 40 in the set, for $25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Benefits of a Phrenological Examination</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A correct</span> Phrenological examination will teach, with <span class="smcap">scientific +certainty</span>, that most useful of all knowledge—<span class="smcap">yourself</span>; your <span class="smcap">defects</span>, +and how to obviate them; your excellences, and how to make the most of +them; your <span class="smcap">natural talents</span>, and thereby in what spheres and pursuits you +can best succeed; show wherein you are liable to errors and excesses; +direct you <span class="smcap">specifically</span>, what faculties you require especially to +cultivate and restrain; give all needed advice touching +self-improvement, and the preservation and restoration of health; show, +<span class="smcap">throughout</span>, how to <span class="smcap">develop, perfect</span>, and make the <span class="smcap">most possible</span> out of +<span class="smcap">your own self</span>; disclose to parents their children's <span class="smcap">innate capabilities</span>, +natural callings, dispositions, defects, means of improvement, the mode +of government especially adapted to each—it will enable business men to +choose reliable partners and customers; merchants, confidential clerks; +mechanics, apprentices having natural <span class="smcap">gifts</span> adapted to particular +branches; ship-masters, good crews; the friendly, desirable associates; +guide matrimonial candidates in selecting <span class="smcap">congenial</span> life-companions, +especially adapted to each other; show the married what in each other to +allow for and conciliate; and can be made the <span class="smcap">very</span> best instrumentality +for <span class="smcap">personal development, improvement, and happiness</span>.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">FOWLER AND WELLS, Phrenologists,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">308 <span class="smcap">Broadway, New York</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p><i>Books sent prepaid by First Mail to any Post Office in the United +States.</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WORKS ON WATER CURE,</h2> + +<h4>PUBLISHED BY</h4> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Fowler and Wells</span>,</h3> + +<h4>308 Broadway, New York.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>If the people can be thoroughly indoctrinated in the general +principles of <span class="smcap">Hydropathy</span>, and make themselves acquainted with +the <span class="smcap">Laws of Life and Health</span>, they will well-nigh emancipate +themselves from all need of doctors of any sort—<span class="smcap">Dr. Trall</span>.</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hydropathic Encyclopædia</span>: A System of Hydropathy and Hygiene. Containing +Outlines of Anatomy; Physiology of the Human Body; Hygienic Agencies, +and the Preservation of Health; Dietetics, and Hydropathic Cookery; +Theory and Practice of Water Treatment; Special Pathology, and +Hydro-Therapeutics, including the Nature, Causes, Symptoms, and +Treatment of all known Diseases; Application of Hydropathy to Midwifery +and the Nursery. Designed as a Guide to Families and Students, and a +Text-Book for Physicians. By R. T. Trall, M.D. Illustrated with upwards +of Three Hundred Engravings and Colored Plates. Substantially bound, in +one large volume. Price for either edition, prepaid by mail, $3 00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This is the most comprehensive and popular work on Hydropathy, +with nearly one thousand pages. Of all the numerous +publications which have attained such a wide popularity, as +issued by Fowlers & Wells, perhaps none are more adapted to +general utility than this rich, comprehensive, and +well-arranged Encyclopædia.—<i>N. Y. Tribune.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hydropathic Family Physician</span>. A Ready Prescriber and Hygienic Adviser, +with reference to the Nature, Causes, Prevention and Treatment of +Diseases, Accidents, and Casualties of every kind; with a Glossary, +Table of Contents, and Index. Illustrated with nearly Three Hundred +Engravings. By Joel Shew, M.D. One large volume of 820 pages, +substantially bound, in library style. Price, with postage prepaid by +mail, $2 50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It possesses the most practical utility of any of the author's +contributions to popular medicine, and is well adapted to give +the reader an accurate idea of the organization and functions +of the human frame.—<i>New York Tribune.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Domestic Practice of Hydropathy</span>, with fifteen Engraved Illustrations of +Important Subjects, with a Form of a Report for the Assistance of +Patients in consulting their Physicians by Correspondence. By Ed. +Johnson, M.D. Muslin, $1 50.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hydropathy</span>; or, the Water-cure. Its Principles, Processes, and Modes of +Treatment. In part from the most Eminent Authors, Ancient and Modern. +Together with an Account of the Latest Methods of Priessnitz. Numerous +Cases, with Treatment described By Dr. Shew. $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Chronic Diseases</span>. An Exposition of the Causes, Progress, and Termination +of various Chronic Diseases of the Digestive Organs, Lungs, Nerves, +Limbs, and Skin, and of their Treatment by Water and other Hygienic +Means. By James M. Gully, M.D. Illustrated. Muslin, $1 50.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Home Treatment for Sexual Abuses.</span> A Practical Treatise for both Sexes, +on the Nature and Causes of Excessive and Unnatural Indulgences, the +Disease and Injuries resulting therefrom, with their Symptoms and +Hydropathic Management. By Dr. Trall. 30 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Children; Their Hydropathic Management in Health and Disease.</span> A +Descriptive and Practical Work, designed as a Guide for Families and +Physicians. With numerous cases described. By Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo., 432 +pp. Muslin, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Midwifery, and the Diseases of Women. </span> A Descriptive and Practical Work, +showing the Superiority of Water Treatment in Menstruation and its +Disorders, Chlorosis, Leucorrhœa, Fluor Albus, Prolapsus Uteri, +Hysteria, Spinal Diseases, and other Weaknesses of Females in Pregnancy +and its Diseases, Abortion, Uterine Hemorrhage and the General +Management of Childbirth, Nursing, etc., etc. Illustrated with Numerous +Cases of Treatment. By Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo. 432 pp. Muslin, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Cook Book, New Hydropathic</span>, By R. T. Trall, M. D. A System of Cookery on +Hydropathic Principles, containing an Exposition of the True Relations +of all Alimentary Substances to Health, with Plain Recipes for preparing +all Appropriate Dishes for Hydropathic Establishments, Vegetarian +Boarding-houses, Private Families, etc., etc. It is the Cook's Complete +Guide for all who "eat to live." Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 +cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Consumption; Its Prevention and Cure by the Water Treatment.</span> With Advice +concerning Hemorrhage of the Lungs, Coughs, Colds, Asthma, Bronchitis, +and Sore Throat. By Dr. Shew. Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-cure Applied To Every Known Disease.</span> A New Theory. A Complete +Demonstration of the Advantages of the Hydropathic System of Curing +Diseases; showing also the fallacy of the Allopathic Method, and its +Utter Inability to Effect a Permanent Cure. With an Appendix, containing +Hydropathic Diet, and Rules for Bathing. By J. H. Rausse. Translated +from the German. Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-cure Almanac</span>. Published Annually, containing Important and +Valuable Hydropathic Matter. 48 pp. 6 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Philosophy of Water-cure</span>. A Development of the True Principles of Health +and Longevity. By John Balbirnie, M.D. With a Letter from Sir Edward +Lytton Bulwer. Paper. Price, 80 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-cure Journal and Herald of Reforms. </span> Devoted to Physiology, +Hydropathy, and the Laws of Life and Health. Illustrated Engravings. +Quarto. Monthly, at $1 00 a year.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We know of no American periodical which presents a greater +abundance of valuable information on all subjects relating to +human progress and welfare.—<i>N. Y. Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>This is, unquestionably, the most popular Health Journal in the +world.—<i>N. Y. Eve. Post.</i></p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Results of Hydropathy; Or, Constipation</span> not a Disease of the Bowels; +Indigestion not a Disease of the Stomach; with an Exposition of the true +Nature and Causes of these Ailments, explaining the reason why they are +so certainly cured by the Hydropathic Treatment. By Edward Johnson, M.D. +Muslin. Price, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-Cure Library</span>. In Seven Volumes, 12mo Embracing the most popular +works on the subject. By American and European Authors. Bound in +Embossed Muslin. Price, only $7 00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This library comprises most of the important works on the +subject of Hydropathy. The volumes are of uniform size and +binding, and form a most valuable medical library.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water and Vegetable Diet</span> in Consumption, Scrofula, Cancer, Asthma, and +other Chronic Diseases. In which the Advantages of Pure Water are +particularly considered. By William Lambe, M.D., With Notes and +Additions by Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo., 258 pp. Paper, 62 cents. Muslin, 87 +cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Accidents and Emergencies</span>: A Guide, containing Directions for Treatment +in Bleeding, Cuts, Bruises, Sprains, Broken Bones, Dislocations, Railway +and Steamboat Accidents, Burns and Scalds, Bites of Mad Dogs, Cholera, +Injured Eyes, Choking, Poison, Fits, Sunstroke, Lightning, Drowning, +etc., etc. By Alfred Smee, F.R.S. Illustrated with numerous Engravings. +Appendix by Dr. Trall. Price, prepaid, 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Parents' Guide for the Transmission</span> of the Desired Qualities to +Offspring; and Childbirth made Easy. By Mrs. Hester Pendleton. Price, 60 +cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pregnancy and Childbirth</span>. Illustrated with Cases, Showing the Remarkable +Effects of Water in Mitigating the Pains and Perils of the Parturient +State. By Dr. Shew. Paper. Price, 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Introduction To the Water-cure</span>. Founded in Nature, and adapted to the +Wants of Man. Price, 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sexual Diseases</span>; their Causes, Prevention, and Cure, on Physiological +Principles. Embracing Home Treatment for Sexual Abuses; Chronic +Diseases, especially the Nervous Diseases of Women; The Philosophy of +Generation; Amativeness; Hints on the Reproductive Organs. In one +volume. Price, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Science of Human Life</span>. By Sylvester Graham, M.D. With a Portrait and +Biography of the Author. $2 50.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Curiosities of Common Water</span>; or, the Advantages thereof in preventing +and curing Diseases; gathered from the Writings of several Eminent +Physicians, and also from more than Forty Years' Experience. By John +Smith, C.M. With Additions, by Dr. Shew. 80 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Practice of Water-cure</span>. With Authenticated Evidence of its Efficacy and +Safety. Containing a detailed account of the various processes used in +the Water-Treatment, etc. By James Wilson, M. D., and James M. Gully, M. +D. 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Experience in Water-cure</span>. A Familiar Exposition of the Principles and +Results of Water-Treatment in Acute and Chronic Diseases; an Explanation +of Water-Cure Processes; Advice on Diet and Regimen and Particular +Directions to Women in the Treatment of Female Diseases, Water-Treatment +in Childbirth, and the Diseases of Infancy. Illustrated by Numerous +Cases. By Mrs. Nichols. Price, 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Water-cure Manual</span>. A Popular Work, 12mo. Embracing descriptions of the +various Modes of Bathing, the Hygienic and Curative Effects of Air, +Exercises, Clothing, Occupation, Diet, Water-Drinking, etc. Together +with Descriptions of Diseases, and the Hydropathic Remedies. By Joel +Shew, M. D. Muslin. Price, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Chronic Diseases</span>: Especially the Nervous Diseases of Woman. By D. Rosch. +Translated from the German. 30 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Alcoholic Controversy</span>. A Review of the <i>Westminster Review</i> on the +Physiological Errors of Teetotalism. By Dr. Trall. Price, 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Digestion, Physiology of</span>, Considered in Relation to the Principles of +Dietetics. By G. Combe. Illustrated, 30 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Fruits and Farinacea the Proper Foods of Man.</span> With Notes by Dr. Trall. +Illustrated by numerous Engravings. $1 00.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Vegetable Diet</span>: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in all +Ages. Including a System of Vegetable Cookery. By Dr. Alcott. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Syringes</span>.—We keep constantly for sale, at wholesale or retail, +an assortment of the best Syringes, embracing a variety of +styles, at different prices. The practical value of these +instruments is becoming understood, and no family who have +proper regard for health will be without one. We furnish with +each instrument an <span class="smcap">Illustrated Manual</span> of instructions, prepared +by <span class="smcap">Dr. Trall</span>, giving complete directions for its use. The +prices of the best syringes, sent by mail, postage prepaid, are +from $3 50 to $4 00.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>FOWLER AND WELLS have all works on <span class="smcap">Physiology, Hydropathy, Phrenology</span>, +and the Natural Sciences generally. Booksellers supplied on the most +liberal terms. <span class="smcap">Agents</span> wanted in every State, county, and town. These +works are universally popular, and thousands might be sold where they +have never yet been introduced. Letters and other communications should, +in <span class="smcap">all cases</span>, be post paid, and directed to the Publishers, as follows: +FOWLER AND WELLS, 308 Broadway, N. Y.</p> + + +<p><i>Books sent by first Mail to any Post-Office in the United States</i>.</p> + + +<h3>WORKS ON PHYSIOLOGY,</h3> + +<h4>PUBLISHED BY</h4> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Fowler and Wells</span>,</h3> + +<h4>308 Broadway, New York.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Complete Gymnasium</span>. A profusely illustrated work. Being the +application of Gymnastic, Calisthenic, Kinesipathic, and Vocal Exercises +to the Development of Body and Mind, and the Cure of Disease. By R. T. +Trall, M.D. Price, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hereditary Descent</span>: its Laws and Facts applied to Human Improvement. By +O. S. Fowler. Price, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Food and Diet</span>; with Observations on the Dietetic Regimen suited to +Disordered States of the Digestive Organs; and an Account of the +Dietaries of some of the Principal Metropolitan and other Establishments +for Paupers, Lunatics, Criminals, Children, the Sick, &c. By J. Pereira, +M.D., F.R.S. Octavo. Muslin. Price, $1 25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Combe's Physiology</span>, applied to the Preservation of Health, and to the +Improvement of Physical and Mental Education. By Andrew Combe, M.D. With +Notes and Observations by O. S. Fowler. 87 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Maternity</span>; or, the Bearing and Nursing of Children, including Female +Education. By O. S. Fowler. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Combe on Infancy</span>; or, the Physiological and Moral Management of +Children. By Andrew Combe, M.D. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Physiology, Animal and Mental</span>, applied to the Preservation and +Restoration of Health of Body and Power of Mind. By O. S. Fowler. +Illustrated with Engravings. Price 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Amativeness</span>: or, Evils and Remedies of Excessive and Perverted +Sexuality, including Warning and Advice to the Married and Single. An +important little work. 15 cents—REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS: their Diseases, +Causes, and Cure on Hydropathic Principles. 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Uterine Diseases</span>: or, the Displacement of the Uterus. A thorough and +practical treatise on the Malpositions of the Uterus and adjacent +Organs. Illustrated with Colored Engravings from Original Designs. By R. +T. Trall, M.D. Price, $5 00.</p> + + +<h3><i>Miscellaneous.</i></h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">How To Write</span>: a New Pocket Manual of Composition and Letter-Writing, +embracing Hints on Penmanship and choice of Writing Materials, Practical +Rules for Literary Composition in general, and Epistolary and Newspaper +Writing, Punctuation, and Proof Correcting in particular; Directions for +Writing Letters of Business, Relationship, Friendship and Love, +Illustrated with numerous Examples of Genuine Epistles from the pens of +the Best Writers, to which are added Forms for Letters of Introduction, +Notes, Cards, &c. Paper, 30 cents; muslin, 50 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">How To Talk</span>: a New Pocket Manual of Conversation and Debate, with +Directions for Acquiring a Grammatical and Graceful Style, embracing the +Origin of Language, a Condensed History of the English Language, a +Practical Exposition of the Parts of Speech, and their Modifications and +Arrangement in Sentences; Hints on Pronunciation, the Art of +Conversation, Debating, Reading and Books, with more than Five Hundred +Errors in Speaking Corrected. Paper, 30 cents; muslin, 50 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">How To Behave</span>: a New Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, and Guide to +Correct Personal Habits; embracing an Exposition of the Principles of +Good Manners, Useful Hints on the Care of the Person, Eating, Drinking, +Exercise, Habits, Dress, Self-Culture, and Behavior at Home; the +Etiquette of Salutations, Introductions, Receptions, Visits, Dinners, +Evening Parties, Conversation, Letters, Presents, Weddings, Funerals, +the Street, the Church, Places of Amusement, Traveling, &c; with +Illustrative Anecdotes, a Chapter on Love and Courtship, and Rules of +Order for Debating Societies. Paper, 30 cents; muslin, 50 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">How to do Business</span>: a New Pocket Manual of Practical Affairs and Guide +to Success in Life; embracing the Principle of Business; Advice in +Reference to a Business Education; Choice of a Pursuit, Buying and +Selling, General Management, Manufacturing, Mechanical Trades, Farming, +Book and Newspaper Publishing, Miscellaneous Enterprises, Causes of +Success and Failure, How to Get Customers, Business Maxims, Letter to a +Young Lawyer, Business Forms, Legal and Useful Information, and a +Dictionary of Commercial Terms. Paper, 30 cents; muslin, 50 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hand Books for Home Improvement</span> (Educational); comprising, "How to +Write," "How to Talk," "How to Behave," and "How to Do Business," in one +large gilt volume. Price, $1 50.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hopes and Helps for the Young</span> of both Sexes; Relating to the Formation +of Character, Choice of Avocation; Health, Amusement, Music, +Conversation, Cultivation of Intellect, Moral Sentiments, Social +Affection, Courtship and Marriage. By Rev. G. S. Weaver. Price, in +paper, 62 cents; muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hints Towards Reforms</span>; consisting of Lectures, Essays, Addresses, and +other Writings. With the Crystal Palace and its Lessons. Second Edition, +Enlarged. By Horace Greeley. Price, $1.25.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Human Rights, and Their Political</span> guarantees. By Hurlbut. With Notes, by +Combe. Paper, 62 cts.; muslin, 87 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Natural Laws of Man. A Philosophical Catechism. By J. G. Spurzheim, M. +D. An important work. 80 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Home for All</span>. A New, Cheap, Convenient and Superior Mode of Building; +containing Full Directions for Constructing Gravel Walls. With Views, +Plans and Engraved Illustrations. Price, 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Demands of the Age on Colleges</span>. A Speech Delivered by Hon. Horace Mann, +President of Antioch College. With an Address to the Students on College +Honor. Price, 25 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women,</span> on the various duties of life, +including Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Development; Self-Culture +Improvement, Education, the Home Relations, their Duties to Young Men, +Marriage, Womanhood, and Happiness. By Rev. G. S. Weaver. Paper, 62 +cts.; muslin, 87 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Science of Swimming</span>. Giving a History of Swimming, and Instructions to +Learners. By an Experienced Swimmer. Illustrated with Engravings. 15 +cents. Every boy should have a copy.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ways of Life</span>: or, the Right Way and the Wrong Way. A First Rate Book for +all Young People. By Rev. G. S. Weaver. Paper, 50 cts.; muslin, 60 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Delia's Doctors</span>: or, a Glance Behind the Scenes. By Hannah Gardner +Creamer. Paper, price 62 cents; muslin 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Immortality Triumphant</span>. The Existence of a God and Human Immortality, +Practically Considered, and the Truth of Divine Revelation +Substantiated. By Rev. John Bovee Dods. Muslin, 87 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kansas Region</span>: Embracing Descriptions of Scenery, Climate, Productions, +Soil, and Resources of the Territory. Interspersed with Incidents of +Travel. By Max Greene. Price 80 cts; mus. 50 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Chemistry, and Its Applications</span> to Agriculture and Commerce. By Justus +Liebig, M. D., F. R. S. Price 25 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Botany for All Classes</span>. Containing a Floral Dictionary, and a Glossary +of Scientific Terms. Illustrated. 87 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Population, Theory of</span>. Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility. +Introduction by Dr. Trall. 15 cents.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Life Illustrated</span>: A First-Class Pictorial Weekly Family Paper. Devoted +to Entertainment, Improvement, and Progress. To illustrate Life in all +its phases, to point out all legitimate means of Economy and Profit, and +to encourage a spirit of Hope, Activity, Self-Reliance and Manliness +among the People are some of the objects of this Journal. Published +Weekly, at $2 a year. Half a year, $1.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tobacco</span>. Three Prize Essays. By Drs. Shaw, Trall, and Baldwin. Price, 15 +cents.—TOBACCO: its History, Nature, and Effects on Body and Mind. 30 +cents.—USE OF TOBACCO; its Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Effects. +By Dr. Alcott. 15 cents.—SOBER AND TEMPERATE LIFE; the Discourses and +Letters of Louis Cornaro. With a Biography of the Author. With Notes and +an Appendix. 30 cents. Twenty-five thousand copies have been sold. It is +translated into several languages.—TEA AND COFFEE; their Physical, +Intellectual, and Moral Effects on the Human System. By Dr. W. Alcott. +15 cents.—TEETH; their Structure, Disease and Treatment. With numerous +Illustrations. By John Burdell. Price, 15 cts.</p> + + +<h3><i>Mesmerism and Psychology.</i></h3> + +<p>A NEW AND COMPLETE LIBRARY OF MESMERISM AND PSYCHOLOGY, embracing the +most popular works on the subject, with suitable Illustrations. In two +volumes of about 900 pp. Price, $3 00.</p> + +<p>ELECTRICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Physiology of. In a Course of Twelve Lectures. By +John Bovee Dods. Muslin. Price, 87 cents.</p> + +<p>MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM; or, the Universe Without and the Universe With +in; in the World of Sense, and the World of Soul. By Wm. Fishbough. +Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents.</p> + +<p>FASCINATION; or, the Philosophy of Charming. Illustrating the Principles +of Life, in connection with Spirit and Matter. By J. B. Newman, M. D. 87 +cents.</p> + +<p>PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM. Six Lectures. With an Introduction. By Rev. +John Bovee Dods. Paper. Price, 30 cents.</p> + +<p>PSYCHOLOGY; or, the Science of the Soul. Considered Physiologically and +Philosophically. With an Appendix containing Notes of Mesmeric and +Psychical Experience. By Joseph Haddock, M.D. 30 cts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class="smcap">These</span> works may be ordered in large or small quantities. A liberal +discount will be made to <span class="smcap">Agents</span>, and others, who buy to sell again. They +may be sent by Express, or as Freight, by Railroad, Steamships, Sailing +Vessels, by Stage, or Canal, to any City, Town, or Village, in the +United States, the Canadas, to Europe, or any place on the Globe. Checks +or drafts, for large amounts, on New York, Philadelphia, or Boston, +always preferred. We pay cost of exchange. All letters should be post +paid, and addressed as follows:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>: }FOWLER AND WELLS, {<span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">143 Washington St.} 308 Broadway, New York. { 922 Chestnut St.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by +Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages, by William Andrus Alcott + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VEGETABLE DIET *** + +***** This file should be named 30478-h.htm or 30478-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/4/7/30478/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages + +Author: William Andrus Alcott + +Release Date: November 15, 2009 [EBook #30478] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VEGETABLE DIET *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + +VEGETABLE DIET: + +AS SANCTIONED BY + +MEDICAL MEN, + +AND BY + +EXPERIENCE IN ALL AGES. + +INCLUDING A + +SYSTEM OF VEGETABLE COOKERY. + +BY DR. WM. A. ALCOTT, + +AUTHOR OF THE YOUNG MAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG WOMAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG MOTHER, +YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER, AND LATE EDITOR OF THE LIBRARY OF HEALTH. + +SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. + +NEW YORK: +FOWLER AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS, +No. 308 BROADWAY +1859. + +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, +BY FOWLERS & WELLS, +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of +New York. + +BANES & PALMER, STEREOTYPERS, +201 William st. corner Frankfort, N. Y. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The following volume embraces the testimony, direct or indirect, of more +than a HUNDRED individuals--besides that of societies and +communities--on the subject of vegetable diet. Most of this one hundred +persons are, or were, persons of considerable distinction in society; +and more than FIFTY of them were either medical men, or such as have +made physiology, hygiene, anatomy, pathology, medicine, or surgery a +leading or favorite study. + +As I have written other works besides this--especially the "Young +House-Keeper"--which treat, more or less, of diet, it may possibly be +objected, that I sometimes repeat the same idea. But how is it to be +avoided? In writing for various classes of the community, and presenting +my views in various connections and aspects, it is almost necessary to +do so. Writers on theology, or education, or any other important topic, +do the same--probably to a far greater extent, in many instances, than I +have yet done. I repeat no idea for the _sake_ of repeating it. Not a +word is inserted but what seems to me necessary, in order that I may be +intelligible. Moreover, like the preacher of truth on many other +subjects, it is not so much my object to produce something new in every +paragraph, as to explain, illustrate, and enforce what is already known. + +It may also be thought that I make too many books. But, as I do not +claim to be so much an originator of _new_ things as an instrument for +diffusing the _old_, it will not be expected that I should be twenty +years on a volume, like Bishop Butler. I had, however, been collecting +my stock of materials for this and other works--published or +unpublished--more than twenty-five years. Besides, it might be safely +and truly said that the study and reading and writing, in the +preparation of this volume, the "House I Live In," and the "Young +House-Keeper," have consumed at least three of the best years of my +life, at fourteen or fifteen hours a day. Several of my other works, as +the "Young Mother," the "Mother's Medical Guide," and the "Young Wife," +have also been the fruit of years of toil and investigation and +observation, of which those who think only of the labor of merely +_writing them out_, know nothing. Even the "Mother in her Family"--at +least some parts of it--though in general a lighter work, has been the +result of much care and labor. The circumstance of publishing several +books at the same, or nearly the same time, has little or nothing to do +with their preparation. + +When I commenced putting together the materials of this little treatise +on diet--thirteen years ago--it was my intention simply to show the +SAFETY of a vegetable and fruit diet, both for those who are afflicted +with many forms of chronic disease, and for the healthy. But I soon +became convinced that I ought to go farther, and show its SUPERIORITY +over every other. This I have attempted to do--with what success, the +reader must and will judge for himself. + +I have said, it was not my original intention to prove a vegetable and +fruit diet to be any thing more than _safe_. But I wish not to be +understood as entertaining, even at that time, any doubts in regard to +the superiority of such a diet: the only questions with me were, Whether +the public mind was ready to hear and weigh the proofs, and whether this +volume was the place in which to present them. Both these questions, +however, as I went on, were settled, in the affirmative. I believed--and +still believe--that the public mind, in this country, is prepared for +the free discussion of all topics--provided they are discussed +candidly--which have a manifest bearing on the well-being of man; and I +have governed myself accordingly. + +An apology may be necessary for retaining, unexplained, a few medical +terms. But I did not feel at liberty to change them, in the +correspondence of Dr. North, for more popular language; and, having +retained them thus far, it did not seem desirable to explain them +elsewhere. Nor was I willing to deface the pages of the work with +explanatory notes. The fact is, the technical terms alluded to, are, +after all, very few in number, and may be generally understood by the +connection in which they appear. + + THE AUTHOR. + WEST NEWTON Mass. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + +TO THE SECOND EDITION. + + +The great question in regard to diet, viz., whether any food of the +animal kind is absolutely necessary to the most full and perfect +development of man's whole nature, being fairly up, both in Europe and +America, and there being no practical, matter-of-fact volume on the +subject, of moderate size, in the market, numerous friends have been for +some time urging me to get up a new and revised edition of a work which, +though imperfect, has been useful to many, while it has been for some +time out of print. Such an edition I have at length found time to +prepare--to which I have added, in various ways, especially in the form +of new facts, nearly fifty pages of new and original matter. + + WEST NEWTON, Mass., 1849. + + + + +CONTENTS + Page + +CHAPTER I. + +ORIGIN OF THIS WORK. + + Experience of the Author, and his Studies.--Pamphlet in + 1832.--Prize-Question of the Boylston Medical + Committee.--Collection of Materials for an Essay.--Dr. + North.--His Letter and Questions.--Results, 13-20 + + +CHAPTER II. + +LETTERS TO DR. NORTH. + + Letter of Dr. Parmly.--Dr. W. A. Alcott.--Dr. D. S. + Wright.--Dr. H. N. Preston.--Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. Caleb + Bannister.--Dr. Lyman Tenny.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Joseph + Ricketson, Esq.--Joseph Congdon, Esq.--George W. Baker, + Esq.--John Howland, Jr., Esq.--Dr. Wm. H. Webster.--Josiah + Bennet, Esq.--Wm. Vincent, Esq.--Dr. George H. Perry.--Dr. L. + W. Sherman, 21-55 + + +CHAPTER III. + +REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS. + + Correspondence.--The "prescribed course of Regimen."--How many + victims to it?--Not one.--Case of Dr. Harden considered.--Case + of Dr. Preston.--Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the + treatment of Scrofula.--No reports of Injury from the + prescribed System.--Case of Dr. Bannister.--Singular testimony + of Dr. Wright.--Vegetable food for Laborers.--Testimony, on the + whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could + reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances 56-66 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE. + + Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Dr. J. + Porter.--Dr. N. J. Knight.--Dr. Lester Keep.--Second letter + from Dr. Keep.--Dr. Henry H. Brown.--Dr. Franklin Knox.--From a + Physician.--Additional statements by the Author. 66-91 + + +CHAPTER V. + +TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.--Dr. + Geoffroy.--Vauquelin and Percy.--Dr. Pemberton.--Sir John + Sinclair.--Dr. James.--Dr. Cranstoun.--Dr. Taylor.--Drs. + Hufeland and Abernethy.--Sir Gilbert Blane.--Dr. Gregory.--Dr. + Cullen.--Dr. Rush.--Dr. Lambe.--Prof. Lawrence.--Dr. + Salgues.--Author of "Sure Methods."--Baron Cuvier.--Dr. Luther + V. Bell.--Dr. Buchan.--Dr. Whitlaw.--Dr. Clark.--Prof. + Mussey.--Drs. Bell and Condie.--Dr. J. V. C. Smith.--Mr. + Graham.--Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.--Dr. Sweetser.--Dr. + Pierson.--Physician in New York.--Females' Encyclopedia.--Dr. + Van Cooth.--Dr. Beaumont.--Sir Everard Home.--Dr. + Jennings.--Dr. Jarvis.--Dr. Ticknor.--Dr. Coles.--Dr. + Shew.--Dr. Morrill.--Dr. Bell.--Dr. Jackson.--Dr. + Stephenson.--Dr. J. Burdell.--Dr. Smethurst.--Dr. + Schlemmer.--Dr. Curtis.--Dr. Porter, 92-175 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of + Plautus.--Plutarch.--Porphyry.--Lord Bacon.--Sir William + Temple.--Cicero.--Cyrus the Great.--Gassendi.--Prof. + Hitchcock.--Lord Kaims.--Dr. Thomas Dick.--Prof. Bush.--Thomas + Shillitoe.--Alexander Pope.--Sir Richard Phillips.--Sir Isaac + Newton.--The Abbe Gallani.--Homer.--Dr. Franklin.--Mr. + Newton.--O. S. Fowler.--Rev. Mr. Johnston.--John H. + Chandler.--Rev. J. Caswell.--Mr. Chinn.--Father + Sewall.--Magliabecchi.--Oberlin and Swartz.--James + Haughton.--John Bailies.--Francis Hupazoli.--Prof. + Ferguson.--Howard, the Philanthropist.--Gen. + Elliot.--Encyclopedia Americana.--Thomas Bell, of + London.--Linnaeus, the Naturalist.--Shelley, the Poet.--Rev. + Mr. Rich.--Rev. John Wesley.--Lamartine, 176-222 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM. + + The Pythagoreans.--The Essenes.--The Bramins.--Society of Bible + Christians.--Orphan Asylum of Albany.--The Mexican + Indians.--School in Germany.--American Physiological + Society, 223-235 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED. + + General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument.--1. The + Anatomical Argument.--2. The Physiological Argument.--3. The + Medical Argument.--4. The Political Argument.--5. The + Economical Argument.--6. The Argument from Experience.--7. The + Moral Argument.--Conclusion, 236-296 + + * * * * * + +VEGETABLE COOKERY. + + +CLASS I. + +FARINACEOUS OR MEALY SUBSTANCES. + + Bread of the first order.--Bread of the second order.--Bread of + the third kind.--Boiled Grains.--Grains in other forms--baked, + parched, roasted, or torrefied.--Hominy.--Puddings proper, + 291-308 + + +CLASS II. + +FRUITS. + + The large fruits--Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc.--The smaller + fruits--Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, Currant, Whortleberry, + Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc., 308-309 + + +CLASS III. + +ROOTS. + + The Common Potato.--The Sweet Potato, 309-311 + + +CLASS IV. + +MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD. + + Buds and Young Shoots.--Leaves and Leaf Stalks.--Cucurbitaceous + Fruits.--Oily Seeds, etc., 311-312 + + + + +VEGETABLE DIET. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +ORIGIN OF THIS WORK. + + Experience of the Author, and his Studies.--Pamphlet in + 1832.--Prize Question of the Boylston Medical + Committee.--Collection of Materials for an Essay.--Dr. + North.--His Letter and Questions.--Results. + + +Twenty-three years ago, the present season, I was in the first stage of +tuberculous consumption, and evidently advancing rapidly to the second. +The most judicious physicians were consulted, and their advice at length +followed. I commenced the practice of medicine, traveling chiefly on +horseback; and, though unable to do but little at first, I soon gained +strength enough to perform a moderate business, and to combine with it a +little gardening and farming. At the time, or nearly at the time, of +commencing the practice of medicine, I laid aside my feather bed, and +slept on straw; and in December, of the same year, I abandoned spirits, +and most kinds of stimulating food. It was not, however, until nineteen +years ago, the present season, that I abandoned all drinks but water, +and all flesh, fish, and other highly stimulating and concentrated +aliments, and confined myself to a diet of milk, fruits, and +vegetables. + +In the meantime, the duties of my profession, and the nature of my +studies led me to prosecute, more diligently than ever, a subject which +I had been studying, more or less, from my very childhood--the laws of +Human Health. Among other things, I collected facts on this subject from +books which came in my way; so that when I went to Boston, in January, +1832, I had already obtained, from various writers, on materia medica, +physiology, disease, and dietetics, quite a large parcel. The results of +my reflections on these, and of my own observation and experience, were, +in part--but in part only--developed in July, of the same year, in an +anonymous pamphlet, entitled, "Rational View of the Spasmodic Cholera;" +published by Messrs. Clapp & Hull, of Boston. + +In the summer of 1833, the Boylston Medical Committee of Harvard +University offered a prize of fifty dollars, or a gold medal of that +value, to the author of the best dissertation on the following question: +"What diet can be selected which will ensure the greatest health and +strength to the laborer in the climate of New England--quality and +quantity, and the time and manner of taking it, to be considered?" + +At first, I had thoughts of attempting an essay on the subject; for it +seemed to me an important one. Circumstances, however, did not permit me +to prosecute the undertaking; though I was excited by the question of +the Boylston Medical Committee to renewed efforts to increase my stock +of information and of facts. + +In 1834, I accidentally learned that Dr. Milo L. North, a distinguished +practitioner of medicine in Hartford, Connecticut, was pursuing a course +of inquiry not unlike my own, and collecting facts and materials for a +similar purpose. In correspondence with Dr. North, a proposition was +made to unite our stock of materials; but nothing for the present was +actually done. However, I agreed to furnish Dr. North with a statement +of my own experience, and such other important facts as came within the +range of my own observations; and a statement of my experience was +subsequently intrusted to his care, as will be seen in its place, in the +body of this work. + +In February, 1835, Dr. North, in the prosecution of his efforts, +addressed the following circular, or LETTER and QUESTIONS, to the editor +of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, which were accordingly +inserted in a subsequent number of that work. They were also published +in the American Journal of Medical Science, of Philadelphia, and copied +into numerous papers, so that they were pretty generally circulated +throughout our country. + + +"To the Editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. + +"SIR,--Reports not unfrequently reach us of certain individuals who have +fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. Those persons are +said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest confidence, to have +pertinaciously followed the course, till they reached a point of +reduction from which there was no recovery. If these are facts, they +ought to be collected and published. And I beg leave, through your +Journal, to request my medical brethren, if they have been called to +advise in such cases, that they will have the kindness to answer, +briefly, the following interrogatories, by mail, as early as convenient. + +"Should the substance of their replies ever be embodied in a small +volume, they will not only receive a copy and the thanks of the author, +but will have the pleasure to know they are assisting in the settlement +of a question of great interest to the country. If it should appear +probable that their patient was laboring under a decline at the +commencement of the change of diet, this ought, in candor, to be fully +disclosed. + +"It will be perceived, by the tenor of the questions, that they are +designed to embrace not only unfortunate results of a change of diet, +but such as are favorable. There are, in our community, considerable +numbers who have entirely excluded animal food from their diet. It is +exceedingly desirable that the results of such experiments, so difficult +to be found in this land of plenty, should be ascertained and thrown +before the profession and the community. Will physicians, then, have the +kindness, if they know of any persons in their vicinity who have +excluded animal food from their diet for a year or over, to lend them +this number of the Journal, and ask them to forward to Milo L. North, +Hartford, Connecticut, as early as convenient, the result of this change +of diet on their health and constitution, in accordance with the +following inquiries? + +"1. Was your bodily strength either increased or diminished by excluding +all animal food from your diet? + +"2. Were the animal sensations, connected with the process of digestion, +more--or less agreeable? + +"3. Was the mind clearer; and could it continue a laborious +investigation longer than when you subsisted on mixed diet? + +"4. What constitutional infirmities were aggravated or removed? + +"5. Had you fewer colds or other febrile attacks--or the reverse? + +"6. What length of time, the trial? + +"7. Was the change to a vegetable diet, in your case, preceded by the +use of an uncommon proportion of animal food, or of high seasoning, or +of stimulants? + +"8. Was this change accompanied by a substitution of cold water for tea +and coffee, during the experiment? + +"9. Is a vegetable diet more--or less aperient than mixed? + +"10. Do you believe, from your experience, that the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet? + +"11. Have you selected, from your own observation, any articles in the +vegetable kingdom, as particularly healthy, or otherwise? + +"N.B.--Short answers to these inquiries are all that is necessary; and +as a copy of the latter is retained by the writer, it will be sufficient +to refer to them numerically, without the trouble of transcribing each +question. + + "HARTFORD, February 25, 1835." + +This circular, or letter, drew forth numerous replies from various parts +of the United States, and chiefly from medical men. In the meantime, the +prize of the Boylston Medical Committee was awarded to Luther V. Bell, +M.D., of Derry, New Hampshire, and was published in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal, and elsewhere, and read with considerable +interest. + +In the year 1836, while many were waiting--some with a degree of +impatience--to hear from Dr. North, his health so far failed him, that +he concluded to relinquish, for the present, his inquiries; and, at his +particular request, I consented to have the following card inserted in +the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: + + "DR. NORTH, of Hartford, Connecticut, tenders his grateful + acknowledgments to the numerous individuals, who were so kind + as to forward to him a statement of the effects of vegetable + diet on their own persons, in reply to some specific inquiries + inserted in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of March + 11, 1835, and in the Philadelphia Journal of the same year. + Although many months elapsed before the answers were all + received, yet the writer is fully aware that these + communications ought to have been published before this. His + apology is a prolonged state of ill health, which has now + become so serious as to threaten to drive him to a southern + climate for the winter. In this exigency, he has solicited Dr. + W. A. Alcott, of Boston, to receive the papers and give them to + the public as soon as his numerous engagements will permit. + This arrangement will doubtless be fully satisfactory, both to + the writers of the communications and to the public. + + "HARTFORD, November 4, 1836." + + + +Various circumstances, beyond my control, united to defer the +publication of the contemplated work to the year 1838. It is hoped, +however, that nothing was lost by delay. It gave further opportunity for +reflection, as well as for observation and experiment; and if the work +is of any value at all to the community, it owes much of that value to +the fact that what the public may be disposed to regard as unnecessary, +afforded another year for investigation. Not that any new discoveries +were made in that time, but I was, at least, enabled to verify and +confirm my former conclusions, and to review, more carefully than ever, +the whole argument. It is hoped that the work will at least serve as a +pioneer to a more extensive as well as more scientific volume, by some +individual who is better able to do the subject justice. + +It will be my object to present the facts and arguments of the following +volume, not in a distorted or one-sided manner, but according to truth. +I have no private interests to subserve, which would lead me to +suppress, or falsely color, or exaggerate. If vegetable food is not +preferable to animal, I certainly do not wish to have it so regarded. +This profession of a sincere desire to know and teach the truth may be +an apology for placing the letters in the order in which they +appear--which certainly is such as to give no unfair advantages to those +who believe in the superiority of the vegetable system--and for the +faithfulness with which their whole contents, whether favoring one side +or other of the argument, have been transcribed. + +The title of the work requires a word of explanation. It is not +intended, or even intimated, that there are no facts here but what rest +on medical authority; but rather, that the work originated with the +medical profession, and contains, for the most part, testimony which is +exclusively medical--either given by medical men, or under their +sanction. In fact, though designed chiefly for popular reading, it is in +a good degree a medical work; and will probably stand or fall, according +to the sentence of approbation or disapprobation which shall be +pronounced by the medical profession. + +The following chapter will contain the letters addressed to Dr. North. +They are inserted, with a single exception, in the precise order of +their date. The first, however, does not appear to have been elicited by +Dr. North's circular; but rather by a request in some previous letter. +It will be observed that several of the letters include more than one +case or experiment; and a few of them many. Thus the whole series +embraces, at the least calculation, from thirty to forty experiments. + +The replies of nearly every individual are numbered to correspond with +the questions, as suggested by Dr. North; so that, if there should +remain a doubt, in any case, in regard to the precise point referred to +by the writer of the letter, the reader has only to turn to the circular +in the present chapter, and read the question there, which corresponds +to the number of the doubtful one. Thus, for example, the various +replies marked 6, refer to the length or duration of the experiment or +experiments which had been made; and those marked 9, to the aperient +effects of a diet exclusively vegetable. And so of all the rest. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LETTERS TO DR. NORTH. + + Letter of Dr. Parmly.--Dr. W. A. Alcott.--Dr. D. S. + Wright.--Dr. H. N. Preston.--Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. Caleb + Bannister.--Dr. Lyman Tenny.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Joseph + Ricketson, Esq.--Joseph Congdon, Esq.--George W. Baker, + Esq.--John Howland, Jr., Esq.--Dr. Wm. H. Webster.--Josiah + Bennet, Esq.--Wm. Vincent, Esq.--Dr. Geo. H. Perry.--Dr. L. W. + Sherman. + + +LETTER I.--FROM DR. PARMLY, DENTIST. + +To Dr. North. + +MY DEAR SIR,--For two years past, I have abstained from the use of all +the diffusible stimulants, using no animal food, either flesh, fish, or +fowl; nor any alcoholic or vinous spirits; no form of ale, beer, or +porter; no cider, tea, or coffee; but using milk and water as my only +liquid aliment, and feeding sparingly, or rather, moderately, upon +farinaceous food, vegetables, and fruit, seasoned with unmelted butter, +slightly boiled eggs, and sugar or molasses; with no condiment but +common salt. + +I adopted this regimen in company with several friends, male and female, +some of whom had been afflicted either with dyspepsia or some other +chronic malady. In every instance within the circle of my acquaintance, +the _symptoms_ of disease disappeared before this system of diet; and I +have every reason to believe that the disease itself was wholly or in +part eradicated. + +In answer to your inquiry, whether I ascribe the cure, in the cases +alleged, to the abstinence from animal food or from stimulating drinks, +or from both, I cannot but give it as my confident opinion that the +result is to be attributed to a general abandonment of the _diffusive +stimuli_, under every shape and form. + +An increase of flesh was one of the earliest effects of the +_anti-stimulating_ regimen, in those cures in which the system was in +low condition. The animal spirits became more cheerful, buoyant, and +uniformly pleasurable. Mental and bodily labor was endured with much +less fatigue, and both intellectual and corporeal exertion was more +vigorous and efficient. + +In the language of Addison, this system of ultra temperance has had the +happy effect of "filling the mind with inward joy, and spreading delight +through all its faculties." + +But, although I have thus made the experiment of abstaining wholly from +the use of liquid and solid stimulants, and from every form of animal +food, I am not fully convinced that it should be deemed improper, on any +account, to use the more slightly stimulating forms of animal food. +Perhaps fish and fowl, with the exception of ducks and geese, turtle and +lobster, may be taken without detriment, in moderate quantities. And I +regard good mutton as being the lightest, and, at the same time, the +most nutritious of all meats, and as producing less inconvenience than +any other kind, where the energies of the stomach are enfeebled. And yet +there are unquestionably many constitutions which would be benefited by +living, as I and others have done, on purely vegetable diet and ripe +fruits. + +In relation to many of the grosser kinds of animal food, all alcoholic +spirits, all distilled and fermented liquors, tea and coffee, opium and +tobacco,--I feel confident in pronouncing them not only useless, but +noxious to the animal machine. + + Yours, etc., + ELEAZER PARMLY + + NEW YORK, January 31, 1835. + + +LETTER II--FROM DR. W. A. ALCOTT. + + BOSTON, December 19, 1834. + +DEAR SIR,--I received your communication, and hasten to reply to as many +of your inquiries as I can. Allow me to take them up in the very order +in which you have presented them. + +Answer to question 1. I was bred to a very active life, from my earliest +childhood. This active course was continued till about the time of my +leaving off the use of flesh and fish; since which period my habits +have, unfortunately, been more sedentary. I think my muscular strength +is somewhat less now than it was before I omitted flesh meat, but in +what proportion I am unable to say; for indeed it varies greatly. When +more exercise is used, my strength increases--sometimes almost +immediately; when less exercise is used, my strength again diminishes, +but not so rapidly. These last circumstances indicate a more direct +connection between my loss of muscular strength and my neglect of +exercise than between the former and my food. + +2. Rather more agreeable; unless I use too large a quantity of food; to +which however I am rather more inclined than formerly, as my appetite is +keener, and food relishes far better. A sedentary life, moreover, as I +am well satisfied, tends to bring my moral powers into subjection to the +physical. + +3. My mind has been clearer, since I commenced the experiment to which +you allude, than before; but I doubt whether I can better endure a +"laborious investigation." A little rest or exercise, perhaps less than +formerly, restores vigor. I am sometimes tempted to _break my day into +two_, by sleeping at noon. But I am not so apt to be cloyed with study, +or reflection, as formerly. + +4. Several. 1. An eruptive complaint, sometimes, at one period of my +life, very severe. 2. Irritation of the lungs; probably, indeed most +certainly, incipient phthisis. 3. Rheumatic attacks, though they had +never been very severe. + +The eruptive disease, however, and the rheumatic attacks, are not wholly +removed; but they are greatly diminished. The irritation at the lungs +has nearly left me. This is the more remarkable from the fact that I +have been, during almost the whole period of my experiment, in or about +Boston. I was formerly somewhat subject to palpitations; these are now +less frequent. I am also less exposed to epidemics. Formerly, like other +scrofulous persons, I had nearly all that appeared; now I have very few. + +You will observe that I merely state the facts, without affirming, +positively, that my change of diet has been the cause, though I am quite +of opinion that this has not been without its influence. Mental quiet +and total abstinence from all drinks but water, may also have had much +influence, as well as other causes. + +5. Very few colds. Last winter I had a violent inflammation of the ear, +which was attended with some fever; but abstinence and emollient +applications soon restored me. In July last, I had a severe attack of +diarrhoea unattended with much fever, which I attributed to drinking +too much water impregnated with earthy salts, and to which I had been +unaccustomed. When I have a cold, of late, it affects, principally, the +nasal membrane; and, if I practice abstinence, soon disappears. In this +respect, more than in any other, I am confident that since I commenced +the use of a vegetable diet I have been a very great gainer. + +6. The experiment was fully begun four years ago last summer; though I +had been making great changes in my physical habits for four years +before. For about three years, I used neither flesh nor fish, nor even +eggs more than two or three times a year. The only animal food I used +was milk; and for some long periods, not even that. But at the end of +three years I ate a very small quantity of flesh meat once a day, for +three or four weeks, and then laid it aside. This was in the time of the +cholera. The only effect I perceived from its use was a slight increase +of peristaltic action. In March last, I used a little dried fish once or +twice a day, for a few days; but with no peculiar effects. After my +attack of diarrhoea, in July last, I used a little flesh several +times; but for some months past I have laid it aside entirely, with no +intention of resuming it. Nothing peculiar was observed, as to its +effects, during the last autumn. + +7. I never used a large proportion of animal food, except milk, since I +was a child; but I have been in the habit, at various periods of my +life, of drinking considerable cider. For some months before I laid +aside flesh and fish, I had been accustomed to the use of more animal +food than usual, but less cider; though, for a part of the time, I made +up the deficiency of cider with ale and coffee. For several months +previous to the beginning of the experiment, I had drank nothing but +water. + +8. Rather less. But here, again, I fear I am in danger of attributing to +one cause what is the effect of another. My neglect of exercise may be +more in fault than the rice and bread and milk which I use. Still I must +think that vegetable food is, in my own case, less aperient than animal. + +9. In regard to students, my reply is, Yes, most certainly. So I think +in regard to laborers, were they trained to it. But how far _early +habits_ may create a demand for the continuance of animal food through +life, I am quite at a loss for an opinion. Were I a hard laborer, I +should use no animal food. When I travel on foot forty or fifty miles a +day, I use vegetable food, and in less than the usual quantity. This I +used to do before I commenced my experiment. + +10. I use bread made of unbolted wheat meal, in moderate quantity, when +I can get it; plain Indian cakes once a day; milk once a day; rice once +a day. My plan is to use as few things as possible at the same meal, but +to have considerable variety at different meals. I use no new bread or +pastry, no cheese, and but little butter; and very little fruit, except +apples in moderate quantity. + +11. The answer to this question, though I think it would be important +and interesting, with many other particulars, I must defer for the +present. The experiments of Dr. F., a young man in this neighborhood, +and of several other individuals, would, I know be in point; but I have +not at my command the time necessary to present them. + + +LETTER III.--FROM DR. D. S. WRIGHT. + + WHITEHALL, Washington Co., N. Y., March 17, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--I noticed a communication from you in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal of the 5th instant, in which you signify a wish to +collect facts in relation to the effects of a vegetable diet upon the +human system, etc. I submit for your consideration my own experience; +premising, however, that I am a practicing physician in this place--am +thirty-three years old--of a sanguine, bilious temperament--have from +youth up usually enjoyed good health--am not generally subject to +fevers, etc. + +I made a radical change in my diet three years ago this present month, +from a mixed course of animal and vegetable food, to a strictly +vegetable diet, on which I subsisted pretty uniformly for the most part +of one year. I renewed it again about ten moths ago. + +My reasons for adopting it were: 1st. I had experienced the beneficial +effects of it for several years before, during the warm weather, in +obviating a dull cephalalgic pain, and oppression in the epigastrium. +2dly. I had recently left the salubrious atmosphere of the mountains in +Essex county, in this state, for this place of _musquitoes_ and +_miasmata_. 3dly, and prominently. I had frequent exposures to the +variolous infection, and I had a _dreadful_ apprehension that I might +have an attack of the varioloid, as at that time I had never +experimentally tried the protective powers of the vaccine virus, and +had _too_ little confidence in those who recommended its prophylactic +powers. The results I submit you, in reply to your interrogatories. + +1. I think each time I tried living on vegetable food exclusively, that +for the first month I could not endure fatigue _as well_. Afterward I +could. + +2. The digestive organs were always more agreeably excited. + +3. The mind uniformly clearer, and could endure laborious investigations +longer, and with less effort. + +4. I am constitutionally healthy and robust. + +5. I believe I have more colds, principally seated on the mucous +membranes of the lungs, fauces, and cavities of the head. (I do not, +however, attribute it to diet.) + +6. The first trial was one year. I am now ten months on the same plan, +and shall continue it. + +7. I never used a large quantity of animal food or stimulants, of any +description. + +8. I have for several years used tea and coffee, usually once a +day--believe them healthy. + +9. Vegetable diet is less aperient than a mixed diet, if we except +_Indian corn_. + +10. I do not think that common laborers, in health, could do as well +without animal food; but I think students might. + +11. I have selected _potatoes_, when _baked_ or _roasted_, and all +articles of food usually prepared from _Indian meal_, as the most +healthy articles on which I subsist; particularly the latter, whose +aperient and nutritive qualities render it, in my estimation, an +invaluable article for common use. + + Yours, etc., + D. S. WRIGHT. + + +LETTER IV.--FROM DR. H. N. PRESTON.[1] + + PLYMOUTH, Mass., March 26, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--When I observed your questions in the Boston Medical and +Surgical Journal, of the 11th of March, I determined to give you +personal experience, in reply to your valuable queries. + +In the spring of 1832, while engaged in more than usual professional +labor, I began to suffer from indigestion, which gradually increased, +unabated by any medicinal or dietetic course, until I was reduced to the +very confines of the grave. The disease became complicated, for a time, +with chronic bronchitis. I would remark, that, at the time of my +commencing a severe course of diet, I was able to attend to my practice +daily. + +In answer to your inquiries, I would say to the 1st--very much +diminished, and rapidly. + +2. Rather less; distinct local uneasiness--less disposition to +drowsiness; but decidedly more troubled with cardialgia, and +eructations. + +3. I think not. + +4. My disease was decidedly increased; as cough, headache, and +emaciation; and being of a scrofulous diathesis, was lessening my +prospect of eventual recovery. + +5. My febrile attacks increased with my increased debility. + +6. Almost four months; when I became convinced death would be the +result, unless I altered my course. + +7. I had taken animal food moderately, morning and noon--very little +high seasoning--no stimulants, except tea and coffee. The latter was my +favorite beverage; and I usually drank two cups with my breakfast and +dinner, and black tea with my supper. + +8. I drank but one cup of weak coffee with my breakfast, none with +dinner, and generally a cup of milk and water with supper. + +9. With me _much less aperient_; indeed, costiveness became a very +serious and distressing accompaniment. + +10. From somewhat extensive observation, for the last seven years, I +should say, of laborers never; students seldom. + +11. Among dyspeptics, potatoes nearly boiled, then mashed together, +rolled into balls, and laid over hot coals, until a second time cooked, +as easy as any vegetable. If any of the luxuries of the table have been +noticed as particularly injurious, it has been cranberries, prepared in +any form, as stewed in sauce, tarts, pies, etc. + +Crude as these answers are, they are at your service; and I am prompted +to give them from the fact, that very few persons, I presume, have been +so far reduced as myself, with dyspepsia and its concomitants. In fact, +I was pronounced, by some of the most scientific physicians of Boston, +as past all prospect of cure, or even much relief, from medicine, diet, +or regimen. My attention has naturally been turned with anxious +solicitude to the subject of diet, in all its forms. Since my unexpected +restoration to health, my opportunities for observation among dyspeptics +have been much enlarged; and I most unhesitatingly say, that my success +is much more encouraging, in the management of such cases, since +pursuing a more liberal diet, than before. Plain animal diet, avoiding +condiments and tea, using mucilaginous drink, as the Irish Moss, is +preferable to "absolute diet,"--cases of decided chronic gastritis +excepted. + + Yours, etc., + H. N. PRESTON. + + +LETTER V.--FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS. + + PHILLIPS, Somerset Co., Me., April 28, 1835. + +DEAR SIR,--I have a brother-in-law, who owes his life to abstinence from +animal food, and strict adherence to the simplest vegetable diet. My own +existence is prolonged, only (according to human probabilities) by +entire abstinence from flesh-meat of every description, and feeding +principally upon the coarsest farinacea. + +Numberless other instances have come under my observation within the +last three years, in which a strict adherence to a simple vegetable diet +has done for the wretched invalid what the best medical treatment had +utterly failed to do; and in no one instance have I known permanently +injurious results to follow from this course, but in many instances have +had to lament the want of firmness and decision, and a gradual return to +the "_flesh-pots of Egypt_." + +With these views, I very cheerfully comply with your general invitation, +on page 77, volume 12, of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. The +answers to your interrogatories will apply to the case first referred +to, to my own case, and to nearly every one which has occurred within my +notice. + +1. Increased, uniformly; and in nearly every instance, without even the +usual debility consequent upon withdrawing the stimulus of animal food. + +2. More agreeable in every instance. + +3. Affirmative, _in toto_. + +4. None aggravated, except flatulence in one or two instances. All the +horrid train of dyspeptic symptoms uniformly mitigated, and obstinate +constipation removed. + +5. Fewer colds and febrile attacks. + +6. Three years, with my brother; with myself, eighteen months partially, +and three months wholly; the others, from one to six months. + +7. Negative. + +8. Cold water--my brother and myself; others, hot and cold water +alternately. + +9. More aperient,--no exceptions. + +10. I believe the health of _students_ would uniformly be promoted--and +the days of the laborer, to say the least, would be lengthened. + +11. I have; and that is, simple bread made of wheat meal, ground in +corn-stones, and mixed up precisely as it comes from the mill--with the +substitution of fine flour when the bowels become too active. + + Yours, etc., + HORACE A. BARROWS. + + +LETTER VI.--FROM DR. CALEB BANNISTER. + + PHELPS, N. Y., May 4, 1835. + +SIR,--My age is fifty-three. My ancestors had all melted away with +hereditary consumption. At the age of twenty, I began to be afflicted +with pain in different parts of the thorax, and other premonitory +symptoms of phthisis pulmonalis. Soon after this, my mother and eldest +sister died with the disease. For myself, having a severe attack of ague +and fever, all my consumptive symptoms became greatly aggravated; the +pain was shifting--sometimes between the shoulders, sometimes in the +side, or breast, etc. System extremely irritable, pulse hard and easily +excited, from about ninety to one hundred and fifty, by the stimulus of +a very small quantity of food; and, to be short, I was given up, on all +hands, as lost. + +From reading "Rush" I was induced to try a milk diet, and succeeded in +regaining my health, so that for twenty-four years I have been entirely +free from any symptom of phthisis; and although subject, during that +time, to many attacks of fever and other epidemics, have steadily +followed the business of a country physician. + +I would further remark, before proceeding to the direct answer to your +questions, that soon perceiving the benefit resulting from the course I +had commenced, and finding the irritation to diminish in proportion as I +diminished not only the quality, but quantity of my food, I took less +than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to +about the quantity of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen +arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking only my usual +quantity in _bulk_. + +A seton was worn in the side, and a little exercise on horseback taken +three times every day, as strength would allow, during the whole +progress. The appetite was, at all times, not only _craving_, it was +_voracious_; insomuch that all my sufferings from all other sources, +dwindled to a point when compared with it. + +The quantity that I ate at a time so far from satisfying my appetite, +only served to increase it; and this inconvenience continued during the +whole term, without the least abatement;--and the only means by which I +could resist its cravings, was to live entirely by myself, and keep out +of sight of all kinds of food except the scanty pittance on which I +subsisted. And now to the proposed questions. + +1. Increased. + +2. More agreeable, hunger excepted. + +3. To the first part of this question, I should say evidently clearer; +to the latter part, such was the state of debility when I commenced, and +such was it through the whole course, I am not able to give a decisive +answer. + +4. This question, you will perceive, is already answered in my +preliminary remarks. + +5. Fewer, insomuch that I had none. + +6. Two full years. + +7. My living, from early life, had been conformable to the habits of the +farmers of New England, from which place I emigrated, and my habits in +regard to stimulating drinks were always moderate; but I occasionally +took them, in conformity to the customs of those "_times of ignorance_." + +8. I literally drank _nothing_; the milk wholly supplying the place of +all liquids. + +9. State of the bowels good before adopting the course, and after. + +10. I do not. + +11. I have not. + + CALEB BANNISTER. + + +LETTER VII.--FROM DR. LYMAN TENNY. + + FRANKLIN, Vermont, June 22, 1835. + +SIR,--In answer to your inquiries, in the Boston Medical and Surgical +Journal, vol. xii., page 78, I can say that I have lived entirely upon a +bread and milk diet, without using any animal food other than the milk. + +1. At first, my bodily strength was diminished to a certain degree, and +required a greater quantity of food, and rather oftener, than when upon +a mixed diet of animal food (strictly so called) and vegetables. + +2. The animal sensations, attending upon the process of digestion, were +rather more agreeable than when upon a mixed diet. + +3. My mind was more clear, but I could not continue a laborious +investigation as long as when I used animal food more plentifully. + +4. At this time there were no constitutional infirmities which I was +laboring under, except those which more or less accompany the rapid +growth of the body; such as a general lassitude, impaired digestion, +etc., which were neither removed nor aggravated, but kept about so, +until I ate just what I pleased, without any regard to my indigestion, +etc., when I began to improve in the strength of my whole system. + +5. I do not recollect whether I was subject to more or fewer colds; but +I can say I was perfectly free from all febrile attacks, although +febrile diseases often prevailed in my vicinity. But since that time, a +period of six years, I have had three attacks of fever. + +6. The length of time I was upon this diet was about two years. + +7. Before entering upon this diet, I was in the habit of taking a +moderate quantity of animal food, but without very high seasoning or +stimulants. + +8. While using this diet, I confined myself entirely and exclusively to +cold water as a drink--using neither tea, coffee, nor spirits of any +kind whatever. + +9. I am inclined to think that a vegetable diet is more aperient than an +animal one; indeed, I may say I know it to be a fact. + +10. From what I have experienced, I do not think that laborers would be +any more healthy by excluding animal food from their diet entirely; but +I believe it would be much getter if they would use less. As to +students, I believe their health would be promoted if they were to +exclude it almost, if not entirely. + +11. I never have selected any vegetables which I thought to be more +healthy than others: nor indeed do I believe there is any one that is +more healthy than another; but believe that all those vegetables which +we use in the season of them, are adapted to supply and satisfy the +wants of the system. + +We are carnivorous, as well as granivorous animals, having systems +requiring animal, as well as vegetable food, to keep all the organs of +the body in tune; and perhaps we need a greater variety than other +animals. + + Yours, etc., + LYMAN TENNY. + + +LETTER VIII.--FROM DR. J. M. B. HARDEN. + + LIBERTY COUNTY, Georgia, July 15, 1835. + +SIR,--Having observed, in the May number of the "American Journal of the +Medical Sciences," certain inquiries in relation to diet, proposed by +you to the physicians of the United States, I herewith transmit to you +an account of a case exactly in point, which I hope may prove +interesting to yourself, and in some degree "assist in the settlement of +a question of _great interest_ to the _country_." + +The case, to which allusion is made, occurred in the person of a very +intelligent and truly scientific gentleman of this county, whose regular +habits, both of mind and body, added to his sound and discriminating +judgment, will tend to heighten the value and importance of the +experiment involved in the case I am about to detail. + +Before proceeding to give his answers to your interrogatories, it may be +well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was +forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his +business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great +deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he himself declares, +to walk seldom less than ten miles a day, and frequently more; and this +exercise was continued during the whole period of the experiment. His +health for two years previously had been very feeble, arising, as he +supposed, from a diseased _spleen_; which organ is at this time +enlarged, and somewhat indurated. His digestive powers have _always_ +been _good_, and he had been in the habit of making his meals at times +entirely of _animal food_. His bowels have always been regular, and +rather inclined to looseness, but never disordered. He is five feet +eight inches high, of a very thin and spare habit of body, with thin +dark hair, inclining to baldness; complexion rather dark than fair; eyes +dark hazel; of _very studious_ habits when free from active engagements; +with great powers of mental abstraction and attention, and of a temper +_remarkably even_. + +In answer to your interrogatories, he replies,-- + +1. That his bodily strength was increased, and general health became +better. + +2. He perceived no difference. + +3. He is assured of the affirmative. + +4. His spleen was diminished in size, and frequent and long-continued +attacks of _lumbago_ were rendered _much milder_, and have so continued. + +5. Had fewer colds and febrile attacks. + +6. Three years. + +7. No; with the slight exception mentioned above. + +8. No. + +9. In his case rather less. + +10. Undoubtedly. + +11. No; has made his meals of cabbages entirely, and found them as +easily digested as any other article of diet. I may remark, that _honey_ +to him is a poison, producing, _invariably_, symptoms of cholera. + +After three years' trial of this diet, without having any previous +apparent disease, but on the contrary as strong as usual, he was taken, +somewhat suddenly, in the winter of 1832 and 3, with symptoms of extreme +debility, attended with oedematous swellings of the lower extremities, +and painful cramps, at night confined to the gastrocnemii of both legs, +and some feverishness, indicated more by the beatings of the _carotids_ +than by any other symptom. His countenance became very pallid, and +indeed he had every appearance of a man in a very low state of health. +Yet, during the whole period of this apparent state of disease, there +were no symptoms indicative of disorder in any function, save the +general function of innervation, and perhaps that of the lymphatics or +absorbents of the lower extremities. Nor was there any manifest disease +of any organ, unless it was the spleen, which was not then remarkably +enlarged. I was myself disposed to attribute his symptoms to the spleen, +and possibly to the want of animal food; but he himself attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of the vapor of +arseniuretted and sulphuretted hydrogen gases, to which he was +subjected during some chemical experiments on the ores of cobalt, to +which he has been for a long time turning his attention; a circumstance +which I had not known until lately. + +However it may be, he again returned to a mixed diet (to which however +he ascribes no agency in his recovery), and, after six months' +continuance in this state, he rapidly recovered his usual health and +strength, which, up to this day--two full years after the expiration of +six months--have continued good. In the treatment of his case no +medicine of any kind was given, to which any good effect can be +attributed; and indeed he may be said to have undergone no medical +treatment at all. + + Yours, etc., + J. M. B. HARDEN. + + +LETTER IX.--FROM JOSEPH RICKETSON, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, 8th month, 26th, 1835. + +RESPECTED FRIEND,--Perhaps before giving answers to thy queries in the +American Journal of Medical Science, it may not be amiss to give thee +some account of my family and manner of living, to enable thee to judge +of the effect of a vegetable diet on the constitution. + +I have a wife, a mother aged eighty-eight, and two female domestics. It +is now near three years since we adopted what is called the Graham or +vegetable diet, though not in its fullest extent. We exclude animal food +from our diet, but sometimes we indulge in shell and other fish. We use +no kind of stimulating liquors, either as drink or in cookery, nor any +other stimulants except occasionally a little spice. We do not, as +Professor Hitchcock would recommend, nor as I believe would be most +conducive to good health, live entirely simple; sometimes, however, for +an experiment, I have eaten only rice and milk; at other times only +potatoes and milk for my dinner; and have uniformly found I could endure +as much fatigue, and walk as far without inconvenience, as when I have +eaten a greater variety. We, however, endeavor to make our varieties +mostly at different meals. + +For breakfast and tea we have some hot water poured upon milk, to which +we add a little sugar, and cold bread and butter; but in cold weather we +toast the bread, and prefer having it so cool as not to melt the butter. +We seldom eat a meal without some kind of dried or preserved fruit, such +as peaches, plums, quinces, or apples; and in the season, when easily to +be procured, we use, freely, baked apples, also berries, particularly +blackberries stewed, which, while cooking, are sweetened and thickened a +little. Our dinners are nearly the same as our other meals, except that +we use cold milk, without any water. We have puddings sometimes made of +stale bread, at others of Graham or other flour, or rice, or ground +rice, usually baked; we have also hasty puddings, made of Indian meal, +or Graham flour, which we eat with milk or melted sugar and cream; +occasionally we have other simple puddings, such as tapioca, etc. +Custards, with or without a crust, pies made of apple, and other fruits +either green or preserved; but we have no more shortening in the crust +than just to make it a little tender. + +I have two sons; one lived with us about fifteen months after we adapted +this mode of living; it agreed remarkably well with him; he grew strong +and fleshy. He married since that time, and, in some measure, returned +to the usual manner of living; but he is satisfied it does not agree so +well with him as the Graham diet. The coarse bread he cannot well do +without. My other son was absent when we commenced this way of living; +he has been at home about six weeks, and has not eaten any animal food +except when he dined out. He has evidently _lost_ flesh, and is not very +well; _he_ thinks he shall not be able to live without animal food, but +I think his indisposition is more owing to the season of the year than +diet. He never drank any tea or coffee until about four years since, +when he took some coffee for a while, but no tea. For the last two years +he has not drank either, when he could get milk. He is generally +healthy, and so is his brother: both were literally brought up on +gingerbread and milk, never taking animal food of choice, until they +were fifteen or sixteen years of age. + +Dr. Keep, of Fairhaven, Connecticut, was here about a year since, in +very bad health, since which I learn he has recovered by abstaining from +animal food and other injurious diet. As he is a scientific man, I think +he can give thee some useful information. + +1. The strength of both myself and wife has very materially increased, +so that we can now walk ten miles as easily as we could five before; +possibly it may in part be attributed to practice. Our health is, in +every respect, much improved. One of our women enjoys perfect health; +the other was feeble when we commenced this way of living, and she has +not gained much if any in the time; but this may be owing to her +attendance on my mother, both day and night, who, being blind and +feeble, takes no exercise except to walk across the room; but we are +very sure she would not have lived to this time had she not adopted this +way of living. + +2. The process of digestion is much more agreeable, if we do not indulge +in eating too much. We seldom have occasion to think of it after rising +from the table. + +3. I do not perceive much effect on the mind, other than what would +naturally be produced by the restoration of health; but have no doubt a +laborious investigation might be continued as long, if not longer, on +this than any other diet. + +4. I was formerly very much afflicted with the headache, and sometimes +was troubled with rheumatism. I have very seldom, for the last two years +especially, been troubled with either; and when I have had a turn of +headache, it is light indeed compared with what it was before we adopted +this system of living. My wife was very dyspeptic, and often had severe +turns of palpitation of the heart; the latter is entirely removed, and +she seldom experiences any inconvenience from the former. Our nurse was +formerly, and still is, troubled with severe turns of headache, though +not so bad as formerly; and I think she would have much less of it if +she were placed in a different situation. + +5. We scarcely know what it is to have a cold; my wife in particular. +Previously to our change of diet, I was very subject to severe colds, +attended with a hard cough, which lasted, sometimes, for several weeks. + +6. As before stated, we exclude animal food from our diet, as well as +tea and coffee. + +7. Before we adopted a vegetable diet, we always had meat for dinner, +and generally with breakfast; and not unfrequently with tea. Tea and +coffee we drank very strong. + +8. We have substituted milk and water sweetened, for tea and coffee. + +9. Most vegetables I find have a tendency (especially when Graham or +unbolted wheaten flour is used) to keep the bowels open; to counteract +which, we use rice once or twice a week. Potatoes, when eaten freely, +are flatulent, but not inconvenient when eaten moderately. + +10. I think the health of students, by the exclusion of animal food from +their diet, would be promoted, especially if they excluded tea and +coffee also; and I can see no good reason why it should not be +beneficial to laboring people. I have conversed with two or three +mechanics, who confirm me in this belief. + +11. Graham bread, as we call it, eaten with milk, or baked potatoes and +milk, for most people, I think would be healthy; to which should be +added such a proportion of rice as may be found necessary. + + Thy friend, + JOSEPH RICKETSON. + + +LETTER X.--FROM JOSEPH CONGDON, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, Sept., 1835. + +ANSWERS to Dr. North's inquiries on diet. + +1. Increase of strength and activity, connected with, and perhaps in +some good degree a consequence of, an increase of daily exercise. + +2. Process of digestion more regular and agreeable. + +3. Mental activity greater; no decisive experiments on the ability to +_continue_ a laborious investigation. + +4. Dyspepsia of long continuance, and also difficult breathing; +inflammation of the eyes. + +5. Fewer colds; febrile attacks very slight; great elasticity in +recovering from disease. Some part of the effect should undoubtedly be +ascribed to greater attention to the skin by bathing and friction. + +6. Twenty-six months of _entire abstinence_ from all animal substances, +excepting butter and milk. Salt is used regularly. + +7. Through life inclined to a vegetable diet, with few stimulants. + +8. Drinks have been milk, milk and water, or cold water. + +9. A _well-selected_ vegetable diet appears to produce a very regular +action of the stomach and bowels. + +10. I think the health of laborers and students would be promoted by a +_great_ reduction of the usual quantity of animal food, and perhaps by +discontinuing its use entirely. I feel no want. + +11. From my experience, I can very highly recommend bread made of coarse +wheat flour. Among fruits, the blackberry, as peculiarly adapted to the +state of the body, at the time of the year when it is in season. My +range of food has been confined. I avoid green vegetables. Age 35. + + JOSEPH CONGDON. + + +LETTER XI.--FROM GEORGE W. BAKER, ESQ. + + NEW BEDFORD, 9th month, 10, 1835. + +DR. M. L. NORTH,--Agreeably to request, the following answers are +forwarded, which I believe to be correct as far as my experience has +tested. + +1. At first it was diminished; but after a few months it was restored, +and I think increased. + +2. More. + +3. It could. + +4. Pretty free from constitutional infirmities before the change, and no +increase since. + +5. I have had no cold, of any consequence, for the last three years; at +which time I substituted cold water for tea and coffee, and commenced +using cold water for washing about my head and neck and for shaving, +which I continued through the year. + +6. I have not eaten animal food for about eighteen months. + +7. Two years previous to the entire change the quantity was great, but +there had been a gradual diminution. + +8. It was. (See fifth answer.) + +9. More so, in my case. + +10. I believe the health of both laborers and students would be +improved. + +11. I have generally avoided eating cucumbers; otherwise I have not. + + Thy assured friend, + GEO. W. BAKER. + + +LETTER XII--FROM JOHN HOWLAND, JR., ESQ. + + NEW BEFORD, 9th month, 10th day, 1835. + +FRIEND,--As I have lived nearly three years upon a vegetable diet, I +cheerfully comply with thy request. + +1. My bodily strength has been increased; and I can now endure much more +exercise than formerly, without fatigue. + +2. They are more agreeable; and I am now free from that dull, heavy +feeling, which I used to experience after my meals. + +3. My mind is much clearer; and I am free from that depression of +spirits, to which I was formerly subject. + +4. I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed. +I had frequent and severe attacks of headache, which I now rarely have; +and when they do occur they are very light, compared with what they +formerly were. + +5. I have had fewer colds, and those much lighter than formerly. + +6. About three years. + +7. I used to eat animal food for breakfast and dinner, with coffee for +drink, at those meals; and tea for my third meal, with bread and butter. + +8. Milk for breakfast, and cold water for the other two meals. + +9. I have found it more so; inasmuch as the use of it, with the +substitution of bread, made from _coarse, unbolted wheat flour_, instead +of superfine, has removed my costiveness entirely. + +10. I do. + +11. I consider potatoes and rice as the most healthy, and confine myself +principally to the former. + +I would remark that during the season of fruits, I eat freely of them, +with milk; and consider them to be healthy. + + JOHN HOWLAND, JR. + + +LETTER XIII.--FROM DR. W. H. WEBSTER. + + BATAVIA, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835. + +SIR,--Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical +Sciences, Philadelphia. + +I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case +somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my +own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my +health, as a kind of key to my answers. + +It is about fifteen years since I was called a _dyspeptic_; this was +while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my +medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely +swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next +month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left +college more dead than alive--a confirmed dyspeptic. + +In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the +winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my +indulgence in the luxuries of the table--especially in animal food, and +distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of +the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became +very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to +extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon +the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, +which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the +greatest share of that time, with the most excruciating torture. On +getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition +indeed--reduced to a skeleton--a voracious appetite, which could not be +indulged, and which had scarcely deserted me through the whole eight +months. I could not regain my flesh or strength but by almost +imperceptible degrees; indeed, loaf-sugar and crackers were almost the +only food I could use with impunity for the first year. + +It is now nearly four years since I have eaten animal food, unless it be +here and there a little, as an experiment, with the sole exception of +oysters, in which I can indulge, but with all due deference to the +stricter rules of temperance. Still my appetite for animal food seems +unabated. I have ever been a man unusually temperate in the use of +intoxicating drinks; and by no means intemperate in the luxuries of the +table. I take no meat, no alcoholic or fermented drinks, not even cider; +and, for a year past, my health has been better than for three years +previous; and I think that about one third the amount of nourishment +usually taken by men of my age, might subserve the purposes of food for +_me_ better than a larger quantity. The more I eat, the more I desire to +eat; and abstinence is my best medicine. + +But I have already surpassed my limits, and here are my answers. + +1. My strength is invariably diminished by animal food, and in almost +direct proportion to the quantity, with the exception named above. + +2. Pain has been the uniform attendant upon the digestion of an animal +diet, with feverish restlessness and constipation. + +3. Decidedly more fit for energetic action. + +4. An irritation, or subacute inflammation of the digestive apparatus, +which is aggravated by animal food. + +5. Can endure hardship, exposure, and fatigue, much better without meat. + +6. About four years, with the exception stated above. + +7. It was not. + +8. Partially at the commencement; but not of late, if not taken hot. + +9. Much more aperient. + +10. Both classes take too much; and students and sedentaries should take +little or none. + +11. For myself farinaceous articles first, then the succulent sub-acid +ripe fruits, then the less oily nuts are most healthful--and animal +food, strong coffee and tea, and unripe or hard fruits, in any +considerable quantities, are most pernicious. + + Yours, etc., + W. H. WEBSTER. + + +LETTER XIV.--FROM JOSIAH BENNET, ESQ. + + MOUNT-JOY, Pa., Oct. 27, 1835. + +SIR,--I hereby transmit to you, answers to a series of dietetic queries +which you have recently submitted. + +1. My physical strength was at least equal (I am rather inclined to +think greater) after abstaining from animal food. I was, I am certain, +not subject to such general debility and lassitude of the system, after +considerable bodily exercise. + +2. More agreeable--not being subject to a sense of vertigo, which +frequently (with me) followed the use of animal food. There is, +generally, more cheerfulness and vivacity. + +3. The mind is more clear, and is not so liable to be confused when +intent upon any intricate subject; and, of course, "can continue a +laborious investigation longer." There is at no time such a propensity +to incogitancy. + +4. I am not aware of being the subject of any "constitutional +infirmities;" yet, that the change of diet had a very great effect upon +the system, is obvious, from the fact of my having been, formerly, +subject to an eruptive disease of the skin, principally on the shoulders +and upper part of the back, for a number of years, which is not the case +at present, nor do I think will be, as long as I continue my present +mode of living. + +5. I think I have not had as many colds and febrile attacks as before, +nor have they been so severe; yet I cannot be very decisive on this +point, on account of the length of time in the trial not being fully +sufficient. + +6. Between seven and eight months. I must here state that animal food +was not _entirely_ excluded. I probably partook, in very moderate +quantities, once or twice a week. + +7. The quantity of animal food which would be considered "an uncommon +proportion," I am unable to determine; but I was accustomed to make use +of it, not _less_ than twice, and sometimes three times a day, +moderately seasoned. No other stimulants, of any account. + +8. Cold water has been the only substitute for tea and coffee, with the +exception of an occasional cup; probably as often as once or twice a +week. I was, on several occasions, by personal experience, induced to +believe that the use of strong coffee retarded the process of +digestion. + +9. More aperient. Previous to the general exclusion of animal food from +my diet, I was subject to inveterate costiveness; cases of which are now +neither frequent nor severe. + +10. I do firmly believe it would. + +11. My diet, principally, during the trial, consisted of wheat bread, of +the proper age, with a moderate quantity of fresh butter. Potatoes, +beans, and some other esculent roots, etc., I found to be nutritious and +healthy. The following substances I found to produce a contrary effect, +or to possess different qualities: cabbage, when not well boiled; +cucumbers, raw or pickled; radishes, beets, and the whole catalogue of +preserves. Fresh bread was particularly hurtful to me. + + Yours, etc., + JOSIAH BENNETT. + + +LETTER XV.--FROM WILLIAM VINCENT, ESQ.[2] + + HOPKINTON, R. I., Dec. 23, 1835. + +SIR,--The following answer to the interrogations in the Boston Medical +and Surgical Journal of March 1835, on diet, etc., as proposed by +yourself, has been through the press of business, neglected until this +late period. Trusting they may be of some use, I now forward them. + +1. Rather increased, if any change. + +2. ---- + +3. I think I have retained the vigor of my mind more, in consequence of +an abstemious diet. + +4. I thought I had the appearance of scurvy, which gradually +disappeared. + +5. ---- + +6. From May 20, 1811, (more than twenty-four years.) + +7. Small in quantity, and dressed and cooked simply. + +8. I have drank nothing but warm tea, for seven years. + +9. Bowels uniformly open. + +10. I should not think it would. + +11. I have lived principally on bread, butter, and cheese, and a few +dried vegetables. + +I was born March 31, 1764. In 1833, when mowing, to quench thirst, I +drank about a gill of cold water, _after_ about as much milk and water; +and the same year, some molasses and water; but they did not answer the +purpose. But when I rinsed my mouth with cold water, it allayed my +thirst. + + (Signed) + WM. VINCENT. + + +LETTER XVI.--FROM L. R. BRADLEY, BY DR. GEO. H. PERRY. + + HOPKINTON, R. I., Dec. 23, 1835. + +SIR,--I deem it necessary, first, to mention the situation of my health, +at the time of commencing abstinence from animal food. I was recovering +from an illness of a _nervous fever_. A sudden change respecting my food +not sitting well, rendered it necessary for me to abstain from all +kinds, excepting dry wheat bread and gruel, for several weeks. By +degrees I returned to my former course of diet, but as yet not to its +full extent, as I cannot partake of animal food of any kind whatever, +nor of vegetables cooked therewith. + +1. Diminished. + +2. ---- + +3. I do not perceive the mind to be clearer, and the power of +investigation less. + +4. Distress in the stomach and pain in the head removed. + +5. ---- + +6. Six years and ten months. + +7. Unusual proportion of animal food. + +8. The first year, I drank only warm water, sweetened; since that, tea. + +9. ---- + +10. I do not. + +11. I find _beets_ particularly hard to digest. + + L. R. B. + +The foregoing statements and answers are in her own way and manner. + + Yours, etc., + GEO. H. PERRY. + + +LETTER XVII.--FROM DR. L. W. SHERMAN. + + FALMOUTH, Mass., March 28, 1835. + +SIR,--In compliance with the request you recently made in the Medical +Journal, I inclose the following answers to the queries relative to +regimen you have propounded. They are given by a lady, whose experience, +intelligence, and discernment, have eminently qualified her to answer +them. She, with myself, is equally interested with you in having this +important question settled, and is extremely happy that you have +undertaken to do it. This lady is now fifty years of age; her +constitution naturally is good; her early habits were active, and her +diet simple, until twenty years of age. After that, until within a few +years, her living consisted of all kinds of meats and delicacies, with +wine after dinners, etc., etc. + +1. Her bodily strength was greatly increased by excluding animal food +from her diet. + +2. The animal sensations connected with the process of digestion have +been decidedly more agreeable. + +3. The mind is much clearer, the spirits much better, the temper more +even, and "less irritability pervades the system." The mind can continue +a laborious investigation longer than when she subsisted on a mixed +diet. + +4. Her health, which was before feeble, has, by the change, been +decidedly improved. + +5. She has certainly had fewer colds, and no febrile attacks of any +consequence, since she has practiced rigid abstinence from meats. + +6. She has abstained entirely for three years, and has taken but little +for seven or eight years; and whenever she has, from necessity (in being +from home, where she could procure nothing else), indulged in eating +meat, she has universally suffered severely in consequence. + +7. The change to a vegetable diet was preceded, in her case, by the use +of an uncommon proportion of animal food, highly seasoned with +stimulants. + +8. Tea and coffee she has not used for thirteen years. She has used, for +substitutes, water, milk and water, barley water, and gruel. She found +tea and coffee to have an exceedingly pernicious effect upon her nervous +and digestive system. + +9. A vegetable diet is more aperient than a mixed. Habitual constipation +has been entirely removed by the change. + +10. She sincerely believes, from her experience, that the health of +laborers and students would be generally promoted by the exclusion of +animal food from their diet. + +11. She considers _hominy_, as prepared at the South, particularly +healthy; and subsists upon this, with bread made from coarse flour, with +broccoli, cauliflower, and all kinds of vegetables in their season. + +Be assured, dear sir, that these answers have come from a high source, +to which private reference may at any time be made, and consequently are +entitled to the highest consideration. + + Yours, etc., + L. W. SHERMAN. + +NOTE.--If I have not been minute enough in the relation of this case, I +shall hereafter be happy to answer any questions you may think proper to +propose. It is a very interesting and important case, in my opinion. The +lady has been under my care a number of times, while laboring under +slight indisposition. She has always been very regular and systematic in +all her habits. She is healthy and robust in appearance, and looks as +though she might not be more than forty. This is the only case of the +kind within my knowledge. I have practiced on her plan for a few weeks +at a time, and, so far as my experience goes, it precisely comports with +hers. But I love the "good things" of this world too well to abstain +from their use, until some formidable disease demands their prohibition. + + Yours, etc., + L. W. S. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Dr. Preston has since deceased. + +[2] Mr. Vincent is of Stonington, Ct. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LETTERS. + + Correspondence.--The "prescribed course of Regimen."--How many + victims to it?--Not one.--Case of Dr. Harden considered.--Case + of Dr. Preston.--Views of Drs. Clark, Cheyne, and Lambe, on the + treatment of Scrofula.--No reports of Injury from the + prescribed System.--Case of Dr. Bannister.--Singular testimony + of Dr. Wright.--Vegetable food for Laborers.--Testimony, on the + whole, much more favorable to the Vegetable System than could + reasonably have been expected, in the circumstances. + + +"Reports not unfrequently reach us," says Dr. North, "of certain +individuals who have fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. +These persons are said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest +confidence, to have pertinaciously followed the course, till they +reached a point of reduction from which there was no recovery." "If +these are facts," he adds, "they ought to be known and published." + +It was in this view, that Dr. North, himself a medical practitioner of +high respectability, sent forth to every corner of the land, through +standard and orthodox medical journals, to regular and experienced +physicians--his "medical brethren"--his list of inquiries. These +inquiries, designed to elicit truth, were couched in just such language +as was calculated to give free scope and an acceptable channel for the +communication of every fact which seemed to be opposed to the VEGETABLE +SYSTEM; for this, we believe, was distinctly understood, by every +medical man, to be the "prescribed course of regimen" alluded to. + +The results of Dr. North's inquiries, and of an opportunity so favorable +for "putting down," by the exhibition of sober facts, the vegetable +system, are fully presented in the foregoing chapter. Let it not be said +by any, that the attempt was a partial or unfair one. Let it be +remembered that every effort was made to obtain _truth in facts_, +without partiality, favor, or affection. Let it be remembered, too, that +nearly two years elapsed before Dr. North gave up his papers to the +author; during which time, and indeed up to the present hour--a period, +in the whole, of more than fourteen years--a door has been opened to +every individual who had any thing to say, bearing upon the subject. + +Let us now review the contents of the foregoing chapter. Let us see, in +the first place, what number of persons have here been reported, by +medical men, as having fallen victims to the said "prescribed course of +regimen." + +The matter is soon disposed of. Not a case of the description is found +in the whole catalogue of returns to Dr. N. This is a triumph which the +friends of the vegetable system did not expect. From the medical +profession of this country, hostile as many of them are known to be to +the "prescribed course of regimen," they must naturally have expected to +hear of at least a few persons who were supposed to have fallen victims +to it. But, I say again, not one appears. + +It is true that Dr. Preston, of Plymouth, Mass., thinks he should have +fallen a victim to his abstinence from flesh meat, had he not altered +his course; and Dr. Harden, of Georgia, relates a case of sudden loss of +strength, and great debility, which he thought, _at the time_, might +"possibly" be ascribed to the want of animal food: though the +individual himself attributed it to quite another cause. These are the +only two, of a list of thirty or forty, which were detailed, that bear +the slightest resemblance to those which report had brought to the ear +of Dr. N., and about which he so anxiously and earnestly solicited +inquiry of his medical brethren. + +As to the case mentioned by Dr. Harden, no one who examined it with +care, will believe for a moment, that it affords the slightest evidence +against a diet exclusively vegetable. The gentleman who made the +experiment had pursued it faithfully three years, without the slightest +loss of strength, but with many advantages, when, of a sudden, extreme +debility came on. Is it likely that a diet on which he had so long been +doing well, should produce such a sudden falling off? The gentleman +himself appears not to have had the slightest suspicion that the +debility had any connection with the diet. He attributes its +commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of poisonous +gases, to which he was subjected in the process of some chemical +experiments. + +But why, then, it may be asked, did he return to a mixed diet, if he had +imbibed no doubts in regard to a diet exclusively vegetable; and, above +all, how happened he to recover on it? To this it may be replied, that +there is every reason to believe, from the tenor of the letter, that he +acted against his own inclination, and contrary to his own views, at the +request of his friends, and of Dr. Harden, his physician; though Dr. +Harden does not expressly say so. Besides, it does not appear that under +his mixed diet there was any favorable change, till something like six +months had elapsed. This was a period, in all probability, just +sufficient to allow the poison of the gases to disappear; after which +he might have been expected to recover on any diet not positively bad. +If this is not a true solution of the case, how happens it that there +was no disease of any organ or function, except the nervous function? +There is every reason for believing that Dr. Harden, at the date of his +letter, had undergone a change of opinion, and was himself beginning to +doubt whether the regimen had any agency in producing the debility.[3] + +The case of Dr. Preston is somewhat more difficult. At first view, it +seems to sustain the old notion of medical men, that, with a scrofulous +habit, a diet exclusively vegetable cannot be made to agree. This, I +say, seems to be a natural conclusion, _at first view_. But, on looking +a little farther, we may find some facts that justify a different +opinion. + +Dr. Preston was evidently timid and fearful--foreboding ill--during the +whole progress of his experiment. We think his story fully justifies +this conclusion. In such circumstances, what could have been expected? +There is no course of regimen in the world which will succeed happily in +a state of mind like this. + +It should be carefully observed by the reader, that Dr. Preston speaks +of entering upon a "severe course of diet;" and also, that, in +attempting to give an opinion as to the best kind of vegetable food, he +speaks of potatoes, prepared in a certain specified manner, as being +preferable to any other. Now, I think it obvious, that Dr. Preston's +"severe course" partook largely of _crude_ vegetables, instead of the +richer and better farinaceous articles--as the various sorts of bread, +rice, pulse, etc.--and, if so, it is not to be wondered at that it was +so unsuccessful. In short, I do not think he made any thing like a fair +experiment in vegetable diet. His testimony, therefore, though +interesting, seems to be entitled to very little weight. + +This conclusion is stated with the more confidence, from the fact that +some of the best medical writers, not only of ancient times, but of the +present day, appear to entertain serious doubts in regard to the +soundness of the popular opinion in favor of the "beef-steak-and-porter" +system of curing scrofulous patients. Dr. Clark, in the progress of his +"Treatise on Consumption," almost expresses a belief that a judicious +vegetable diet is preferable even for the scrofulous. He would not, of +course, recommend a diet of _crude_ vegetables, but one, rather, which +would partake largely of farinaceous grains and fruits. Nor do I suppose +he would, in every case, entirely exclude milk. + +Dr. Cheyne, in his writings, not only gives it as his opinion that a +milk diet, long continued, or a milk and vegetable diet and mild +mercurials, are the best means of curing scrofula; but he also says, +expressly, that "in all countries where animal food and strong fermented +liquors are too freely used, there is scarcely an individual that hath +not scrofulous glands." A sad story to relate, or to read! But, Dr. +Lambe, of London, and other British physicians, entertain similar +sentiments; and Dr. Lambe practices medicine largely, while entertaining +these sentiments. I could mention more than one distinguished physician, +in Boston and elsewhere, who prescribes a vegetable and milk diet in +scrofula. + +But, granting even the most that the friends of animal food can claim, +what would the case of Dr. Preston prove? That the healthy are ever +injured by the vegetable system? By no means. That the sickly would +generally be? Certainly not. Dr. Preston himself even specifies one +disease, in which he thinks a vegetable diet would be useful. What, +then, is the bearing of _this single and singular case_? Why, at the +most, it only shows that there are some forms of dyspepsia which require +animal food. Dr. Preston does not produce a single fact unfavorable to a +diet exclusively vegetable for the healthy.[4] + +It is also worthy of particular notice, that not a fact is brought, or +an experiment related, in a list of from thirty to forty cases, reported +too by medical men, which goes to prove that any injury has arisen to +the healthy, from laying aside the use of animal food. This kind of +information, though not the principal thing, was at least a secondary +object with Dr. North; as we see by his questions, which were intended +to be put to those who had excluded animal food from their diet for a +year or more. + +But, let us take a general view of the replies to the inquiries of Dr. +North. The sum of his first three questions, was,--What were the effects +of excluding animal food from your diet on your bodily strength, your +mental faculties, and your appetite and animal spirits? + +The answers to the three questions, of which this is the same, are, as +will be seen, remarkable. In almost every instance the reply indicates +that bodily and mental labor was endured with less fatigue than before, +and that an increased activity of mind and body was accompanied with +increased cheerfulness and animal enjoyment. In nearly every instance, +strength of body was actually increased; especially after the first +month. A result so uniformly in favor of the vegetable system is +certainly more than could have been expected. + +One physician who made the experiment, indeed, says, that though his +mind was clearer than before, he could not endure, so long, a laborious +investigation. Another individual says, he perceived no difference in +this respect. A third says, she found her bodily strength and powers of +investigation somewhat diminished, though her disease was removed. With +these exceptions, the testimony on this point is, as I have already +said, most decidedly--I might say most overwhelmingly--in favor of the +disuse of animal food. + +To the question, whether any constitutional infirmities were aggravated +or removed by the new course of regimen, the replies are almost equally +favorable to the vegetable system. It is true that one of the +physicians, Dr. Parmly, thinks the beneficial effects which appeared in +the circle of his observation were the results of a simultaneous +discontinuance of fermented drinks, tea and coffee, and condiments. But +I believe every one who reads his letter will be surprised at his +conclusions. No matter, however; we have his facts, and we are quite +willing they should be carefully considered. The singular case of Dr. +Preston, I now leave wholly out of the account. It was, as I have since +learned, the story of a _very singular man_. + +Among the diseases and difficulties which were removed, or supposed to +be removed, by the new diet, were dyspepsia, with the constipation which +usually attends it, general lassitude, rheumatism, periodical headache, +palpitations, irritation of the first passages, eruptive diseases of the +skin, scurvy, and consumption. + +The case of Dr. Bannister, who was, in early life, decidedly +consumptive, is one of the most remarkable on record. Though evidently +consumptive, and near the borders of the grave, between the ages of +twenty and twenty-nine, he so far recovered as to be, at the age of +fifty-three, entirely free from every symptom of phthisis for +twenty-four years; during which whole period, he was sufficiently +vigorous to follow the laborious business of a country physician. + +The confidence of Dr. Wright in the prophylactic powers of a diet +exclusively vegetable, so far as the mere opinion of one medical man is +to be received as testimony in the case, is also remarkable. He not only +regards the vegetable system as a defence against the diseases of +miasmatic regions, but also against the varioloid disease. On the latter +point, he goes, it seems, almost as far as Mr. Graham, who appears to +regard it not only as, in some measure, a preventive of epidemic +diseases generally, in which he is most undoubtedly correct, but also of +the small-pox. + +The testimony on another point which is presented in the replies to Dr. +North's questions, is almost equally uniform. In nearly every instance, +the individuals who have abandoned animal food have found themselves +less subject to colds than before; and some appear to have fallen into +the habit of escaping them altogether. When it is considered how serious +are the consequences of taking cold--when it is remembered that +something like one half of the diseases of our climate have their origin +in this source--it is certainly no trifling evidence in favor of a +course of regimen, that, besides being highly favorable in every other +respect, it should prove the means of freeing mankind from exposure to a +malady at once troublesome in itself and disastrous in its +consequences. + +In reply to the question,--Is a vegetable diet more or less aperient +than a mixed one,--the answers have been the same, in nearly every +instance, that it is more so. + +The answers to the question whether it was believed the health of either +laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food +from their diet, are rather various. It will be observed, however, that +many of the replies, in this case, are medical _opinions_, and come from +men who, though they felt themselves bound to state facts, were +doubtless, with very few exceptions, prejudiced against an exclusively +vegetable regimen for the healthy. It is, therefore, to me, a matter of +surprise, to find some of them in favor of the said prescribed course of +regimen, both for students and laborers, and many of them in favor of +the discontinuance of animal food by students. Those who have themselves +made the experiment, with hardly an exception, are decidedly in favor of +a vegetable regimen for all classes of mankind, particularly the +sedentary. And in regard to the necessity of diminishing the proportion +of animal food consumed by all classes, there seems to be but one voice. + +On one more important point there is a very general concurrence of +opinion. I allude to the choice of articles from the vegetable kingdom. +The farinacea are considered as the best; especially wheat, ground +without bolting. The preference of Dr. Preston is an exception; and +there are one or two others. + +On the whole--I repeat it--the testimony is far more favorable to the +"prescribed course of regimen," both for the healthy and diseased than +under the circumstances connected with the inquiry the most +thorough-going vegetable eater could possibly have anticipated. If this +is a fair specimen--and I know no reason why it may not be regarded as +such--of the results of similar experiments and similar observations +among medical men throughout our country, could their observations and +experiments be collected, it certainly confirms the views which some +among us have long entertained on this subject, and which will be still +more strongly confirmed by evidence which will be produced in the +following chapters. Had similar efforts been made forty or fifty years +ago, to ascertain the views of physicians and others respecting the +benefits or safety of excluding wine and other fermented drinks in the +treatment of several diseases, in which not one in ten of our modern +practitioners would now venture to use them, as well as among the +healthy, I believe the results would have been of a very different +character. The opinions, at least, of the physicians themselves, would +most certainly have been, nearly without a dissenting voice, that the +entire rejection of wine and fermented liquors was dangerous to the +sick, and unsafe to many of the healthy, especially the hard laborer. +And there is quite as much reason to believe that animal food will be +discarded from our tables in the progress of a century to come, as there +was, in 1800, for believing that all drinks but water would be laid +aside in the progress of the century which is now passing. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] See a more recent letter from Dr. Harden, in the next chapter. + +[4] Besides, it is worthy of notice, that Dr. Preston did not long +survive on his own plan. He died about the year 1840. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE. + + Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows.--Dr. J. M. B. Harden.--Dr. J. + Porter.--Dr. N. J. Knight.--Dr. Lester Keep.--Second letter + from Dr. Keep.--Dr. Henry H. Brown.--Dr. Franklin Knox.--From a + Physician.--Additional statements by the Author. + + +During the years 1837 and 1838 I wrote to several of the physicians +whose names, experiments, and facts appear in Chapter II. Their answers, +so far as received, are now to be presented. + +I have also received interesting letters from several other physicians +in New England and elsewhere--but particularly in New England--on the +same general subject, which, with an additional statement of my own +case, I have added to the foregoing. I might have added a hundred +authentic cases, of similar import. I might also have obtained an +additional amount of the same sort of intelligence, had it not been for +the want of time, amid numerous other pressing avocations, for +correspondence of this kind. Besides, if what I have obtained is not +satisfactory, I have many doubts whether more would be so. + +The first letter I shall insert is from Dr. H. A. Barrows, of Phillips, +in Maine. It is dated October 10, 1837, and may be considered as a +sequel to that written by him to Dr. North, though it is addressed to +the author of this volume. + + +LETTER I.--FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS. + +DEAR SIR,--As to food, my course of living has been quite uniform for +the last two or three years--principally as follows. Wheat meal bread, +potatoes, butter, and baked sweet apples for breakfast and dinners; for +suppers, old dry flour bread, which, eaten very leisurely without +butter, sauce, or drink, sits the lightest and best of any thing I eat. +But I cannot make this my principal diet, because the bowels will not +act (_without physic_) unless they have the spur of wheat bran two +thirds of the time. I have at times practiced going to bed without any +third meal; and have found myself amply rewarded for this kind of +fasting, and the consequent respite thereby afforded the stomach, in +quiet sleep and improved condition the next day. And as to drink, I +still use cold water, which I take with as great a zest, and as keen a +relish, as the inebriate does his stimulus. I seldom drink any thing +with my meals; and if I could live without drinking any thing between +meals, I think I should be rid of the principal "thorn in my side," the +acetous fermentation so constantly going on in my epigastric storehouse. + +As to exercise, I take abundance; perform all my practice (except in the +winter) on horseback, and find this the very best kind of exercise for +me. I seldom eat oftener than at intervals of six hours, and am apt to +eat too much--have at various times attempted Don Cornaro's method of +weighing food, but have found it rather dry business, probably on +account of its conflicting with my appetite; but I actually find that my +stomach does not bear watching at all well. + +My brother continues to practice nearly total abstinence from animal +food. I have seen him but once in two and a half years, but learn his +health has greatly improved, so that he was able to take charge of a +high school in the fall of 1836, of an academy in the spring of the +present year, and also again this fall. During his vacation last July, +he took a tour into the interior of Worcester county, Mass., and came +home entirely on foot by way of the Notch of the White Hills, traveling +nearly three hundred miles. This speaks something in favor of rigid +abstinence--as when he commenced this regimen he was extremely low. + + Yours sincerely, + H. A. BARROWS. + + +LETTER II.--FROM DR. JOHN M. B. HARDEN. + + GEORGIA, Liberty Co., Oct. 19, 1837. + +DEAR SIR,--I stated in my letter to Dr. North, if I recollect correctly, +that the use of animal food was resumed in consequence of a protracted +indisposition brought on, _as was supposed_, by the inhalation of +arseniuretted hydrogen gas. The gentleman had begun to recover some time +previously; and in a short time after he commenced the use of the animal +food, he was restored to his usual health. He has continued the use of +it ever since to the same extent as in the former part of his life. He +has lately passed his fifty-fifth year, and is now in the enjoyment of +as good health as he has ever known. + +I know of a gentleman in an adjoining county, who with his lady has been +living for some time past on a purely vegetable diet. They have not +continued it long enough, however, to make the experiment a fair one. + +No case of injury from the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen has come +under my own personal observation, if we except the one above alluded +to. I find, however, that Gehlen, a celebrated French chemist, fell a +victim to it in the year 1815. His death is thus announced in the +"Philosophical Magazine" for that year. "We lament to have to announce +the death of Gehlen, many years the editor of an excellent Journal on +Chemistry and other sciences, and a profound chemist. He fell a victim +to his ardent desire to promote the advancement of chemical knowledge. +He was preparing, in company with Mr. Rehland, his colleague, some +arsenated hydrogen gas, and while watching for the full development of +this air from its acid solution, trying every moment to judge from its +particular smell when that operation would be completed, he inhaled the +fatal poison which has robbed science of his valuable services." Vide +Tillock's Phil. Mag., vol. 46, p. 316. Some further notice is taken of +his death in a paper extracted from the "Annales de Chimie et de +Physique," and published in a subsequent volume of the same Magazine. +Vide vol. 49, p. 280, in which are given his last experiments on that +subject, by M. Gay Lussac. I regret that no account is given in the same +work of the symptoms arising from the poison in his case. I presume, +however, they are on record. + +In the subject of the case I mention, the general and prominent symptoms +were an immediate and great diminution of muscular strength, with pallor +of countenance and constant febricula, the arteries of the head beating +with violence, particularly when lying down at night, the pulse always +moderately increased in frequency, and full, but not tense; and +digestion for the most part good. This state continued for about three +months, during which time he was attending to his usual business, +although not able to take as much exercise as before. At the end of this +time he began to recover slowly, but it was six months before he was +restored entirely. + + Yours, etc., + JOHN M. B. HARDEN. + + +LETTER III.--FROM DR. JOSHUA PORTER. + + NORTH BROOKFIELD, Oct. 26, 1827. + +Though I would by no means favor the propensity for book-making, so +prevalent in our day, yet I have been long of the opinion that a work on +vegetable diet for general readers was greatly needed. I need it in my +family; and there are many others in this vicinity who would be +materially benefited by such a work. + +I have had no means of ascertaining the good or bad effects of a "diet +exclusively vegetable in cases of phthisis, scrofula, and dyspepsia," +for I have had none of the above diseases to contend with. But, since +your letter was received, I have been called to prescribe for a man who +has been a flesh eater for more than half a century. He was confined to +his house, had been losing strength for several months, still keeping up +his old habits. The disease which was preying upon him was chronic +inflammation of the right leg; the flesh had been so long swollen and +inflamed that it had become hard to the touch. There were ulcers on his +thigh, and some had made their appearance on the hip. This disease had +been of _seven months'_ standing, though not in so aggravated a form as +it now appeared. During this time, all the local applications had been +made that could be thought of by the good ladies in the neighborhood; +and after every thing of the kind had failed, they concluded to send for +"the doctor." + +After examining the patient attentively, I became convinced that the +disease, which developed itself locally, was of a constitutional origin, +and of course could not be cured by local remedies. All local +applications were discontinued; the patient was put on a vegetable diet +after the alimentary canal was freely evacuated. I saw this man three +days afterward. The dark purple appearance of the leg had somewhat +subsided; the red and angry appearance about the base of the ulcers was +gone, his strength improved, etc. Three days after I called, I found him +in his garden at work. + +He is now--two weeks since my first prescription--almost well. All the +ulcers have healed, with the exception of one or two. This man, who +thinks it wicked not to use the good things God has given us--such as +meat, cider, tobacco, etc.--is very willing to subsist, for the present, +on vegetable food, because he finds it the only remedy for his disease. + +Early in the spring of 1830, while a student at Amherst College, I was +attacked with dyspepsia, which rendered my life wretched for more than a +year, and finally drove me from college; but it had now so completely +gained the mastery, that no means I resorted to for relief afforded even +a palliation of my sufferings. After I had suffered nearly two years in +this way, I was made more wretched, if possible, by frequent attacks of +colic, with pains and cramps extending to my back; and so severe had +these pains become, that the prescriptions of the most eminent +physicians afforded only partial relief. + +On the 13th of February, 1833, after suffering from the most violent +paroxysm I had ever endured, I left my home for Brunswick, Maine, to +attend a course of medical lectures. For several days I boarded at a +public house, and ate freely of several substantial dishes that were +before me. The consequence was a fresh attack of colic. From some +circumstances that came up at this time, I was convinced that flesh +meats had much to do with my sufferings, and the resolution was formed +at once to change my diet and "starve" out dyspepsia. + +I took a room by myself, and made arrangements for receiving a pint of +milk per day; this, with coarse rye and Indian bread, constituted my +only food. After living in this way a week or two, I had a free and +natural evacuation. Thus nature began to effect what medicine alone had +done for nearly three years. The skin became moist, and my voracious +appetite began to subside. I returned home to my friends at the close of +the term well, and have been well ever since--have never had a colic +pain or any costiveness since that time. My powers of digestion are +good, and though I do not live so rigidly now as when at Brunswick, I +always feel best when my food is vegetables and milk. I can endure +fatigue and exposure as well as any man. On this mild diet, too, my +muscular strength has considerably increased; and every day is adding +new vigor to my constitution. + +Having experienced so much benefit from a mild diet, and being +rationally convinced that man was a fruit-eating animal naturally, I +made my views public by a course of lectures on physiology, which I +delivered in the Lyceum soon after I came to this place (three years +ago). The consequence was, that quite a number of those who heard my +lectures commenced training their families as well as themselves to the +use of vegetables, etc., and I am happy to inform you that, at this day, +many of our most active influential business-doing men are living in the +plainest and most simple manner. + +One of my neighbors has taken no flesh for more than three years. He is +of the ordinary height, and sanguine temperament, and usually weighed, +when he ate flesh, one hundred and eighty pounds. After he changed his +diet, his countenance began to change, and his cheeks fell in; and his +meat-eating friends had serious apprehensions that he would survive but +a short time, unless he returned to his former habits. But he +persevered, and is now more vigorous and more athletic than any man in +the region, or than he himself has ever been before. + +His muscular strength is very great. A few days since, a number of the +most athletic young men in our village were trying their strength at +lifting a cask of lime, weighing five hundred pounds. All failed to do +it, with the exception of one, who partly raised it from the ground. +After they were gone, this vegetable eater without any difficulty raised +the cask four or five times. More than three years ago this man lost his +daughter, who fell a prey to cholera infantum; he has now a daughter +rather more than a year old, whom he has trained on strictly +physiological principles; and though very feeble at birth, and for three +months subsequently, she is now the most healthy child in the town. This +child had some of the first symptoms of consumption last August, owing +to the too free indulgence of the mother in improper articles of food; +but being treated with demulcents, at the same time correcting the +mother's system, she recovered, and is now the "picture of health." + +I was conversing with this gentleman the other day respecting his +health--says he is perfectly well, weighs one hundred and sixty-five +pounds; and though he was called well when eating flesh, he was not so +in reality; for every few weeks he was troubled with headache and a +sense of fullness in the region of the stomach, for which he was obliged +to take an active cathartic. For a few months before he adopted the +vegetable system, he had decided symptoms of congestion in the head, +such as precede apoplexy. I questioned him as to his appetite. He +informed me, that when he ate meat he had such an unconquerable desire +for food about eleven o'clock, that he could not wait till noon. This he +calls "meat hunger," for it disappeared soon after he came to the +present style of living. He has no craving now; but when he begins to +eat, the zest is exquisite. + + Yours, + JOSHUA PORTER. + + +LETTER IV.--FROM DR. N. J. KNIGHT, OF TRURO. + + Dated at TRURO, October, 1837. + +DR. ALCOTT: SIR,--I hasten to comply so far with your request as to show +my decided approbation of a fruit and farinaceous diet, both in health +and sickness. The manner in which nutritious vegetables are presented to +us for our consumption and support, evince to a demonstration the +simplicity of our corporeal systems. Through every medium of correct +information, we learn that the most distinguished men, both in ancient +and modern times, were pre-eminently distinguished for their +abstemiousness, and the simplicity of their diet. + +It was not, however, a consideration of this kind that first induced me +to relinquish flesh meat and fish. Some three years previous to my +forming a determination to subsist upon farinacea, I had been laboring +under an aggravated case of dyspepsia; and about six months previous, +also, an attack of acute rheumatism. + +I was harassed with constant constipation of the bowels, and ejection of +food after eating, together with occasional pain in the head. + +Under all these circumstances, I came to this determination, which I +committed to paper: "November 9, 1831. This day ceased from +strengthening this mortal body by any part of that which ever drew +breath." To the above I rigidly adhered until last November, when my +health had become so perfect that I thought myself invincible, so far as +disease was concerned. All pains and aches had left me, and all the +functions of the body seemed to be performed in a healthy manner. + +My diet had consisted of rye and Indian bread, stale flour bread, sweet +bread without shortening, milk, some ripe fruit, and occasionally a +little butter. + +During this time, while I devoted myself to considerable laborious +practice and hard study, there was no deficiency of muscular strength or +mental energy. I am fully satisfied my mind was never so active and +strong. + +Since last November I have, at times, taken animal food, in order that I +might be absolutely satisfied that my mode of living acted decidedly in +favor of my perfect health, and that a different course would produce +organic derangement. + +I had only taken animal food about two months after the usual custom, +before I had a severe attack, and only escaped an inflammatory fever by +the most rigid antiphlogistic treatment. + +I again lived as I ought, and felt well; and having continued so some +time, I resorted the second time to an animal diet. + +In two months' time, I was taken with the urticaria febrilis, of +Bateman, which lasted me more than two weeks, and my suffering was +sufficient to forever exclude from my stomach every kind of animal food. + +I am now satisfied, to all intents and purposes, that mankind would live +longer, and enjoy more perfectly the "sane mind in a sound body," should +they never taste flesh meat or fish. + +A simple farinaceous diet I have ever found more efficient in the cure +of chronic complaints, where there was not much organic lesion, than +every other medical agent. + +Mrs. A., infected with scrofula of the left breast, and in a state of +ulceration, applied to me two years since. The ulcer was then the size +of a half-dollar, and discharged a considerable quantity of imperfect +pus. The axillary glands were much enlarged, and, doubting the +practicability of operating with the knife in such cases, I told her the +danger of her disease, and ordered her to subsist upon bread and milk +and some fruit, drink water, and keep the body of as uniform temperature +as possible. I ordered the sore to be kept clean by ablutions of tepid +water. In less than three months, the ulcer was all healed, and her +general health much improved. The axillary glands are still enlarged, +though less so than formerly. + +She still lives simply, and enjoys good health; but she tells me if she +tastes flesh meat, it produces a twinging in the breast. + +Many cases, like the above, have come under my observation and immediate +attention, and suffice it to say, I have never failed to ameliorate the +condition of every individual that has applied to me, who was suffering +under chronic affections, if they would follow my prescriptions--unless +the system was incapable of reaction. + + Yours, truly, + N. J. KNIGHT. + + +LETTER V.--FROM DR. LESTER KEEP. + + FAIR HAVEN, Jan. 22, 1838. + +DEAR SIR,--Agreeably to your request, I will inform you that from +September, 1834, to June, 1836, I used no meat at all, except +occasionally in my intercourse with society, I used a little to avoid +attracting notice. + +When I commenced my studies, life was burdensome. I knew not, for +months, and I may say years, what enjoyment comfortable health affords. +In a great many ways I can now see that I very greatly erred in my +course of living. I am surprised that the system will hold out in its +powers during so long a process in the use of what I should now consider +the means best calculated to break it down. + +I cannot now particularize. But in college, and during my professional +studies, and since, during six or eight years of practice in an arduous +profession, I have been greatly guilty, and neglected those means best +calculated to promote and preserve health; and used those means best +fitted to destroy it. The summers of 1832, 1833, and 1834, were pretty +much lost, from wretched health. I was growing worse every year, and no +medicines that I could prepare for myself, or that were prescribed by +various brother physicians, had any thing more than a temporary effect +to relieve me. All of the year 1834, until September, I used opium for +relief; and I used three and four grains of sulphate of morphine per +day, equal to about sixteen grains of opium. Spirit, wine, and ale I had +tried, and journeys through many portions of the State of Maine, with +the hope that a more northern climate would invigorate and restore a +system that I feared was broken down forever, and that at the age of +thirty-seven. But, without further preamble, I will say, I omitted at +once and entirely the use of tea, coffee, meat, butter, grease of all +sorts, cakes, pies, etc., wine, cider, spirits, opium (which I feared I +must use as long as I lived), and tobacco, the use of which I learned in +college. Of course, from so sudden and so great a change, a most horrid +condition must ensue for many days, for the relief of which I used the +warm bath at first several times a day. I had set no time to omit these +articles, and made no resolutions, except to give this course a trial, +to find out whether I had many native powers of system left, and what +was their character and condition when unaffected by the list of agents +mentioned. + +I pursued this plan of living faithfully for one year and a half, and +with unspeakable joy I found a gradual return of original vigor and +health. Now, I cannot say that the omission of meat of all kinds, for a +year and a half, caused this improvement in health; it is possible that +it had but little to do with it. I know I was guilty of many bad habits; +and probably all combined caused my bad condition. + +At the close of the year and a half, I married my present second wife, +and then commenced living as do others, in most respects, and continued +this course most of the time until I received your letter. I then again +omitted the use of all animal food, tea, coffee, and tobacco; and for +the last month, it is a clear case, my health is better; that is, more +vigorous to bear cold. I also bear labor and care better. + +I have not investigated the subject of dietetics very much, but I have +no doubt that the inhabitants of our whole land make too much use of +animal food. No doubt it obstructs the vital powers, and tends to +unbalance the healthful play and harmony of the various organs and their +functions. There is too much nutriment in a small space. An unexpected +quantity is taken; for with most people a sense of fullness is the test +of a sufficient quantity. + +I am satisfied that I am better without animal food than with the +quantity I ordinarily use. If I should use but a small quantity once or +twice a day, it is possible it would not be injurious. This I have not +tried; for I am so excessively fond of meat, that I always eat _more_ +than a small quantity, when I eat it at all. Healthy, vigorous men, day +laborers in the field, or forest, may perhaps require some meat to +sustain the system, during hard and exhausting labor. Of this I cannot +say. + +I am now pretty well convinced, from two or three years' observation, +that a large portion of my business, as a physician, arises from +intemperance in the use of food. Too much and too rich nutriment is +used, and my constant business is, to counteract its bad effects. + +Two cases are now in mind of the great benefit of dieting for the +recovery of health, the particulars of which I cannot now give you. One +of them I think would be willing to speak for himself on the subject. + + I am, sir, yours, etc., + LESTER KEEP. + + +LETTER VI.--SECOND LETTER FROM DR. KEEP. + + FAIR HAVEN, Ct., Jan. 26, 1838. + +SIR,--Since I wrote you, a few days ago, I have learned of several +individuals who have, for some length of time, used no flesh meat at +all. + +Amos Townsend, Cashier of the New Haven Bank, has, as I am told, lived +almost entirely upon bread, crackers, or something of that kind, and but +little of that. He can dictate a letter, count money, and hold +conversation with an individual, all at the same time, with no +embarrassment; and I know him to have firm health. + +Our minister, Rev. B. L. Swan, during the whole of two years of his +theological studies at Princeton, made crackers and water his only food, +and was in good health. + +Mr. Hanover Bradley, of this village, who has been several years a +missionary among the Indians, has, for I think, eight or ten years, +lived entirely on vegetable food. He had been long a dyspeptic. + +There are some other cases of less importance, and probably very many in +New Haven; but I am situated a mile from the city, and have never +inquired for vegetable livers. + + Yours, etc., + LESTER KEEP. + + +LETTER VII.--FROM DR. HENRY H. BROWN + + WEST RANDOLPH, Vt., Feb. 3, 1838. + +DEAR SIR,--It has been about two years and a half since I adopted an +exclusively vegetable diet, with no drink but water; and my food has +been chiefly prepared by the most simple forms of cookery. Previously to +this, I used a large proportion of flesh meat, and drank tea and coffee. +I had much impaired my health by such indulgences. I hardly need to say +that my health has greatly improved, and is now quite good and uniform. + +I think that physicians, in prescribing for the removal of disease, +should pay much more regard to the diet of their patients, and +administer less of powerful medicine, than is customary with gentlemen +of this profession at large. + + Yours, etc., + HENRY H. BROWN. + + +LETTER VIII.--FROM DR. FRANKLIN KNOX. + + KINSTON,[5] N. C., June 23, 1837. + +DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 22d July has been hitherto unanswered, +through press of business. + +I consider an exclusive vegetable diet as of the utmost consequence in +most diseases, especially in those chronic affections or morbid states +of the system which are not commonly considered as diseases; and I think +that, in these cases, such a diet is too often overlooked, even by +physicians. + + Yours, truly, + F. KNOX. + + +LETTER IX.--FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE PHYSICIAN. + +[The following letter, received last autumn, is from a medical +gentleman, in a distant part of the country, whose name, for particular +reasons, we stand pledged not to give to the world. The facts, however, +may be relied on; and they are exceedingly important and interesting.] + +DEAR SIR,--Your letter was duly received. I proceed to say that, since I +settled in this town, my attacks of epilepsy[6] have occurred in the +following order: + + 1833. + Nov. 18. One at 11 P. M. Severe. + " 19. " " " + " 24. Nineteen, from 4 A. M. to 3 P. M. Frightful. + + 1835. + Jan. 13. One at 4 A. M. } + " 15. " " } Milder. + " 16. Two at 2 and 4 A. M. } + +Thus it appears that I have enjoyed a longer immunity since the last, +than for some years prior. I have maintained total abstinence from +flesh, fish, or fowl, for two and a half years, namely, from March 1835 +to the present time. That this happy immunity from a most obstinate +disease is to be attributed solely to my abstinence from animal food, I +do not feel prepared to assert; but that my general health has been +better, my attacks of disease far milder, my vigor of mind and body +greater, my mental perceptions clearer and more acute, and my enjoyment +of life, on the whole, very essentially increased, I am fully prepared +to prove. + +I have, however, found it nearly as essential for me to abstain from +many kinds of vegetable food as from animal, namely, from all kinds of +flatulent vegetables; from all kinds of fruits and berries, except the +very mildest--as, perfectly ripe and well baked sweet apples--and from +all kinds of pies, sauces, and preserves. Of these, however, I am not +able to say, as I do of the animal varieties, that I have practiced +total abstinence; by no means. I have often ventured to indulge, and +generally suffer more or less for my temerity. My severest sufferings +for the last two years have been in the form of colic, of which I have +had frequent slight attacks; but none to confine me over twenty-four +hours. + + * * * * * + +ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS.--BY THE AUTHOR.[7] + +From the age of five or six months to that of two years, I was literally +crammed with flesh meat; usually of the most gross kind. Such a course +was believed, by the fond parents and others, as likely to be productive +of the most healthful and happy consequences. The result was an +accumulation of adipose substance, that rendered me one of the most +unsightly, not to say monstrous productions of nature. I ought not to +say _nature_, perhaps; for, if not perverted, she produces no such +monsters. At the age of six months, my weight was twenty-five pounds; +and it rose soon after to thirty or more. + +When I was about two years of age, I had the whooping-cough, and, having +been brought up to the height, and more than the height of my condition, +by over-feeding with fat meat, I suffered exceedingly. I? recovered, at +length, but I had lost my relish, as I am informed, for flesh meat; and +from this time till the age of fourteen, I seldom ate any but the +leanest muscle. I was tolerably healthy, but, from the age of two years, +was slender; so much so that, at five or six, I only weighed fifty +pounds; and was constantly either found fault with, or pitied, because I +did not eat meat in quality and quantity like other people. Nor was it +without much effort, even at the age of fourteen, that I could bring +myself to be reconciled to it. I was also trained to the early use of +much cider, and to the moderate use of tea and spirits. I have spoken of +my slender constitution;--I believe this was in part the result of +excessive early labor, and that it was not wholly owing to a premature +use of flesh meat. + +I had suffered so much, however, from the belief that I was feeble from +the latter cause, that I had no sooner become reconciled to the use of +flesh and fish--which was at the age of fourteen--than I indulged in it +quite freely. About this time I had a severe attack of measles, which +came very near carrying me off. I was left with anasarca, or general +dropsy, and with weak eyes. To cure the former the physicians plied me, +for a long time, with blue pill, and with mercurial medicine in other +forms, and also with digitalis; and finally filled my stomach to +overflowing with diuretic drinks. However, in spite of them all, I +recovered during the next year; except that a foundation was laid for +premature decay of the teeth, and for a severe eruptive disease. This +last, and the weakness of the eyes, were, for some time, very +troublesome. + +The eruptive complaint was soon discovered to be less severe, even in +hot weather, and while I was using a great deal of exercise, in +proportion as I abstained from all drinks but water, and ate none but +mild food. Owing to the discovery of this fact and to other causes, I +chiefly discontinued the use of stimulating food and drink, during the +hottest part of the season; though I committed much error in regard to +the quantity of my food, and drank quite too freely of cold water. Still +I always found my health best, and my body and mind most vigorous at the +end of summer, or the beginning of autumn, notwithstanding the very hard +labor to which I was subjected on the farm. This increase of vigor was, +at that time, attributed chiefly to a free use of summer fruits; for, so +deeply had the belief been infixed by early education, that highly +stimulating food and drink were indispensable to the full health and +strength of mankind, and especially to people who were laboring hard, +that, though I sometimes suspected they were not true friends to the +human system, my conscience always condemned the suspicion, and +pronounced me guilty of a species of high treason for harboring it. + +This brings up my dietetic history, to the period at which it commences, +in the letter to Dr. North. The study of medicine, however, from the age +of twenty-four to twenty-seven, and the subsequent study and practice of +it for a few years, joined to the changes I made at the same time in my +physical habits, and my observations on their effects, led me to reject, +one after another, and one group after another, the whole tribe of extra +stimulants--solid and fluid. + +The sequel of my story remains to be told. It is now nearly fifteen +years since I wrote the letter, which is found at page 23d, to Dr. +North. During this long period, and for several years before, amounting, +in all, to about nineteen years, I have not only abstained entirely from +flesh, fish, and fowl--not having eaten a pound of any one of these +during the whole time, except the very few pounds I used in the time of +the first visitation of our country with cholera, as before +mentioned--but I have almost entirely abstained from butter, cheese, +eggs, and milk. Butter, especially, I _never_ taste at all. The +occasional use of milk, in very small quantities, once a day, has, +however, been resorted to; not from necessity, indeed, or to gratify any +strong desire or inclination for it, but from a conviction of its happy +medicinal effects on my much-injured frame. Hot food of every kind, and +liquids, with the exception just made, I rarely touch. Nearly every +thing is taken in as solid a form and in as simple a state as possible; +with no condiments, except a very little salt, and with no sweets, +sauces, gravies, jellies, preserves, etc. I seldom use more than one +sort of food at a time, unless it be to add fruit as a second article; +and this is rarely done, except in the morning. I have for ten or twelve +years used no drinks with my meals; and sometimes for months together +have had very little thirst at all.[8] + +And as to the effects, they are such, and have all along been such, as +to make me wonder at myself, whenever I think of it. Instead of being +constantly subject to cold, and nearly dying with consumption in the +spring, I am almost free from any tendency to take cold at all. During +the winter of 1837-8, by neglecting to keep the temperature of my room +low enough, and by neglecting also to take sufficient exercise in the +open air, I became unusually tender, and suffered to some extent from +colds. But I was well again during the spring, and felt as if I had +recovered or nearly recovered my former hardihood. + +In regard to other complaints, I may say still more. Of rheumatism, I +have scarcely had a twinge in twelve or fourteen years. My eruptive +complaint is, I believe, _entirely_ gone. The weakness of my eyes has +been wholly gone for many years. Indeed, the strength and perfection of +my sight and of all my senses, till nearly fifty years of age--hearing +perhaps excepted, in which I perceive no alteration--appeared to be +constantly improving. My stomach and intestines perform their respective +duties in the most appropriate, correct, and healthful manner. My +appetite is constantly good, and as constantly improving;--that is, +going on toward perfection. I can detect, especially by taste, almost +any thing which is in the least offensive or deleterious in food or +drink; and yet I can receive, without immediate apparent disturbance, +and readily digest, almost any thing which ever entered a human +stomach--knives, pencils, clay, chalk, etc., perhaps excepted. I can eat +a full meal of cabbage, or any other very objectionable crude aliment, +or even cheese or pastry--a single meal, I mean--with apparent impunity; +not when fatigued, of course, or in any way debilitated, but in the +morning and when in full strength. It is true, I make no experiments of +this sort, except occasionally _as_ experiments. + +In my former statements I gave it as my opinion that vegetable food was +less aperient than animal. My opinion now is, that if we were trained on +vegetable food, and had never received substances into the stomach which +were unduly stimulating, we should find the intestinal or peristaltic +action quite sufficient. The apparent sluggishness of the bowels, when +we first exchange an animal diet for a vegetable one, is probably owing +to our former abuses. At present, I find my plain vegetable food, in +moderate and reasonable quantity, quite as aperient as it ought to be, +and, if I exceed a proper quantity, too much so. + +I have now no remaining doubts of the vast importance that would result +to mankind, from an universal training from childhood, to the exclusive +use of vegetable food. I believe such a course of training, along with a +due attention to air, exercise, cleanliness, etc., would be the means of +improving our race, physically, intellectually, and morally, beyond any +thing of which the world has yet conceived. But my reasons for this +belief will be seen more fully in another place. They are founded in +science and the observation of facts around me, much more than on a +narrow individual experience. + +There is one circumstance which I must not omit, because it is full of +admonition and instruction. I have elsewhere stated that, twenty-three +years ago, I had incipient phthisis. Of this fact, and of the fact that +there were considerable inroads made by disease on the upper lobe of +the right lung, I have not the slightest doubt. The symptoms were such +at the time, and subsequently, as could not have been mistaken. Besides, +what was, as I conceive, pretty fully established by the symptoms which +existed, is rendered still more certain by auscultation. The sounds +which are heard during respiration, in the region to which I have +alluded, leave no doubt on the minds of skillful medical men, of their +origin. Still I doubt whether the disease has made any considerable +progress for many years. + +But, during the winter of 1837-8, my employments became excessively +laborious; and, for the whole winter and spring, were sufficient for at +least two healthy and strong men. They were also almost wholly +sedentary. At the end of May, I took a long and rather fatiguing journey +through a country by no means the most healthy, and came home somewhat +depressed in mind and body, especially the former. I was also unusually +emaciated, and I began to have fears of a decline. Still, however, my +appetite was good, and I had a good share of bodily strength. The more I +directed my attention to myself, the worse I became; and I actually soon +began to experience darting pains in the chest, together with other +symptoms of a renewal of pulmonary disease. Perceiving my danger, +however, from the state of my mind, I at length made a powerful effort +to shake off the mental disturbance--which succeeded. This, together +with moderate labor and rather more exercise than before, seemed +gradually to set me right. + +Again, in the spring of 1848, after lecturing for weeks and +months--often in bad and unventilated rooms and subjecting myself, +unavoidably, to many of those abuses which exist every where in +society, I was attacked with a cough, followed by great debility, from +which it cost me some three months or more of labor with the spade and +hoe, to recover. With this and the exceptions before named, I have now, +for about twenty years, been as healthy as ever I was in my life, except +the slight tendency to cold during the winter of which I have already +taken notice. I never was more cheerful or more happy; never saw the +world in a brighter aspect; never before was it more truly "morning all +day" with me. I have paid, in part, the penalty of my transgressions; +and may, perhaps, go on, in life, many years longer. + +I now fear nothing in the future, so far as health and disease are +concerned, so much as excessive alimentation. To this evil--and it is a +most serious and common one in this land of abundance and busy +activity--I am much exposed, both from the keenness of my appetite, and +the exceeding richness of the simple vegetables and fruits of which I +partake. But, within a few years past, I seem to have gotten the +victory, in a good measure, even in this respect. By eating only a few +simple dishes at a time, and by measuring or weighing them with the +eye--for I weigh them in no other way--I am usually able to confine +myself to nearly the proper limits. + +This caution, and these efforts at self-government, are not needed +because their neglect involves any immediate suffering; for, as I have +already stated, there was never a period in my life before, when I was +so completely independent--apparently so, I mean--of external +circumstances. I can eat what I please, and as much or as little as I +please. I can observe set hours, or be very irregular. I can use a +pretty extensive variety at the same meal, and a still greater variety +at different meals, or I can live perpetually on a single article--nay, +on almost any thing which could be named in the animal or vegetable +kingdom--and be perfectly contented and happy in the use of it. I could +in short, eat, work, think, sleep, converse, or play almost all the +while; or I could abstain from any or all of these, almost all the +while. Let me be understood, however. I do not mean to say that either +of these courses would be best for me, in the end; but only that I have +so far attained to independence of external circumstances that, for a +time, I believe I should be able to do or bear all I have mentioned. + +One thing more, in this connection, and I shall have finished my +remarks. I sleep too little; but it is because I allow my mind to run +over the world so much, and lay so many schemes for human improvement or +for human happiness; and because I allow my sympathies to become so +deeply enlisted in human suffering and human woe. I should be most +healthy, in the end, by spending six hours or more in sleep; whereas I +do not probably exceed four or five. I have indeed obtained a respite +from the grave of twenty-three years, through a partial repentance and +amendment of life, and the mercy of God; but did I obey all his laws as +well as I do a part of them, I know of no reason why my life might not +be lengthened, not merely fifteen years, as was Hezekiah's, or +twenty-three merely, but forty or fifty. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] Dr. Knox has since removed to St. Louis, Missouri. + +[6] The reader will find another remarkable cure of epilepsy in a +subsequent chapter of this volume. The case was that of Dr. Taylor, of +England. + +[7] See pages 13 and 23. + +[8] This fact, and certain discussions on the subject of temperance, led +me to abstain, about the years 1841 and 1842, entirely from all drink +for a long time. Indeed, I made two of these experiments; in one of +which I abstained nine months and nineteen days, and in the other +fourteen months and one or two days; except that in the latter case I +ate, literally, for one or two successive days, while working hard at +haying, one or two bowls a day of bread and water. But these were +experiments _merely_--the experiments made by a medical man who +preferred making experiments on himself to making them on others; and +they never deserved the misconstruction which was put upon them by +several persons, who, in other respects, were very sensible men. "The +author" never believed with Dr. Lambe, of London, that man is not a +drinking animal. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +TESTIMONY OF OTHER MEDICAL MEN, BOTH OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.--Dr. + Geoffroy.--Vanquelin and Percy.--Dr. Pemberton.--Sir John + Sinclair.--Dr. James.--Dr. Cranstoun.--Dr. Taylor.--Drs. + Hufeland and Abernethy.--Sir Gilbert Blane.--Dr. Gregory.--Dr. + Cullen.--Dr. Rush.--Dr. Lambe.--Prof. Lawrence.--Dr. + Salgues.--Author of "Sure Methods."--Baron Cuvier.--Dr. Luther + V. Bell.--Dr. Buchan.--Dr. Whitlaw.--Dr. Clark.--Prof. + Mussey.--Drs. Bell and Condie.--Dr. J. V. C. Smith.--Mr. + Graham.--Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.--Dr. Sweetser.--Dr. + Pierson.--Physician in New York.--Females' Encyclopedia.--Dr. + Van Cooth.--Dr. Beaumont.--Sir Everard Home.--Dr. + Jennings.--Dr. Jarvis.--Dr. Ticknor.--Dr. Coles.--Dr. + Shew.--Dr. Morrill.--Dr. Bell.--Dr. Jackson.--Dr. + Stephenson.--Dr. J. Burdell.--Dr. Smethurst.--Dr. + Schlemmer.--Dr. Curtis.--Dr. Porter. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +The number of physicians, and surgeons, and medical men, whose testimony +is brought to bear on the subject of diet, in the chapter which follows, +is by no means as great as it might have been. There are few writers on +anatomy, physiology, materia medica, or disease, who have not, either +directly or indirectly, given their testimony in favor of a mild and +vegetable diet for persons affected with certain chronic diseases. And +there is scarcely a writer on hygiene, or even on diet, who has not done +much more than this, and at times hinted at the safety of such a diet +for those who are in health; particularly the studious and sedentary. +But my object has been, not so much to collect all the evidence I could, +as to make a judicious selection--a selection which should present the +subject upon which it bears, in as many aspects as possible. I have +aimed in general, also, to procure the testimony of intelligent and +philanthropic men; or, at least of men whose names have by some means or +other been already brought before the public. If there are a few +exceptions to this rule, if a few are men whose names have been hitherto +unknown, it is on account of the _aspect_, as I have already said, of +their testimony, or on account of their peculiar position, as regards +country, age of the world, etc., or to secure their authority for +certain anecdotes or facts. + +In the arrangement of the testimony, I have been guided by no particular +rule, unless it has been to present first that of some of the older and +most accredited writers, such as Cheyne, Cullen, and Rush. The testimony +of certain living men and authors, particularly of our own country, has +been presented toward the close of the chapter, and in a very brief and +condensed form, from design. The propriety of inserting their names at +all was for a time considered doubtful. It is believed, however, that +they could not, in strict justice, have been entirely omitted. But let +not the meagre sketch of their views I have given, satisfy us. We want a +full development of their principles from their own pens--such a +development as, I hope, will not long be withheld from a world which is +famishing for the want of it. But now to the testimony. + + +DR. GEORGE CHEYNE. + +This distinguished physician, and somewhat voluminous writer, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. He may justly be esteemed the father of +what is now called the "vegetable system" of living; although it is +evident he did not see every thing clearly. "In the early part of his +life," says Prof. Hitchcock, in his work on Dyspepsia, "he was a +voluptuary; and before he attained to middle age, was so corpulent that +it was necessary to open the whole side of his carriage that he might +enter; and he saw death inevitable, without a change of his course. He +immediately abandoned all ardent spirits, wine, and fermented liquors, +and confined himself wholly to milk, vegetables, and water. This course, +with active exercise, reduced him from the enormous weight of four +hundred and forty-eight pounds, to one hundred and forty; and restored +his health and the vigor of his mind. After a few years, he ventured to +change his abstemious diet for one more rich and stimulating. But the +effect was a recurrence of his former corpulence and ill health. A +return to milk, water, and vegetables restored him again; and he +continued in uninterrupted health to the age of seventy-two." + +The following is his account of himself, at the age of about seventy: + +"It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered upon +a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, I took this +light food as my appetite directed, without any measure, and found +myself easy under it. After some time, I found it became necessary to +lessen the quantity; and I have latterly reduced it to one half, at +most, of what I at first seemed to bear. And if it shall please God to +spare me a few years longer, in order, in that case, to preserve that +freedom and clearness which, by his, blessing, I now enjoy, I shall +probably find myself obliged to deny myself one half of my present daily +substance--which is precisely three Winchester pints of new cows' milk, +and six ounces of biscuit made of fine flour, without salt or yeast, and +baked in a quick oven." + +It is exceedingly interesting to find an aged physician, especially one +who had formerly been in the habit of using six pints of milk, and +twelve ounces of unfermented biscuit, and of regarding that as a low +diet, reducing himself to one half this quantity in his old age, with +evident advantages; and cheerfully looking forward to a period, as not +many years distant, when he should be obliged to restrict himself to +half even of that quantity. How far he finally carried his temperance, +we do not exactly know. We only know that, after thirty years of health +and successful medical practice, he strenuously contended for the +superiority of a vegetable and milk diet over any other, whether for the +feeble or the healthy. But his numerous works abound with the most +earnest exhortations to temperance in all things, and with the most +interesting facts and cogent reasonings; and--I repeat it--if there be +any individual, since the days of Pythagoras, whose name ought to be +handed down to posterity as the father of the vegetable system of +living, it is that of Dr. Cheyne. + +Among his works are, a work on Fevers; an Essay on the true Nature and +proper Method of treating the Gout; a work on the Philosophical +Principles of Religion; an Essay of Health and Long Life; a work called +the English Malady; and another entitled the Natural Method of Cure in +the Diseases of the Body, and the Distempers of the Mind depending +thereon. The latter, and his Essay of Long Life are, in my view, his +greatest works; though the history of his own experience is chiefly +contained in his English Malady. + +I shall now proceed to make such extracts from his works, as seem to me +most striking and important to the general reader. They are somewhat +numerous, and there may be a few repetitions; but I was more anxious to +preserve his exact language--which is rather prolix--than to abridge too +much, at the risk of misrepresenting his sentiments. + +"When I see milk, oil, emulsion, mild watery fluids, and such like soft +liquors run through leathern tubes or pipes (for such animal veins and +arteries indeed are) for years, without destroying them, and observe on +the other hand that brine, inflammable or urinous spirits, and the like +acrimonious and burning fluids corrode, destroy, and consume them in a +very short time; when I consider the rending, burning, and tearing pains +and tortures of the gout, stone, colic, cancer, rheumatism, convulsions, +and such like insufferably painful distempers; when I see the crises of +almost all acute distempers happen either by rank and fetid sweats, +thick lateritious and lixivious sediments in the urine, black, putrid, +and fetid dejections, attended with livid and purple spots, corrosive +ulcers, impostumes in the joints or muscles, or a gangrene and +mortification in this or that part of the body; when I see the sharp, +the corroding and burning ichor of scorbutic and scrofulous sores, +fretting, galling, and blistering the adjacent parts, with the +inflammation, swelling, hardness, scabs, scurf, scales, and other +loathsome cutaneous foulnesses that attend, the white gritty and chalky +matter, and hard stony or flinty concretions which happen to all those +long troubled with severe gouts, gravel, jaundice, or colic--the +obstructions and hardnesses, the putrefaction and mortification that +happen in the bowels, joints, and members in some of these diseases, and +the rottenness in the bones, ligaments, and membranes that happen in +others; all the various train of pains, miseries, and torments that can +afflict any part of the compound, and for which there is scarce any +reprieve to be obtained, but by swallowing a kind of poison (opiates, +etc.); when I behold with compassion and sorrow, such scenes of misery +and woe, and see them happen only to the rich, the lazy, the luxurious, +and the inactive, those who fare daintily and live voluptuously, those +who are furnished with the rarest delicacies, the richest foods, and the +most generous wines, such as can provoke the appetites, senses, and +passions, in the most exquisite and voluptuous manner; to those who +leave no desire or degree of appetite unsatisfied, and not to the poor, +the low, the meaner sort, those destitute of the necessaries, +conveniences, and pleasures of life; to the frugal, industrious, +temperate, laborious, and active, inhabiting barren and uncultivated +countries, deserts, and forests under the poles or under the line;--I +must, if I am not resolved to resist the strongest conviction, conclude +that it must be something received into the body that can produce such +terrible appearances in it--some flagrant and notable difference in the +food that so sensibly distinguishes them from the latter; and that it is +the miserable man himself that creates his miseries and begets his +torture, or at least those from whom he has derived his bodily organs. + +"Nothing is so light and easy to the stomach, most certainly, as the +farinaceous or mealy vegetables; such as peas, beans, millet, oats, +barley, rye, wheat, sago, rice, potatoes, and the like." + +Milk is not included in the foregoing list of light articles; although +Dr. C. was evidently extremely fond of prescribing it in chronic +diseases. It does not fully appear, so far as I can learn from his +writings, that he regarded it as by any means indispensable to those +who were perfectly healthy, except during infancy and childhood. The +following extract will give us--more than any other, perhaps--his real +sentiments, though modestly expressed in the form of a conjecture, +rather than a settled belief. + +"I have sometimes indulged the conjecture that animal food, and _made_ +or artificial liquors, in the original frame of our nature and design of +our creation, were not intended for human creatures. They seem to me +neither to have those strong and fit organs for digesting them (at +least, such as birds and beasts of prey have that live on flesh); nor, +naturally, to have those voracious and brutish appetites, that require +animal food and strong liquors to satisfy them; nor those cruel and hard +hearts, or those diabolical passions, which could easily suffer them to +tear and destroy their fellow-creatures; at least, not in the first and +early ages, before every man had corrupted his way, and God was forced +to exterminate the whole race by an universal deluge, and was also +obliged to shorten their lives from nine hundred or one thousand years +to seventy. He wisely foresaw that animal food and artificial liquors +would naturally contribute toward this end, and indulged or permitted +the generation that was to plant the earth again after the flood the use +of them for food; knowing that, though it would shorten their lives and +plait a scourge of thorns for the backs of the lazy and voluptuous, it +would be cautiously avoided by those who knew it was their duty and +happiness to keep their passions low, and their appetites in subjection. +And this very era of the flood is that mentioned in holy writ for the +indulgence of animal food and artificial liquors, after the trial had +been made how insufficient alone a vegetable diet--which was the first +food appointed for human kind after their creation--was, in the long +lives of men, to restrain their wickedness and malice, and after finding +that nothing but shortening their duration could possibly prevent the +evil. + +"It is true, there is scarce a possibility of preventing the destroying +of animal life, as things are now constituted, since insects breed and +nestle in the very vegetables themselves; and we scarcely ever devour a +plant or root, wherein we do not destroy innumerable animalculae. But, +besides what I have said of nature's being quite altered and changed +from what was originally intended, there is a great difference between +destroying and extinguishing animal life by choice and election, to +gratify our appetites, and indulge concupiscence, and the casual and +unavoidable crushing of those who, perhaps, otherwise would die within +the day, or at most the year, and who obtain but an inferior kind of +existence and life, at the best. + +"Whatever there may be, in this conjecture, it is evident to those who +understand the animal economy of the frame of human bodies, together +with the history, both of those who have lived abstemiously, and of +those who have lived freely, that indulging in flesh meat and strong +liquors, inflames the passions and shortens life, begets chronical +distempers and a decrepit age. + +"For remedying the distempers of the body, to make a man live as long as +his original frame was designed to last, with the least pain and fewest +diseases, and without the loss of his senses, I think Pythagoras and +Cornaro by far the two greatest men that ever were:--the first, by +vegetable food and unfermented liquors; the latter, by the lightest and +least of animal food, and naturally fermented liquors. Both lived to a +great age. But, what is chiefly to be regarded in their conduct and +example, both preserved their senses, cheerfulness, and serenity to the +last; and, which is still more to be regarded, both, at least the last, +dissolved without pain or struggle; the first having lost his life in a +tumult, as it is said by some, after a great age of perfect health. + +"A plain, natural, and philosophical reason why vegetable food is +preferable to all other food is, that abounding with few or no salts, +being soft and cool, and consisting of parts that are easily divided and +formed into chyle without giving any labor to the digestive powers, it +has not that force to open the lacteals, to distend their orifices and +excite them to an unnatural activity, to let them pass too great a +quantity of hot and rank chyle into the blood, and so overcharge and +inflame the lymphatics and capillaries, which is the natural and +ordinary effect of animal food; and therefore cannot so readily produce +diseases. There is not a sufficient stimulus in the salts and spirits of +vegetable food to create an unnatural appetite, or violent cramming; at +least, not sufficient to force open and extend the mouths of the +lacteals, more than naturally they are or ought to be. Such food +requires little or no force of digestion, a little gentle heat and +motion being sufficient to dissolve it into its integral particles: so +that, in a vegetable diet, though the sharp humors, in the first +passages, are extended, relaxed stomach, and sometimes a delightful +piquancy in the food, may tempt one to exceed in quantity; yet rarely, +if spices and sauces--as too much butter, oil, and sugar--are not joined +to seeds[9] and vegetables, can the mischief go farther than the stomach +and bowels, to create a pressed load, sickness, vomiting, or purging, +by its acquiring an acrimony from its not being received into the +lacteals;--so that on more being admitted into the blood than the +expenses of living require, life and health can never be endangered by a +vegetable diet. But all the contrary happens under a high animal diet." + +Now I will not undertake to vouch--as indeed I cannot, conscientiously, +do it--for the correctness of all Dr. C.'s notions in physiology or +pathology. The great object I have in view, by the introduction of these +quotations, may be accomplished without it. His preference for vegetable +food, or for what he calls a milk and seed diet, is the point which I +wish to make most prominent. + +In the following paragraphs, he takes up and considers some of the +popular objections of the day, to his doctrines and practice. + +"One of the most terrible objections some weak persons make against this +regimen and method, is, that upon accidental trials, they have always +found milk, fruit, and vegetables so inflate, blow them up, and raise +such tumults and tempests in their stomach and bowels, that they have +been terrified and affrighted from going on. I own the truth and fact to +be such, in some as is represented; and that in stomachs and entrails +inured only to hot and high meats and drinks, and consequently in an +inflammatory state and full of choler and phlegm, this sensation will +sometimes happen--just as a bottle of cider or fretting wine, when the +cork is pulled out, will fly up, and fume, and rage; and if you throw in +a little ferment or acid (such as milk, seeds, fruit, and vegetables _to +them_), the effervescence and tempest will exasperate to a hurricane. + +"But what are wind, flatulence, phlegm, and choler? What, indeed, but +stopped perspiration, superfluous nourishment, inconcocted chyle, of +high food and strong liquors, fermented and putrifying? And when these +are shut up and corked, with still more and more solid, strong, hot, and +styptic meats and drinks, is the corruption and putrefaction thereby +lessened? Will it not then, at last, either burst the vessel, or throw +out the cork or stopples, and raise still more lasting and cruel +tempests and tumults? Are milk and vegetables, seeds and fruits, harder +of digestion, more corrosive, or more capable of producing chyle, blood, +and juices, less fit to circulate, to perspire, and be secreted? + +"But what is to be done? The cure is obvious. Begin by degrees; eat less +animal food--the most tender and young--and drink less strong fermented +liquors, for a month or two. Then proceed to a _trimming_ diet, of one +day, seed and vegetables, and another day, tender, young animal +food;--and, by degrees, slide into a total milk, seed, and vegetable +diet; cooling the stomach and entrails gradually, to fit them for this +soft, mild, sweetening regimen; and in time your diet will give you all +the gratification you ever had from strong, high, and rank food, and +spirituous liquors. And you will, at last, enjoy ease, free spirits, +perfect health, and long life into the bargain. + +"Seeds of all kinds are fittest to begin with, in these cases, when +dried, finely ground, and dressed; and, consequently, the least +flatulent. Lessen the quantity, even of these, below what your appetite +would require, at least for a time. Bear a little, and forbear. + +"Virtue and good health are not to be obtained, without some labor and +pains, against contrary habits. It was a wild bounce of a Pythagorean, +who defied any one to produce an instance of a person, who had long +lived on milk and vegetables, who ever cut his own throat, hanged, or +made way with himself; who had ever suffered at Tyburn, gone to Newgate, +or to Moorfields; (and, he added rather profanely,) or, would go to +eternal misery hereafter. + +"Another weighty objection against a vegetable diet, I have heard, has +been made by learned men; and is, that vegetables require great labor, +strong exercise, and much action, to digest and turn them into proper +nutriment; as (say they) is evident from their being the common diet of +day-laborers, handicraftsmen, and farmers. This objection I should have +been ashamed to mention, but that I have heard it come from men of +learning; and they might have as justly said, that freestone is harder +than marble, and that the juice of vegetables makes stronger glue than +that of fish and beef! + +"Do not children and young persons, that is, tender persons, live on +milk and seeds, even before they are capable of much labor and exercise? +Do not all the eastern and southern people live almost entirely on them? +The Asiatics, Moors, and Indians, whose climates incapacitate them for +much labor, and whose indolence is so justly a reproach to them,--are +these lazier and less laborious men than the Highlanders and native +Irish? + +"The truth is, hardness of digestion principally depends on the +minuteness of the component particles, as is evident in marble and +precious stones. And animal substances being made of particles that pass +through innumerable very little, or infinitely small excretory ducts, +must be of a much finer texture, and consequently harder, or tougher, in +their composition, than any vegetable substance can be. And the flesh of +animals that live on animals, is like double distilled spirits, and so +requires much labor to break, grind, and digest it. And, indeed, if +day-laborers, and handicraftsmen were allowed the high, strong food of +men of condition, and the quiet and much-thinking persons were confined +to the farmer and ploughman's food, it would be much happier for both. + +"Another objection, still, against a milk and vegetable diet is, that it +breeds phlegm, and so is unfit for tender persons, of cold +constitutions; especially those whose predominant failing is too much +phlegm. But this objection has as little foundation as either of the +preceding. Phlegm is nothing but superfluous chyle and nourishment, as +the taking down more food than the expenses of living and the waste of +the solids and fluids require. The people that live most on such +foods--the eastern and southern people and those of the northern I have +mentioned--are less troubled with phlegm than any others. Superfluity +will always produce redundancy, whether it be of phlegm or choler; and +that which will digest the most readily, will produce the least +phlegm--such as milk, seeds, and vegetables. By cooling and relaxing the +solids, the phlegm will be more readily thrown up and discharged--more, +I say, by such a diet than by a hot, high, caustic, and restringent one; +but that discharge is a benefit to the constitution, and will help it +the sooner and faster to become purified, and so to get into perfect +good health. Whereas, by shutting them up, the can or cask must fly and +burst so much the sooner. + +"The only material and solid objections against a milk, seed, and +vegetable diet, are the following: + +"_First_, That it is particular and unsocial, in a country where the +common diet is of another nature. But I am sure sickness, lowness, and +oppression, are much more so. These difficulties, after all, happen only +at first, while the cure is about; for, when good health comes, all +these oddnesses and specialities will vanish, and then all the contrary +to these will be the case. + +"_Secondly_, That it is weakening, and gives a man less strength and +force, than common diet. It is true that this may be the result, at +first, while the cure is imperfect. But then the greater activity and +gayety which will ensue on the return of health, under a milk and +vegetable diet, will liberally supply that defect. + +"_Thirdly_, The most material objection against such a diet is, that it +cools, relaxes, softens, and unbends the solids, at first, faster than +it corrects and sweetens the juices, and brings on greater degrees of +lowness than it is designed to cure; and so sinks, instead of raising. +But this objection is not universally true; for there are many I have +treated, who, without any such inconvenience, or consequent lowness, +have gone into this regimen, and have been free from any oppression, +sinking, or any degree of weakness, ever after; and they were not only +those who have been generally temperate and clean, free from humors and +sharpnesses, but who, on the decline of life, or from a naturally weak +constitution or frame, have been oppressed and sunk from their weakness +and their incapacity to digest common animal food and fermented liquors. + +"I very much question if any diet, either hot or cool, has any great +influence on the solids, after the fluids have been entirely sweetened +and balmified. Sweeten and thin the juices, and the rest will follow, as +a matter of course." + +At page 90 of Dr. Cheyne's Natural Method of Curing Diseases, he thus +says: + +"People think they cannot possibly subsist on a little meat, milk, and +vegetables, or on any low diet, and that they must infallibly perish if +they should be confined to water only; not considering that nine tenths +of the whole mass of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet, or +pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of their senses, limbs, +and faculties, without diseases, or but few, and those from accidents or +epidemical causes; and that there have been nations, and now are numbers +of tribes, who voluntarily confine themselves to vegetables only; as the +Essenes among the Jews, some Hermits and Solitaries among the Christians +of the first ages, a great number of monks in the Chartreux now in +Europe, Banians among the Indians and Chinese, the Guebres among the +Persians, and of old, the Druids among ourselves." + +To illustrate the foregoing, I may here introduce the following extracts +from the sixth London edition of Dr. Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long +Life. + +"It is surprising to what a great age the Eastern Christians, who +retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, +lived healthful on a very little food. We are informed, by Cassian, that +the common measure for twenty-four hours was about twelve ounces, with +only pure water for drink. St. Anthony lived to one hundred and five +years on mere bread and water, adding only a few herbs at last. On a +similar diet, James the Hermit lived to one hundred and four years. +Arsenius, the tutor of the emperor Arcadius, to one hundred and +twenty--sixty-five years in society, and fifty-five in the desert. St. +Epiphanius, to one hundred and fifteen; St. Jerome, about one hundred; +Simon Stylites, to one hundred and nine; and Romualdus, to one hundred +and twenty. + +"It is wonderful in what sprightliness, strength, activity, and freedom +of spirits, a low diet, even here in England, will preserve those who +have habituated themselves to it. Buchanan informs us of one Laurence, +who preserved himself to one hundred and forty, by the mere force of +temperance and labor. Spotswood mentions one Kentigern (afterward called +St. Mongah, or Mungo, from whom the famous well in Wales is named), who +lived to one hundred and eighty-five years; and who, after he came to +years of understanding, never tasted wine or strong drink, and slept on +the cold ground. + +"My worthy friend, Mr. Webb, is still alive. He, by the quickness of the +faculties of the mind, and the activity of the organs of his body, shows +the great benefit of a low diet--living altogether on vegetable food and +pure water. Henry Jenkins lived to one hundred and sixty-nine years on a +low, coarse, and simple diet. Thomas Parr died at the age of one hundred +and fifty-two years and nine months. His diet was coarse bread, milk, +cheese, whey, and small beer; and his historian tells us, that he might +have lived a good while longer if he had not changed his diet and air; +coming out of a clear, thin air, into the thick air of London, and being +taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully +of the best wines, and, as a necessary consequence, died in a short +time. Dr. Lister mentions eight persons in the north of England, the +youngest of whom was above one hundred years old, and the oldest was one +hundred and forty. He says, it is to be observed that the food of all +this mountainous country is exceeding coarse." + +Dr. C., in his Natural Method, at page 91, thus continues his remarks: + +"And there are whole villages in this kingdom, even of those who live on +the plains, who scarce eat animal food, or drink fermented liquors a +dozen times a year. It is true, most of these cannot be said to live at +ease and commodiously, and many may be said to live in barbarity and +ignorance. All I would infer from this is, that they do live, and enjoy +life, health, and outward serenity, with few or no bodily diseases but +from accidents and epidemical causes; and that, being reduced by +voluntary and necessary poverty, they are not able to manage with care +and caution the rest of the non-naturals, which, for perfect health and +cheerfulness, must all be equally attended to, and prudently conducted; +and their ignorance and brutality is owing to the want of the +convenience of due and sufficient culture and education in their youth. + +"But the only conclusion I would draw from these historical facts is, +that a low diet, or living on vegetables, will not destroy life or +health, or cause nervous and cephalic distempers; but, on the contrary, +cure them, as far as they are curable. I pretend to demonstrate from +these facts, that abstinence and a low diet is the great antidote and +universal remedy of distempers acquired by excess, intemperance, and a +mistaken regimen of high meats and drinks; and that it will greatly +alleviate and render tolerable the original distempers derived from +diseased parents; and that it is absolutely necessary for the deep +thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties sound and +entire, ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of +life; and that it is, lastly, the true and real antidote and +preservative from heavy-headedness, irregular and disorderly +intellectual functions, from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and +senses, and from all nervous distempers, as far as the ends of +Providence and the condition of mortality will allow. + +"Let two people be taken as nearly alike as the diversity and the +individuality of nature will admit, of the same age, stature, +complexion, and strength of body, and under the same chronical +distemper, and I am willing to take the seeming worse of the two; let +all the most promising nostrums, drops, drugs, and medicines known among +the learned and experienced physicians, ancient or modern, regular +physicians or quacks, be administered to the best of the two, by any +professor at home or abroad; I will manage my patient with only a few +naturally indicated and proper evacuations and sweetening innocent +alternatives, which shall neither be loathsome, various, nor +complicated, require no confinement, under an appropriate diet, or, in a +word, under the 'lightest and the least,' or at worst under a milk and +seed diet; and I will venture reputation and life, that my method cures +sooner, more perfectly and durably, is much more easily and pleasantly +passed through, in a shorter time, and with less danger of a relapse +than the other, with all the assistance of the best skill and +experience, under a full and free, though even a commonly reputed +moderate diet, but of rich foods and generous liquors; much more, under +a voluptuous diet." + +But I am unwilling to dismiss this subject without inserting a few more +extracts from Dr. Cheyne, to show his views of the treatment of +diseases. And first, of the scurvy, and other diseases which he supposes +to arise from it. + +"There is no chronical distemper, whatsoever, more universal, more +obstinate, and more fatal in Britain than the scurvy, taken in its +general extent. Scarce any one chronical distemper but owes its origin +to a scorbutic tendency, or is so complicated with it, that it furnishes +the most cruel and most obstinate symptoms. To it we owe all the +dropsies that happen after the meridian of life; all diabetes, asthmas, +consumptions of several kinds; many sorts of colics and diarrhoeas; +some kinds of gouts and rheumatisms, all palsies, various kinds of +ulcers, and possibly the cancer itself; and most cutaneous foulnesses, +weakly constitutions, and bad digestions; vapors, melancholy, and almost +all nervous distempers whatsoever. And what a plentiful source of +miseries the last are, the afflicted best can tell. And scarce any one +chronical distemper whatever, but has some degree of this evil +faithfully attending it. The reason why the scurvy is peculiar to this +country and so fruitful of miseries, is, that it is produced by causes +mostly special and particular to this island, to wit: the indulging so +much in animal food and strong fermented liquors, sedentary and confined +employments, etc. + +"Though the inhabitants of Britain live, for the most part, as long as +those of a warmer climate, and probably rather longer, yet scarce any +one, especially those of the better sort, but becomes crazy and suffers +under some chronical distemper or other, before he arrives at old age. + +"Nothing less than a very moderate use of animal food, and that of the +least exciting kind, and a more moderate use of spirituous liquors, due +exercise, etc., can keep this hydra under. And nothing else than a total +abstinence from animal food and alcoholic liquors can totally extirpate +it." + +The following are extracted from his "Natural Methods." I do not lay +them down as recipes, to be followed in the treatment of diseases; but +to show the views of Dr. Cheyne in regard to vegetable regimen. + +"1. _Cancer._--Any cancer that can be cut out, contracted, and healed up +with common, that is, soft, cool, and gently astringent dressings, and +at last left as an issue on the part, may, by a cow's milk and seed diet +continued ever afterward, be made as easy to the patient, and his life +and health as long preserved, almost, as if he had never been afflicted +with it; especially if under fifty years of age. + +"2. _Cancer._--A total ass's milk diet--about two quarts a day, without +any other meat or drink--will in time cure a cancer in any part of the +body, with mere common dressings, provided the patient is not quite worn +out with it before it is begun, or too far gone in the common duration +of life and even in that case, it will lessen the pain, lengthen life, +and make death easier, especially if joined with small interspersed +bleedings, millepedes, crabs' eyes prepared, nitre and rhubarb, properly +managed. But the diet, even after the cure, must be continued, and never +after greatly altered, unless it be into cow's milk with seeds. + +"3. _Consumption._--A total milk and seed diet, gentle and frequent +bleedings, as symptoms exasperate, a little ipecacuanha or thumb vomit +repeated once or twice a week, chewing quill bark in the morning, and a +few grains of rhubarb at night, will totally cure consumptions, even +when attended with tubercles, and hemoptoe, and hectic, in the first +stage; will greatly relieve, if not cure, in the second stage, +especially if riding and a warm clear air be joined; and make death +easier in the third and last stage. + +"4. _Fits._--A total cow's milk diet--about two quarts a day--without +any other food, will at last totally cure all kinds of fits, +epileptical, hysterical, or apoplectic, if entered upon before fifty. +But the patient, if near fifty, must ever after continue in the same +diet, with the addition only of seeds; otherwise his fits will return +oftener and more severely, and at last cut him off. + +"5. _Palsy._--A total cow's milk diet, without any other food, will bid +fairest to cure a hemiplegia or even a dead palsy, and consequently all +the lesser degrees of a partial one, if entered upon before fifty. And +this distemper I take to be the most obstinate, intractable, and +disheartening one that can afflict the human machine; and is chiefly +produced by intemperate cookery, with its necessary attendant, habitual +luxury. + +"6. _Gout._--A total milk and seed diet, with gentle vomits before and +after the fits, chewing bark in the morning and rhubarb at night, with +bleeding about the equinoxes, will perfectly cure the gout in persons +under fifty, and greatly relieve those farther advanced in life; but +must be continued ever after, if such desire to get well. + +"7. _Gravel._--Soap lees, softened with a little oil of sweet almonds, +drunk about a quarter of an ounce twice a day on a fasting stomach; or +soap and egg-shell pills, with a total milk and seed diet, and Bristol +water beverage, will either totally dissolve the stone in kidneys or +bladder, or render it almost as easy as the nail on one's finger, if the +patient is under fifty, and much relieve him, even after that age. + +"In about thirty years' practice, in which I have, in some degree or +other, advised this method in proper cases, I have had but two patients +in whose total recovery I have been mistaken, and these were both +scrofulous cases, where the glands and tubercles were so many, so hard, +and so impervious that even the ponderous remedies and diet joined could +not discuss them; and they were both also too far gone before they +entered upon them;--and I have found deep scrofulous vapors the most +obstinate of any of this tribe of these distempers. And indeed nothing +can possibly reach such, but the ponderous medicines, joined with a +liquid, cool, soft, milk and seed regimen; and if these two do not, in +due time, I can boldly affirm it, nothing ever will." + +Dr. Cheyne goes on to speak of the cure, on similar principles, of a +great many other difficult or dangerous diseases, as asthma, pleurisy, +hemorrhage, mania, jaundice, bilious colic, rheumatism, scurvy, and +venereal disease; but he modestly owns that, in his opinion on these, he +does not feel such entire confidence as in the former cases, for want of +sufficient experiments. He, however, closes one of his chapters with the +following pretty strong statement: + +"I am morally certain, and am myself entirely convinced, that a milk and +seed, or milk and turnip diet, duly persisted in, with the occasional +helps mentioned (elsewhere) on exacerbations, will either totally cure +or greatly relieve every chronical distemper I ever saw or read of." + +Another chapter is thus concluded, and with it I shall conclude my +extracts from his writings. + +"Some, perhaps, may controvert, nay, ridicule the doctrine laid down in +these propositions. I shall neither reply to, nor be moved with any +thing that shall be said against them. If they are of nature and truth, +they will stand; if not, I consent they should come to nought. I have +satisfied my own conscience--the rest belongs to Providence. Possibly +time and bodily sufferings may justify them;--if not to this generation, +perhaps to some succeeding one. I myself am convinced, by long and many +repeated experience, of their justness and solidity. If what has been +advocated through this whole treatise does not convince others, nothing +I can add will be sufficient. I will leave only this reflection with my +readers. + +"All physicians, ancient and modern, allow that a milk and seed diet +will totally cure before fifty, and infinitely alleviate after it, the +consumption, the rheumatism, the scurvy, the gout--these highest, most +mortal, most painful, and most obstinate distempers; and nothing is more +certain in mathematics, than that which will cure the greater will +certainly cure the lesser distempers." + + +DR. GEOFFROY. + +Dr. Geoffroy, a distinguished French physician and professor of +chemistry and medicine in some of the institutions of France, flourished +more than a hundred years ago. The bearing of the following extract will +be readily seen. It is from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for the +year 1730; and I am indebted for it to the labors of Dr. Cheyne. + +"M. Geoffroy has given a method for determining the proportion of +nourishment or true matter of the flesh and blood, contained in any sort +of food. He took a pound of meat that had been freed from the fat, +bones, and cartilages, and boiled it for a determined time in a close +vessel, with three pints of water; then, pouring off the liquor, he +added the same quantity of water, boiling it again for the same time; +and this operation he repeated several times, so that the last liquor +appeared, both in smell and taste, to be little different from common +water. Then, putting all the liquor together, and filtrating, to +separate the too gross particles, he evaporated it over a slow fire, +till it was brought to an extract of a pretty moderate consistence. + +"This experiment was made upon several sorts of food, the result of +which may be seen in the following table. The weights are in ounces, +drachms, and grains; sixty grains to a drachm, and eight drachms to an +ounce. + + Kind of Food. Amount of Extract. + oz. dr. gr. + One lb. Beef 0. 7. 8. + " Veal 1. 1. 48. + " Mutton 1. 3. 16. + " Lamb 1. 1. 39. + " Chicken 1. 4. 34. + " Pigeon 1. 0. 12. + " Pheasant 1. 2. 8. + " Partridge 1. 4. 34. + " Calves' Feet 1. 2. 26. + " Carp 1. 0. 8. + " Whey 1. 1. 3. + " Bread 4. 1. 0. + +"The relative proportion of the nourishment will be as follows: + + Beef 7 + Veal 9 + Mutton 11 + Lamb 9 + Chicken 12 + Pigeon 8 + Pheasant 10 + Partridge 12 + Calves' Feet 10 + Carp 8 + Whey 9 + Bread 33 + +"From the foregoing decisive experiments it is evident that white, +young, tender animal food, bread, milk, and vegetables are the best and +most effectual substances for nutrition, accretion, and sweetening bad +juices. They may not give so strong and durable mechanical force, +because being easily and readily digestible, and quickly passing all the +animal functions, so as to turn into good blood and muscular flesh, they +are more transitory, fugitive, and of prompt secretion; yet they will +perform all the animal functions more readily and pleasantly, with fewer +resistances and less labor, and leave the party to exercise the rational +and intellectual operations with pleasure and facility. They will leave +Nature to its own original powers, prevent and cure diseases, and +lengthen out life." + +Now if this experiment proves what Dr. C. supposes in favor of the +lighter meats and vegetables taken together, how much more does it prove +for bread alone? For it cannot escape the eye of the least observing +that this article, though placed last in the list of Dr. Geoffroy, is by +far the highest in point of nutriment; nay, that it is about three times +as high as any of the rest. I am not disposed to lay so much stress on +these experiments as Dr. C. does; nevertheless, they prove something +Connected with the more recent experiments of Messrs. Percy and +Vauquelin and others, how strikingly do they establish one fact, at +least, viz., that bread and the other farinaceous vegetables cannot +possibly be wanting in nutriment; and how completely do they annihilate +the old-fashioned doctrine--one which is still abroad and very +extensively believed--that animal food is a great deal more nourishing +than vegetable! No careful inquirer can doubt that bread, peas, beans, +rice, etc., are twice as nutritious--to say the least--as flesh or fish. + + +MESSRS. PERCY AND VAUQUELIN. + +As I have alluded, in the preceding article, to the experiments of +Messrs. Percy and Vauquelin, two distinguished French chemists, their +testimony in this place seems almost indispensable, even though we +should not regard it, in the most strict import of the term, as medical +testimony. The result of their experiments, as communicated by them to +the French minister of the interior, is as follows: + +In bread, every one hundred pounds is found to contain eighty pounds of +nutritious matter; butcher's meat, averaging the different sorts, +contains only thirty-five pounds in one hundred; French beans (in the +grain), ninety-two pounds in one hundred; broad beans, eighty-nine +pounds; peas, ninety-three pounds; lentils (a species of half pea little +known with us), fifty-four pounds in one hundred; greens and turnips +only eight pounds of solid nutritious substance in one hundred; carrots, +fourteen pounds; and one hundred pounds of potatoes yield only +twenty-five pounds of nutriment. + +I will just affix to the foregoing one more table. It is inserted in +several other works which I have published; but for the benefit of +those who may never yet have seen it, and to show how strikingly it +corresponds with the results of the experiments of Geoffroy, Percy, and +Vauquelin, I deem it proper to insert it. + +Of the best wheat, one hundred pounds contain about eighty-five pounds +of nutritious matter; of rice, ninety pounds; of rye, eighty; of barley, +eighty-three; of beans, eighty-nine to ninety-two; peas, ninety-three; +lentils, ninety-four; meat (average), thirty-five; potatoes, +twenty-five; beets, fourteen; carrots, ten; cabbage, seven; greens, six; +and turnips, four. + + +DR. PEMBERTON. + +Dr. Pemberton, after speaking of the general tendency, in our highly fed +communities, to scrofula and consumption, makes the following remarks, +which need no comment: + +"If a child is born of scrofulous parents, I would strongly recommend +that it be entirely nourished from the breast of a healthy nurse, for at +least a year. After this, the food should consist of milk and +farinaceous vegetables. By a perseverance in this diet for three years, +I have imagined that the threatened scrofulous appearances have +certainly been postponed, if not altogether prevented." + + +SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. + +Sir John Sinclair, an eminent British surgeon, says, "I have wandered a +good deal about the world, my health has been tried in all ways, and, by +the aid of temperance and hard work, I have worn out two armies in two +wars, and probably could wear out another before my period of old age +arrives. I eat no animal food, drink no wine or malt liquor, or spirits +of any kind; I wear no flannel; and neither regard wind nor rain, heat +nor cold, when business is in the way." + + +DR. JAMES, OF WISCONSIN. + +Dr. James, of Wisconsin, but formerly of Albany, and editor of a +temperance paper in that city, one of the most sensible, intelligent, +and refined of men, and one of the first in his profession, is a +vegetable eater, and a man of great simplicity in all his physical, +intellectual, and moral habits. I do not know that his views have ever +been presented to the public, but I state them with much confidence, +from a source in which I place the most implicit reliance. + + +DR. CRANSTOUN. + +Dr. Cranstoun, a worthy medical gentleman in England, became subject, by +some means or other, to a chronic dysentery, on which he exhausted, as +it were, the whole materia medica, in vain. At length, after suffering +greatly for four or five years, he was completely cured by a milk and +vegetable diet. The following is his own brief account of his cure, in a +letter to Dr. Cheyne: + +"I resolutely, as soon as capable of a diet, held myself close to your +rules of bland vegetable food and elementary drink, and, without any +other medicine, save frequent chewing of rhubarb and a little bark, I +passed last winter and this summer without a relapse of the dysentery; +and, though by a very slow advance, I find now more restitution of the +body and regularity in the economy, on this primitive aliment, than ever +I knew from the beginning of this trouble. This encourages much my +perseverance in the same method, and that so religiously, as, to my +knowledge, now for more than a year and a half I have not tasted of any +thing that had animal life. There is plenty in the vegetable kingdom." + + +DR. TAYLOR, OF ENGLAND. + +This gentleman, who had studied the works of Dr. Sydenham, and was +therefore rather favorably inclined toward a milk and vegetable diet, +became at last subject to epileptic fits. Not being willing, however, to +give up his high living and his strong drinks, he tried the effects of +medicine, and even consulted all the most eminent of his brethren of the +medical profession in and about London; but all to no purpose, and the +fits continued to recur. He used frequently to be attacked with them +while riding along the road, in pursuance of the business of his +profession. In these cases he would fall from his horse, and often +remain senseless till some passenger or wagon came along and carried him +to the nearest house. At length his danger, not only from accidents, but +from the frequency and violence of the attacks, became so imminent that +he was obliged to follow the advice of his master, Sydenham. He first +laid aside the use of all fermented and distilled liquors; then, finding +his fits became less frequent and violent, he gave up all flesh meat, +and confined himself entirely to cows' milk. + +In pursuance of this plan, in a year or two the epilepsy entirely left +him. "And now," says Dr. Cheyne, from whom I take the account, "for +seventeen years he has enjoyed as good health as human nature is capable +of, except that once, in a damp air and foggy weather in riding through +Essex, he was seized with an ague, which he got over by chewing the +bark." He assured Dr. C. that at this time--and he was considerably +advanced in life--he could play six hours at cricket without fatigue or +distress, and was more active and clear in his faculties than ever he +had been before in his whole life. He also said he had cured a great +many persons, by means of the same diet, of inveterate distempers. + + +DRS. HUFELAND AND ABERNETHY. + +The celebrated Dr. Hufeland taught that a simple vegetable diet was most +conducive to health and long life. The distinguished Dr. Abernethy has +expressed an opinion not very unlike it, in the following eccentric +manner: + +"If you put improper food into the stomach it becomes disordered, and +the whole system is affected. Vegetable matter ferments and becomes +gaseous, while _animal_ substances are changed into a putrid, +abominable, and acrid stimulus. Now, some people acquire preposterous +noses; others, blotches on the face and different parts of the body; +others, inflammation of the eyes; all arising from the irritations of +the stomach. I am often asked why I don't practice what I preach. I +reply by reminding the inquirer of the parson and sign-post--both point +the way, but neither follows its course." + + +DR. GREGORY. + +Dr. Gregory, a distinguished professor and practitioner of medicine in +Scotland, in a work published more than seventy years ago, strongly +recommends plain and simple food for children. Till they are three years +old, he says, their diet should consist of plain milk, panada, good +bread, barley meal porridge, and rice. He also complains of pampering +them with animal food. The same arguments which are good for forming +them to the habits of vegetable food exclusively for the first three +years of life, would be equally good for its continuance. + + +DR. CULLEN, OF EDINBURGH. + +The name of Dr. Cullen is well known, and he has long been regarded as +high authority. Yet this distinguished writer and teacher expressly +says, that a very temperate and _sparing_ use of animal food is the +surest means of preserving health and obtaining long life. But I will +quote his own language, in various parts of his writings. And first, +from his Materia Medica: + +"Vegetable aliment, as never over-distending the vessels or loading the +system, never interrupts the stronger emotions of the mind, while the +heat, fullness, and weight of animal food, is an enemy to its vigorous +efforts. Temperance, then, does not consist so much in the quantity, for +that will always be regulated by our appetite, as in the _quality_, +viz., a large proportion of vegetable aliment." + +I will not stop here to oppose Dr. C.'s views in regard to the quantity +of our food; for this is not the place. It is sufficient to show that he +admits the importance of _quality_, and gives the preference to a diet +of vegetables. + +He seems in favor, in another place in his works, of sleeping after +eating--perhaps a heresy, too--and inclines to the opinion that the +practice would be hardly hurtful if we ate less animal food. + +But his "First Lines of the Practice of Physic," abounds in testimonies +in favor of vegetable food. In speaking, for example, of the cure of +rheumatic affections, he has the following language: + +"The cure, therefore, requires, in the first place, an antiphlogistic +regimen, and particularly, a total abstinence from animal food, and from +all fermented or spirituous liquors." + +"Antiphlogistic regimen," in medical language, means that food and drink +which is most cooling and quieting to the stomach and to the general +system. + +In the treatment of gout, Dr. Cullen recommends a course like that which +has been stated, except that instead of proposing vegetable food as a +means of cure, he recommends it as _preventive_. He says-- + +"The gout may be entirely prevented by constant bodily exercise, and by +a low diet; and I am of opinion that this prevention may take place even +in persons who have a hereditary disposition to the disease. I must add, +here, that even when the disposition has discovered itself by severe +paroxysms of inflammatory gout, I am persuaded that labor and abstinence +will absolutely prevent any returns of it for the rest of life." + +Again, in reference to the same subject, he thus observes: + +"I am firmly persuaded that any man who, early in life, will enter upon +the constant practice of bodily labor and of abstinence from animal +food, will be preserved entirely from the disease." + +And yet once more. + +"If an abstinence from animal food be entered upon early in life, while +the vigor of the system is yet entire, I have no doubt of its being both +safe and effectual." + +To guard against the common opinion that by vegetable food, he meant +raw, or crude, or bad vegetables, Dr. C. explains his meaning by +assuring the reader that by a vegetable diet he means the "farinaceous +seeds," and "milk;" and admits that green, crude, and bad vegetables are +not only less useful, but actually liable to produce the very diseases, +which good, mealy vegetable food will prevent or cure. + +This is an important distinction. Many a person, who wishes to be +abstemious, seems to think that if he only abstains from flesh and fish, +that is enough. No matter, he supposes, what vegetables he uses, so they +are vegetables; nor how much he abuses himself by excess in quantity. +Nay, he will even load his stomach with milk, or butter, or eggs; +sometimes with fish (we have often been asked if we considered fish as +animal food); and sometimes, worse still, with hot bread, hot buckwheat +cakes, hot short-cakes, swimming, almost, in butter;--yes, and sometimes +he will even cover his potatoes with gravy, mustard, salt, etc. + +It is in vain for mankind to abstain from animal food, as they call it, +and yet run into these worse errors. The lean parts of animals not much +fattened, and only rarely cooked, eaten once a day in small quantity, +are far less unwholesome than many of the foregoing. + +But to return to Dr. C. In speaking of the proper drink for persons +inclined to gout, he thus remarks: + +"With respect to drink, fermented liquors are useful only when they are +joined with animal food, and that by their acescency; and their stimulus +is only necessary from custom. When, therefore, animal food is to be +avoided, fermented liquors are unnecessary, and by increasing the +acescency of vegetables, these liquors may be hurtful. The stimulus of +fermented or spirituous liquors is not necessary to the young and +vigorous: and, when much employed, impairs the tone of the system." + +Dr. C. might have added--what indeed we should infer by parity of +reasoning--that when fermented liquors are avoided, animal food is no +longer necessary, and by increasing the alkaline state of the stomach +and fluids, may be hurtful. The truth is, they go best together. If we +use flesh and fish, which are alkaline, a small quantity of gently acid +drink, as weak cider or wine, taken either _with_ our meals, or +_between_ them, may be useful. It is better, however, to abstain from +both. + +For if a purely vegetable aliment, with water alone for drink, is safe +to all young persons inclining at all to gout, to whom is it unsafe? If +it tends to render a young person at all weaker, that very weakness +would predispose to the gout, in some of its forms, if a person were +constitutionally inclined to that disease--if not to some other +complaint, to which he was more inclined. It cannot, therefore, be +unsafe to any, if Dr. C. is right. + +But if those who are trained to it, _lose_ nothing, even in the high +latitude of Scotland--where Dr. C. wrote--by confining themselves to +good vegetables and water, then they must necessarily _gain_, on his own +principles, by this way of living, because they get rid of any sort of +necessity (he might have added, lose their appetite) for fermented +liquors. + +More than this, as the doctor himself concludes, in another place, they +prevent many acute diseases. His words are these:--"It is animal food +which especially predisposes to the plethoric and inflammatory state; +and that food is therefore to be especially avoided." It is true, he is +here speaking of gouty persons: but his principles are also fairly +susceptible, as I have shown, of a general application. + +In short, it is an undeniable fact, that even a thorough-going vegetable +eater might prove every thing he wished, from old established writers on +medicine and health, though themselves were feeders on animal food; just +as a teetotaler may prove the doctrine of abstinence from all drinks but +water, from the writings of medical men, though themselves are still, in +many cases, pouring down their cider, their beer, or their wine--or at +least, their tea and coffee. + + +DR. BENJAMIN RUSH. + +I find nothing in the writings of this great man which shows, with +certainty, what his views were, in regard to animal food. The +presumption is, that he was sparing in its use, and that he encouraged a +very limited use of it in others. This is presumed, 1, from the general +tenor of his writings--deeply imbued as they are with the great doctrine +of temperance in all things; and, 2, from the fondness he seems to have +manifested in mentioning the temperance and even abstinence of +individuals of whom he was speaking. + +Of Ann Woods, for example, who died at the age of ninety-six years, he +says, "Her diet was simple, consisting chiefly of weak tea, milk, +cheese, butter, and vegetables. Meat of all kinds, except veal, +disagreed with her stomach. She found great benefit from frequently +changing her aliment. Her drinks were water, cider and water, and +molasses and vinegar in water. She never used spirits. Her memory (at +her death) was but little impaired. She was cheerful, and thankful that +her condition in life was happier than that of hundreds of other +people." + +In his account of Benjamin Lay, a philosopher of the sect of the +Friends, in Pennsylvania, Dr. R. relates, that "he was extremely +temperate in his diet, living chiefly upon vegetables. Turnips boiled +and afterward roasted, were his favorite dinner. His drink was pure +water. He lived above eighty years." It appears, also, that he was +exceedingly healthy. + +He relates of Anthony Benezet, a distinguished teacher of Philadelphia, +who lived to an advanced age, that his sympathy was so great with every +thing that was capable of feeling pain, that he resolved, toward the +close of his life, to eat no animal food. He also relates the following +singular anecdote of him. Upon coming into his brother's house, one day, +when the family were dining upon poultry, he was asked by his brother's +wife to sit down and dine with them. What! said he, would you have me +eat my neighbors? + +Dr. Caleb Bannister, in another part of this work, tells us that he was +led to adopt a milk and vegetable diet, in incipient consumption, from +reading the writings of Dr. Rush; and I have little doubt that Dr. R. +himself lived quite abstemiously, if not altogether on vegetables. + +Nor is this _incidental_ testimony from Dr. Rush quite all. In his work +"On the Diseases of the Mind," he speaks often of the evils of eating +high-seasoned food, and especially animal food. And in stating what were +the proper remedies for debility in young men, when induced by certain +forms of licentiousness, he expressly insists on a diet consisting +simply of vegetables, and prepared without condiments; and he even +encourages the disuse of salt. Had Dr. Rush lived to this day, he +would, ere now, in all probability, have fully adopted and defended the +vegetable system. With views like his on the subject of intemperance, +and a mind ever open to conviction, the result could hardly have been +otherwise. + + +DR. WILLIAM LAMBE, OF LONDON. + +Dr. William Lambe, of London, is distinguished both as a physician and a +general scholar, and is a prominent member of the "College of +Physicians." He was a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, and a +fellow-student with the immortal Clarkson. + +Dr. Lambe is the author of several valuable works, among which are his +"Reports on Cancer," and a more recent work entitled, "Additional +Reports on the Effects of a Peculiar Regimen, in Cases of Cancer, +Scrofula, Consumption, Asthma, and other chronic diseases." He has also +made and published numerous experiments, especially in chemistry, which +is, with him, a favorite science; and it is said that he has spent +fortunes in this way. + +Dr. L. is now eighty-four years of age, and has lived on vegetable diet +forty-two years. He commenced this course to cure himself of internal +gout, and continued it because he found it better for his health. He is +now only troubled with it slightly, at his extremities, which he thinks +highly creditable to a vegetable course--having thrown it off from his +vital organs. He is cheerful and active, and able to discharge the +duties of an extensive medical practice. He walks into town, a distance +of three miles from his residence, every morning, and back at night; and +thinks himself as likely to live twenty years longer as he was, twenty +years ago, to live to his present age. + +The following is a condensed account of Dr. L.'s views, as obtained from +his "Additional Reports," above mentioned. Some of the first paragraphs +relate to the effects of vegetable food on those who are predisposed to +scrofula, consumption, etc. + +"We see daily examples of young persons becoming consumptive who never +went without animal food a single day of their lives. If the use of +animal food were necessary to prevent consumption, we should expect, +where people lived almost entirely upon such a diet, the disease would +be unknown. + +"Now, the Indian tribes visited by Mr. Hearne live in this manner. They +do not cultivate the earth. They subsist by hunting, and the scanty +produce of spontaneous vegetation. But, among these tribes consumption +is common. Their diseases, as Mr. Hearne informs us, are principally +fluxes, scurvy, and consumption. + +"In the last four years, several cases of glandular swellings have +occurred to me at the general dispensary, and I have made particular +inquiries into the mode of living of such children. In the majority, +they had animal food. In opposition to the accusation of vegetable food +causing tumefaction of the abdomen, I must testify, that twice in my own +family I have seen such swellings disappear under a vegetable regimen, +which had been formed under a diet of animal food. + +"Increasing the strength, for a time, is no proof of the salubrity of +diet. The increased strength may not continue, though the diet should be +continued. On the contrary, there is a sort of oscillation; the strength +just rising, then sinking again. This is what is experienced by the +trainers of boxers. A certain time is necessary to get these men into +condition; but this condition cannot be maintained for many weeks +together, though the process by which it was formed is continued. The +same is found to hold in the training of race-horses, and +fighting-cocks. + +"It seems certain that animal food predisposes to disease. Timoric, in +his account of the plague at Constantinople, asserts that the Armenians, +who live chiefly on vegetable food, were far less disposed to the +disease than other people. The typhus fever is greatly exasperated by +full living. + +"It seems, moreover, highly probable that the power inherent in the +human living body, of restoring itself under accidents or wounds, is +strongest in those who use most a vegetable regimen. + +"Contagions act with greater virulence upon bodies prepared by a full +diet of animal food. + +"Since fishing has declined in the isles of Ferro, and the inhabitants +have lived chiefly on vegetables, the elephantiasis has ceased among +them. + +"Those monks who, by the rules of their institution, abstain from the +flesh of animals, enjoy a longer mean term of life, as the consequence. +Of this there can be no doubt. Of one hundred and fifty-two monks, taken +promiscuously in all times and all sorts of climates, there lives +produced a total, according to Baillot (a writer of eminence), of 11,589 +years, or an average of seventy-six years and a little more than three +months. + +"Those Bramins who abstain most scrupulously from the flesh of animals +attain to the greatest longevity. + +"Life is prolonged, under incurable diseases, about one tenth by +vegetable diet; so that a person who would otherwise die at seventy, +will reach seventy-seven. In general, however, the proportion is about +one sixth. + +"Abstaining from animal food palliates, when it does not cure, all +constitutional diseases. + +"The use of animal food hurries on life with an unnatural and unhealthy +rapidity. We arrive at puberty too soon; the passions are developed too +early; in the male, they acquire an impetuosity approaching to madness; +females become mothers too early, and too frequently; and, finally, the +system becomes prematurely exhausted and destroyed, and we become +diseased and old, when we ought to be in middle life. + +"It affords no trifling ground of suspicion against the use of animal +food that it so obviously inclines us to corpulency. Corpulency itself +is a species of disease, and a still surer harbinger of other diseases. +It is so even in animals. When a sheep has become fat, the butcher knows +it must be killed or it will rot and decline. It is rare indeed for the +corpulent to be long-lived. They are at the same time sleepy, lethargic, +and short-breathed. Even Hippocrates says, 'Those who are uncommonly fat +die more quickly than the lean.' + +"As a general, rule, the florid are less healthy than those who have +little color; an increase of color having ever been judged, by common +sense, to be a sign of impending illness. Some, however, who are lean +upon animal food, thrive upon vegetables, and improve in color. + +"All the notions of vegetable diet affording only a deficient +nutriment--notions which are countenanced by the language of Cullen and +other great physicians--are wholly groundless. + +"Man is herbivorous in his structure. + +"I have observed no ill consequences from the relinquishment of animal +food. The apprehended danger of the change, with which men scare +themselves and their neighbors, is a mere phantom of the imagination. +The danger, in truth, lies wholly on the other side. + +"There is no organ of the body which, under the use of vegetable food, +does not receive an increase of sensibility, or of that power which is +thought to be imparted to it by the nervous system. + +"Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, and others of the masters of ancient +wisdom, adhered to the Pythagorean diet (vegetable diet), and are known +to have arrived at old age with the enjoyment of uninterrupted health. +Celsus affirms that the bodies which are filled with much animal food +become the most quickly old and diseased. It was proverbial that the +ancient athletae were the most stupid of men. The cynic Diogenes, being +asked what was the cause of this stupidity, is reported to have +answered, 'Because they are wholly formed of the flesh of swine and +oxen.' Theophrastus says that feeding upon flesh destroys the reason, +and makes the mind more dull. + +"Animal food is unfavorable to the intellectual powers. The effect is, +in some measure, instantaneous; it being hardly possible to apply to any +thing requiring thought after a full meal of meat; so that it has been +not improperly said of vegetable feeders, that _with them it is morning +all day long_. But the senses, the memory, the understanding, and the +imagination have also been observed to improve by a vegetable diet. + +"It will not be disputed that, for consumptive symptoms, a vegetable +diet, or at least a vegetable and milk diet, is the most proper. + +"It has been said, that the great fondness men have for animal food, is +proof enough that nature intended them to eat it. As if men were not +fond of wine, ardent spirits, and other things which we know cut short +their days! + +"In every period of history it has been known that vegetables alone are +sufficient for the support of life; and the bulk of mankind live upon +them at this hour. The adherence to the use of animal food is no more +than a gross persistence in the customs of savage life, and an +insensibility to the progress of reason and the operation of +intellectual improvement. This habit must be considered as one of the +numerous relics of that ancient barbarism which has overspread the face +of the globe, and which still taints the manners of civilized nations. + +"The use of fermented liquors is, in some measure, a necessary +concomitant and appendage to the use of animal food. Animal food, in a +great number of persons, loads the stomach, causes some degree of +oppression, fullness, and uneasiness; and, if the measure of it be in +excess, some nausea and tendency to sickness. Such persons say meat is +too heavy for the stomach. Fish is still more apt to nauseate. The use +of fermented liquors takes off these uneasy feelings, and is thought to +assist digestion. In short, in the use of animal food, man having +deviated from the simple aliment offered him by the hand of nature, and +which is the best suited to his organs of digestion, he has brought upon +himself a premature decay, and much intermediate suffering connected +with it. To this use of animal food almost all nations that have emerged +from a state of barbarism, have united the use of spirituous and +fermented liquors." + +It is but justice to Dr. L., however, as the above was written by him +over thirty years ago, to say, that though he still adheres to the same +views, he thinks pure distilled water a very important addition to the +vegetable diet, in the cure of chronic diseases. The following are his +remarks in a letter to Mr. Graham, dated ten or twelve years ago. + +"My doctrine is, that for the preservation of health, and more +particularly for the successful treatment of chronic diseases, it is +necessary to attend to the _whole_ ingesta--to the _fluid_ with as much +care as the solid. And I am persuaded that the errors into which men +have fallen with regard to supposed mischiefs or inconveniences (as +weakness, for example), as resulting from a restriction to a vegetable +diet, have, to a very considerable extent arisen from a want of a proper +attention to the quality of the water they drank. So far back as the +year 1803, I found that the use of pure distilled, instead of common +water, relieved a state of habitual suffering of the stomach and bowels. +On this account, I always require that _distilled_ water shall be joined +to the use of a vegetable diet; and consider this to be essential to the +treatment." + + +PROFESSOR LAWRENCE. + +Professor Lawrence is the author of a work entitled Lectures on +Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. He is a member of +the Royal College of Surgeons, London, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery +to the College, and Surgeon to several Hospitals. In his work above +mentioned, after much discussion in regard to the natural dietetic +character of man, he thus remarks: + +"That animal food renders man strong and courageous, is fully disproved +by the inhabitants of northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, +Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Kamtschadales, as well as by +the Esquimaux in the northern, and the natives of Terra del Fuego in the +southern extremity of America, which are the smallest, weakest, and +least brave people of the globe, although they live almost entirely upon +flesh, and that often raw. + +"Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice, as +that of animal matter is with physical force and courage. _That men can +be perfectly nourished, and their bodily and mental capabilities fully +developed in any climate, by a diet purely vegetable, admits of abundant +proof from experience._ In the periods of their greatest simplicity, +manliness, and bravery, the Greeks and Romans appear to have lived +almost entirely on plain vegetable preparations. Indifferent bread, +fruits, and other produce of the earth, are the chief nourishment of the +modern Italians, and of the mass of the population in most countries in +Europe. Of those more immediately known to ourselves, the Irish and +Scotch may be mentioned, who are certainly not rendered weaker than +their English fellow-subjects by their free use of vegetable aliment. +The Negroes, whose great bodily powers are well known, feed chiefly on +vegetable substances; and the same is the case with the South Sea +Islanders, whose agility and strength were so great that the stoutest +and most expert English sailors had no chance with them in wrestling and +boxing." + +The concession of Prof. L., which I have placed in italic, is sufficient +for our purpose; we ask no more. Nevertheless, I am willing to hear his +views of the indications afforded by our anatomical character, which +are, as will be seen, equally decisive in favor of vegetable eating. + +"Physiologists have usually represented that our species holds a middle +rank, in the masticatory and digestive apparatus, between the +flesh-eating and herbivorous animals--a statement which seems rather to +have been deduced from what we have learned by experience on the +subject, than to result from an actual comparison of men and animals. + +"The teeth and jaws of men are, in all respects, much more similar to +those of monkeys than of any other animal. The number is the same as in +man, and the form so closely similar, that they might easily be mistaken +for human. In most of them, except the ourang-outang, the canine teeth +are much larger and stronger than in us; and so far, these animals have +a more carnivorous character than man. + +"Thus we find, that whether we consider the teeth and jaws, or the +immediate instruments of digestion, the human structure closely +resembles that of the simiae (monkey race), all of which, in their +natural state, are completely herbivorous. Man possesses a tolerably +large coecum, and a cellular colon; which I believe are not found in +any herbivorous animal." + +The ourang-outang naturally prefers fruits and nuts, as the professor +himself shows by extracts from the statements of travelers and +naturalists. He is also fond of bread. On board a ship or elsewhere, _in +confinement_, he may, however, be taught, like men, to eat almost any +thing;--not only to eat milk and suck eggs, but even to eat raw flesh. + +It is true, indeed, after all these foregoing statements and concessions +in regard to man's native character and the wholesomeness of a diet +exclusively vegetable--and after admitting that the human body and mind +can be fully and perfectly nourished and _developed_ on it, this +distinguished writer goes on to say that it is still doubtful which +diet--animal, vegetable, or mixed--is on the whole _most_ conducive to +health, and strength--which is best calculated to avert or remove +disease--whether errors in quantity or quality are most pernicious, etc. +He says the solution of these and other analogous questions, can only be +expected from experimental investigation. He proceeds to say-- + +"_Mankind are so averse to relinquish their favorite indulgences, and to +desert established habits_, that we cannot entertain very sanguine +expectations of any important discovery in this department. We must add +to this, that there are many other causes affecting human health, +besides diet. Before venturing to draw any inferences on a subject beset +with so many obstacles, it would be necessary to observe the effects of +a purely animal and a purely vegetable diet on several individuals of +different habits, pursuits, and modes of life; to note their state, both +bodily and mental; and to learn the condition of two or three +generations fed in the same manner." + +Now, the only difference between this opinion and what I conceive to be +the truth in the case is, that just such experimental investigations as +those to which he refers have, to all intents and purposes, been already +made; as, I trust, will be distinctly shown in the sequel of this work. + + +DR. SALGUES. + +Dr. Salgues, Physician, and Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, etc., +etc., to the Institute of France, some years ago wrote a book, entitled +"Rules for Preserving the Health of the Aged," which contained many very +judicious remarks on diet. There is nothing in the volume, however, +which is decidedly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable, unless it +is a few anecdotes; and I have introduced his name chiefly as a sort of +authority for those anecdotes. They are the following: + +"Josephus informs us that the Essenes were very long lived; many lived +upward of one hundred years, solely from their simple habits and +sobriety. Aristotle and Plato speak of Herodicus the philosopher, who, +although of a feeble and consumptive habit, lived, in consequence of his +sobriety, upward of one hundred years. Phabrinus, mentioned by Athenius, +lived more than one hundred years, drinking milk only. Zoroaster, +according to Pliny, remained twenty years in a desert, living on a small +quantity of cheese only." + + +THE AUTHOR OF "SURE METHODS," ETC. + +The British author of "Sure Methods of Improving Health and Prolonging +Life," supposed by many to be the distinguished Dr. Johnson, speaks +thus: + +"It must be confessed that, in temperate climates, at least, an animal +diet is, in one respect, more wasting than a vegetable, because it +excites, by its stimulating qualities, a temporary fever after every +meal, by which the springs of life are urged into constant, +preternatural, and weakening exertions. Again; persons who live chiefly +on animal food are subject to various acute and fatal disorders, as the +scurvy, malignant ulcers, inflammatory fevers, etc., and are likewise +liable to corpulency, more especially when united to inordinate +quantities of liquid aliment. There appears to be also a tendency in an +animal diet to promote the formation of many chronic diseases; and we +seldom find those who indulge much in this diet to be remarkable for +longevity. + +"In favor of vegetables, it may be justly said, that man could hardly +live entirely on animal food, but we know he may on vegetable. Vegetable +aliment has likewise no tendency to produce those constitutional +disorders which animal food so frequently occasions. And this is a great +advantage, more especially in our country (he means in Great Britain), +where the general sedentary mode of living so powerfully contributes to +the formation and establishment of numerous severe chronic maladies. Any +unfavorable effects vegetable food may have on the body, are almost +wholly confined to the stomach and bowels, and rarely injure the system +at large. This food has also a beneficial influence on the powers of the +mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, and liveliness of +imagination, and acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live +principally on meat. It should also be added, that a vegetable diet, +when it consists of articles easily digested, as potatoes, turnips, +bread, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., is certainly favorable to long life." + + +BARON CUVIER.[10] + +Perhaps it is not generally known that Baron Cuvier, the prince of +naturalists, in the progress of his researches came to the most decisive +conclusion, that, so far as any thing can be ascertained or proved by +the investigation of science in regard to the natural dietetic character +of man, he is a fruit and vegetable eater. I have not seen his own +views; but the following are said, by an intelligent writer, to be a +tolerably faithful transcript of them, and to be derived from his +Comparative Anatomy. + +"Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man +be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons. + +"The ourang-outang perfectly resembles man, both in the order and number +of his teeth. The ourang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape +tribe, all of which are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species +of animals, which live on different food, in which this analogy exists. +In many frugivorous animals, the canine teeth are more pointed and +distinct than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to +that of the ourang-outang, is greater than to that of any other animal. + +"The intestines are also identical with those of herbivorous animals, +which present a large surface for absorption, and have ample and +cellulated colons. The coecum also, though short, is larger than that +of carnivorous animals; and even here the ourang-outang retains its +accustomed similarity. + +"The structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to a pure +vegetable diet, in every essential particular. It is true, that the +reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long +accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds, +as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from being any argument in +its favor. A lamb, which was fed for some time on flesh by a ship's +crew, refused its natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are +numerous instances of horses, sheep, oxen, and even wood-pigeons, having +been taught to live upon flesh, until they have loathed their natural +aliment." + +No one will deny that Baron Cuvier was in favor of flesh eating; but it +was not because he ever believed, for one moment, that man was +_naturally_ a flesh-eating animal. Man is a reasoning animal (he +argues), and intended to be so. If left to the guidance of his +instincts, the same yielding to the law of his structure which would +exclude flesh meats, should also exclude cookery. Or, in other words, if +he is not permitted to depart from the line of life which his structure +indicates, he must no more cook his vegetables than eat animal food. +Besides, he is made, as Cuvier supposes, for artificial society, and the +Creator designed him to _improve_ his food; and, if I understand his +reasoning, he is better able, with his present structure of teeth, jaws, +stomach, intestines, etc., to make this improvement, and rise above his +nature, and yield to the force and indications of reason and experience, +than if he possessed any other known living structure. + +To this structure, however, as well as to the same power of adaptation, +the monkey race, and especially the ourang-outang, closely typo +approximates. Cuvier's reasoning, in my view, applies only to the +adaptability (if I may be allowed the expression) of the human animal, +without deciding how far he should avail himself of his power to make +changes. + + +DR. LUTHER V. BELL. + +I have alluded, in another part of this work, to the prize essay of Dr. +Bell, awarded to him by the Boylston Medical Committee on the subject of +the diet of laborers in New England. Dr. Bell is a physician of +respectable talents, and is at present the Physician to an Insane +Hospital in Charlestown, near this city. + +Dr. Bell admits, with the most distinguished naturalists and +physiologists of Europe,--Cuvier, Lawrence, Blumenbach, Bell of London, +Richerand, Marc, etc.,--that the structure of man resembles closely that +of the monkey race; and hence objects to the conclusion to which some of +these men have arrived (by jumping over, as it were), that man is an +omnivorous animal. He freely allows--I use his own words--"that man does +approximate more closely to the frugivorous animals than to any others, +in physical organization." But then he insists that the conclusion which +ought to be drawn from this similarity "is, that he is designed to have +his food in about the same state of mechanical cohesion, requiring about +the same energy of masticatory organs, as if it consisted of fruits, +etc., alone." + +But, wherefore should we draw even this conclusion, if structure and +instinct prove nothing, and if we are to be governed solely by reason, +without regard to structure and instinct? For my own part, I believe +reason is never true reason, when it turns wholly out of doors either +instinct or the indications of organization. In other words, an +enlightened reason would look both to the structure and organization of +man, and to a large and broad experience, for the solution of a question +so important as what diet is, on the whole, best for man. And the +experience of the world, both in the present and all former ages, leads +me to a conclusion entirely different from that to which Dr. Bell, and +those who entertain the same views with him, seem to have arrived--a +conclusion which is indicated by structure, and confirmed by facts and +universal experience. But this subject will be further discussed and +developed in another place. It is sufficient for my present purpose, to +bring testimony in favor of the safety of vegetable eating, and of the +doctrine that man is naturally a vegetable and fruit-eating animal; and +especially if I produce, to this end, the testimony of flesh-eaters +themselves. + + +DR. WILLIAM BUCHAN, AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC MEDICINE." + +"Indulgence in animal food, renders men dull and unfit for the pursuits +of science, especially when it is accompanied with the free use of +strong liquors. I am inclined to think that _consumptions_, so common in +England, are, in part, owing to the great use of animal food. But the +disease most common to this country is the scurvy. One finds a dash of +it in almost every family, and in some the taint is very deep. A disease +so general must have a general cause, and there is none so obvious as +the great quantity of animal food which is devoured. As a proof that +scurvy arises from this cause, we are in possession of no remedy for +that disease equal to the free use of fresh vegetables. By the +uninterrupted use of animal food, a putrid diathesis is induced in the +system, which predisposes to a variety of disorders. I am fully +convinced that many of those obstinate complaints for which we are at a +loss to account, and which we find it still more difficult to cure, are +the effects of a scorbutic taint, lurking in the habit. + +"The choleric disposition of the English is almost proverbial. Were I to +assign a cause, it would be, their living so much on animal food. There +is no doubt but this induces a ferocity of temper unknown to men whose +food is taken chiefly from the vegetable kingdom.[11] + +"Experience proves that not a few of the diseases incident to the +inhabitants of this country, are owing to their mode of living. The +vegetable productions they consume, fall considerably short of the +proportion they ought to bear to the animal part of their food. The +major part of the aliment ought to consist of vegetable substances. +There is a continual tendency in animal food, as well as in the human +body itself, to putrefaction; which can only be counteracted by the free +use of vegetables. All who value health, ought to be contented with +making one meal of animal food in twenty-four hours; and this ought to +consist of one kind only. + +"The most obstinate scurvy has often been cured by a vegetable diet; +nay, milk alone, will frequently do more in that disease than any +medicine. Hence it is evident that if vegetables and milk were more used +in diet, we should have less scurvy, and likewise fewer putrid and +inflammatory fevers. + +"Such as abound with blood (and such are almost all of us), should be +sparing in the use of every thing which is highly nourishing--as fat +meat, rich wines, strong ales, and the like. Their food should consist +chiefly of bread and other vegetable substances; and their drink ought +to be water, whey, or small beer." + +Dr. B. also insists on a vegetable diet, as a preventive of many +diseases; particularly of consumption. When there is a tendency to this +disease, in the young, he says "it should be counteracted by strictly +adhering to a diet of the farinacea, and ripe fruits. Animal food and +fermented liquors ought to be rigidly prohibited. Even milk often proves +too nutritious." + + +DR. CHARLES WHITLAW. + +Dr. Whitlaw is the author of a work entitled "New Medical Discoveries," +in two volumes, and of a "Treatise on Fever." He has also established +medical vapor baths in London, New York, and elsewhere; and is a +gentleman of much skill and eminence in his profession. Dr. Whitlaw +says-- + +"All philosophers have given their testimony in favor of vegetable food, +from Pythagoras to Franklin. Its beneficial influence on the powers of +the mind has been experienced by all sedentary and literary men. + +"But, that which ought to convince every one of the salubrity of a diet +consisting of vegetables, is the consideration of the dreadful effects +of totally abstaining from it, unless it be for a very short time; +accounts of which we meet with, fully and faithfully recorded, in the +most interesting and most authentic narratives of human affairs--wars, +sieges of places, long encampments, distant voyages, the peopling of +uncultivated and maritime countries, remarkable pestilences, and the +lives of illustrious men. To this cause the memorable plague at Athens +was attributed; and indeed all the other plagues and epidemical +distempers, of which we have any faithful accounts, will be found to +have originated in a deprivation of vegetable food. + +"The only objections I have ever heard urged (the only plausible ones, +he must mean, I think), is the notion of its inadequacy to the +sustenance of the body. But this is merely a strong prejudice into which +the generality of mankind have fallen, owing to their ignorance of the +laws of life and health. Agility and constant vigor of body are the +effect of health, which is much better preserved by a herbaceous, +aqueous, and sparing tender diet, than by one which is fleshy, vinous, +unctuous, and hard of digestion. + +"So fully were the Romans, at one time, persuaded of the superior +goodness of vegetable diet, that, besides the private example of many of +their great men, they established laws respecting food, among which were +the _lex fannia_, and the _lex licinia_, which allowed but very little +animal food; and, for a period of five hundred years, diseases were +banished along with the physician from the Roman empire. Nor has our own +age been destitute of examples of men, brave from the vigor both of +their bodies and their minds, who at the same time have been drinkers of +water and eaters of vegetables.[12] + +"Nothing is more certain than that animal food is inimical to health. +This is evident from its stimulating qualities producing, as it were, a +temporary fever after every meal; and not only so, but from its +corruptible qualities it gives rise to many fatal diseases; and those +who indulge in its use seldom arrive at an advanced age. + +"We have the authority of the Scripture for asserting that the proper +aliment of man is vegetables. See Genesis. And as disease is not +mentioned as a part of the cause, we have reason to believe that the +antediluvians were strangers to this evil. Such a phenomenon as disease +could hardly exist among a people who lived entirely on a vegetable +food; consequently all the individuals made mention of in that period of +the world, are said to have died of old age; whereas, since the day of +Noah, when mankind were permitted to eat animal food, such an occurrence +as a man dying of old age, or a natural decay of the bodily functions, +does not occur probably once in half a century. + +"Its injurious effects on the mind are equally certain. The Tartars, who +live principally on animal food, are cruel and ferocious in their +disposition, gloomy and sullen minded, delighting in exterminating wars +and plunder; while the Bramins and Hindoos, who live entirely on +vegetable aliment, possess a mildness and gentleness of character and +disposition directly the reverse of the Tartar; and I have no doubt, had +India possessed a more popular form of government, and a more +enlightened priesthood, her people, with minds so fitted for +contemplation, would have far outstripped the other nations of the world +in manufactures, and in the arts and sciences. + +"But we need only look at the peasantry of Ireland, who, living as they +do, chiefly on a vegetable--and to say the least of it, a very +suspicious kind of aliment, I mean the potatoe--are yet as robust and +vigorous a race of men as inherit any portion of the globe. + +"The greater part of our bodily disease is brought on by improper food. +This opinion has been strongly confirmed by my daily experience in the +treatment of those diseases to which the people of England are +peculiarly subject, such as scrofula, consumption, leprosy, etc. These +disorders are making fearful and rapid strides; so much so, that not a +single family may now be considered exempt from their melancholy +ravages." + +This is fearful testimony, but it is the result of much observation and +of twenty years' experience. But the same causes are producing the same +effects--at least, so far as scrofula and consumption are concerned--in +this country, at the present time, of which Dr. W. complains so loudly +in England. I could add much more from his writings, but what I have +said is sufficient. + + +DR. JAMES CLARK. + +Dr. Clark, physician to the king and queen of Belgium, in a Treatise on +Pulmonary Consumption, has the following remarks: + +"There is no greater evil in the management of children than that of +giving them animal diet very early. By persevering in the use of an +over-stimulating diet, the digestive organs become irritated, and the +various secretions immediately connected with and necessary to digestion +are diminished, especially the biliary secretion; and constipation of +the bowels and congestion of the abdominal viscera succeed. Children so +fed, moreover, become very liable to attacks of fever and of +inflammation, affecting particularly the mucous membranes; and measles +and the other diseases incident to childhood are generally severe in +their attack." + +The suggestion that a mild or vegetable diet will render certain +diseases incident to childhood more mild than otherwise they would be, +is undoubtedly an important one; and as just as it is important. But +the remark might be extended, in its application. Both children and +adults would escape all sorts of diseases, especially colds and +epidemics, with much more certainty, or, if attacked, the attacks would +be much more mild, on an exclusively vegetable diet than on a mixed one. +Dr. Clark does not, indeed, say so; but I may say it, and with +confidence. And Dr. C. could not probably show any reason why, on his +own principles, it should not be so. + + +PROF. MUSSEY, OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. + +Prof. R. D. Mussey, of Hanover, New Hampshire, whose science and skill +as a surgeon and physician are well known and attested all over New +England, has for many years taught, both directly and indirectly, in his +public lectures, that man is naturally a fruit and vegetable eater. This +he proves, first, from the structure of his teeth and intestines--next +from his physiological character, and finally, from various facts and +considerations too numerous to detail here. + +He thinks the Bible doctrines are in favor of the disuse of flesh and +fish; that the Jews were required to abstain from pork, and from all fat +and blood, for physiological no less than other reasons. An infant, he +says, naturally has a disrelish for animal food. He says that, in all +probability, animal food was not permitted, though used, before the +flood; and that its use, contrary to the wish of the Creator, was +probably one cause of human degeneracy. Animal food, he says, is apt to +produce diseases of the skin--makes people passionate and +violent--excites the nervous system too much--renders the senses and +faculties more dull--and favors the accumulation of what is mired +tartar on the teeth, and thus causes their early and certain decay. The +blood and breath of carnivorous animals emit an unpleasant odor, while +those of vegetable eaters do not. The fact that man _does eat_ flesh no +more proves its necessity, than the fact that cows, and sheep, and +horses can be taught it, proves its necessity to them. The Africans bear +the cold better the first winter after their arrival in a northern +climate than afterward. May not this be owing to their simple vegetable +living? + + +DR. CONDIE, OF PHILADELPHIA. + +The Journal of Health, edited by some of the ablest physicians of +Philadelphia, has the following remarkable language on the subject of +vegetable food. See vol. 1, page 277. + +"It is well known that vegetable substances, particularly the +farinaceous, are fully sufficient, of themselves, for maintaining a +healthy existence. We have every reason for believing that the fruits of +the earth constituted, originally, the only food of man. Animal food is +digested in a much shorter period than vegetables; from which +circumstance, as well as its approaching much nearer in its composition +to the substance of the body into which it is to be converted, it might +at first be supposed the most appropriate article of nourishment. It +has, however, been found that vegetable matter can be as readily and +perfectly _assimilated_ by the stomach into appropriate _nutriment_ as +the most tender animal substances; and confessedly with a less heating +effect upon the system generally. + +"As a general rule, it will be found that those who make use of a diet +consisting chiefly of vegetable matter have a vast advantage in looks, +in strength, and spirits, over those who partake largely of animal food. +They are remarkable for the firm, healthy plumpness of their muscles, +and the transparency of their skins. This assertion, though at variance +with popular opinion, is amply supported by experience." + +At page 7 of the same volume of the Journal of Health we find the +following remarks. The editors were alluding to those persons who think +they cannot preserve their health and strength without flesh or fish, +and who believe their children would also suffer without it: + +"For the information of all such misguided persons, we beg leave to +state, that the large majority of mankind do not eat any animal food; +or, if any, they use it so sparingly, and at such long intervals, that +it cannot be said to form their nourishment. Millions in Asia are +sustained by rice alone, with perhaps a little vegetable oil for +seasoning. + +"In Italy and southern Europe, generally, bread, made of the flour of +wheat or Indian corn, with lettuce and the like mixed with oil, +constitutes the food of the most robust part of its population. + +"The Lazzaroni of Naples, with forms so actively and finely +proportioned, cannot even calculate on this much. Coarse bread and +potatoes is their chief reliance. Their drink of luxury is a glass of +iced water, slightly acidulated. + +"Hundreds of thousands--we might say millions--of Irish do not see +flesh-meat or fish from one week's end to another. Potatoes and oatmeal +are their articles of food: if milk can be added it is thought a luxury. +Yet where shall we find a more healthy and robust population, or one +more enduring of bodily fatigue, and exhibiting more mental vivacity? +What a contrast between these people and the inhabitants of the extreme +north--the timid Laplanders, Esquimaux, and Samoideans, whose food is +almost entirely animal?" + +Again, at page 187 we are told that "the more simple the aliment, and +the less _altered_ by culinary processes, the slower is the change in +digestion; but, at the same time, the less is the stimulation and wear +of the powers of life. The Bramins of Hindostan, who live on exceedingly +simple food, are long livers, even in a hot and exhausting climate. The +peasants of Switzerland and of Scotland, nourished on bread, milk, and +cheese, attain a very old age, and enjoy great bodily strength. + +"Where there is too much excitement of the body, generally, from +fullness of the blood-vessels, or of any one of the organs, owing to a +wrong direction of the blood to it (and in one or the other of these +conditions we find almost every body now-a-days), animal food, by being +long retained in the stomach, and calling into greater action other +parts during digestion, as well as furnishing them with more blood +afterward, must be obviously improper. The more of this kind of food is +taken under such circumstances, the greater will be the oppression; and +the weakness, different from that of a healthy person long hungered, +will only be increased by the increased amount of blood carried to the +diseased part." + +It is true that the editors of the Journal of Health connect with the +foregoing paragraphs the statement that, "if it be desirable to give +nutriment in a small bulk, to obtund completely the sensation of hunger +and restore strength to the body, a small quantity of animal will be +preferable to much vegetable food." But then it is only in a few +diseased cases that any such thing is desirable. And even then, if we +look carefully at the language used, the comparison is not made between +animal and vegetable food in moderate or reasonable quantities, but +between a _small quantity_ of the former and _much_ of the latter. + + +DR. J. V. C. SMITH, OF BOSTON. + +The following remarks are extracted from the Boston Medical +Intelligencer, at a period when Dr. J. V. C. Smith was the editor. They +have the appearance of being from Dr. Smith's own pen. Dr. S. is at +present the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: + +"It is true[13] that animal food contains a greater portion of +nutriment, in a given quantity, than vegetables; but the digestive +functions of the human system become prematurely exhausted by constant +action, and the whole system eventually sinks under great or +uninterrupted excitement. If, for the various ragouts with which modern +tables are so abundantly furnished, men would substitute _wholesome +vegetables and pure water_, we should see health walking in paths that +are now crowded with the bloated victims of voluptuous appetite. +Millions of Gentoos have lived to an advanced age without having tasted +any thing that ever possessed life, and been wholly free from a chain of +maladies which have scourged every civilized nation on the globe. The +wandering Arabs, who have traversed the barren desert of Sahara, +subsisting on the scanty pittance of milk from the half-famished camel +that carried them, have seen two hundred years roll round without a day +of sickness." + + +SYLVESTER GRAHAM. + +Although Mr. Graham does not, so far as I know, lay claim to the +"honors" of any medical institution, it cannot be doubted that his +knowledge of physiology, to say nothing of anatomy, pathology, and +medicine, is such as to entitle him to a high rank among medical men; +and I have, therefore, without hesitation, concluded to insert his +testimony in this place. + +Of his views, however, on the subject before us, it seems almost +superfluous to speak, as they are set forth, and have been set forth for +many years, so conspicuously, not only in his public lectures, but in +his writings, that the bare mention of his name, in almost any part of +the country, is to awaken the prejudices, if not the hostilities, of +every foe, and of some friends (supposed friends, I mean), of +"temperance in all things." It is sufficient, perhaps, for my present +purpose, to say of him, that, after the most rigid and profound +examination of the subject which he is capable of making--and his +capabilities are by no means very limited--it is his unhesitating +belief, that in every climate, and in all circumstances in which it is +proper for man to be placed, an exclusively farinaceous and fruit diet +is the best adapted to the development and improvement of all his powers +of body, mind, and soul; provided, however, he were trained to it from +the first. And even at any period of life, unless in the case of certain +forms of diseases, he believes it would be preferable to exchange, in a +proper manner, every form of mixed diet for one purely vegetable. Such +opinions as these, as a part of his views in relation to the physical +duties of man, he publicly, and strenuously, and eloquently, announces +and defends. + + +DR. JOHN M. ANDREW. + +Dr. Andrew is a practitioner of medicine in Remsen, Oneida county, State +of New York. His letter was intended for chapter iv., but came too late. +This fact is the only apology for inserting it in this place. Several +interesting cases of dietetic reform accompanied the letter, but I must +omit them, for want of room, in this work. + + REMSEN, April 28, 1838. + +DEAR SIR--It is now about sixteen months since I adopted an exclusively +vegetable diet. I have, however, never been very much inclined to animal +food; and, indeed, before I ever heard of the Graham system I laid it +aside, during summer, when farming--which, by the by, had always been my +occupation till I commenced my professional course, about four years +ago. I have, to the best of my knowledge, enjoyed what is commonly +called good health, and possessed a degree of strength surpassed only by +few; and in connection with the assiduous cultivation of my mental +faculties, I have carefully sought to improve my physical powers, which +I deem of incalculable worth to the student, as well as to the laborer. + +My attention was first called to the subject of vegetable eating by +Professor Mussey, in a lecture before the medical class of the Western +Medical College of New York, while fulfilling the duties of the +professorship, to which he was called in 1836. In that lecture our +adaptations, and the design of the Creator in regard to our mode of +subsistence, were clearly held forth, and such was the impression made +on my mind, that I was induced at once to adopt the vegetable system, +both in practice and theory. In my change of diet I did not suffer any +inconvenience. The fact that I had, for some length of time, been living +mostly on vegetables, will account for that circumstance, however. + +But the great advantages derived from the change were soon perceptible, +though not appreciated by others. I met with much opposition from my +friends, frequently being told that I was fast losing my flesh and all +my youthful vigor and vivacity. And yet, for one year and more, I have +not lost a pound of flesh. + +I was gazed upon as an anomaly in society; some anxiously looking, and +others fearfully expecting my downfall and destruction; but both are +alike disappointed. The system, though I have not been able to follow it +so strictly as I could wish, from the circumstances in which I have been +placed, has far exceeded my expectations. One year and more has rolled +away, and I thank God I can look back, with some degree of satisfaction, +on the time spent in the enjoyment of that alone which sweetens the cup +of life. My most able advocacy has been my manual exertions and I have +demonstrated the utility of the _system_ alike to the professional and +laboring classes of community. + +I do not go beyond the truth when I say, that I cannot find a man to vie +with me in the field, with the scythe, the fork, or the axe. I do not +want any thing but potatoes and salt; and I can cut and put up four +cords of wood in a day, with no very great exertion. I have frequently +been told, by friends, that my _potato and salt system_ would not stand +the test of the field; but I have silenced their clamor by actual +demonstration with all the implements above named. + +At present, no consideration would induce me to return to my former mode +of living. + + JOHN M. ANDREW. + + +DR. WILLIAM SWEETSER, OF BOSTON. + +Dr. Sweetser is the author of a "Treatise on Consumption," and of a +"Treatise on Digestion." He has also been a medical professor in the +University of Vermont, and a public lecturer on health, in Boston. + +In his work on consumption, while speaking of the prevailing belief of a +necessity for the use of animal food to those children who possess the +scrofulous or consumptive tendency, he thus remarks: + +"A diet of milk and mild farinaceous articles, with perhaps light animal +decoctions, appears best suited to the early years of life. Whenever +there exists an evident inflammatory tendency, as is the case in some +scrofulous systems, solid animal food, if used at all, should be taken +with the greatest precaution. + +"And again--how often is it that fat, plethoric, meat-eating children, +their faces looking as though the blood was just ready to ooze out, are +with the greatest complacency exhibited by their parents as patterns of +health! But let it ever be remembered, that the condition of the system +popularly called rude or full health, and which is the result of high +feeding, is too often closely bordering on a state of disease." + +In his work on digestion he seems to regard man as naturally an +omnivorous animal; and, taking this for granted, he speaks as follows +respecting his diet: + +"One would hardly assert that even in temperate climates his (man's) +system requires animal food. I doubt whether any instance can be +adduced--unless man be regarded as such--of an omnivorous animal +incapable of being adequately nourished by a sufficient and proper +vegetable diet. + +"Man, dwelling in a temperate climate, and with the power to choose, +almost uniformly employs a mixture of animal and vegetable food; but how +much early education may have to do in forming his taste for a mixed +diet it is difficult to estimate. Habit has certainly great influence in +attaching us to particular kinds of aliment. One who has long been +accustomed to animal food cannot at once abstain from it without +experiencing some feebleness for the want of its stimulation, and +perhaps even temporary emaciation. And, on the other hand, he who has +long been confined to a vegetable diet is apt to lose his relish for +flesh, and, on recurring suddenly to its use, to find it too exciting. + +"The liberal use of animal food has been generally thought requisite in +arctic climes, to stimulate the functions, and thus furnish a more +abundant supply of animal heat, to preserve against the extremity of +external temperature. Northern voyagers mostly believe that fat animal +food and oils are essential to the maintenance of health and life in the +inhabitants of those frozen regions. But to me it would seem that their +habits, in respect to diet, prove the _capabilities_, rather than the +necessities, of their systems. They learn to eat their coarse fare +because they can get no other. Their food, moreover, as is generally the +case in savage life, is precarious; and thus, being at times exposed to +extreme want, they are stimulated to greater excesses when their +supplies are ample. + +"The fact of man's dwelling in them (the arctic regions), and eating +what he can get there, no more proves him to be naturally a +flesh-eating animal than the circumstance of some cattle learning to eat +fish, when they are in situations where they can obtain no other food, +proves them to be piscivorous. + +"Haller conceived it necessary that human life should be sustained by +animal and vegetable food, so apportioned that neither should be in +excess; and he asserts that abstinence from animal food causes great +weakness in the body, and usually a troublesome diarrhoea. But such an +opinion is certainly incorrect, since not only particular individuals, +but even numbers of people, dwelling in temperate climates, from various +causes, subsist almost wholly on vegetable substances, and yet preserve +their health and vigor. + +"Were we educated to its exclusive use, I am persuaded that a vegetable +diet would afford us ample support; but whether, if restrained from +animal food, we should, _as a consequence_, in the course of time, and +under equally favoring circumstances in other respects, rise still +higher in our moral and physical nature, remains, as I conceive, to be +proved." + +These views of Dr. S. were repeated, in substance, in a course of +lectures given by him at the Masonic Temple, in Boston, in 1838. It will +be seen that he concedes what the friends of the vegetable system deem a +very important point, viz., that man's whole powers, physical, +intellectual, and moral, can be well developed on a diet exclusively +vegetable. We do not ask him to grant more. If man is as well off on +vegetable food as without it, we have moral reasons of so much weight to +place against animal food, as, when duly considered, will be, by all +candid persons, sufficient to lead to its rejection. + +True, we do not believe, with Dr. S.--at least I do not--that "whether a +diet purely vegetable, or one comprehending both animal and vegetable +food, would be most conducive to health, longevity, and intellectual, +moral, and physical development, is a question only to be determined by +a long course of experiments, made by various individuals in equal +health, and placed, in all other respects, under as nearly similar +circumstances as practicable." I believe this course of experiment does +not remain _to be_ made, but that it has been made, most fully, during +the last four or five thousand years, and that the question is settled +in favor--wholly so--of vegetable food. Still I do not ask physicians +and other medical men to grant more than Dr. S. has; it is quite as much +as we ought to expect of them. + + +DR. A. L. PIERSON. + +Dr. Pierson, of Salem, in Massachusetts, a physician and surgeon of +considerable eminence, in a lecture some time ago, before the American +Institute of Instruction, observed that "young men who were anxious to +avail themselves of the advantages of a liberal education, and were +therefore compelled to consult economy, had found out that it was not +necessary to pay three or four dollars a week for mere board, when the +most vigorous and uniform health may be secured by a diet of mere +vegetable food and water." + +I know not that Dr. P. avows himself an advocate for the exclusive use +of vegetable food, but if what I have quoted is not enough to satisfy us +in regard to his opinion of its safety, and its full power to develop +body and mind, I know not what would be. If the most vigorous and +uniform health can be secured on vegetable food, what individual in the +world--in view of the moral considerations at least--would ever resort +to the carcasses of animals? + + +STATEMENT OF DR. C. BYINGTON, OF PHILADELPHIA. + +A physician of some eminence, residing in Philadelphia, has been heard +to say that it was his decided opinion that mankind would live longest, +and be healthiest and happiest, on mere bread and water. I may add here, +that there was every evidence but one that he was sincere in this +statement, although I do not fully accord with him, believing that the +best health requires variety of food--not, indeed, at the same meal, but +at different ones. The exception I make in regard to his sincerity, is +in reference to the fact, that while he professed to believe a bread and +vegetable diet to be best for mankind, he did not adopt it. + + +TESTIMONY OF A PHYSICIAN IN NEW YORK. + +In the work entitled "Hints to a Fashionable Lady," by a physician--his +name not given--we find the following testimony: + +"Young persons invariably do best on simple but moderately nutritious +fare. Too large a proportion of animal food and fatty substances are +pernicious to the complexion. On the contrary, a diet which is +principally vegetable, with the luxuries of the dairy (not butter, +surely, for that is elsewhere prohibited), is most advantageous. Nowhere +are finer complexions to be found than in those parts of England, +Scotland, and Ireland, where the living is almost exclusively vegetable. + +"Those who subsist entirely on vegetable food have seldom, if ever, a +constantly bad breath, or an offensive perspiration. It has been +ascertained that the teeth are uniformly best in those countries where +least animal food is used." + + +THE FEMALE'S CYCLOPEDIA. + +From a fugitive volume, entitled "The Female's Cyclopedia," I have +concluded to make the following extract, because I have reason to +believe the writer to have been a physician: + +"Animal food certainly gives most strength; but its stimulancy excites +fever, and produces plethora and its consequences. The system is sooner +worn out by a repetition of its stimuli, and those who indulge greatly +in such diet are more likely to be carried off early by inflammatory +diseases; or if, by judicious exercise, they qualify its effects, they +yet acquire such an accumulation of putrescent fluids as becomes the +foundation for the most inveterate chronic diseases in after age. + +"The most valuable state of the mind, however, appears to be connected +with somewhat less of firmness and vigor of body. Vegetable aliment, as +never over-distending the vessels or loading the system, does not +interrupt the stronger emotions of the mind; while the heat, fullness, +and weight of animal food, are inimical to its vigorous exertion. +Temperance, therefore, does not so much consist in the quantity--since +the appetite will regulate that--as in the quality; namely, in a large +proportion of vegetable aliment." + + +DR. VAN COOTH. + +Dr. Van Cooth, a learned European writer--I believe a Hollander--has +recently maintained, incidentally, in a learned medical dissertation, +that the great body of the ancient Egyptians and Persians "confined +themselves to a vegetable diet." To be sure, Dr. V. does not seem to be +a vegetable eater himself, but the friends of the latter system are not +the less indebted to him for the concession. The physical and moral +superiority of those vegetable eating nations, in the days of their +glory, are well known; and every intelligent reader of history, and +honest inquirer after truth, will make his own inferences from the facts +which I have mentioned. + + +DR. WILLIAM BEAUMONT. + +The work of this gentleman, entitled "Experiments and Observations on +the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion," is well known--at +least to the medical community. The following are some of the +conclusions to which his experiments conducted him: + +"Solid aliment, thoroughly masticated, is far more salutary than soups, +broths, etc. + +"Fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every kind, are difficult of +digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to derange that organ and +induce disease. + +"Spices, pepper, stimulating and heating condiments of every kind, +retard digestion and injure the stomach. + +"Coffee and tea debilitate the stomach and impair digestion. + +"Simple water is the only fluid called for by the wants of the economy; +the artificial drinks are all more or less injurious--some more so than +others; but none can claim exemption from the general charge." + +If it should be said that this testimony of Dr. Beaumont is by no means +directly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. I admit it. But he +certainly goes very far toward conceding every thing which I claim, +when he says that "fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every +kind, are difficult of digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to +derange that organ and induce disease;" and especially when he speaks so +highly of farinaceous substances and good fruits. Pray, what animal food +can be eaten which does not contain, at least, a small quantity of oil? +And if this oil tends to induce disease, and farinaceous food does not, +why should not animal food be excluded? + + +SIR EVERARD HOME. + +This distinguished philosopher and medical gentleman, though, like many +others, he insisted that vegetable food did not produce full muscular +development, yet admitted the natural character of man to be that of a +vegetable eater, in the following, or nearly the following, terms: + +"In the history of man--in the Bible--we are told that dominion over the +animal world was bestowed upon him at his creation; but the divine +permission to indulge in animal food was not given till after the flood. +The observations I have to make accord strongly with this tradition; +for, while mankind remained in a state of innocence, there is every +ground to believe that their only food was the produce of the vegetable +kingdom." + + +DR. JENNINGS. + +Dr. Jennings is the author of a work published at Oberlin, Ohio, in +1847, entitled "Medical Reform." In this volume, at page 198, we find +the following facts and statements. The author is comparing the effects +of animal food on the human system with those of alcohol, from which we +learn his views concerning the former: + +"Position I.--Animal food, in common with alcohol, creates a feverish +diathesis, evidences of which are--1. An impaired state of the +respiratory function. 2. The pulse is rendered more frequent and +irregular, both by alcohol and meat. 3. A feverish heat is generated in +the system, and persons are made more thirsty, by the use of both these +substances. 4. Both substances equally induce what is called the +digestive fever. + +"Position II.--Alcoholic drinks lay the foundation for occasional +disturbances in the system, of different kinds and grades, as bilious +bowel affections, etc., and so do flesh meats. In the production of +colds, animal food is far the most efficient. + +"Position III.--Animal food tends, quite as strongly as the moderate use +of alcoholic liquors, to weaken and disturb the balance of action +between the secerning and excerning systems of vessels, by which some +persons become leaner and others fleshier than they should be. + +"Position IV.--With about equal potency alcohol and flesh meats weaken +the force of the capillaries of the system, on which healthy action so +much depends. + +"Position V.--A flesh diet, in common with the use of strong drink, +impairs the tone of the nutritive apparatus, by which its ability to +work up raw material and manufacture it into sound, well finished vital +fabric, is diminished, and of course the appetite or call for food is +satisfied with a less quantity of the raw material. This fact has given +rise to the opinion that animal food contains more nutriment than +vegetable. + +"Position VI.--The total abandonment of an habitual use of animal food +is attended with all the perplexing, uncomfortable, and distressing +difficulties that follow the giving up of an habitual use of strong +drink. A change from one kind of simple nutriment to another has no +such effect. It is only when the constant use of some stimulating +substance is abandoned that such difficulties are experienced." + + +DR. JARVIS. + +This gentleman, in his "Practical Physiology," at page 86, has the +following thoughts: + +"Some have contended that man was designed to eat only of the fruits and +vegetables of the earth; while others maintain, with equal confidence, +that he should add to these the flesh of beasts. There are many +individuals, both in this and other countries, who confine themselves to +vegetable diet. They believe they enjoy better health, and maintain +greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet. +The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to +determine its value. It has not proved a failure, nor has it +demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that flesh is injurious."[14] + + +DR. TICKNOR. + +"From the fact," says this author, "that animal food is proper and +necessary for health in polar regions, and that a vegetable diet is +equally proper and necessary in the torrid zone, we may conclude that in +winter, in our own climate, an animal diet is the best; while vegetables +are more conducive to health in the summer season." + +It would not be difficult to prove, from the very concessions of Dr. T., +that vegetable food is better adapted to health, in _general_, than +animal; but I forbear to do so, in this place. The subject will be fully +discussed in the concluding chapter. + + +DR. COLES. + +The author of a small volume recently published at Boston, entitled the +"Philosophy of Health; or, Health without Medicine," is more decided in +his views on diet than any late writer I have seen, except Dr. Jennings +and O. S. Fowler. He says, at page 35: + +"Man, in his original, holy state, was provided for from the vegetables +of that happy garden which was given him to prune. This was the +Creator's original plan; * * * * the eating of flesh was one of the +consequences of the fall. Living on vegetable food is undoubtedly the +most natural and healthy method of subsistence." + +Again, at page 45--"The objections, then, against meat-eating are +threefold--intellectual, moral, and physical. Its tendency is to check +intellectual activity, to depreciate moral sentiment, and to derange the +fluids of the body." + + +DR. SHEW. + +This active physician is zealously devoted to the propagation of +hydropathy. He uses no medicine in the management of disease--nothing at +all but water. To this, however, he adds great attention to diet. In his +Journal,[15] and elsewhere, he is a zealous and able advocate of the +vegetable system, preferring it himself, and recommending it to his +patients and followers. + +Dr. Shew's opinion, in this particular, is entitled to the more weight +from the fact of his having been very familiar with disease and diet, +both in the old world and the new. He has been twice to Germany; and has +spent much time at Graefenberg, with Priessnitz, the founder of the +system which he so zealously defends and practices, and so strongly +advocates. + + +DR. MORRILL. + +Dr. C. Morrill, in a recent work entitled, "Physiology of Woman, and her +Diseases," says much in favor of an exclusively vegetable diet in some +of the diseases of woman; and among other things, makes the following +general remarks: + +"Even by those who labor (referring here to the healthy), meat should be +taken moderately, and but once a day. The sedentary, generally, do not +need it." + + +DR. BELL. + +This gentleman's testimony has been given elsewhere. I only subjoin the +following: "By far the greater number of the inhabitants of the earth +have used, in all ages, and continue to use, at this time, vegetable +aliment alone." + + +DR. BRADLEY. + +Dr. D. B. Bradley, the distinguished missionary at Bangkok, in Siam, +though not exactly a vegetable eater, is favorably disposed to the +vegetable system. He has read Graham and myself with great care, and is +an anxious inquirer after all truth. + + +DR. STEPHENSON. + +Dr. Chauncy Stephenson, of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in what he calls +his "New System of Medicine," commends to all his readers, for their +sustenance, "pure air, a proper temperature, good vegetable food, and +pure cold water." And lest he should be misunderstood, he immediately +adds--"The best articles of food for general use are good, well-baked +cold bread, made of rye and Indian corn, wheat or barley meal; rice, +good ripe fruits of all kinds, both fresh and dried, and a proper +proportion of good roots, such as potatoes, parsneps, turnips, onions, +etc." Even milk he regards as a questionable food for adults or middle +aged persons. + +Again, he says: "Animal food, in general, digests sooner than most kinds +of vegetables; and not being so much in accordance with man's nature, +constitution, and moral character, it is very liable, finally, to +generate disease, inflammation, or fever, even when it is not taken to +excess." He closes by advising all persons to content themselves with +"pure vegetable food;" and that in the least quantity compatible with +good health. + + +DR. J. BURDELL, + +A distinguished dentist of New York, has long been a vegetable eater, +and a zealous defender of the faith (in this particular) which he +professes. + + +DR. THOMAS SMETHURST, + +In a work entitled Hydrotherapia, says, "Children thrive best upon a +simple, moderately nourishing vegetable diet." And if children thus +thrive the best, why not adults? + + +DR. SCHLEMMER. + +Dr. C. V. Schlemmer, a German by birth, but now an adopted son of old +England, in giving an account of the diet of himself, his three sons of +eleven, ten, and four years of age, with their tutor, observes: "Raw +peas, beans, and fruit are our food: our teeth are our mills; the +stomach is the kitchen." And all of them, as he affirms, enjoy the best +of health. For himself, as he says, he has practiced in this way six +years. + + +DR. CURTIS, AND OTHERS. + +Dr. Curtis, a distinguished botanic physician of Ohio, with several +other physicians, both of the old and the new school, whom I have not +named, do not hesitate to regard a pure vegetable diet, in the abstract, +as by far the best for all mankind, both in health and disease. + +Dr. Porter, of Waltham, for example, when I meet him, always concedes +that a well-selected vegetable diet is superior to every other. He has +repeatedly told me of an experiment he made, of three months, on mere +bread and water. Never, says he, was I more vigorous in body and mind, +than at the end of this experiment. But the reader well knows that I am +not an advocate of a diet of mere bread and water. I regard fruits, or +fruit juices--unfermented--almost as necessary, to adults, as bread. + + +PROF. C. U. SHEPARD. + +The reputation of this gentleman, in the scientific world, is so well +known, that no apology can be necessary for inserting his testimony. As +a chemist, he is second to very few, if any, men in this country. The +following are his remarks: + +"Start not back at the idea of subsisting upon the potato alone, ye who +think it necessary to load your tables with all the dainty viands of the +market--with fish, flesh, and fowl, seasoned with oil and spices, and +eaten, perhaps, with wines;--start not back, I say, with disgust, until +you are able to display in your own pampered persons a firmer muscle, a +more beau-ideal outline, and a healthier red than the potato-fed +peasantry of Ireland and Scotland once showed you, as you passed by +their cabin doors! + +"No; the chemical physiologist will tell you that the well ripened +potato, when properly cooked, contains every element that man requires +for nutrition; and in the best proportion in which they are found in any +plant whatever. There is the abounding supply of starch for enabling him +to maintain the process of breathing, and for generating the necessary +warmth of body; there is the nitrogen for contributing to the growth and +renovation of organs; the lime and phosphorus for the bones; and all the +salts which a healthy circulation demands. In fine, the potato may well +be called the universal plant." + + +BLACKWOOD, IN HIS MAGAZINE. + +"Chemistry," says Blackwood's Magazine, "has already told us many +remarkable things in regard to the vegetable food we eat--that it +contains, for example, a certain per centage of the actual fat and lean +we consume in our beef, or mutton, or pork--and, therefore, that he who +lives on vegetable food may be as strong as the man who lives on animal +food, because both in reality feed on the same things, in a somewhat +different form." + +There is this difference, however, that in the one case--that is, in the +use of the vegetables which contain the elements referred to--we save +the trouble of running it through the body of the living animal, and +losing seven eighths of it, as we do, practically in the process; +whereas in the other we do not. We also save ourselves the necessity of +training the young and the old to scenes of butchery and blood. + + +PROF. JOHNSTON. + +This gentleman, in a recent edition of his "Elements of Agricultural +Chemistry and Geology," tells us that from experiments made in the +laboratory of the Agricultural Association of Scotland, wheat and oats, +when analyzed, contain of nutritious properties the following +proportion: + + Musc. matter. Fat. Starch. + Wheat, 10 pounds, 3 pounds, 50 pounds. + Oats, 18 " 6 " 65 " + +Thus oats, and even wheat, are quite rich in that which forms muscular +matter in the human body. + + +SIMEON COLLINS, OF WESTFIELD, MASS. + +This gentleman, in his fifty-first year, states that having been for +several years afflicted with a severe cough, which he supposed bordered +upon consumption, he "discontinued the use of flesh meat, fish, fowl, +butter, gravy, tea, and coffee, and made use of a plain vegetable diet." +"My bread," says he, "is made of unbolted wheat meal; my drink is pure +cold water; my bed, for winter and summer, is made of the everlasting +flower; and my health is, and ever has been, perfect, since I got fairly +cleansed from the filthiness of flesh meat, and other pernicious +articles of diet in common use. + +"My business requires a great degree of activity, and I can truly say +that I am a stranger to weariness or languor. At the time of entering +upon this system, I had a wife and five children, the youngest eight +years of age;--they all soon entered upon the same course of living with +myself, and soon were all benefited in health. I have now six +children--the youngest fifteen months old, and as happy as a lark. +Previous to the time of our adopting the present system of living, my +expenses for medicine and physicians would range from $20 to $30 a +year--for the last four years it has been nothing worth naming." + + +REV. JOSEPH EMERSON. + +Mr. Emerson was a teacher of eminence, known throughout the United +States, but particularly so in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He died in +the latter state, in 1833, aged about fifty-five. He had long been a +miserable dyspeptic, but was probably kept alive amid certain strange +violations of physical law, such as studying hard till midnight, for +example, for many years, by his great care in regard to his diet. Mrs. +Banister, late Miss Z. P. Grant (the associate, at Ipswich, of Miss +Lyon, who died recently at South Hadley, who was his pupil), thus speaks +of his rigid habits: + +"He not only uniformly rejected whatever food he had decided to be +injurious to him, but whatever he deemed necessary for his food or +drink, was always taken, whether at home or abroad. As his diet, for +several years, consisted generally, either of bread and milk, or of +bread and butter, what solid food he wanted could be supplied at any +table."[16] + +It is also testified of him, by his brother, Prof. Emerson, of Andover, +that "for more than thirty years he adopted the practice of eating but +one kind at a meal." If I do not misremember, for I knew him well, he +was in favor of banishing flesh and fish, and substituting milk and +fruits in their stead, on Bible ground.--I refer here to the Divine +arrangement in the first chapter of Genesis; and which has never, that I +am aware, been altered. + + +TAK SISSON. + +Tak Sisson, as he was called, was a slave in the family of a man in +Rhode Island, before and during the Revolution. + +From early childhood he could never be prevailed on to eat any flesh or +fish, but he subsisted on vegetable food and milk; neither could he be +persuaded to eat high seasoned food of any kind. When he was a child, +his parents used to scold him severely, and threaten to whip him because +he refused to eat flesh. They said to him (as I have been told a +thousand times), that if he did not eat meat he would never be good for +any thing, but would always be a poor, puny creature. + +But Tak persevered in his vegetable and unstimulating diet, and, to the +surprise of all, grew fast, and his body was finely developed and +athletic. He was very stout and robust, and altogether the most +vigorous and dexterous of any of the family. He finally became more than +six feet high, and every way well proportioned, and remarkable for his +agility and strength. He was so uncommonly shrewd, bright, strong, and +active, that he became notorious for his shrewdness, and for his feats +of strength and agility. Indeed, he was so full of his playful mischief +as greatly to annoy his overseer. + +During the Revolutionary War it became an object to take Gen. Prescott. +A door was to be forced where he was quartered and sleeping, and Tak was +selected for the work. Having taken his lesson from the American +officer, he proceeded to the door, plunged his thick head against it, +burst it open, roused Gen. P., like a tiger sprung upon him, seized him +in his brawny arms, and in a low, stern voice, said, "One word, and you +are a dead man." Then hastily snatching the general's cloak and wrapping +it round him, at the same time telling a companion to take care of the +rest of his clothes, he took him in his arms, as if a child, and ran +with him to a boat which was waiting, and escaped with his prisoner +without rousing even the British sentinels. + +Tak lived on his vegetable fare to a very advanced age, and was +remarkable, through life, for his activity, strength, and shrewdness. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] By seed, Dr. C. means the farinaceous grains; wheat, corn, rye, etc. + +[10] Cuvier was not a medical man, but I have classed him with medical +men, on account of his profound knowledge of Comparative Anatomy and +Physiology. + +[11] "Unless," as a writer in the Graham Journal very justly observes, +"these latter indulge, habitually and freely, in the use of intoxicating +substances." + +[12] Such was Gen. Elliot, so distinguished at the famous siege of +Gibraltar. Such, too, was Mr. Shillitoe, of whom honorable mention will +be made in another place;--besides many more. + +[13] So he thinks, but I think otherwise. Animal food, as I have shown +elsewhere, is not so nutritious as some of the farinaceous vegetables. + +[14] Dr. J. here overlooks one important fact, viz., that the testimony +of all those who have tried the exclusive use of vegetable food is +_positive_ in its nature; while that of others, who have not tried it, +is, and necessarily must be, negative. + +[15] The Water-Cure Journal. + +[16] An aged lady, of Dedham--a pillar in every good cause--has, for +twelve or fifteen years, carried abroad with her, when traveling, some +plain bread and apples; and no entreaties will prevail with her, at home +or abroad, to eat luxuries. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. + + General Remarks.--Testimony of + Plautus.--Plutarch.--Porphyry.--Lord Bacon.--Sir William + Temple.--Cicero.--Cyrus the Great.--Gassendi.--Prof. + Hitchcock.--Lord Kaims.--Dr. Thomas Dick.--Prof. Bush.--Thomas + Shillitoe.--Alexander Pope.--Sir Richard Phillips.--Sir Isaac + Newton.--The Abbe Gallani.--Homer.--Dr. Franklin.--Mr. + Newton.--O. S. Fowler.--Rev. Mr. Johnston.--John H. + Chandler.--Rev. J. Caswell.--Mr. Chinn.--Father + Sewall.--Magliabecchi.--Oberlin and Swartz.--James + Haughton.--John Bailies.--Francis Hupazoli.--Prof. + Ferguson.--Howard, the Philanthropist.--Gen. + Elliot.--Encyclopedia Americana.--Thomas Bell, of + London.--Linnaeus, the Naturalist.--Shelley, the Poet.--Rev. Mr. + Rich.--Rev. John Wesley.--Lamartine. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +This chapter might have been much more extended than it is. I might have +mentioned, for example, the cases of Daniel and his three brethren, at +the court of the Babylonian monarch, who certainly maintained their +health--if they did not even improve it--by vegetable food, and by a +form of it, too, which has by many been considered rather doubtful. I +might have mentioned the case of Paul,[17] who, though he occasionally +appears to have eaten flesh, said, expressly, that he would abstain from +it while the world stood, where a great moral end was to be gained; and +no one can suppose he would have done so, had he feared any injury would +thereby result to his constitution of body or mind. + +The case of William Penn, if I remember rightly what he says in his "No +Cross no Crown," would have been in point. Jefferson, the third +President of the United States, was, according to his own story, almost +a vegetable eater, during the whole of his long life. He says he +abstained principally from animal food; using it, if he used it at all, +only as a condiment for his vegetables. And does any one, who has read +his remarks, doubt that his "convictions" were in favor of the exclusive +use of vegetable food? + +However, to prevent the volume from much exceeding the limits originally +assigned it, I will be satisfied--and I hope the public will--with the +following selections of testimonies, ancient and modern; some of more, +some of less importance; but all of them, as it appears to me, worthy of +being collected and incorporated into a volume like this, and faithfully +and carefully examined. + + +PLAUTUS. + +Plautus, a distinguished dramatic Roman writer, who flourished about two +thousand years ago, gives the following remarkable testimony against the +use of animal food, and of course in favor of the salubrity of +vegetables; addressed, indeed, to his own countrymen and times, but +scarcely less applicable to our own: + +"You apply the term wild to lions, panthers, and serpents; yet, in your +own savage slaughters, you surpass them in ferocity; for the blood shed +by them is a matter of necessity, and requisite for their subsistence. + +"But, that man is not, by nature, destined to devour animal food, is +evident from the construction of the human frame, which bears no +resemblance to wild beasts or birds of prey. Man is not provided with +claws or talons, with sharpness of fang or tusk, so well adapted to tear +and lacerate; nor is his stomach so well braced and muscular, nor his +animal spirits so warm, as to enable him to digest this solid mass of +animal flesh. On the contrary, nature has made his teeth smooth, his +mouth narrow, and his tongue soft; and has contrived, by the slowness of +his digestion, to divert him from devouring a species of food so ill +adapted to his frame and constitution. But, if you still maintain that +such is your natural mode of subsistence, then follow nature in your +mode of killing your prey, and employ neither knife, hammer, nor +hatchet--but, like wolves, bears, and lions, seize an ox with your +teeth, grasp a boar round the body, or tear asunder a lamb or a hare, +and, like the savage tribe, devour them still panting in the agonies of +death. + +"We carry our luxury still farther, by the variety of sauces and +seasonings which we add to our beastly banquets--mixing together oil, +wine, honey, pickles, vinegar, and Syrian and Arabian ointments and +perfumes, as if we intended to bury and embalm the carcasses on which we +feed. The difficulty of digesting such a mass of matter, reduced in our +stomachs to a state of liquefaction and putrefaction, is the source of +endless disorders in the human frame. + +"First of all, the wild, mischievous animals were selected for food; and +then the birds and fishes were dragged to slaughter; next, the human +appetite directed itself against the laborious ox, the useful and +fleece-bearing sheep, and the cock, the guardian of the house. At last, +by this preparatory discipline, man became matured for human massacres, +slaughters, and wars." + + +PLUTARCH. + +"It is best to accustom ourselves to eat no flesh at all, for the earth +affords plenty enough of things not only fit for nourishment, but for +enjoyment and delight; some of which may be eaten without much +preparation, and others may be made pleasant by adding divers other +things to them. + +"You ask me," continues Plutarch, "'for what reason Pythagoras abstained +from eating the flesh of brutes?' For my part, I am astonished to think, +on the contrary, what appetite first induced man to taste of a dead +carcass; or what motive could suggest the notion of nourishing himself +with the flesh of animals which he saw, the moment before, bleating, +bellowing, walking, and looking around them. How could he bear to see an +impotent and defenceless creature slaughtered, skinned, and cut up for +food? How could he endure the sight of the convulsed limbs and muscles? +How bear the smell arising from the dissection? Whence happened it that +he was not disgusted and struck with horror when he came to handle the +bleeding flesh, and clear away the clotted blood and humors from the +wounds? + +"We should therefore rather wonder at the conduct of those who first +indulged themselves in this horrible repast, than at such as have +humanely abstained from it." + + +PORPHYRY, OF TYRE. + +Porphyry, of Tyre, lived about the middle of the third century, and +wrote a book on abstinence from animal food. This book was addressed to +an individual who had once followed the vegetable system, but had +afterward relinquished it. The following is an extract from it: + +"You owned, when you lived among us, that a vegetable diet was +preferable to animal food, both for preserving the health and for +facilitating the study of philosophy; and now, since you have eat flesh, +your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was +true. It was not from those who lived on vegetables that robbers or +murderers, sycophants or tyrants, have proceeded; but from +_flesh-eaters_. The necessaries of life are few and easily acquired, +without violating justice, liberty, health, or peace of mind; whereas +luxury obliges those vulgar souls who take delight in it to covet +riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to misspend their +time, to ruin their health and to renounce the joy of an upright +conscience." + +He takes pains to persuade men of the truth of the two following +propositions: + +1st. "That a conquest over the appetites and passions will greatly +contribute to preserve health and to remove distempers. + +2d. "That a simple vegetable food, being easily procured and easily +digested, is a mighty help toward obtaining this conquest over +ourselves." + +To prove the first proposition, he appeals to experience, and proves +that many of his acquaintance who had disengaged themselves from the +care of amassing riches, and turning their thoughts to spiritual +subjects, had got rid entirely of their bodily distempers. + +In confirmation of the second proposition, he argues in the following +manner: "Give me a man who considers, seriously, what he is, whence he +came, and whither he must go, and from these considerations resolves not +to be led astray nor governed by his passions; and let such a man tell +me whether a rich animal diet is more easily procured or incites less to +irregular passions and appetites than a light vegetable diet! But if +neither he, nor a physician, nor indeed any reasonable man whatsoever, +dares to affirm this, why do we oppress ourselves with animal food, and +why do we not, together with luxury and flesh meat, throw off the +incumbrances and snares which attend them?" + + +LORD BACON. + +Lord Bacon, in his treatise on Life and Death, says, "It seems to be +approved by experience, that a spare and almost a Pythagorean diet, such +as is prescribed by the strictest monastic life, or practiced by +hermits, is most favorable to long life." + + +SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. + +"The patriarchs' abodes were not in cities, but in open countries and +fields. Their lives were pastoral, and employed in some sorts of +agriculture. They were of the same race, to which their marriages were +generally confined. Their diet was simple, as that of the ancients is +generally represented. Among them flesh and wine were seldom used, +except at sacrifices at solemn feasts. + +"The Brachmans, among the old Indians, were all of the same races, lived +in fields and in woods, after the course of their studies was ended, and +fed only upon rice, milk, and herbs. + +"The Brazilians, when first discovered, lived the most natural, original +lives of mankind, so frequently described in ancient countries, before +laws, or property, or arts made entrance among them; and so their +customs may be concluded to have been yet more simple than either of the +other two. They lived without business or labor, further than for their +necessary food, by gathering fruits, herbs, and plants. They knew no +other drink but water; were not tempted to eat or drink beyond common +appetite and thirst; were not troubled with either public or domestic +cares, and knew no pleasures but the most simple and natural. + +"From all these examples and customs, it may probably be concluded that +the common ingredients of health and long life are, great temperance, +open air, easy labor, little care, simplicity of diet--rather fruits and +plants than flesh, which easier corrupts--and water, which preserves the +radical moisture without too much increasing the radical heat. Whereas +sickness, decay, and death proceed commonly from the one preying too +fast upon the other, and at length wholly extinguishing it." + + +CICERO. + +This eminent man sometimes, if not usually, confined himself to +vegetable food. Of this we have evidence, in his complaints about the +refinements of cookery--that they were continually tempting him to +excess, etc. He says, that after having withstood all the temptations +that the noblest lampreys and oysters could throw in his way, he was at +last overpowered by paltry beets and mallows. A victory, by the way, +which, in the case of the eater of plain food, is very often achieved. + + +CYRUS THE GREAT. + +This distinguished warrior was brought up, like the inferior Persians, +on bread, cresses, and water; and, notwithstanding the temptations of a +luxurious and voluptuous court, he rigorously adhered to his simple +diet. Nay, he even carried his simple habits nearly through life with +him; and it was not till he had completely established one of the +largest and most powerful empires of antiquity that he began to yield +to the luxuries of the times. Had he pursued his steady course of +temperance through life, the historian, instead of recording his death +at only seventy, might have told us that he died at a hundred or a +hundred and fifty. + + +PETER GASSENDI. + +Two hundred and twenty years ago, Peter Gassendi, a famous French +philosopher--and by the way, one of the most learned men of his +time--wrote a long epistle to Van Helmont, a Dutch chemist, on the +question whether the teeth of mankind indicate that they are naturally +flesh-eaters. + +In this epistle, too long for insertion here,[18] Gassendi maintains, +with great ingenuity, that the human teeth were not made for flesh. He +does not evade any of the facts in the case, but meets them all fairly +and discusses them freely. And after having gone through with all parts +of the argument, and answered every other conceivable objection, he thus +concludes: + +"And here I feel that it may be objected to me: Why, then, do you not, +yourself, abstain from flesh and feed only on fruits and vegetables? I +must plead the force of habit, for my excuse. In persons of mature age +nature appears to be so wholly changed, that this artificial habit +cannot be renounced without some detriment. But I confess that if I were +wise, and relinquishing the use of flesh, should gradually accustom +myself to the gifts of the kind earth, I have little doubt that I should +enjoy more regular health, and acquire greater activity of mind. For +truly our numerous diseases, and the dullness of our faculties, seem +principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may +say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the +whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. +In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads of +man's nature." + +I know how it strikes many when they find such men as Gassendi, +admitting the doctrines for which I contend, in theory, and even +strenuously defending them, and yet setting them at naught in practice. +Surely, say they, such persons cannot be sincere. For myself, however, I +draw a very different conclusion. Their conduct is perfectly in harmony +with that of the theoretic friends of cold water, plain dress, and +abstemiousness in general. They are compelled to admit the truth; but it +is so much against their habits, as in the case of Gassendi, besides +being still more strongly opposed to their lusts and appetites, that +they cannot, or rather, will not conform to what they believe, in their +daily practice. Their testimony, to me, is the strongest that can be +obtained, because they testify against themselves, and in spite of +themselves. + + +PROF. HITCHCOCK. + +This gentleman, a distinguished professor in Amherst College, is the +author of a work, entitled "Dyspepsia Forestalled and Resisted," which +has been read by many, and execrated by not a few of those who are so +wedded to their lusts as to be unwilling to be told of their errors. + +I am not aware that Professor H. has any where, in his writings, urged a +diet exclusively vegetable, for all classes of the community, although +I believe he does not hesitate to urge it on all students; and one might +almost infer, from his works of various kinds, that if he is not already +a believer in the doctrines of its universal superiority to a mixed +diet, he is not very far from it. In a sermon of his, in the National +Preacher, for November, 1834, he calls a diet exclusively vegetable, a +"proper course of living." + +I propose to add here a few anecdotes of his, which I know not how to +find elsewhere. + +"Pythagoras restricted himself to vegetable food altogether, his dinner +being bread, honey, and water; and he lived upward of eighty years. +Matthew (St. Matthew, I suppose he means), according to Clement, lived +upon vegetable diet. Galen, one of the most distinguished of the ancient +physicians, lived one hundred and forty years, and composed between +seven and eight hundred essays on medical and philosophical subjects; +and he was always, after the age of twenty-eight, extremely sparing in +the quantity of his food. The Cardinal de Salis, Archbishop of Seville, +who lived one hundred and ten years, was invariably sparing in his diet. +One Lawrence, an Englishman, by temperance and labor lived one hundred +and forty years; and one Kentigern, who never tasted spirits or wine, +and slept on the ground and labored hard, died at the age of one hundred +and eighty-five. Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, who died at the age of one +hundred and sixty-nine, was a poor fisherman, as long as he could follow +this pursuit; and ultimately he became a beggar, living on the coarsest +and most sparing diet. Old Parr, who died at the age of one hundred and +fifty-three, was a farmer, of extremely abstemious habits, his diet +being solely milk, cheese, coarse bread, small beer, and whey. At the +age of one hundred and twenty he married a second wife by whom he had a +child. But being taken to court, as a great curiosity, in his one +hundred and fifty-second year, he very soon died--as the physicians +decidedly testified, after dissection, in consequence of a change from a +parsimonious to a plentiful diet. Henry Francisco, of this country, who +lived to about one hundred and forty, was, except for a certain period, +remarkably abstemious, eating but little, and particularly abstaining +almost entirely from animal food; his favorite articles being tea, bread +and butter, and baked apples. Mr. Ephraim Pratt, of Shutesbury, Mass., +who died at the age of one hundred and seventeen years, lived very much +upon milk, and that in small quantity; and his son, Michael Pratt, +attained to the age of one hundred and three, by similar means." + +Speaking, in another place, of a milk diet, Professor H. observes, that +"a diet chiefly of milk produces a most happy serenity, vigor, and +cheerfulness of mind--very different from the gloomy, crabbed, and +irritable temper, and foggy intellect, of the man who devours flesh, +fish, and fowl, with ravenous appetite, and adds puddings, pies, and +cakes to the load." + + +LORD KAIMS. + +Henry Home, otherwise called Lord Kaims, the author of the "Elements of +Criticism," and of "Six Sketches on the History of Man," has, in the +latter work, written eighty years ago, the following statements +respecting the inhabitants of the torrid zone: + +"We have no evidence that either the hunter or shepherd state were ever +known there. The inhabitants at present subsist upon vegetable food, +and probably did so from the beginning." + +In speaking of particular nations or tribes of this zone, he tells us +that "the inhabitants of Biledulgerid and the desert of Sahara, have but +two meals a day--one in the morning and one in the evening;" and "being +temperate," he adds, "and strangers to the diseases of luxury and +idleness, they generally live to a great age."[19] Sixty, with them, is +the prime of life, as thirty is in Europe. "Some of the inland tribes of +Africa," he says, "make but one meal a day, which is in the evening." +And yet "their diet is plain, consisting mostly of rice, fruits, and +roots. An inhabitant of Madagascar will travel two or three days without +any other food than a sugar-cane." So also, he might have added, will +the Arab travel many days, and at almost incredible speed, with nothing +but a little gum-arabic; and the Peruvians and other inhabitants of +South America, with a little parched corn. But I have one more extract +from Lord Kaims: + +"The island of Otaheite is healthy, the people tall and well made; and +by temperance--vegetables and fish being their chief nourishment--they +live to a good old age, with scarcely an ailment. There is no such thing +known among them as rotten teeth; the very smell of wine or spirits is +disagreeable; and they never deal in tobacco or spiceries. In many +places Indian corn is the chief nourishment, which every man plants for +himself." + + +DR. THOMAS DICK. + +Dr. Dick, author of the "Philosophy of Religion," and several other +works deservedly popular, gives this remarkable testimony: + +"To take the life of any sensitive being, and to feed on its flesh, +appears incompatible with a state of innocence, and therefore no such +grant was given to Adam in paradise, nor to the antediluvians. It +appears to have been a grant suited only to the degraded state of man, +after the deluge; and it is probable that, as he advances in the scale +of moral perfection in the future ages of the world, the use of animal +food will be gradually laid aside, and he will return again to the +productions of the vegetable kingdom, as the original food of man--as +that which is best suited to the rank of rational and moral +intelligence. And perhaps it may have an influence, in combination with +other favorable circumstances, in promoting health and longevity." + + +PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH. + +Professor Bush, a writer of some eminence, in his "Notes on Genesis," +while speaking of the permission to man in regard to food, in Genesis i. +29, has the following language: + +"It is not perhaps to be understood, from the use of the word _give_, +that a _permission_ was now granted to man of using that for food which +it would have been unlawful for him to use without that permission; for, +by the very constitution of his being, he was made to be sustained by +that food which was most congenial to his animal economy; and this it +must have been lawful for him to employ, unless self-destruction had +been his duty. The true import of the phrase, therefore, doubtless is, +that God had _appointed_, _constituted_, _ordained_ this, as the staple +article of man's diet. He had formed him with a nature to which a +vegetable aliment was better suited than any other. It cannot perhaps be +inferred from this language that the use of flesh-meat was absolutely +forbidden; but it clearly implies that the fruits of the field were the +diet most adapted to the constitution which the Creator had given." + + +THOMAS SHILLITOE. + +Mr. Shillitoe was a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, at +Tottenham, near London. The first twenty-five years of his life were +spent in feeble health, made worse by high living. This high living was +continued about twenty years longer, when, finding himself fast failing, +he yielded to the advice of a medical friend, and abandoned all drinks +but water, and all food but the plainest kinds, by which means he so +restored his constitution that he lived to be nearly ninety years of +age; and at eighty could walk with ease from Tottenham to London, six +miles, and back again. The following is a brief account of this +distinguished man, when at the age of eighty, and nearly in his own +words: + +It is now nearly thirty years since I ate fish, flesh, or fowl, or took +fermented liquor of any kind whatsoever. I find, from continued +experience, that abstinence is the best medicine. I don't meddle with +fermented liquors of any kind, even as medicine. I find I am capable of +doing better without them than when I was in the daily use of them. + +"One way in which I was favored to experience help in my willingness to +abandon all these things, arose from the effect my abstinence had on my +natural temper. My natural disposition is very irritable. I am persuaded +that ardent spirits and high living have more or less effect in tending +to raise into action those evil propensities which, if given way to, war +against the soul, and render us displeasing to Almighty God." + + +ALEXANDER POPE. + +Pope, the poet, ascribes all the bad passions and diseases of the human +race to their subsisting on the flesh, blood, and miseries of animals. +"Nothing," he says, "can be more shocking and horrid than one of our +kitchens, sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of +creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung +up here and there. It gives one an image of a giant's den in romance, +bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were +slain by his cruelty." + + +SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS. + +Sir Richard Phillips, in his "Million of Facts," says that "the mixed +and fanciful diet of man is considered as the cause of numerous +diseases, from which animals are exempt. Many diseases have abated with +changes of natural diet, and others are virulent in particular +countries, arising from peculiarities. The Hindoos are considered the +freest from disease of any part of the human race. The laborers on the +African coast, who go from tribe to tribe to perform the manual labor, +and whose strength is wonderful, live entirely on plain rice. The Irish, +Swiss, and Gascons, the slaves of Europe, feed also on the simplest +diet; the former chiefly on potatoes." + +He states, also, that the diseases of cattle often afflict those who +subsist on them. "In 1599," he observes, "the Venetian government, to +stop a fatal disease among the people, prohibited the sale of meat, +butter, or cheese, on Pain of death." + + +SIR ISAAC NEWTON. + +This distinguished philosopher and mathematician is said to have +abstained rigorously, at times, from all but purely vegetable food, and +from all drinks but water; and it is also stated that some of his +important labors were performed at these seasons of strict temperance. +While writing his treatise on Optics, it is said he confined himself +entirely to bread, with a little sack and water; and I have no doubt +that his remarkable equanimity of temper, and that government of his +animal appetites, throughout, for which he was so distinguished to the +last hour of his life, were owing, in no small degree, to his habits of +rigid temperance. + + +THE ABBE GALLANI. + +The Abbe Gallani ascribes all social crimes to animal destruction--thus, +treachery to angling and ensnaring, and murder to hunting and shooting. +And he asserts that the man who would kill a sheep, an ox, or any +unsuspecting animal, would, but for the law, kill his neighbor. + + +HOMER. + +Even Homer, three thousand years ago, says Dr. Cheyne, could observe +that the Homolgians--those Pythagoreans, those milk and vegetable +eaters--were the longest lived and the honestest of men. + + +DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. + +Dr. Franklin, in his younger days, often, for some time together, lived +exclusively on a vegetable diet, and that, too, in small quantity. +During his after life he also observed seasons of abstinence from animal +food, or _lents_, as he called them, of considerable length. His food +and drink were, moreover, especially in early life, exceedingly simple; +his meal often consisting of nothing but a biscuit and a slice of bread, +with a bunch of raisins, and perhaps a basin of gruel. Now, Dr. F. +testifies of himself; that he found his progress in science to be in +proportion to that clearness of mind and aptitude of conception which +can only be produced by total abstinence from animal food. He also +derived many other advantages from his abstinence, both physical and +moral. + + +MR. NEWTON. + +This author wrote a work entitled "Defence of Vegetable Regimen." It is +often quoted by Shelley, the poet, and others. I know nothing of the +author or of his works, except through Shelley, who gives us some of his +views, and informs us that seventeen persons, of all ages, consisting of +Mr. Newton's family and the family of Dr. Lambe, who is elsewhere +mentioned in this work, had, at the time he wrote, lived seven years on +a pure vegetable diet, and without the slightest illness. Of the +seventeen, some of them were infants, and one of them was almost dead +with asthma when the experiment was commenced, but was already nearly +cured by it; and of the family of Mr. N., Shelley testifies that they +were "the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to +conceive"--the girls "perfect models for a sculptor"--and their +dispositions "the most gentle and conciliating." + +The following paragraph is extracted from Mr. Newton's "Defence," and +will give us an idea of his sentiments. He was speaking of the fable of +Prometheus: + +"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory +as time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, the +drift of the fable seems to be this: Man, at his creation, was endowed +with the gift of perpetual youth, that is, he was not formed to be a +sickly, suffering creature, as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and +to sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth, without +disease or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food, and of +fire, with which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste. +Jupiter and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these +inventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the +newly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet, ensued; other +drink than water was resorted to, and man forfeited the inestimable gift +of health, which he had received from heaven; he became diseased, the +partaker of a precarious existence, and no longer descended into his +grave slowly." + + +O. S. FOWLER. + +O. S. Fowler, the distinguished phrenologist, in his work on Physiology, +devotes nearly one hundred pages to the discussion of the great diet +question. He endeavors to show that, in every point of view, a flesh +diet--or a diet partaking of flesh, fish, or fowl, in any degree--is +inferior to a well-selected vegetable diet; and, as I think, +successfully. He finally says: + +"I wish my own children had never tasted, and would never taste, a +mouthful of meat. Increased health, efficiency, talents, virtue, and +happiness, would undoubtedly be the result. But for the fact that my +table is set for others than my own wife and children, it would never +be furnished with meat, so strong are my convictions against its +utility." + +I believe that L. N. Fowler, the brother and associate of the former, is +of the same opinion; but my acquaintance with him is very limited. Both +the Fowlers, with Mr. Wells, their associate in book-selling, seem +anxiously engaged in circulating books which involve the discussion of +this great question. + + +REV. MR. JOHNSTON. + +Mr. Johnston, who for some fifteen or twenty years has been an American +missionary in different foreign places--Trebizond, Smyrna, etc.--is, +from conviction, a vegetable eater. The author holds in his possession +several letters from this gentleman, on the subject of health, from +which, but for want of room, he would be glad to make numerous extracts. +He once sent, or caused to be sent, to him, at Trebizond, a barrel of +choice American apples, for which the missionary, amid numerous Eastern +luxuries, was almost starving. Happy would it be for many other American +and British missionaries, if they had the same simple taste and natural +appetite. + + +JOHN H. CHANDLER. + +This young man has been for eight or ten years in the employ of the +Baptist Foreign Missionary Board, and is located at Bangkok, in Siam. +For several years before he left this country he was a vegetable eater, +sometimes subsisting on mere fruit for one or two of his daily meals. +And yet, as a mechanic, his labor was hard--sometimes severe. + +Since he has been in Siam he has continued his reformed habits, as +appears from his letters and from reports. The last letter I had from +him was dated June 10, 1847. The following are extracts from it: + +"I experienced the same trials (that is, from others) on my arrival in +Burmah, in regard to vegetable diet, that I did in the United States. +This I did not expect, and was not prepared for it. Through the blessing +of God we were enabled to endure, and have persevered until now. + +"Myself and wife are more deeply convinced than ever that vegetable diet +is the best adapted to sustain health. I cannot say that we have been +much more free from sickness than our associates; but one thing we can +say--we have been equally well off, and our expenses have been much +less." + +After going on to say how much his family--himself and wife--saved by +their plain living, viz., an average of about one dollar a week, he +makes additional remarks, of which I will only quote the following: + +"My labors, being mostly mechanical, are far more fatiguing than those +of my brethren; and I do not think any of them could endure a greater +amount of labor than I do." + +It deserves to be noticed, in this connection, that Mr. Chandler has +slender muscles, and would by no means be expected to accomplish as much +as many men of greater vigor; and yet we have reason to believe that he +performs as much labor as any man in the service of the board. + + +REV. JESSE CASWELL. + +Mr. Caswell went out to India about thirteen years ago, a dyspeptic, +and yet perhaps somewhat better than while engaged in his studies at +Andover. For several years after his arrival he suffered much from +sickness, like his fellow-laborers. His station was Bangkok. He was an +American missionary, sent out by the American Board, as it is called, of +Boston. + +About six years ago he wrote me for information on the subject of +health. He had read my works, and those of Mr. Graham, and seemed not +only convinced of the general importance of studying the science of +human life, but of the superiority of a well selected vegetable diet, +especially at the East. He was also greatly anxious that missionaries +should be early taught what he had himself learned. The following is one +of his first paragraphs: + +"I feel fully convinced that you are engaged in a work second to few if +any of the great enterprises of the day. If there be any class of men +standing in special need of correct physiological knowledge, that class +consists of missionaries of the cross. What havoc has disease made with +this class, and for the most part, as I feel convinced, because, before +and after leaving their native land, they live so utterly at variance +with the laws of their nature." + +He then proceeds to say, that the American missionaries copy the example +of the English, and that they all eat too much high-seasoned food, and +too much flesh and fish; and argues against the practice by adducing +facts. The following is one of them: + +"My Siamese teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who +live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can +endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way. +* * * The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this +they generally eat _a very little_, with their rice." + +The next year I had another letter from him. He had been sick, but was +better, and thought he had learned a great deal, during his sickness, +about the best means of preserving health. He had now fully adopted what +he chose to call the Graham system, and was rejoicing--he and his wife +and children--in its benefits. He says, "If a voice from an obscure +corner of the earth can do any thing toward encouraging your heart and +staying your hands, that voice you shall have." He suggests the +propriety of my sending him a copy of "Vegetable Diet." "I think," says +he, "it might do great good." He wished to lend it among his friends. + +It must suffice to say, that he continued to write me, once or twice a +year, as long as he lived. He also insisted strongly on the importance +of physiological information among students preparing for the ministry, +and especially for missions. He even wrote once or twice to Rev. Dr. +Anderson, and solicited attention to the subject. But the board would +neither hear to him nor to me, except to speak kind words, for nothing +effective was ever done. They even refused a well-written communication +on the subject, intended for the Missionary Herald. Let me also say, +that as early as March, 1845, he told me that Dr. Bradley, his associate +(now in this country), with his family, were beginning to live on the +vegetable system; and added, that one of the sisters of the mission, who +was no "Grahamite," had told him she thought there was not one third as +much flesh used in all the mission families that there was a year +before. + +Mr. Caswell became exceedingly efficient, over-exerted himself in +completing a vocabulary of the Siamese language, and in other labors, +and died in September last. He was, according to the testimony of Dr. +Bradley, a "_noble man_;" and probably his life and health, and that of +his family, were prolonged many years by his improved habits. But his +early transgressions--like those of thousands--at length found him out. +I allude to his errors in regard to exercise, eating, drinking, +sleeping, taking medicine, etc. + + +MR. SAMUEL CHINN. + +This individual has represented the town of Marblehead, Mass., in the +state legislature, and is a man of respectability. He is now, says the +"Lynn Washingtonian," above forty years of age, a strong, healthy man, +and, to use his own language, "has neither ache nor pain." For the ten +years next preceding our last account from him he had lived on a simple +vegetable diet, condemning to slaughter no flocks or herds that "range +the valley free," but leaving them to their native, joyous hill-sides +and mountains. But Mr. Chinn, not contented with abstinence from animal +food, goes nearly the full length of Dr. Schlemmer and his sect, and +abjures cookery. For four years he subsisted--we believe he does so +now--on nothing but unground wheat and fruit. His breakfast, it is said, +he uniformly makes of fruit; his other two meals of unground wheat; +patronizing neither millers nor cooks. A few years since, being +appointed a delegate to a convention in Worcester, fifty-eight miles +distant, he filled his pocket with wheat, walked there during the day, +attended the convention, and the next day walked home again, with +comparative ease. + + +FATHER SEWALL. + +This venerable man--Jotham Sewall, of Maine, as he styles himself, one +of the fathers of that state--is now about ninety years of age, and yet +is, what he has long been, an active home missionary. He is a man of +giant size and venerable appearance, of a green old age, and remarkably +healthy. He is an early riser, a man of great cheerfulness, and of the +most simple habits. He has abstained from tea and coffee--poisonous +things, as he calls them--forty-seven years. His only drinks are water +and sage tea. These, with bread, milk, and fruits, and perhaps a little +salt, are the only things that enter his stomach. How long he has +abstained from flesh and fish I have not learned, but I believe some +thirty or forty years. + +Such is the appearance of this venerable man, that no one is surprised +to find in him those gigantic powers of mind, and that readiness to give +wise counsel on every important occasion, for which he has so long been +distinguished. It has sometimes seemed to me that no one would doubt the +efficacy of a well-selected vegetable diet to give strength, mental or +bodily, who had known Father Sewall. + + +MAGLIABECCHI, + +An Italian, who died in the beginning of the eighteenth century, abjured +cookery at the age of forty years, and confined himself chiefly to +fruits, grains, and water. He never allowed himself a bed, but slept on +a kind of settee, wrapped in a long morning gown, which served him for +blanket and clothing the year round. + +I would not be understood as encouraging the anti-cookery system of Dr. +Schlemmer and Magliabecchi; but it is interesting to know _what can be +done_. Magliabecchi lived to the age of from eighty to one hundred +years. + + +OBERLIN AND SWARTZ. + +These two distinguished men were essentially vegetable eaters. Of the +habits of Oberlin, the venerable pastor and father of Waldbach, I am not +able to speak, however, with so much certainty as of those of Swartz. +His income, during the early part of his residence in India, was only +forty-eight pounds a year, which, being estimated by its ability to +procure supplies for his necessities, was only equal to about one +hundred dollars. He not only accepted of very narrow quarters, but ate, +drank, and dressed, in the plainest manner. "A dish of rice and +vegetables," says his biographer, "satisfied his appetite for food." + + +THE IRISH. + +Much has been said of the dietetic habits of the Irish, of late years, +especially of their potato. Now, we have abundant facts which go to +prove that good potatoes form a wholesome aliment, equal, if not +superior, to many forms of European and American diet. Yet it cannot be +that a diet consisting wholly of potatoes is as well for the race as one +partaking of greater variety. + +Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and +Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, whom he +visited: + +"He was upward of eighty years when I had last seen him, and he was now +in his ninety-fourth year. He found the old gentleman seated on a kind +of rustic seat, in the garden, by the side of some bee-hives. He was +asleep. On his waking I was astonished to see the little change time had +wrought on him; a little more stoop in his shoulders, a wrinkle more, +perhaps, in his forehead, a more perfect whiteness of his hair, was all +the difference since I had seen him last. Flesh meat in my venerable +friend's house was an article never to be met with. _For sixty years +past he had not tasted it_, nor did he by any means like to see it taken +by others. His food was vegetables, bread, milk, butter, and honey. His +whole life was a series of benevolent actions, and Providence rewarded +him, even here, by a peace of mind which passeth all understanding, by a +judgment vigorous and unclouded, and by a length of days beyond the +common course of men." + +James Haughton, I believe of Dublin--a correspondent of Henry C. Wright, +of Philadelphia, who is himself in theory a vegetable eater--has, for +some time past, rejected flesh, and pursued a simple course of living, +as he says, with great advantage. I have been both amused and instructed +by his letters. + +I have met with several Irish people of intelligence who were vegetable +eaters, but their names are not now recollected. They have not, however, +in any instance, confined themselves to potatoes. One of the most +distinguished of these was a female laborer in the family of a merchant +at Barnstable. She was, from choice, a very rigid vegetable eater; and +yet no person in the whole neighborhood was more efficient as a laborer. +Those who know her, and are in the habit of thinking no person can work +hard without flesh and fish, often express their astonishment that she +should be able to live so simply and yet perform so much labor. + + +JOHN BAILIES. + +John Bailies, of England, who reached the great age of one hundred and +twenty-eight, is said to have been a strict vegetarian. His food, for +the most part, consisted of brown bread and cheese; and his drink of +water and milk. He had survived the whole town of Northampton (as he was +wont to say), where he resided, three or four times over; and it was his +custom to say that they were all killed by tea and coffee. Flesh meat at +that time had not come into suspicion, otherwise he would doubtless have +attributed part of the evil to this agency. + + +FRANCIS HUPAZOLI. + +This gentleman was a Sardinian ecclesiastic, at the first; afterward a +merchant at Scio; and finally Venetian consul at Smyrna. Much has been +said of Lewis Cornaro, who, having broken down his constitution at the +age of forty, renewed it by his temperance, and lasted unto nearly the +age of a century. His story is interesting and instructive; but little +more so than that of Hupazoli. + +His habits were all remarkable for simplicity and truth, except one. He +was greatly licentious; and his licentiousness, at the age of +eighty-five, had nearly carried him off. Yet such was the mildness of +his temper, and so correct was he in regard to exercise, rest, rising, +eating, drinking, etc., that he lived on, to the great age of one +hundred and fifteen years, and then died, not of old age, but of +disease. + +Hupazoli did not entirely abstain from flesh; and yet he used very +little, and that was wild game. His living was chiefly on fruits. +Indeed, he ate but little at any time; and his supper was particularly +light. His drink was water. He never took any medicine in his whole +life, not even tobacco; nor was he so much as ever bled. In fact, till +late in life, he was never sick. + + +MARY CAROLINE HINCKLEY. + +This young woman, a resident of Hallowell, in Maine, and somewhat +distinguished as a poet, is, from her own conviction and choice both, a +vegetable eater. Her story, which I had from her friends, is +substantially as follows: + +When about eleven years of age she suddenly changed her habits of +eating, and steadfastly refused, at the table, all kinds of food which +partook of flesh and fish. The family were alarmed, and afraid she was +ill. When they made inquiry concerning it, she hesitated to assign the +reasons for her conduct; but, on being pressed closely, she confessed +that she abstained for conscience' sake; that she had become fully +convinced, from reading and reflection, that she ought not to eat animal +food. + +It was in vain that the family and neighbors remonstrated with her, and +endeavored, in various ways, to induce her to vary from her purpose. She +continued to use no fowl, flesh, or fish; and in this habit she +continues, as I believe, to this day, a period of some twelve or fifteen +years. + + +JOHN WHITCOMB. + +John Whitcomb, of Swansey, N. H., at the age of one hundred and four was +in possession of sound mind and memory, and had a fresh countenance; and +so good was his health, that he rose and bathed himself in cold water +even in mid-winter. His wounds, moreover, would heal like those of a +child. And yet this man, for eighty years, refused to drink any thing +but water; and for thirty years, at the close of life, confined himself +chiefly to bread and milk as his diet. + + +CAPT. ROSS, OF THE BRITISH NAVY. + +It is sometimes said that animal food is indispensably necessary in the +polar regions. We have seen, however, in the testimony of Professor +Sweetser, that this view of the case is hardly correct. But we have +positive testimony on this subject from Capt. Ross himself. + +This navigator, with his company, spent the winter of 1830-31 above 70 deg. +of north latitude, without beds, clothing (that is, extra clothing), or +animal food, and with no evidence of any suffering from the mere disuse +of flesh and fish. + + +HENRY FRANCISCO. + +This individual, who died at Whitehall, N. Y., in the year 1820, at the +age of one hundred and twenty-five years, was, during the latter part of +his life, quite a Grahamite, as the moderns would call him. His favorite +articles of food were tea, bread and butter, and baked apples; and he +was even abstemious in the use of these. + + +PROFESSOR FERGUSON. + +Professor Adam Ferguson, an individual not unknown in the literary +world, was, till he was fifty years of age, regarded as quite healthy. +Brought up in fashionable society, he was very often invited to +fashionable dinners and parties, at which he ate heartily and drank +wine--sometimes several bottles. Indeed, he habitually ate and drank +freely; and, as he had by nature a very strong constitution, he thought +nothing which he ate or drank injured him. + +Things went on in this manner, as I have already intimated, till he was +fifty years of age. One day, about this time, having made a long +journey in the cold, he returned very much fatigued, and in this +condition went to dine with a party, where he ate and drank in his usual +manner. Soon after dinner, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, +followed by palsy; but by bleeding, and other energetic measures, he was +partially restored. + +He was now, by the direction of his physician, put upon what was called +a low diet. It consisted of vegetable food and milk. For nearly forty +years he tasted no meat, drank nothing but water and a little weak tea, +and took no suppers. If he ventured, at any time, upon more stimulating +food or drink, he soon had a full pulse, and hot, restless nights. His +bowels, however, seemed to be much affected by the fit of palsy; and not +being inclined, so far as I can learn, to the use of fruit and coarse +bread, he was sometimes compelled to use laxatives. + +When he was about seventy years of age, however, all his paralytic +symptoms had disappeared; and his health was so excellent, for a person +of his years, as to excite universal admiration. This continued till he +was nearly ninety. His mind, up to this time, was almost as entire as in +his younger days; none of his bodily functions, except his sight, were +much impaired. So perfect, indeed, was the condition of his physical +frame, that nobody, who had not known his history, would have suspected +he had ever been apoplectic or paralytic. + +When about ninety years of age, his health began slightly to decline. A +little before his death, he began to take a little meat. This, however, +did not save him--nature being fairly worn out. On the contrary, it +probably hastened his dissolution. His bowels became irregular, his +pulse increased, and he fell into a bilious fever, of which he died at +the great age of ninety-three. + +Probably there are, on record, few cases of longevity more instructive +than this. Besides showing the evil tendency of living at the expense of +life, it also shows, in a most striking manner, the effects of simple +and unstimulating food and drink, even in old age; and the danger of +recurring to the use of that which is more stimulating in very advanced +life. In this last respect, it confirms the experience of Cornaro, who +was made sick by attempting, in his old age, and at the solicitation of +kind friends, to return to the use of a more stimulating diet; and of +Parr, who was destroyed in the same way, after having attained to more +than a hundred and fifty years. + +But the fact that living at the expense of life, cuts down, here and +there, in the prime of life, or even at the age of fifty, a few +individuals, though this of itself is no trivial evil, is not all. Half +of what we call the infirmities of old age--and thus charge them upon +Him who made the human frame _subject_ to age--have their origin in the +same source; I mean in this living too fast, and exhausting prematurely +the vital powers. When will the sons of men learn wisdom in this matter? +Never, I fear, till they are taught, as commonly as they now are reading +and writing, the principles of physiology. + + +HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. + +Although individual cases of abstinence from animal food prove but +little, yet they prove something in the case of a man so remarkable as +John Howard. If he, with a constitution not very strong, and in the +midst of the greatest fatigues of body and mind, could best sustain +himself on a bread and water, or bread and tea diet, who is there that +would not be well sustained on vegetable food? And yet it is certain +that Howard was a vegetable eater for many years of the latter part of +his life; and that had he not exposed himself in a remarkable manner, +there is no known reason why he might not have lasted with a +constitution no better than his was, to a hundred years of age. + + +GEN. ELLIOTT. + +The following extract exhibits in few words, the dietetic history of +that brave and wise commander, General George Augustus Elliott, of the +British army: + +"During the whole of his active life, Gen. Elliott had inured himself to +the most rigid habits of order and watchfulness; seldom sleeping more +than four hours a day, and never eating any thing but vegetable food, or +drinking any thing but water. During eight of the most anxious days of +the memorable siege of Gibraltar, he confined himself to four ounces of +rice a day. He was universally regarded as one of the most abstemious +men of his age. + +"And yet his abstemiousness did not diminish his vigor; for, at the +above-mentioned siege of Gibraltar, when he was sixty-six years of age, +he had nearly all the activity and fire of his youth. Nor did he die of +any wasting disease, such as full feeders are wont to say men bring upon +them by their abstinence. On the contrary, owing to a hereditary +tendency, perhaps, of his family, he died at the age of seventy-three, +of apoplexy." + + +ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA. + +The following testimony is from the Encyclopedia. I do not suppose the +writer was the friend of a diet exclusively vegetable; but his testimony +is therefore the more interesting. His only serious mistake is in regard +to the tendency of vegetable food to form weak fibres. + +"Sometimes a particular kind of food is called wholesome, because it +produces a beneficial effect of a particular character on the system of +an individual. In this case, however, it is to be considered as a +medicine; and can be called wholesome only for those whose systems are +in the same condition. + +"Aliments abounding in fat are unwholesome, because fat resists the +operation of the gastric juice. + +"The addition of too much spice makes many an innocent aliment +injurious, because spices resist the action of the digestive organs, and +produce an irritation of particular parts of the system. + +"The kind of aliment influences the health, and even the character of +man. He is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable +aliment; but can live exclusively on either. + +"Experience proves that animal food most readily augments the solid +parts of the blood, the fibrine, and therefore the strength of the +muscular system; but disposes the body, at the same time, to +inflammatory, putrid, and scorbutic diseases; and the character to +violence and coarseness. On the contrary, vegetable food renders the +blood lighter and more liquid, but forms weak fibres, disposes the +system to the diseases which spring from feebleness, and tends to +produce a gentle character. + +"Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use +of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is +indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of +some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, +cheese, and butter, are vigorous people. + +"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal +aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The +latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when +their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes +in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on +vegetable food." + + +MR. THOMAS BELL, OF LONDON. + +Mr. Thomas Bell, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal +College of Surgeons in London, Lecturer on the Anatomy and Diseases of +the Teeth, at Guy's Hospital, and Surgeon Dentist to that institution, +in his physiological observations on the natural food of man, deduced +from the character of the teeth, says, "The opinion which I venture to +give, has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me +sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say, that every +fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was +originally formed a frugiverous (fruit-eating) animal, and therefore, +probably, tropical or nearly so, with regard to his geographical +situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his +teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin +and general structure of his limbs." + +LINNAEUS, THE NATURALIST. + +Linnaeus, in speaking of fruits and esculent vegetables, says--"This +species of food is that which is most suitable to man, as is evinced by +the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands." + + +SHELLEY, THE POET. + +The following are the views of that eccentric, though in many respects +sensible writer, Shelley, as presented in a note to his work, called +Queen Mab. I have somewhat abridged them, not solely to escape part of +his monstrous religious sentiments, but for other reasons. I have +endeavored, however, to preserve, undisturbed, his opinions and +reasonings, which I hope will make a deep and abiding impression: + +"The depravity of the physical and moral nature of man, originated in +his unnatural habits of life. The language spoken by the mythology of +nearly all religions seems to prove that, at some distant period, man +forsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of +his being to unnatural appetites. Milton makes Raphael thus exhibit to +Adam the consequence of his disobedience: + + '----Immediately, a place + Before his eyes appeared; and, noisome, dark, + A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid + Numbers of all diseased; all maladies + Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms + Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, + Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, + Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, + Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, + And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, + Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, + Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.' + +"The fable of Prometheus, too, is explained in a manner somewhat +similar. Before the time of Prometheus, according to Hesiod, mankind +were exempt from suffering; they enjoyed a vigorous youth; and death, +when at length it came, approached like sleep, and gently closed the +eyes. Prometheus (who represents the human race) effected some great +change in the condition of his nature, and applied fire to culinary +purposes. From this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of +disease. It consumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and +infinite variety, inducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and +violent death. All vice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence. + +"Man, and the animals which he has infected with his society, or +depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the bison, +and the wolf are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die, +either from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic hog, +the sheep, the cow, and the dog are subject to an incredible number of +distempers, and, like the corrupters of their nature, have physicians, +who thrive upon their miseries. + +"The supereminence of man is like Satan's supereminence of pain,--and +the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, and crime, have +reason to curse the untoward event, that, by enabling him to communicate +his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow animals. But +the steps that have been taken are irrevocable. + +"The whole of human science is comprised in one question: How can the +advantages of intellect and civilization be reconciled with the liberty +and pure pleasures of natural life? How can we take the benefits and +reject the evils of the system, which is now interwoven with our being? +I believe that _abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors +would, in a great measure, capacitate us for the solution of this +important question_. + +"It is true, that mental and bodily derangement is attributable in part +to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern +diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the +sexes, whence the misery and diseases of celibacy, unenjoying +prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty, necessarily spring; +the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the exhalations of chemical +processes: the muffling of our bodies in superfluous apparel; the absurd +treatment of infants; all these, and innumerable other causes, +contribute their mite to the mass of human evil. + +"Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugiverous animals +in every thing, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws +wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the +living fibre. A mandarin of the first class, with nails two inches long, +would probably find them, alone, inefficient to hold even a hare. It is +only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparations +that it is rendered susceptible of mastication and digestion, and that +the sight of its bloody juices does not excite intolerable loathing, +horror, and disgust. Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a +decisive experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a +living lamb with his teeth, and, plunging his head into its vitals, +slake his thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of +horror, let him revert to the irresistible instincts of nature that +would rise in judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such +work as this. Then, and then only, would he be consistent. + +"Young children evidently prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and other +fruit, to the flesh of animals, until, by the gradual depravation of the +digestive organs, the free use of vegetables has, for a time, produced +serious inconveniences. _For a time_, I say, since there never was an +instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food to +vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate the body, +by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to restore to the +mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not one in fifty possesses +on the present system. A love of strong liquor is also with difficulty +taught to infants. Almost every one remembers the wry faces which the +first glass of port produced. Unsophisticated instinct is invariably +unerring; but to decide on the fitness of animal food from the perverted +appetites which its constrained adoption produces, is to make the +criminal a judge in his own cause; it is even worse--it is appealing to +the infatuated drunkard in a question of the salubrity of brandy. + +"Except in children, however, there remain no traces of that instinct +which determines, in all other animals, what aliment is natural or +otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning adults +of our species, that it has become necessary to urge considerations +drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are naturally +frugiverous. + +"Crime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of disease +shall be discovered, the root, from which all vice and misery have so +long overshadowed the globe, will be bare to the axe. All the exertions +of man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear +profit of his species. No sane mind, in a sane body, resolves upon a +crime. It is a man of violent passions, blood-shot eyes, and swollen +veins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder. The system of a simple +diet is not a reform of legislation, while the furious passions and evil +propensities of the human heart, in which it had its origin, are +unassuaged. It strikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment +which may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small +societies, families, and even individuals. In no case has a return to a +vegetable diet produced the slightest injury; in most it has been +attended with changes undeniably beneficial. + +"Should ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, he might +trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural habits, as +clearly as that philosopher has traced all knowledge to sensation. What +prolific sources of disease are not those mineral and vegetable poisons, +that have been introduced for its extirpation! How many thousands have +become murderers and robbers, bigots and domestic tyrants, dissolute and +abandoned adventurers, from the use of fermented liquors, who, had they +slaked their thirst only with pure water, would have lived but to +diffuse the happiness of their own unperverted feelings! How many +groundless opinions and absurd institutions have not received a general +sanction from the sottishness and intemperance of individuals! + +"Who will assert that, had the populace of Paris satisfied their hunger +at the ever-furnished table of vegetable nature, they would have lent +their brutal suffrage to the proscription-list of Robespierre? Could a +set of men, whose passions were not perverted by unnatural stimuli, +look with coolness on an _auto da fe_? Is it to be believed that a being +of gentle feelings, rising from his meal of roots, would take delight in +sports of blood? + +"Was Nero a man of temperate life? Could you read calm health in his +cheek, flushed with ungovernable propensities of hatred for the human +race? Did Muley Ismail's pulse beat evenly? was his skin transparent? +did his eyes beam with healthfulness, and its invariable concomitants, +cheerfulness and benignity? + +"Though history has decided none of these questions, a child could not +hesitate to answer in the negative. Surely the bile-suffused cheek of +Bonaparte, his wrinkled brow, and yellow eye, the ceaseless inquietude +of his nervous system, speak no less plainly the character of his +unresting ambition than his murders and his victories. It is impossible, +had Bonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders, that he could +have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the +Bourbons. + +"The desire of tyranny could scarcely be excited in the individual; the +power to tyrannize would certainly not be delegated by a society neither +frenzied by inebriation nor rendered impotent and irrational by disease. +Pregnant, indeed, with inexhaustible calamity is the renunciation of +instinct, as it concerns our physical nature. Arithmetic cannot +enumerate, nor reason perhaps suspect, the multitudinous sources of +disease in civilized life. Even common water, that apparently innoxious +_pabulum_, when corrupted by the filth of populous cities, is a deadly +and insidious destroyer. + +"There is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet +and pure water has not infallibly mitigated, wherever the experiment +has been fairly tried. Debility is gradually converted into strength, +disease into healthfulness; madness, in all its hideous variety, from +the ravings of the fettered maniac, to the unaccountable irrationalities +of ill-temper, that make a hell of domestic life, into a calm and +considerate evenness of temper, that alone might offer a certain pledge +of the future moral reformation of society. + +"On a natural system of diet, old age would be our last and our only +malady; the term of our existence would be protracted; we should enjoy +life, and no longer preclude others from the enjoyment of it; all +sensational delights would be infinitely more exquisite and perfect; the +very sense of being would then be a continued pleasure, such as we now +feel it in some few and favored moments of our youth. + +"By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those +who love happiness and truth, to give a fair trial to the vegetable +system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject whose merits an +experience of six months should set forever at rest. + +"But it is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a +sacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its +ultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier by +the short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments, by +medicine, than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are +invariably sensual and indocile; yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded, +that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved--when +it is as clear, that those who live naturally are exempt from premature +death, as that nine is not one, the most sottish of mankind will feel a +preference toward a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and +painful life. + +"On the average, out of sixty persons, four die in three years. Hopes +are entertained, that in April, 1814,[20] a statement will be given that +sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on vegetables and +pure water, are then in _perfect health_. More than two years have now +elapsed; _not one of them has died_; no such example will be found in +any sixty persons taken at random. + +"When these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by +all who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence +from aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal. + +"In proportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of +evidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on +vegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old +age, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented +liquors as slow but certain poisons. + +"The change which would be produced by simple habits on political +economy, is sufficiently remarkable. The monopolizing eater of animal +flesh would no longer destroy his constitution by devouring an acre at a +meal, and many loaves of bread would cease to contribute to gout, +madness, and apoplexy, in the shape of a pint of porter, or a dram of +gin, when appeasing the long-protracted famine of the hard-working +peasant's hungry babes. + +"The quantity of nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the +carcass of an ox, would afford ten times the sustenance, undepraving +indeed, and incapable of generating disease, if gathered immediately +from the bosom of the earth. The most fertile districts of the habitable +globe are now actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and +waste of aliment absolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the +wealthy that can, to any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural +craving for dead flesh, and they pay for the greater license of the +privilege, by subjection to supernumerary diseases. + +"Again--the spirit of the nation that should take the lead in this great +reform would insensibly become agricultural; commerce, with its vices, +selfishness, and corruption, would gradually decline; more natural +habits would produce gentler manners, and the excessive complication of +political relations would be so far simplified that every individual +might feel and understand why he loved his country, and took a personal +interest in its welfare. + +"On a natural system of diet, we should require no spices from India; no +wines from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those +multitudinous articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is +rifled, and which are the cause of so much individual rivalship, and +such calamitous and sanguinary national disputes. + +"Let it ever be remembered, that it is the direct influence of excess of +commerce to make the interval between the rich and the poor wider and +more unconquerable. Let it be remembered, that it is a foe to every +thing of real worth and excellence in the human character. The odious +and disgusting aristocracy of wealth, is built upon the ruins of all +that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner +of a barbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it impossible to realize a +state of society, where all the energies of man shall be directed to the +production of his solid happiness? + +"None must be intrusted with power (and money is the completest species +of power), who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the +general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors, +directly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant +cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to +starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping curtailers of +population, pasturage would include a waste too great to be afforded. +The labor requisite to support a family is far lighter than is usually +supposed. The peasantry work, not only for themselves, but for the +aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers. + +"The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any +other. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of +legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are +produced, is to suppose that by taking away the effect, the cause will +cease to operate. + +"But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on the proselytism of +individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit to the community, upon +the total change of the dietetic habits in its members. It proceeds +securely from a number of particular cases to one that is universal, and +has this advantage over the contrary mode, that one error does not +invalidate all that has gone before. + +"Let not too much, however, be expected from this system. The +healthiest among us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most +symmetrical, athletic, and long-lived is a being inexpressibly inferior +to what he would have been had not the unnatural habits of his ancestors +accumulated for him a certain portion of malady and deformity. In the +most perfect specimen of civilized man, something is still found wanting +by the physiological critic. Can a return to nature, then, +instantaneously eradicate predispositions that have been slowly taking +root in the silence of innumerable ages? Indubitably not. All that I +contend for is, that from the moment of relinquishing all unnatural +habits, no new disease is generated; and that the predisposition to +hereditary maladies gradually perishes for want of its accustomed +supply. In cases of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, +such is the invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water. + +"Those who may be induced by these remarks to give the vegetable system +a fair trial, should, in the first place, date the commencement of their +practice from the moment of their conviction. All depends upon breaking +through a pernicious habit resolutely and at once. Dr. Trotter asserts, +that no drunkard was ever reformed by gradually relinquishing his dram. +Animal flesh, in its effects on the human stomach, is analogous to a +dram; it is similar to the kind, though differing in the degree of its +operation. The proselyte to a pure diet must be warned to expect a +temporary diminution of muscular strength. The subtraction of a powerful +stimulus will suffice to account for this event. But it is only +temporary, and is succeeded by an equable capability for exertion, far +surpassing his former various and fluctuating strength. + +"Above all, he will acquire an easiness of breathing, by which such +exertion is performed, with a remarkable exemption from that painful and +difficult panting now felt by almost every one, after hastily climbing +an ordinary mountain. He will be equally capable of bodily exertion or +mental application, after, as before his simple meal. He will feel none +of the narcotic effects of ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct +consequence of exhausting stimuli, would yield to the power of natural +and tranquil impulses. He will no longer pine under the lethargy of +_ennui_, that unconquerable weariness of life, more to be dreaded than +death itself. + +"He will no longer be incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying +those organs from which he expects his gratification. The pleasures of +taste to be derived from a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, +lettuce, with a dessert of apples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, +raspberries, and in winter, oranges, apples, and pears, is far greater +than is supposed. Those who wait until they can eat this plain fare with +the sauce of appetite, will scarcely join with the hypocritical +sensualist at a lord mayor's feast, who declaims against the pleasures +of the table." + + +REV. EZEKIEL RICH. + +This gentleman, once a teacher in Troy, N. H., now nearly seventy years +of age, is a giant, both intellectually and physically, like Father +Sewall, of Maine. The following is his testimony--speaking of what he +calls his system: + +"Such a system of living was formed by myself, irrespective of Graham or +Alcott, or any other modern dietetic philosophers and reformers, +although I agree with them in many things. It allows but little use of +flesh, condiments, concentrated articles, complex cooking, or hot and +stimulating drinks. On the other hand, it requires great use of milk, +the different bread stuffs, fruits, esculent roots and pulse, all well, +simply, and neatly cooked." + + +REV. JOHN WESLEY. + +The habits of this distinguished individual, though often adverted to, +are yet not sufficiently known. For the last half of his long life +(eighty-eight years) he was a thorough going vegetarian. He also +testifies that for three or four successive years he lived entirely on +potatoes; and during that whole time he never relaxed his arduous +ministerial labors, nor ever enjoyed better health. + + +LAMARTINE. + +Lamartine was educated a vegetarian of the strictest sort--an education +which certainly did not prevent his possessing as fine a physical frame +as can be found in the French republic. Of his mental and moral +characteristics it is needless that I should speak. True it is that +Lamartine ate flesh and fish at one period of his life; but we have the +authority of Douglas Jerrold's London Journal for assuring our readers +that he is again a vegetarian. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Some, however, represent the great apostle to have been a rigid +vegetable eater. On this point I have no settled opinion. + +[18] It may be found at full length at page 233 of the 6th volume of the +Library of Health. + +[19] Instances, he says, are not rare (but this I doubt), of two hundred +children born to a man by his different wives, in some parts of the +interior of Africa. + +[20] A date but little later than that of the work whence this article +is extracted. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM. + + The Pythagoreans.--The Essenes.--The Bramins.--Society of Bible + Christians.--Orphan Asylum of Albany.--The Mexican + Indians.--School in Germany.--American Physiological Society. + + +GENERAL REMARKS. + +The following chapter did not come within the scope of my plan, as it +was originally formed. But in prosecuting the labors of preparing a +volume on vegetable diet, it has more and more seemed to me desirable to +add a short account of some of the communities and associations of men, +both of ancient and modern times, who, amid a surrounding horde of +flesh-eaters, have withstood the power of temptation, and proved, in +some measure, true to their own nature, and the first impulses of mercy, +humanity, and charity. I shall not, of course, attempt to describe all +the sects and societies of the kind to which I refer, but only a few of +those which seem to me most important. + +One word may be necessary in explanation of the term communities. I mean +by it, smaller communities, or associations. There have been, and still +are, many whole nations which might be called vegetable-eating +communities; but of such it is not my purpose to speak at present. + + +THE PYTHAGOREANS. + +Pythagoras appears to have flourished about 550 years before Christ. He +was, probably, a native of the island of Samos; but a part of his +education, which was extensive and thorough, was received in Egypt. He +taught a new philosophy; and, according to some, endeavored to enforce +it by laying claim to supernatural powers. But, be this as it may have +been, he was certainly a man of extraordinary qualities and powers, as +well as of great and commanding influence. In an age of great luxury and +licentiousness, he taught, both by example and precept, the most rigid +doctrines of sobriety, temperance, and purity. He abstained from all +animal food, and limited himself entirely to vegetables; of which he +usually preferred bread and honey. Nor did he allow the free use of +every kind of vegetable; for beans, and I believe every species of +pulse, were omitted. Water was his only drink. He lived, it is said, to +the age of eighty; and even then did not perish from disease or old age, +but from starvation in a place where he had sought a retreat from the +fury of his enemies. + +His disciples are said to have been exceedingly numerous, in almost all +quarters of the then known world, especially in Greece and Italy. It is +impossible, however, to form any conjecture of their numbers. The +largest school or association of his rigid followers is supposed to have +been at the city of Crotona, in South Italy. Their number was six +hundred. They followed all his dietetic and philosophical rules with the +utmost strictness. The association appears to have been, for a time, +exceedingly flourishing. It was a society of philosophers, rather than +of common citizens. They held their property in one common stock, for +the benefit of the whole. The object of the association was chiefly to +aid each other in promoting intellectual cultivation. Pythagoras did +not teach abstinence from all hurtful food and drink, and an exclusive +use of that which was the _best_, for the sole purpose of making men +better, or more healthy, or longer-lived _animals_; he had a higher and +nobler purpose. It was to make them better rationals, more truly noble +and god-like--worthy the name of rational men, and of the relation in +which they stood to their common Father. And yet, after all, his +doctrines appear to have been mingled with much bigotry and +superstition. + + +THE ESSENES. + +The following account of this singular sect of the ancient Jews is +abridged from an article in the Annals of Education, for July, 1836. The +number of this vegetable-eating sect is not known, though, according to +Philo, there were four thousand of them in the single province of Judea. + +"Pliny, says that the Essenes of Judea fed on the fruit of the +palm-tree. But, however this may have been, it is agreed, on all hands, +that, like the ancient Pythagoreans, they lived exclusively on vegetable +food, and that they were abstinent in regard to the quantity even of +this. They would not kill a living creature, even for sacrifices. It is +also understood that they treated diseases of every kind--though it does +not appear that they were subject to many--with roots and herbs. +Josephus says they were long-lived, and that many of them lived over a +hundred years. This he attributes to their 'regular course of life,' and +especially to 'the simplicity of their diet.'" + + +THE BRAMINS. + +The Bramins, or Brahmins, are, as is probably well known, the first of +the four _castes_ among the Hindoos. They are the priests of the people, +and are remarkable, in their way, for their sanctity. Of their number I +am not at present apprised, but it must be very great. But, however +great it may be, they are vegetable eaters of the strictest sect. They +are not even allowed to eat eggs; and I believe milk and its products +are also forbidden them; but of this I am not quite certain. Besides +adhering to the strictest rules of temperance, they are also required to +observe frequent fasts of the most severe kind, and to practice regular +and daily, and sometimes thrice daily ablutions. They subsist much on +green herbs, roots, and fruits; and at some periods of their ministry, +they live much in the open air. And yet those of them who are true +Bramins--who live up to the dignity of their profession--are among the +most healthy, vigorous, and long-lived of their race. The accounts of +their longevity may, in some instances, be exaggerated; but it is +certain that, other things being equal, they do not in this respect fall +behind any other caste of their countrymen. + + +SOCIETY OF BIBLE CHRISTIANS. + +This society has existed in Great Britain nearly half a century. They +abstain from flesh, fish, and fowl--in short, from every thing that has +animal life--and from all alcoholic liquors. Of their number in the +kingdom I am not well informed. In Manchester they have three churches +that have regular preachers; and frequent meetings have been held for +discussing the diet question within a few years, some of which have +been well attended, and all of which have been interesting. Among those +who have adopted "the pledge" at their meetings, are some of the most +distinguished men in the kingdom, and a few of the members of +parliament. Through these and other instrumentalities, the question is +fairly up in England, and will not cease to be discussed till fairly +settled. + +A branch or colony from the parent society, under the pastoral care of +Rev. Wm. Metcalfe, consisting of only eight members, came in 1817 and +established itself in Philadelphia. They were incorporated as a society +in 1830. In 1846 the number of their church members was about seventy, +besides thirty who adhered to their abstemious habits, but were not in +full communion. During the thirty years ending in 1846, twelve of their +number died--four children and eight adults. The average age of the +latter was fifty-seven years. Of the seventy now belonging to the +society, nineteen are between forty and eighty years of age; and forty, +in all, over twenty-five. Of the whole number, twelve have abstained +from animal food thirty-seven years, seven from twenty to thirty years, +and fifty-one never tasted animal food or drank intoxicating drinks. + +And yet they are all--if we except Mr. Metcalfe, their minister--of the +laboring class, and hard laborers, too. Their strength and power of +endurance is fully equal to their neighbors in similar circumstances, +and in several instances considerably superior. Mr. Fowler, the +phrenologist, testifies, concerning one of them, that he is regarded as +the strongest man in Philadelphia. I have long had acquaintance with +this sect, through Mr. M., of Philadelphia, and Mr. Simpson, one of +their leading men in England, and have not a doubt of the truth of what +has been publicly stated concerning them. They are a modest people, and +make few pretensions; and yet they are a very meritorious people. + +One thing very much to their advantage, as it shows the health-giving, +health-preserving tendency of their practice and principles, remains to +be related. When the yellow fever prevailed in Philadelphia, in 1818 and +1819, the infection seemed specially rife in the immediate vicinity of +the Bible Christians. So, also, in 1832, with the cholera. And yet none +of them fled. There they remained during the whole period of suffering, +and afforded their sick neighbors all the relief in their power. Their +minister, in particular, was unwearied in his efforts to do good. Yet +not one of their little number ever sickened or died of either yellow +fever or cholera. + +Till within a few years, they have been governed solely by regard to +religious principle, having known little of Physiology or any other +science bearing on health. Of late, however, they have turned their +attention to the subject, and have among them a respectable +Physiological society, which holds its regular meetings, and is said to +be flourishing. + +From one of their publications, entitled "Vegetable Cookery," I have +extracted the following very brief summary of their views concerning the +use of animals for sustenance. + +"The Society of Bible Christians abstain from animal food, not only in +obedience to the Divine command, but because it is an observance, which, +if more generally adopted, would prevent much cruelty, luxury, and +disease, besides many other evils which cause misery in society. It +would be productive of much good, by promoting health, long life, and +happiness, and thus be a most effectual means of reforming mankind. It +would entirely abolish that greatest of curses, _war_; for those who are +so conscientious as not to kill animals, will never murder human beings. +On all these accounts the system cannot be too much recommended. The +practice of abstaining cannot be wrong; it must therefore be some +consolation to be on the side of duty. If we err, we err on the sure +side; it is innocent; it is infinitely better authorized and more nearly +associated with religion, virtue, and humanity, than the contrary +practice--and we have the sanction of the wisest and the best of men--of +the whole Christian world, for several hundred years after the +commencement of the Christian era." + + +ORPHAN ASYLUM OF ALBANY. + +I class this as a community, because it is properly so, and because I +cannot conveniently class it otherwise. The facts which are to be +related are too valuable to be lost. They were first published, I +believe, in the Northampton Courier; and subsequently in the Boston +Medical and Surgical Journal, and in the Moral Reformer. In the present +case, the account is greatly abridged. + +The Orphan Asylum of Albany was established about the close of the year +1829, or the beginning of the year 1830. Shortly after its +establishment, it contained seventy children, and subsequently many +more. The average number, from its commencement to August 1836, was +eighty. + +For the first three years, the diet of the inmates consisted of fine +bread, rice, Indian puddings, potatoes, and other vegetables and fruits, +with milk; to which was added flesh or flesh-soup once a day. +Considerable attention was also paid to bathing and cleanliness, and to +clothing, air, and exercise. Bathing, however, was performed in a +perfect manner, only once in three weeks. As many of them were received +in poor health, not a few continued sickly. + +In the fall of 1833, the diet and regimen of the inmates were materially +changed. Daily ablution of the whole body, in the use of the cold shower +or sponge bath--or, in cases of special disease, the tepid bath was one +of the first steps taken; then the fine bread was laid aside for that +made of unbolted wheat meal; and soon after flesh and flesh-soups were +wholly banished; and thus they continued to advance, till, in about +three months more, they had come fully upon the vegetable system, and +had adopted reformed habits in regard to sleeping, air, clothing, +exercise, etc. On this course, then, they continued to August, 1836, +and, for aught I know, to the present time. The results were as follows: + +During the first three years, or while the old system was followed, from +four to six children were continually on the sick list, and sometimes +more; and one or two assistant nurses were necessary. A physician was +needed once, twice, or three times a week, uniformly; and deaths were +frequent. During this whole period there were between thirty and forty +deaths. + +After the new system was fairly adopted, the nursery was soon entirely +vacated, and the services of the nurse and physician no longer needed; +and for more than two years no case of sickness or death took place. In +the succeeding twelve months there were three deaths, but they were new +inmates, and were diseased when they were received; and two of them were +idiots. The Report of the Managers says, "Under this system of +dietetics (though the change ought not to be wholly attributed to the +diet) the health of the children has not only been preserved, but those +who came to the asylum weakly, have become healthy and strong, and +greatly increased in activity, cheerfulness, and happiness." The +superintendents also state, that "since the new regimen has been fully +adopted, there has been a remarkable increase of health, strength, +activity, vivacity, cheerfulness, and contentment among the children. +Indeed, they appear to be, uniformly, perfectly healthy and happy; and +the strength and activity they exhibit are truly surprising. The change +of temper is very great. They have become less turbulent, irritable, +peevish, and discontented; and far more manageable, gentle, peaceable, +and kind to each other." One of them further observes, "There has been a +great increase in their mental activity and power; the quickness and +acumen of their perception, the vigor of their apprehension, and the +power of their retention daily astonish me." + +Such an account hardly needs comment; and I leave it to make its own +impression on the candid and unbiassed mind and heart of the reader. + + +THE MEXICAN INDIANS. + +The Indian tribes of Mexico, according to the traveler Humboldt, live on +vegetable food. A spot of ground, which, if cultivated with wheat, as in +Europe, would sustain only ten persons, and which by its produce, if +converted into pork or beef, would little more than support one, will in +Mexico, when used for banana, sustain equally well two hundred and +fifty. + +The reader will do well to take the above fact, and the estimates +appended to it, along with him when he comes to examine what I have +called the economical argument of the great diet question, in our last +chapter, under the head, "The Moral Argument." We shall do well to +remember another suggestion of Humboldt, that the habit of eating +animals diminishes our natural horror of cannibalism. + + +SCHOOL IN GERMANY. + +There is, in the Annals of Education for August, 1836, an account of a +school in which the same simple system which was pursued in the Orphan +Asylum at Albany was adopted, and with the same happy results. I say the +_same_ system; I believe plain meat was allowed occasionally, but it was +seldom. Their food was exceedingly simple, consisting chiefly of bread +and other vegetables, fruits and milk. Great attention was also paid to +daily cold bathing. The following is the teacher's statement in regard +to the results: + +"I am at present the foster father of nearly seventy young people, who +were born in all the varieties of climate from Lisbon to Moscow, and +whose early education was necessarily very different. These young men +are all healthy; not a single eruption is visible on their faces; and +three years often pass, during which not a single one of them is +confined to his bed; and in the twenty-one years that I have been +engaged in this institution, not one pupil has died. Yet, I am no +physician. During the first ten years of my residence here, no physician +entered my house; and, not till the number of my pupils was very much +increased, and I grew anxious not to overlook any thing in regard to +them, did I begin to seek at all for medical advice. + +"It is the mode of treating the young men here, which is the cause of +their superior health; and this is the reason why death has not yet +entered our doors. Should we ever deviate from our present +principles--should we approach nearer the mode of living common in +wealthy families--we should soon be obliged to establish, in our +institution, as it is in others, medicine closets and nurseries. Instead +of the freshness which now adorns the cheeks of our youth, paleness +would appear, and our church-yards would contain the tombs of promising +young men, who, in the bloom of their years, had fallen victims to +disease." + + +THE AMERICAN PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. + +This association was formed in 1837. When first formed, it consisted of +one hundred and twenty-four males, and forty-one females; in all, one +hundred and sixty-five. Their number soon increased to more than two +hundred. + +Most of these individuals were more or less feeble, and a very large +proportion of them were actually suffering from chronic disease when +they became members of the society. Not a few joined it, indeed, as a +last resort, after having tried every thing else, as drowning men are +said to catch at straws. + +Nearly if not quite all the members of this society, as well as most of +their families, abstained for a time from animal food. Some of them even +adopted the vegetable system a year or so earlier. And there were a few +who adopted it much sooner--one or two of them eight years earlier. + +Of the individuals belonging to the Physiological Society or to their +families, and adhering to the same principles, two adults only died, +and one child, during the first two years. I will not be quite positive, +but there were four in all, two adults, and two children; but this was +the extent of mortality among them for about fifteen months. + +The whole number of those who belonged to the society, with those +members of their families who adhered to their principles (estimating +families, as is usually done, at five members to each), is believed to +have been from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty. The +average mortality for the same number of healthy persons, during the +same period, in Boston and the adjacent places, was about six or seven; +though in some places it was much greater. In a single parish in +Roxbury--and without any remarkable sickness--the mortality, for the +same number of persons, was equal to ten or twelve. + +Now, we must not forget, what I have already stated, that this society +of vegetable-eaters--the two hundred adults, I mean--were generally +invalids, and some of them given over by physicians. Instead, therefore, +of only half the usual proportion of deaths among them, we might +naturally enough have expected twice or three times the usual number. +And this expectation would have appeared still better founded when it +was considered that many made the change in their habits, and especially +in their diet, very suddenly. + +But the whole story is not yet told. Not only was the number of deaths +very small, as above stated, but there were a great number of remarkable +recoveries. Some, who had very obstinate complaints, appeared, for a +time, to be entirely well. Others were getting well as fast as could be +expected. Some, who were broken down and prematurely old, seemed to +renew their youth. Many became free from colds and eruptive complaints, +to which they were formerly subject. And those who had acute diseases, +of whom, however, the number was very small, did not suffer so much as +is usually the case with flesh-eaters in circumstances otherwise +apparently similar. + +But a reverse at length came. They were led into their abstemious course +by mere impulse in very many cases, and though a library was formed and +meetings held, nobody, hardly, would read, and the meetings grew thin. +They had no Joe Smith or Gen. Taylor to lead them--and mankind without +leaders and without deep-toned principle, soon grow tired of war. Few +will fight in such circumstances. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +VEGETABLE DIET DEFENDED. + + General Remarks on the Nature of the Argument--1. The + Anatomical Argument.--2. The Physiological Argument.--3. The + Medical Argument.--4. The Political Argument.--5. The + Economical Argument.--6. The Argument from Experience.--7. The + Moral Argument.--Conclusion. + + +In the progress of a work like this, it may not be amiss to present, in +a very brief manner, the general arguments in defence of a diet +exclusively vegetable. Some of them have, indeed, already been adverted +to in the testimony of the preceding chapters; but not all. Besides, it +seemed to me desirable to collect the whole in a general view. + +There are various ways of doing this, according to the different aspects +in which the subject is viewed. Every one has his own point of +observation. I have mine. Conformably to the view I have taken, +therefore, I shall endeavor to arrange my remarks under the nine +following heads, viz., the ANATOMICAL, the PHYSIOLOGICAL, the MEDICAL, +the POLITICAL, the ECONOMICAL, the EXPERIMENTAL, the MORAL, the +MILLENNIAL, and the BIBLE ARGUMENTS. + +Dr. Cheyne relied principally on what I have called the medical +argument--though what I mean by this may not be quite obvious, till I +shall have presented it in its proper place. Not that he wholly +overlooked any thing else; but this, as it seems to me, was with him the +grand point. Nearly the same might be said of Dr. Lambe, and of several +others. + +Dr. Mussey seems to place the anatomical and physiological arguments in +the foreground. It is true he makes much use of the medical and the +moral arguments; but the former appear to be his favorites. Dr. Whitlaw, +and some others, incline to make the moral and political arguments more +prominent. Mr. Graham, who has probably done more to reduce the subject +of vegetable dietetics to a _system_ than any other individual,--though +he makes much use of _all_ the rest, especially the moral and +medical,--appears to dwell with most interest on the physiological +argument. This seems to be, with him, the strong-hold--the grand +citadel. And it must be confessed that the point of defence is very +strong indeed, as we shall see in the sequel. + +If I have a favorite, with the rest, it is the moral argument, or +perhaps a combination of this with the economical. But then I dwell on +the latter with so much interest, chiefly on account of the former. I +would give very little to be able to bring the world of mankind back to +nature's true simplicity, if it were only to make them better and more +perfect animals; though I know not but an attempt of this sort would be +as truly laudable as the attempt so often made to improve the breed of +our domestic animals. I suppose man, considered as a mere animal, is +superior, in point of importance to all the others. But, after all, I +would reform his dietetic habits principally to make him better, +morally; to make him better, in the discharge of his varied duties to +his fellow-beings and to God. I would elevate him, that he may become as +truly god-like, or godly as he now too often is, by his unnatural +habits, earthly or beastly. I would render him a rational being, fitted +to fill the space which he appears to have been originally designed to +fill--the gap in the great chain of being between the higher quadrupeds +and the beings we are accustomed to regard as angelic. I would restore +him to his true dignity. I would make him a child of God, and an _heir_ +of a glorious immortality. + +But I now proceed to the discussion of the subject which I have assigned +to this chapter. + + +I. THE ANATOMICAL ARGUMENT. + +There has been a time when the teeth and intestines of man were supposed +to indicate the necessity of a mixed diet--a diet partly animal and +partly vegetable. Four out of thirty-two teeth were found to resemble +slightly, the teeth of carnivorous animals. In like manner, the length +of the intestinal tube was thought to be midway between that of the +flesh-eating, and that of the herb-eating quadrupeds. But, unfortunately +for this mode of defending an animal diet, it has been found out that +the fruit and vegetable-eating monkey race, and the herb-eating camel, +have the said four-pointed teeth much more pointed than those of man and +that the intestines, compared with the real length of the body, instead +of assigning to man a middle position, would place him among the +herbivorous animals. In short--for I certainly need not dwell on this +part of my subject, after having adduced so fully the views of Prof. +Lawrence and Baron Cuvier--there is no intelligent naturalist or +comparative anatomist, at present, who attempts to resort for one moment +to man's structure, in support of the hypothesis that he is a +flesh-eater. None, so far as I know, will affirm, or at least with any +show of reason maintain, that anatomy, so far as that goes, is in favor +of flesh eating. We come, then, to another and more important division +of our subject. + + +II. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. + +One of the advantages of vegetable-eaters over others, is in the +superior appetite which they enjoy. There are many flesh-eaters who have +what they call a good appetite. But I never knew a person of this +description, who made the change from a mixed diet to one purely +vegetable, who did not afterward acknowledge that he never once knew, +while he was an eater of animal food, a truly perfect appetite. This +testimony in favor of vegetable diet is positive; whereas that of the +multitude, who have never made the change I speak of, but who are +therefore the more ready to laugh at the conclusions, is merely +negative. + +A person of perfect appetite can eat at all times, and under all +circumstances. He can eat of one thing or another, and in greater or +less quantity. Were there no objections to it, he could make an entire +meal of the coarsest and most indigestible substances; or, he could eat +ten or fifteen times a day; or, he could eat a quantity at once which +would astonish even a Siberian; or, on the contrary, he could abstain +from food entirely, for a short time; and any of these without serious +inconvenience. He would, indeed, feel a slight want of something (in the +case of total abstinence), when the usual hour arrived for taking a +meal; but the sensation is not an abiding one; when the hour has passed +by, it entirely disappears. Nor is there ever, at least for a day or two +of abstinence, that gnawing at the stomach, as some express it, which is +so often felt by the flesh-eater and the devourer of other mixed and +injurious dishes and which is so generally mistaken for true and +genuine hunger. + +I have said that the vegetable-eater finds no serious inconvenience from +the quality or quantity of his food; but I mean to speak here of the +_immediate_ effects solely. No doubt every error of this sort produces +mischief, sooner or later. The more perfect the appetite is, the greater +should be our moral power of commanding it, and of controlling the +quality and quantity of our food and drink, as well as the times and +seasons of receiving it. + +These statements, I am aware, are contrary to the received and current +opinion; but that they are true, can be proved, not by one person +merely,--though if that person were to be entirely relied on, his +positive affirmation would outweigh a thousand _negative_ +testimonies,--but by many hundreds. It is more generally supposed that +he who confines himself to a simple diet, soon brings his stomach into +such a state that the slightest departure from his usual habits for once +only, produces serious inconveniences; and this indeed is urged as an +argument against simplicity itself. Yet, how strange! How much more +natural to suppose that the more perfect the health of the stomach, the +better it will bear, for a time, with slight or even serious departures +from truth and nature! How much more natural to suppose that perfect +health is the very best defence against all the causes which tend to +invite or to provoke disease! And what it would be natural to infer, is +proved by experience to be strictly true. The thorough-going +vegetable-eater can make a meal for once, or perhaps feed for a day or +so, on substances which would almost kill many others; and can do so +with comparative impunity. He can make a whole meal of cheese, cabbage, +fried pudding, fried dough-nuts, etc., etc.; and if it be not in +remarkable excess, he will feel no immediate inconvenience, unless from +the mental conviction that he must pay the full penalty at some distant +day. + +I repeat it, the appetite of the vegetable-eater, if true to his +principles, and temperate in regard to quantity, is always, at all +moments of his life, perfect. To be sure, he is not always _hungry_. +Hunger, indeed, as I have already intimated--what most people call +hunger, a morbid sensation, or gnawing--is unknown to him. But there is +scarce a moment of his life, at least, when he is awake, in which he +could not enjoy the pleasures of eating, even the coarsest viands, with +a high relish; provided, however, he knew it was _proper_ for him to +eat. Nor is his appetite fickle, demanding this or that particular +article, and disconcerted if it cannot be obtained. It is satisfied with +any thing to which the judgment directs; and though gratified, in a high +degree, with dainties, when nothing better and more wholesome cannot be +obtained, never demanding them in a peremptory manner. + +The vegetable-eater has a more quiet, happy, and perfect digestion than +the flesh-eater. On this point there has been much mistake, even among +physiologists. Richerand and many others suppose that a degree of +constitutional disturbance is indispensable during the process of +digestion; and some have even said that the system was subjected at +every meal--nay, at every healthy meal--to a species of miniature fever. +The remarks of Richerand are as follows. I have slightly abridged them, +but have not altered the sense: + +"While the alimentary solution is going on, a slight shivering is felt; +the pulse becomes quicker and more contracted; the vital power seems to +forsake the other organs, to concentrate itself on that which is the +seat of the digestive process. As the stomach empties itself, the +shivering is followed by a gentle warmth; the pulse increases in +fullness and frequency; and the insensible perspiration is augmented. +Digestion brings on, therefore, a general action, analogous to a febrile +paroxysm." + +And what is it, indeed, _but_ a febrile paroxysm? Nay, Richerand himself +confirms this by adding, "this fever of digestion, noticed already by +the ancients, is particularly observable in women of great sensibility." +That is, the fever is more violent in proportion to the want of power in +the person it attacks to resist its influence; just as it is with fever +in all other circumstances, or when induced by any other causes. + +But, can any one believe the Author of Nature has so made us, that in a +steady and rational obedience to his laws, it is indispensable that we +should be thrown into a fever three times a day, one thousand and +ninety-five times in a year, and seventy-six thousand six hundred and +fifty in seventy years? No wonder, if this were true, that the vitality +of our organs was ordained to wear out soon; for we see by what means +the result would be accomplished. + +The fever, however, of which Richerand speaks, does very generally +exist, because mankind very generally depart from nature and her laws. +But it is not necessary. The simple vegetable-eater--if he lives right +in all other respects--if he errs not as to quantity, knows nothing of +it; nor should it be known by any body. We should leave it to the +animals below man to err, in quantity and quality, to an excess which +constitutes a surfeit or a fever, and causes fullness and drowsiness, +and a recumbent posture. The self-styled lord of the animal world should +rise superior to habits which have marked, in every age, certain orders +of the lower animals. + +But the chyle which is produced from vegetable aliment is better--all +other things being equal--than that which is produced from any other +food. For proof of this, we need but the testimony of Oliver and other +physiologists. They tell us, unhesitatingly, that under the same +circumstances, chyle which is formed from vegetables will be preserved +from putrefaction many days longer--the consequence of greater purity +and a more perfect vitality--than that which is formed from any +admixture of animal food. Is it not, then, better for the purposes of +health and longevity? Can it, indeed, be otherwise? I will say nothing +at present, for want of space to devote to it, of the indications which +are afforded by the other sensible properties of the chyle which is +produced from vegetables. The single fact I have presented is enough on +that point. + +The best solids and fluids are produced by vegetable eating. On this +single topic a volume might be written, without exhausting it, while I +must confine myself to a page or two. + +In the first place, it forms better bones and more solid muscles, and +consequently gives to the frame greater solidity and strength. Compare, +in evidence of the truth of this statement, the vegetable-eating +millions of middle and southern Europe, with the other millions, who, +supposed to be more fortunate, can get a little flesh or fish once a +day. Especially, make this comparison in Ireland, where the vegetable +food selected is far from being of the first or best order; and whose +sight is so obtuse as not to perceive the difference? I do not say, +compare the enervated inhabitant of a hot climate, as Spain or Italy, +with the inhabitant of England, or Scotland, or Russia, for that would +be an unfair comparison, wholly so; but compare Italian with Italian, +Frenchman with Frenchman, German with German, Scotchman with Scotchman, +and Hibernian with Hibernian. + +In like manner, compare the millions of Japanese of the interior, who +subsist through life chiefly on rice, with the few millions of the +coasts who eat a little fish with their rice. Make a similar comparison +in China and in Hindostan. Notice, in particular, the puny Chinese, who +live in southern China, on quite a large proportion of shell-fish, +compared with the Chinese of the interior. Extend your observations to +Hindostan. Do not talk of the effeminate habits and weak constitutions +of the rice and curry eaters there--bad as the admixture of rice and +curry may be--for that is to compare the Hindoo with other nations; but +compare Hindoo with Hindoo, which is the only fair way. Compare the +porters of the Mediterranean, both of Asia and Europe, who feed on bread +and figs, and carry weights to the extent of eight hundred or one +thousand pounds, with the porters who eat flesh, fish, and oil. Compare +African with African, American Indian with American Indian; nay, even +New Englander with New Englander; for we have a few here who are trained +to vegetable eating. In short, go where you will, and institute a fair +comparison, and the results will be, without a single exception, in +favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. It is necessary, however, in +making the comparison, to place _good_ vegetable food in opposition to +good animal food; for no one will pretend that a diet of crude, +miserable, or imperfect, or sickly vegetables will be as wholesome as +one consisting of rich farinaceous articles and fruits; nor even as many +kinds of plain meat. + +The only instance which, on a proper comparison, will probably be +adduced to prove the incorrectness of these views, will be that of a few +tribes of American Indians, who, though they have extremely robust +bodies, are eaters of much flesh. But they live also in the open air, +and have many other good habits, and are healthy in spite of the +inferiority of their diet. But perfect, physically, as they seem to be, +and probably are, examine the vegetable-eaters among them, of the same +tribe, and they will be found still more so. + +In the next place, the fluids are all in a better and more healthy +state. In proof of this, I might mention in the first place that +superior agility, ease of motion, speed, and power of endurance which so +distinguish vegetable-eaters, wherever a fair comparison is instituted. +They possess a suppleness like that of youth, even long after what is +called the juvenile period of life is passed over. They are often seen +running and jumping, unless restrained by the arbitrary customs of +society, in very advanced age. Their wounds heal with astonishing +rapidity in as many days as weeks, or even months, in the latter case. +All this could not happen, were there not a good state of the fluids of +the system conjoined, to a happy state of the solids. + +The vegetable-eater, if temperate in the use of his vegetables, and if +all his other habits are good, will endure, better than the flesh-eater, +the extremes of heat and cold. This power of endurance has ever been +allowed to be a sure sign of a good state of health. The most vigorous +man, as it is well known, will endure best both extremes of temperature. +But it is a proof also of the greater purity of his solids and fluids. + +The secretions and excretions of his body are in a better state; and +this, again, proves that his blood and other fluids are healthy. He does +not so readily perspire excessively as other men, neither is there any +want of free and easy perspiration. Profuse sweating on every trifling +exertion of the body or mind, is as much a disease as an habitually dry +skin. But the vegetable-eater escapes both of these extremes. The +saliva, the tears, the milk, the gastric juice, the bile, and the other +secretions and excretions--particularly the dejections--are as they +should be. Nay, the very exhalations of the lungs are purer, as is +obvious from the breath. That of a vegetable-eater is perfectly sweet, +while that of a flesh-eater is often as offensive as the smell of a +charnel-house. This distinction is discernible even among the brute +animals. Those which feed on grass, grain, etc., have a breath +incomparably sweeter than those which prey on animals. Compare the +camel, and horse, and cow, and sheep, and rabbit, with the tiger (if you +choose to approach him), the wolf, the dog, the cat, and the hawk. One +comparison will be sufficient; you will never forget it. But there is as +much difference between the odor of the breath of a flesh-eating human +being and a vegetable-eater, as between those of the dog and the lamb. +This, however, is a secret to all but vegetable-eaters themselves, since +none but they are so situated as to be able to make the comparison. But, +betake yourself to mealy vegetables and fruits a few years, and live +temperately on them, and then you will perceive the difference, +especially in riding in a stage-coach. This, I confess, is rather a +draw-back upon the felicity of vegetable-eaters; but it is some +consolation to know what a mass of corruption we ourselves have escaped. + +There is one more secretion to which I wish to direct your attention, +which is, the fat or oil. The man who lives rightly, and rejects animal +food among the rest, will never be overburdened with fat. He will +neither be too corpulent nor too lean. Both these conditions are +conditions of disease, though, as a general rule, corpulence is most to +be dreaded; it is, at least, the most disgusting. Fat, I repeat it, is a +secretion. The cells in which it is deposited serve for relieving the +system of many of the crudities and abuses, not to say poisons, which +are poured into it--cheated; as it were, in some degree into the blood, +secreted into the fat cells, and buried in the fat to be out of the way, +and where they can do but little mischief. Yet, even here they are not +wholly harmless. The fat man is almost always more exposed to disease, +and to _severe_ epidemic disease in particular, than the lean man. Let +us leave it to the swine and other kindred quadrupeds, to dispose of +gross half poisonous matter, by converting it into, or burying it in +fat; let us employ our vital forces and energies in something better. +Above all, let us not descend to swallow, as many have been inclined to +do, besides the ancient Israelites, this gross secretion, and reduce +ourselves to the painful necessity of carrying about, from day to day, a +huge mass of double-refined disease, pillaged from the foulest and +filthiest of animals. + +Vegetable-eaters--especially if they avoid condiments, as well as flesh +and fish--are not apt to be thirsty. It is a common opinion among the +laboring portion of the community, that they who perspire freely, must +drink freely. And yet I have known one or two hard laborers who were +accustomed to sweat profusely and freely, who hardly ever drank any +thing, except a little tea or milk at their meals, and yet were +remarkably strong and healthy, and attained to a great age. One of this +description (Frederick Lord, of Hartford, Conn.), lived to about the age +of eighty-five. How the system is supplied, in such cases, with fluid, I +do not know; but I know it is not necessary to drink perpetually for the +purpose; for if but one healthy man can dispense with drinking, others +may. The truth is, we seldom drink from real thirst. We drink chiefly +either from habit, or because we have created a morbid or diseased +thirst by improper food or drink, among which animal food is pretty +conspicuous. + +I have intimated that, in order to escape thirst, the vegetable-eater +must abstain also from condiments. This he will be apt to do. It is he +who eats flesh and fish, and drinks something besides water, who feels +such an imperious necessity for condiments. The vegetable and milk +eater, and water-drinker, do not need them. + +It is in this view, that the vegetable system lies at the foundation of +all reform in the matter of temperance. So long as the use of animal +food is undisturbed and its lawfulness unquestioned, all our efforts to +heal the maladies of society are superficial. The wound is not yet +probed to the bottom. But, renounce animal food, restore us to our +proper condition, and feed us on milk and farinaceous articles, and our +fondness for excitement and our hankering for exciting drinks and +condiments will, in a few generations, die away. Animal food is a root +of all evil, so far as temperance is concerned, in its most popular and +restricted sense. + +The pure vegetable-eaters, especially those who are trained as such, +seldom drink at all. Some use a little water with their meals, and a few +drink occasionally between them, especially if they labor much in the +open air, and perspire freely. Some taste nothing in the form of drink +for months, unless we call the abundant juices of apples and other +fruits, and milk, etc., by that name--of which, by the way, they are +exceedingly fond. The reason is, they are seldom thirsty. Dr. Lambe, of +London, doubts whether man is naturally a drinking animal; but I do not +carry the matter so far. Still I believe that ninety-nine hundredths of +the drink which is used, _as_ now used, does more harm than good. + +He who avoids flesh and fish, escapes much of that languor and +faintness, at particular hours, which others feel. He has usually a +clear and quiet head in the morning. He is ready, and willing, and glad +to rise in due season; and his morning feelings are apt to last all day. +He has none of that faintness between his meals which many have, and +which tempts thousands to luncheons, drams, tobacco, snuff, and opium, +and ultimately destroys so much health and life. The truth is, that +vegetable food is not only more quiet and unstimulating than any other, +but it holds out longer also. I know the contrary of this is the general +belief; but it is not well founded. Animal food stimulates most, and as +the stimulus goes off soon, we are liable to feel dull after it, and to +fancy we need the stimulus of drink or something else to keep us up till +the arrival of another meal. And, having acquired a habit of relying on +our food to stimulate us immediately, much more than to give us real, +lasting, permanent strength, it is no wonder we feel, for a time, a +faintness if we discontinue its use. This only shows the power of habit, +and the over-stimulating character of our accustomed food. Nor does the +simple vegetable-eater suffer, during the spring, as other people say +they do. All is cheerful and happy with him, even then. Nor, lastly, is +he subject to hypochondria or depression of spirits. He is always lively +and cheerful; and all with him is bright and happy. As it has been +expressed elsewhere, with the truly temperate man it is "morning all +day." + +The system of diet in question, greatly improves, exalts, and perfects +the senses. The sight, smell, and taste are rendered greatly superior by +it. The difference in favor of the hearing and the touch may not be so +obvious; nevertheless, it is believed to be considerable. But the change +in the other senses--the first three which I have named--even when we +reform as late as at thirty-five or forty, is wonderful. I do not wish +to encourage, by this, a delay of the work of reformation; we can never +begin it too early. + +Vegetable diet favors beauty of form and feature. The forms of the +natives of some of the South Sea Islands, to say nothing of their +features, are exceedingly fine. They are tall and well proportioned. So +it is with the Japanese and Chinese, especially of the interior, where +they subsist almost wholly on rice and fruits. The Japanese are the +finest men, physically speaking, in Asia. The New Hollanders, on the +contrary, who live almost wholly on flesh and fish, are among the most +meagre and ugly of the human race, if we except the flesh-eating savages +of the north, and the Greenlanders and Laplanders. In short, the +principle I have here advanced will hold, as a _general rule_, I +believe, other things being equal, throughout the world. If it be asked +whether I would exalt beauty and symmetry into virtues, I will only say +that they are not without their use in a virtuous people; and I look +forward to a period in the world's history, when all will be +comparatively well formed and beautiful. Beauty is exceedingly +influential, as every one must have observed who has been long in the +world; at least, if he has had his eyes open. And it is probably right +that it should be so. Our beauty is almost as much within our control, +as a race, as our conduct. + +A vegetable diet, moreover, promotes and preserves a clearness and a +generally healthful state of the mental faculties. I believe that much +of the moral as well as intellectual error in the world, arises from a +state of mind which is produced by the introduction of improper liquids +and solids into the stomach, or, at least, by their application to the +nervous system. Be this as it may, however, there is nothing better for +the brain than a temperate diet of well-selected vegetables, with water +for drink. This Sir Isaac Newton and hundreds of others could abundantly +attest. + +It also favors an evenness and tranquillity of temper, which is of +almost infinite value. The most fiery and vindictive have been enabled, +by this means, when all other means had failed, to transform themselves +into rational beings, and to become, in this very respect, patterns to +those around them. If this were its only advantage, in a physiological +point of view, it would be of more value than worlds. It favors, too, +simplicity of character. It makes us, in the language of the Bible, to +remain, or to become, as little children, and it preserves our juvenile +character and habits through life, and gives us a green old age. + +Finally and lastly, it gives us an independence of external things and +circumstances, that can never be attained without it. In vain may we +resort to early discipline and correct education--in vain to moral and +religious training--in vain, I had almost said, to the promises and +threatenings of heaven itself, so long as we continue the use of food so +unnatural to man as the flesh of animals, with the condiments and +sauces, and improper drinks which follow in its train. Our hope, under +God, is, in no small degree, on a radical change in man's dietetic +habits--in a return to that simple path of truth and nature, from which, +in most civilized countries, those who have the pecuniary means of doing +it have unwisely departed. + + +III. THE MEDICAL ARGUMENT. + +If perfect health is the best preventive and security against disease, +and if a well-selected and properly administered vegetable diet is best +calculated to promote and preserve that perfect health, then this part +of the subject--what I have ventured to call the medical argument--is at +once disposed of. The superiority of the diet I recommend is established +beyond the possibility of debate. Now that this is the case--namely, +that this diet is best calculated to promote perfect health--I have no +doubt. For the sake of others, however, it may be well to adduce a few +facts, and present a few brief considerations. + +It is now pretty generally known, that Howard, the philanthropist, was, +for about forty years a vegetable-eater, subsisting for much of this +time on bread and tea, and that he went through every form of exposure +to disease, contagious and non-contagious, perfectly unharmed. And had +it not been for other physical errors than those which pertain to diet, +I know of no reason why his life might not have been preserved many +years longer--perhaps to this time. + +Rev. Josiah Brewer, late a missionary in Smyrna, was very much exposed +to disease, and, like Mr. Howard, to the plague itself; and yet I am not +aware that he ever had a single sick day as the consequence of his +exposure. I do not know with certainty that he abstains entirely from +flesh meat, but he is said to be rigidly temperate in other respects. + +Those who have read Rush's Inquiries and other writings, are aware that +he was very much exposed to the yellow fever in Philadelphia, during the +years in which it prevailed there. Now, there is great reason for +believing that he owed his exemption from the disease, in part, at +least, to his great temperance. + +Mr. James, a teacher in Liberia, in Africa, had abstained for a few +years from animal food, prior to his going out to Africa. Immediately +after his arrival there, and during the sickly season, one of his +companions who went out with him, died of the fever. Mr. James was +attacked slightly, but recovered. + +Another vegetable-eater--the Rev. Mr. Crocker--went out to a sickly part +of Africa some years since, and remained at his station a long time in +perfect health, while many of his friends sickened or died. At length, +however, he fell. + +Gen. Thomas Sheldon, of this state, a vegetable-eater, spent several +years in the most sickly parts of the Southern United States, with an +entire immunity from disease; and he gives it as his opinion that it is +no matter where we are, so that our dietetic and other habits are +correct. + +Mr. G. McElroy, of Kentucky, spent several months of the most sickly +season in the most unhealthy parts of Africa, in the year 1835, and yet +enjoyed the best of health the whole time. While there and on his +passage home, he abstained wholly from animal food, living on rice and +other farinaceous vegetables and fruits. + +In view of these facts and many others, Mr. Graham remarks: "Under a +proper regimen our enterprising young men of New England may go to New +Orleans or Liberia, or any where else they choose, and stay as long as +they choose, and yet enjoy good health." And there is no doubt he is +right. + +But it is hardly worth while to cite single facts in proof of a point of +this kind. There is abundant testimony to be had, going to show that a +vegetable diet is a security against disease, especially against +epidemics, whether in the form of a mere influenza or malignant fever. +Nay, there is reason to believe that a person living according to _all_ +the Creator's laws, physical and moral, could hardly receive or +communicate disease of any kind. How could a person in perfect health, +and obeying to an iota all the laws of health--how could he contract +disease? What would there be in his system which could furnish a nidus +for its reception? + +I am well aware that not a few people suppose the most healthy are as +much exposed to disease as others, and that there are some who even +suppose they are much more so. "Death delights in a shining mark," or +something to this effect, is a maxim which has probably had its origin +in the error to which I have adverted. To the same source may be traced +the strange opinion that a fatal or malignant disease makes its first +and most desperate attacks upon the healthy and the robust. The fact +is--and this explains the whole riddle--those who are regarded, by the +superficial and short-sighted in this matter, as the most healthy and +robust, are usually persons whose unhealthy habits have already sown the +seeds of disease; and nothing is wanting but the usual circumstances of +epidemics to rouse them into action. More than all this, these +strong-looking but inwardly-diseased persons are almost sure to die +whenever disease does attack them, simply on account of the previous +abuses of their constitutions. + +During the prevalence of the cholera in New York, about the year 1832, +all the Grahamites, as they were called, who had for some time abstained +from animal food--and their number was quite respectable--and who +persevered in it, either wholly escaped the disease, or had it very +lightly; and this, too, notwithstanding a large proportion of them were +very much exposed to its attacks, living in the parts of the city where +it most prevailed, or in families where others were dying almost daily. +This could not be the result of mere accident; it is morally impossible. + +But flesh-eaters--admitting the flesh were wholesome--are not only much +more liable to contract disease, but if they contract it, to suffer more +severely than others. There is yet another important consideration which +belongs to the medical argument. Animal food is much more liable than +vegetable food, to those changes or conditions which we call poisonous, +and which are always, in a greater or less degree, the sources of +disease; it is also more liable to poisonous mixtures or adulterations. + +It is true, that in the present state of the arts, and of agriculture +and civic life generally, vegetables themselves are sometimes the +sources of disease. I refer not to the spurred rye and other substances, +which occasionally find their way into our fields and get mixed with our +grains, etc., and which are known to be very active poisons,--so much as +to the acrid or otherwise improper juices which are formed by forced +vegetation, especially about cities, whether by means of hot-beds, +green-houses, or new, strong, or highly-concentrated manures. I refer +also to the crude, unripe, and imperfect fruits and other things with +which our markets are filed now-a-days; and especially to _decaying_ +fruits and vegetables. But I cannot enlarge; a volume would be too +little to do this part of the subject justice. Nothing is more wanted +than light on this subject, and a consequent reform in our fashionable +agriculture and horticulture. + +And yet, although I admit, most cheerfully, the danger we are in of +contracting disease by using diseased vegetables, the danger is neither +so frequent nor so imminent, in proportion to the quantity of it +consumed, as from animal food. Let us briefly take a view of the facts. + +Milk, in its nature, approaches nearest to the line of the vegetable +kingdom, and is therefore, in my view, the least objectionable form of +animal food. I am even ready to admit that for persons affected with +certain forms of chronic disease, and for all children, milk is +excellent. And yet, excellent as it is, it is very liable to be +injurious. We are told, by the most respectable medical men of France, +that all the cows about Paris have tubercles (the seeds or beginning of +consumption) in their lungs which is probably owing to the unnatural +state in which they are kept, as regards the kind, and quantity, and +hours of receiving their food; and especially as regards air, exercise, +and water. Cows cannot be healthy, nor any other domestic animals, any +more than men, when long subjected to the unnatural and unhealthy +influences of bad air, want of exercise, etc. Hence, then, most of our +cows about our towns and cities must be diseased, in a greater or less +degree--if not with consumption, with something else. And of course +their milk must be diseased--not, perhaps, as much as their blood and +flesh, but more or less so. But if milk is diseased, the butter and +cheese made from it must be diseased also. + +But milk is sometimes diseased through the vegetables which are eaten by +the cow. Every one knows how readily the sensible properties of certain +acrid plants are perceived in the milk. Hence as I have elsewhere +intimated, we are doubly exposed to danger from eating animal food; +first, from the diseases of the animal itself, and secondly, from the +diseases which are liable to be induced upon us by the vegetables they +use, some of which are not poisonous to them, but are so to us. So that, +in avoiding animal food, we escape at least a part of the danger. + +Besides the general fact, that almost all medical and dietetic writers +object to fat, and to butter among the rest, as difficult of digestion +and tending to cutaneous and other diseases,--and besides the general +admission in society at large that it makes the skin "break out,"--it +must be obvious that it is liable to retain, in a greater or less +degree, all the poisonous properties which existed in the milk from +which it was made. Next to fat pork, butter seems to me one of the worst +things that ever entered a human stomach; and if it will not, like pork, +quite cause the leprosy, it will cause almost every other skin disease +which is known. + +Cheese is often poisoned now-a-days by design. I do not mean to say that +the act of poisoning is accompanied by malice toward mankind; far from +it. It is added to color it, as in the form of anatto; or to give it +freshness and tenderness, as in the case of arsenic.[21] + +Eggs, when not fresh, are more or less liable to disease. I might even +say more. When not fresh, they _are_ diseased. On this point we have the +testimony of Drs. Willich and Dunglison. The truth is, that the yolk of +the egg has a strong tendency to decomposition, and this decomposing or +putrefying process _begins_ long before it is perceived, or even +suspected, by most people. There is much reason for believing that a +large proportion of the eggs eaten in civic life,--except when we keep +the poultry ourselves,--are, when used, more or less in a state of +decomposition. And yet, into how many hundred forms of food do they +enter in fashionable life, or in truth, in almost every condition of +society! The French cooks are said to have six hundred and eighty-five +methods of cooking the egg, including all the various sorts of pastry, +etc., of which it forms a component part. + +One of the grand objections against animal food, of almost all sorts, +is, that it tends with such comparative rapidity to decomposition. Such +is at least the case with eggs, flesh, and fish of every kind. The usual +way of preventing the decomposition is by processes scarcely less +hurtful--by the addition of salt, pyroligneous acid, saltpetre, lime, +etc. These, to be sure, prevent putrefaction; but they render every +thing to which they are applied, unless it is the egg, the more +indigestible. + +It is a strange taste in mankind, by the way, which leads them to prefer +things in a state of incipient decomposition. And yet such a taste +certainly prevails widely. Many like the flesh beaten; hence the origin +of the cruel practice of the East of whipping animals to death.[22] And +most persons like fresh meat kept till it begins to be _tender_; that +is, begins to putrefy. So most persons like fermented beer better than +that which is unfermented, although fermentation is a step toward +putrefaction; and they like vinegar, too, which is also far advanced in +the same road. + +That diseased food causes diseases in the persons who use it, needs not, +one would think, a single testimony; and yet, I will name a few. + +Dr. Paris, speaking of fish, says,--"It is not improbable that certain +cutaneous diseases may be produced, or at least aggravated by such +diet." Dr. Dunglison says, bacon and cured meats are often poisonous. He +speaks of the poisonous tendency of eggs, and says that all _made_ +dishes are more or less "rebellious." In Aurillac, in France, not many +years since, fifteen or sixteen persons were attacked with symptoms of +cholera after eating the milk of a certain goat. The goat died with +cholera about twenty-four hours after, and two men, no less eminent +than Professors Orfila and Marc, gave it as their undoubted opinion that +the cholera symptoms alluded to, were caused by the milk. I have myself +known oysters at certain times and seasons to produce the same symptoms. +During the progress of a mortal disease among the poultry on Edisto +Island, S. C., in 1837, all the dogs and vultures that tasted of the +flesh of the dead poultry sickened and died. Chrisiston mentions an +instance in which five persons were poisoned by eating beef; and +Dunglison one in which fourteen persons were made sick, and some died, +from eating the meat of a calf. Between the years 1793 and 1827, it is +on record that there were in the kingdom of Wurtemberg alone, no less +than two hundred and thirty-four cases of poisoning, and one hundred and +ten deaths, from eating sausages. But I need not multiply this sort of +evidence, the world abounds with it; though for one person who is +poisoned so much as to be made sick immediately, hundreds perhaps are +only slightly affected; and the punishment may seem to be deferred for +many years. + +The truth, in short, is, that every fashionable process of fattening and +even of domesticating animals, induces disease; and as most of the +animals we use for food are domesticated or fattened, or both, it +follows that most of our animal food, whether milk, butter, cheese, +eggs, or flesh, is diseased food, and must inevitably, sooner or later, +induce disease in those who receive it. Those which are most fattened +are the worst, of course; as the hog, the goose, the sheep, and the ox. +The more the animal is removed from a natural state, in fattening, the +more does the fat accumulate, and the more it is diseased. Hence the +complaints against every form of animal oil or fat, in every age, by +men who, notwithstanding their complaints, for the most part, continue +to set mankind an example of its use. + +Let me here introduce a single paragraph from Dr. Cheyne, which is very +much to my present purpose. + +"About London, we can scarce have any but crammed poultry or stall-fed +butchers' meat. It were sufficient to disgust the stoutest stomach to +see the foul, gross, and nasty manner in which, and the fetid, putrid, +and unwholesome materials _with_ which they are fed. Perpetual foulness +and cramming, gross food and nastiness, we know, will putrefy the +juices, and corrupt the muscular substance of human creatures--and sure +they can do no less in brute animals--and thus make our food poison. The +same may be said of hot-beds, and forcing plants and vegetables. The +only way of having sound and healthful animals, is to leave them to +their own natural liberty in the free air, and their own proper element, +with plenty of food and due cleanliness; and a shelter from the injuries +of the weather, whenever they have a mind to retire to it." + +The argument then is, that, for healthy adults at least, a well-selected +vegetable diet, other things being equal, is a preventive of disease, +and a security against its violence, should it attack us, in a far +greater degree than a diet which includes animal food in any of its +numerous forms. It will either prevent the common diseases of childhood, +including those which are deemed contagious, or render their attacks +extremely mild: it will either prevent or mitigate the symptoms of the +severe diseases of adults, not excepting malignant fevers, small-pox, +plague, etc.; and it will either prevent such diseases as cancer, gout, +epilepsy, scrofula, and consumption, or prolong life under them. + +Who that has ever thought of the condition of our domestic animals, +especially about towns and cities--their want of good air, abundant +exercise, good water, and natural food, to say nothing of the butter-cup +and the other poisonous products of over-stimulating or fresh manures +which they sometimes eat--has not been astonished to find so little +disease among us as there actually is? Animal food, in its best state, +is a great deal more stimulating and heating to the system than +vegetable food;--but how much more injurious is it made, in the +circumstances in which most animals are placed? Do we believe that even +a New Zealand cannibal would willingly eat flesh, if he knew it was from +an animal that when killed was laboring under a load of liver complaint, +gout, consumption, or fever? And yet, such is the condition of most of +the animals we slay for food. They would often die of their diseases if +we did not put the knife to their throats to prevent it. + +One more consideration. If the exclusive use of vegetable food will +prevent a multitude of the worst and most incurable diseases to which +human nature, in other circumstances, seems liable; if it will modify +the diseases which a mixed diet, or absolute intemperance, or gluttony +had induced,--by what rule can we limit its influence? How know we that +what is so efficacious in regard to the larger diseases, will not be +equally so in the case of all smaller ones? And why, then, may not its +universal adoption, after a few generations, banish disease entirely +from the world? Every person of common observation, knows that, as a +general rule, they who approach the nearest to a pure vegetable and +water diet, are most exempt from disease, and the longest-lived and most +happy. How, then, can it otherwise happen than that a still closer +approximation will afford a greater exemption still, and so on +indefinitely? At what point of an approach toward such diet and regimen, +and toward perfect health at the same time, is it that we stop, and more +temperance still will injure us? In short, where do we cross the line? + + +IV. THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT. + +I have dwelt at such length on the physiological and medical arguments +in defence of the vegetable system, that I must compress my remaining +views into the smallest space possible; especially those which relate to +its political, national, or general advantages. + +Political economists tell us that the produce of an acre of land in +wheat, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and in fruits, will sustain +animal life sixteen times as long as when the produce of the same acre +is converted into flesh, by feeding and fattening animals upon it. + +But, if we admit that this estimate is too high, and if the real +difference is only eight to one, instead of sixteen to one, the results +may perhaps surprise us; and if we have not done it before, may lead us +to reflection. Let us see what some of them are. + +The people of the United States are believed to eat, upon the average, +an amount of animal food equal at least to one whole meal once a day, +and those of Great Britain one in two days. But taking this estimate to +be correct, Great Britain, by substituting vegetable for animal food, +might sustain forty-nine instead of twenty-one millions of inhabitants, +and the United States sixty-six millions instead of twenty; and this, +too, in their present comfort, and without clearing up any more new +land. Here, then, we are consuming that unnecessarily--if animal food is +unnecessary--which would sustain seventy-nine millions of human beings +in life, health, and happiness. + +Now, if life is a blessing at all--if it is a blessing to twenty-two +millions in Great Britain, and twenty millions in the United +States--then to add to this population an increase of seventy-nine +millions, would be to increase, in the same proportion, the aggregate of +human happiness. And if, in addition to this, we admit the very +generally received principle, that there is a tendency, from the nature +of things, in the population of any country, to keep up with the means +of support, we, of Great Britain and America, keep down, at the present +moment, by flesh-eating, sixty-three millions of inhabitants. + +We do not destroy them, in the full sense of the term, it is true, for +they never had an existence. But we prevent their coming into the +possession of a joyous and happy existence; and though we have no name +for it, is it not a crime? What! no crime for thirty-five millions of +people to prevent and preclude the existence of sixty-three millions? + +I see no way of avoiding the force of this argument, except by denying +the premises on which I have founded my conclusions. But they are far +more easily denied than disproved. The probability, after all, is, that +my estimates are too low, and that the advantages of an exclusively +vegetable diet, in a national or political point of view, are even +greater than is here represented. I do not deny, that some deduction +ought to be made on account of the consumption of fish, which does not +prevent the growth or use of vegetable products; but my belief is, that, +including them, the animal food we use amounts to a great deal more than +one meal a day, or one third of our whole living. + +Suppose there was no _crime_ in shutting human beings out of existence +by flesh-eating, at the amazing rate I have mentioned--still, is it not, +I repeat it, a great national or political loss? Or, will it be said, in +its defence, as has been said in defence of war, if not of intemperance +and some of the forms of licentiousness, that as the world is, it is a +blessing to keep down its population, otherwise it would soon be +overstocked? The argument would be as good in one case as in the other; +that is, it is not valid in either. The world might be made to sustain, +in comfort, even in the present comparatively infant state of the arts +and sciences, at least forty or fifty times its present number of +inhabitants. It will be time enough a thousand or two thousand years to +come, to begin to talk about the danger of the world's being +over-peopled; and, above all, to talk about justifying what we know is, +in the abstract, very wrong, to prevent a distant imagined evil; one, in +fact, which may not, and probably will not ever exist. + + +V. THE ECONOMICAL ARGUMENT. + +The economy of the vegetable system is so intimately connected with its +political or national advantages; that is, so depends on, or grows out +of them, that I hesitated for some time before I decided to consider it +separately. Whatever is shown clearly to be for the general good policy +and well-being of society, cannot be prejudicial to the best interests +of the individuals who compose that society. Still, there are some minor +considerations that I wish to present under this head, that could not +so well have been introduced any where else. + +There is, indeed, one reason for omitting wholly the consideration of +the pecuniary advantages of the system which I am attempting to defend. +The public, to some extent, at once consider him who adverts to this +topic, as parsimonious or mean. But, conscious as I am of higher objects +in consulting economy than the saving of money, that it may be expended +on things of no more value than the mere indulgence or gratification of +the appetites or the passions, in a world where there are minds to +educate and souls to save, I have ventured to treat on the subject. + +It must be obvious, at a single glance, that if the vegetable products +of an acre of land--such as wheat, rye, corn, barley, potatoes, beans, +peas, turnips, beets, apples, strawberries, etc.--will sustain a family +in equal health eight times as long as the pork, or beef, or mutton, +which the same vegetables would make by feeding them to domestic +animals, it must be just as mistaken a policy for the individual to make +the latter disposition of these products as for a nation to do so. +Nations are made of individuals; and, as I have already said, whatever +is best, in the end, for the one, must also be the best, as a general +rule, for the other. + +But who has not been familiar from his very infancy with the maxim, that +"a good garden will half support a family?" And who that is at all +informed in regard to the manners and customs of the old world, does not +know that the maxim has been verified there, time immemorial? But again: +who has not considered, that if a garden of a given size will half +support a family, one twice as large would support it wholly? + +The truth is, it needs but a very small spot indeed, of good soil, for +raising all the necessaries of a family. I think I have shown, in +another work,[23] that five hundred and fifty pounds of Indian or corn +meal, or ten bushels of the corn, properly cooked, will support, or more +than support, an adult individual a year. Four times this amount is a +very large allowance for a family of five persons; nay, even three times +is sufficient. But how small a spot of good soil is required for raising +thirty bushels of corn! + +It is true, no family would wish to be confined a whole year to this one +kind of food; nor do I wish to have it so; not that I think any serious +mischiefs would arise as the consequence; but I should prefer, for my +own part, a greater variety. But this does not materially alter the +case. Suppose an acre and a half of land were required for the +production of thirty bushels of corn. Let the cultivator, if he chooses, +raise only fifteen bushels of corn, and sow the remainder with barley, +or rye, or wheat. Or, if he prefer it, let him plant the one half of the +piece with beans, peas, potatoes, beets, onions, etc. The one half of +the space devoted to the production of some sort of grain would still +half support his family; and it would require more than ordinary +gluttony in a family of five persons to consume the produce of the other +half, if the crops were but moderately abundant. A quarter of an acre of +it ought to produce, at least, sixty bushels of potatoes; but this +alone, would give such a family about ten pounds of potatoes, or one +sixth of a bushel a day, for every day in the year, which is a tolerable +allowance of food, without the grain and other vegetables. + +But suppose a whole family were to live wholly on grain, as corn, or +even wheat, for the year; the whole expenditure would hardly, exceed +fifty dollars, in dear places and in the dearest times. Of course, I am +speaking now of expenses for food and drink merely, the latter of which +usually costs nothing, or need not. How small a sum is this to expend in +New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, in the maintenance of a family! +And yet, it is amply sufficient for the vegetable-eater, unless his +family live exclusively on wheat bread, or milk, when it might fall a +little short. Of corn, at a dollar a bushel, it would give him eight +pounds a day--far more than a family ought to consume, if they ate +nothing else; and of potatoes, at forty cents a bushel, above twenty +pounds, or one third of a bushel--more than sufficient for the family of +an Hibernian. + +Now, let me ask how much beef, or lamb, or pork, or sausages, or eggs, +or cheese, this would buy? At ten cents a pound for each, which is +comparatively low, it would buy five hundred pounds; about one pound and +six ounces for the whole family, or four or five ounces each a day. This +would be an average amount of nutriment equal to that of about two +ounces of grain, or bread of grain, a day, to each individual. In so far +as laid out in butter, or chicken, or turkey, at twenty cents a pound, +it would give also about two or three ounces a day! + +Further remarks under this head can hardly be necessary. He who +considers the subject in its various aspects, will be likely to see the +weight of the argument. There is a wide difference between a system +which will give to each member of a family, upon the average, only about +four or five ounces of food a day, and one which will give each of them +more than twenty-five ounces a day, each ounce of the latter containing +twice the nutriment of the former, and being much more savory and +healthy at the same time. There is a wide difference, in matters of +economy, at least, between ONE and TEN. + +I will only add, under this head, a few tables. The first is to show the +comparative amount of nutritious matter contained in some of the leading +articles of human food, both animal and vegetable. It is derived from +the researches of such men as MM. Percy and Vauquelin, of France, and +Sir Humphrey Davy, of England. + + 100 pounds of Wheat contain 85 pounds of nutritious matter. + " " Rice " 90 " " " + " " Rye " 80 " " " + " " Barley " 83 " " " + " " Peas " 93 " " " + " " Lentils " 94 " " " + " " Beans 89 to 92 " " " + " " Bread (average) 80 " " " + " " Meat (average) 35 " " " + " " Potatoes contain 25 " " " + " " Beets " 14 " " " + " " Carrots 10 to 14 " " " + " " Cabbage " 7 " " " + " " Greens, turnips 4 to 8 " " + +Of course, it does not follow that every individual will be able to +extract just this amount of nutriment from each article; for, in this +respect, as well as in others, much will depend on circumstances. + +The second table is from Mr. James Simpson, of Manchester, England, in a +small work entitled, "The Products of the Vegetable Kingdom versus +Animal Food," recently published in London. Its facts are derived from +Dr. Playfair, Boussingault, and other high authorities. It will be seen +to refute, entirely, the popular notions concerning the Liebig theory. +The truth is, Liebig's views are misunderstood. His views are not so +much opposed to mine as many suppose. Besides, neither he nor I are +infallible. + + Flesh Heat Ashes + forming forming for + Solid matter. Water. principle. principle. the bones. + Potatoes, 28 per ct. 72 per ct. 2 per ct. 25 per ct. 1 per ct. + Turnips, 11 " 89 " 1 " 9 " 1 " + Barley Meal, 84-1/2 " 15-1/2 " 14 " 68-1/2 " 2 " + Beans, 86 " 14 " 31 " 51-1/2 " 3 " + Oats, 82 " 18 " 11 " 68 " 3 " + Wheat, 85-1/2 " 14-1/2 " 21 " 62 " 2-1/2 " + Peas, 84 " 16 " 29 " 51-1/2 " 3-1/2 " + Carrots, 13 " 87 " 2 " 10 " 1 " + Veal, 25 " 75 " { + Beef, 25 " 75 " { 25 + Mutton, 25 " 75 " { + Lamb, 25 " 75 " { + Blood, 20 " 80 " 20 + + +VI. THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPERIENCE. + +A person trained in the United States or in England--but especially one +who was trained in New England--might very naturally suppose that all +the world were flesh-eaters; and that the person who abstains from an +article which is at almost every one's table, was quite singular. He +would, perhaps, suppose there must be something peculiar in his +structure, to enable him to live without either flesh or fish; +particularly, if he were a laborer. Little would he dream--little does a +person who has not had much opportunity for reading, and who has not +been taught to reflect, and who has never traveled a day's journey from +the place which gave him birth, even so much as dream--that almost all +the world, or at least almost all the hard-laboring part of it, are +vegetable-eaters, and always have been; and that it is only in a few +comparatively small portions of the civilized and half-civilized world, +that the bone and sinew of our race ever eat flesh or fish for any thing +more than as a condiment or seasoning to the rest of their food, or even +taste it at all. And yet such is the fact. + +It is true, that in a vast majority of cases, as I have already +intimated, laborers are vegetable-eaters from necessity: they cannot get +flesh. Almost all mankind, as they are usually trained, are fond of +extra stimulants, if they can get them; and whether they are called +savages or civilized men, will indulge in them more or less, if they are +to be had, unless their intellectual and moral natures have been so well +developed and cultivated, as to have acquired the ascendency. Spirits, +wine, cider, beer, coffee, tea, condiments, tobacco, opium, snuff, flesh +meat, and a thousand other things, which excite, for a time, more +pleasurable sensations than water and plain vegetables and fruits, will +be sought with more or less eagerness according to the education which +has been received, and according to our power of self-government. + +I have said that most persons are vegetable-eaters from necessity, not +from choice. There are some tribes in the equatorial regions who seem to +be exceptions to this rule; and yet I am not quite satisfied they are +so. Some children, among us, who are trained to a very simple diet, will +seem to shrink from tea or coffee, or alcohol, or camphor, and even from +any thing which is much heated, when first presented to them. But, train +the same children to the ordinary, complex, high-seasoned diet of this +country, and it will not take long to find out that they are ready to +acquire the habit of relishing the excitement of almost all sorts of +_unnaturals_ which can be presented to them. And if there are tribes of +men who at first refuse flesh meat, I apprehend they do so for the same +reasons which lead a child among us, who is trained simply to refuse hot +food and drink, or at least, hot tea and coffee, when the latter are +first presented to him. + +Gutzlaff, the Chinese traveler and missionary, has found that the +Chinese of the interior, who have scarcely ever tasted flesh or fish, +soon acquire a wonderful relish for it, just as our children do for +spirituous or exciting drinks and drugs, and as savages do for tobacco +and spirits. But he has also made another discovery, which is, that +flesh-eating almost ruins them for labor. Instead of being strong, +robust, and active, they soon become lazy, self-indulgent, and +effeminate. This is a specimen--perhaps a tolerably fair one--of the +natural tendency of such food in all ages and countries. Man every where +does best, nationally and individually, other things being equal, on a +well-chosen diet of vegetables, fruits, and water. In proportion as +individuals or families, or tribes or nations, depart from this--other +things being equal--in the same proportion do they degenerate +physically, intellectually, and morally. + +Such a statement may startle some of my New England readers, perhaps, +who have never had opportunity to become acquainted with facts as they +are. But can it be successfully controverted? Is it not true, that, with +a few exceptions--and those more apparent than real--nations have +flourished, and continued to flourish, in proportion as they have +retained the more natural dietetic habits to which I have alluded; and +that they have been unhappy or short-lived, as nations, in proportion as +exciting food and drink have been used? Is it not true, that those +individuals, families, tribes, and nations, which have used what I call +excitements, liquid or solid, have been subjected by them to the same +effects which follow the use of spirits--first, invigoration, and +subsequently decline, and ultimately a loss of strength? Why is it that +the more wealthy, all over Europe, who get flesh more or less, +deteriorate in their families so rapidly? Why is it that every thing is, +in this respect, so stationary among the middle classes and the poor? + +In short--for the case appears to me a plain one--it is the simple +habits of some, whether we speak of nations, families, or individuals, +which have preserved the world from going to utter decay. In ancient +times, the Egyptians, the most enlightened and one of the most enduring +of nations, were what might properly be called a vegetable-eating +nation; so were the ancient Persians, in the days of their greatest +glory; so the Essenes, among the Jews; so the Romans, as I have said +elsewhere, and the Greeks. If either Moses or Herodotus is to be +credited, men lived, in ancient times, about a thousand years. Indeed, +empire seems to have departed from among the ancient nations precisely +when simplicity departed. So it is with nations still. A flesh-eating +nation may retain the supremacy of the world a short time, as several +European and American nations have done; just as the laborer, whose +brain and nerves are stimulated by ardent spirits, may for a time +retain--through the medium of an artificial strength--the ascendency +among his fellow-laborers; but the triumph of both the nation and the +individual must be short, and the debility which follows proportionable. +And if the United States, as a nation, seem to form an exception to the +truth of this remark, it is only because the stage of debility has not +yet arrived. Let us be patient, however, for it is not far off. + +But to come to the specification of facts. The Japanese of the interior, +according to some of the British geographers, live principally on rice +and fruits--a single handful of rice often forming the basis of their +frugal meal. Flesh, it is said, they either cannot get, or do not like; +and to milk, even, they have the same sort of aversion which most of us +have to blood. It is only a few of them, comparatively, and those +principally who live about the coasts, who ever use either flesh or +fish. And yet we have the concurring testimony of all geographers and +travelers, that in their physical and intellectual development, at +least, to say nothing of their moral peculiarities, they are the finest +men in all Asia. In what other country of Asia are schools and early +education in such high reputation as in Japan? Where are the inhabitants +so well formed, so stout made, and so robust? Compare them with the +natives of New Holland, in the same, or nearly the same longitude, and +about as far south of the equator as the Japanese are north of it, and +what a contrast! The New Hollanders, though eating flesh liberally, are +not only mere savages, but they are among the most meagre and wretched +of the human race. On the contrary, the Japanese, in mind and body, are +scarcely behind the middle nations of Europe. + +Nearly the same remarks will apply to China, and with little +modification, to Hindostan. In short, the hundreds of millions of +southern Asia are, for the most part, vegetable-eaters; and a large +proportion of them live chiefly, if not wholly on rice, though by no +means the most favorable vegetable for exclusive use. What countries +like these have maintained their ancient, moral, intellectual, and +political landmarks? Grant that they have made but little improvement +from century to century; it is something not to have deteriorated. Let +us proceed with our general view of the world, ancient and modern. + +The Jews of Palestine, two thousand years ago, lived chiefly on +vegetable food. Flesh, of certain kinds, was indeed admissible, by their +law; but, except at their feasts and on special occasions, they ate +chiefly bread, milk, honey, and fruits. + +Lawrence says that "the Greeks and Romans, in the periods of their +greatest simplicity, manliness, and bravery, appear to have lived almost +entirely on plain vegetable preparations." + +The Irish of modern days, as well as the Scotch, are confined almost +wholly to vegetable food. So are the Italians, the Germans, and many +other nations of modern Europe. Yet, where shall we look for finer +specimens of bodily health, strength, and vigor, than in these very +countries? The females, especially, where shall we look for their +equals? The men, even--the Scotch and Irish, for example--are they +weaker than their brethren, the English, who use more animal food? + +It will be said, perhaps, the vegetable-eating Europeans are not always +distinguished for vigorous minds. True; but this, it may be maintained, +arises from their degraded physical condition, generally; and that +neglect of mental and moral cultivation which accompanies it. A few, +even here, like comets in the material system, have occasionally broken +out, and emitted no faint light in the sphere in which they were +destined to move. + +But we are not confined to Europe. The South Sea Islanders, in many +instances, feed almost wholly on vegetable substances; yet their agility +and strength are so great, that it is said "the stoutest and most expert +English sailors, had no chance with them in wrestling and boxing." + +We come, lastly, to Africa, the greater part of whose millions feed on +rice, dates, etc.; yet their bodily powers are well known. + +In short, more than half of the 800,000,000 of human beings which +inhabit our globe live on vegetables; or, if they get meat at all, it is +so rarely that it can hardly have any effect on their structure or +character. Out of Europe and the United States--I might even say, out of +the latter--the use of animal food is either confined to a few meagre, +weak, timid nations, like the Esquimaux, the Greenlanders, the +Laplanders, the Samoiedes, the Kamtschadales, the Ostiacs, and the +natives of Siberia and Terra del Fuego; or those wealthier classes, or +individuals of every country, who are able to range lawlessly over the +Creator's domains, and select, for their tables, whatever fancy or +fashion, or a capricious appetite may dictate, or physical power afford +them. + + +VII. THE MORAL ARGUMENT. + +In one point of view, nearly every argument which can be brought to show +the superiority of a vegetable diet over one that includes flesh or +fish, is a moral argument. + +Thus, if man is so constituted by his structure, and by the laws of his +animal economy, that all the functions of the body, and of course all +the faculties of the mind, and the affections of the soul, are in better +condition--better subserve our own purposes, and the purposes of the +great Creator--as well as hold out longer, on the vegetable system--then +is it desirable, in a moral point of view, to adopt it. If mankind lose, +upon the average, about two years of their lives by sickness, as some +have estimated it,[24] saying nothing of the pain and suffering +undergone, or of the mental anguish and soul torment which grow out of +it, and often render life a burden; and if the simple primitive custom +of living on vegetables and fruits, along with other good physical and +mental habits, which seem naturally connected with it, will, in time, +nearly if not wholly remove or prevent this amazing loss, then is the +argument deduced therefrom, in another part of this chapter, a moral +argument. + +If, as I have endeavored to show, the adoption of the vegetable system +by nations and individuals, would greatly advance the happiness of all, +in every known respect, and if, on this account, such a change in our +flesh-eating countries would be sound policy, and good economy,--then we +have another moral argument in its favor. + +But, again; if it be true that all nations have been the most virtuous +and flourishing, other things being equal, in the days of their +simplicity in regard to food, drink, etc.; and if we can, in every +instance, connect the decline of a nation with the period of their +departure, as a nation, into the maze of luxurious and enervating +habits; and if this doctrine is, as a general rule, obviously applicable +to smaller classes of men, down to single families, then is the argument +we derive from it in its nature a moral one. Whatever really tends, +without the possibility of mistake, to the promotion of human happiness, +here and hereafter, is, without doubt, moral. + +But this, though much, is not all. The destruction of animals for food, +in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause +every reflecting individual--not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities +of our nature--to shudder. I recall: daily observation shows that such +is not the fact; nor should it, upon second thought, be expected. Where +all are dark, the color is not perceived; and so universally are the +moral sensibilities which really belong to human nature deadened by the +customs which prevail among us, that few, if any, know how to estimate, +rightly, the evil of which I speak. They have no more a correct idea of +a true sensibility--not a _morbid_ one--on this subject, than a blind +man has of colors; and for nearly the same reasons. And on this account +it is, that I seem to shrink from presenting, at this time, those +considerations which, I know, cannot, from the very nature of the case, +be properly understood or appreciated, except by a very few. + +Still there are some things which, I trust, may be made plain. It must +be obvious that the custom of rendering children familiar with the +taking away of life, even when it is done with a good degree of +tenderness, cannot have a very happy effect. But, when this is done, not +only without tenderness or sympathy, but often with manifestations of +great pleasure, and when children, as in some cases, are almost +constant witnesses of such scenes, how dreadful must be the results! + +In this view, the world, I mean our own portion of it, sometimes seems +to me like one mighty slaughter-house--one grand school for the +suppression of every kind, and tender, and brotherly feeling--one grand +process of education to the entire destitution of all moral +principle--one vast scene of destruction to all moral sensibility, and +all sympathy with the woes of those around us. Is it not so? + +I have seen many boys who shuddered, at first, at the thought of taking +the life, even of a snake, until compelled to it by what they conceived +to be duty; and who shuddered still more at taking the life of a lamb, a +calf, a pig, or a fowl. And yet I have seen these same boys, in +subsequent life, become so changed, that they could look on such scenes +not merely with indifference, but with gratification. Is this change of +feeling desirable? How long is it after we begin to look with +indifference on pain and suffering in brutes, before we begin to be less +affected than before by human suffering? + +I am not ignorant that sentiments like these are either regarded as +morbid, and therefore pitiable, or as affected, and therefore +ridiculous. Who that has read the story of Anthony Benezet, as related +by Dr. Rush, has not smiled at what he must have regarded a feeling +wholly misplaced, if nothing more? And yet it was a feeling which I +think is very far from deserving ridicule, however homely the manner of +expressing it. But I have related this interesting story in another part +of the work. + +I am not prepared to maintain, strongly, the old-fashioned doctrine, +that a butcher who commences his employment at adult age, is necessarily +rendered hardhearted or unfeeling; or, that they who eat flesh have +their sensibilities deadened, and their passions inflamed by it--though +I am not sure that there is not some truth in it. I only maintain, that +to render children familiar with the taking away of animal +life,--especially the lives of our own domestic animals, often endeared +to us by many interesting circumstances of their history, or of our own, +in relation to them,--cannot be otherwise than unhappy in its tendency. + +How shocking it must be to the inhabitants of Jupiter, or some other +planet, who had never before witnessed these sad effects of the ingress +of sin among us, to see the carcasses of animals, either whole or by +piece-meal, hoisted upon our very tables before the faces of children of +all ages, from the infant at the breast, to the child of ten or twelve, +or fourteen, and carved, and swallowed; and this not merely once, but +from day to day, through life! What could they--what would they--expect +from such an education of the young mind and heart? What, indeed, but +mourning, desolation, and woe! + +On this subject the First Annual Report of the American Physiological +Society thus remarks--and I wish the remark might have its due weight on +the mind of the reader: + +"How can it be right to be instrumental in so much unnecessary +slaughter? How can it be right, especially for a country of vegetable +abundance like ours, to give daily employment to twenty thousand or +thirty thousand butchers? How can it be right to train our children to +behold such slaughter? How can it be right to blunt the edge of their +moral sensibilities, by placing before them, at almost every meal, the +mangled corpses of the slain; and not only placing them there, but +rejoicing while we feast upon them?" + +One striking evidence of the tendency which an habitual shedding of +blood has on the mind and heart, is found in the fact that females are +generally so reluctant to take away life, that notwithstanding they are +trained to a fondness for all sorts of animal food, very few are willing +to gratify their desires for a stimulating diet, by becoming their own +butchers. I have indeed seen females who would kill a fowl or a lamb +rather than go without it; but they are exceedingly rare. And who would +not regard female character as tarnished by a familiarity with such +scenes as those to which I have referred? But if the keen edge of female +delicacy and sensibility would be blunted by scenes of bloodshed, are +not the moral sensibilities of our own sex affected in a similar way? +And must it not, then, have a deteriorating tendency? + +It cannot be otherwise than that the circumstances of which I have +spoken, which so universally surround infancy and childhood, should take +off, gradually, the keen edge of moral sensibility, and lessen every +virtuous or holy sympathy. I have watched--I believe impartially--the +effect on certain sensitive young persons in the circle of my +acquaintance. I have watched myself. The result has confirmed the +opinion I have just expressed. No child, I think, can walk through a +common market or slaughter-house without receiving moral injury; nor am +I quite sure that any virtuous adult can. + +How have I been struck with the change produced in the young mind by +that merriment which often accompanies the slaughter of an innocent +fowl, or lamb, or pig! How can the Christian, with the Bible in hand, +and the merciful doctrines of its pages for his text, + + "Teach me to feel another's woe," + +--the beast's not excepted--and yet, having laid down that Bible, go at +once from the domestic altar to make light of the convulsions and exit +of a poor domestic animal? + +Is it said, that these remarks apply only to the _abuse_ of a thing, +which, in its place, is proper? Is it said, that there is no necessity +of levity on these occasions? Grant that there is none; still the result +is almost inevitable. But there is, in any event, one way of avoiding, +or rather preventing both the abuse and the occasion for abuse, by +ceasing to kill animals for food; and I venture to predict that the evil +never will be prevented otherwise. + +The usual apology for hunting and fishing, in all their various and +often cruel forms,--whereby so many of our youth, from the setters of +snares for birds, and the anglers for trout, to the whalemen, are +educated to cruelty, and steeled to every virtuous and holy +sympathy,--is, the necessity of the animals whom we pursue for food. I +know, indeed, that this is not, in most cases, the true reason, but it +is the reason given--it is the substance of the reason. It serves as an +apology. They who make it may often be ignorant of the true reason, or +they or others may wish to conceal it; and, true to human nature, they +are ready to give every reason for their conduct, but the real and most +efficient one. + +It must not, indeed, be concealed that there is one more apology usually +made for these cruel sports; and made too, in some instances, by good +men; I mean, by men whose intentions are in the main pure and excellent. +These sports are healthy, they tell us. They are a relief to mind and +body. Perhaps no good man, in our own country, has defended them with +more ingenuity, or with more show of reason and good sense, than Dr. +Comstock, in his recent popular work on Human Physiology. And yet, there +is scarcely a single advantage which he has pointed out, as being +derived from the "pleasures of the chase," that may not be gained in a +way which savors less of blood. The doctor himself is too much in love +with botany, geology, mineralogy, and the various branches of natural +history, not to know what I mean when I say this. He knows full well the +excitement, and, on his own principles, the consequent relief of body +and mind from their accustomed and often painful round, which grows out +of clambering over mountains and hills, and fording streams, and +climbing trees and rocks, to need any very broad hints on the subject; +to say nothing of the delights of agriculture and horticulture. How +could he, then, give currency to practices which, to say the least,--and +by his own concessions, too,--are doubtful in regard to their moral +tendencies, by inserting his opinions in favor of sports, for which he +himself happens to be partial, in a school-book? Is this worthy of those +who would educate the youth of our land on the principles of the Bible? + + +VIII. THE MILLENNIAL ARGUMENT + +I believe it is conceded by most intelligent men, that all the arguments +we bring against the use of animal food, which are derived from anatomy, +physiology, or the laws of health, or even of psychology, are well +founded. But they still say, "Man is not what he once was; he is +strangely perverted; that custom, or habit, which soon becomes second +nature, and often proves stronger to us than first nature, has so +changed him that he is more a creature of art than of nature, or at +least of _first_ nature. And though animal food was not necessary to him +at first--perhaps not in accordance with his best interests--yet it has +become so by long use; and as a creature of art rather than of nature, +he now seems to require it." + +This reasoning, at first view, appears very _specious_. But upon second +view, we see it is wanting--greatly so--in solidity. It takes for +granted, as I understand it, that what we call civilization, has +rendered animal food necessary to man. But is it not obvious that the +condition of things which is thus supposed to render this species of +food necessary, is not likely to disappear--nay, that it is every +century becoming more and more the law, so to speak, of the land? Who is +to stop the labor-saving machine, the railroad car, or the lightning +flash of intelligence? + +And do not these considerations, if they prove any thing, prove quite +too much? For if, in the onward career of what is thus called +civilization, we have gone from a diet which scarcely required the use +of animal food in order to render it both palatable and healthful, to +one in whose dishes it is generally blended in some one or more of its +forms, must we not expect that a still further progress in the same +course will render the same kind of diet still more indispensable? If +flesh, fish, fowl, butter, cheese, eggs, lard, etc., are much more +necessary to us now, than they were a thousand years ago, will they not +be still more necessary a thousand years hence? + +I do not see how we can avoid such a conclusion. And yet such a +conclusion will involve us in very serious difficulties. In Japan and +China--the former more especially--if the march of civilization should +be found to have rendered animal food more necessary, it has at the same +time rendered it less accessible to the mass of the population. The +great increase of the human species has crowded out the animals, even +the domestic ones. Some of the old historians and geographers tell us +that there are not so many domestic animals in the whole kingdom of +Japan, as in a single township of Sweden. And must not all nations, as +society progresses and the millennium dawns, crowd out the animals in +the same way? It cannot be otherwise. True, there may remain about the +same supply as at present from the rivers and seas, and perchance from +the air; but what can these do for the increasing hundreds of millions +of such large countries? What do they for Japan? In short, if the +reasoning above were good and valid, it would seem to show that +precisely at the point of civilization where animal food becomes most +necessary, at precisely that point it becomes most scarce. + +These things do not seem to me to go well together. We must reject the +one or the other. If we believe in a millennium, we must, inevitably, +give up our belief in animal food, at least the belief that its +necessity grows out of the increasing wants of society. Or if, on the +other hand, we believe in the increasing necessity of animal food, we +must banish from our minds all hope of what we call a millennium, at +least for the present. + + +IX. THE BIBLE ARGUMENT. + +It is not at all uncommon for those who find themselves driven from all +their strong-holds, in this matter, to fly to the Bible. Our Saviour ate +flesh and fish, say they; and the God of the New Testament, as well as +of the Old, in this and other ways, not only permitted but sanctioned +its use. + +But, to say nothing of the folly of going, for proof of every thing we +wish to prove, to a book which was never given for this purpose, or of +the fact that in thus adducing Scripture to prove our favorite +doctrines, we often go too far, and prove too much; is it true that the +Saviour ate flesh and fish? Or, if this could be proved, is it true that +his example binds us forever to that which other evidence as well as +science show to be of doubtful utility? Paul did not think so, most +certainly. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, he says, +if it cause our brother to offend. Did not Paul understand, at least as +well as we, the precepts and example of our Saviour? + +And as to a permission to Noah and his descendants, the Jews, to use +animal food--was it not for the hardness of the human heart, as our +Saviour calls it? From the beginning, was it so? Is not man, in the +first chapter of Genesis, constituted a vegetable-eater? Was his +constitution ever altered? And if so, when and where? Will they who fly +to the Bible for their support, in this particular, please to tell us? + +But it is idle to go to the Bible, on this subject. I mean, it is idle +to pretend to do so, when we mean not so much. Men who _incline_ to wine +and other alcoholic drinks, plead the example and authority of the +Bible. Yet you will hardly find a man who drinks wine simply because he +believes the Bible justifies its use. He drinks it for other reasons, +and then makes the foolish excuse that the Bible is on his side. So in +regard to the use of flesh meat. Find a man who really uses flesh or +fish _because_ the Bible requires him to do so, and I will then discuss +the question with him on Bible ground. Till that time, further argument +on this direction is unnecessary. + + +CONCLUSION. + +But I must conclude this long essay. There is one consideration, +however, which I am unwilling to omit, although, in deciding on the +merits of the question before us, it may not have as much +weight--regarded as a part of the moral argument--on every mind, as it +has on my own. + +Suppose the great Creator were to make a new world somewhere in the +regions of infinite space, and to fit it out in most respects like our +own. It is to be the place and abode of such minerals, vegetables, and +animals as our own. Instead, however, of peopling it gradually, he fills +it at once with inhabitants; and instead of having the arts and the +sciences in their infancy, he creates every thing in full maturity. In a +word, he makes a world which shall be exactly a copy of our own, with +the single exception that the 800,000,000 of free agents in it shall be +supposed to be wholly ignorant in regard to the nature of the food +assigned them. But the new world is created, we will suppose, at +sunrise, in October. The human inhabitants thereof have stomachs, and +soon, that is, by mid-day or before night, feel the pangs of hunger. +Now, what will they eat? + +The world being mature, every thing in it is, of course, mature. Around, +on every hand, are cornfields with their rich treasures; above, that is, +in the boughs of the orchards, hang the rich russets, pippins, and the +various other excellent kinds of the apple, with which our own country +and other temperate climates abound. In tropical regions, of course, +almost every vegetable production is flourishing at that season, as well +as the corn and the apple. Or, he has but to look on the surface of the +earth on which he stands, and there are the potatoe, the turnip, the +beet, and many other esculent roots; to say nothing of the squash, the +pumpkin, the melon, the chestnut, the walnut, the beechnut, the +butternut, the hazelnut, etc.,--most of which are nourishing, and more +or less wholesome, and are in full view. Around him, too, are the +animals. I am willing even to admit the domestic animal--the horse, the +ox, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the turkey, the goose, the +hen, yes, and even the pig. And now, I ask again, what will he eat? He +is destitute of experience, and he has no example. But he has a stomach, +and he is hungry: he has hands and he has teeth; the world is all before +him, and he is the lord of it, at least so far as to use such food in it +as he pleases. + +Does any one believe that, in these circumstances, man would prey upon +the animals around him? Does any person believe--can he for one moment +believe--he would forthwith imbrue his hands in blood, whether that of +his own species or of some other? Would he pass by the mellow apple, +hanging in richest profusion every where, inviting him as it were by its +beauties? Would he pass by the fields, with their golden ears? Would he +despise the rich products of field, and forest, and garden, and hasten +to seize the axe or the knife, and, ere the blood had ceased to flow, or +the muscles to quiver, give orders to his fair but affrighted companion +within to prepare the fire, and make ready the gridiron or the spider? +Or, without the knowledge even of this, or the patience to wait for the +tedious process of cooking to be completed, would he eat raw the +precious morsel? Does any one believe this? Can any one--I repeat the +question--can any one believe it? + +On the contrary, would not every living human being revolt, at first, +from the idea, let it be suggested as it might, of plunging his hands in +blood? Can there be a doubt that he would direct his attention at +first--yes, and for a long time afterward--to the vegetable world for +his food? Would it not take months and years to reconcile his +feelings--his moral nature--to the thought of flesh-mangling or +flesh-eating? At least, would not this be the result, if he were a +disciple of Christianity? Although professing Christians, as the world +is now constituted, do not hesitate to commit such depredations, would +they do so in the circumstances we have supposed? + +I am sure there can be but one opinion on this subject; although I +confess it impossible for me to say how it may strike other minds +constituted somewhat differently from my own. With me, this +consideration of the subject has weight and importance. It is not +necessary, however. The argument--the moral argument, I mean--is +sufficient, as it seems to me, without it. What then shall we say of the +anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the +economical, the experimental, the Bible, the millennial, and the moral +arguments, when united? Have they not force? Are they not a nine-fold +cord, not easily broken? Is it not too late in the day of human +improvement to meet them with no argument but ignorance, and with no +other weapon but ridicule? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] For proof that arsenic or ratsbane is sometimes added to cheese, +see the Library of Health, volume ii., page 69. In proof of the +poisonous tendency of milk and butter, see Whitlaw's Theory of Fever, +and Clark's Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption. + +[22] See Dunglison's Hygiene, page 250. + +[23] The Young Housekeeper. + +[24] Or, more nearly, perhaps, a year and a half, in this country. In +England, it is one year and five-sevenths. + + + + +OUTLINES + +OF A + +NEW SYSTEM OF FOOD AND COOKERY. + + +In the work of revising and preparing the foregoing volume for +publication, the writer was requested to add to it a system of vegetable +cookery. At first he refused to do so, both on account of the difficulty +of bringing so extensive a subject within the compass of twenty or +thirty pages, and because it did not seem to him to be called for, in +connection with the present volume. But he has yielded his own judgment +to the importunity of the publishers and other friends of the work, and +prepared a mere outline or skeleton of what he may hereafter fill up, +should circumstances and the necessary leisure permit. + +But there is one difficulty to be met with at the very threshold of the +subject. Vegetable eaters are not so hard driven to find whereon to +subsist, as many appear to suppose. For the question is continually +asked, "If you dispense wholly with flesh and fish, pray what can you +find to eat?" Now, while we are aware that one small sect of the +vegetarians--the followers of Dr. Schlemmer--eat every thing in a raw +state, we are, for ourselves, full believers in plain and simple +cookery. That a potato, for example, is better cooked than uncooked, +both for man and beast, we have not the slightest doubt. We believe that +a system of preparing food which renders the raw material more +palatable, more digestible, and more nutritious, or perhaps all this at +once, must be legitimate, and even preferable--if not for the +individual, at least for the race. + +But the difficulty alluded to is, how to select a few choice dishes from +the wide range--short of flesh and fish--which God and nature permit. +For if we believed in the use of eggs when commingled with food, we +should hardly deem it proper to go the whole length of our French +brethren, who have nearly seven hundred vegetable dishes, of which eggs +form a component part; nor the whole length even to which our own +powers of invention might carry us; no, nor even the whole length to +which the writer of an English work now before us, and entitled +"Vegetable Cookery," has gone--the extent of about a thousand plain +receipts. We believe the whole nature of man, and even his appetite, +when unperverted, is best served and most fully satisfied with a range +of dishes which shall hardly exceed hundreds. + +It is held by Dr. Dunglison, Dr. Paris, and many of the old school +writers, that all made dishes--all mixtures of food--are "more or less +rebellious;" that is, more or less indigestible, and consequently more +or less hurtful. If they mean by this, that in spite of the +accommodating power of the stomach to the individual, they are hurtful +to the race, I go with them most fully. But I do _not_ believe that _all +made dishes, to all persons_, are so directly injurious as many suppose. +God has made man, in a certain sense, omnivorous. His physical stomach +can receive and assimilate, like his mental stomach, a great variety of +substances; and both can go on, without apparent disease, for a great +many years, and perhaps for a tolerably long life in this way. + +There is, however, a higher question for man to ask as a rational being +and as a Christian, than whether this or that dish will hurt him +directly. It is, whether a dish or article is _best_ for him--best for +body, mind, and heart--best for the whole human nature--best for the +whole interests of the whole race--best for time, and best for eternity. +Startle not, reader, at this assertion. If West could properly say, "I +paint for eternity," the true disciple of Christ and truth can say, "I +eat and drink for eternity." And a higher authority than any that is +merely human has even required us to do so. + +This places the subject of preparing food on high ground. And were I to +carry out my plan fully, I should exclude from a Christian system of +food and cookery all mixtures, properly so called, and all medicines or +condiments. Not that all mixtures are equally hurtful to the well-being +of the race, nor all medicines. Indeed, considering our training and +habits, some of both, to most persons, have become necessary. I know of +many whose physical inheritance is such, that salt, if not a few other +medicinal substances, have become at least present necessaries to them. +And to those mixtures of substances closely allied, as farina with +farina--meal of one kind with meal of another--I could scarcely have any +objection, myself. Nature objects to incompatibles, and therefore I do; +and medicine, and all those kinds of food which are opposed one to +another, are incompatible with each other. When one is in the stomach, +the other should not be. + +I have spoken of carrying out my plan, but this I cannot now fully do. +It would not be borne, till, as Lord Bacon used to say, "some time be +passed over." But, on the other hand, I am unwilling to give directions, +as I did ten or twelve years ago, in my Young Housekeeper, such as shall +pander to a perverted--most abominably perverted--public taste. Man is +made for progress, and it is high time the public standard were raised +in regard to food and cookery. + +Although grains and fruits are the natural food of man, yet there are a +variety of shapes in which the grains or farinacea may be presented to +us; and there are a few substances fit for food which do not properly +belong to either of these classes. I shall treat first of the different +kinds of food prepared from grain or farinaceous substances; secondly, +of fruits; thirdly, of roots; and fourthly, speak of a few articles that +do not properly belong to any of the three. + +While, therefore, as will be seen by the remarks already made, I have +many things to say that the community cannot yet bear, it need not +escape the observation of the most careless reader, that I aim at +nothing less than an entire ultimate subversion of the present system of +cookery, believing it to be utterly at war with the laws of God, and of +man's whole nature. + + +CLASS I.--FARINACEOUS, OR MEALY SUBSTANCES. + +The principal of these are wheat, oats, Indian corn, rice, rye, barley, +buckwheat, millet, chestnuts, peas, beans, and lentils. They are +prepared in various forms. + + +DIVISION I.--BREAD. + +The true idea of bread is that coarse or cracked and unbolted meal, +formed into a mass of dough by means of water, and immediately baked in +loaves of greater or less thickness, according to the fancy. + +Some use bolted meal; most raise bread by fermentation; many use salt; +some saleratus, or carbonate of potash; and, in the country, many use +milk instead of water to form the paste. I might also mention several +other additions, which, like saleratus, it is becoming fashionable to +make. + +All these things are a departure, greater or less, from the true idea +of a bread; and bread made with any of these changes, is so much the +less perfectly adapted to the promotion of health, happiness, and +longevity. + +Bolting is objectionable, because bread made from bolted meal, +especially when eaten hot, is more apt, when the digestive powers are +not very vigorous, to form a paste, which none but very strong stomachs +can entirely overcome. Besides, it takes out a part of the sweetness, or +life, as it is termed, of the flour. They who say fine flour bread is +sweetest, are led into this mistake by the force of habit, and by the +fact that the latter comes in contact, more readily than coarse bread, +with the papillae of the tongue, and seems to have more taste to it +because it touches at more points. + +Raising bread by inducing fermentation, wastes a part of the saccharine +matter; and the more it is raised, the greater is the waste. By +lessening the attraction of cohesion, it makes it more easy of +digestion, it is true; but the loss of nutriment and of pleasure to the +true appetite more than counterbalances this. Bakers, in striving to get +a large loaf, rob the bread of most of its sweetness. + +Salt is objectionable, because it hardens the bread, and renders it more +difficult of digestion. Our ancestors, in this country, did not use it +at all; and many are the families that will not use it now. + +Those who use salt in bread, tell us how _flat_ it would taste without +it. This idea of flatness has two sources. 1. We have so long given our +bread the taste of salt, as we have most other things, that it seems +tasteless without it. 2. The flatness spoken of in an article of food is +oftentimes the true taste of the article, unaltered by any stimulus. If +any two articles need to be stimulated with salt, however, it is rice +and beans--bread never. + +If saleratus is used in bread where no acidity is present, it is a +medicine; or, if you please, a poison both to the stomach and +intestines. If it meets and neutralizes an acid either in the bread-tray +or the stomach, the residuum is a new chemical compound diffused through +the bread, which is more or less injurious, according to its nature and +quantity. + +Milk is objectionable on the score of its tendency to render the bread +more indigestible than when it was wet with water, and perhaps by +rendering it too nutritious. For good bread without the milk is already +too nutritious for health, if eaten exclusively, for a long time. That +man should not live on bread alone, is as true physically as it is +morally. + +No bread should be eaten while new and hot--though the finer it is, the +worse for health when thus eaten. Old bread, heated again, is less +hurtful. But if eaten both new and hot, and with butter or milk, or any +thing which soaks and fills it, the effect is very bad. Mrs. Howland, in +her Economical Housekeeper, says much about _ripe_ bread. And I should +be glad to say as much, had I room, about ripe bread, and about the true +philosophy of bread and bread-making, as she has. + + +SECTION A.--_Bread of the first order._ + +This is made of coarse meal--as coarse as it can well be ground, +provided the kernels are all broken. The grain should be well washed, +and it may be ground in the common way, or according to the oriental +mode, in hand-mills. The latter mode is preferable, because you can thus +have it fresh. Meal is somewhat injured by being kept long ground. + +If great pains is not taken to have the grain clean when ground, it +needs to be passed through a coarse sieve, that all foreign bodies may +be carefully separated. The hulls of corn, and especially the husks of +oats and buckwheat, should also be separated in some way. In no case, +however, should meal be bolted. Good health requires that we eat the +innutritious and coarser parts as well as the finer. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take a sufficient quantity of good, recent wheat meal;[25] +wet it well, but not too soft, with pure water; form it into thin cakes, +and bake it as hard as the teeth will bear. Remember, however, that the +saliva aids the teeth greatly, especially when you masticate your food +slowly. The cakes should be very thin--the thinner the better. Many, +however, prefer them an inch thick, or even more. + +RECEIPT 2.--Oat meal prepared in the same manner. Procure what is called +the Scotch kiln dried oat meal, if you can. No matter if it is +manufactured in New England, if it is well done. + +RECEIPT 3.--Indian meal cakes, otherwise called hoe cakes, or Johnny +cakes, are next in point of value to bread made of wheat and oats. They +are most healthy, however, in cold weather. + +RECEIPT 4.--Rye cakes come next. Warm instead of cold water is often +used to wet all the above. Some even choose to scald the meal. Fancy may +be indulged in this particular, only you must remember that warm water +in warm weather may soon give rise, if the mass stands long, to a degree +of fermentation, which, for the best bread, should be avoided. + +RECEIPT 5.--Barley meal bread comes next in order in the unleavened +series. In regard to this species of bread, however, I do not speak from +experience, but from report. + +RECEIPT 6.--Of millet bread I know still less. Cakes made of it, as +above, must certainly be wholesome. + +RECEIPT 7.--Buckwheat cakes are last in the series of the best breads. +The meal is always too fine, and hence makes heavy bread, except when +hot. Few use it without fermentation. + +Unleavened bread may be made as above, of all the various kinds of +grain, finely ground; but it is apt to be heavy, whereas, when made +properly, of coarse meal, it is only firm, never heavy; that is, it +never has a lead-like appearance. They may make and use it who have iron +stomachs. + + +SECTION B.--_Bread of the second order._ + +This consists essentially of mixtures of the various coarse meals. True +it is, that made or mixed food is objectionable; but the union of one +farinaceous substance with another to form bread, can hardly be +considered a mixture. It is, essentially, the addition of farina to +farina, with some change in the proportion of the gluten and other +properties. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat meal and Indian, in about the proportion of two parts +of wheat to one of Indian. + +RECEIPT 2.--Wheat meal and oat meal, about equal parts. + +RECEIPT 3.--Wheat meal and Indian, equal parts. + +RECEIPT 4.--Wheat meal and rye meal; two parts, quarts, or pounds of the +former to one of the latter. + +RECEIPT 5.--Rye and Indian, equal parts of each. + +RECEIPT 6.--Rye, two thirds; Indian, one third. + +RECEIPT 7.--Wheat meal and rice. Three quarts of wheat meal to one pint +of good clean rice, boiled till it is soft. + +RECEIPT 8.--Three parts of wheat meal to one of Indian. + +RECEIPT 9.--Four parts of wheat to one of Indian. + +The proportion of the ingredients above may be varied to a great extent. +I have inserted some of the best. The following are _irregulars_, but +may as well be mentioned here as any where. + +RECEIPT 10.--Two quarts of wheat meal to one pound of well boiled ripe +beans, made soft by pounding or otherwise. + +RECEIPT 11.--Seven pounds of wheat meal and two and a half pounds of +good, mealy, and well boiled and pounded potatoes. + +RECEIPT 12.--Equal parts of coarse meal from rye, barley, and buckwheat. +This is chiefly used in Westphalia. + +RECEIPT 13.--Seven parts of wheat meal (as in Receipt 11), with two +pounds of split peas boiled to a soup, and used to wet the flour. + +RECEIPT 14.--Wheat meal and apples, in the proportion of about three of +the former (some use two) to one of the latter. The apples must be first +pared and cored, and stewed or baked. See my "Young Housekeeper," +seventh edition, page 396. + +RECEIPT 15.--Wheat meal and boiled chestnuts; three quarts of the former +to one of the latter. + +RECEIPT 16.--Wheat meal, four quarts, and one quart of well boiled and +pounded marrow squash. + +RECEIPT 17.--Wheat, corn, or barley meal; three quarts to one quart of +powdered comfrey root. This is inserted from the testimony of Rev. E. +Rich, of Troy, N. H. + +RECEIPT 18.--Wheat meal, three pounds, to one pound of pounded corn, +boiled and pounded green. This is the most doubtful form which has yet +been mentioned. + +RECEIPT 19.--Receipt 7 describes rice bread. Bell, in his work on Diet +and Regimen, says the best and most economical rice bread is made thus: +Wheat meal, three pounds; rice, well boiled, one pound--wet with the +water in which the rice is boiled. + +I wish to say here, once for all, that any kind of bread may be salted, +if you will _have_ salt, except the patented bread mentioned in the +beginning of the next section, which is salted in the process. Molasses +in small quantity may also be added, if preferred. + + +SECTION C.--_Bread of the third kind._ + +Of this there are several kinds. Those which are made by a simple +effervescence, provided the residuum is not injurious, are best, and +shall accordingly be placed first in order. Next will follow various +kinds of bread made by the ordinary process of fermentation, salting, +etc. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat meal, seven pounds; carbonate of soda or saleratus[26] +three quarters of an ounce to one ounce; water, two and three quarter +pints; muriatic acid, 420 to 560 drops. Mix the soda with the meal as +intimately as possible, by means of a wooden spoon or stick. Then mix +the acid and water, and add it slowly to the mass, stirring it +constantly. Make three loaves of it, and bake it in a quick oven. + +RECEIPT 2.--Wheat meal, one pound; sesquicarbonate of soda, forty +grains; muriatic acid, fifty drops; cold water, half a pint, or a +sufficient quantity. Mix in the same way, and with the same caution, as +in Receipt 1. Make one loaf of it, and bake in a quick oven.[27] + +RECEIPT 3.--Wheat meal, one quart; cream of tartar, two tea-spoonfuls; +saleratus, one tea-spoonful; and two and a half teacups full of milk. +Mix well, and bake thirty minutes. If the meal is fresh, as it ought to +be, the milk may be omitted. + +RECEIPT 4.--Coarse rye meal, Indian meal, and oat meal, may be formed +into bread in nearly a similar manner. So, in fact, may fine meal and +all sorts of mixtures. + +RECEIPT 5.--Professor Silliman more than intimates, that carbonic acid +gas _might_ be made to inflate bread, without either an effervescence or +a fermentation. The plan is, to force carbonic acid, by some means or +other, into the mass of dough, or, as bakers call it, the sponge. I do +not know that the experiment has yet been made. + +RECEIPT 6.--Coarse Indian meal may be formed into small, rather thin +loaves, and prepared and baked as in Receipt 3. + +Let us now proceed to common fermented bread: + +RECEIPT 7.--Wheat meal, six pounds; good yeast, a teacup full; and a +sufficient quantity of pure water. Knead thoroughly. Bake it in small +loaves, unless you have a very strong heat. + +RECEIPT 8.--Another way: Wheat meal, six quarts; molasses and yeast, +each a teacup full. Mould into loaves half the thickness you mean they +shall be after they are baked. Place them in the pans, in a temperature +which will cause a moderate fermentation. When risen enough, place them +in the oven. A strong heat is required. + +RECEIPT 9.--Rye bread may be made in a similar way. It must, however, be +well kneaded, to secure an intimate mixture with the yeast. Does not +require quite so strong a heat as the former. + +RECEIPT 10.--Oat meal bread may be prepared by mixing good kiln dried +oat meal, a little salt and warm water, and a spoonful of yeast. Beat +till it is quite smooth, and rather a thick batter; cover and let it +stand to rise; then bake it on a hot iron plate, or on a bake stove. Be +careful not to burn it. + +RECEIPT 11.--Barley, or black bread, as it is called in Europe, makes a +wholesome article of food. It may be fermented or unfermented. + +RECEIPT 12.--Corn bread is sometimes made thus: Six pints meal, four +pints water, one spoonful of salt; mix well, and bake in oblong rolls +two inches thick. Bake in a hot oven. + +It should be added to this division of my subject, that in baking bread +sweet oil may be used (a vegetable oil) as a substitute for animal oil, +to prevent the bread from adhering too closely. Or you may sift a +quantity of Indian meal into the pans. If you use sweet, or olive oil, +be sure to get that which is not rancid. Much of the olive oil of the +shops is unfit to be used. + + +DIVISION II.--WHOLE GRAINS. + +Some have maintained that since man is made to live on grain, fruits, +etc., and since the most perfect mastication is secured by the use of +uncooked grains, it is useless, and worse than useless, to resort to +cookery at all, especially the cookery of bread. I have mentioned Dr. +Schlemmer and his followers already as holding this opinion. Many of +these people confine themselves to the use of uncooked grains and +fruits. They do not cook their beans and peas. Nor can it be denied that +they enjoy thus far very good health. + +Now, while I admit that man, as an individual, can get along very well +in this way, I am most fully persuaded that many kinds of farinaceous +food are improved by cookery. Of the potato, I have already, +incidentally, spoken. But are not wheat and corn, and many other grains, +as well as the potato, improved by cookery? A barrel of flour (one +hundred and ninety-six pounds) will make about two hundred and seventy +pounds of good dry bread. It does not appear that the bread contains +more water than the grain did from which it was made. Whence, then, the +increase of weight by seventy-four pounds? Is not the water--a part of +it, at least--which is used in making bread, rendered solid, as water is +in slacking lime; or at least so incorporated with the flour or meal as +to add both to its weight, and to its nutritious properties? + +Or if, in the present infancy of the science of domestic chemistry, we +are not able to give a satisfactory answer to the question, is not an +affirmative highly probable? Such an answer would give no countenance, I +believe, to the custom of raising our bread, since the increase of +weight in making unfermented cakes or loaves, is about as great as in +the case of fermented ones. + +One of the strongest arguments ever yet brought against bread-making is, +that it relieves us from the necessity of mastication. But to this we +reply, that such cakes as may be made (and such loaves even) require +more mastication than the uncooked grains. Pereira, in his excellent +work on Diet, endeavors to support the doctrine that cooking bursts the +grains of the farinacea, so as to bring them the better within the power +of the stomach. This is specious, if not sound. In any event, I think it +pretty certain, that though man can do very well on raw grains, yet +there is a gain by cookery which more than repays the trouble. But +though baking the flour or meal into cakes or bread, is the best method +of preparation, there are other methods, secondary to this, which +deserve our notice. One of these I will now describe. + + +SECTION A.--_Boiled Grains._ + +These require less mastication than those which are submitted to other +processes; but they are more easy of digestion, and to some more +palatable, and even more digestible. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take good perfect wheat; wash clean, and boil till soft in +pure soft water. Those who are accustomed to salt their food, use sugar, +etc., will naturally salt and sweeten this. + +RECEIPT 2.--Rye or barley may be prepared in the same way, but it is not +quite so sweet. + +RECEIPT 3.--Indian corn may be boiled, but the process requires six +hours or more, even after it has soaked all night, and there has been a +frequent change of the water. And with all this boiling, the skins +sometimes adhere rather strongly, unless you boil with them some ashes, +or other alkali. + +RECEIPT 4.--Rice, carefully cleaned, and well boiled, is good food. +Imperfectly boiled, it is apt to disorder the bowels. And so +unstimulating is it, and so purely nutritious, that they who eat it +exclusively, without salt or curry, or any other condiment, are apt to +become constipated. Potatoes go well with it. + +RECEIPT 5.--Chestnuts, well selected, and well boiled, are highly +palatable, greatly nutritious, and easy of digestion. They are best, +however, soon after they are ripe. + +RECEIPT 6.--Boiled peas, when ripe, either whole or split, make a +healthy dish. They are best, however, when they have been cooked several +days. When boiled enough, drain them through a sieve, but not very dry. + +Some housekeepers soak ripe peas over night, in water in which they have +dissolved a little saleratus. If you boil new or unripe peas, be careful +not to cook them too much. + +RECEIPT 7.--Beans, whether ripe or green (unless in bread or pudding), +are not so wholesome as peas. They lead to flatulence, acidity, and +other stomach disorders. And yet, eaten in moderate quantities, when +ripe, they are to the hard, healthy laborer very tolerable food. Eaten +green, they are most palatable, but least healthy. + +RECEIPT 8.--Green corn boiled is bad food. Sweet corn, cooked in this +way, is the best. + +RECEIPT 9.--Lentils are nutritious, highly so; but I know little about +them practically. + + +SECTION B.--_Grains, etc., in other forms. They may be baked, parched, +roasted, or torrefied._ + +RECEIPT 1.--Dry slowly, with a pretty strong heat, till they become so +dry and brittle as to fall readily into powder. Corn is most frequently +prepared in this way for food; but this and several other grains are +often torrefied for coffee. Care should be taken to avoid burning. + +RECEIPT 2.--Roasted grains are more wholesome. It is not usual or easy +to roast them properly, however, except the chestnut, as the expanded +air bursts or parches them. By cutting through the skin or shell, this +result may be avoided, as it often is in the case of the chestnut. To +roast well, they should be laid on the hearth or an iron plate, covered +with ashes, and by building a fire slowly, all burning may be prevented. + +RECEIPT 3.--Corn and buckwheat are often parched, and they form, +especially the former, a very good food. In South America, and in some +semi-barbarous nations, parched corn is a favorite dish. + +RECEIPT 4.--Green corn is often roasted in the ear. It is less +wholesome, however, than when boiled. Sweet corn is the best for either +purpose. + +RECEIPT 5.--Of baking grains I have little to say, because I _know_ +little on that subject.[28] + + +DIVISION III.--CAKES + +This species of farinaceous food is much used, and is fast coming into +vogue. The term, in its largest sense, would include the unleavened +bread or cakes, of which I have spoken so freely in Division 1. They +are for the most part, however, made by the addition of butter, eggs, +aromatics, milk, etc., to the dough; and in proportion as they depart +from simple bread, are more and more unhealthy. I shall mention but a +few, though hundreds might be named which would still be vegetable food, +as good olive oil, in preparing them, may be substituted for butter. I +shall treat of them under one head or section. + +RECEIPT 1.--Take of dough, prepared according to the English patented +process, mentioned in Division I., Section C, Receipt 1 and Receipt 2, +and bake in a thin form and in the usual manner. + +RECEIPT 2.--Fruit cakes, if people will have them, may be made in the +same manner. No butter would be necessary, even to butter eaters, when +prepared in this patented way. If any have doubts, let them consult +Pereira on Food and Diet, page 153. + +RECEIPT 3.--Gingerbread may be made in the same way, and without alum or +potash. It is thus comparatively harmless. Coarse meal always makes +better gingerbread than fine flour. + +RECEIPT 4.--Buckwheat cakes may be raised in the same general way. + +RECEIPT 5.--Cakes of millet, rice, etc., are said to have been made by +this process; but on this point I cannot speak from experience. + +RECEIPT 6.--Biscuits, crackers, wafers, etc., are a species of cake, and +might be made so as to be comparatively wholesome. + +RECEIPT 7.--Biscuits may be made of coarse corn meal, with the addition +of an egg and a little water. Make it into a stiff paste, and roll very +thin. + + +DIVISION IV.--PUDDINGS. + +These are a species of bread, only made thinner. They are usually +unfermented. I shall speak of two kinds--hominy and puddings proper. + +SECTION A.--_Hominy._ + +This is usually eaten hot; but it improves on keeping a day or two. It +may be warmed over, if necessary. + +RECEIPT 1.--Wheat hominy, or cracked wheat, may be made into a species +of pudding thus: Stir the hominy into boiling water (a little salted, if +it must be so), very gradually. Boil from fifteen minutes to one hour. +If boiled too long, it has a raw taste. + +RECEIPT 2.--Corn hominy, or, as it is sometimes called, samp. Two quarts +of hominy; four quarts of water; stir well, that the hulls may rise; +then pour off the water through a sieve, that the hulls may separate. +Pour the same water again upon the hominy, stir well, and pour off again +several times. Finally, pour back the water, add a little salt, if you +use salt at all, and if necessary, a little more water, and hang it over +a slow fire to boil. During the first hour it should be stirred almost +constantly. Boil from three to six hours. + +RECEIPT 3.--Another way: Take white Indian corn broken coarsely, put it +over the fire with plenty of water, adding more boiling water as it +wastes. It requires long boiling. Some boil it for six hours the day +before it is wanted, and from four to six the next day. Salt, if used at +all, may be added on the plate. + +RECEIPT 4.--Another way still of making hominy is to soak it over night, +and boil it slowly for four or five hours, in the same water, which +should be soft. + +There are other ways of making hominy, but I have no room to treat of +them. + + +SECTION B.--_Puddings proper._ + +These are of various kinds. Indeed, a single work I have before me on +Vegetable Cookery has not less than 127 receipts for dishes of this +sort, to say nothing of its pancakes, fritters, etc. I shall select a +few of the best, and leave the rest. + +The greatest objection to puddings is, that they are usually swallowed +in large quantity, unmasticated, after we have eaten enough of something +else. They are also eaten new and hot, and with butter, or some other +mixture almost as injurious. Some puddings, from half a day to a day and +a half old, are almost as good for us as bread. + +One of the best puddings I know of, is a stale loaf of bread, steamed. +Another is good sweet kiln dried oat meal, without any cooking at all. +But there are some good cooked puddings, I say again, such as the +following: + +RECEIPT 1.--Boiled Indian pudding: Indian meal, a quart; water, a pint; +molasses, a teacup full. Mix it well, and boil four hours. + +RECEIPT 2.--Another Indian pudding. Indian meal, three pints; scald it, +make it thin, and boil it about six hours. + +RECEIPT 3.--Another of the same: To one quart of boiling milk, while +boiling, add a teacup full of Indian meal; mix well, and add a little +molasses. Boil three hours in a strong heat. + +RECEIPT 4.--Hominy: Take a quart of milk and half a pint of Indian +meal; mix it well, and add a pint and a half of cooked hominy. Bake well +in a moderate oven. + +RECEIPT 5.--Baked Indian pudding may be made by putting together and +baking well a quart of milk, a pint of Indian meal, and a pint of water. +Add salt or molasses, if you please. + +RECEIPT 6.--Oat meal pudding: Pour a quart of boiling milk over a pint +of the best fine oat meal; let it soak all night; next day add two +beaten eggs; rub over, with pure sweet oil, a basin that will just hold +it; cover it tight with a floured cloth, and boil it an hour and a half. +When cold, slice and toast, or rather dry it, and eat it as you would +oat cake itself. + +This may be the proper place to say, that all coarse meal puddings are +healthiest when twelve or twenty hours old; but are all improved--and so +is brown bread--by drying, or almost toasting on the stove. + +RECEIPT 7.--Rice pudding: To one quart of new milk add a teacup full of +rice, sweetened a little. No dressings are necessary without you choose +them. Bake it well. + +RECEIPT 8.--Wheat meal pudding may be made by wetting the coarse meal +with milk, and sweetening it a little with molasses. Bake in a moderate +heat. + +RECEIPT 9.--Boiled rice pudding may be made by boiling half a pound of +rice in a moderate quantity of water, and adding, when tender, a +coffee-cup full of milk, sweetening a little, and baking, or rather +simmering half an hour. Add salt if you prefer it. + +RECEIPT 10.--_Polenta_--Corn meal, mixed with cheese--grated, as I +suppose, but we are not told in what proportion it is used--baked well, +makes a pudding which the Italians call polenta. It is not very +digestible. + +RECEIPT 11.--Pudding may be made of any of the various kinds of meal I +have mentioned, except those containing rye, by adding from one fourth +to one third of the meal of the comfrey root. See Division I of this +class, Section B, Receipt 17. + +RECEIPT 12.--Bread pudding: Take a loaf of rather stale bread, cut a +hole in it, add as much new milk as it will soak up through the opening, +tie it up in a cloth, and boil it an hour. + +RECEIPT 13.--Another of the same: Slice bread thinly, and put it in +milk, with a little sweetening; add a little flour, and bake it an hour +and a half. + +RECEIPT 14.--Another still: Three pints of milk, one pound of baker's +bread, four spoonfuls of sugar, and three of molasses. Cut the bread in +slices; interpose a few raisins, if you choose, between each two +slices, and then pour on the milk and sweetening. If baked, an hour and +a half is sufficient. If boiled, two or three hours. Use a tin pudding +boiler. + +RECEIPT 15.--Rice and apple pudding: Boil six ounces of rice in a pint +of milk, till it is soft; then fill a dish about half full of apples +pared and cored; sweeten; put the rice over them as a crust, and bake +it. + +RECEIPT 16.--Stirabout is made in Scotland by stirring oat meal in +boiling water till it becomes a thick pudding or porridge. This, with +cakes of oat meal and potatoes, forms the principal food of many parts +of Scotland. + +RECEIPT 17.--Hasty pudding is best made as follows: Mix five or six +spoonfuls of sifted meal in half a pint of cold water; stir it into a +quart of water, while boiling; and from time to time sprinkle and stir +in meal till it becomes thick enough. It should boil half or three +quarters of an hour. It may be made of Indian or rye meal. + +RECEIPT 18.--Potato pudding: Take two pounds of well boiled and well +mashed potato, one pound of wheat meal; make a stiff paste, by mixing +well; and tie it in a wet cloth dusted with flour. Boil it two hours. + +RECEIPT 19.--Apple pudding may be made by alternating a layer of +prepared apples with a layer of dough made of wheat meal, till you have +filled a tin pudding boiler. Boil it three hours. + +RECEIPT 20.--Sago pudding: Take half a pint of sago and a quart of milk. +Boil half the milk, and pour it on the sago; let it stand half an hour; +then add the remainder of the milk. Sweeten to your taste. + +RECEIPT 21.--Tapioca pudding may be prepared in a similar manner. + +RECEIPT 22.--To make cracker pudding, to a quart of milk add four thick +large coarse meal crackers broken in pieces, a little sugar, and a +little flour, and bake it one hour and thirty minutes. + +RECEIPT 23.--Sweet apple pudding is made by cutting in pieces six sweet +apples, and putting them and half a pint of Indian meal, with a little +salt, into a pint of milk, and baking it about three hours. + +RECEIPT 24.--Sunderland pudding is thus made: Take about two thirds of a +good-sized teacup full of flour, three eggs, and a pint of milk. Bake +about fifteen minutes in cups. Dress it as you please--sweet sauce is +preferred. + +RECEIPT 25.--Arrow root pudding may be made by adding two ounces of +arrow root, previously well mixed with a little cold milk, to a pint of +milk boiling hot. Set it on the fire; let it boil fifteen or twenty +minutes, stirring it constantly. When cool, add three eggs and a little +sugar, and bake it in a moderate oven. + +RECEIPT 26.--Boiled arrow root pudding: Mix as before, only do not let +it quite boil. Stir it briskly for some time, after putting it on the +fire the second time, at a heat of not over 180 degrees. When cooled, +add three eggs and a little salt. + +RECEIPT 27.--Cottage pudding: Two pounds of potatoes, pared, boiled, and +mashed, one pint of milk, three eggs, and two ounces of sugar, and if +you choose, a little salt. Bake it three quarters of an hour. + +RECEIPT 28.--Snow balls: Pare and core as many large apples as there are +to be balls; wash some rice--about a large spoonful to an apple will be +enough; boil it in a little water with a pinch of salt, and drain it. +Spread it on cloths, put on the apples, and boil them an hour. Before +they are turned out of the cloths, dip them into cold water. + +Macaroni is made into puddings a great deal, and so is vermicelli; but +they are at best very indifferent dishes. Those who live solely to eat +may as well consult "Vegetable Cookery," where they will find +indulgences enough and too many, even though flesh and fish are wholly +excluded. They will find soups, pancakes, omelets, fritters, jellies, +sauces, pies, puddings, dumplings, tarts, preserves, salads, +cheese-cakes, custards, creams, buns, flummery, pickles, syrups, +sherbets, and I know not what. You will find them by hundreds. And you +will find directions, too, for preparing almost every vegetable +production of both hemispheres. And if you have brains of your own you +may invent a thousand new dishes every day for a long time without +exhausting the vegetable kingdom. + + +DIVISION V.--PIES. + +Pies, as commonly made, are vile compounds. The crust is usually the +worst part. The famous Peter Parley (S. G. Goodrich, Esq.), in his +Fireside Education, represents pies, cakes, and sweetmeats as totally +unfit for the young. + +Within a few years attempts have been made to get rid of the crust of +pies--the abominations of the crust, I mean--by using Indian meal sifted +into the pans, etc.; but the plan has not succeeded. It is the pastry +that gives pies their charm. Divest them of this, and people will almost +as readily accept of plain ripe fruit, especially when baked, stewed, or +in some other way cooked. + +As pies are thus objectionable, and are, withal, a mongrel race, +partaking of the nature both of bread and fruit, and yet, as such, unfit +for the company of either, I will almost omit them. I will only mention +two or three. + +RECEIPT 1.--Squashes, boiled, mashed, strained, and mixed with milk or +milk and water, in small quantity, may be made into a tolerable pie. +They may rest on a thick layer of Indian meal. + +RECEIPT 2.--Pumpkins may be made into pies in a similar manner; but in +general they are not so sweet as squashes. + +RECEIPT 3.--Potato pie: Cut potatoes into squares, with one or two +turnips sliced; add milk or cream, just to cover them; salt a little, +and cover them with a bread crust. Sweet potatoes make far better pies +than any other kind. + +Almost any thing may be made into pies. Plain apple pies--so plain as to +become mere apple sauce--are far from being very objectionable. See the +next Class of Foods. + + +CLASS II.--FRUITS. + +So far as fruits, at least in an uncooked state, have been used as food, +they have chiefly been regarded as a dessert, or at most as a condiment. +Until within a few years, few regarded them as a principal article--as +standing next to bread in point of importance. In treating of these +substances as food, I shall simply divide them into Domestic and +Foreign. + + +DIVISION I.--DOMESTIC FRUITS. + + +SECTION A.--_The large fruits--Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc._ + +RECEIPT 1.--The apple. May be baked in tin pans, or in a common bake +pan. The sweet apple requires a more intense heat than the sour. The +skin may be removed before baking, but it is better to have it remain. +The best apple pie in the world is a baked apple. + +RECEIPT 2.--It may be roasted before the fire, by being buried in ashes, +or by throwing it upon hot coals, and quickly turning it. The last +process is sometimes called _hunting_ it. + +RECEIPT 3.--It may be boiled, either in water alone, or in water and +sugar, or in water and molasses. In this case the skin is often removed, +that the saccharine matter may the better penetrate the body of the +apple. + +RECEIPT 4.--It may also be pared and cored, and then stewed, either +alone or with molasses, to form plain apple sauce--a comparatively +healthy dish. + +RECEIPT 5.--Lastly, it may be pared and cored, placed in a deep vessel, +covered with a plain crust, as wheat meal formed into dough, and baked +slowly. This forms a species of pie. + +RECEIPT 6.--The pear is not, in every instance, improved by cookery. +Several species, however, are fit for nothing, till mid-winter, when +they are either boiled, baked, or stewed. + +The peach can hardly be cooked to advantage. It is sometimes cut up, and +sprinkled with sugar and other substances. + +RECEIPT 7.--A tolerably pleasant sauce can be made by stewing or baking +the quince, and adding sugar or molasses, but it is not very wholesome. + + +SECTION B.--_The smaller fruits. The Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, +Currant, Whortleberry, Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc._ + +None of these, so far as I know, are improved by cookery. It is common +to stew green currants, to make jams, preserves, sauces, etc., but this +is all wrong. The great Creator has, in this instance, at least, done +his own work, without leaving any thing for man to do. + +There is one general law in regard to fruits, and especially these +smaller fruits. Those which melt and dissolve most easily in the mouth, +and leave no residuum, are the most healthy; while those which do not +easily dissolve--which contain large seeds, tough or stringy portions, +or hulls, or scales--are in the same degree indigestible. + +I have said that fruits were next to bread in point of importance. They +are to be taken, always, as part of our regular meals, and never between +meals. Nor should they be eaten at the end of a meal, but either in the +middle or at the beginning. And finally, they should be taken either at +breakfast or dinner. According to the old adage, fruit is gold in the +morning, silver at noon, and lead at night. + + +DIVISION II.--FOREIGN FRUITS. + +The more important of these are the banana, pine-apple, and orange, and +fig, raisin, prune, and date. The first three need no cooking, two of +the last four may be cooked. The date is one of the best--the orange one +of the worst, because procured while green, and also because it is +stringy. + +RECEIPT 1.--The prune. Few things sit easier on the feeble or delicate +stomach than the stewed prune. It should be stewed slowly, in very +little water. + +RECEIPT 2.--The good raisin is almost as much improved by stewing as the +prune. + +I do not know that the fig has ever yet been subjected to the processes +of modern cookery. It is, however, with bread, a good article of food. + +Fruits, in their juices, may be regarded as the milk of adults and old +people, but are less useful to young children and to the _very_ old. But +to be useful they must be perfectly ripe, and eaten in their season. +Thus used, they prevent a world of summer diseases--used improperly, +they invite disease, and do much other mischief. + +In general, fruits and milk do not go very well together. The baked +sweet apple and whortleberry seem to be least objectionable. + + +CLASS III.--ROOTS. + + +DIVISION I.--MEALY ROOTS. + +These are the potato, in its numerous varieties, the artichoke, the +ground-nut, and the comfrey. Of these the potato is by far the most +important. + + +SECTION A.--_The Common Potato._ + +This may be roasted, baked, boiled, steamed, or fried. It is also made +into puddings and pies. Roasting in the ashes is the best method of +cooking it; frying by far the worst. I take this opportunity to enter my +protest against all frying of food. Com. Nicholson, of revolutionary +memory, would never, as his daughters inform me, have a frying-pan in +his house. + +The potato is best when well roasted in the ashes, but also excellent +when baked, and very tolerable when boiled or steamed. + +There are many ways of preparing the potato and cooking it. Some always +pare it. It may be well to pare it late in the winter and in the spring, +but not at other times. For, in paring, we lose a portion of the richest +part of the potato, as in the case of paring the apple. There is much +tact required to pare a potato properly, that is, thinly. + +RECEIPT 1.--To boil a potato, see that the kettle is clean, the water +pure and soft, and the potatoes clean. Put them in as soon as the water +boils.[29] When they are soft, which can be determined by piercing them +with a fork, pour off the water, and let them steam about five minutes. + +RECEIPT 2.--To roast in the ashes, wash them clean, then dry them, then +remove the heated embers and ashes quite to the bottom of the +fire-place, and place them as closely together as possible, but not on +top of each other. Cover as quickly as possible, and fill the crevices +with hot embers and small coals. Let them be as nearly of a size as +possible, and cover them to the depth of an inch. Then build a hot fire +over them. They will be cooked in from half an hour to three quarters of +an hour, according to the size and heat of the fire. + +RECEIPT 3.--Baking potatoes in a stove or oven, is a process so +generally known, that it hardly needs description. + +RECEIPT 4.--Steaming is better than boiling. Some fry them; others stew +them with vegetables for soup, etc. + + +SECTION B.--_The Sweet Potato._ + +This was once confined to the Southern States, but it is now raised in +tolerable perfection in New Jersey and on Long Island. It is richer than +the common potato in saccharine matter, and probably more nutritious; +but not, it is believed, quite so wholesome. Still it is a good article +of food. + +RECEIPT 1.--Roasting is the best process of cooking these. They may be +prepared in the ashes or before a fire. The last process is most common. +They cook in far less time than a common potato. + +RECEIPT 2.--Baking and roasting by the fire are nearly or quite the same +thing as respects the sweet potato. Steaming is a little different, and +boiling greatly so. The boiled sweet potato is, however, a most +excellent article. + + +DIVISION II.--SWEET AND WATERY ROOTS. + +These are far less healthy than the mealy ones; and yet are valuable, +because, like potatoes, they furnish the system with a good deal of +innutritious matter, to be set off against the almost pure nutriment of +bread, rice, beans, peas, etc. + +RECEIPT 1.--The beet is best when boiled thoroughly, which requires some +care and a good deal of time. It may be roasted, baked, or stewed, +however. It is rich in sugar, but is not very easily digested. + +RECEIPT 2.--The parsnep. The boiled parsnep is more easily _dissolved_ +in the stomach than the beet; but my readers must know that many things +which are dissolved in the stomach are nevertheless very imperfectly +digested. + +RECEIPT 3.--The turnip, well boiled, is watery, but easily digested and +wholesome. It may also be roasted or baked, and some eat it raw. + +RECEIPT 4.--The carrot is richer than the turnip, but not therefore more +digestible. It may be boiled, stewed, fried, or made into pies, +puddings, etc. It is a very tolerable article of food. + +RECEIPT 5.--The radish, fashionable as it is, is nearly useless. + +RECEIPT 6.--For the sick, and even for others, arrow root jellies, +puddings, etc., are much valued. This, with sago, tapioca, etc., is most +useful for that class of sick persons who have strong appetites.[30] + + +CLASS IV.--MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF FOOD. + +Under this head I shall treat briefly of the proper use of a few +substances commonly and very properly used as food, but which cannot +well come under any of the foregoing classes. They are chiefly found in +the various chapters of my Young Housekeeper, as well as in Dr. +Pereira's work on Food and Diet, under the heads of "Buds and Young +Shoots," "Leaves and Leaf Stalks," "Cucurbitaceous Fruits," and "Oily +Seeds." + +RECEIPT 1.--Asparagus, well boiled, is nutritious and wholesome. Salt is +often added, and sometimes butter. The former, to many, is needless; the +latter, to all, injurious. + +RECEIPT 2.--Some of the varieties of the squash are nutritious and +wholesome, especially when boiled. Its use in pies and puddings is also +well known. + +RECEIPT 3.--A few varieties of the pumpkin, especially the sweet +pumpkin, are proper for the table. Made into plain sauce, they are +highly valued by most, but they are best known as ingredients of pies +and puddings. A few eat them when merely baked. + +RECEIPT 4.--The tomato is fashionable, but a sour apple, if equal pains +were taken with it, and it were equally fashionable, might be equally +useful. It adds, however, to nature's vast variety! + +RECEIPT 5.--Watermelons, coming as they do at the end of the hot season, +when eaten with bread, are happily adapted (as most other ripe fruits +are, when eaten in the same way, and at their own proper season) to +prevent disease, and promote health and happiness. + +RECEIPT 6.--Muskmelons are richer than watermelons, but not more +wholesome. Of the canteloupe I know but little. + +RECEIPT 7.--The cucumber. Taken at the moment when ripe--neither green +nor acid--the cucumber is almost, but not quite as valuable as the +melon. It should be eaten in the same way, rejecting the rind. The +Orientals of modern days sometimes boil them, but in former times they +ate them uncooked, though always ripe. Unripe cucumbers are a _modern_ +dish, and will erelong go out of fashion. + +RECEIPT 8.--Onions have medicinal properties, but this should be no +recommendation to healthy people. Raw, they are unwholesome; boiled, +they are better; fried, they are positively pernicious. + +RECEIPT 9.--Nuts are said to be adapted to man in a state of nature; but +I write for those who are in an artificial state, not a natural state. +Of the chestnut I have spoken elsewhere. The hazelnut is next best, then +perhaps the peanut and the beechnut. The butternut, and walnut or +hickory-nut, are too oily. Nor do I see how they can be improved by +cookery. + +RECEIPT 10.--Cabbage, properly boiled, and without condiments, is +tolerable, but rather stringy, and of course rather indigestible. + +RECEIPT 11.--Greens and salads are stringy and indigestible. Besides, +they are much used, as condiments are, to excite or provoke an +appetite--a thing usually wrong. A feeble appetite, say at the opening +of the spring, however common, is a great blessing. If let alone, nature +will erelong set to rights those things, which have gone wrong perhaps +all winter; and then appetite will return in a natural way. + +But the worst thing about greens, salads, and some other things, is, +they are eaten with vinegar. Vinegar and all substances, I must again +say, which resist or retard putrefaction, retard also the work of +digestion. It is a universal law, and ought to be known as such, that +whatever tends to preserve our food--except perhaps ice and the +air-pump--tends also to interfere with the great work of digestion. +Hence, all pickling, salting, boiling down, sweetening, etc., are +objectionable. Pereira says, "By drying, salting, smoking, and pickling, +the digestibility of fish is greatly impaired;" and this, except as +regards _drying_, is but the common doctrine. It should, however, be +applied generally as well as to fish. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] Formerly called Graham meal. + +[26] I shall use these terms indiscriminately, as they mean in practice +the same thing. + +[27] Both these processes are patented in Great Britain. The bread thus +retains its sweetness--no waste of its saccharine matter, and no +residuum except muriate of soda or common salt. Sesquicarbonate of soda +is made of three parts or atoms of the carbonic acid, and two of the +soda. + +[28] Keep butter and all greasy substances away from every preparation +of food which belongs to this division--especially from green peas, +beans, corn, etc. + +[29] Some prepare them, and soak them in water over the night. + +[30] In general, the appetites of the sick are taken away by design. In +such cases there should be none of the usual forms of indulgence. A +little bread--the crust is best--is the most proper indulgence. If, +however, the appetite is raging, as in a convalescent state it sometimes +is, puddings and even gruel may be proper, because they busy the stomach +without giving it any considerable return for its labor. + + + + +Fowler and Wells, + +Publishers of Scientific and Popular + +STANDARD WORKS, + +308 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + +In order to accommodate "The People" residing in all parts of the United +States, the Publishers will forward, by return of the FIRST MAIL, any +book named in this List. The postage will be prepaid by them at the New +York Post-office. By this arrangement of paying postage in advance, +fifty per cent. is saved to the purchaser. The price of each work, +including postage, is given, so that the exact amount may be remitted. +Fractional parts of a dollar may be sent in postage-stamps. 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In 1 vol., $2 50. + + Every one should read it who would preserve or restore his + health, develop his mind and improve his character. + + * * * * * + +EDUCATION: Its Elementary Principles founded on the Nature of Man. By J. +G. Spurzheim, M. D. With an Appendix, containing a Description of the +Temperaments, and an Analysis of the Phrenological Faculties. Price, in +Paper, 62 cents. Muslin, 87 cents. + + We regard this volume as one of the most important that has + been offered to the public for many years. It is full of sound + doctrines and practical wisdom.--_Boston Medical and Surgical + journal._ + + * * * * * + +MARRIAGE: Its History and Philosophy. With a Phrenological and +Physiological Exposition of the Functions and Qualifications necessary +for Happy Marriages. By L. N. Fowler. Illustrated. Paper, 50 cents; +Muslin, 75 cents. + + It contains a full account of the marriage forms and ceremonies + of all nations and tribes, from the earliest history down to + the present time. Those who have not yet entered into + matrimonial relations, should read this book, and all may + profit by a perusal.--_N. Y. Illustrated Magazine._ + + * * * * * + +SELF-CULTURE, AND PERFECTION OF CHARACTER; including the Education and +Management of Youth, By O. S. Fowler. Price, paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 +cents. + + "SELF-MADE, OR NEVER MADE," is the motto. No individual can + read a page of it without being improved thereby. With this + work, in connection with PHYSIOLOGY ANIMAL AND MENTAL, AND + MEMORY AND INTELLECTUAL IMPROVEMENT, we may become fully + acquainted with ourselves, comprehending, as they do, the whole + man. We advise all to read these works.--_Conn. School + Advocate._ + + * * * * * + +PHRENOLOGICAL BUST; designed especially for learners. Showing the Exact +Location of all the Organs of the Brain. Price, including box for +packing, $1 25. [By Express. Not mailable.] + + This is one of the most ingenious inventions of the age. A cast + made of plaster of Paris, the size of the human head, on which + the exact location of each of the phrenological organs is + represented, fully developed, with all the divisions and + classifications. Those who cannot obtain the services of a + professor, may learn in a very short time, from this model + head, the science of Phrenology, so far as the location of the + organs is concerned.--_N. Y. Sun._ + + * * * * * + +MEMORY AND INTELLECTUAL IMPROVEMENT; applied to Self-Education and +Juvenile Instruction. By O. S. Fowler. + +Enlarged and Improved. Illustrated. Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents. + + The science of Phrenology, now so well established, affords us + important aid in developing the human mind, according to the + laws of our being. This, the work before us is pre-eminently + calculated to promote, and we cordially recommend it to + all.--_Dem. Rev._ + + * * * * * + +SELF-INSTRUCTOR IN PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. Illustrated with 100 +Engravings; including a Chart for recording the various Degrees of +Development. By O. S. and L. N. Fowler. Price, paper, 25 cents; muslin, +50 cents. + + This treatise is emphatically a book for the million. It + contains an explanation of each faculty, full enough to be + clear, yet so short as not to weary; together with combinations + of the faculties, and engravings to show the organs, large and + small; thereby enabling all persons, with little study, to + become acquainted with practical Phrenology. + + * * * * * + +FAMILIAR LESSONS ON PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY; for Children and Youth. +Two volumes in one. $1 25. + + The natural language of each organ is illustrated, and the work + is brought out in a style well adapted to the family circle, as + well as the school-room.--_Teachers' Comp'n._ + + * * * * * + +MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL SCIENCE; applied to the Elevation of Society. By +Combe, Cox, and others. $2 80. + + This work contains Essays on Phrenology, as a department of + physiological science, exhibiting its varied and important + applications to social and moral philosophy, to legislation, + medicine, and the arts. With Portraits of Drs. Gall, Spurzheim, + and Combe. + + * * * * * + +MENTAL SCIENCE. Lectures on the Philosophy of Phrenology. By Rev. G. S. +Weaver. Illustrated. 87 cents. + + These Lectures were prepared for the intellectual, moral, and + social benefit of society. The author has, in this respect, + done a good work for the rising generation. + + * * * * * + +DEFENCE OF PHRENOLOGY; containing the Nature and value of Phrenological +Evidence. A work for doubters. 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +LOVE AND PARENTAGE; applied to the Improvement of Offspring; By O. S. +Fowler. Price 80 cents. + +LOVE AND PARENTAGE, AND AMATIVENESS; in one vol. Muslin, 75 cents. + + * * * * * + +DOMESTIC LIFE; or, Marriage Vindicated and Free Love Exposed. By Nelson +Sizer. Price 15 cents. + + * * * * * + +PHRENOLOGY AND THE SCRIPTURES; showing their Harmony; An able, though +small, work. By Rev. J. Pierpont. 12 cts. + + * * * * * + +PHRENOLOGICAL GUIDE. Designed for Students of their own Characters. With +numerous Engravings. Price 15 cents. + + * * * * * + +PHRENOLOGICAL ALMANAC. Published Annually. With Calendars for all +Latitudes. Profusely Illustrated with Portraits of Distinguished +Persons. Price 6 cents. 25 copies, $1. + + * * * * * + +CHART, FOR RECORDING THE VARIOUS PHRENOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS. Illustrated +with Engravings. Designed for the Use of Phrenologists. Price 6 cents. +25 copies, $1. + + * * * * * + +SYMBOLICAL HEAD AND PHRENOLOGICAL CHART, IN MAP FORM, for Framing. +Showing the Natural Language of the Phrenological Organs. Price 25 +cents. + + * * * * * + +THE WORKS OF GALL, COMBE, SPURZHEIM, and others, for sale, wholesale and +retail. + +PHRENOLOGICAL SPECIMENS for Societies and Private Cabinets. 40 casts; +net, $25. + +PORTRAITS FOR LECTURERS, 40 in the set, for $25. + + * * * * * + +BENEFITS OF A PHRENOLOGICAL EXAMINATION. + +A CORRECT Phrenological examination will teach, with SCIENTIFIC +CERTAINTY, that most useful of all knowledge--YOURSELF; your DEFECTS, +and how to obviate them; your excellences, and how to make the most of +them; your NATURAL TALENTS, and thereby in what spheres and pursuits you +can best succeed; show wherein you are liable to errors and excesses; +direct you SPECIFICALLY, what faculties you require especially to +cultivate and restrain; give all needed advice touching +self-improvement, and the preservation and restoration of health; show, +THROUGHOUT, how to DEVELOP, PERFECT, and make the MOST POSSIBLE out of +YOUR OWN SELF; disclose to parents their children's INNATE CAPABILITIES, +natural callings, dispositions, defects, means of improvement, the mode +of government especially adapted to each--it will enable business men to +choose reliable partners and customers; merchants, confidential clerks; +mechanics, apprentices having natural GIFTS adapted to particular +branches; ship-masters, good crews; the friendly, desirable associates; +guide matrimonial candidates in selecting CONGENIAL life-companions, +especially adapted to each other; show the married what in each other to +allow for and conciliate; and can be made the VERY best instrumentality +for PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, IMPROVEMENT, AND HAPPINESS. + + FOWLER AND WELLS, Phrenologists, + 308 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + +_Books sent prepaid by First Mail to any Post Office in the United +States._ + + + + +WORKS ON WATER CURE, + +PUBLISHED BY + +FOWLER AND WELLS, + +308 Broadway, New York. + + If the people can be thoroughly indoctrinated in the general + principles of HYDROPATHY, and make themselves acquainted with + the LAWS OF LIFE AND HEALTH, they will well-nigh emancipate + themselves from all need of doctors of any sort--DR. TRALL. + +HYDROPATHIC ENCYCLOPAEDIA: A System of Hydropathy and Hygiene. Containing +Outlines of Anatomy; Physiology of the Human Body; Hygienic Agencies, +and the Preservation of Health; Dietetics, and Hydropathic Cookery; +Theory and Practice of Water Treatment; Special Pathology, and +Hydro-Therapeutics, including the Nature, Causes, Symptoms, and +Treatment of all known Diseases; Application of Hydropathy to Midwifery +and the Nursery. Designed as a Guide to Families and Students, and a +Text-Book for Physicians. By R. T. Trall, M.D. Illustrated with upwards +of Three Hundred Engravings and Colored Plates. Substantially bound, in +one large volume. Price for either edition, prepaid by mail, $3 00. + + This is the most comprehensive and popular work on Hydropathy, + with nearly one thousand pages. 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Price, with postage prepaid by +mail, $2 50. + + It possesses the most practical utility of any of the author's + contributions to popular medicine, and is well adapted to give + the reader an accurate idea of the organization and functions + of the human frame.--_New York Tribune._ + + * * * * * + +DOMESTIC PRACTICE OF HYDROPATHY, with fifteen Engraved Illustrations of +Important Subjects, with a Form of a Report for the Assistance of +Patients in consulting their Physicians by Correspondence. By Ed. +Johnson, M.D. Muslin, $1 50. + + * * * * * + +HYDROPATHY; or, the Water-cure. Its Principles, Processes, and Modes of +Treatment. In part from the most Eminent Authors, Ancient and Modern. +Together with an Account of the Latest Methods of Priessnitz. Numerous +Cases, with Treatment described By Dr. Shew. $1 25. + + * * * * * + +CHRONIC DISEASES. An Exposition of the Causes, Progress, and Termination +of various Chronic Diseases of the Digestive Organs, Lungs, Nerves, +Limbs, and Skin, and of their Treatment by Water and other Hygienic +Means. By James M. Gully, M.D. Illustrated. Muslin, $1 50. + + * * * * * + +HOME TREATMENT FOR SEXUAL ABUSES. A Practical Treatise for both Sexes, +on the Nature and Causes of Excessive and Unnatural Indulgences, the +Disease and Injuries resulting therefrom, with their Symptoms and +Hydropathic Management. By Dr. Trall. 30 cts. + + * * * * * + +CHILDREN; THEIR HYDROPATHIC MANAGEMENT IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. A +Descriptive and Practical Work, designed as a Guide for Families and +Physicians. With numerous cases described. By Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo., 432 +pp. Muslin, $1 25. + + * * * * * + +MIDWIFERY, AND THE DISEASES OF WOMEN. A Descriptive and Practical Work, +showing the Superiority of Water Treatment in Menstruation and its +Disorders, Chlorosis, Leucorrhoea, Fluor Albus, Prolapsus Uteri, +Hysteria, Spinal Diseases, and other Weaknesses of Females in Pregnancy +and its Diseases, Abortion, Uterine Hemorrhage and the General +Management of Childbirth, Nursing, etc., etc. Illustrated with Numerous +Cases of Treatment. By Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo. 432 pp. Muslin, $1 25. + + * * * * * + +COOK BOOK, NEW HYDROPATHIC, By R. T. Trall, M. D. A System of Cookery on +Hydropathic Principles, containing an Exposition of the True Relations +of all Alimentary Substances to Health, with Plain Recipes for preparing +all Appropriate Dishes for Hydropathic Establishments, Vegetarian +Boarding-houses, Private Families, etc., etc. It is the Cook's Complete +Guide for all who "eat to live." Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 +cents. + + * * * * * + +CONSUMPTION; ITS PREVENTION AND CURE BY THE WATER TREATMENT. With Advice +concerning Hemorrhage of the Lungs, Coughs, Colds, Asthma, Bronchitis, +and Sore Throat. By Dr. Shew. Price, Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE APPLIED TO EVERY KNOWN DISEASE. A New Theory. A Complete +Demonstration of the Advantages of the Hydropathic System of Curing +Diseases; showing also the fallacy of the Allopathic Method, and its +Utter Inability to Effect a Permanent Cure. With an Appendix, containing +Hydropathic Diet, and Rules for Bathing. By J. H. Rausse. Translated +from the German. Paper, 62 cents; Muslin, 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE ALMANAC. Published Annually, containing Important and +Valuable Hydropathic Matter. 48 pp. 6 cents. + + * * * * * + +PHILOSOPHY OF WATER-CURE. A Development of the True Principles of Health +and Longevity. By John Balbirnie, M.D. With a Letter from Sir Edward +Lytton Bulwer. Paper. Price, 80 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE JOURNAL AND HERALD OF REFORMS. 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Price, only $7 00. + + This library comprises most of the important works on the + subject of Hydropathy. The volumes are of uniform size and + binding, and form a most valuable medical library. + + * * * * * + +WATER AND VEGETABLE DIET in Consumption, Scrofula, Cancer, Asthma, and +other Chronic Diseases. In which the Advantages of Pure Water are +particularly considered. By William Lambe, M.D., With Notes and +Additions by Joel Shew, M.D. 12mo., 258 pp. Paper, 62 cents. Muslin, 87 +cents. + + * * * * * + +ACCIDENTS AND EMERGENCIES: A Guide, containing Directions for Treatment +in Bleeding, Cuts, Bruises, Sprains, Broken Bones, Dislocations, Railway +and Steamboat Accidents, Burns and Scalds, Bites of Mad Dogs, Cholera, +Injured Eyes, Choking, Poison, Fits, Sunstroke, Lightning, Drowning, +etc., etc. By Alfred Smee, F.R.S. Illustrated with numerous Engravings. +Appendix by Dr. Trall. Price, prepaid, 15 cents. + + * * * * * + +PARENTS' GUIDE FOR THE TRANSMISSION of the Desired Qualities to +Offspring; and Childbirth made Easy. By Mrs. Hester Pendleton. Price, 60 +cents. + + * * * * * + +PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH. Illustrated with Cases, Showing the Remarkable +Effects of Water in Mitigating the Pains and Perils of the Parturient +State. By Dr. Shew. Paper. Price, 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +INTRODUCTION TO THE WATER-CURE. Founded in Nature, and adapted to the +Wants of Man. Price, 15 cents. + + * * * * * + +SEXUAL DISEASES; their Causes, Prevention, and Cure, on Physiological +Principles. Embracing Home Treatment for Sexual Abuses; Chronic +Diseases, especially the Nervous Diseases of Women; The Philosophy of +Generation; Amativeness; Hints on the Reproductive Organs. In one +volume. Price, $1 25. + + * * * * * + +THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN LIFE. By Sylvester Graham, M.D. With a Portrait and +Biography of the Author. $2 50. + + * * * * * + +CURIOSITIES OF COMMON WATER; or, the Advantages thereof in preventing +and curing Diseases; gathered from the Writings of several Eminent +Physicians, and also from more than Forty Years' Experience. By John +Smith, C.M. With Additions, by Dr. Shew. 80 cents. + + * * * * * + +PRACTICE OF WATER-CURE. With Authenticated Evidence of its Efficacy and +Safety. Containing a detailed account of the various processes used in +the Water-Treatment, etc. By James Wilson, M. D., and James M. Gully, M. +D. 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +EXPERIENCE IN WATER-CURE. A Familiar Exposition of the Principles and +Results of Water-Treatment in Acute and Chronic Diseases; an Explanation +of Water-Cure Processes; Advice on Diet and Regimen and Particular +Directions to Women in the Treatment of Female Diseases, Water-Treatment +in Childbirth, and the Diseases of Infancy. Illustrated by Numerous +Cases. By Mrs. Nichols. Price, 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +WATER-CURE MANUAL. A Popular Work, 12mo. Embracing descriptions of the +various Modes of Bathing, the Hygienic and Curative Effects of Air, +Exercises, Clothing, Occupation, Diet, Water-Drinking, etc. Together +with Descriptions of Diseases, and the Hydropathic Remedies. By Joel +Shew, M. D. Muslin. Price, 87 cents. + + * * * * * + +CHRONIC DISEASES: Especially the Nervous Diseases of Woman. By D. Rosch. +Translated from the German. 30 cts. + + * * * * * + +ALCOHOLIC CONTROVERSY. A Review of the _Westminster Review_ on the +Physiological Errors of Teetotalism. By Dr. Trall. Price, 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +DIGESTION, PHYSIOLOGY OF, Considered in Relation to the Principles of +Dietetics. By G. Combe. Illustrated, 30 cents. + + * * * * * + +FRUITS AND FARINACEA THE PROPER FOODS OF MAN. 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