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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
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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.
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