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.