the strongest_. For example, you may, for the most part, see slaves
more sturdy than masters, country-folk than towns-folk, poor than
rich--more able to labour, sinking less at their work, seldomer
ailing, more easily enduring frost, heat, sleeplessness, and the
like. Even if cheap food and dear strengthens the body alike,
still we ought to choose the cheap; for this is more sober and
more suited to a virtuous man; inasmuch as what is easy to procure
is, for good men, more proper for food than what is hard--what is
free from trouble than what gives trouble--what is ready than what
is not ready. To sum up in a word the whole use of diet, I say
that we ought to make its aim health and strength, for these are
the only ends for which we should eat, and they require no large
outlay.”[292]
VI.
LESSIO. 1554-1623,
Born at Brechten, a town in Brabant, of influential family, this noted
Hygeist, at a very early age, exhibited so exceptional a disposition as
to be known among his school-fellows as the “prophet.” His ardour for
learning was so intense as to cause him to forget the hours of meals,
and to reduce his time for sleep to the shortest period possible.
Having obtained a scholarship at the Arras College in Louvain, Lessio
pursued the course of studies there with the greatest success, and by
his fellow-students was proclaimed “prince of philologers.” At the age
of seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus. Two years later he was
elected to the Chair of Philosophy at Douai. In 1585 he accepted the
Professorship of Theology at Louvain.
So extraordinary were the respect and veneration which he had attracted
in his Order and from all who had access to him, that not only did his
death cause the greatest regret, but (as we are assured) his friends
contended among themselves for possession of every possible relic and
memento “of one who had composed so admirable works.” He was interred
before the high altar of the church of his college in Louvain. Held
in high honour during life, after his death so rare an ornament of
his Church was signally eulogised by the Pope, Urbano VIII.; and he
was even believed to have worked miracles. His praises are especially
recorded in a book entitled _De Vitâ et Moribus R. P. Leonardi
Lessii_--reprinted at Paris, 1644.
Principal Writings: _De Justitiâ et de Jure Actionum, Humanarum, &c._
(reprinted seven times). Many of the propositions, it seems, eventually
came under the censure of the Theological Faculty, the Bishops, and the
Pontiffs.
_Quæ Fides et Religio sit Capessenda, Consultatio._ Anvers, 1610.
In the estimation of S. François de Sales, a work “not so much that of
Lessio as of an Angel of the Judgment (Ange du Grand Conseil).”
_Hygiasticon_ (Anvers, 1613-14, 8vo); it is superfluous to remark, his
really valuable work. It was translated from the Latin into French by
Sebastian Hardy, with the title of _Le Vrai Régime de Vivre pour la
Conservation du Corps et de l’Ame_. Paris, 1646. Another editor, _La
Bonnodière_, added notes, republishing it under the title of _De la
Sobriété et de Ses Avantages_. Paris, 1701.
“Lessio,” writes the author of the article in the _Biographie
Universelle_, “having been condemned by the physicians to have no
more than two years longer to live, himself studied the principles of
_Hygiene_, was struck by the example of Cornaro, resolved to imitate
him, and found himself so well from such imitation that he translated
his book (_Della Vita Sobria_), joining to it the results of his own
experience, to which he owed the prolongation of his life by forty
years.” For the rest, he was a man of extensive erudition; and Justus
Lipsius celebrates, in some fine verse, the variety of his talents.
(See _Biog. Universelle Ancienne et Moderne_. À Paris, chez Michaud,
1819.)
The _Hygiasticon_ is prefaced by testimonials from three eminent
physicians, setting forth their concurrence in the principles of the
author. The English translation (1634) has prefixed to it addresses, in
verse, to him; one of which is by Crashaw, the friend of Cowley, and
a _Dialogue between Glutton and Echo_, also in verse. Affixed to this
edition are an English version of Cornaro, by George Herbert, and a
translation of an anonymous treatise by another Italian writer--_That a
Spare Diet is better than a Splendid and Sumptuous One: A Paradox_.
In his chap. v. “Of the Advantages which a Sober Diet brings to the
Body, and first, That it freeth almost from all Diseases”--Lessio
promises the adherents of it, that in the first place:--
“It cloth free a man and preserve him from almost all manner
of diseases. For it rids him of catarrhs, coughs, wheezings,
dizziness, and pain in the head and stomach. It drives away
apoplexies, lethargies, falling-sickness, and other ill-affections
of the brain. It cures the gout in the feet and in the hands; the
sciatica and diseases in the joints. It also prevents crudity
(indigestion), the parent of all diseases. In a word, it so tempers
the humours, and maintains them in an equal proportion, that they
hurt not any way, either in quantity or quality. And this both
reason and experience do confirm. For we see that those who keep
themselves to a sober course of diet are very seldom, or rather
never, molested with diseases; and if at any time they happen to
be oppressed with sickness, _they do bear it much better, and
sooner recover than those others whose bodies are full fraught with
ill-humours_.
“I know very many who, though they be weak by natural constitution,
and well grown in years, and continually busied in employments of
the mind, nevertheless by the help of this temperance, live in
health, and have passed the greater part of their lives, which have
been many years long, without any notable sickness....
“The self-same comes to pass in wounds, bruises, puttings out of
joint, and breaking of bones; in regard that there is either no
flux at all of ill-humours, or, at least, very little of that part
affected.... Furthermore an abstinent diet doth arm and fortify
against the plague; for the venom thereof is much better resisted
if the body be clear and free--wherefore Sokrates brought to pass
that he himself was never sick of the plague, which ofttimes
greatly wasted the city of Athens, where he lived, as Laertius
writeth. The third commodity of the diet is that, although it doth
not cure such diseases as are incurable in their own nature, yet
it doth _so much mitigate and allay them as that they are easily
borne_, and do not much hinder the functions of the mind. This is
seen by daily experience.”
Lessio proceeds to descant upon the other benefits of the reformed
regimen--such as that it prolongs life (other things being equal) to
extreme old age, produces cheerfulness, activity, memory, and the
like.[293]
* * * * *
Moffet, another hygienic writer of the sixteenth century, demands
indignantly:--
“Till God (_i.e._, Superstition or Fraud) would have it so [the
slaying of other animals for food], who dared to touch with his
lips the remnant of a dead carcase? or to set the prey of a wolf,
or the meat of a falcon, upon his table? Who, I say, durst feed
upon those members which, lately, did see, go, bleat, low, feel,
and move?[294]
“Nay, tell me, can civil and human eyes yet abide the slaughter of
an innocent ‘beast,’ the cutting of his throat, the smashing him on
the head, the flaying of his skin, the quartering and dismembering
of his limbs, the sprinkling of his blood, the ripping up of his
veins, the enduring of ill-savours, the heaving of heavy sighs,
sobs, and groans, the passionate struggling and panting for life,
which only hard-hearted butchers can endure to see?
“Is not the earth sufficient to give us meat, but that we must also
rend up the bowels of ‘beasts,’ birds, and fishes? Yes, truly,
there is enough in the earth to give us meat; yea, verily, and
choice of meats, needing either none or no great preparation, which
we may take without fear, and cut down without trembling; which,
also, we may mingle a hundred ways to delight our taste, and feed
on safely to fill our bellies.”--_Health’s Improvement_, by Dr. W.
Moffet (ed. 1746), as quoted by Ritson. The author died in 1604.
* * * * *
The author of the _Anatomy of Abuses_, a writer of the same period,
denouncing the unnatural and luxurious living of his time, compares the
two diets with equal force and truth:--
“I cannot persuade myself otherwise, but that our _niceness_
and _cautiousness_ in diet hath altered our nature, distempered
our bodies, and made us subject to hundreds of diseases and
_discrasies_ (indigestions) more than ever our forefathers were
subject unto, and consequently of shorter life than they.... Who
are sicklier than they who fare deliciously every day? Who is
corrupter? Who belcheth more? Who looketh worse? Who is weaker and
feebler than they? Who hath more filthy phlegm and putrefaction
(replete with gross humours) than they? And, to be brief, who dieth
sooner than they?
“Do we not see the poor man who eateth brown bread (whereof some
is made of rye, barley, _peason_, beans, oats, and such other
gross grains), and drinketh small drink, yea, sometimes water, and
feedeth upon milk, butter and cheese--I say do we not see such a
one healthfuller, stronger, fairer complexioned, and longer-living
than the other that fares daintily every day; and how should it be
otherwise?”--_Stubbes’s Anatomy of Abuses_, 1583. Quoted by Ritson
(_Abstinence from Flesh: A Moral Duty._).
VII.
COWLEY. 1620-1667.
Among the poets of the age second only to Milton and to Dryden. _The
Garden_, from which we extract the following just sentiments, is
prefixed by way of dedication to the _Kalendarium Hortense_ of John
Evelyn, his personal and political friend. _The Gardener’s Almanac_, it
is worthy of note, is one of the earliest prototypes of the numerous
more modern treatises of the kind. It had reached a tenth edition in
1706.
“When Epicurus to the world had taught
That pleasure is the chiefest good,
(And was, perhaps, i’th’ right, if rightly understood),
His life he to his doctrine brought,
And in a garden’s shade that Sovereign pleasure sought:
Whoever a true _Epicure_ would be.
May there find cheap and virtuous luxury.
Vitellius his table which did hold
As many creatures as the ark of old--
That fiscal table to which every day
All countries did a constant tribute pay--
Could nothing more delectable afford
Than Nature’s Liberality--
Helped with a little Art and Industry--
Allows the meanest gardener’s board.
_The wanton Taste no Flesh nor Fowl can choose,
For which the Grape or Melon it would lose,
Though all th’ inhabitants of Earth and Air
Be listed in the Glutton’s bill of fare._
* * * * *
Scarce any Plant is growing here.
Which against Death some weapon does not bear.
Let Cities boast that they provide
For life the ornaments of Pride;
But ’tis the Country and the Field
That furnish it with Staff and Shield.
_The Garden._ Chertsey, 1666.
VIII.
TRYON. 1634-1703.
One of the best known of the seventeenth century humane Hygeists, was
born at Bibury, a village in Gloucestershire. His father was a tiler
and plasterer, who by stress of poverty was forced to remove his son,
when no more than six years of age, from the village school, and to set
him at the work of spinning and carding, (the woollen manufacture being
then extensively carried on in Gloucestershire). At eight years of age
he became so expert, he tells us, as to be able to spin four pounds a
day, earning two shillings a week. At the age of twelve he was made
to work at his father’s employment. At this period he first learned
to read. He next took to keeping sheep. With the sum of three pounds,
realised by the sale of his four sheep, he went to London to seek his
fortune, when seventeen years old, and bound himself apprentice to a
“castor-maker,” in Fleet Street. His master was an Anabaptist--“an
honest and sober man;” and, after two years’ apprenticeship, Tryon
adopted the same religious creed. All his spare time was now devoted
entirely to study; and, with the usual ardour of scholars who depend
upon their own talents and exertions, he scarcely gave any time to food
or sleep. The holiday period, too, spent by his fellow-apprentices in
eating and drinking, and gross amusements, was utilised in the same
way. Science, and Physiology in particular, attracted his attention.
At the age of twenty-three he first adopted the reformed diet, “my
drink being only water, and food only bread and some fruit, and that
but once a day for some time; but afterwards I had more liberty given
me by my guide, Wisdom, to eat butter and cheese; my clothing being
mean and thin; for, in all things, self-denial was now become my real
business.” This strict life he maintained for more than a year, when he
relapsed, at intervals, during the next two years. At the end of this
period he had become confirmed in his reform, and he remained to the
end strictly akreophagist, and, indeed, strictly frugal, “contenting
myself with herbs, fruits, grains, eggs, butter and cheese for food,
and pure water for drink.” About two years after his marriage he made
voyages to Barbadoes and to Holland in the way of trade--“making
beavers.” He finally settled himself in England, and at the age of
forty-eight he published his first book on _Dietetics_.
His brief autobiography, from which the above facts are drawn, ends at
this period. His editor adds, as to his appearance and character: “his
aspect easily discovered something extraordinary; his air was cheerful,
lively, and brisk; but grave with something of authority, though he was
of the easiest access. Notwithstanding he was of no strong make, yet,
through his great temperance, regularity, and by the strength of his
spirits and vigour of his mind, he was capable of any fatigue, even to
his last illness, equally with any of the best constitutions of men
half his years. Through all his lifetime he had been a man of unwearied
application, and so indefatigable that it may be as truly said of him
as it can be of any man that he was never idle; but of such despatch
that, though fortune had allotted him as great multiplicity of business
as, perhaps, to any one of his contemporaries, yet, without any
neglect thereof, he found leisure to make such a search into Nature,
that perhaps few of this age equalled him therein: and not only into
Nature, but also into almost all arts and sciences, of some whereof he
was an improver, and of all innocent and useful ones an encourager and
promoter.”[295]
In spite of that penetration of mind and justness of thought which
influenced him to abandon the cruelty and coarseness of the orthodox
diet, the author of _The Way to Health_ could not free himself from
certain of the credulous fancies of his age; and, it must be admitted,
his writings are by no means exempt from such prejudices. It is as a
moral reformer that he has deserved our respect, and of his numerous
books the following are noteworthy:--
_A Treatise on Cleanliness in Meats and Drinks._ London, 1682.
_The Way to Health, Long Life, &c._ 1683, 1694, 1697. 3 vols., 8vo.
_Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters of the East and West
Indies._ London, 1684.
_The Way to Make All People Rich: or, Wisdom’s Call to Temperance
and Frugality._ 1685.
_Wisdom’s Doctrine: or, Aphorisms and Rules for Preserving the
Health of the Body and the Peace of the Mind._ 1696.
_England’s Grandeur and the Way to Get Wealth: or, Promotion of
Trade Made Easy and Lands Advanced._ 1699. 4_to._
Nothing can be more just or forcible than these expostulations:--
“Most men will, in words, confess that there is no blessing this
world affords comparable to health. Yet rarely do any of them
value it as they ought to do till they feel the want of it. To
him that hath obtained this goodly gift the meanest food--even
bread and water--is most pleasant, and all sorts of exercise and
labour delightful. But the contrary makes all things nauseous and
distasteful. What are full-spread Tables, Riches, or Honours, to
him that is tormented with distempers? In such a condition men do
desire nothing so much as _Health_. But no sooner is that obtained,
but their thoughts are changed, forgetting those solemn promises
and resolutions they made to God and their own souls, going on in
the old road of _Gluttony_, taking little or no care to continue
that which they so much desired when they were deprived of it.
“Happy it were if men did but use the tenth part of that care and
diligence to preserve their minds and bodies in Health, as they
do to procure those dainties and superfluities which do generate
Diseases, and are the cause of committing many other evils, there
being but few men that do know how to use riches as they ought.
For there are not many of our wealthy men that ever consider that
as little and mean food and drink will suffice to maintain a
_lord_ in perfect health as it will a _peasant_, and render him
more capable of enjoying the benefits of the Mind and pleasures
of the Body, far beyond all ‘dainties and superfluities.’ But,
alas! the momentary pleasures of the _Throat-Custom_, vanity,
&c., do ensnare and entice most people to exceed the bounds of
necessity or convenience; and many fail through a false opinion or
misunderstanding of Nature--childishly imagining that the richer
the food is, and the more they can cram into their bellies, the
more they shall be strengthened thereby. But experience shews to
the contrary; for are not such people as accustom themselves to the
richest foods, and most _cordial_ drinks, generally the most infirm
and diseased?
“Now the sorts of foods and drinks that breed the best blood and
finest spirits, are Herbs, Fruits, and various kinds of Grains;
also Bread, and sundry sorts of excellent food made by different
preparations of Milk, and all dry food out of which the sun hath
exhaled the gross humidity, by which all sorts of Pulses and Grains
become of a firmer substance. So, likewise, Oil is an excellent
thing, in nature more sublime and pure than Butter.” ...
As to the unsuspected cause of the various diseases so abundant:--
“Many of the richest sort of people in this nation might know by
woful experience, especially in London, who do yearly spend many
hundreds, I think I may say thousands, of pounds on their _ungodly
paunches_. Many of whom may save themselves that charge and trouble
they are usually at in learning of _Monsieur Nimble-heels_, the
Dancing-Master, how to go upright; for their bellies are swollen up
to their chins, which forces them ‘to behold the sky,’[296] but not
for contemplation sake you may be sure, but out of pure necessity,
and without any more impressions of reverence towards the Almighty
Creator than their fellow-brutes; for their brains are sunk into
their bellies; _injection and ejection_ is the business of their
life, and all their precious hours are spent between the platter
and the glass and the close-stool. Are not these fine fellows to
call themselves _Christians_ and _Right-Worshipfuls_.”[297]
In his xiv chapter, “Of Flesh and its Operation on the Body and Mind,”
Tryon employs all his eloquence in proving that the practice of
slaughtering for food is not only cruel and barbarous in itself, but
originates, or, at all events, intensifies the worst passions of men.
Eulogising the milder manners of the followers of Pythagoras, and of
the Hindus generally, he tells his countrymen that:--
“The very same, and far greater, advantages would come to
pass amongst Christians, if they would cease from contention,
oppression, and (what tends and disposes them thereunto) the
killing of other animals, and eating their flesh and blood; and,
in a short time, human murders and devilish feuds and cruelties
amongst each other would abate, and, perhaps, scarce have a
being amongst them. For _separation_ has greater power than most
imagine, whether it be from evil or from good; for whatever any
man separates himself from, that property in him presently is
weakened. Likewise, _separation_ from cruelty does wonderfully
dispel the dark clouds of ignorance, and makes the understanding
able to distinguish between the good and evil principles--first in
himself, and then in all other things proportionably. But so long
as men live under the power of all kinds of uncleanness, violence,
and oppression, they cannot see any evil therein. For this cause,
those who do not separate themselves from these evils, but are
contented to follow the multitude in the left-hand-way, and resolve
to continue the religion of their fore-fathers--though thereby they
do but continue mere _Custom_, the greatest of tyrants--’tis, I
say, impossible for such people ever to understand or know anything
_truly_, either of divine or of human things....
“It is a grand mistake of people in this age to say or suppose:
That Flesh affords not only a stronger nourishment, but also more
and better than Herbs, Grains, &c.; for the truth is, it does yield
more stimulation, _but not of so firm, a substance, nor so good
as that which proceeds from the other food_; for flesh has more
matter for corruption, and nothing so soon turns to putrefaction.
Now, ’tis certain, such sorts of food as are subject to putrify
_before_ they are eaten, are also liable to the same afterwards.
Besides, Flesh is of soft, moist, gross, phlegmy quality, and
generates a nourishment of a like nature; thirdly, Flesh heats the
body, and causeth a drought; fourthly, Flesh does breed great store
of noxious humours; fifthly, it must be considered that ‘beasts’
and other living creatures are subject to diseases[298] and many
other inconveniences, and uncleannesses, surfeits, over-driving,
abuses of cruel butchers, &c., which renders their flesh still more
unwholesome. But on the contrary, all sorts of dry foods, as Bread,
Cheese, Herbs, and many preparations of Milk, Pulses, Grains, and
Fruits; as their original is more clean, so, being of a sound firm
nature, they afford a more excellent nourishment, and more easy
of concoction; so that if a man should exceed in quantity, the
Health will not, thereby, be brought into such danger as by the
superfluous eating of flesh....
“What an ill and ungrateful sight is it to behold dead carcasses,
and pieces of bloody, raw, flesh! It would undoubtedly appear
dreadful, and no man but would abhor to think of putting it in
his mouth, had not Use and Custom from generation to generation
familiarised it to us, which is so prevalent, that we read in some
countries the mode is to eat the bodies of their dead parents
and friends, thinking they can no way afford them a more noble
sepulchre than their own bowells. And because it is _usual_, they
do it with as little regret or nauseousness as others have when
they devour the leg of a Rabbit or the wing of a Lark. Suppose a
person were bred up in a place where it were not a _custom_ to kill
and eat flesh, and should come into our Leadenhall Market, or view
our Slaughter Houses, and see the communication we have with dead
bodies, and how blythe and merry we are at their funerals, and
what honourable sepulchres we bury the dead carcasses of beasts
in--nay, their very guts and entrails--would he not be filled with
astonishment and horror? Would he not count us cruel monsters, and
say we were _brutified_, and performed the part of beasts of prey,
to live thus on the spoils of our fellow-creatures?
“Thus, Custom has awakened the inhuman, fierce nature, which makes
killing, handling, and feeding upon flesh and blood, without
distinction, so easy and familiar unto mankind. And the same is
to be understood of men killing and oppressing those of their own
kind; for do we not see that a soldier, who is trained up in the
wars of bloody-minded princes, shall kill a hundred men without any
trouble or regret of spirit, and such as have given him no more
offence than a sheep has given the butcher that cuts her throat.
If men have but Power and Custom on their side, they think all is
well.”