Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages

DR. JOHN M. ANDREW

Dr. Andrew is a practitioner of medicine in Remsen, Oneida county, State of New York. His letter was intended for chapter iv., but came too late. This fact is the only apology for inserting it in this place. Several interesting cases of dietetic reform accompanied the letter, but I must omit them, for want of room, in this work.

Remsen, April 28, 1838.

Dear Sir – It is now about sixteen months since I adopted an exclusively vegetable diet. I have, however, never been very much inclined to animal food; and, indeed, before I ever heard of the Graham system I laid it aside, during summer, when farming – which, by the by, had always been my occupation till I commenced my professional course, about four years ago. I have, to the best of my knowledge, enjoyed what is commonly called good health, and possessed a degree of strength surpassed only by few; and in connection with the assiduous cultivation of my mental faculties, I have carefully sought to improve my physical powers, which I deem of incalculable worth to the student, as well as to the laborer.

My attention was first called to the subject of vegetable eating by Professor Mussey, in a lecture before the medical class of the Western Medical College of New York, while fulfilling the duties of the professorship, to which he was called in 1836. In that lecture our adaptations, and the design of the Creator in regard to our mode of subsistence, were clearly held forth, and such was the impression made on my mind, that I was induced at once to adopt the vegetable system, both in practice and theory. In my change of diet I did not suffer any inconvenience. The fact that I had, for some length of time, been living mostly on vegetables, will account for that circumstance, however.

But the great advantages derived from the change were soon perceptible, though not appreciated by others. I met with much opposition from my friends, frequently being told that I was fast losing my flesh and all my youthful vigor and vivacity. And yet, for one year and more, I have not lost a pound of flesh.

I was gazed upon as an anomaly in society; some anxiously looking, and others fearfully expecting my downfall and destruction; but both are alike disappointed. The system, though I have not been able to follow it so strictly as I could wish, from the circumstances in which I have been placed, has far exceeded my expectations. One year and more has rolled away, and I thank God I can look back, with some degree of satisfaction, on the time spent in the enjoyment of that alone which sweetens the cup of life. My most able advocacy has been my manual exertions and I have demonstrated the utility of the system alike to the professional and laboring classes of community.

I do not go beyond the truth when I say, that I cannot find a man to vie with me in the field, with the scythe, the fork, or the axe. I do not want any thing but potatoes and salt; and I can cut and put up four cords of wood in a day, with no very great exertion. I have frequently been told, by friends, that my potato and salt system would not stand the test of the field; but I have silenced their clamor by actual demonstration with all the implements above named.

At present, no consideration would induce me to return to my former mode of living.

John M. Andrew.

DR. WILLIAM SWEETSER, OF BOSTON

Dr. Sweetser is the author of a "Treatise on Consumption," and of a "Treatise on Digestion." He has also been a medical professor in the University of Vermont, and a public lecturer on health, in Boston.

In his work on consumption, while speaking of the prevailing belief of a necessity for the use of animal food to those children who possess the scrofulous or consumptive tendency, he thus remarks:

"A diet of milk and mild farinaceous articles, with perhaps light animal decoctions, appears best suited to the early years of life. Whenever there exists an evident inflammatory tendency, as is the case in some scrofulous systems, solid animal food, if used at all, should be taken with the greatest precaution.

"And again – how often is it that fat, plethoric, meat-eating children, their faces looking as though the blood was just ready to ooze out, are with the greatest complacency exhibited by their parents as patterns of health! But let it ever be remembered, that the condition of the system popularly called rude or full health, and which is the result of high feeding, is too often closely bordering on a state of disease."

In his work on digestion he seems to regard man as naturally an omnivorous animal; and, taking this for granted, he speaks as follows respecting his diet:

"One would hardly assert that even in temperate climates his (man's) system requires animal food. I doubt whether any instance can be adduced – unless man be regarded as such – of an omnivorous animal incapable of being adequately nourished by a sufficient and proper vegetable diet.

"Man, dwelling in a temperate climate, and with the power to choose, almost uniformly employs a mixture of animal and vegetable food; but how much early education may have to do in forming his taste for a mixed diet it is difficult to estimate. Habit has certainly great influence in attaching us to particular kinds of aliment. One who has long been accustomed to animal food cannot at once abstain from it without experiencing some feebleness for the want of its stimulation, and perhaps even temporary emaciation. And, on the other hand, he who has long been confined to a vegetable diet is apt to lose his relish for flesh, and, on recurring suddenly to its use, to find it too exciting.

"The liberal use of animal food has been generally thought requisite in arctic climes, to stimulate the functions, and thus furnish a more abundant supply of animal heat, to preserve against the extremity of external temperature. Northern voyagers mostly believe that fat animal food and oils are essential to the maintenance of health and life in the inhabitants of those frozen regions. But to me it would seem that their habits, in respect to diet, prove the capabilities, rather than the necessities, of their systems. They learn to eat their coarse fare because they can get no other. Their food, moreover, as is generally the case in savage life, is precarious; and thus, being at times exposed to extreme want, they are stimulated to greater excesses when their supplies are ample.

"The fact of man's dwelling in them (the arctic regions), and eating what he can get there, no more proves him to be naturally a flesh-eating animal than the circumstance of some cattle learning to eat fish, when they are in situations where they can obtain no other food, proves them to be piscivorous.

"Haller conceived it necessary that human life should be sustained by animal and vegetable food, so apportioned that neither should be in excess; and he asserts that abstinence from animal food causes great weakness in the body, and usually a troublesome diarrhœa. But such an opinion is certainly incorrect, since not only particular individuals, but even numbers of people, dwelling in temperate climates, from various causes, subsist almost wholly on vegetable substances, and yet preserve their health and vigor.

"Were we educated to its exclusive use, I am persuaded that a vegetable diet would afford us ample support; but whether, if restrained from animal food, we should, as a consequence, in the course of time, and under equally favoring circumstances in other respects, rise still higher in our moral and physical nature, remains, as I conceive, to be proved."

These views of Dr. S. were repeated, in substance, in a course of lectures given by him at the Masonic Temple, in Boston, in 1838. It will be seen that he concedes what the friends of the vegetable system deem a very important point, viz., that man's whole powers, physical, intellectual, and moral, can be well developed on a diet exclusively vegetable. We do not ask him to grant more. If man is as well off on vegetable food as without it, we have moral reasons of so much weight to place against animal food, as, when duly considered, will be, by all candid persons, sufficient to lead to its rejection.

True, we do not believe, with Dr. S. – at least I do not – that "whether a diet purely vegetable, or one comprehending both animal and vegetable food, would be most conducive to health, longevity, and intellectual, moral, and physical development, is a question only to be determined by a long course of experiments, made by various individuals in equal health, and placed, in all other respects, under as nearly similar circumstances as practicable." I believe this course of experiment does not remain to be made, but that it has been made, most fully, during the last four or five thousand years, and that the question is settled in favor – wholly so – of vegetable food. Still I do not ask physicians and other medical men to grant more than Dr. S. has; it is quite as much as we ought to expect of them.

DR. A. L. PIERSON

Dr. Pierson, of Salem, in Massachusetts, a physician and surgeon of considerable eminence, in a lecture some time ago, before the American Institute of Instruction, observed that "young men who were anxious to avail themselves of the advantages of a liberal education, and were therefore compelled to consult economy, had found out that it was not necessary to pay three or four dollars a week for mere board, when the most vigorous and uniform health may be secured by a diet of mere vegetable food and water."

I know not that Dr. P. avows himself an advocate for the exclusive use of vegetable food, but if what I have quoted is not enough to satisfy us in regard to his opinion of its safety, and its full power to develop body and mind, I know not what would be. If the most vigorous and uniform health can be secured on vegetable food, what individual in the world – in view of the moral considerations at least – would ever resort to the carcasses of animals?

STATEMENT OF DR. C. BYINGTON, OF PHILADELPHIA

A physician of some eminence, residing in Philadelphia, has been heard to say that it was his decided opinion that mankind would live longest, and be healthiest and happiest, on mere bread and water. I may add here, that there was every evidence but one that he was sincere in this statement, although I do not fully accord with him, believing that the best health requires variety of food – not, indeed, at the same meal, but at different ones. The exception I make in regard to his sincerity, is in reference to the fact, that while he professed to believe a bread and vegetable diet to be best for mankind, he did not adopt it.

TESTIMONY OF A PHYSICIAN IN NEW YORK

In the work entitled "Hints to a Fashionable Lady," by a physician – his name not given – we find the following testimony:

"Young persons invariably do best on simple but moderately nutritious fare. Too large a proportion of animal food and fatty substances are pernicious to the complexion. On the contrary, a diet which is principally vegetable, with the luxuries of the dairy (not butter, surely, for that is elsewhere prohibited), is most advantageous. Nowhere are finer complexions to be found than in those parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, where the living is almost exclusively vegetable.

"Those who subsist entirely on vegetable food have seldom, if ever, a constantly bad breath, or an offensive perspiration. It has been ascertained that the teeth are uniformly best in those countries where least animal food is used."

THE FEMALE'S CYCLOPEDIA

From a fugitive volume, entitled "The Female's Cyclopedia," I have concluded to make the following extract, because I have reason to believe the writer to have been a physician:

"Animal food certainly gives most strength; but its stimulancy excites fever, and produces plethora and its consequences. The system is sooner worn out by a repetition of its stimuli, and those who indulge greatly in such diet are more likely to be carried off early by inflammatory diseases; or if, by judicious exercise, they qualify its effects, they yet acquire such an accumulation of putrescent fluids as becomes the foundation for the most inveterate chronic diseases in after age.

"The most valuable state of the mind, however, appears to be connected with somewhat less of firmness and vigor of body. Vegetable aliment, as never over-distending the vessels or loading the system, does not interrupt the stronger emotions of the mind; while the heat, fullness, and weight of animal food, are inimical to its vigorous exertion. Temperance, therefore, does not so much consist in the quantity – since the appetite will regulate that – as in the quality; namely, in a large proportion of vegetable aliment."

DR. VAN COOTH

Dr. Van Cooth, a learned European writer – I believe a Hollander – has recently maintained, incidentally, in a learned medical dissertation, that the great body of the ancient Egyptians and Persians "confined themselves to a vegetable diet." To be sure, Dr. V. does not seem to be a vegetable eater himself, but the friends of the latter system are not the less indebted to him for the concession. The physical and moral superiority of those vegetable eating nations, in the days of their glory, are well known; and every intelligent reader of history, and honest inquirer after truth, will make his own inferences from the facts which I have mentioned.

DR. WILLIAM BEAUMONT

The work of this gentleman, entitled "Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion," is well known – at least to the medical community. The following are some of the conclusions to which his experiments conducted him:

"Solid aliment, thoroughly masticated, is far more salutary than soups, broths, etc.

"Fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every kind, are difficult of digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to derange that organ and induce disease.

"Spices, pepper, stimulating and heating condiments of every kind, retard digestion and injure the stomach.

"Coffee and tea debilitate the stomach and impair digestion.

"Simple water is the only fluid called for by the wants of the economy; the artificial drinks are all more or less injurious – some more so than others; but none can claim exemption from the general charge."

If it should be said that this testimony of Dr. Beaumont is by no means directly in favor of a diet exclusively vegetable. I admit it. But he certainly goes very far toward conceding every thing which I claim, when he says that "fat meats, butter, and oily substances of every kind, are difficult of digestion, offensive to the stomach, and tend to derange that organ and induce disease;" and especially when he speaks so highly of farinaceous substances and good fruits. Pray, what animal food can be eaten which does not contain, at least, a small quantity of oil? And if this oil tends to induce disease, and farinaceous food does not, why should not animal food be excluded?

SIR EVERARD HOME

This distinguished philosopher and medical gentleman, though, like many others, he insisted that vegetable food did not produce full muscular development, yet admitted the natural character of man to be that of a vegetable eater, in the following, or nearly the following, terms:

"In the history of man – in the Bible – we are told that dominion over the animal world was bestowed upon him at his creation; but the divine permission to indulge in animal food was not given till after the flood. The observations I have to make accord strongly with this tradition; for, while mankind remained in a state of innocence, there is every ground to believe that their only food was the produce of the vegetable kingdom."

DR. JENNINGS

Dr. Jennings is the author of a work published at Oberlin, Ohio, in 1847, entitled "Medical Reform." In this volume, at page 198, we find the following facts and statements. The author is comparing the effects of animal food on the human system with those of alcohol, from which we learn his views concerning the former:

"Position I. – Animal food, in common with alcohol, creates a feverish diathesis, evidences of which are – 1. An impaired state of the respiratory function. 2. The pulse is rendered more frequent and irregular, both by alcohol and meat. 3. A feverish heat is generated in the system, and persons are made more thirsty, by the use of both these substances. 4. Both substances equally induce what is called the digestive fever.

"Position II. – Alcoholic drinks lay the foundation for occasional disturbances in the system, of different kinds and grades, as bilious bowel affections, etc., and so do flesh meats. In the production of colds, animal food is far the most efficient.

"Position III. – Animal food tends, quite as strongly as the moderate use of alcoholic liquors, to weaken and disturb the balance of action between the secerning and excerning systems of vessels, by which some persons become leaner and others fleshier than they should be.

"Position IV. – With about equal potency alcohol and flesh meats weaken the force of the capillaries of the system, on which healthy action so much depends.

"Position V. – A flesh diet, in common with the use of strong drink, impairs the tone of the nutritive apparatus, by which its ability to work up raw material and manufacture it into sound, well finished vital fabric, is diminished, and of course the appetite or call for food is satisfied with a less quantity of the raw material. This fact has given rise to the opinion that animal food contains more nutriment than vegetable.

"Position VI. – The total abandonment of an habitual use of animal food is attended with all the perplexing, uncomfortable, and distressing difficulties that follow the giving up of an habitual use of strong drink. A change from one kind of simple nutriment to another has no such effect. It is only when the constant use of some stimulating substance is abandoned that such difficulties are experienced."

DR. JARVIS

This gentleman, in his "Practical Physiology," at page 86, has the following thoughts:

"Some have contended that man was designed to eat only of the fruits and vegetables of the earth; while others maintain, with equal confidence, that he should add to these the flesh of beasts. There are many individuals, both in this and other countries, who confine themselves to vegetable diet. They believe they enjoy better health, and maintain greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet. The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to determine its value. It has not proved a failure, nor has it demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that flesh is injurious."¹⁴

DR. TICKNOR

"From the fact," says this author, "that animal food is proper and necessary for health in polar regions, and that a vegetable diet is equally proper and necessary in the torrid zone, we may conclude that in winter, in our own climate, an animal diet is the best; while vegetables are more conducive to health in the summer season."

It would not be difficult to prove, from the very concessions of Dr. T., that vegetable food is better adapted to health, in general, than animal; but I forbear to do so, in this place. The subject will be fully discussed in the concluding chapter.

DR. COLES

The author of a small volume recently published at Boston, entitled the "Philosophy of Health; or, Health without Medicine," is more decided in his views on diet than any late writer I have seen, except Dr. Jennings and O. S. Fowler. He says, at page 35:

"Man, in his original, holy state, was provided for from the vegetables of that happy garden which was given him to prune. This was the Creator's original plan; * * * * the eating of flesh was one of the consequences of the fall. Living on vegetable food is undoubtedly the most natural and healthy method of subsistence."

Again, at page 45 – "The objections, then, against meat-eating are threefold – intellectual, moral, and physical. Its tendency is to check intellectual activity, to depreciate moral sentiment, and to derange the fluids of the body."

DR. SHEW

This active physician is zealously devoted to the propagation of hydropathy. He uses no medicine in the management of disease – nothing at all but water. To this, however, he adds great attention to diet. In his Journal,¹⁵ and elsewhere, he is a zealous and able advocate of the vegetable system, preferring it himself, and recommending it to his patients and followers.

Dr. Shew's opinion, in this particular, is entitled to the more weight from the fact of his having been very familiar with disease and diet, both in the old world and the new. He has been twice to Germany; and has spent much time at Graefenberg, with Priessnitz, the founder of the system which he so zealously defends and practices, and so strongly advocates.

DR. MORRILL

Dr. C. Morrill, in a recent work entitled, "Physiology of Woman, and her Diseases," says much in favor of an exclusively vegetable diet in some of the diseases of woman; and among other things, makes the following general remarks:

"Even by those who labor (referring here to the healthy), meat should be taken moderately, and but once a day. The sedentary, generally, do not need it."

DR. BELL

This gentleman's testimony has been given elsewhere. I only subjoin the following: "By far the greater number of the inhabitants of the earth have used, in all ages, and continue to use, at this time, vegetable aliment alone."

DR. BRADLEY

Dr. D. B. Bradley, the distinguished missionary at Bangkok, in Siam, though not exactly a vegetable eater, is favorably disposed to the vegetable system. He has read Graham and myself with great care, and is an anxious inquirer after all truth.

DR. STEPHENSON

Dr. Chauncy Stephenson, of Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in what he calls his "New System of Medicine," commends to all his readers, for their sustenance, "pure air, a proper temperature, good vegetable food, and pure cold water." And lest he should be misunderstood, he immediately adds – "The best articles of food for general use are good, well-baked cold bread, made of rye and Indian corn, wheat or barley meal; rice, good ripe fruits of all kinds, both fresh and dried, and a proper proportion of good roots, such as potatoes, parsneps, turnips, onions, etc." Even milk he regards as a questionable food for adults or middle aged persons.

Again, he says: "Animal food, in general, digests sooner than most kinds of vegetables; and not being so much in accordance with man's nature, constitution, and moral character, it is very liable, finally, to generate disease, inflammation, or fever, even when it is not taken to excess." He closes by advising all persons to content themselves with "pure vegetable food;" and that in the least quantity compatible with good health.

DR. J. BURDELL,

A distinguished dentist of New York, has long been a vegetable eater, and a zealous defender of the faith (in this particular) which he professes.

DR. THOMAS SMETHURST,

In a work entitled Hydrotherapia, says, "Children thrive best upon a simple, moderately nourishing vegetable diet." And if children thus thrive the best, why not adults?

DR. SCHLEMMER

Dr. C. V. Schlemmer, a German by birth, but now an adopted son of old England, in giving an account of the diet of himself, his three sons of eleven, ten, and four years of age, with their tutor, observes: "Raw peas, beans, and fruit are our food: our teeth are our mills; the stomach is the kitchen." And all of them, as he affirms, enjoy the best of health. For himself, as he says, he has practiced in this way six years.

DR. CURTIS, AND OTHERS

Dr. Curtis, a distinguished botanic physician of Ohio, with several other physicians, both of the old and the new school, whom I have not named, do not hesitate to regard a pure vegetable diet, in the abstract, as by far the best for all mankind, both in health and disease.

Dr. Porter, of Waltham, for example, when I meet him, always concedes that a well-selected vegetable diet is superior to every other. He has repeatedly told me of an experiment he made, of three months, on mere bread and water. Never, says he, was I more vigorous in body and mind, than at the end of this experiment. But the reader well knows that I am not an advocate of a diet of mere bread and water. I regard fruits, or fruit juices – unfermented – almost as necessary, to adults, as bread.

PROF. C. U. SHEPARD

The reputation of this gentleman, in the scientific world, is so well known, that no apology can be necessary for inserting his testimony. As a chemist, he is second to very few, if any, men in this country. The following are his remarks:

"Start not back at the idea of subsisting upon the potato alone, ye who think it necessary to load your tables with all the dainty viands of the market – with fish, flesh, and fowl, seasoned with oil and spices, and eaten, perhaps, with wines; – start not back, I say, with disgust, until you are able to display in your own pampered persons a firmer muscle, a more beau-ideal outline, and a healthier red than the potato-fed peasantry of Ireland and Scotland once showed you, as you passed by their cabin doors!

"No; the chemical physiologist will tell you that the well ripened potato, when properly cooked, contains every element that man requires for nutrition; and in the best proportion in which they are found in any plant whatever. There is the abounding supply of starch for enabling him to maintain the process of breathing, and for generating the necessary warmth of body; there is the nitrogen for contributing to the growth and renovation of organs; the lime and phosphorus for the bones; and all the salts which a healthy circulation demands. In fine, the potato may well be called the universal plant."

BLACKWOOD, IN HIS MAGAZINE

"Chemistry," says Blackwood's Magazine, "has already told us many remarkable things in regard to the vegetable food we eat – that it contains, for example, a certain per centage of the actual fat and lean we consume in our beef, or mutton, or pork – and, therefore, that he who lives on vegetable food may be as strong as the man who lives on animal food, because both in reality feed on the same things, in a somewhat different form."

There is this difference, however, that in the one case – that is, in the use of the vegetables which contain the elements referred to – we save the trouble of running it through the body of the living animal, and losing seven eighths of it, as we do, practically in the process; whereas in the other we do not. We also save ourselves the necessity of training the young and the old to scenes of butchery and blood.

PROF. JOHNSTON

This gentleman, in a recent edition of his "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry and Geology," tells us that from experiments made in the laboratory of the Agricultural Association of Scotland, wheat and oats, when analyzed, contain of nutritious properties the following proportion:

Thus oats, and even wheat, are quite rich in that which forms muscular matter in the human body.

SIMEON COLLINS, OF WESTFIELD, MASS

This gentleman, in his fifty-first year, states that having been for several years afflicted with a severe cough, which he supposed bordered upon consumption, he "discontinued the use of flesh meat, fish, fowl, butter, gravy, tea, and coffee, and made use of a plain vegetable diet." "My bread," says he, "is made of unbolted wheat meal; my drink is pure cold water; my bed, for winter and summer, is made of the everlasting flower; and my health is, and ever has been, perfect, since I got fairly cleansed from the filthiness of flesh meat, and other pernicious articles of diet in common use.

"My business requires a great degree of activity, and I can truly say that I am a stranger to weariness or languor. At the time of entering upon this system, I had a wife and five children, the youngest eight years of age; – they all soon entered upon the same course of living with myself, and soon were all benefited in health. I have now six children – the youngest fifteen months old, and as happy as a lark. Previous to the time of our adopting the present system of living, my expenses for medicine and physicians would range from $20 to $30 a year – for the last four years it has been nothing worth naming."

REV. JOSEPH EMERSON

Mr. Emerson was a teacher of eminence, known throughout the United States, but particularly so in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He died in the latter state, in 1833, aged about fifty-five. He had long been a miserable dyspeptic, but was probably kept alive amid certain strange violations of physical law, such as studying hard till midnight, for example, for many years, by his great care in regard to his diet. Mrs. Banister, late Miss Z. P. Grant (the associate, at Ipswich, of Miss Lyon, who died recently at South Hadley, who was his pupil), thus speaks of his rigid habits:

"He not only uniformly rejected whatever food he had decided to be injurious to him, but whatever he deemed necessary for his food or drink, was always taken, whether at home or abroad. As his diet, for several years, consisted generally, either of bread and milk, or of bread and butter, what solid food he wanted could be supplied at any table."¹⁶

It is also testified of him, by his brother, Prof. Emerson, of Andover, that "for more than thirty years he adopted the practice of eating but one kind at a meal." If I do not misremember, for I knew him well, he was in favor of banishing flesh and fish, and substituting milk and fruits in their stead, on Bible ground. – I refer here to the Divine arrangement in the first chapter of Genesis; and which has never, that I am aware, been altered.

TAK SISSON

Tak Sisson, as he was called, was a slave in the family of a man in Rhode Island, before and during the Revolution.

From early childhood he could never be prevailed on to eat any flesh or fish, but he subsisted on vegetable food and milk; neither could he be persuaded to eat high seasoned food of any kind. When he was a child, his parents used to scold him severely, and threaten to whip him because he refused to eat flesh. They said to him (as I have been told a thousand times), that if he did not eat meat he would never be good for any thing, but would always be a poor, puny creature.