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

But Tak persevered in his vegetable and unstimulating diet, and, to the surprise of all, grew fast, and his body was finely developed and athletic. He was very stout and robust, and altogether the most vigorous and dexterous of any of the family. He finally became more than six feet high, and every way well proportioned, and remarkable for his agility and strength. He was so uncommonly shrewd, bright, strong, and active, that he became notorious for his shrewdness, and for his feats of strength and agility. Indeed, he was so full of his playful mischief as greatly to annoy his overseer.

During the Revolutionary War it became an object to take Gen. Prescott. A door was to be forced where he was quartered and sleeping, and Tak was selected for the work. Having taken his lesson from the American officer, he proceeded to the door, plunged his thick head against it, burst it open, roused Gen. P., like a tiger sprung upon him, seized him in his brawny arms, and in a low, stern voice, said, "One word, and you are a dead man." Then hastily snatching the general's cloak and wrapping it round him, at the same time telling a companion to take care of the rest of his clothes, he took him in his arms, as if a child, and ran with him to a boat which was waiting, and escaped with his prisoner without rousing even the British sentinels.

Tak lived on his vegetable fare to a very advanced age, and was remarkable, through life, for his activity, strength, and shrewdness.

CHAPTER VI.
TESTIMONY OF PHILOSOPHERS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN

General Remarks. – Testimony of Plautus. – Plutarch. – Porphyry. – Lord Bacon. – Sir William Temple. – Cicero. – Cyrus the Great. – Gassendi. – Prof. Hitchcock. – Lord Kaims. – Dr. Thomas Dick. – Prof. Bush. – Thomas Shillitoe. – Alexander Pope. – Sir Richard Phillips. – Sir Isaac Newton. – The Abbé Gallani. – Homer. – Dr. Franklin. – Mr. Newton. – O. S. Fowler. – Rev. Mr. Johnston. – John H. Chandler. – Rev. J. Caswell. – Mr. Chinn. – Father Sewall. – Magliabecchi. – Oberlin and Swartz. – James Haughton. – John Bailies. – Francis Hupazoli. – Prof. Ferguson. – Howard, the Philanthropist. – Gen. Elliot. – Encyclopedia Americana. – Thomas Bell, of London. – Linnæus, the Naturalist. – Shelley, the Poet. – Rev. Mr. Rich. – Rev. John Wesley. – Lamartine.

GENERAL REMARKS

This chapter might have been much more extended than it is. I might have mentioned, for example, the cases of Daniel and his three brethren, at the court of the Babylonian monarch, who certainly maintained their health – if they did not even improve it – by vegetable food, and by a form of it, too, which has by many been considered rather doubtful. I might have mentioned the case of Paul,¹⁷ who, though he occasionally appears to have eaten flesh, said, expressly, that he would abstain from it while the world stood, where a great moral end was to be gained; and no one can suppose he would have done so, had he feared any injury would thereby result to his constitution of body or mind.

The case of William Penn, if I remember rightly what he says in his "No Cross no Crown," would have been in point. Jefferson, the third President of the United States, was, according to his own story, almost a vegetable eater, during the whole of his long life. He says he abstained principally from animal food; using it, if he used it at all, only as a condiment for his vegetables. And does any one, who has read his remarks, doubt that his "convictions" were in favor of the exclusive use of vegetable food?

However, to prevent the volume from much exceeding the limits originally assigned it, I will be satisfied – and I hope the public will – with the following selections of testimonies, ancient and modern; some of more, some of less importance; but all of them, as it appears to me, worthy of being collected and incorporated into a volume like this, and faithfully and carefully examined.

PLAUTUS

Plautus, a distinguished dramatic Roman writer, who flourished about two thousand years ago, gives the following remarkable testimony against the use of animal food, and of course in favor of the salubrity of vegetables; addressed, indeed, to his own countrymen and times, but scarcely less applicable to our own:

"You apply the term wild to lions, panthers, and serpents; yet, in your own savage slaughters, you surpass them in ferocity; for the blood shed by them is a matter of necessity, and requisite for their subsistence.

"But, that man is not, by nature, destined to devour animal food, is evident from the construction of the human frame, which bears no resemblance to wild beasts or birds of prey. Man is not provided with claws or talons, with sharpness of fang or tusk, so well adapted to tear and lacerate; nor is his stomach so well braced and muscular, nor his animal spirits so warm, as to enable him to digest this solid mass of animal flesh. On the contrary, nature has made his teeth smooth, his mouth narrow, and his tongue soft; and has contrived, by the slowness of his digestion, to divert him from devouring a species of food so ill adapted to his frame and constitution. But, if you still maintain that such is your natural mode of subsistence, then follow nature in your mode of killing your prey, and employ neither knife, hammer, nor hatchet – but, like wolves, bears, and lions, seize an ox with your teeth, grasp a boar round the body, or tear asunder a lamb or a hare, and, like the savage tribe, devour them still panting in the agonies of death.

"We carry our luxury still farther, by the variety of sauces and seasonings which we add to our beastly banquets – mixing together oil, wine, honey, pickles, vinegar, and Syrian and Arabian ointments and perfumes, as if we intended to bury and embalm the carcasses on which we feed. The difficulty of digesting such a mass of matter, reduced in our stomachs to a state of liquefaction and putrefaction, is the source of endless disorders in the human frame.

"First of all, the wild, mischievous animals were selected for food; and then the birds and fishes were dragged to slaughter; next, the human appetite directed itself against the laborious ox, the useful and fleece-bearing sheep, and the cock, the guardian of the house. At last, by this preparatory discipline, man became matured for human massacres, slaughters, and wars."

PLUTARCH

"It is best to accustom ourselves to eat no flesh at all, for the earth affords plenty enough of things not only fit for nourishment, but for enjoyment and delight; some of which may be eaten without much preparation, and others may be made pleasant by adding divers other things to them.

"You ask me," continues Plutarch, "'for what reason Pythagoras abstained from eating the flesh of brutes?' For my part, I am astonished to think, on the contrary, what appetite first induced man to taste of a dead carcass; or what motive could suggest the notion of nourishing himself with the flesh of animals which he saw, the moment before, bleating, bellowing, walking, and looking around them. How could he bear to see an impotent and defenceless creature slaughtered, skinned, and cut up for food? How could he endure the sight of the convulsed limbs and muscles? How bear the smell arising from the dissection? Whence happened it that he was not disgusted and struck with horror when he came to handle the bleeding flesh, and clear away the clotted blood and humors from the wounds?

"We should therefore rather wonder at the conduct of those who first indulged themselves in this horrible repast, than at such as have humanely abstained from it."

PORPHYRY, OF TYRE

Porphyry, of Tyre, lived about the middle of the third century, and wrote a book on abstinence from animal food. This book was addressed to an individual who had once followed the vegetable system, but had afterward relinquished it. The following is an extract from it:

"You owned, when you lived among us, that a vegetable diet was preferable to animal food, both for preserving the health and for facilitating the study of philosophy; and now, since you have eat flesh, your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was true. It was not from those who lived on vegetables that robbers or murderers, sycophants or tyrants, have proceeded; but from flesh-eaters. The necessaries of life are few and easily acquired, without violating justice, liberty, health, or peace of mind; whereas luxury obliges those vulgar souls who take delight in it to covet riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to misspend their time, to ruin their health and to renounce the joy of an upright conscience."

He takes pains to persuade men of the truth of the two following propositions:

1st. "That a conquest over the appetites and passions will greatly contribute to preserve health and to remove distempers.

2d. "That a simple vegetable food, being easily procured and easily digested, is a mighty help toward obtaining this conquest over ourselves."

To prove the first proposition, he appeals to experience, and proves that many of his acquaintance who had disengaged themselves from the care of amassing riches, and turning their thoughts to spiritual subjects, had got rid entirely of their bodily distempers.

In confirmation of the second proposition, he argues in the following manner: "Give me a man who considers, seriously, what he is, whence he came, and whither he must go, and from these considerations resolves not to be led astray nor governed by his passions; and let such a man tell me whether a rich animal diet is more easily procured or incites less to irregular passions and appetites than a light vegetable diet! But if neither he, nor a physician, nor indeed any reasonable man whatsoever, dares to affirm this, why do we oppress ourselves with animal food, and why do we not, together with luxury and flesh meat, throw off the incumbrances and snares which attend them?"

LORD BACON

Lord Bacon, in his treatise on Life and Death, says, "It seems to be approved by experience, that a spare and almost a Pythagorean diet, such as is prescribed by the strictest monastic life, or practiced by hermits, is most favorable to long life."

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE

"The patriarchs' abodes were not in cities, but in open countries and fields. Their lives were pastoral, and employed in some sorts of agriculture. They were of the same race, to which their marriages were generally confined. Their diet was simple, as that of the ancients is generally represented. Among them flesh and wine were seldom used, except at sacrifices at solemn feasts.

"The Brachmans, among the old Indians, were all of the same races, lived in fields and in woods, after the course of their studies was ended, and fed only upon rice, milk, and herbs.

"The Brazilians, when first discovered, lived the most natural, original lives of mankind, so frequently described in ancient countries, before laws, or property, or arts made entrance among them; and so their customs may be concluded to have been yet more simple than either of the other two. They lived without business or labor, further than for their necessary food, by gathering fruits, herbs, and plants. They knew no other drink but water; were not tempted to eat or drink beyond common appetite and thirst; were not troubled with either public or domestic cares, and knew no pleasures but the most simple and natural.

"From all these examples and customs, it may probably be concluded that the common ingredients of health and long life are, great temperance, open air, easy labor, little care, simplicity of diet – rather fruits and plants than flesh, which easier corrupts – and water, which preserves the radical moisture without too much increasing the radical heat. Whereas sickness, decay, and death proceed commonly from the one preying too fast upon the other, and at length wholly extinguishing it."

CICERO

This eminent man sometimes, if not usually, confined himself to vegetable food. Of this we have evidence, in his complaints about the refinements of cookery – that they were continually tempting him to excess, etc. He says, that after having withstood all the temptations that the noblest lampreys and oysters could throw in his way, he was at last overpowered by paltry beets and mallows. A victory, by the way, which, in the case of the eater of plain food, is very often achieved.

CYRUS THE GREAT

This distinguished warrior was brought up, like the inferior Persians, on bread, cresses, and water; and, notwithstanding the temptations of a luxurious and voluptuous court, he rigorously adhered to his simple diet. Nay, he even carried his simple habits nearly through life with him; and it was not till he had completely established one of the largest and most powerful empires of antiquity that he began to yield to the luxuries of the times. Had he pursued his steady course of temperance through life, the historian, instead of recording his death at only seventy, might have told us that he died at a hundred or a hundred and fifty.

PETER GASSENDI

Two hundred and twenty years ago, Peter Gassendi, a famous French philosopher – and by the way, one of the most learned men of his time – wrote a long epistle to Van Helmont, a Dutch chemist, on the question whether the teeth of mankind indicate that they are naturally flesh-eaters.

In this epistle, too long for insertion here,¹⁸ Gassendi maintains, with great ingenuity, that the human teeth were not made for flesh. He does not evade any of the facts in the case, but meets them all fairly and discusses them freely. And after having gone through with all parts of the argument, and answered every other conceivable objection, he thus concludes:

"And here I feel that it may be objected to me: Why, then, do you not, yourself, abstain from flesh and feed only on fruits and vegetables? I must plead the force of habit, for my excuse. In persons of mature age nature appears to be so wholly changed, that this artificial habit cannot be renounced without some detriment. But I confess that if I were wise, and relinquishing the use of flesh, should gradually accustom myself to the gifts of the kind earth, I have little doubt that I should enjoy more regular health, and acquire greater activity of mind. For truly our numerous diseases, and the dullness of our faculties, seem principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse. In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads of man's nature."

I know how it strikes many when they find such men as Gassendi, admitting the doctrines for which I contend, in theory, and even strenuously defending them, and yet setting them at naught in practice. Surely, say they, such persons cannot be sincere. For myself, however, I draw a very different conclusion. Their conduct is perfectly in harmony with that of the theoretic friends of cold water, plain dress, and abstemiousness in general. They are compelled to admit the truth; but it is so much against their habits, as in the case of Gassendi, besides being still more strongly opposed to their lusts and appetites, that they cannot, or rather, will not conform to what they believe, in their daily practice. Their testimony, to me, is the strongest that can be obtained, because they testify against themselves, and in spite of themselves.

PROF. HITCHCOCK

This gentleman, a distinguished professor in Amherst College, is the author of a work, entitled "Dyspepsia Forestalled and Resisted," which has been read by many, and execrated by not a few of those who are so wedded to their lusts as to be unwilling to be told of their errors.

I am not aware that Professor H. has any where, in his writings, urged a diet exclusively vegetable, for all classes of the community, although I believe he does not hesitate to urge it on all students; and one might almost infer, from his works of various kinds, that if he is not already a believer in the doctrines of its universal superiority to a mixed diet, he is not very far from it. In a sermon of his, in the National Preacher, for November, 1834, he calls a diet exclusively vegetable, a "proper course of living."

I propose to add here a few anecdotes of his, which I know not how to find elsewhere.

"Pythagoras restricted himself to vegetable food altogether, his dinner being bread, honey, and water; and he lived upward of eighty years. Matthew (St. Matthew, I suppose he means), according to Clement, lived upon vegetable diet. Galen, one of the most distinguished of the ancient physicians, lived one hundred and forty years, and composed between seven and eight hundred essays on medical and philosophical subjects; and he was always, after the age of twenty-eight, extremely sparing in the quantity of his food. The Cardinal de Salis, Archbishop of Seville, who lived one hundred and ten years, was invariably sparing in his diet. One Lawrence, an Englishman, by temperance and labor lived one hundred and forty years; and one Kentigern, who never tasted spirits or wine, and slept on the ground and labored hard, died at the age of one hundred and eighty-five. Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, who died at the age of one hundred and sixty-nine, was a poor fisherman, as long as he could follow this pursuit; and ultimately he became a beggar, living on the coarsest and most sparing diet. Old Parr, who died at the age of one hundred and fifty-three, was a farmer, of extremely abstemious habits, his diet being solely milk, cheese, coarse bread, small beer, and whey. At the age of one hundred and twenty he married a second wife by whom he had a child. But being taken to court, as a great curiosity, in his one hundred and fifty-second year, he very soon died – as the physicians decidedly testified, after dissection, in consequence of a change from a parsimonious to a plentiful diet. Henry Francisco, of this country, who lived to about one hundred and forty, was, except for a certain period, remarkably abstemious, eating but little, and particularly abstaining almost entirely from animal food; his favorite articles being tea, bread and butter, and baked apples. Mr. Ephraim Pratt, of Shutesbury, Mass., who died at the age of one hundred and seventeen years, lived very much upon milk, and that in small quantity; and his son, Michael Pratt, attained to the age of one hundred and three, by similar means."

Speaking, in another place, of a milk diet, Professor H. observes, that "a diet chiefly of milk produces a most happy serenity, vigor, and cheerfulness of mind – very different from the gloomy, crabbed, and irritable temper, and foggy intellect, of the man who devours flesh, fish, and fowl, with ravenous appetite, and adds puddings, pies, and cakes to the load."

LORD KAIMS

Henry Home, otherwise called Lord Kaims, the author of the "Elements of Criticism," and of "Six Sketches on the History of Man," has, in the latter work, written eighty years ago, the following statements respecting the inhabitants of the torrid zone:

"We have no evidence that either the hunter or shepherd state were ever known there. The inhabitants at present subsist upon vegetable food, and probably did so from the beginning."

In speaking of particular nations or tribes of this zone, he tells us that "the inhabitants of Biledulgerid and the desert of Sahara, have but two meals a day – one in the morning and one in the evening;" and "being temperate," he adds, "and strangers to the diseases of luxury and idleness, they generally live to a great age."¹⁹ Sixty, with them, is the prime of life, as thirty is in Europe. "Some of the inland tribes of Africa," he says, "make but one meal a day, which is in the evening." And yet "their diet is plain, consisting mostly of rice, fruits, and roots. An inhabitant of Madagascar will travel two or three days without any other food than a sugar-cane." So also, he might have added, will the Arab travel many days, and at almost incredible speed, with nothing but a little gum-arabic; and the Peruvians and other inhabitants of South America, with a little parched corn. But I have one more extract from Lord Kaims:

"The island of Otaheite is healthy, the people tall and well made; and by temperance – vegetables and fish being their chief nourishment – they live to a good old age, with scarcely an ailment. There is no such thing known among them as rotten teeth; the very smell of wine or spirits is disagreeable; and they never deal in tobacco or spiceries. In many places Indian corn is the chief nourishment, which every man plants for himself."

DR. THOMAS DICK

Dr. Dick, author of the "Philosophy of Religion," and several other works deservedly popular, gives this remarkable testimony:

"To take the life of any sensitive being, and to feed on its flesh, appears incompatible with a state of innocence, and therefore no such grant was given to Adam in paradise, nor to the antediluvians. It appears to have been a grant suited only to the degraded state of man, after the deluge; and it is probable that, as he advances in the scale of moral perfection in the future ages of the world, the use of animal food will be gradually laid aside, and he will return again to the productions of the vegetable kingdom, as the original food of man – as that which is best suited to the rank of rational and moral intelligence. And perhaps it may have an influence, in combination with other favorable circumstances, in promoting health and longevity."

PROFESSOR GEORGE BUSH

Professor Bush, a writer of some eminence, in his "Notes on Genesis," while speaking of the permission to man in regard to food, in Genesis i. 29, has the following language:

"It is not perhaps to be understood, from the use of the word give, that a permission was now granted to man of using that for food which it would have been unlawful for him to use without that permission; for, by the very constitution of his being, he was made to be sustained by that food which was most congenial to his animal economy; and this it must have been lawful for him to employ, unless self-destruction had been his duty. The true import of the phrase, therefore, doubtless is, that God had appointed, constituted, ordained this, as the staple article of man's diet. He had formed him with a nature to which a vegetable aliment was better suited than any other. It cannot perhaps be inferred from this language that the use of flesh-meat was absolutely forbidden; but it clearly implies that the fruits of the field were the diet most adapted to the constitution which the Creator had given."

THOMAS SHILLITOE

Mr. Shillitoe was a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, at Tottenham, near London. The first twenty-five years of his life were spent in feeble health, made worse by high living. This high living was continued about twenty years longer, when, finding himself fast failing, he yielded to the advice of a medical friend, and abandoned all drinks but water, and all food but the plainest kinds, by which means he so restored his constitution that he lived to be nearly ninety years of age; and at eighty could walk with ease from Tottenham to London, six miles, and back again. The following is a brief account of this distinguished man, when at the age of eighty, and nearly in his own words:

It is now nearly thirty years since I ate fish, flesh, or fowl, or took fermented liquor of any kind whatsoever. I find, from continued experience, that abstinence is the best medicine. I don't meddle with fermented liquors of any kind, even as medicine. I find I am capable of doing better without them than when I was in the daily use of them.

"One way in which I was favored to experience help in my willingness to abandon all these things, arose from the effect my abstinence had on my natural temper. My natural disposition is very irritable. I am persuaded that ardent spirits and high living have more or less effect in tending to raise into action those evil propensities which, if given way to, war against the soul, and render us displeasing to Almighty God."

ALEXANDER POPE

Pope, the poet, ascribes all the bad passions and diseases of the human race to their subsisting on the flesh, blood, and miseries of animals. "Nothing," he says, "can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens, sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up here and there. It gives one an image of a giant's den in romance, bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were slain by his cruelty."

SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS

Sir Richard Phillips, in his "Million of Facts," says that "the mixed and fanciful diet of man is considered as the cause of numerous diseases, from which animals are exempt. Many diseases have abated with changes of natural diet, and others are virulent in particular countries, arising from peculiarities. The Hindoos are considered the freest from disease of any part of the human race. The laborers on the African coast, who go from tribe to tribe to perform the manual labor, and whose strength is wonderful, live entirely on plain rice. The Irish, Swiss, and Gascons, the slaves of Europe, feed also on the simplest diet; the former chiefly on potatoes."

He states, also, that the diseases of cattle often afflict those who subsist on them. "In 1599," he observes, "the Venetian government, to stop a fatal disease among the people, prohibited the sale of meat, butter, or cheese, on Pain of death."

SIR ISAAC NEWTON

This distinguished philosopher and mathematician is said to have abstained rigorously, at times, from all but purely vegetable food, and from all drinks but water; and it is also stated that some of his important labors were performed at these seasons of strict temperance. While writing his treatise on Optics, it is said he confined himself entirely to bread, with a little sack and water; and I have no doubt that his remarkable equanimity of temper, and that government of his animal appetites, throughout, for which he was so distinguished to the last hour of his life, were owing, in no small degree, to his habits of rigid temperance.

THE ABBE GALLANI

The Abbé Gallani ascribes all social crimes to animal destruction – thus, treachery to angling and ensnaring, and murder to hunting and shooting. And he asserts that the man who would kill a sheep, an ox, or any unsuspecting animal, would, but for the law, kill his neighbor.

HOMER

Even Homer, three thousand years ago, says Dr. Cheyne, could observe that the Homolgians – those Pythagoreans, those milk and vegetable eaters – were the longest lived and the honestest of men.

DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Dr. Franklin, in his younger days, often, for some time together, lived exclusively on a vegetable diet, and that, too, in small quantity. During his after life he also observed seasons of abstinence from animal food, or lents, as he called them, of considerable length. His food and drink were, moreover, especially in early life, exceedingly simple; his meal often consisting of nothing but a biscuit and a slice of bread, with a bunch of raisins, and perhaps a basin of gruel. Now, Dr. F. testifies of himself; that he found his progress in science to be in proportion to that clearness of mind and aptitude of conception which can only be produced by total abstinence from animal food. He also derived many other advantages from his abstinence, both physical and moral.

MR. NEWTON

This author wrote a work entitled "Defence of Vegetable Regimen." It is often quoted by Shelley, the poet, and others. I know nothing of the author or of his works, except through Shelley, who gives us some of his views, and informs us that seventeen persons, of all ages, consisting of Mr. Newton's family and the family of Dr. Lambe, who is elsewhere mentioned in this work, had, at the time he wrote, lived seven years on a pure vegetable diet, and without the slightest illness. Of the seventeen, some of them were infants, and one of them was almost dead with asthma when the experiment was commenced, but was already nearly cured by it; and of the family of Mr. N., Shelley testifies that they were "the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive" – the girls "perfect models for a sculptor" – and their dispositions "the most gentle and conciliating."

The following paragraph is extracted from Mr. Newton's "Defence," and will give us an idea of his sentiments. He was speaking of the fable of Prometheus:

"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory as time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, the drift of the fable seems to be this: Man, at his creation, was endowed with the gift of perpetual youth, that is, he was not formed to be a sickly, suffering creature, as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and to sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth, without disease or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food, and of fire, with which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste. Jupiter and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these inventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the newly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of them. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet, ensued; other drink than water was resorted to, and man forfeited the inestimable gift of health, which he had received from heaven; he became diseased, the partaker of a precarious existence, and no longer descended into his grave slowly."

O. S. FOWLER

O. S. Fowler, the distinguished phrenologist, in his work on Physiology, devotes nearly one hundred pages to the discussion of the great diet question. He endeavors to show that, in every point of view, a flesh diet – or a diet partaking of flesh, fish, or fowl, in any degree – is inferior to a well-selected vegetable diet; and, as I think, successfully. He finally says: