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

"I wish my own children had never tasted, and would never taste, a mouthful of meat. Increased health, efficiency, talents, virtue, and happiness, would undoubtedly be the result. But for the fact that my table is set for others than my own wife and children, it would never be furnished with meat, so strong are my convictions against its utility."

I believe that L. N. Fowler, the brother and associate of the former, is of the same opinion; but my acquaintance with him is very limited. Both the Fowlers, with Mr. Wells, their associate in book-selling, seem anxiously engaged in circulating books which involve the discussion of this great question.

REV. MR. JOHNSTON

Mr. Johnston, who for some fifteen or twenty years has been an American missionary in different foreign places – Trebizond, Smyrna, etc. – is, from conviction, a vegetable eater. The author holds in his possession several letters from this gentleman, on the subject of health, from which, but for want of room, he would be glad to make numerous extracts. He once sent, or caused to be sent, to him, at Trebizond, a barrel of choice American apples, for which the missionary, amid numerous Eastern luxuries, was almost starving. Happy would it be for many other American and British missionaries, if they had the same simple taste and natural appetite.

JOHN H. CHANDLER

This young man has been for eight or ten years in the employ of the Baptist Foreign Missionary Board, and is located at Bangkok, in Siam. For several years before he left this country he was a vegetable eater, sometimes subsisting on mere fruit for one or two of his daily meals. And yet, as a mechanic, his labor was hard – sometimes severe.

Since he has been in Siam he has continued his reformed habits, as appears from his letters and from reports. The last letter I had from him was dated June 10, 1847. The following are extracts from it:

"I experienced the same trials (that is, from others) on my arrival in Burmah, in regard to vegetable diet, that I did in the United States. This I did not expect, and was not prepared for it. Through the blessing of God we were enabled to endure, and have persevered until now.

"Myself and wife are more deeply convinced than ever that vegetable diet is the best adapted to sustain health. I cannot say that we have been much more free from sickness than our associates; but one thing we can say – we have been equally well off, and our expenses have been much less."

After going on to say how much his family – himself and wife – saved by their plain living, viz., an average of about one dollar a week, he makes additional remarks, of which I will only quote the following:

"My labors, being mostly mechanical, are far more fatiguing than those of my brethren; and I do not think any of them could endure a greater amount of labor than I do."

It deserves to be noticed, in this connection, that Mr. Chandler has slender muscles, and would by no means be expected to accomplish as much as many men of greater vigor; and yet we have reason to believe that he performs as much labor as any man in the service of the board.

REV. JESSE CASWELL

Mr. Caswell went out to India about thirteen years ago, a dyspeptic, and yet perhaps somewhat better than while engaged in his studies at Andover. For several years after his arrival he suffered much from sickness, like his fellow-laborers. His station was Bangkok. He was an American missionary, sent out by the American Board, as it is called, of Boston.

About six years ago he wrote me for information on the subject of health. He had read my works, and those of Mr. Graham, and seemed not only convinced of the general importance of studying the science of human life, but of the superiority of a well selected vegetable diet, especially at the East. He was also greatly anxious that missionaries should be early taught what he had himself learned. The following is one of his first paragraphs:

"I feel fully convinced that you are engaged in a work second to few if any of the great enterprises of the day. If there be any class of men standing in special need of correct physiological knowledge, that class consists of missionaries of the cross. What havoc has disease made with this class, and for the most part, as I feel convinced, because, before and after leaving their native land, they live so utterly at variance with the laws of their nature."

He then proceeds to say, that the American missionaries copy the example of the English, and that they all eat too much high-seasoned food, and too much flesh and fish; and argues against the practice by adducing facts. The following is one of them:

"My Siamese teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way. * * * The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this they generally eat a very little, with their rice."

The next year I had another letter from him. He had been sick, but was better, and thought he had learned a great deal, during his sickness, about the best means of preserving health. He had now fully adopted what he chose to call the Graham system, and was rejoicing – he and his wife and children – in its benefits. He says, "If a voice from an obscure corner of the earth can do any thing toward encouraging your heart and staying your hands, that voice you shall have." He suggests the propriety of my sending him a copy of "Vegetable Diet." "I think," says he, "it might do great good." He wished to lend it among his friends.

It must suffice to say, that he continued to write me, once or twice a year, as long as he lived. He also insisted strongly on the importance of physiological information among students preparing for the ministry, and especially for missions. He even wrote once or twice to Rev. Dr. Anderson, and solicited attention to the subject. But the board would neither hear to him nor to me, except to speak kind words, for nothing effective was ever done. They even refused a well-written communication on the subject, intended for the Missionary Herald. Let me also say, that as early as March, 1845, he told me that Dr. Bradley, his associate (now in this country), with his family, were beginning to live on the vegetable system; and added, that one of the sisters of the mission, who was no "Grahamite," had told him she thought there was not one third as much flesh used in all the mission families that there was a year before.

Mr. Caswell became exceedingly efficient, over-exerted himself in completing a vocabulary of the Siamese language, and in other labors, and died in September last. He was, according to the testimony of Dr. Bradley, a "noble man;" and probably his life and health, and that of his family, were prolonged many years by his improved habits. But his early transgressions – like those of thousands – at length found him out. I allude to his errors in regard to exercise, eating, drinking, sleeping, taking medicine, etc.

MR. SAMUEL CHINN

This individual has represented the town of Marblehead, Mass., in the state legislature, and is a man of respectability. He is now, says the "Lynn Washingtonian," above forty years of age, a strong, healthy man, and, to use his own language, "has neither ache nor pain." For the ten years next preceding our last account from him he had lived on a simple vegetable diet, condemning to slaughter no flocks or herds that "range the valley free," but leaving them to their native, joyous hill-sides and mountains. But Mr. Chinn, not contented with abstinence from animal food, goes nearly the full length of Dr. Schlemmer and his sect, and abjures cookery. For four years he subsisted – we believe he does so now – on nothing but unground wheat and fruit. His breakfast, it is said, he uniformly makes of fruit; his other two meals of unground wheat; patronizing neither millers nor cooks. A few years since, being appointed a delegate to a convention in Worcester, fifty-eight miles distant, he filled his pocket with wheat, walked there during the day, attended the convention, and the next day walked home again, with comparative ease.

FATHER SEWALL

This venerable man – Jotham Sewall, of Maine, as he styles himself, one of the fathers of that state – is now about ninety years of age, and yet is, what he has long been, an active home missionary. He is a man of giant size and venerable appearance, of a green old age, and remarkably healthy. He is an early riser, a man of great cheerfulness, and of the most simple habits. He has abstained from tea and coffee – poisonous things, as he calls them – forty-seven years. His only drinks are water and sage tea. These, with bread, milk, and fruits, and perhaps a little salt, are the only things that enter his stomach. How long he has abstained from flesh and fish I have not learned, but I believe some thirty or forty years.

Such is the appearance of this venerable man, that no one is surprised to find in him those gigantic powers of mind, and that readiness to give wise counsel on every important occasion, for which he has so long been distinguished. It has sometimes seemed to me that no one would doubt the efficacy of a well-selected vegetable diet to give strength, mental or bodily, who had known Father Sewall.

MAGLIABECCHI,

An Italian, who died in the beginning of the eighteenth century, abjured cookery at the age of forty years, and confined himself chiefly to fruits, grains, and water. He never allowed himself a bed, but slept on a kind of settee, wrapped in a long morning gown, which served him for blanket and clothing the year round.

I would not be understood as encouraging the anti-cookery system of Dr. Schlemmer and Magliabecchi; but it is interesting to know what can be done. Magliabecchi lived to the age of from eighty to one hundred years.

OBERLIN AND SWARTZ

These two distinguished men were essentially vegetable eaters. Of the habits of Oberlin, the venerable pastor and father of Waldbach, I am not able to speak, however, with so much certainty as of those of Swartz. His income, during the early part of his residence in India, was only forty-eight pounds a year, which, being estimated by its ability to procure supplies for his necessities, was only equal to about one hundred dollars. He not only accepted of very narrow quarters, but ate, drank, and dressed, in the plainest manner. "A dish of rice and vegetables," says his biographer, "satisfied his appetite for food."

THE IRISH

Much has been said of the dietetic habits of the Irish, of late years, especially of their potato. Now, we have abundant facts which go to prove that good potatoes form a wholesome aliment, equal, if not superior, to many forms of European and American diet. Yet it cannot be that a diet consisting wholly of potatoes is as well for the race as one partaking of greater variety.

Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, whom he visited:

"He was upward of eighty years when I had last seen him, and he was now in his ninety-fourth year. He found the old gentleman seated on a kind of rustic seat, in the garden, by the side of some bee-hives. He was asleep. On his waking I was astonished to see the little change time had wrought on him; a little more stoop in his shoulders, a wrinkle more, perhaps, in his forehead, a more perfect whiteness of his hair, was all the difference since I had seen him last. Flesh meat in my venerable friend's house was an article never to be met with. For sixty years past he had not tasted it, nor did he by any means like to see it taken by others. His food was vegetables, bread, milk, butter, and honey. His whole life was a series of benevolent actions, and Providence rewarded him, even here, by a peace of mind which passeth all understanding, by a judgment vigorous and unclouded, and by a length of days beyond the common course of men."

James Haughton, I believe of Dublin – a correspondent of Henry C. Wright, of Philadelphia, who is himself in theory a vegetable eater – has, for some time past, rejected flesh, and pursued a simple course of living, as he says, with great advantage. I have been both amused and instructed by his letters.

I have met with several Irish people of intelligence who were vegetable eaters, but their names are not now recollected. They have not, however, in any instance, confined themselves to potatoes. One of the most distinguished of these was a female laborer in the family of a merchant at Barnstable. She was, from choice, a very rigid vegetable eater; and yet no person in the whole neighborhood was more efficient as a laborer. Those who know her, and are in the habit of thinking no person can work hard without flesh and fish, often express their astonishment that she should be able to live so simply and yet perform so much labor.

JOHN BAILIES

John Bailies, of England, who reached the great age of one hundred and twenty-eight, is said to have been a strict vegetarian. His food, for the most part, consisted of brown bread and cheese; and his drink of water and milk. He had survived the whole town of Northampton (as he was wont to say), where he resided, three or four times over; and it was his custom to say that they were all killed by tea and coffee. Flesh meat at that time had not come into suspicion, otherwise he would doubtless have attributed part of the evil to this agency.

FRANCIS HUPAZOLI

This gentleman was a Sardinian ecclesiastic, at the first; afterward a merchant at Scio; and finally Venetian consul at Smyrna. Much has been said of Lewis Cornaro, who, having broken down his constitution at the age of forty, renewed it by his temperance, and lasted unto nearly the age of a century. His story is interesting and instructive; but little more so than that of Hupazoli.

His habits were all remarkable for simplicity and truth, except one. He was greatly licentious; and his licentiousness, at the age of eighty-five, had nearly carried him off. Yet such was the mildness of his temper, and so correct was he in regard to exercise, rest, rising, eating, drinking, etc., that he lived on, to the great age of one hundred and fifteen years, and then died, not of old age, but of disease.

Hupazoli did not entirely abstain from flesh; and yet he used very little, and that was wild game. His living was chiefly on fruits. Indeed, he ate but little at any time; and his supper was particularly light. His drink was water. He never took any medicine in his whole life, not even tobacco; nor was he so much as ever bled. In fact, till late in life, he was never sick.

MARY CAROLINE HINCKLEY

This young woman, a resident of Hallowell, in Maine, and somewhat distinguished as a poet, is, from her own conviction and choice both, a vegetable eater. Her story, which I had from her friends, is substantially as follows:

When about eleven years of age she suddenly changed her habits of eating, and steadfastly refused, at the table, all kinds of food which partook of flesh and fish. The family were alarmed, and afraid she was ill. When they made inquiry concerning it, she hesitated to assign the reasons for her conduct; but, on being pressed closely, she confessed that she abstained for conscience' sake; that she had become fully convinced, from reading and reflection, that she ought not to eat animal food.

It was in vain that the family and neighbors remonstrated with her, and endeavored, in various ways, to induce her to vary from her purpose. She continued to use no fowl, flesh, or fish; and in this habit she continues, as I believe, to this day, a period of some twelve or fifteen years.

JOHN WHITCOMB

John Whitcomb, of Swansey, N. H., at the age of one hundred and four was in possession of sound mind and memory, and had a fresh countenance; and so good was his health, that he rose and bathed himself in cold water even in mid-winter. His wounds, moreover, would heal like those of a child. And yet this man, for eighty years, refused to drink any thing but water; and for thirty years, at the close of life, confined himself chiefly to bread and milk as his diet.

CAPT. ROSS, OF THE BRITISH NAVY

It is sometimes said that animal food is indispensably necessary in the polar regions. We have seen, however, in the testimony of Professor Sweetser, that this view of the case is hardly correct. But we have positive testimony on this subject from Capt. Ross himself.

This navigator, with his company, spent the winter of 1830-31 above 70° of north latitude, without beds, clothing (that is, extra clothing), or animal food, and with no evidence of any suffering from the mere disuse of flesh and fish.

HENRY FRANCISCO

This individual, who died at Whitehall, N. Y., in the year 1820, at the age of one hundred and twenty-five years, was, during the latter part of his life, quite a Grahamite, as the moderns would call him. His favorite articles of food were tea, bread and butter, and baked apples; and he was even abstemious in the use of these.

PROFESSOR FERGUSON

Professor Adam Ferguson, an individual not unknown in the literary world, was, till he was fifty years of age, regarded as quite healthy. Brought up in fashionable society, he was very often invited to fashionable dinners and parties, at which he ate heartily and drank wine – sometimes several bottles. Indeed, he habitually ate and drank freely; and, as he had by nature a very strong constitution, he thought nothing which he ate or drank injured him.

Things went on in this manner, as I have already intimated, till he was fifty years of age. One day, about this time, having made a long journey in the cold, he returned very much fatigued, and in this condition went to dine with a party, where he ate and drank in his usual manner. Soon after dinner, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, followed by palsy; but by bleeding, and other energetic measures, he was partially restored.

He was now, by the direction of his physician, put upon what was called a low diet. It consisted of vegetable food and milk. For nearly forty years he tasted no meat, drank nothing but water and a little weak tea, and took no suppers. If he ventured, at any time, upon more stimulating food or drink, he soon had a full pulse, and hot, restless nights. His bowels, however, seemed to be much affected by the fit of palsy; and not being inclined, so far as I can learn, to the use of fruit and coarse bread, he was sometimes compelled to use laxatives.

When he was about seventy years of age, however, all his paralytic symptoms had disappeared; and his health was so excellent, for a person of his years, as to excite universal admiration. This continued till he was nearly ninety. His mind, up to this time, was almost as entire as in his younger days; none of his bodily functions, except his sight, were much impaired. So perfect, indeed, was the condition of his physical frame, that nobody, who had not known his history, would have suspected he had ever been apoplectic or paralytic.

When about ninety years of age, his health began slightly to decline. A little before his death, he began to take a little meat. This, however, did not save him – nature being fairly worn out. On the contrary, it probably hastened his dissolution. His bowels became irregular, his pulse increased, and he fell into a bilious fever, of which he died at the great age of ninety-three.

Probably there are, on record, few cases of longevity more instructive than this. Besides showing the evil tendency of living at the expense of life, it also shows, in a most striking manner, the effects of simple and unstimulating food and drink, even in old age; and the danger of recurring to the use of that which is more stimulating in very advanced life. In this last respect, it confirms the experience of Cornaro, who was made sick by attempting, in his old age, and at the solicitation of kind friends, to return to the use of a more stimulating diet; and of Parr, who was destroyed in the same way, after having attained to more than a hundred and fifty years.

But the fact that living at the expense of life, cuts down, here and there, in the prime of life, or even at the age of fifty, a few individuals, though this of itself is no trivial evil, is not all. Half of what we call the infirmities of old age – and thus charge them upon Him who made the human frame subject to age – have their origin in the same source; I mean in this living too fast, and exhausting prematurely the vital powers. When will the sons of men learn wisdom in this matter? Never, I fear, till they are taught, as commonly as they now are reading and writing, the principles of physiology.

HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST

Although individual cases of abstinence from animal food prove but little, yet they prove something in the case of a man so remarkable as John Howard. If he, with a constitution not very strong, and in the midst of the greatest fatigues of body and mind, could best sustain himself on a bread and water, or bread and tea diet, who is there that would not be well sustained on vegetable food? And yet it is certain that Howard was a vegetable eater for many years of the latter part of his life; and that had he not exposed himself in a remarkable manner, there is no known reason why he might not have lasted with a constitution no better than his was, to a hundred years of age.

GEN. ELLIOTT

The following extract exhibits in few words, the dietetic history of that brave and wise commander, General George Augustus Elliott, of the British army:

"During the whole of his active life, Gen. Elliott had inured himself to the most rigid habits of order and watchfulness; seldom sleeping more than four hours a day, and never eating any thing but vegetable food, or drinking any thing but water. During eight of the most anxious days of the memorable siege of Gibraltar, he confined himself to four ounces of rice a day. He was universally regarded as one of the most abstemious men of his age.

"And yet his abstemiousness did not diminish his vigor; for, at the above-mentioned siege of Gibraltar, when he was sixty-six years of age, he had nearly all the activity and fire of his youth. Nor did he die of any wasting disease, such as full feeders are wont to say men bring upon them by their abstinence. On the contrary, owing to a hereditary tendency, perhaps, of his family, he died at the age of seventy-three, of apoplexy."

ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA

The following testimony is from the Encyclopedia. I do not suppose the writer was the friend of a diet exclusively vegetable; but his testimony is therefore the more interesting. His only serious mistake is in regard to the tendency of vegetable food to form weak fibres.

"Sometimes a particular kind of food is called wholesome, because it produces a beneficial effect of a particular character on the system of an individual. In this case, however, it is to be considered as a medicine; and can be called wholesome only for those whose systems are in the same condition.

"Aliments abounding in fat are unwholesome, because fat resists the operation of the gastric juice.

"The addition of too much spice makes many an innocent aliment injurious, because spices resist the action of the digestive organs, and produce an irritation of particular parts of the system.

"The kind of aliment influences the health, and even the character of man. He is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable aliment; but can live exclusively on either.

"Experience proves that animal food most readily augments the solid parts of the blood, the fibrine, and therefore the strength of the muscular system; but disposes the body, at the same time, to inflammatory, putrid, and scorbutic diseases; and the character to violence and coarseness. On the contrary, vegetable food renders the blood lighter and more liquid, but forms weak fibres, disposes the system to the diseases which spring from feebleness, and tends to produce a gentle character.

"Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, cheese, and butter, are vigorous people.

"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on vegetable food."

MR. THOMAS BELL, OF LONDON

Mr. Thomas Bell, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, Lecturer on the Anatomy and Diseases of the Teeth, at Guy's Hospital, and Surgeon Dentist to that institution, in his physiological observations on the natural food of man, deduced from the character of the teeth, says, "The opinion which I venture to give, has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say, that every fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was originally formed a frugiverous (fruit-eating) animal, and therefore, probably, tropical or nearly so, with regard to his geographical situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin and general structure of his limbs."

LINNÆUS, THE NATURALIST

Linnæus, in speaking of fruits and esculent vegetables, says – "This species of food is that which is most suitable to man, as is evinced by the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands."

SHELLEY, THE POET

The following are the views of that eccentric, though in many respects sensible writer, Shelley, as presented in a note to his work, called Queen Mab. I have somewhat abridged them, not solely to escape part of his monstrous religious sentiments, but for other reasons. I have endeavored, however, to preserve, undisturbed, his opinions and reasonings, which I hope will make a deep and abiding impression:

"The depravity of the physical and moral nature of man, originated in his unnatural habits of life. The language spoken by the mythology of nearly all religions seems to prove that, at some distant period, man forsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of his being to unnatural appetites. Milton makes Raphael thus exhibit to Adam the consequence of his disobedience:

 
' – Immediately, a place
Before his eyes appeared; and, noisome, dark,
A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid
Numbers of all diseased; all maladies
Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,
Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,
Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.'
 

"The fable of Prometheus, too, is explained in a manner somewhat similar. Before the time of Prometheus, according to Hesiod, mankind were exempt from suffering; they enjoyed a vigorous youth; and death, when at length it came, approached like sleep, and gently closed the eyes. Prometheus (who represents the human race) effected some great change in the condition of his nature, and applied fire to culinary purposes. From this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of disease. It consumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and infinite variety, inducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and violent death. All vice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence.

"Man, and the animals which he has infected with his society, or depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the bison, and the wolf are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die, either from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic hog, the sheep, the cow, and the dog are subject to an incredible number of distempers, and, like the corrupters of their nature, have physicians, who thrive upon their miseries.

"The supereminence of man is like Satan's supereminence of pain, – and the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, and crime, have reason to curse the untoward event, that, by enabling him to communicate his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow animals. But the steps that have been taken are irrevocable.

"The whole of human science is comprised in one question: How can the advantages of intellect and civilization be reconciled with the liberty and pure pleasures of natural life? How can we take the benefits and reject the evils of the system, which is now interwoven with our being? I believe that abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors would, in a great measure, capacitate us for the solution of this important question.

"It is true, that mental and bodily derangement is attributable in part to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the sexes, whence the misery and diseases of celibacy, unenjoying prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty, necessarily spring; the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the exhalations of chemical processes: the muffling of our bodies in superfluous apparel; the absurd treatment of infants; all these, and innumerable other causes, contribute their mite to the mass of human evil.

"Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugiverous animals in every thing, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the living fibre. A mandarin of the first class, with nails two inches long, would probably find them, alone, inefficient to hold even a hare. It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparations that it is rendered susceptible of mastication and digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices does not excite intolerable loathing, horror, and disgust. Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a decisive experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a living lamb with his teeth, and, plunging his head into its vitals, slake his thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of horror, let him revert to the irresistible instincts of nature that would rise in judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such work as this. Then, and then only, would he be consistent.