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

In bread, every one hundred pounds is found to contain eighty pounds of nutritious matter; butcher's meat, averaging the different sorts, contains only thirty-five pounds in one hundred; French beans (in the grain), ninety-two pounds in one hundred; broad beans, eighty-nine pounds; peas, ninety-three pounds; lentils (a species of half pea little known with us), fifty-four pounds in one hundred; greens and turnips only eight pounds of solid nutritious substance in one hundred; carrots, fourteen pounds; and one hundred pounds of potatoes yield only twenty-five pounds of nutriment.

I will just affix to the foregoing one more table. It is inserted in several other works which I have published; but for the benefit of those who may never yet have seen it, and to show how strikingly it corresponds with the results of the experiments of Geoffroy, Percy, and Vauquelin, I deem it proper to insert it.

Of the best wheat, one hundred pounds contain about eighty-five pounds of nutritious matter; of rice, ninety pounds; of rye, eighty; of barley, eighty-three; of beans, eighty-nine to ninety-two; peas, ninety-three; lentils, ninety-four; meat (average), thirty-five; potatoes, twenty-five; beets, fourteen; carrots, ten; cabbage, seven; greens, six; and turnips, four.

DR. PEMBERTON

Dr. Pemberton, after speaking of the general tendency, in our highly fed communities, to scrofula and consumption, makes the following remarks, which need no comment:

"If a child is born of scrofulous parents, I would strongly recommend that it be entirely nourished from the breast of a healthy nurse, for at least a year. After this, the food should consist of milk and farinaceous vegetables. By a perseverance in this diet for three years, I have imagined that the threatened scrofulous appearances have certainly been postponed, if not altogether prevented."

SIR JOHN SINCLAIR

Sir John Sinclair, an eminent British surgeon, says, "I have wandered a good deal about the world, my health has been tried in all ways, and, by the aid of temperance and hard work, I have worn out two armies in two wars, and probably could wear out another before my period of old age arrives. I eat no animal food, drink no wine or malt liquor, or spirits of any kind; I wear no flannel; and neither regard wind nor rain, heat nor cold, when business is in the way."

DR. JAMES, OF WISCONSIN

Dr. James, of Wisconsin, but formerly of Albany, and editor of a temperance paper in that city, one of the most sensible, intelligent, and refined of men, and one of the first in his profession, is a vegetable eater, and a man of great simplicity in all his physical, intellectual, and moral habits. I do not know that his views have ever been presented to the public, but I state them with much confidence, from a source in which I place the most implicit reliance.

DR. CRANSTOUN

Dr. Cranstoun, a worthy medical gentleman in England, became subject, by some means or other, to a chronic dysentery, on which he exhausted, as it were, the whole materia medica, in vain. At length, after suffering greatly for four or five years, he was completely cured by a milk and vegetable diet. The following is his own brief account of his cure, in a letter to Dr. Cheyne:

"I resolutely, as soon as capable of a diet, held myself close to your rules of bland vegetable food and elementary drink, and, without any other medicine, save frequent chewing of rhubarb and a little bark, I passed last winter and this summer without a relapse of the dysentery; and, though by a very slow advance, I find now more restitution of the body and regularity in the economy, on this primitive aliment, than ever I knew from the beginning of this trouble. This encourages much my perseverance in the same method, and that so religiously, as, to my knowledge, now for more than a year and a half I have not tasted of any thing that had animal life. There is plenty in the vegetable kingdom."

DR. TAYLOR, OF ENGLAND

This gentleman, who had studied the works of Dr. Sydenham, and was therefore rather favorably inclined toward a milk and vegetable diet, became at last subject to epileptic fits. Not being willing, however, to give up his high living and his strong drinks, he tried the effects of medicine, and even consulted all the most eminent of his brethren of the medical profession in and about London; but all to no purpose, and the fits continued to recur. He used frequently to be attacked with them while riding along the road, in pursuance of the business of his profession. In these cases he would fall from his horse, and often remain senseless till some passenger or wagon came along and carried him to the nearest house. At length his danger, not only from accidents, but from the frequency and violence of the attacks, became so imminent that he was obliged to follow the advice of his master, Sydenham. He first laid aside the use of all fermented and distilled liquors; then, finding his fits became less frequent and violent, he gave up all flesh meat, and confined himself entirely to cows' milk.

In pursuance of this plan, in a year or two the epilepsy entirely left him. "And now," says Dr. Cheyne, from whom I take the account, "for seventeen years he has enjoyed as good health as human nature is capable of, except that once, in a damp air and foggy weather in riding through Essex, he was seized with an ague, which he got over by chewing the bark." He assured Dr. C. that at this time – and he was considerably advanced in life – he could play six hours at cricket without fatigue or distress, and was more active and clear in his faculties than ever he had been before in his whole life. He also said he had cured a great many persons, by means of the same diet, of inveterate distempers.

DRS. HUFELAND AND ABERNETHY

The celebrated Dr. Hufeland taught that a simple vegetable diet was most conducive to health and long life. The distinguished Dr. Abernethy has expressed an opinion not very unlike it, in the following eccentric manner:

"If you put improper food into the stomach it becomes disordered, and the whole system is affected. Vegetable matter ferments and becomes gaseous, while animal substances are changed into a putrid, abominable, and acrid stimulus. Now, some people acquire preposterous noses; others, blotches on the face and different parts of the body; others, inflammation of the eyes; all arising from the irritations of the stomach. I am often asked why I don't practice what I preach. I reply by reminding the inquirer of the parson and sign-post – both point the way, but neither follows its course."

DR. GREGORY

Dr. Gregory, a distinguished professor and practitioner of medicine in Scotland, in a work published more than seventy years ago, strongly recommends plain and simple food for children. Till they are three years old, he says, their diet should consist of plain milk, panada, good bread, barley meal porridge, and rice. He also complains of pampering them with animal food. The same arguments which are good for forming them to the habits of vegetable food exclusively for the first three years of life, would be equally good for its continuance.

DR. CULLEN, OF EDINBURGH

The name of Dr. Cullen is well known, and he has long been regarded as high authority. Yet this distinguished writer and teacher expressly says, that a very temperate and sparing use of animal food is the surest means of preserving health and obtaining long life. But I will quote his own language, in various parts of his writings. And first, from his Materia Medica:

"Vegetable aliment, as never over-distending the vessels or loading the system, never interrupts the stronger emotions of the mind, while the heat, fullness, and weight of animal food, is an enemy to its vigorous efforts. Temperance, then, does not consist so much in the quantity, for that will always be regulated by our appetite, as in the quality, viz., a large proportion of vegetable aliment."

I will not stop here to oppose Dr. C.'s views in regard to the quantity of our food; for this is not the place. It is sufficient to show that he admits the importance of quality, and gives the preference to a diet of vegetables.

He seems in favor, in another place in his works, of sleeping after eating – perhaps a heresy, too – and inclines to the opinion that the practice would be hardly hurtful if we ate less animal food.

But his "First Lines of the Practice of Physic," abounds in testimonies in favor of vegetable food. In speaking, for example, of the cure of rheumatic affections, he has the following language:

"The cure, therefore, requires, in the first place, an antiphlogistic regimen, and particularly, a total abstinence from animal food, and from all fermented or spirituous liquors."

"Antiphlogistic regimen," in medical language, means that food and drink which is most cooling and quieting to the stomach and to the general system.

In the treatment of gout, Dr. Cullen recommends a course like that which has been stated, except that instead of proposing vegetable food as a means of cure, he recommends it as preventive. He says —

"The gout may be entirely prevented by constant bodily exercise, and by a low diet; and I am of opinion that this prevention may take place even in persons who have a hereditary disposition to the disease. I must add, here, that even when the disposition has discovered itself by severe paroxysms of inflammatory gout, I am persuaded that labor and abstinence will absolutely prevent any returns of it for the rest of life."

Again, in reference to the same subject, he thus observes:

"I am firmly persuaded that any man who, early in life, will enter upon the constant practice of bodily labor and of abstinence from animal food, will be preserved entirely from the disease."

And yet once more.

"If an abstinence from animal food be entered upon early in life, while the vigor of the system is yet entire, I have no doubt of its being both safe and effectual."

To guard against the common opinion that by vegetable food, he meant raw, or crude, or bad vegetables, Dr. C. explains his meaning by assuring the reader that by a vegetable diet he means the "farinaceous seeds," and "milk;" and admits that green, crude, and bad vegetables are not only less useful, but actually liable to produce the very diseases, which good, mealy vegetable food will prevent or cure.

This is an important distinction. Many a person, who wishes to be abstemious, seems to think that if he only abstains from flesh and fish, that is enough. No matter, he supposes, what vegetables he uses, so they are vegetables; nor how much he abuses himself by excess in quantity. Nay, he will even load his stomach with milk, or butter, or eggs; sometimes with fish (we have often been asked if we considered fish as animal food); and sometimes, worse still, with hot bread, hot buckwheat cakes, hot short-cakes, swimming, almost, in butter; – yes, and sometimes he will even cover his potatoes with gravy, mustard, salt, etc.

It is in vain for mankind to abstain from animal food, as they call it, and yet run into these worse errors. The lean parts of animals not much fattened, and only rarely cooked, eaten once a day in small quantity, are far less unwholesome than many of the foregoing.

But to return to Dr. C. In speaking of the proper drink for persons inclined to gout, he thus remarks:

"With respect to drink, fermented liquors are useful only when they are joined with animal food, and that by their acescency; and their stimulus is only necessary from custom. When, therefore, animal food is to be avoided, fermented liquors are unnecessary, and by increasing the acescency of vegetables, these liquors may be hurtful. The stimulus of fermented or spirituous liquors is not necessary to the young and vigorous: and, when much employed, impairs the tone of the system."

Dr. C. might have added – what indeed we should infer by parity of reasoning – that when fermented liquors are avoided, animal food is no longer necessary, and by increasing the alkaline state of the stomach and fluids, may be hurtful. The truth is, they go best together. If we use flesh and fish, which are alkaline, a small quantity of gently acid drink, as weak cider or wine, taken either with our meals, or between them, may be useful. It is better, however, to abstain from both.

For if a purely vegetable aliment, with water alone for drink, is safe to all young persons inclining at all to gout, to whom is it unsafe? If it tends to render a young person at all weaker, that very weakness would predispose to the gout, in some of its forms, if a person were constitutionally inclined to that disease – if not to some other complaint, to which he was more inclined. It cannot, therefore, be unsafe to any, if Dr. C. is right.

But if those who are trained to it, lose nothing, even in the high latitude of Scotland – where Dr. C. wrote – by confining themselves to good vegetables and water, then they must necessarily gain, on his own principles, by this way of living, because they get rid of any sort of necessity (he might have added, lose their appetite) for fermented liquors.

More than this, as the doctor himself concludes, in another place, they prevent many acute diseases. His words are these: – "It is animal food which especially predisposes to the plethoric and inflammatory state; and that food is therefore to be especially avoided." It is true, he is here speaking of gouty persons: but his principles are also fairly susceptible, as I have shown, of a general application.

In short, it is an undeniable fact, that even a thorough-going vegetable eater might prove every thing he wished, from old established writers on medicine and health, though themselves were feeders on animal food; just as a teetotaler may prove the doctrine of abstinence from all drinks but water, from the writings of medical men, though themselves are still, in many cases, pouring down their cider, their beer, or their wine – or at least, their tea and coffee.

DR. BENJAMIN RUSH

I find nothing in the writings of this great man which shows, with certainty, what his views were, in regard to animal food. The presumption is, that he was sparing in its use, and that he encouraged a very limited use of it in others. This is presumed, 1, from the general tenor of his writings – deeply imbued as they are with the great doctrine of temperance in all things; and, 2, from the fondness he seems to have manifested in mentioning the temperance and even abstinence of individuals of whom he was speaking.

Of Ann Woods, for example, who died at the age of ninety-six years, he says, "Her diet was simple, consisting chiefly of weak tea, milk, cheese, butter, and vegetables. Meat of all kinds, except veal, disagreed with her stomach. She found great benefit from frequently changing her aliment. Her drinks were water, cider and water, and molasses and vinegar in water. She never used spirits. Her memory (at her death) was but little impaired. She was cheerful, and thankful that her condition in life was happier than that of hundreds of other people."

In his account of Benjamin Lay, a philosopher of the sect of the Friends, in Pennsylvania, Dr. R. relates, that "he was extremely temperate in his diet, living chiefly upon vegetables. Turnips boiled and afterward roasted, were his favorite dinner. His drink was pure water. He lived above eighty years." It appears, also, that he was exceedingly healthy.

He relates of Anthony Benezet, a distinguished teacher of Philadelphia, who lived to an advanced age, that his sympathy was so great with every thing that was capable of feeling pain, that he resolved, toward the close of his life, to eat no animal food. He also relates the following singular anecdote of him. Upon coming into his brother's house, one day, when the family were dining upon poultry, he was asked by his brother's wife to sit down and dine with them. What! said he, would you have me eat my neighbors?

Dr. Caleb Bannister, in another part of this work, tells us that he was led to adopt a milk and vegetable diet, in incipient consumption, from reading the writings of Dr. Rush; and I have little doubt that Dr. R. himself lived quite abstemiously, if not altogether on vegetables.

Nor is this incidental testimony from Dr. Rush quite all. In his work "On the Diseases of the Mind," he speaks often of the evils of eating high-seasoned food, and especially animal food. And in stating what were the proper remedies for debility in young men, when induced by certain forms of licentiousness, he expressly insists on a diet consisting simply of vegetables, and prepared without condiments; and he even encourages the disuse of salt. Had Dr. Rush lived to this day, he would, ere now, in all probability, have fully adopted and defended the vegetable system. With views like his on the subject of intemperance, and a mind ever open to conviction, the result could hardly have been otherwise.

DR. WILLIAM LAMBE, OF LONDON

Dr. William Lambe, of London, is distinguished both as a physician and a general scholar, and is a prominent member of the "College of Physicians." He was a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, and a fellow-student with the immortal Clarkson.

Dr. Lambe is the author of several valuable works, among which are his "Reports on Cancer," and a more recent work entitled, "Additional Reports on the Effects of a Peculiar Regimen, in Cases of Cancer, Scrofula, Consumption, Asthma, and other chronic diseases." He has also made and published numerous experiments, especially in chemistry, which is, with him, a favorite science; and it is said that he has spent fortunes in this way.

Dr. L. is now eighty-four years of age, and has lived on vegetable diet forty-two years. He commenced this course to cure himself of internal gout, and continued it because he found it better for his health. He is now only troubled with it slightly, at his extremities, which he thinks highly creditable to a vegetable course – having thrown it off from his vital organs. He is cheerful and active, and able to discharge the duties of an extensive medical practice. He walks into town, a distance of three miles from his residence, every morning, and back at night; and thinks himself as likely to live twenty years longer as he was, twenty years ago, to live to his present age.

The following is a condensed account of Dr. L.'s views, as obtained from his "Additional Reports," above mentioned. Some of the first paragraphs relate to the effects of vegetable food on those who are predisposed to scrofula, consumption, etc.

"We see daily examples of young persons becoming consumptive who never went without animal food a single day of their lives. If the use of animal food were necessary to prevent consumption, we should expect, where people lived almost entirely upon such a diet, the disease would be unknown.

"Now, the Indian tribes visited by Mr. Hearne live in this manner. They do not cultivate the earth. They subsist by hunting, and the scanty produce of spontaneous vegetation. But, among these tribes consumption is common. Their diseases, as Mr. Hearne informs us, are principally fluxes, scurvy, and consumption.

"In the last four years, several cases of glandular swellings have occurred to me at the general dispensary, and I have made particular inquiries into the mode of living of such children. In the majority, they had animal food. In opposition to the accusation of vegetable food causing tumefaction of the abdomen, I must testify, that twice in my own family I have seen such swellings disappear under a vegetable regimen, which had been formed under a diet of animal food.

"Increasing the strength, for a time, is no proof of the salubrity of diet. The increased strength may not continue, though the diet should be continued. On the contrary, there is a sort of oscillation; the strength just rising, then sinking again. This is what is experienced by the trainers of boxers. A certain time is necessary to get these men into condition; but this condition cannot be maintained for many weeks together, though the process by which it was formed is continued. The same is found to hold in the training of race-horses, and fighting-cocks.

"It seems certain that animal food predisposes to disease. Timoric, in his account of the plague at Constantinople, asserts that the Armenians, who live chiefly on vegetable food, were far less disposed to the disease than other people. The typhus fever is greatly exasperated by full living.

"It seems, moreover, highly probable that the power inherent in the human living body, of restoring itself under accidents or wounds, is strongest in those who use most a vegetable regimen.

"Contagions act with greater virulence upon bodies prepared by a full diet of animal food.

"Since fishing has declined in the isles of Ferro, and the inhabitants have lived chiefly on vegetables, the elephantiasis has ceased among them.

"Those monks who, by the rules of their institution, abstain from the flesh of animals, enjoy a longer mean term of life, as the consequence. Of this there can be no doubt. Of one hundred and fifty-two monks, taken promiscuously in all times and all sorts of climates, there lives produced a total, according to Baillot (a writer of eminence), of 11,589 years, or an average of seventy-six years and a little more than three months.

"Those Bramins who abstain most scrupulously from the flesh of animals attain to the greatest longevity.

"Life is prolonged, under incurable diseases, about one tenth by vegetable diet; so that a person who would otherwise die at seventy, will reach seventy-seven. In general, however, the proportion is about one sixth.

"Abstaining from animal food palliates, when it does not cure, all constitutional diseases.

"The use of animal food hurries on life with an unnatural and unhealthy rapidity. We arrive at puberty too soon; the passions are developed too early; in the male, they acquire an impetuosity approaching to madness; females become mothers too early, and too frequently; and, finally, the system becomes prematurely exhausted and destroyed, and we become diseased and old, when we ought to be in middle life.

"It affords no trifling ground of suspicion against the use of animal food that it so obviously inclines us to corpulency. Corpulency itself is a species of disease, and a still surer harbinger of other diseases. It is so even in animals. When a sheep has become fat, the butcher knows it must be killed or it will rot and decline. It is rare indeed for the corpulent to be long-lived. They are at the same time sleepy, lethargic, and short-breathed. Even Hippocrates says, 'Those who are uncommonly fat die more quickly than the lean.'

"As a general, rule, the florid are less healthy than those who have little color; an increase of color having ever been judged, by common sense, to be a sign of impending illness. Some, however, who are lean upon animal food, thrive upon vegetables, and improve in color.

"All the notions of vegetable diet affording only a deficient nutriment – notions which are countenanced by the language of Cullen and other great physicians – are wholly groundless.

"Man is herbivorous in his structure.

"I have observed no ill consequences from the relinquishment of animal food. The apprehended danger of the change, with which men scare themselves and their neighbors, is a mere phantom of the imagination. The danger, in truth, lies wholly on the other side.

"There is no organ of the body which, under the use of vegetable food, does not receive an increase of sensibility, or of that power which is thought to be imparted to it by the nervous system.

"Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, and others of the masters of ancient wisdom, adhered to the Pythagorean diet (vegetable diet), and are known to have arrived at old age with the enjoyment of uninterrupted health. Celsus affirms that the bodies which are filled with much animal food become the most quickly old and diseased. It was proverbial that the ancient athletæ were the most stupid of men. The cynic Diogenes, being asked what was the cause of this stupidity, is reported to have answered, 'Because they are wholly formed of the flesh of swine and oxen.' Theophrastus says that feeding upon flesh destroys the reason, and makes the mind more dull.

"Animal food is unfavorable to the intellectual powers. The effect is, in some measure, instantaneous; it being hardly possible to apply to any thing requiring thought after a full meal of meat; so that it has been not improperly said of vegetable feeders, that with them it is morning all day long. But the senses, the memory, the understanding, and the imagination have also been observed to improve by a vegetable diet.

"It will not be disputed that, for consumptive symptoms, a vegetable diet, or at least a vegetable and milk diet, is the most proper.

"It has been said, that the great fondness men have for animal food, is proof enough that nature intended them to eat it. As if men were not fond of wine, ardent spirits, and other things which we know cut short their days!

"In every period of history it has been known that vegetables alone are sufficient for the support of life; and the bulk of mankind live upon them at this hour. The adherence to the use of animal food is no more than a gross persistence in the customs of savage life, and an insensibility to the progress of reason and the operation of intellectual improvement. This habit must be considered as one of the numerous relics of that ancient barbarism which has overspread the face of the globe, and which still taints the manners of civilized nations.

"The use of fermented liquors is, in some measure, a necessary concomitant and appendage to the use of animal food. Animal food, in a great number of persons, loads the stomach, causes some degree of oppression, fullness, and uneasiness; and, if the measure of it be in excess, some nausea and tendency to sickness. Such persons say meat is too heavy for the stomach. Fish is still more apt to nauseate. The use of fermented liquors takes off these uneasy feelings, and is thought to assist digestion. In short, in the use of animal food, man having deviated from the simple aliment offered him by the hand of nature, and which is the best suited to his organs of digestion, he has brought upon himself a premature decay, and much intermediate suffering connected with it. To this use of animal food almost all nations that have emerged from a state of barbarism, have united the use of spirituous and fermented liquors."

It is but justice to Dr. L., however, as the above was written by him over thirty years ago, to say, that though he still adheres to the same views, he thinks pure distilled water a very important addition to the vegetable diet, in the cure of chronic diseases. The following are his remarks in a letter to Mr. Graham, dated ten or twelve years ago.

"My doctrine is, that for the preservation of health, and more particularly for the successful treatment of chronic diseases, it is necessary to attend to the whole ingesta – to the fluid with as much care as the solid. And I am persuaded that the errors into which men have fallen with regard to supposed mischiefs or inconveniences (as weakness, for example), as resulting from a restriction to a vegetable diet, have, to a very considerable extent arisen from a want of a proper attention to the quality of the water they drank. So far back as the year 1803, I found that the use of pure distilled, instead of common water, relieved a state of habitual suffering of the stomach and bowels. On this account, I always require that distilled water shall be joined to the use of a vegetable diet; and consider this to be essential to the treatment."

PROFESSOR LAWRENCE

Professor Lawrence is the author of a work entitled Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. He is a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the College, and Surgeon to several Hospitals. In his work above mentioned, after much discussion in regard to the natural dietetic character of man, he thus remarks:

"That animal food renders man strong and courageous, is fully disproved by the inhabitants of northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tungooses, Burats, and Kamtschadales, as well as by the Esquimaux in the northern, and the natives of Terra del Fuego in the southern extremity of America, which are the smallest, weakest, and least brave people of the globe, although they live almost entirely upon flesh, and that often raw.

"Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice, as that of animal matter is with physical force and courage. That men can be perfectly nourished, and their bodily and mental capabilities fully developed in any climate, by a diet purely vegetable, admits of abundant proof from experience. In the periods of their greatest simplicity, manliness, and bravery, the Greeks and Romans appear to have lived almost entirely on plain vegetable preparations. Indifferent bread, fruits, and other produce of the earth, are the chief nourishment of the modern Italians, and of the mass of the population in most countries in Europe. Of those more immediately known to ourselves, the Irish and Scotch may be mentioned, who are certainly not rendered weaker than their English fellow-subjects by their free use of vegetable aliment. The Negroes, whose great bodily powers are well known, feed chiefly on vegetable substances; and the same is the case with the South Sea Islanders, whose agility and strength were so great that the stoutest and most expert English sailors had no chance with them in wrestling and boxing."

The concession of Prof. L., which I have placed in italic, is sufficient for our purpose; we ask no more. Nevertheless, I am willing to hear his views of the indications afforded by our anatomical character, which are, as will be seen, equally decisive in favor of vegetable eating.