FOOTNOTES:

1833.Nov.18.One at11 P. M.Severe."19.""""24.Nineteen, from4 A. M. to 3 P. M.Frightful.1835.Jan.13.One at4 A. M.}"15.""} Milder."16.Two at 2 and4 A. M.}

Thus it appears that I have enjoyed a longer immunity since the last, than for some years prior. I have maintained total abstinence from flesh, fish, or fowl, for two and a half years, namely, from March 1835 to the present time. That this happy immunity from a most obstinate disease is to be attributed solely to my abstinence from animal food, I do not feel prepared to assert; but that my general health has been better, my attacks of disease far milder, my vigor of mind and body greater, my mental perceptions clearer and more acute, and my enjoyment of life, on the whole, very essentially increased, I am fully prepared to prove.

I have, however, found it nearly as essential for me to abstain from many kinds of vegetable food as from animal, namely, from all kinds of flatulent vegetables; from all kinds of fruits and berries, except the very mildest—as, perfectly ripe and well baked sweet apples—and from all kinds of pies, sauces, and preserves. Of these, however, I am not able to say, as I do of the animal varieties, that I have practiced total abstinence; by no means. I have often ventured to indulge, and generally suffer more or less for my temerity. My severest sufferings for the last two years have been in the form of colic, of which I have had frequent slight attacks; but none to confine me over twenty-four hours.

From the age of five or six months to that of two years, I was literally crammed with flesh meat; usually of the most gross kind. Such a course was believed, by the fond parents and others, as likely to be productive of the most healthful and happy consequences. The result was an accumulation of adipose substance, that rendered me one of the most unsightly, not to say monstrous productions of nature. I ought not to saynature, perhaps; for, if not perverted, she produces no such monsters. At the age of six months, my weight was twenty-five pounds; and it rose soon after to thirty or more.

When I was about two years of age, I had the whooping-cough, and, having been brought up to the height, and more than the height of my condition, byover-feeding with fat meat, I suffered exceedingly. I? recovered, at length, but I had lost my relish, as I am informed, for flesh meat; and from this time till the age of fourteen, I seldom ate any but the leanest muscle. I was tolerably healthy, but, from the age of two years, was slender; so much so that, at five or six, I only weighed fifty pounds; and was constantly either found fault with, or pitied, because I did not eat meat in quality and quantity like other people. Nor was it without much effort, even at the age of fourteen, that I could bring myself to be reconciled to it. I was also trained to the early use of much cider, and to the moderate use of tea and spirits. I have spoken of my slender constitution;—I believe this was in part the result of excessive early labor, and that it was not wholly owing to a premature use of flesh meat.

I had suffered so much, however, from the belief that I was feeble from the latter cause, that I had no sooner become reconciled to the use of flesh and fish—which was at the age of fourteen—than I indulged in it quite freely. About this time I had a severe attack of measles, which came very near carrying me off. I was left with anasarca, or general dropsy, and with weak eyes. To cure the former the physicians plied me, for a long time, with blue pill, and with mercurial medicine in other forms, and also with digitalis; and finally filled my stomach to overflowing with diuretic drinks. However, in spite of them all, I recovered during the next year; except that a foundation was laid for premature decay of the teeth, and for a severe eruptive disease. This last, and the weakness of the eyes, were, for some time, very troublesome.

The eruptive complaint was soon discovered to beless severe, even in hot weather, and while I was using a great deal of exercise, in proportion as I abstained from all drinks but water, and ate none but mild food. Owing to the discovery of this fact and to other causes, I chiefly discontinued the use of stimulating food and drink, during the hottest part of the season; though I committed much error in regard to the quantity of my food, and drank quite too freely of cold water. Still I always found my health best, and my body and mind most vigorous at the end of summer, or the beginning of autumn, notwithstanding the very hard labor to which I was subjected on the farm. This increase of vigor was, at that time, attributed chiefly to a free use of summer fruits; for, so deeply had the belief been infixed by early education, that highly stimulating food and drink were indispensable to the full health and strength of mankind, and especially to people who were laboring hard, that, though I sometimes suspected they were not true friends to the human system, my conscience always condemned the suspicion, and pronounced me guilty of a species of high treason for harboring it.

This brings up my dietetic history, to the period at which it commences, in the letter to Dr. North. The study of medicine, however, from the age of twenty-four to twenty-seven, and the subsequent study and practice of it for a few years, joined to the changes I made at the same time in my physical habits, and my observations on their effects, led me to reject, one after another, and one group after another, the whole tribe of extra stimulants—solid and fluid.

The sequel of my story remains to be told. It is now nearly fifteen years since I wrote the letter, whichis found at page 23d, to Dr. North. During this long period, and for several years before, amounting, in all, to about nineteen years, I have not only abstained entirely from flesh, fish, and fowl—not having eaten a pound of any one of these during the whole time, except the very few pounds I used in the time of the first visitation of our country with cholera, as before mentioned—but I have almost entirely abstained from butter, cheese, eggs, and milk. Butter, especially, Inevertaste at all. The occasional use of milk, in very small quantities, once a day, has, however, been resorted to; not from necessity, indeed, or to gratify any strong desire or inclination for it, but from a conviction of its happy medicinal effects on my much-injured frame. Hot food of every kind, and liquids, with the exception just made, I rarely touch. Nearly every thing is taken in as solid a form and in as simple a state as possible; with no condiments, except a very little salt, and with no sweets, sauces, gravies, jellies, preserves, etc. I seldom use more than one sort of food at a time, unless it be to add fruit as a second article; and this is rarely done, except in the morning. I have for ten or twelve years used no drinks with my meals; and sometimes for months together have had very little thirst at all.[8]

And as to the effects, they are such, and have all along been such, as to make me wonder at myself, whenever I think of it. Instead of being constantly subject to cold, and nearly dying with consumption in the spring, I am almost free from any tendency to take cold at all. During the winter of 1837-8, by neglecting to keep the temperature of my room low enough, and by neglecting also to take sufficient exercise in the open air, I became unusually tender, and suffered to some extent from colds. But I was well again during the spring, and felt as if I had recovered or nearly recovered my former hardihood.

In regard to other complaints, I may say still more. Of rheumatism, I have scarcely had a twinge in twelve or fourteen years. My eruptive complaint is, I believe,entirelygone. The weakness of my eyes has been wholly gone for many years. Indeed, the strength and perfection of my sight and of all my senses, till nearly fifty years of age—hearing perhaps excepted, in which I perceive no alteration—appeared to be constantly improving. My stomach and intestines perform their respective duties in the most appropriate, correct, and healthful manner. My appetite is constantly good, and as constantly improving;—that is, going on toward perfection. I can detect, especially by taste, almost any thing which is in the least offensive or deleterious in food or drink; and yet I can receive, without immediate apparent disturbance, and readily digest, almost any thing which ever entered a human stomach—knives, pencils, clay, chalk, etc., perhaps excepted. I can eat a full meal of cabbage, or any other very objectionable crude aliment, or even cheese or pastry—a single meal, I mean—with apparent impunity; not whenfatigued, of course, or in any way debilitated, but in the morning and when in full strength. It is true, I make no experiments of this sort, except occasionallyasexperiments.

In my former statements I gave it as my opinion that vegetable food was less aperient than animal. My opinion now is, that if we were trained on vegetable food, and had never received substances into the stomach which were unduly stimulating, we should find the intestinal or peristaltic action quite sufficient. The apparent sluggishness of the bowels, when we first exchange an animal diet for a vegetable one, is probably owing to our former abuses. At present, I find my plain vegetable food, in moderate and reasonable quantity, quite as aperient as it ought to be, and, if I exceed a proper quantity, too much so.

I have now no remaining doubts of the vast importance that would result to mankind, from an universal training from childhood, to the exclusive use of vegetable food. I believe such a course of training, along with a due attention to air, exercise, cleanliness, etc., would be the means of improving our race, physically, intellectually, and morally, beyond any thing of which the world has yet conceived. But my reasons for this belief will be seen more fully in another place. They are founded in science and the observation of facts around me, much more than on a narrow individual experience.

There is one circumstance which I must not omit, because it is full of admonition and instruction. I have elsewhere stated that, twenty-three years ago, I had incipient phthisis. Of this fact, and of the fact that there were considerable inroads made by disease on the upperlobe of the right lung, I have not the slightest doubt. The symptoms were such at the time, and subsequently, as could not have been mistaken. Besides, what was, as I conceive, pretty fully established by the symptoms which existed, is rendered still more certain by auscultation. The sounds which are heard during respiration, in the region to which I have alluded, leave no doubt on the minds of skillful medical men, of their origin. Still I doubt whether the disease has made any considerable progress for many years.

But, during the winter of 1837-8, my employments became excessively laborious; and, for the whole winter and spring, were sufficient for at least two healthy and strong men. They were also almost wholly sedentary. At the end of May, I took a long and rather fatiguing journey through a country by no means the most healthy, and came home somewhat depressed in mind and body, especially the former. I was also unusually emaciated, and I began to have fears of a decline. Still, however, my appetite was good, and I had a good share of bodily strength. The more I directed my attention to myself, the worse I became; and I actually soon began to experience darting pains in the chest, together with other symptoms of a renewal of pulmonary disease. Perceiving my danger, however, from the state of my mind, I at length made a powerful effort to shake off the mental disturbance—which succeeded. This, together with moderate labor and rather more exercise than before, seemed gradually to set me right.

Again, in the spring of 1848, after lecturing for weeks and months—often in bad and unventilated rooms and subjecting myself, unavoidably, to many of those abuseswhich exist every where in society, I was attacked with a cough, followed by great debility, from which it cost me some three months or more of labor with the spade and hoe, to recover. With this and the exceptions before named, I have now, for about twenty years, been as healthy as ever I was in my life, except the slight tendency to cold during the winter of which I have already taken notice. I never was more cheerful or more happy; never saw the world in a brighter aspect; never before was it more truly "morning all day" with me. I have paid, in part, the penalty of my transgressions; and may, perhaps, go on, in life, many years longer.

I now fear nothing in the future, so far as health and disease are concerned, so much as excessive alimentation. To this evil—and it is a most serious and common one in this land of abundance and busy activity—I am much exposed, both from the keenness of my appetite, and the exceeding richness of the simple vegetables and fruits of which I partake. But, within a few years past, I seem to have gotten the victory, in a good measure, even in this respect. By eating only a few simple dishes at a time, and by measuring or weighing them with the eye—for I weigh them in no other way—I am usually able to confine myself to nearly the proper limits.

This caution, and these efforts at self-government, are not needed because their neglect involves any immediate suffering; for, as I have already stated, there was never a period in my life before, when I was so completely independent—apparently so, I mean—of external circumstances. I can eat what I please, and as much or as little as I please. I can observe set hours, or be very irregular. I can use a pretty extensive variety at thesame meal, and a still greater variety at different meals, or I can live perpetually on a single article—nay, on almost any thing which could be named in the animal or vegetable kingdom—and be perfectly contented and happy in the use of it. I could in short, eat, work, think, sleep, converse, or play almost all the while; or I could abstain from any or all of these, almost all the while. Let me be understood, however. I do not mean to say that either of these courses would be best for me, in the end; but only that I have so far attained to independence of external circumstances that, for a time, I believe I should be able to do or bear all I have mentioned.

One thing more, in this connection, and I shall have finished my remarks. I sleep too little; but it is because I allow my mind to run over the world so much, and lay so many schemes for human improvement or for human happiness; and because I allow my sympathies to become so deeply enlisted in human suffering and human woe. I should be most healthy, in the end, by spending six hours or more in sleep; whereas I do not probably exceed four or five. I have indeed obtained a respite from the grave of twenty-three years, through a partial repentance and amendment of life, and the mercy of God; but did I obey all his laws as well as I do a part of them, I know of no reason why my life might not be lengthened, not merely fifteen years, as was Hezekiah's, or twenty-three merely, but forty or fifty.

FOOTNOTES:[5]Dr. Knox has since removed to St. Louis, Missouri.[6]The reader will find another remarkable cure of epilepsy in a subsequent chapter of this volume. The case was that of Dr. Taylor, of England.[7]See pages 13 and 23.[8]This fact, and certain discussions on the subject of temperance, led me to abstain, about the years 1841 and 1842, entirely from all drink for a long time. Indeed, I made two of these experiments; in one of which I abstained nine months and nineteen days, and in the other fourteen months and one or two days; except that in the latter case I ate, literally, for one or two successive days, while working hard at haying, one or two bowls a day of bread and water. But these were experimentsmerely—the experiments made by a medical man who preferred making experiments on himself to making them on others; and they never deserved the misconstruction which was put upon them by several persons, who, in other respects, were very sensible men. "The author" never believed with Dr. Lambe, of London, that man is not a drinking animal.

[5]Dr. Knox has since removed to St. Louis, Missouri.

[6]The reader will find another remarkable cure of epilepsy in a subsequent chapter of this volume. The case was that of Dr. Taylor, of England.

[7]See pages 13 and 23.

[8]This fact, and certain discussions on the subject of temperance, led me to abstain, about the years 1841 and 1842, entirely from all drink for a long time. Indeed, I made two of these experiments; in one of which I abstained nine months and nineteen days, and in the other fourteen months and one or two days; except that in the latter case I ate, literally, for one or two successive days, while working hard at haying, one or two bowls a day of bread and water. But these were experimentsmerely—the experiments made by a medical man who preferred making experiments on himself to making them on others; and they never deserved the misconstruction which was put upon them by several persons, who, in other respects, were very sensible men. "The author" never believed with Dr. Lambe, of London, that man is not a drinking animal.

General Remarks.—Testimony of Dr. Cheyne.—Dr. Geoffroy.—Vanquelin and Percy.—Dr. Pemberton.—Sir John Sinclair.—Dr. James.—Dr. Cranstoun.—Dr. Taylor.—Drs. Hufeland and Abernethy.—Sir Gilbert Blane.—Dr. Gregory.—Dr. Cullen.—Dr. Rush.—Dr. Lambe.—Prof. Lawrence.—Dr. Salgues.—Author of "Sure Methods."—Baron Cuvier.—Dr. Luther V. Bell.—Dr. Buchan.—Dr. Whitlaw.—Dr. Clark.—Prof. Mussey.—Drs. Bell and Condie.—Dr. J. V. C. Smith.—Mr. Graham.—Dr. J. M. Andrews, Jr.—Dr. Sweetser.—Dr. Pierson.—Physician in New York.—Females' Encyclopedia.—Dr. Van Cooth.—Dr. Beaumont.—Sir Everard Home.—Dr. Jennings.—Dr. Jarvis.—Dr. Ticknor.—Dr. Coles.—Dr. Shew.—Dr. Morrill.—Dr. Bell.—Dr. Jackson.—Dr. Stephenson.—Dr. J. Burdell.—Dr. Smethurst.—Dr. Schlemmer.—Dr. Curtis.—Dr. Porter.

The number of physicians, and surgeons, and medical men, whose testimony is brought to bear on the subject of diet, in the chapter which follows, is by no means as great as it might have been. There are few writers on anatomy, physiology, materia medica, or disease, who have not, either directly or indirectly, given their testimony in favor of a mild and vegetable diet for persons affected with certain chronic diseases. And there is scarcely a writer on hygiene, or even on diet, who has not done much more than this, and at times hinted at the safety of such a diet for those who are in health; particularly the studious and sedentary. But my object has been, not so much to collect all the evidence I could, as to make a judicious selection—a selection which should present the subject upon which it bears, in as many aspects as possible. I have aimed in general,also, to procure the testimony of intelligent and philanthropic men; or, at least of men whose names have by some means or other been already brought before the public. If there are a few exceptions to this rule, if a few are men whose names have been hitherto unknown, it is on account of theaspect, as I have already said, of their testimony, or on account of their peculiar position, as regards country, age of the world, etc., or to secure their authority for certain anecdotes or facts.

In the arrangement of the testimony, I have been guided by no particular rule, unless it has been to present first that of some of the older and most accredited writers, such as Cheyne, Cullen, and Rush. The testimony of certain living men and authors, particularly of our own country, has been presented toward the close of the chapter, and in a very brief and condensed form, from design. The propriety of inserting their names at all was for a time considered doubtful. It is believed, however, that they could not, in strict justice, have been entirely omitted. But let not the meagre sketch of their views I have given, satisfy us. We want a full development of their principles from their own pens—such a development as, I hope, will not long be withheld from a world which is famishing for the want of it. But now to the testimony.

This distinguished physician, and somewhat voluminous writer, flourished more than a hundred years ago. He may justly be esteemed the father of what is now called the "vegetable system" of living; although it is evident he did not see every thing clearly. "In the early part of his life," says Prof. Hitchcock, in his work onDyspepsia, "he was a voluptuary; and before he attained to middle age, was so corpulent that it was necessary to open the whole side of his carriage that he might enter; and he saw death inevitable, without a change of his course. He immediately abandoned all ardent spirits, wine, and fermented liquors, and confined himself wholly to milk, vegetables, and water. This course, with active exercise, reduced him from the enormous weight of four hundred and forty-eight pounds, to one hundred and forty; and restored his health and the vigor of his mind. After a few years, he ventured to change his abstemious diet for one more rich and stimulating. But the effect was a recurrence of his former corpulence and ill health. A return to milk, water, and vegetables restored him again; and he continued in uninterrupted health to the age of seventy-two."

The following is his account of himself, at the age of about seventy:

"It is now about sixteen years since, for the last time, I entered upon a milk and vegetable diet. At the beginning of this period, I took this light food as my appetite directed, without any measure, and found myself easy under it. After some time, I found it became necessary to lessen the quantity; and I have latterly reduced it to one half, at most, of what I at first seemed to bear. And if it shall please God to spare me a few years longer, in order, in that case, to preserve that freedom and clearness which, by his, blessing, I now enjoy, I shall probably find myself obliged to deny myself one half of my present daily substance—which is precisely three Winchester pints of new cows' milk, and six ounces of biscuit made of fine flour, without salt or yeast, and baked in a quick oven."

It is exceedingly interesting to find an aged physician, especially one who had formerly been in the habit of using six pints of milk, and twelve ounces of unfermented biscuit, and of regarding that as a low diet, reducing himself to one half this quantity in his old age, with evident advantages; and cheerfully looking forward to a period, as not many years distant, when he should be obliged to restrict himself to half even of that quantity. How far he finally carried his temperance, we do not exactly know. We only know that, after thirty years of health and successful medical practice, he strenuously contended for the superiority of a vegetable and milk diet over any other, whether for the feeble or the healthy. But his numerous works abound with the most earnest exhortations to temperance in all things, and with the most interesting facts and cogent reasonings; and—I repeat it—if there be any individual, since the days of Pythagoras, whose name ought to be handed down to posterity as the father of the vegetable system of living, it is that of Dr. Cheyne.

Among his works are, a work on Fevers; an Essay on the true Nature and proper Method of treating the Gout; a work on the Philosophical Principles of Religion; an Essay of Health and Long Life; a work called the English Malady; and another entitled the Natural Method of Cure in the Diseases of the Body, and the Distempers of the Mind depending thereon. The latter, and his Essay of Long Life are, in my view, his greatest works; though the history of his own experience is chiefly contained in his English Malady.

I shall now proceed to make such extracts from his works, as seem to me most striking and important to the general reader. They are somewhat numerous,and there may be a few repetitions; but I was more anxious to preserve his exact language—which is rather prolix—than to abridge too much, at the risk of misrepresenting his sentiments.

"When I see milk, oil, emulsion, mild watery fluids, and such like soft liquors run through leathern tubes or pipes (for such animal veins and arteries indeed are) for years, without destroying them, and observe on the other hand that brine, inflammable or urinous spirits, and the like acrimonious and burning fluids corrode, destroy, and consume them in a very short time; when I consider the rending, burning, and tearing pains and tortures of the gout, stone, colic, cancer, rheumatism, convulsions, and such like insufferably painful distempers; when I see the crises of almost all acute distempers happen either by rank and fetid sweats, thick lateritious and lixivious sediments in the urine, black, putrid, and fetid dejections, attended with livid and purple spots, corrosive ulcers, impostumes in the joints or muscles, or a gangrene and mortification in this or that part of the body; when I see the sharp, the corroding and burning ichor of scorbutic and scrofulous sores, fretting, galling, and blistering the adjacent parts, with the inflammation, swelling, hardness, scabs, scurf, scales, and other loathsome cutaneous foulnesses that attend, the white gritty and chalky matter, and hard stony or flinty concretions which happen to all those long troubled with severe gouts, gravel, jaundice, or colic—the obstructions and hardnesses, the putrefaction and mortification that happen in the bowels, joints, and members in some of these diseases, and the rottenness in the bones, ligaments, and membranes that happen in others; all the various train of pains, miseries, and torments thatcan afflict any part of the compound, and for which there is scarce any reprieve to be obtained, but by swallowing a kind of poison (opiates, etc.); when I behold with compassion and sorrow, such scenes of misery and woe, and see them happen only to the rich, the lazy, the luxurious, and the inactive, those who fare daintily and live voluptuously, those who are furnished with the rarest delicacies, the richest foods, and the most generous wines, such as can provoke the appetites, senses, and passions, in the most exquisite and voluptuous manner; to those who leave no desire or degree of appetite unsatisfied, and not to the poor, the low, the meaner sort, those destitute of the necessaries, conveniences, and pleasures of life; to the frugal, industrious, temperate, laborious, and active, inhabiting barren and uncultivated countries, deserts, and forests under the poles or under the line;—I must, if I am not resolved to resist the strongest conviction, conclude that it must be something received into the body that can produce such terrible appearances in it—some flagrant and notable difference in the food that so sensibly distinguishes them from the latter; and that it is the miserable man himself that creates his miseries and begets his torture, or at least those from whom he has derived his bodily organs.

"Nothing is so light and easy to the stomach, most certainly, as the farinaceous or mealy vegetables; such as peas, beans, millet, oats, barley, rye, wheat, sago, rice, potatoes, and the like."

Milk is not included in the foregoing list of light articles; although Dr. C. was evidently extremely fond of prescribing it in chronic diseases. It does not fully appear, so far as I can learn from his writings, that he regarded it as by any means indispensable to those whowere perfectly healthy, except during infancy and childhood. The following extract will give us—more than any other, perhaps—his real sentiments, though modestly expressed in the form of a conjecture, rather than a settled belief.

"I have sometimes indulged the conjecture that animal food, andmadeor artificial liquors, in the original frame of our nature and design of our creation, were not intended for human creatures. They seem to me neither to have those strong and fit organs for digesting them (at least, such as birds and beasts of prey have that live on flesh); nor, naturally, to have those voracious and brutish appetites, that require animal food and strong liquors to satisfy them; nor those cruel and hard hearts, or those diabolical passions, which could easily suffer them to tear and destroy their fellow-creatures; at least, not in the first and early ages, before every man had corrupted his way, and God was forced to exterminate the whole race by an universal deluge, and was also obliged to shorten their lives from nine hundred or one thousand years to seventy. He wisely foresaw that animal food and artificial liquors would naturally contribute toward this end, and indulged or permitted the generation that was to plant the earth again after the flood the use of them for food; knowing that, though it would shorten their lives and plait a scourge of thorns for the backs of the lazy and voluptuous, it would be cautiously avoided by those who knew it was their duty and happiness to keep their passions low, and their appetites in subjection. And this very era of the flood is that mentioned in holy writ for the indulgence of animal food and artificial liquors, after the trial had been made how insufficient alone a vegetable diet—which was thefirst food appointed for human kind after their creation—was, in the long lives of men, to restrain their wickedness and malice, and after finding that nothing but shortening their duration could possibly prevent the evil.

"It is true, there is scarce a possibility of preventing the destroying of animal life, as things are now constituted, since insects breed and nestle in the very vegetables themselves; and we scarcely ever devour a plant or root, wherein we do not destroy innumerable animalculæ. But, besides what I have said of nature's being quite altered and changed from what was originally intended, there is a great difference between destroying and extinguishing animal life by choice and election, to gratify our appetites, and indulge concupiscence, and the casual and unavoidable crushing of those who, perhaps, otherwise would die within the day, or at most the year, and who obtain but an inferior kind of existence and life, at the best.

"Whatever there may be, in this conjecture, it is evident to those who understand the animal economy of the frame of human bodies, together with the history, both of those who have lived abstemiously, and of those who have lived freely, that indulging in flesh meat and strong liquors, inflames the passions and shortens life, begets chronical distempers and a decrepit age.

"For remedying the distempers of the body, to make a man live as long as his original frame was designed to last, with the least pain and fewest diseases, and without the loss of his senses, I think Pythagoras and Cornaro by far the two greatest men that ever were:—the first, by vegetable food and unfermented liquors; the latter, by the lightest and least of animal food, andnaturally fermented liquors. Both lived to a great age. But, what is chiefly to be regarded in their conduct and example, both preserved their senses, cheerfulness, and serenity to the last; and, which is still more to be regarded, both, at least the last, dissolved without pain or struggle; the first having lost his life in a tumult, as it is said by some, after a great age of perfect health.

"A plain, natural, and philosophical reason why vegetable food is preferable to all other food is, that abounding with few or no salts, being soft and cool, and consisting of parts that are easily divided and formed into chyle without giving any labor to the digestive powers, it has not that force to open the lacteals, to distend their orifices and excite them to an unnatural activity, to let them pass too great a quantity of hot and rank chyle into the blood, and so overcharge and inflame the lymphatics and capillaries, which is the natural and ordinary effect of animal food; and therefore cannot so readily produce diseases. There is not a sufficient stimulus in the salts and spirits of vegetable food to create an unnatural appetite, or violent cramming; at least, not sufficient to force open and extend the mouths of the lacteals, more than naturally they are or ought to be. Such food requires little or no force of digestion, a little gentle heat and motion being sufficient to dissolve it into its integral particles: so that, in a vegetable diet, though the sharp humors, in the first passages, are extended, relaxed stomach, and sometimes a delightful piquancy in the food, may tempt one to exceed in quantity; yet rarely, if spices and sauces—as too much butter, oil, and sugar—are not joined to seeds[9]and vegetables, can the mischief go farther than the stomach andbowels, to create a pressed load, sickness, vomiting, or purging, by its acquiring an acrimony from its not being received into the lacteals;—so that on more being admitted into the blood than the expenses of living require, life and health can never be endangered by a vegetable diet. But all the contrary happens under a high animal diet."

Now I will not undertake to vouch—as indeed I cannot, conscientiously, do it—for the correctness of all Dr. C.'s notions in physiology or pathology. The great object I have in view, by the introduction of these quotations, may be accomplished without it. His preference for vegetable food, or for what he calls a milk and seed diet, is the point which I wish to make most prominent.

In the following paragraphs, he takes up and considers some of the popular objections of the day, to his doctrines and practice.

"One of the most terrible objections some weak persons make against this regimen and method, is, that upon accidental trials, they have always found milk, fruit, and vegetables so inflate, blow them up, and raise such tumults and tempests in their stomach and bowels, that they have been terrified and affrighted from going on. I own the truth and fact to be such, in some as is represented; and that in stomachs and entrails inured only to hot and high meats and drinks, and consequently in an inflammatory state and full of choler and phlegm, this sensation will sometimes happen—just as a bottle of cider or fretting wine, when the cork is pulled out, will fly up, and fume, and rage; and if you throw in a little ferment or acid (such as milk, seeds, fruit, and vegetablesto them), the effervescence and tempest will exasperate to a hurricane.

"But what are wind, flatulence, phlegm, and choler? What, indeed, but stopped perspiration, superfluous nourishment, inconcocted chyle, of high food and strong liquors, fermented and putrifying? And when these are shut up and corked, with still more and more solid, strong, hot, and styptic meats and drinks, is the corruption and putrefaction thereby lessened? Will it not then, at last, either burst the vessel, or throw out the cork or stopples, and raise still more lasting and cruel tempests and tumults? Are milk and vegetables, seeds and fruits, harder of digestion, more corrosive, or more capable of producing chyle, blood, and juices, less fit to circulate, to perspire, and be secreted?

"But what is to be done? The cure is obvious. Begin by degrees; eat less animal food—the most tender and young—and drink less strong fermented liquors, for a month or two. Then proceed to atrimmingdiet, of one day, seed and vegetables, and another day, tender, young animal food;—and, by degrees, slide into a total milk, seed, and vegetable diet; cooling the stomach and entrails gradually, to fit them for this soft, mild, sweetening regimen; and in time your diet will give you all the gratification you ever had from strong, high, and rank food, and spirituous liquors. And you will, at last, enjoy ease, free spirits, perfect health, and long life into the bargain.

"Seeds of all kinds are fittest to begin with, in these cases, when dried, finely ground, and dressed; and, consequently, the least flatulent. Lessen the quantity, even of these, below what your appetite would require, at least for a time. Bear a little, and forbear.

"Virtue and good health are not to be obtained, without some labor and pains, against contrary habits. Itwas a wild bounce of a Pythagorean, who defied any one to produce an instance of a person, who had long lived on milk and vegetables, who ever cut his own throat, hanged, or made way with himself; who had ever suffered at Tyburn, gone to Newgate, or to Moorfields; (and, he added rather profanely,) or, would go to eternal misery hereafter.

"Another weighty objection against a vegetable diet, I have heard, has been made by learned men; and is, that vegetables require great labor, strong exercise, and much action, to digest and turn them into proper nutriment; as (say they) is evident from their being the common diet of day-laborers, handicraftsmen, and farmers. This objection I should have been ashamed to mention, but that I have heard it come from men of learning; and they might have as justly said, that freestone is harder than marble, and that the juice of vegetables makes stronger glue than that of fish and beef!

"Do not children and young persons, that is, tender persons, live on milk and seeds, even before they are capable of much labor and exercise? Do not all the eastern and southern people live almost entirely on them? The Asiatics, Moors, and Indians, whose climates incapacitate them for much labor, and whose indolence is so justly a reproach to them,—are these lazier and less laborious men than the Highlanders and native Irish?

"The truth is, hardness of digestion principally depends on the minuteness of the component particles, as is evident in marble and precious stones. And animal substances being made of particles that pass through innumerable very little, or infinitely small excretoryducts, must be of a much finer texture, and consequently harder, or tougher, in their composition, than any vegetable substance can be. And the flesh of animals that live on animals, is like double distilled spirits, and so requires much labor to break, grind, and digest it. And, indeed, if day-laborers, and handicraftsmen were allowed the high, strong food of men of condition, and the quiet and much-thinking persons were confined to the farmer and ploughman's food, it would be much happier for both.

"Another objection, still, against a milk and vegetable diet is, that it breeds phlegm, and so is unfit for tender persons, of cold constitutions; especially those whose predominant failing is too much phlegm. But this objection has as little foundation as either of the preceding. Phlegm is nothing but superfluous chyle and nourishment, as the taking down more food than the expenses of living and the waste of the solids and fluids require. The people that live most on such foods—the eastern and southern people and those of the northern I have mentioned—are less troubled with phlegm than any others. Superfluity will always produce redundancy, whether it be of phlegm or choler; and that which will digest the most readily, will produce the least phlegm—such as milk, seeds, and vegetables. By cooling and relaxing the solids, the phlegm will be more readily thrown up and discharged—more, I say, by such a diet than by a hot, high, caustic, and restringent one; but that discharge is a benefit to the constitution, and will help it the sooner and faster to become purified, and so to get into perfect good health. Whereas, by shutting them up, the can or cask must fly and burst so much the sooner.

"The only material and solid objections against a milk, seed, and vegetable diet, are the following:

"First, That it is particular and unsocial, in a country where the common diet is of another nature. But I am sure sickness, lowness, and oppression, are much more so. These difficulties, after all, happen only at first, while the cure is about; for, when good health comes, all these oddnesses and specialities will vanish, and then all the contrary to these will be the case.

"Secondly, That it is weakening, and gives a man less strength and force, than common diet. It is true that this may be the result, at first, while the cure is imperfect. But then the greater activity and gayety which will ensue on the return of health, under a milk and vegetable diet, will liberally supply that defect.

"Thirdly, The most material objection against such a diet is, that it cools, relaxes, softens, and unbends the solids, at first, faster than it corrects and sweetens the juices, and brings on greater degrees of lowness than it is designed to cure; and so sinks, instead of raising. But this objection is not universally true; for there are many I have treated, who, without any such inconvenience, or consequent lowness, have gone into this regimen, and have been free from any oppression, sinking, or any degree of weakness, ever after; and they were not only those who have been generally temperate and clean, free from humors and sharpnesses, but who, on the decline of life, or from a naturally weak constitution or frame, have been oppressed and sunk from their weakness and their incapacity to digest common animal food and fermented liquors.

"I very much question if any diet, either hot or cool, has any great influence on the solids, after the fluidshave been entirely sweetened and balmified. Sweeten and thin the juices, and the rest will follow, as a matter of course."

At page 90 of Dr. Cheyne's Natural Method of Curing Diseases, he thus says:

"People think they cannot possibly subsist on a little meat, milk, and vegetables, or on any low diet, and that they must infallibly perish if they should be confined to water only; not considering that nine tenths of the whole mass of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet, or pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of their senses, limbs, and faculties, without diseases, or but few, and those from accidents or epidemical causes; and that there have been nations, and now are numbers of tribes, who voluntarily confine themselves to vegetables only; as the Essenes among the Jews, some Hermits and Solitaries among the Christians of the first ages, a great number of monks in the Chartreux now in Europe, Banians among the Indians and Chinese, the Guebres among the Persians, and of old, the Druids among ourselves."

To illustrate the foregoing, I may here introduce the following extracts from the sixth London edition of Dr. Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long Life.

"It is surprising to what a great age the Eastern Christians, who retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, lived healthful on a very little food. We are informed, by Cassian, that the common measure for twenty-four hours was about twelve ounces, with only pure water for drink. St. Anthony lived to one hundred and five years on mere bread and water, adding only a few herbs at last. On a similar diet, James the Hermit lived to one hundred and fouryears. Arsenius, the tutor of the emperor Arcadius, to one hundred and twenty—sixty-five years in society, and fifty-five in the desert. St. Epiphanius, to one hundred and fifteen; St. Jerome, about one hundred; Simon Stylites, to one hundred and nine; and Romualdus, to one hundred and twenty.

"It is wonderful in what sprightliness, strength, activity, and freedom of spirits, a low diet, even here in England, will preserve those who have habituated themselves to it. Buchanan informs us of one Laurence, who preserved himself to one hundred and forty, by the mere force of temperance and labor. Spotswood mentions one Kentigern (afterward called St. Mongah, or Mungo, from whom the famous well in Wales is named), who lived to one hundred and eighty-five years; and who, after he came to years of understanding, never tasted wine or strong drink, and slept on the cold ground.

"My worthy friend, Mr. Webb, is still alive. He, by the quickness of the faculties of the mind, and the activity of the organs of his body, shows the great benefit of a low diet—living altogether on vegetable food and pure water. Henry Jenkins lived to one hundred and sixty-nine years on a low, coarse, and simple diet. Thomas Parr died at the age of one hundred and fifty-two years and nine months. His diet was coarse bread, milk, cheese, whey, and small beer; and his historian tells us, that he might have lived a good while longer if he had not changed his diet and air; coming out of a clear, thin air, into the thick air of London, and being taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully of the best wines, and, as a necessary consequence, died in a short time. Dr. Lister mentionseight persons in the north of England, the youngest of whom was above one hundred years old, and the oldest was one hundred and forty. He says, it is to be observed that the food of all this mountainous country is exceeding coarse."

Dr. C., in his Natural Method, at page 91, thus continues his remarks:

"And there are whole villages in this kingdom, even of those who live on the plains, who scarce eat animal food, or drink fermented liquors a dozen times a year. It is true, most of these cannot be said to live at ease and commodiously, and many may be said to live in barbarity and ignorance. All I would infer from this is, that they do live, and enjoy life, health, and outward serenity, with few or no bodily diseases but from accidents and epidemical causes; and that, being reduced by voluntary and necessary poverty, they are not able to manage with care and caution the rest of the non-naturals, which, for perfect health and cheerfulness, must all be equally attended to, and prudently conducted; and their ignorance and brutality is owing to the want of the convenience of due and sufficient culture and education in their youth.

"But the only conclusion I would draw from these historical facts is, that a low diet, or living on vegetables, will not destroy life or health, or cause nervous and cephalic distempers; but, on the contrary, cure them, as far as they are curable. I pretend to demonstrate from these facts, that abstinence and a low diet is the great antidote and universal remedy of distempers acquired by excess, intemperance, and a mistaken regimen of high meats and drinks; and that it will greatly alleviate and render tolerable the original distempersderived from diseased parents; and that it is absolutely necessary for the deep thinking part of mankind, who would preserve their faculties sound and entire, ripe and pregnant to a green old age and to the last dregs of life; and that it is, lastly, the true and real antidote and preservative from heavy-headedness, irregular and disorderly intellectual functions, from loss of the rational faculties, memory, and senses, and from all nervous distempers, as far as the ends of Providence and the condition of mortality will allow.

"Let two people be taken as nearly alike as the diversity and the individuality of nature will admit, of the same age, stature, complexion, and strength of body, and under the same chronical distemper, and I am willing to take the seeming worse of the two; let all the most promising nostrums, drops, drugs, and medicines known among the learned and experienced physicians, ancient or modern, regular physicians or quacks, be administered to the best of the two, by any professor at home or abroad; I will manage my patient with only a few naturally indicated and proper evacuations and sweetening innocent alternatives, which shall neither be loathsome, various, nor complicated, require no confinement, under an appropriate diet, or, in a word, under the 'lightest and the least,' or at worst under a milk and seed diet; and I will venture reputation and life, that my method cures sooner, more perfectly and durably, is much more easily and pleasantly passed through, in a shorter time, and with less danger of a relapse than the other, with all the assistance of the best skill and experience, under a full and free, though even a commonly reputed moderate diet, but of rich foods and generous liquors; much more, under a voluptuous diet."

But I am unwilling to dismiss this subject without inserting a few more extracts from Dr. Cheyne, to show his views of the treatment of diseases. And first, of the scurvy, and other diseases which he supposes to arise from it.

"There is no chronical distemper, whatsoever, more universal, more obstinate, and more fatal in Britain than the scurvy, taken in its general extent. Scarce any one chronical distemper but owes its origin to a scorbutic tendency, or is so complicated with it, that it furnishes the most cruel and most obstinate symptoms. To it we owe all the dropsies that happen after the meridian of life; all diabetes, asthmas, consumptions of several kinds; many sorts of colics and diarrhœas; some kinds of gouts and rheumatisms, all palsies, various kinds of ulcers, and possibly the cancer itself; and most cutaneous foulnesses, weakly constitutions, and bad digestions; vapors, melancholy, and almost all nervous distempers whatsoever. And what a plentiful source of miseries the last are, the afflicted best can tell. And scarce any one chronical distemper whatever, but has some degree of this evil faithfully attending it. The reason why the scurvy is peculiar to this country and so fruitful of miseries, is, that it is produced by causes mostly special and particular to this island, to wit: the indulging so much in animal food and strong fermented liquors, sedentary and confined employments, etc.

"Though the inhabitants of Britain live, for the most part, as long as those of a warmer climate, and probably rather longer, yet scarce any one, especially those of the better sort, but becomes crazy and suffers under some chronical distemper or other, before he arrives at old age.

"Nothing less than a very moderate use of animal food, and that of the least exciting kind, and a more moderate use of spirituous liquors, due exercise, etc., can keep this hydra under. And nothing else than a total abstinence from animal food and alcoholic liquors can totally extirpate it."

The following are extracted from his "Natural Methods." I do not lay them down as recipes, to be followed in the treatment of diseases; but to show the views of Dr. Cheyne in regard to vegetable regimen.

"1.Cancer.—Any cancer that can be cut out, contracted, and healed up with common, that is, soft, cool, and gently astringent dressings, and at last left as an issue on the part, may, by a cow's milk and seed diet continued ever afterward, be made as easy to the patient, and his life and health as long preserved, almost, as if he had never been afflicted with it; especially if under fifty years of age.

"2.Cancer.—A total ass's milk diet—about two quarts a day, without any other meat or drink—will in time cure a cancer in any part of the body, with mere common dressings, provided the patient is not quite worn out with it before it is begun, or too far gone in the common duration of life and even in that case, it will lessen the pain, lengthen life, and make death easier, especially if joined with small interspersed bleedings, millepedes, crabs' eyes prepared, nitre and rhubarb, properly managed. But the diet, even after the cure, must be continued, and never after greatly altered, unless it be into cow's milk with seeds.

"3.Consumption.—A total milk and seed diet, gentle and frequent bleedings, as symptoms exasperate, a little ipecacuanha or thumb vomit repeated once or twicea week, chewing quill bark in the morning, and a few grains of rhubarb at night, will totally cure consumptions, even when attended with tubercles, and hemoptoe, and hectic, in the first stage; will greatly relieve, if not cure, in the second stage, especially if riding and a warm clear air be joined; and make death easier in the third and last stage.

"4.Fits.—A total cow's milk diet—about two quarts a day—without any other food, will at last totally cure all kinds of fits, epileptical, hysterical, or apoplectic, if entered upon before fifty. But the patient, if near fifty, must ever after continue in the same diet, with the addition only of seeds; otherwise his fits will return oftener and more severely, and at last cut him off.

"5.Palsy.—A total cow's milk diet, without any other food, will bid fairest to cure a hemiplegia or even a dead palsy, and consequently all the lesser degrees of a partial one, if entered upon before fifty. And this distemper I take to be the most obstinate, intractable, and disheartening one that can afflict the human machine; and is chiefly produced by intemperate cookery, with its necessary attendant, habitual luxury.

"6.Gout.—A total milk and seed diet, with gentle vomits before and after the fits, chewing bark in the morning and rhubarb at night, with bleeding about the equinoxes, will perfectly cure the gout in persons under fifty, and greatly relieve those farther advanced in life; but must be continued ever after, if such desire to get well.

"7.Gravel.—Soap lees, softened with a little oil of sweet almonds, drunk about a quarter of an ounce twice a day on a fasting stomach; or soap and egg-shell pills, with a total milk and seed diet, and Bristol water beverage,will either totally dissolve the stone in kidneys or bladder, or render it almost as easy as the nail on one's finger, if the patient is under fifty, and much relieve him, even after that age.

"In about thirty years' practice, in which I have, in some degree or other, advised this method in proper cases, I have had but two patients in whose total recovery I have been mistaken, and these were both scrofulous cases, where the glands and tubercles were so many, so hard, and so impervious that even the ponderous remedies and diet joined could not discuss them; and they were both also too far gone before they entered upon them;—and I have found deep scrofulous vapors the most obstinate of any of this tribe of these distempers. And indeed nothing can possibly reach such, but the ponderous medicines, joined with a liquid, cool, soft, milk and seed regimen; and if these two do not, in due time, I can boldly affirm it, nothing ever will."

Dr. Cheyne goes on to speak of the cure, on similar principles, of a great many other difficult or dangerous diseases, as asthma, pleurisy, hemorrhage, mania, jaundice, bilious colic, rheumatism, scurvy, and venereal disease; but he modestly owns that, in his opinion on these, he does not feel such entire confidence as in the former cases, for want of sufficient experiments. He, however, closes one of his chapters with the following pretty strong statement:

"I am morally certain, and am myself entirely convinced, that a milk and seed, or milk and turnip diet, duly persisted in, with the occasional helps mentioned (elsewhere) on exacerbations, will either totally cure or greatly relieve every chronical distemper I ever saw or read of."

Another chapter is thus concluded, and with it I shall conclude my extracts from his writings.

"Some, perhaps, may controvert, nay, ridicule the doctrine laid down in these propositions. I shall neither reply to, nor be moved with any thing that shall be said against them. If they are of nature and truth, they will stand; if not, I consent they should come to nought. I have satisfied my own conscience—the rest belongs to Providence. Possibly time and bodily sufferings may justify them;—if not to this generation, perhaps to some succeeding one. I myself am convinced, by long and many repeated experience, of their justness and solidity. If what has been advocated through this whole treatise does not convince others, nothing I can add will be sufficient. I will leave only this reflection with my readers.

"All physicians, ancient and modern, allow that a milk and seed diet will totally cure before fifty, and infinitely alleviate after it, the consumption, the rheumatism, the scurvy, the gout—these highest, most mortal, most painful, and most obstinate distempers; and nothing is more certain in mathematics, than that which will cure the greater will certainly cure the lesser distempers."

Dr. Geoffroy, a distinguished French physician and professor of chemistry and medicine in some of the institutions of France, flourished more than a hundred years ago. The bearing of the following extract will be readily seen. It is from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for the year 1730; and I am indebted for it to the labors of Dr. Cheyne.

"M. Geoffroy has given a method for determiningthe proportion of nourishment or true matter of the flesh and blood, contained in any sort of food. He took a pound of meat that had been freed from the fat, bones, and cartilages, and boiled it for a determined time in a close vessel, with three pints of water; then, pouring off the liquor, he added the same quantity of water, boiling it again for the same time; and this operation he repeated several times, so that the last liquor appeared, both in smell and taste, to be little different from common water. Then, putting all the liquor together, and filtrating, to separate the too gross particles, he evaporated it over a slow fire, till it was brought to an extract of a pretty moderate consistence.

"This experiment was made upon several sorts of food, the result of which may be seen in the following table. The weights are in ounces, drachms, and grains; sixty grains to a drachm, and eight drachms to an ounce.

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