others with me have abstained from flesh-meat and intoxicating liquor, I have known no injury to arise from such abstinence, either to young or old." This testimony is worthy of especial notice; as, in the society to which it refers, there must be members of all ages, of great variety of constitution, and of all occupations.

295. The general opinion, therefore, that physical strength cannot be maintained on a fruit and farinaceous diet, is undoubtedly wrong, and cannot have been formed from long experience, or from a proper examination of the subject. A few days' trial of a less stimulating diet than usual, will certainly induce a person to suppose that it is debilitating; but if he persevere for a few months upon food judiciously selected, and take proper exercise, he will find no reason to complain of any diminution of his usual vigour.

CHAPTER V.

CLIMATE AND TEMPERATURE.

296. THE numerous references already made to men living on vegetable productions, in all climates (whether hot or cold), and engaged in all kinds of occupations, and yet enjoying health and strength, may be regarded as a sufficient refutation of the opinion that human diet should vary with the climate in which a man resides. It is true that a diet of animal food will agree much better with a person living in a cold climate, and taking a considerable amount of muscular exercise, than with one residing in a hot climate, and leading an inactive life; but it is also equally true, that a diet of fruit and farinacea is conducive to the highest and most complete development of man physically, mentally, and morally, in cold countries as well as in hot; and, "all other things being precisely equal, the man who is fully accustomed to a pure vegetable diet, can endure severer cold, or bear the same degree of cold much longer than the man who is fully accustomed to a flesh-diet. Reasoning from false notions derived from mere momentary sensation, mankind long clung to the opinion, that

alcoholic liquor would enable them better to endure both heat and cold; and although modern experiments are beginning to set them right concerning alcohol, yet they blindly cherish the idea, that flesh-meat is better for them in cold regions, than vegetable food; without pausing to consider, that while it actually affords them less real and permanent nourishment, it stimulates them more and exhausts the vital powers of their organs more rapidly; and therefore, in all that it differs in its effects from vegetable food, it approaches more to the character of alcohol."*

297. We have seen that in Norway, Russia, and other cold portions of the globe, the people, who subsist on coarse vegetable food, are exceedingly hardy and vigorous; and it has been stated, by gentlemen who have spent many months in Siberia, that no exiles to that wintry region endure the severities of the climate better, than those who have been all their lives accustomed to a ́simple vegetable diet. Not to depend exclusively on a statement of facts, let us briefly inquire how far recent discoveries in organic chemistry substantiate the view here taken.

298. It is universally admitted, that food abounding in carbon and hydrogen is absolutely necessary to the inhabitants of cold climates, in order to support animal heat; and though it is acknowledged that starch, and other amylaceous or saccharine substances, do not contain so large a proportion of these elements as animal fat and oils, yet they contain much more than the flesh or

GRAHAM'S LECTURES. Vol. II. P. 278.

muscle of animals; and are therefore better adapted to the circumstances of man, in a cold climate, than what is generally understood by an animal or mixed diet.

299. It has been shown (200), that the non-azotized principles of vegetable food are easily converted into fat, by a separation of oxygen; or transformed into protein, water, and oxygen, by a union with the nitrogen of the atmosphere; or resolved, by vital chemistry, into carbonic acid and other compounds;-by which processes caloric is evolved. It is clear, therefore, that upon vegetable diet the animal heat ought to be higher (cæteris paribus) than upon a flesh or mixed diet, from which fat and oils are excluded. But if farinaceous articles of diet cannot be procured in high latitudes, or if the persons residing there have not been accustomed to that kind of food, then undoubtedly animal oils and fat are the only substances that can be substituted for them ;-the flesh of lean animals being inadequate to their support, except at the expense of immense bodily exertion, to cause a sufficient waste of tissue for the purpose of supplying the carbon necessary for uniting with the oxygen of the atmosphere, to produce animal heat.

300. Certain individuals, however, after adopting a vegetable diet, think that they feel more chilly and cold than when on a mixed diet; others find no alteration in this respect. This difference in the experience of various individuals may probably be thus explained. Vegetable food being less stimulating than the ordinary diet of this country, and less oxygen being requisite for respiration upon the former,-in consequence of the liberation of

that element from the food during the process of digestion, muscular activity is less required of a person adopting the former diet; and, very frequently, the habits become more sedentary under it; though this is by no means a necessary consequence. Hence the various secretions of the body are formed less rapidly; and, as caloric is developed by all chemical changes, its absolute quantity will vary with the amount of organic transformations that are constantly taking place. Many persons, also, when making this change of diet, form at the same time the salutary habit of cold sponging; and, by thus freeing the pores of the skin from feculent matter, permit a much greater amount of caloric to escape: active exercise, therefore, should invariably accompany cold ablutions, to restore the equilibrium of temperature.

301. But the power of generating heat", as Sir Jno. Ross ascertained from long experience, "varies exceedingly in different individuals; and is as much a portion of the original constitution, as are the muscular or the mental energies." "This at least seems certain, that men of the largest appetites and most perfect digestion, produce the most heat; as feeble stomachs, whether dyspeptic (as it is termed), or merely unable to receive much food, are subject to suffer the most from cold ;— never generating heat enough to resist its impressions.

302. In answer to an inquiry on this subject respecting the influence of vegetable food on the members of the religious sect called "Bible Christians", the Rev. J. B. Strettles says "I know not that any have made any

SECOND VOYAGE IN SEARCH OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. P. 128.