system being found inadequate to the duty required of it; while, under a mild and natural diet, tone is gradually imparted to each organ; the functions are performed with ease and advantage; and the whole frame assumes its normal state of health, strength, and activity. Unfortunately, many have neither faith nor patience to give a fair trial to this slow but more sure process.

382. The following is a case in point, from Dr. Lambe's Reports. A youth employed as a shopman was obliged, at an early period, to live on vegetables: his health was not robust. At the age of sixteen, his diet contained a considerable proportion of animal food. "The consequence was, that he improved considerably in strength and appearance; and, as he expresses it, he thought him self becoming quite a hearty lad. This increased strength, and apparently improved health, lasted nearly two years. After this, it began to decline. Though the diet continued unchanged, the strength diminished; and he is certain that now, at the age of twenty-one, he is not so strong as he was three years ago, at eighteen. He is not now able to raise weights which he could do then." At the age of eighteen, moreover, he became affected with scrofula.

383. An intelligent gentleman thus writes respecting his little boy:-"He was, for a long time, delicate and ill; and, at the suggestion of the medical attendant, we ceased to give him animal food: he very soon became quite hearty; and seemed to relish bread and butter, as his most desirable fare. The extremely pernicious effects of animal food in illness, show that it cannot be so

generally suited to us as farinaceous food: which, in almost every state of health is found to agree." The numerous instances already given, of the beneficial effects of a vegetable diet on persons labouring under disease, ought to be sufficient to convince all who are sceptical upon the subject; and—having shown that it is equally favourable to the continued maintenance of health, strength, and soundness of constitution-a few examples may now be adduced, to demonstrate its efficacy as a protection against diseases, and (more especially) such as are of an epidemic character.

CHAPTER IX.

VEGETABLE DIET PROTECTIVE AGAINST EPIDEMICS.

384. FROM Volney's Travels we learn, that "the Wallachians are in general tall, well-built, robust, and of a very wholesome complexion. Diseases are very rare among them; and the plague, though so frequent in Turkey, has never been known, excepting in times of war; when this disease is brought among them, by the troops who come from Asia. The manners of the Wallachians, as far as I have been able to judge of them, are simple; and neither embellished nor sullied by art. Temperate in their repasts, they prefer vegetables to fruits, and fruits to the most delicate meats." Timoni, in his account of the plague at Constantinople, relates that the Armenians, who chiefly live on vegetables, are far less liable to the disease, than the inhabitants of that city.*

385. Sir William Temple, in his "Essay on Learning," says of the Brahmins :-"Their moral philosophy consisted chiefly in preventing all diseases or distempers of the body, from which they esteemed the perturbation of mind, in a great measure, to arise: then in composing + WORKS. Vol. II. P. 149.

*CLUTTERBUCK ON FEVER.

the mind, and exempting it from all anxious cares;esteeming the troublesome and solicitous thoughts, about past and future, to be like so many dreams, and no more to be regarded. They despised both life and death, pleasure and pain; or, at least, thought them perfectly indifferent. Their justice was exact and exemplary; their temperance so great, that they lived upon rice and herbs, and upon nothing that had sensitive life. If they fell sick, they counted it such a mark of intemperance, that they would frequently die out of shame and sullenness; but many lived a hundred and fifty, and some two hundred years."

386. In the first missionary voyage to the South-Sea Islands, we are told, that "until the Europeans visited the Otaheiteans, they had few disorders among them. Their temperate and regular mode of life, the great use of vegetables, little animal food, and absence of all noxious distilled spirits and wines, preserved them in health." The case at present is wofully different.

387. It has been observed, that the labouring negroes of the West India Islands, are almost wholly exempt from the scourge of the yellow fever, which has cut off such numbers of the other classes of the residents. Upon this observation it was proposed, when the same disease invaded Philadelphia, and was thought contagious, to employ negroes to attend the sick. But there it was found that negroes were some of those who were the most subject to the disease. The principal cause of this difference is said, by the physician on whose authority I relate the fact, to be that in Philadelphia the man

ner of living of negroes was as plentiful as that of white people in the West Indies; the reverse of which is known to be the fact in the Islands." *

388. Humboldt says the Mexican Indians escape the goître, even in districts where it is prevalent. It is probable that their exemption from bronchocele, is due to their subsisting on vegetables; on which account there will be less occasion for their drinking the water of the country, upon which the disease is supposed to depend.

389. The late Dr. Alderson, of Hull, sent the following statement to Mr. Thackrah:-"A friend has, for a long series of years, uniformly continued a plan of water-drinking and a vegetable diet, which he adopted on mature reflection;-being fully convinced, that the contrary mode was mere luxury and indulgence. His children are living evidences of the good effects of such a plan there cannot be a handsomer, stronger, or a better family they possess every physical power in perfection;-being tall, comely, finely proportioned, patient of fatigue, capable of the greatest exertions, and excelling in every gymnastic exercise, without ever having tasted animal food or fermented liquors. They have very seldom even required the aid of medical men; they fear not the effects of the common epidemics; nor have they ever suffered from acquired diseases." +

390. The Rev. J. B. Strettles, from whose letter I have previously given an extract (302), further says:"As far as my experience with respect to the members

*BUSH'S WORKS. Vol. IV. P. 55.

THACKRAH'S LECTURES ON DIGESTION AND DIET. P. 102.