374. No sooner does a person make trial of a vegetable diet, than his friends (from the best of motives, no doubt) attempt to alarm him, by predicting bad consequences from his folly, as they suppose it to be. Even Dr. Dixon says of this diet-"I know of no complaint, except small-pox and the other contagious diseases, that it has not of itself produced." This may certainly be added to his list of "Fallacies of the Faculty"; and I challenge him to state a single instance, in which any disease can be clearly traced to a properly selected fruit and farinaceous diet. The facetious remarks which he makes respecting the advocates of an exclusively vegetable diet, would be deserving of a reply, were it not evident that, like many other opponents, he has totally misunderstood the question; his arguments being directed against a low herbaceous diet; which I should think few, if any, would defend.

375. Some anticipate that, though a person under this diet is not so liable to inflammatory diseases, yet the low tone of his system exposes him more to the attacks of epidemics; and should he become the subject of any active disease, he would have so little stamina, under so poor a diet, that he would soon sink under the complaint. This assumption is perfectly gratuitous ;-having neither reason nor facts to support it. In the first place, it is denied that a vegetable diet, in the true sense of the term (as applied to man), is a poor diet; and, in the second place, it has been shown (Chapters III. and IV.), that the health and strength of those who adopt it, are (other circumstances being the same) much superior to the

health and strength of those whose food consists wholly or partly of the flesh of animals. All the functions of the human frame maintain their normal state of activity much better under the former diet; and, consequently, such a degree of sensibility, contractility, and elasticity is communicated to the human fabric, as enables it much more effectually to resist malaria: probably, also, because the peculiar arrangement of elements which constitute miasma, meets with no similar arrangement in the blood; by which Professor Liebig supposes a process of fermentation is set up,—thereby giving origin to disease. If, however, disease should attack a person thus living according to nature, or if accident should befal him, the symptoms generally evince so slight a deviation from health, that a state of convalescence and recovery may be hoped for, by a little attention to the secretions, and by the judicious administration of the mildest medicines.

376. If by "stamina" be meant stoutness of person and fulness of blood, such stamina constitutes the very food of disease; and a person in such a state is not only more liable to febrile and epidemic attacks, but is also in much greater danger while labouring under them, than one whose development is such as to allow all the secretory functions to be performed with ease, and whose blood is not surcharged with either natural or extraneous elements. How frequently do we hear of those who are said to be looking well and healthy, suddenly cut off by apoplexy, or some malignant disorder! The fact is, we are deceived by appearances, and misled by what we consider the indications of health; for those whom we are

taught to regard as healthy and robust, are generally the farthest from safety; and only need a slight exciting cause to bring on fatal disease. "It is not the apparent disease, which is the real cause of death: but men die because the body is worn out; the tone of the fibres is destroyed; and the principle of motion fails. The obvious disease is the mask, under which the condition is concealed."* Not to dwell unnecessarily on this point, I may confidently appeal to medical experience, and to some hundreds of examples.

377. Dr. William Davidson, senior physician of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, in his treatise "On the Sources and Propagation of continued Fevers",-as quoted in the Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners, on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (page 145), gives us the following information:-" Drs. Barker and Cheyne-in their historical account of the Irish Epidemic-state that, in every part of the country, fever was reported to have been much more fatal among the upper than the lower classes! To what is this difference of mortality, so generally remarked by experienced hospital physicians, to be attributed? and which in Ireland seemed to be very remarkable; namely, in the lower classes about one in twenty-three cases, and in the upper classes one in three or four generally, but in other places about one in seven. Can the difference in the mode of living account for this anomaly? as the first live very much on potatoes, while the others use a larger or smaller proportion of animal food; and the lower classes almost * JOURNAL DE MEDICINE, CHIRURGIE, &c.

every where in this country, use less animal food and stimulating dishes, than those who are more wealthy, and in a higher sphere of society."

378. "Excessive nourishment", observes Mr. Thackrah, "is the general state of Englishmen. We take richer food than our habits require; and thus our vessels are loaded, either with blood in excess, or with a fluid but partially assimilated. Hence, probably, our greater danger from disease or accident; the greater blood-letting and evacuations which our maladies require; and the higher fever which injuries occasion. In reading the Memoirs of French Surgery, we find numerous instances of patients restored by the efforts of nature, from states which, in similar circumstances, would be fatal to Englishmen."* "It is to be remarked", says Sir G. Staunton, "that the Chinese recover from all kinds of accidents more rapidly, and with fewer symptoms of any kind of danger, than most people in Europe. The constant and quick recovery from considerable and alarming wounds, has been observed likewise to take place among the natives of Hindostan. The European surgeons have been surprised at the easy cure of sepoys in the English service, from accidents accounted extremely formidable." Sir George attributes this to their vegetable regimen.

379. A medical gentleman recently informed me, that four individuals in Manchester were bit by a mad dog, and were (in consequence) attacked by that dreadful disease, hydrophobia. Similar remedies were employed in each case; death, however terminated the sufferings of

"LECTURES ON DIGESTION AND DIET." P. 84.

all except one; and he had long subsisted on a vegetable diet. An isolated case of this kind, however, should have little weight with us, as the recovery may have depended upon some cause unknown to us.

380. Some there are who, though convinced of the propriety of a vegetable diet for those who are strong and well, think its adoption a dangerous experiment for those who are weak or emaciated by disease; but Dr. Cheyne was of a very different opinion. He says "For those who are extremely broken down with chronic disease, I have found no other relief than a total abstinence from all animal food, and from all sorts of strong and fermented liquors. 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 cases in whose total recovery I have been mistaken; and they were both too deeply diseased, and too far gone for recovery, before I undertook them." The author is acquainted with several persons, who had long laboured under extreme weakness and debility, notwithstanding a long trial of a stimulating diet,—of animal food, porter, wine, &c.,—at the recommendation of eminent practitioners; and yet, after adopting a simple, nourishing diet,-consisting of rice and other farinaceous substances, they immediately began to acquire strength, and were gradually restored to health.

381. Under a stimulating diet, weak persons may seem to rally; and doubtless many, whose constitutions are able to bear it, rapidly improve; but with many others, this does not continue long; they generally retrograde;—some debilitated organ or other of their