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to cite any proofs of it. Suffice it to say, that if the patient is not consumptive, nor laboring under any other chronic disease, it will yield in the course of a few days to the use of fruit, lemon juice, antiscorbutic herbs, or, in short, of any vegetable matter that is wholesome and fresh. Even raw potatoes have effected a cure. And so speedy is the effect upon the system, that the color of a scorbutic ulcer becomes improved and reddened in twelve hours after the use of lemons. It is not perhaps so well known that vegetables which have been submitted to the fire are far less efficacious against this disease. But this fact seems perfectly established. On this point a physician of the first authority on such subjects has these observations:

"It is certain that the medical effects of the native sweet juices are, in other respects, very different from what they are in their refined state; for manna, wort, and the native juice of the sugar cane are purgative, whereas sugar itself is not at all so. This affords a presumption that they may be also different in their antiscorbutic quality; and there is reason to think, from experience, that the more natural the state in which any vegetable is, the greater is its antiscorbutic quality. Vegetables in the form of salads are more powerful than when prepared by fire; and I know for certain, that the rob of lemons and oranges is not to be compared to the fresh fruit. Raw potatoes have been used with advantage in the fleet, particularly by Mr. Smith of the Triton, who made the scorbutic men eat them sliced with vinegar, with great benefit. This accords also with what Dr. Mertens, of Vienna, has lately communicated to the Royal Society of London."

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It has been observed by some other writers, that it adds much to the suffering of the scorbutic seaman when, from the rotten state of his teeth, he is unable to eat the sour krout without boiling, for that the boiling very much impairs its antiscorbutic powers.

But this is not all. There have been examples of a deep scurvy appearing among persons whose diet was entirely vegetable. Dr. Trotter has related an instance of this in a cargo of unfortunate negroes in a slave ship, who were fed upon beans, rice, and Indian corn. It is proper, however, to add, that these poor wretches were most diabolically treated, being stowed spoonways, according to the technical phrase; and some were actually suffocated for want of fresh air.

These facts are enough to show that there is an essential difference between fresh vegetable matter and the same matter changed by cookery; and they make it in a manner certain,

that in the latter state it is less congenial to the human frame. If, therefore, in this state it creates uneasiness in the stomach, it must proceed, not from any noxious quality of the vegetable, but from some vice of the stomach itself. And it illustrates most forcibly how much we may be deceived, by inferring any thing concerning the good and ill qualities of a substance from its primary operation on a morbid body; how little, having depraved our stomachs by the stimulation of an artificial system of diet, we can confide in the feelings conveyed.

The internal coat of this organ possesses an exquisite sensibility, if not to all impressions, to those which are peculiarly fitted to it. This sensibility appears to be a species of taste, very nearly like that of the tongue or palate; and our likings and aversions may be suspected to be caused by the relation between this membrane and the substances applied to it. Now under the common habits of life we find a slow but constant change taking place with regard to the objects of liking, so that gradually all the substances which were most the objects of desire, and afforded the highest pleasure in our early days, when it must be supposed that the organs were the most healthy, become indifferent, if not disagreeable. All the effective agents which are applied to the system may contribute to this result. But probably the stimulating part of our diet-the animal food and fermented liquors—is that which has the most active share in its production.

In consequence of these habits, the stomach becomes more and more agreeably affected, and, as it were, in unison with whatever is stimulating, and which is really warm or excites the feelings of warmth; and, on the other hand, what is cool or what excites the feeling of coldness is disagreeable and uneasy. In this respect the internal parts of the body, and especially this very sensible membrane, is similar to the external, which may be made so tender by large fires, close rooms, and indulgence, as not to bear without pain the common temperature of the atmosphere. A gouty stomach, constantly under the influence of wine, spirits, rich sauces, and made dishes, finds it necessary for comfortable feeling to have the stimulus gradually heightened; weak wines are deficient in power; it requires the strongest, or even ardent spirits, to make it comfortable; and every thing solid must likewise be highly seasoned. Many persons, too, have the stomach in this condition who are not subject to gout.

Now these are the persons to whom vegetables of all kinds are the most distasteful and insipid, and, as they think, from the

flatulence they excite, indigestible. But fruit, and all vegetable matter unchanged by cookery, are still more opposite to this condition of the stomach, for they excite a sense of coldness in the organ to which nothing is agreeable but what is stimulant and fiery; as they dissolve with more slowness than any other species of matter, they are esteemed the most difficult of digestion, and the impression which they make is more permanent than that of any other matter which is used as food.

These are the circumstances which appear to me to make fruit and recent vegetables so offensive to a number of persons, and to have raised such strong prejudices against them as if they were really pernicious. That in a multitude of persons they excite uneasy feeling, and therefore appear to disagree, is certain; and those who argue immediately from their feeling can hardly form any other conclusion. But those who look a little below the surface of things will be less hasty in their determinations. They will inquire how these uneasy feelings are generated, and what they indicate. They must see that they may arise from a diseased condition of the stomach, as well as from any thing noxious in the matter applied to it; and if the account I have given be just, such must be the truth. This will lead them a step further, and they will inquire whether by breaking in upon the old habits, it is not possible to alter the sensations, and to get rid of the pains or uneasiness by amending the state of the stomach itself?

Considerable experience has convinced me that this is very possible. I have seen persons who have followed the regimen I advise in chronic diseases regain their relish for fruit, and indulge in it without any detriment or inconvenience. This they could not do under their former mixed regimen; and it abundantly compensated for the deprivations they sustained in other articles. A gentleman told me that under this regimen he can eat cherries in any quantity with impunity, which formerly were used to give him considerable uneasiness.

If I am right in my account of the source of the uneasiness which many persons suffer from fruits and recent vegetables, it must follow that it is a gross absurdity to deny them to children, young persons, or invalids, who have a desire for them and in whom they produce no uneasiness. And yet this absurdity is committed daily. Children are forbidden fruit who have the greatest longing for it. If any desire can be truly be said to be natural and instinctive, it is this. As such it should always be moderately indulged. To act otherwise is equally irrational and cruel.

I hope not to be so far misunderstood (even that has happened) as if I blamed all culinary preparation of vegetables. But I think that the practice is carried to excess. It appears to be the general opinion that almost all vegetable matter, if not previously submitted to the action of heat, is absolutely indigestible and noxious. But the fact is that almost all our common garden vegetables may be used without any such preparation; and it is highly probable that in this natural condition they would be more nutritive, more strengthening, and certainly far more antiscorbutic than when they have been changed by the fire. On this account it is that I think it highly advisable that some portion either of fruit or of fresh vegetable matter should be used daily. Children, too, should be encouraged in the use of such things instead of being forbid them, as is the common practice. If the stomach be so much diseased that nothing of this kind can be borne, soups made with a large quantity of recent vegetables may be substituted. They seem to be far preferable to vegetables much boiled; the soup and the vegetables may be eaten together, and are very agreeable to the palate.

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I have been asked repeatedly, as I recommend to the invalid distilled in place of common water, whether I think it necessary to use the same kind for boiling vegetables. I take this opportunity, therefore, to say that I regard such nicety as needless. If the matter to be boiled absorbs a large quantity of water, as rice, this attention may be right. In making bread the same attention should, if possible, be paid. But the quantity absorbed by common culinary vegetables is probably too small to deserve notice. Those who wish to be extremely exact may dress their vegetables by steam.

*

There may be other parts of our dietetic habits which it would not be improper to examine. The use of tea and coffee, for example, is by many suspected, and, perhaps, not without

* One of the principal marks of distinction between the face of a negro or the savage man, and the European, is in the form of the face. The negro has the mouth and chin very prominent, so that a perpendicular line let fall from the forehead cuts off a much larger portion of the lower part of the face in the negro than in the European. Now it seems very clear that this form of the face is generated by the use of food requiring more mastication, consequently greater force of the masticating organs. In consequence, the temporal, massiter, diagastric, and the other muscles of mastication become habitually stronger, the surface of attachment enlarged and elongated, and the whole form of the head and face changed and modified from these circumstances. If this position be just, the form of the head and face, which distinguishes civilized nations, is produced in a great measure by the cookery of their food.

reason. But I abstain from subjects on which I am conscious that I have nothing of value to offer. I shall, therefore, conclude with making a single inquiry with regard to bread, which I shall leave to the determination of those who are competent to pronounce on such questions, and who have proper opportunities of observations. What I would ask is this, Is the farina of wheat, or any other, improved or injured-is it made more or less wholesome by fermentation? or, in other words, which should be preferred, leavened or unleavened bread? The leaven or fermented bread sits lighter upon the stomach; but this is no proof that it is really more salubrious. We know very well that the coarsest black bread, which is as heavy almost as a lump of dough, gives much nourishment and strength. A sensible writer says, that he "has heard a seafaring man observe that he was always sensible of a diminution of muscular strength when he left off the use of biscuit and ate common bread." Hippocrates has given a corresponding testimony. His words are "Leavened or fermented bread is lighter in digestion, and passes easily through the body; but unfermented bread does not go off so easily, though it nourishes more where the stomach can bear it."

If these observations are correct, the fermenting of bread and the cookery of vegetables are practices adopted by mankind from the same motives; they accommodate the matters to which they are applied to the factitious delicacy of our digesting organs, which is effected, however, at some expense of their strengthening and nutritive powers.

CHAPTER VII.

Noxious habits of slow operation.-Erroneous statements.-Vegetable food necessary to a perfect organization.-It is produced in all climates habitable by man.-The natural progress of society.-The use of animal food a relic of barbarous manners.

In ascribing the diseases of mankind to their situation and habits of life, I have commonly said that these are to be considered not as their immediate, but as their remote and antecedent causes: a distinction which it is necessary carefully to attend to. For it obvious that no habit whatever, whether it regard food or dick, or situation, can possibly have been

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