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same description is found: "The noble Francis Pechi-when he had mounted his mule, to dispatch some commissions of our illustrious duke-a man of fifty, gouty, and much oppressed with the continual torments of this disease, was secretly thrown into prison by a certain marquis, his wife, only son, and other people thinking him dead. In the year 1556, after a lapse of twenty years, he was found by the French, who took the citadel, and to the astonishment of all the inhabitants of Vercelli, preserved like Lazarus from the tomb, he walked through the city, with his sword by his side, without stiffness of his joints, without the aid of a stick. He thus escaped all the misery of the gout by means of a slender diet, imposed on him by his jailers; and finding his wife and son dead, he began to claim his houses, farms, and other property, which had been sold, and were of great value. In diet, therefore, is the medicine."

Cures, which appear almost miraculous, have been at all times related concerning the most intractable diseases, with a confidence that should awaken our attention, if it do not overcome our incredulity. The elephantiasis was the disease which the ancients held in the greatest horror: the miserable victims were deserted by their nearest friends, and banished to the wilderness, there to perish in solitude. Aretous has recorded that some of these sufferers were reported to have been restored, nature renewing the parts which had been destroyed by the disease and thrown out of the system. On these cases it is well remarked by Cocchi, that "we should not believe that their cure proceeded from their having eaten vipers, as the account relates, but rather from their total abstinence from animal food, and a continual use of herbs, as more powerful philosophical reasons induce us to believe."

The former prevalence of leprous diseases throughout Europe, which occasioned the institution of lazar houses for the reception of the loathsome objects afflicted by them, may make us suspect that such accounts are not wholly fabulous. The leprosy is nearly extinct, and the lazar houses have fallen to decay, owing, no doubt, to the improvements of agriculture. We have a remarkable instance of the effects of diet on the diseases of a nation, in the inhabitants of the isles of Ferro. Since fishing has declined among them, and the inhabitants have cultivated corn, and live upon other food, instead of whales' flesh and bacon, the elephantiasis has ceased among them. Galen ascribes the prevalence of elephantiasis, among the poor inhabitants of Alexandria, to similar causes, namely, the habitual

use of salted meats. The species of animal was little regarded; among others, they did not disdain the flesh of the ass.

Need I cite the well-known history of Mr. Wood, the miller of Billericay? This man, from a long course of gluttony, eating voraciously animal food three times a day, with large quantities of butter and cheese, and drinking strong ale, became very fat in his fortieth year; and, in three or four more years, his health failed; he had a constant thirst, great lowness of spirits, violent rheumatism, and frequent attacks of gout. He had two fits, which were called epileptic, and had often a sense of suffocation, particularly after his meals. By altering his regimen, and pursuing a strict course of abstemiousness, he re-established his health, and continued to enjoy good health for many years. He left off animal food and fermented liquors. His solid food was either sea biscuit, or flour made into a pudding, being mixed either with skimmed milk or with water, and boiled. He abstained from all fluids, except what entered into the composition of his pudding. Under this course of abstinence, he lost his corpulence, and became a middle-sized man, healthy and active, and his strength increased instead of diminishing. This man died in his sixty-fourth year. No one that reads his history can doubt that he prolonged his life many years; and, probably, had his diet been regulated upon still more correct principles, he would have lived several years longer.

That longevity is promoted by vegetable regimen is established by the concurrence of numerous and authentic observations. Ulloa testifies that of the South American Indians both sexes afford many instances of remarkable longevity. "I myself," says he, "have known several who, at the age of a hundred, were still very robust and active, which unquestionably must, in some measure, be attributed to the constant sameness and simplicity of their food." Humboldt's testimony, as to their longevity at the present day, is to the same purpose, except that many cut themselves off by the use of spirituous liquors. He says, "While I was at Lima, the Indian Hilario Pari died at the village of Chiagata, four leagues distant from the town of Arequiga, at the age of 143."

It is the mountainous and barren districts, where frugality and simplicity of manners are the necessary habits of the bulk of the community, that have ever been the favorite abode of health and longevity. "Upon the general and particular surveys already made," says Sir William Temple, "it may seem that the mountainous barren countries are equally the scenes

of health and long life; that they have been rather in the hills of Palestine and Arcadia, than in the plains of Babylon or of Thessaly; and among us in England, rather upon the Peak of Derbyshire and the heaths of Staffordshire, than in the fertile soils of other counties that abound more in people and in riches." Examples of great and extraordinary longevity have been chiefly confined to peasants of the lowest order of society; to philosophers, who have thought that the truest wisdom consists in the regulation of the passions and the appetites; or hermits and anchorites, who practiced great abstemiousness as a religious duty.

That the members of those monastic orders, who abstained from the flesh of animals by the rules of their institution, enjoyed a longer mean term of life in consequence, has been proved by the result of an actual examination. This fact is well established by the author of an interesting tract, published at Geneva, in 1789, entitled Apologie du Jeune. As this tract appears to furnish some important and instructive matter, I am sorry that my own knowledge of its contents is derived from the scanty details of a medical journal. From this source, however, I have obtained the calculation which seems sufficient to justify the conclusions of the author.

This writer extracted from Baillot the length of the lives of 152 monks (solitaires), or of bishops, who used the same austere mode of life. He took them promiscuously, as they were presented, in all times, and in all sorts of climates. They produced a total of 11,589 years; and consequently they gave an average of seventy-six years and a little more than three months, which may be expected from a regimen confined principally to fruits, herbs, roots, etc. He took, in like manner, 152 academicians, half members of the academy of sciences, and half of that of Belles Lettres. They gave only 10,511 years, affording an average of sixty-nine years and a little more than two months. The ancient austerity, therefore, so far from abridging life, lengthens it rather more, upon an average, than seven years; and the long life of the anchorites was the effect of the frugality of their regimen.

The difference between the ages of the seventy-six members of the two academies was only nineteen years; but in every stage of life the advantage was on the side of the monks; there were fewer deaths, more numerous survivors, and an old age more prolonged, as appeared by noting the number of deaths in every successive ten years.

The author of this account concludes with making what I

which remains to a person who has a tumor of this kind, may be conjectured with a tolerable degree of precision. Let us suppose such a person under common regimen would survive three years; under a strict vegetable regimen, the same person may expect, from these data, to live about three years and a half.

From this view of the subject, I think it is easily explained how the vegetable regimen has fallen into a species of disrepute; and how impossible it is to obtain from it, when the system is hastening toward dissolution, even a temporary respite from suffering. Let us make an assumption which is certainly quite extravagant; but let us suppose that, other things remaining the same, life would be doubled by vegetable regimen. In the beginning or middle of life this would be a momentous consideration; but how would it be toward its close? A man, we will say, is consumptive, and has but half a year to live. By the vegetable regimen, then, he would, by the supposition, live a whole year. But he would still during the whole period be a dying man; the symptoms might be less severe, but they would persist. And how much more evidently must this be the case if, what would doubtless be the real fact, life was not prolonged a month? In these circumstances it can hardly be conceived that the patient should, as far as he could judge from his feelings, be sensible of any benefit whatever. And as no practitioner will pretend to so correct a judgment as to be able to fix, in these circumstances, and foretell death within three or four weeks, the advantage gained, though real, would elude the observation of the medical attendants quite as much as that of the patient.

It is no wonder, then, that while vegetable regimen has been confined to cases of this kind, persons should be insensible of its advantages. The most strenuous advocates for a vegetable regimen have been some solitary individuals in common life, living commonly in a confined circle, and acting either from a regard to health or from a principle of conscience. The errors of such persons have in them something respectable. But the medical profession have, in general, held a different and even an opposite language. The reason clearly is the much more extensive observation which their profession affords them. This experience has presented to them diseases of all sorts, invading persons whom necessity confines to such a regimen ; and death taking place in all its forms. They must therefore have a full conviction that all the flattering prospects of avoiding diseases, held out by the enthusiasts of a vegetable regimen,

are wholly fallacious. And as men are apt to fall into extremes, it is no wonder that a large portion of this body of men are insensible to its real advantages, and inclined to attribute mischiefs to it of which it is really guiltless.

Under the influence of prejudices, grounded, I dare say, upon observations such as I have mentioned, a surgeon, who, from the extent of his practice and his standing in the profession, is justly called, I believe, the first of this metropolis, being told how little animal food was given to the children at Edinburgh, answered, "Yes; but I find animal food is necessary to our London children;" as if what was right in one place was wrong in another, and that there is a real difference in the human constitution at London and at Edinburgh. When the first men of the profession use such vague language, and have such indistinct ideas, can we wonder at the ignorance and prejudices. of the bulk of the people?

Though there is no reason to question the fidelity of the writers who have given the histories which I have recited in this chapter, yet it is to be considered that they are rare occurrences, and as such ought not to be allowed undue weight. General conclusions must rest upon a firmer foundation; facts should be both numerous and concurring. In individual cases circumstances may easily be omitted which would lead to different conclusions had they been related; and this may happen from error or precipitation without any intention to mislead.

Gout is the disease in which abstinence from animal food has been the most frequently recommended, and with the greatest, but not with uniform success. It is generally acknowledged that the practice alleviates the symptoms of the disease. Many single cases, of the good done by such a regimen, have been related. A treatise by Dolous, on the cure of gout by milk diet, contains several cases in which the severity of the disease was by this method much alleviated. In Dr. Štarke's works is the following passage to the same pur

pose.

"Mr. Slingsby has lived many years on bread and milk and vegetables, without animal food or wine; he has excellent spirits, is very vigorous, and has been free from the gout ever since he began this regimen.

"Dr. Knight has lived also many years on a diet strictly vegetable, excepting eggs in puddings, milk with his tea and chocolate, and butter. He finds wine necessary to him. Since he lived in this manner he has been free from the gout."

But it has also appeared that a great degree of atony and

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