take some time before the old habits and old desires are completely eradicated; and before the stomach feels as well satisfied with vegetable food as it did with the former fare. An additional misfortune is that these depraved feelings and appetites are the strongest in the most diseased persons. By resolution, however, they may be conquered; and gradually animal food, so far from being an object of appetite, will cease to be thought of. The very remembrance of it will be effaced. I must assert that, except uneasy feeling such as I have described, I have observed no ill consequences from the relinquishment of animal food. The apprehended danger of the change, with which many scare themselves and their neighbors, is a mere phantom of the imagination; the danger, in truth, lies wholly on the other side.

But besides the uneasiness from the change of habits, there may be consequent uneasiness affecting any part of the body. This may have various sources. If other causes of disease continue to operate, such as putrescent water, or fermented liquors, which have power sufficient ultimately to destroy life, the source of this uneasiness is manifest. Moreover, diseased action continues long after the antecedent causes have been removed.

Parts imperfect in their primary organization, or rendered unsound artificially, may perish and be renewed. Newly-formed parts commonly possess feeble powers of life, in consequence of which they may again perish and be again renewed; and this may take place repeatedly. In these processes we see many sources of uneasiness; of suffering; even of acute pain, however cautious men may be in their manner of living and attentive to the rules laid down for them. They may cause inflammations, ulcerations, suppurations, sloughings, and, by consequence, every sort of pain which is attendant upon these

processes.

Some of the uneasiness consequent upon the use of vegetable food is due, as I have explained in another place, to the improvement of the senses, which follows the disuse of animal food, and the restoration of the natural sensibility of the nervous system. This improvement is not confined to the organs of sense, but pervades every organ and influences every function of every part of the system. The torpor, therefore, introduced by the animal food must be equally diffused over the whole system; all the secreting organs, all the membranes, probably the whole of the vascular, glandular, and absorbent systems suffer under it, as well as the nervous system. Whether each suffers independently, or the whole, in consequence

of the union of every organ through the medium of the nervous system, it is not worth while perhaps to inquire. But observation shows that there is no organ of the body which, under the use of vegetable food, does not receive an increase of sensibility, or of that power which is thought to be imparted to it by the nervous system. The observation of this it is which has made me think it most probable that the decay and final destruction of the powers of life, in the diseases terminating in death, pervades the whole body, though the principal apparent disease may be confined to a single organ. shows that palsy is a condition of the system not confined to the muscles, or the organs of sense. There is no fibre in the body which may not be paralytic.

The same consideration

Morever, there are many pains which persons suffer in the early or middle parts of life which disappear as they advance to old age. On this account there are those who are an exception to the more common rule of old age being the season of infirmity and suffering; on the contrary, they enjoy in age a uniform degree of ease and comfort to which they were strangers in the former part of their lives. Upon such observations must have been founded the maxim of Hippocrates, that “old men for the most part have less sickness than the young." I see not what reasonable explication can be given of these phenomena, except by attributing them to the different degrees of sensibility which the body is endued with during the different stages of its existence. From this cause the young suffer from impressions which the apathy and torpor of the old shield them against. I think it must be in the memory of every person in the middle of life, that when they were children the coldness of a frosty morning was infinitely more piercing than when they had arrived at manhood.

Now this diminution of sensibility may be natural; the necessary consequence of increasing years. As far as this is the case it cannot be deemed morbid; and it would be absurd to expect to prevent or remedy it. But as far as we accelerate old age by depraved customs, or diminish our natural portion of sensibility by the use of deleterious substances, so far we may hope to recover it, in a measure, by adopting more salubrious habits. It is possible, then, that under these circumstances pain may arise in the system which may indicate the recovery of a portion of sensibility that was lost. Such pain ought to be deemed salutary. No one can question that to feel pain must be better than to be stupefied. Some illustrations and examples of this will be given in the sequel.

These considerations show sufficiently how pain may be produced in the system independent of the ingesta. They evince further that the production of pain or uneasiness may form no solid objection against the propriety of the regimen recommended in chronic disease; on the contrary, it may be an evidence of its beneficial influence.

I have heard it said that the only advantage of vegetable diet is, that by it excess is avoided, and that it is excess which is alone injurious; and excess of animal food is acknowledged to be more so than of vegetable. I answer, that the different effects of excess, according to the kind of matter employed, show an essential difference in the operation of these matters upon the body. Excess of vegetable matter produces only simple distension; excess of animal matter, an insuperable loathing and disgust; sometimes horrible nausea and serious illness. These matters then are essentially different, when first applied to the body. They are different, also, in their operation upon all the functions. But of this enough has been said already.

I cannot but think that the ancients, whether physicians or philosophers, who certainly understood much less of drugs than the moderns, had, to balance it, a far more correct knowledge of the influence of food upon the health, the morals, and the intellect. Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, and others of the masters of ancient wisdom, adhered to the Pythagorean diet, and are known to have arrived at old age with the enjoyment of uninterrupted health. Celsus asserts, that "the bodies which are filled in the manner of the athleta (that is, with much animal food), become the most quickly old and diseased." To the same purpose the poet writes

"Immodicis brevis est ætas et rara senectus."-Martial.

The doctrine of Galen is, that "food which affords the most nutriment to the body, taken in excess, generates cold diseases." It was proverbial, that the ancient athleta were the most stupid of men. The cynic Diogenes, being asked what was the cause of this stupidity, is reported to have answered, "because they are wholly formed of the flesh of swine and oxen. ” Theophrastus says, that "abstinence restores the use of reason; because eating much, and feeding upon flesh destroys it, and makes the mind more dull, and drives it to the very extremity of madness." In these passages, we find the general doctrine very clearly indicated, that animal food diminishes the

sensibility of the system, predisposes to diseases, and abridges life."

If the sensibility of the nervous system is impaired, it must follow that every function which depends upon the protection and integrity of this system, must be impaired or deranged likewise. It is impossible, therefore, to suppose that the intellectual functions, depending immediately upon the brain, can be performed with proper freedom and clearness by persons habitually using a gross diet. In conformity to which, it has been always remarked that the southern nations, who live mostly upon light food, are more lively and spiritual than the northern, whose habits are opposite. We may observe this even in countries nearly under the same latitude, but where the habits of life are considerably different; as when we compare the English with the French, or even with the Irish.

The instruments of the will are subject to the same influence. When the nervous power is perfect, the muscular power will be perfect likewise; when it is oppressed and benumbed, we may expect diminished muscular power, less agility, slower movements. Sir George Mackenzie observed this strongly characterized in the natives of Iceland, to whom the supply or vegetable food is more scanty than in any other European country, Lapland, perhaps, excepted. His account is in these words: "Our servants professed to be well acquainted with the country we wished to examine, and being young and stout, we flattered ourselves we should have little occasion to reproach them with laziness; but we soon found that, like all other countrymen, they were systematically slow in their movements; and that every attempt, either in the way of entreaty or of threat, to make them alert, was quite fruitless. Every one who undertakes to travel in Iceland, must resolve to submit with patience to the tardiness of his attendants."

When it is said that the use of animal food "drives the mind to the very extremity of madness," it must be understood with the same limitations as must be applied to all other constitutional diseases, that it does this in those predisposed to the disease. This predisposition is an original peculiarity of constitution; its essence escapes the senses, but its existence is matter of daily experience. It is equally matter of experience that animal food aggravates the disease. I shall cite in proof of this the testimony of Dr. Hallaran, whose opportunities of observation have been ample, he having been physician to the Lunatic Asylum of Cork, from the year 1789. It contains important information on more points than one. He says:

"it may be necessary to premise, that the unfortunate persons I allude to are, with very few exceptions, composed of the indigent and friendless idiots and insane of the county and city of Cork. It therefore has been wisely resolved that their common diet shall consist of the farinaceous fare to which, from former habits, they have been more accustomed.

It has been on many occasions a source of satisfaction to me, and to the governors at large, to find, in compliance with the necessary economy inseparable with the existence of so large an institution, that this simple fare has not only been proved fully competent to the comfortable maintenance of the great majority of persons confined there, but also on a dietetic principle more immediately suited to the prevention of those inconveniences for which aperient medicines must otherwise be in more frequent demand. There are some, it is true, whose previous habits of living render a diet of this description rather unpalatable, and among those may be ranked the incorrigible drunkard, whose excesses so often reduce him to this level, and to the necessity of accepting as the only indulgence the beverage of all others the most likely to correct his depraved appetites, and to restore him to an inclination for the natural food of man. Daily observation shows that these unhappy people, after having forced Nature from her fastnesses, will still, by being obliged to submit to a strict observance of this opposite mode of living, regain their former cheerful aspect, and even from its salutary consequence gave evident proofs of returning intellect.

"There are certain seasons of the year," he proceeds, "when the humanity of the governors disposes them to extend to the poor people at the asylum a participation in the general festivity, and from the prevalence of established custom, I allow of it, as freely as circumstances do prudently admit, so far as a few generous meals of animal food. The consequences on those occasions have been uniformly the same, and so correctly anticipated are they, that the strictest precautions are invariably adopted to provide against the scene of uproar which is sure to follow. The sudden and unusual stimulus of animal food may, therefore, very fully account for this disposition to riot; it might be inferred that, had the indulgence been more frequently permitted, such an effect would not have been so very very remarkable. This may in part apply; but the fact is a sufficient evidence that animal food tends strongly to the aggravation of insanity. It. also affords an additional argument in favor of a farinaceous diet, in preference to the admittance of