Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages

But why, then, it may be asked, did he return to a mixed diet, if he had imbibed no doubts in regard to a diet exclusively vegetable; and, above all, how happened he to recover on it? To this it may be replied, that there is every reason to believe, from the tenor of the letter, that he acted against his own inclination, and contrary to his own views, at the request of his friends, and of Dr. Harden, his physician; though Dr. Harden does not expressly say so. Besides, it does not appear that under his mixed diet there was any favorable change, till something like six months had elapsed. This was a period, in all probability, just sufficient to allow the poison of the gases to disappear; after which he might have been expected to recover on any diet not positively bad. If this is not a true solution of the case, how happens it that there was no disease of any organ or function, except the nervous function? There is every reason for believing that Dr. Harden, at the date of his letter, had undergone a change of opinion, and was himself beginning to doubt whether the regimen had any agency in producing the debility.3

The case of Dr. Preston is somewhat more difficult. At first view, it seems to sustain the old notion of medical men, that, with a scrofulous habit, a diet exclusively vegetable cannot be made to agree. This, I say, seems to be a natural conclusion, at first view. But, on looking a little farther, we may find some facts that justify a different opinion.

Dr. Preston was evidently timid and fearful – foreboding ill – during the whole progress of his experiment. We think his story fully justifies this conclusion. In such circumstances, what could have been expected? There is no course of regimen in the world which will succeed happily in a state of mind like this.

It should be carefully observed by the reader, that Dr. Preston speaks of entering upon a "severe course of diet;" and also, that, in attempting to give an opinion as to the best kind of vegetable food, he speaks of potatoes, prepared in a certain specified manner, as being preferable to any other. Now, I think it obvious, that Dr. Preston's "severe course" partook largely of crude vegetables, instead of the richer and better farinaceous articles – as the various sorts of bread, rice, pulse, etc. – and, if so, it is not to be wondered at that it was so unsuccessful. In short, I do not think he made any thing like a fair experiment in vegetable diet. His testimony, therefore, though interesting, seems to be entitled to very little weight.

This conclusion is stated with the more confidence, from the fact that some of the best medical writers, not only of ancient times, but of the present day, appear to entertain serious doubts in regard to the soundness of the popular opinion in favor of the "beef-steak-and-porter" system of curing scrofulous patients. Dr. Clark, in the progress of his "Treatise on Consumption," almost expresses a belief that a judicious vegetable diet is preferable even for the scrofulous. He would not, of course, recommend a diet of crude vegetables, but one, rather, which would partake largely of farinaceous grains and fruits. Nor do I suppose he would, in every case, entirely exclude milk.

Dr. Cheyne, in his writings, not only gives it as his opinion that a milk diet, long continued, or a milk and vegetable diet and mild mercurials, are the best means of curing scrofula; but he also says, expressly, that "in all countries where animal food and strong fermented liquors are too freely used, there is scarcely an individual that hath not scrofulous glands." A sad story to relate, or to read! But, Dr. Lambe, of London, and other British physicians, entertain similar sentiments; and Dr. Lambe practices medicine largely, while entertaining these sentiments. I could mention more than one distinguished physician, in Boston and elsewhere, who prescribes a vegetable and milk diet in scrofula.

But, granting even the most that the friends of animal food can claim, what would the case of Dr. Preston prove? That the healthy are ever injured by the vegetable system? By no means. That the sickly would generally be? Certainly not. Dr. Preston himself even specifies one disease, in which he thinks a vegetable diet would be useful. What, then, is the bearing of this single and singular case? Why, at the most, it only shows that there are some forms of dyspepsia which require animal food. Dr. Preston does not produce a single fact unfavorable to a diet exclusively vegetable for the healthy.4

It is also worthy of particular notice, that not a fact is brought, or an experiment related, in a list of from thirty to forty cases, reported too by medical men, which goes to prove that any injury has arisen to the healthy, from laying aside the use of animal food. This kind of information, though not the principal thing, was at least a secondary object with Dr. North; as we see by his questions, which were intended to be put to those who had excluded animal food from their diet for a year or more.

But, let us take a general view of the replies to the inquiries of Dr. North. The sum of his first three questions, was, – What were the effects of excluding animal food from your diet on your bodily strength, your mental faculties, and your appetite and animal spirits?

The answers to the three questions, of which this is the same, are, as will be seen, remarkable. In almost every instance the reply indicates that bodily and mental labor was endured with less fatigue than before, and that an increased activity of mind and body was accompanied with increased cheerfulness and animal enjoyment. In nearly every instance, strength of body was actually increased; especially after the first month. A result so uniformly in favor of the vegetable system is certainly more than could have been expected.

One physician who made the experiment, indeed, says, that though his mind was clearer than before, he could not endure, so long, a laborious investigation. Another individual says, he perceived no difference in this respect. A third says, she found her bodily strength and powers of investigation somewhat diminished, though her disease was removed. With these exceptions, the testimony on this point is, as I have already said, most decidedly – I might say most overwhelmingly – in favor of the disuse of animal food.

To the question, whether any constitutional infirmities were aggravated or removed by the new course of regimen, the replies are almost equally favorable to the vegetable system. It is true that one of the physicians, Dr. Parmly, thinks the beneficial effects which appeared in the circle of his observation were the results of a simultaneous discontinuance of fermented drinks, tea and coffee, and condiments. But I believe every one who reads his letter will be surprised at his conclusions. No matter, however; we have his facts, and we are quite willing they should be carefully considered. The singular case of Dr. Preston, I now leave wholly out of the account. It was, as I have since learned, the story of a very singular man.

Among the diseases and difficulties which were removed, or supposed to be removed, by the new diet, were dyspepsia, with the constipation which usually attends it, general lassitude, rheumatism, periodical headache, palpitations, irritation of the first passages, eruptive diseases of the skin, scurvy, and consumption.

The case of Dr. Bannister, who was, in early life, decidedly consumptive, is one of the most remarkable on record. Though evidently consumptive, and near the borders of the grave, between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine, he so far recovered as to be, at the age of fifty-three, entirely free from every symptom of phthisis for twenty-four years; during which whole period, he was sufficiently vigorous to follow the laborious business of a country physician.

The confidence of Dr. Wright in the prophylactic powers of a diet exclusively vegetable, so far as the mere opinion of one medical man is to be received as testimony in the case, is also remarkable. He not only regards the vegetable system as a defence against the diseases of miasmatic regions, but also against the varioloid disease. On the latter point, he goes, it seems, almost as far as Mr. Graham, who appears to regard it not only as, in some measure, a preventive of epidemic diseases generally, in which he is most undoubtedly correct, but also of the small-pox.

The testimony on another point which is presented in the replies to Dr. North's questions, is almost equally uniform. In nearly every instance, the individuals who have abandoned animal food have found themselves less subject to colds than before; and some appear to have fallen into the habit of escaping them altogether. When it is considered how serious are the consequences of taking cold – when it is remembered that something like one half of the diseases of our climate have their origin in this source – it is certainly no trifling evidence in favor of a course of regimen, that, besides being highly favorable in every other respect, it should prove the means of freeing mankind from exposure to a malady at once troublesome in itself and disastrous in its consequences.

In reply to the question, – Is a vegetable diet more or less aperient than a mixed one, – the answers have been the same, in nearly every instance, that it is more so.

The answers to the question whether it was believed the health of either laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food from their diet, are rather various. It will be observed, however, that many of the replies, in this case, are medical opinions, and come from men who, though they felt themselves bound to state facts, were doubtless, with very few exceptions, prejudiced against an exclusively vegetable regimen for the healthy. It is, therefore, to me, a matter of surprise, to find some of them in favor of the said prescribed course of regimen, both for students and laborers, and many of them in favor of the discontinuance of animal food by students. Those who have themselves made the experiment, with hardly an exception, are decidedly in favor of a vegetable regimen for all classes of mankind, particularly the sedentary. And in regard to the necessity of diminishing the proportion of animal food consumed by all classes, there seems to be but one voice.

On one more important point there is a very general concurrence of opinion. I allude to the choice of articles from the vegetable kingdom. The farinacea are considered as the best; especially wheat, ground without bolting. The preference of Dr. Preston is an exception; and there are one or two others.

On the whole – I repeat it – the testimony is far more favorable to the "prescribed course of regimen," both for the healthy and diseased than under the circumstances connected with the inquiry the most thorough-going vegetable eater could possibly have anticipated. If this is a fair specimen – and I know no reason why it may not be regarded as such – of the results of similar experiments and similar observations among medical men throughout our country, could their observations and experiments be collected, it certainly confirms the views which some among us have long entertained on this subject, and which will be still more strongly confirmed by evidence which will be produced in the following chapters. Had similar efforts been made forty or fifty years ago, to ascertain the views of physicians and others respecting the benefits or safety of excluding wine and other fermented drinks in the treatment of several diseases, in which not one in ten of our modern practitioners would now venture to use them, as well as among the healthy, I believe the results would have been of a very different character. The opinions, at least, of the physicians themselves, would most certainly have been, nearly without a dissenting voice, that the entire rejection of wine and fermented liquors was dangerous to the sick, and unsafe to many of the healthy, especially the hard laborer. And there is quite as much reason to believe that animal food will be discarded from our tables in the progress of a century to come, as there was, in 1800, for believing that all drinks but water would be laid aside in the progress of the century which is now passing.

CHAPTER IV.

ADDITIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Letter from Dr. H. A. Barrows. – Dr. J. M. B. Harden. – Dr. J. Porter. – Dr. N. J. Knight. – Dr. Lester Keep. – Second letter from Dr. Keep. – Dr. Henry H. Brown. – Dr. Franklin Knox. – From a Physician. – Additional statements by the Author.

During the years 1837 and 1838 I wrote to several of the physicians whose names, experiments, and facts appear in Chapter II. Their answers, so far as received, are now to be presented.

I have also received interesting letters from several other physicians in New England and elsewhere – but particularly in New England – on the same general subject, which, with an additional statement of my own case, I have added to the foregoing. I might have added a hundred authentic cases, of similar import. I might also have obtained an additional amount of the same sort of intelligence, had it not been for the want of time, amid numerous other pressing avocations, for correspondence of this kind. Besides, if what I have obtained is not satisfactory, I have many doubts whether more would be so.

The first letter I shall insert is from Dr. H. A. Barrows, of Phillips, in Maine. It is dated October 10, 1837, and may be considered as a sequel to that written by him to Dr. North, though it is addressed to the author of this volume.

LETTER I. – FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS

Dear Sir, – As to food, my course of living has been quite uniform for the last two or three years – principally as follows. Wheat meal bread, potatoes, butter, and baked sweet apples for breakfast and dinners; for suppers, old dry flour bread, which, eaten very leisurely without butter, sauce, or drink, sits the lightest and best of any thing I eat. But I cannot make this my principal diet, because the bowels will not act (without physic) unless they have the spur of wheat bran two thirds of the time. I have at times practiced going to bed without any third meal; and have found myself amply rewarded for this kind of fasting, and the consequent respite thereby afforded the stomach, in quiet sleep and improved condition the next day. And as to drink, I still use cold water, which I take with as great a zest, and as keen a relish, as the inebriate does his stimulus. I seldom drink any thing with my meals; and if I could live without drinking any thing between meals, I think I should be rid of the principal "thorn in my side," the acetous fermentation so constantly going on in my epigastric storehouse.

As to exercise, I take abundance; perform all my practice (except in the winter) on horseback, and find this the very best kind of exercise for me. I seldom eat oftener than at intervals of six hours, and am apt to eat too much – have at various times attempted Don Cornaro's method of weighing food, but have found it rather dry business, probably on account of its conflicting with my appetite; but I actually find that my stomach does not bear watching at all well.

My brother continues to practice nearly total abstinence from animal food. I have seen him but once in two and a half years, but learn his health has greatly improved, so that he was able to take charge of a high school in the fall of 1836, of an academy in the spring of the present year, and also again this fall. During his vacation last July, he took a tour into the interior of Worcester county, Mass., and came home entirely on foot by way of the Notch of the White Hills, traveling nearly three hundred miles. This speaks something in favor of rigid abstinence – as when he commenced this regimen he was extremely low.

Yours sincerely,H. A. Barrows.

LETTER II. – FROM DR. JOHN M. B. HARDEN

Georgia, Liberty Co., Oct. 19, 1837.

Dear Sir, – I stated in my letter to Dr. North, if I recollect correctly, that the use of animal food was resumed in consequence of a protracted indisposition brought on, as was supposed, by the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen gas. The gentleman had begun to recover some time previously; and in a short time after he commenced the use of the animal food, he was restored to his usual health. He has continued the use of it ever since to the same extent as in the former part of his life. He has lately passed his fifty-fifth year, and is now in the enjoyment of as good health as he has ever known.

I know of a gentleman in an adjoining county, who with his lady has been living for some time past on a purely vegetable diet. They have not continued it long enough, however, to make the experiment a fair one.

No case of injury from the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen has come under my own personal observation, if we except the one above alluded to. I find, however, that Gehlen, a celebrated French chemist, fell a victim to it in the year 1815. His death is thus announced in the "Philosophical Magazine" for that year. "We lament to have to announce the death of Gehlen, many years the editor of an excellent Journal on Chemistry and other sciences, and a profound chemist. He fell a victim to his ardent desire to promote the advancement of chemical knowledge. He was preparing, in company with Mr. Rehland, his colleague, some arsenated hydrogen gas, and while watching for the full development of this air from its acid solution, trying every moment to judge from its particular smell when that operation would be completed, he inhaled the fatal poison which has robbed science of his valuable services." Vide Tillock's Phil. Mag., vol. 46, p. 316. Some further notice is taken of his death in a paper extracted from the "Annales de Chimie et de Physique," and published in a subsequent volume of the same Magazine. Vide vol. 49, p. 280, in which are given his last experiments on that subject, by M. Gay Lussac. I regret that no account is given in the same work of the symptoms arising from the poison in his case. I presume, however, they are on record.

In the subject of the case I mention, the general and prominent symptoms were an immediate and great diminution of muscular strength, with pallor of countenance and constant febricula, the arteries of the head beating with violence, particularly when lying down at night, the pulse always moderately increased in frequency, and full, but not tense; and digestion for the most part good. This state continued for about three months, during which time he was attending to his usual business, although not able to take as much exercise as before. At the end of this time he began to recover slowly, but it was six months before he was restored entirely.

Yours, etc.,John M. B. Harden.

LETTER III. – FROM DR. JOSHUA PORTER

North Brookfield, Oct. 26, 1827.

Though I would by no means favor the propensity for book-making, so prevalent in our day, yet I have been long of the opinion that a work on vegetable diet for general readers was greatly needed. I need it in my family; and there are many others in this vicinity who would be materially benefited by such a work.

I have had no means of ascertaining the good or bad effects of a "diet exclusively vegetable in cases of phthisis, scrofula, and dyspepsia," for I have had none of the above diseases to contend with. But, since your letter was received, I have been called to prescribe for a man who has been a flesh eater for more than half a century. He was confined to his house, had been losing strength for several months, still keeping up his old habits. The disease which was preying upon him was chronic inflammation of the right leg; the flesh had been so long swollen and inflamed that it had become hard to the touch. There were ulcers on his thigh, and some had made their appearance on the hip. This disease had been of seven months' standing, though not in so aggravated a form as it now appeared. During this time, all the local applications had been made that could be thought of by the good ladies in the neighborhood; and after every thing of the kind had failed, they concluded to send for "the doctor."

After examining the patient attentively, I became convinced that the disease, which developed itself locally, was of a constitutional origin, and of course could not be cured by local remedies. All local applications were discontinued; the patient was put on a vegetable diet after the alimentary canal was freely evacuated. I saw this man three days afterward. The dark purple appearance of the leg had somewhat subsided; the red and angry appearance about the base of the ulcers was gone, his strength improved, etc. Three days after I called, I found him in his garden at work.

He is now – two weeks since my first prescription – almost well. All the ulcers have healed, with the exception of one or two. This man, who thinks it wicked not to use the good things God has given us – such as meat, cider, tobacco, etc. – is very willing to subsist, for the present, on vegetable food, because he finds it the only remedy for his disease.

Early in the spring of 1830, while a student at Amherst College, I was attacked with dyspepsia, which rendered my life wretched for more than a year, and finally drove me from college; but it had now so completely gained the mastery, that no means I resorted to for relief afforded even a palliation of my sufferings. After I had suffered nearly two years in this way, I was made more wretched, if possible, by frequent attacks of colic, with pains and cramps extending to my back; and so severe had these pains become, that the prescriptions of the most eminent physicians afforded only partial relief.

On the 13th of February, 1833, after suffering from the most violent paroxysm I had ever endured, I left my home for Brunswick, Maine, to attend a course of medical lectures. For several days I boarded at a public house, and ate freely of several substantial dishes that were before me. The consequence was a fresh attack of colic. From some circumstances that came up at this time, I was convinced that flesh meats had much to do with my sufferings, and the resolution was formed at once to change my diet and "starve" out dyspepsia.

I took a room by myself, and made arrangements for receiving a pint of milk per day; this, with coarse rye and Indian bread, constituted my only food. After living in this way a week or two, I had a free and natural evacuation. Thus nature began to effect what medicine alone had done for nearly three years. The skin became moist, and my voracious appetite began to subside. I returned home to my friends at the close of the term well, and have been well ever since – have never had a colic pain or any costiveness since that time. My powers of digestion are good, and though I do not live so rigidly now as when at Brunswick, I always feel best when my food is vegetables and milk. I can endure fatigue and exposure as well as any man. On this mild diet, too, my muscular strength has considerably increased; and every day is adding new vigor to my constitution.

Having experienced so much benefit from a mild diet, and being rationally convinced that man was a fruit-eating animal naturally, I made my views public by a course of lectures on physiology, which I delivered in the Lyceum soon after I came to this place (three years ago). The consequence was, that quite a number of those who heard my lectures commenced training their families as well as themselves to the use of vegetables, etc., and I am happy to inform you that, at this day, many of our most active influential business-doing men are living in the plainest and most simple manner.

One of my neighbors has taken no flesh for more than three years. He is of the ordinary height, and sanguine temperament, and usually weighed, when he ate flesh, one hundred and eighty pounds. After he changed his diet, his countenance began to change, and his cheeks fell in; and his meat-eating friends had serious apprehensions that he would survive but a short time, unless he returned to his former habits. But he persevered, and is now more vigorous and more athletic than any man in the region, or than he himself has ever been before.

His muscular strength is very great. A few days since, a number of the most athletic young men in our village were trying their strength at lifting a cask of lime, weighing five hundred pounds. All failed to do it, with the exception of one, who partly raised it from the ground. After they were gone, this vegetable eater without any difficulty raised the cask four or five times. More than three years ago this man lost his daughter, who fell a prey to cholera infantum; he has now a daughter rather more than a year old, whom he has trained on strictly physiological principles; and though very feeble at birth, and for three months subsequently, she is now the most healthy child in the town. This child had some of the first symptoms of consumption last August, owing to the too free indulgence of the mother in improper articles of food; but being treated with demulcents, at the same time correcting the mother's system, she recovered, and is now the "picture of health."