Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages Part 5

10. I believe the health of both laborers and students would be improved.

11. I have generally avoided eating cuc.u.mbers; otherwise I have not.

Thy a.s.sured friend, GEO. W. BAKER.

LETTER XII--FROM JOHN HOWLAND, JR., ESQ.

NEW BEFORD, 9th month, 10th day, 1835.

FRIEND,--As I have lived nearly three years upon a vegetable diet, I cheerfully comply with thy request.

1. My bodily strength has been increased; and I can now endure much more exercise than formerly, without fatigue.

2. They are more agreeable; and I am now free from that dull, heavy feeling, which I used to experience after my meals.

3. My mind is much clearer; and I am free from that depression of spirits, to which I was formerly subject.

4. I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed.

I had frequent and severe attacks of headache, which I now rarely have; and when they do occur they are very light, compared with what they formerly were.

5. I have had fewer colds, and those much lighter than formerly.

6. About three years.

7. I used to eat animal food for breakfast and dinner, with coffee for drink, at those meals; and tea for my third meal, with bread and b.u.t.ter.

8. Milk for breakfast, and cold water for the other two meals.

9. I have found it more so; inasmuch as the use of it, with the subst.i.tution of bread, made from _coa.r.s.e, unbolted wheat flour_, instead of superfine, has removed my costiveness entirely.

10. I do.

11. I consider potatoes and rice as the most healthy, and confine myself princ.i.p.ally to the former.

I would remark that during the season of fruits, I eat freely of them, with milk; and consider them to be healthy.

JOHN HOWLAND, JR.

LETTER XIII.--FROM DR. W. H. WEBSTER.

BATAVIA, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835.

SIR,--Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical Sciences, Philadelphia.

I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my health, as a kind of key to my answers.

It is about fifteen years since I was called a _dyspeptic_; this was while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left college more dead than alive--a confirmed dyspeptic.

In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my indulgence in the luxuries of the table--especially in animal food, and distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the greatest share of that time, with the most excruciating torture. On getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition indeed--reduced to a skeleton--a voracious appet.i.te, which could not be indulged, and which had scarcely deserted me through the whole eight months. I could not regain my flesh or strength but by almost imperceptible degrees; indeed, loaf-sugar and crackers were almost the only food I could use with impunity for the first year.

It is now nearly four years since I have eaten animal food, unless it be here and there a little, as an experiment, with the sole exception of oysters, in which I can indulge, but with all due deference to the stricter rules of temperance. Still my appet.i.te for animal food seems unabated. I have ever been a man unusually temperate in the use of intoxicating drinks; and by no means intemperate in the luxuries of the table. I take no meat, no alcoholic or fermented drinks, not even cider; and, for a year past, my health has been better than for three years previous; and I think that about one third the amount of nourishment usually taken by men of my age, might subserve the purposes of food for _me_ better than a larger quant.i.ty. The more I eat, the more I desire to eat; and abstinence is my best medicine.

But I have already surpa.s.sed my limits, and here are my answers.

1. My strength is invariably diminished by animal food, and in almost direct proportion to the quant.i.ty, with the exception named above.

2. Pain has been the uniform attendant upon the digestion of an animal diet, with feverish restlessness and constipation.

3. Decidedly more fit for energetic action.

4. An irritation, or subacute inflammation of the digestive apparatus, which is aggravated by animal food.

5. Can endure hardship, exposure, and fatigue, much better without meat.

6. About four years, with the exception stated above.

7. It was not.

8. Partially at the commencement; but not of late, if not taken hot.

9. Much more aperient.

10. Both cla.s.ses take too much; and students and sedentaries should take little or none.

11. For myself farinaceous articles first, then the succulent sub-acid ripe fruits, then the less oily nuts are most healthful--and animal food, strong coffee and tea, and unripe or hard fruits, in any considerable quant.i.ties, are most pernicious.

Yours, etc., W. H. WEBSTER.

LETTER XIV.--FROM JOSIAH BENNET, ESQ.

MOUNT-JOY, Pa., Oct. 27, 1835.

SIR,--I hereby transmit to you, answers to a series of dietetic queries which you have recently submitted.

1. My physical strength was at least equal (I am rather inclined to think greater) after abstaining from animal food. I was, I am certain, not subject to such general debility and la.s.situde of the system, after considerable bodily exercise.

2. More agreeable--not being subject to a sense of vertigo, which frequently (with me) followed the use of animal food. There is, generally, more cheerfulness and vivacity.

3. The mind is more clear, and is not so liable to be confused when intent upon any intricate subject; and, of course, "can continue a laborious investigation longer." There is at no time such a propensity to incogitancy.

4. I am not aware of being the subject of any "const.i.tutional infirmities;" yet, that the change of diet had a very great effect upon the system, is obvious, from the fact of my having been, formerly, subject to an eruptive disease of the skin, princ.i.p.ally on the shoulders and upper part of the back, for a number of years, which is not the case at present, nor do I think will be, as long as I continue my present mode of living.

5. I think I have not had as many colds and febrile attacks as before, nor have they been so severe; yet I cannot be very decisive on this point, on account of the length of time in the trial not being fully sufficient.

6. Between seven and eight months. I must here state that animal food was not _entirely_ excluded. I probably partook, in very moderate quant.i.ties, once or twice a week.