When this practice is continued for any length of time, oppression and langour begin to be felt, indigestion is brought on, and hurried breathing and a quick pulse on taking the slightest exercise, the gums become soft and spongy, the breath becomes fœtid, and the limbs swoln. Such are the dreadful effects produced by salted provisions, when a proper proportion of vegetable food is not used along with them. The fact is, that nations, whose food is entirely vegetable, are less active and energetic than those whose diet is more nutritive. The inhabitants of Ireland, in the most humble walks of life, for example, who live almost exclusively on potatoes, are said to be more indolent and sluggish, when compared with their neighbours in England, who would think such diet to be no better than a prison allowance of bread and water. In the East, where rice forms the great article of food with some tribes, the people are far from being robust or able to undergo much fatigue in labour or in war. The striking fact, that the English soldiers and sailors surpass all those of other nations in bravery and hardihood, is sufficient, we think, to demonstrate the effect of a considerable proportion of animal food.--For, though it be said, that a great number of our soldiers are Irishmen, yet our argument holds good, since, all these when in the army, or navy, live exactly in the same manner as the English themselves. The change of diet, indeed, is in these brave men very obvious; for the Irish and Scots soldiers are often more hardy than the English; not as it is supposed because they have been innured to greater hardships in their youth, but because their diet being more generous than it was at that period, its effects become more obvious than in those who have always had animal food. When we examine the structure of the digestive organs of the inferior animals which live wholly on vegetable food, we find that they are very differently constituted from man, and much more so from the animals of prey. If the organs for digestion of the ruminant animals are more complicated, it should seem to follow, that vegetable aliment is more difficult to digest; otherwise, nature, who never works in vain, would not have provided for them such a series of stomachs. Hence we infer, that since man has not this apparatus peculiar to ruminant animals, it must be plain that nature did not intend him to live exclusively on vegetables. If we consider the human teeth, we shall be led to the same conclusion, for they are not either like the teeth of ruminant animals or those of beasts of prey, but intermediate between the two. We have _incisor_ teeth like animals of the order glires: such as the hare, the rabbit, and the guinea-pig; _canin_ teeth like those of the order feræ: such as the dog, the tiger, and the lion; and _grinders_, like herbivorous quadrupeds: such as the horse, the sheep, and the cow.