The construction of our intestines is further evidence that Nature did not intend us to be numbered among the herbivorous animals, which are required to have an enormously long intestine to store up and assimilate the very large quantity of herbs or vegetables which are necessary to satisfy their wants. We should have to possess an intestine many times longer than we are provided with in order to be able to exist on vegetables alone; and even with such an intestine it would be very difficult for us to live comfortably for a long period on a purely vegetarian diet. It is, however, certainly possible to exist on such a diet for a certain time; and it may be of direct advantage for those persons who have overtaxed their digestive organs by large quantities of meat food, as it will afford the said organs a well merited rest. In order to live for a long period without risk on a vegetarian diet, it is necessary to add certain products of animal sources, such as milk and eggs. We know from personal experience that with a vegetarian diet supplemented by cereals, especially rice, milk, butter, and eggs, it is possible to exist very comfortably for a long time, and to thrive on it, for we have frequently witnessed a considerable increase in the weight of the body. This experience we have also gained and confirmed by personal test. A vegetarian diet, when supplemented by milk and butter, can be indulged in for a considerable time, and advantage may be gained therefrom. In many cases of nervous diseases it is of excellent value, especially in neurasthenia and hysteria, Graves’s disease, myxœdema, etc., when meat food is deleterious, for reasons we have often given. With such a diet we can also avoid all the dangers which threaten us from the formation of uric acid. We must, however, avoid taking in large quantities of such vegetables as beans, peas, etc., which, according to Walker Hall, contain purin bodies, the mother substances of uric acid. Rice is the vegetable which will form the least uric acid, and it is at the same time one of the most nourishing of vegetarian foods, as it contains 77 per cent. of carbohydrates. Thus with vegetarian diet we can avoid, in great probability, those diseases which arise from an excessive formation of uric acid. As Professor Dettweiler,[273] of Freiburg, demonstrated at the German Congress of Medicine in 1907, the viscosity of blood is greatly diminished by a vegetarian diet. As gout is a disease which is due, in all probability, to a retention of uric acid (after preliminary changes in the thyroid and kidneys, as we have pointed out in a communication to the Paris Biological Society, February 25, 1907), a long extended vegetarian diet can unquestionably be of a great benefit for the prevention and treatment of this disease. It is, however, necessary that such a diet should be prescribed for a very long time (for several months at least) if we desire to reap the full benefit from it. Footnote 273: