The idea has long been current that superior qualities of body and mind come from eating flesh food; but the verdict of science, after long observation and careful investigation and various experiments, is rapidly reversing this opinion. The experiments of Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, president of the American Physiological Society, and director of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, are convincing. His elaborate investigations, extending over long periods of time, prove that persons of widely varying habits of life, temperament, occupation, and constitution, can maintain and even heighten their mental and physical vigor while subsisting upon a diet containing but one half the usual amount of protein, and in which the flesh is reduced to a minimum or is entirely absent. The subjects of the first experiment were three physicians, three professors, and a clerk,--men of sedentary and chiefly of mental occupation. For a period of six months, they were required to reduce the amount of meat and other protein food about one half. "Their weight remained stationary; but they improved in general health, and experienced a quite remarkable increase of mental clearness and energy." _Chittenden's Researches_ For his next experiment, Professor Chittenden used a detachment of twenty soldiers from the hospital corps of the United States army, "representing a great variety of types of different ages, nationality, temperament, and degrees of intelligence." For a period of six months, these men lived upon a ration in which the proteid was reduced to one third the usual amount, and the flesh to five sixths of an ounce daily. There was a slight gain in weight, "the general health was well maintained, and with suggestions of improvement that are frequently so marked as to challenge attention." "Most conspicuous, however," remarks Professor Chittenden, "was the effect observed on the muscular strength of the various subjects.... Without exception, we note a phenomenal gain in strength which demands explanation." There was an average gain in strength for each subject of about fifty per cent. For the third experiment, Professor Chittenden secured as subjects a group of eight leading athletes of Yale, all in training trim. For five months, they subsisted upon a diet comprising from one half to one third the quantity of protein food they had been in the habit of eating. "Gymnasium tests showed in every man a truly remarkable gain in strength and endurance." _Fisher's Experiments_