A great many vegetarians are strong advocates of dairy products, and particularly eggs. They claim, rightly enough, that they contain a large amount of proteid, and hence are valuable meat substitutes. But this same proteid can be obtained from nuts and vegetables, as we have seen—without the necessity of resorting to eggs in order to secure it. From the ethical point of view, there is no excuse whatever for the eating of eggs; and there are many objections to their use on purely hygienic grounds. It is remarkable, in this connection, to find so strong a belief in egg-eating, when we take into account the fact that these eggs are all intended to be chickens by nature, and we are really eating chickens _in embryo_—a very disagreeable thought, when we come to consider it. All other eggs—swallow’s eggs, ostrich’s eggs, robin’s eggs, etc.—we think of as existing only for the purpose of bringing into the world little swallows or ostriches or robins: but the hen’s egg we consider, for some mysterious reason or other, laid for our especial benefit—as a suitable and even necessary food! It is really remarkable that such curious ideas should have originated in the human mind. Doubtless they originated in the days of savagery, when but little else could be obtained for food, but which culture and modern ideals should have outgrown long ago. * * * * * _Cheese._—“The fresh curd of milk is perfectly wholesome, and pot cheese is also a practically harmless article of diet. Green cheese is not very objectionable, but old, strong cheese, is one of the most injurious and indigestible things in existence. It is also one of the most constipating articles of food that can be found. It is a common fancy among medical men, and a common whim among the people, that old, strong, rank cheese, though itself very indigestible, stimulates the stomach to digest other things. Hence almost all the medico-dietetic works quote the old adage: “‘Cheese is a mity elf, Digesting all things but itself.’ “There is more poetry than truth in the doggerel quoted. Old cheese occasionally undergoes spontaneous decomposition, during which process acrid and poisonous elements are developed, as is frequently the case with bacon and sausages.”[33] [33] “Hydropathic Cook Book,” p. 107.