Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages: Including a System of Vegetable CookeryAlcott, William A. (William Andrus)
Science
Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages: Including a System of Vegetable Cookery
Alcott, William A. (William Andrus)
Food; Vegetarianism
Another vegetable-eater--the Rev. Mr. Crocker--went out to a sickly part
of Africa some years since, and remained at his station a long time in
perfect health, while many of his friends sickened or died. At length,
however, he fell.
Gen. Thomas Sheldon, of this state, a vegetable-eater, spent several
years in the most sickly parts of the Southern United States, with an
entire immunity from disease; and he gives it as his opinion that it is
no matter where we are, so that our dietetic and other habits are
correct.
Mr. G. McElroy, of Kentucky, spent several months of the most sickly
season in the most unhealthy parts of Africa, in the year 1835, and yet
enjoyed the best of health the whole time. While there and on his
passage home, he abstained wholly from animal food, living on rice and
other farinaceous vegetables and fruits.
In view of these facts and many others, Mr. Graham remarks: "Under a
proper regimen our enterprising young men of New England may go to New
Orleans or Liberia, or any where else they choose, and stay as long as
they choose, and yet enjoy good health." And there is no doubt he is
right.
But it is hardly worth while to cite single facts in proof of a point of
this kind. There is abundant testimony to be had, going to show that a
vegetable diet is a security against disease, especially against
epidemics, whether in the form of a mere influenza or malignant fever.
Nay, there is reason to believe that a person living according to _all_
the Creator's laws, physical and moral, could hardly receive or
communicate disease of any kind. How could a person in perfect health,
and obeying to an iota all the laws of health--how could he contract
disease? What would there be in his system which could furnish a nidus
for its reception?
I am well aware that not a few people suppose the most healthy are as
much exposed to disease as others, and that there are some who even
suppose they are much more so. "Death delights in a shining mark," or
something to this effect, is a maxim which has probably had its origin
in the error to which I have adverted. To the same source may be traced
the strange opinion that a fatal or malignant disease makes its first
and most desperate attacks upon the healthy and the robust. The fact
is--and this explains the whole riddle--those who are regarded, by the
superficial and short-sighted in this matter, as the most healthy and
robust, are usually persons whose unhealthy habits have already sown the
seeds of disease; and nothing is wanting but the usual circumstances of
epidemics to rouse them into action. More than all this, these
strong-looking but inwardly-diseased persons are almost sure to die
whenever disease does attack them, simply on account of the previous
abuses of their constitutions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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