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
Dr. Bell admits, with the most distinguished naturalists and
physiologists of Europe,--Cuvier, Lawrence, Blumenbach, Bell of London,
Richerand, Marc, etc.,--that the structure of man resembles closely that
of the monkey race; and hence objects to the conclusion to which some of
these men have arrived (by jumping over, as it were), that man is an
omnivorous animal. He freely allows--I use his own words--"that man does
approximate more closely to the frugivorous animals than to any others,
in physical organization." But then he insists that the conclusion which
ought to be drawn from this similarity "is, that he is designed to have
his food in about the same state of mechanical cohesion, requiring about
the same energy of masticatory organs, as if it consisted of fruits,
etc., alone."
But, wherefore should we draw even this conclusion, if structure and
instinct prove nothing, and if we are to be governed solely by reason,
without regard to structure and instinct? For my own part, I believe
reason is never true reason, when it turns wholly out of doors either
instinct or the indications of organization. In other words, an
enlightened reason would look both to the structure and organization of
man, and to a large and broad experience, for the solution of a question
so important as what diet is, on the whole, best for man. And the
experience of the world, both in the present and all former ages, leads
me to a conclusion entirely different from that to which Dr. Bell, and
those who entertain the same views with him, seem to have arrived--a
conclusion which is indicated by structure, and confirmed by facts and
universal experience. But this subject will be further discussed and
developed in another place. It is sufficient for my present purpose, to
bring testimony in favor of the safety of vegetable eating, and of the
doctrine that man is naturally a vegetable and fruit-eating animal; and
especially if I produce, to this end, the testimony of flesh-eaters
themselves.
DR. WILLIAM BUCHAN, AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC MEDICINE."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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