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
"We have the authority of the Scripture for asserting that the proper
aliment of man is vegetables. See Genesis. And as disease is not
mentioned as a part of the cause, we have reason to believe that the
antediluvians were strangers to this evil. Such a phenomenon as disease
could hardly exist among a people who lived entirely on a vegetable
food; consequently all the individuals made mention of in that period of
the world, are said to have died of old age; whereas, since the day of
Noah, when mankind were permitted to eat animal food, such an occurrence
as a man dying of old age, or a natural decay of the bodily functions,
does not occur probably once in half a century.
"Its injurious effects on the mind are equally certain. The Tartars, who
live principally on animal food, are cruel and ferocious in their
disposition, gloomy and sullen minded, delighting in exterminating wars
and plunder; while the Bramins and Hindoos, who live entirely on
vegetable aliment, possess a mildness and gentleness of character and
disposition directly the reverse of the Tartar; and I have no doubt, had
India possessed a more popular form of government, and a more
enlightened priesthood, her people, with minds so fitted for
contemplation, would have far outstripped the other nations of the world
in manufactures, and in the arts and sciences.
"But we need only look at the peasantry of Ireland, who, living as they
do, chiefly on a vegetable--and to say the least of it, a very
suspicious kind of aliment, I mean the potatoe--are yet as robust and
vigorous a race of men as inherit any portion of the globe.
"The greater part of our bodily disease is brought on by improper food.
This opinion has been strongly confirmed by my daily experience in the
treatment of those diseases to which the people of England are
peculiarly subject, such as scrofula, consumption, leprosy, etc. These
disorders are making fearful and rapid strides; so much so, that not a
single family may now be considered exempt from their melancholy
ravages."
This is fearful testimony, but it is the result of much observation and
of twenty years' experience. But the same causes are producing the same
effects--at least, so far as scrofula and consumption are concerned--in
this country, at the present time, of which Dr. W. complains so loudly
in England. I could add much more from his writings, but what I have
said is sufficient.
DR. JAMES CLARK.
Dr. Clark, physician to the king and queen of Belgium, in a Treatise on
Pulmonary Consumption, has the following remarks:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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