Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages Part 3

The quant.i.ty that I ate at a time so far from satisfying my appet.i.te, only served to increase it; and this inconvenience continued during the whole term, without the least abatement;--and the only means by which I could resist its cravings, was to live entirely by myself, and keep out of sight of all kinds of food except the scanty pittance on which I subsisted. And now to the proposed questions.

1. Increased.

2. More agreeable, hunger excepted.

3. To the first part of this question, I should say evidently clearer; to the latter part, such was the state of debility when I commenced, and such was it through the whole course, I am not able to give a decisive answer.

4. This question, you will perceive, is already answered in my preliminary remarks.

5. Fewer, insomuch that I had none.

6. Two full years.

7. My living, from early life, had been conformable to the habits of the farmers of New England, from which place I emigrated, and my habits in regard to stimulating drinks were always moderate; but I occasionally took them, in conformity to the customs of those "_times of ignorance_."

8. I literally drank _nothing_; the milk wholly supplying the place of all liquids.

9. State of the bowels good before adopting the course, and after.

10. I do not.

11. I have not.

CALEB BANNISTER.

LETTER VII.--FROM DR. LYMAN TENNY.

FRANKLIN, Vermont, June 22, 1835.

SIR,--In answer to your inquiries, in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. xii., page 78, I can say that I have lived entirely upon a bread and milk diet, without using any animal food other than the milk.

1. At first, my bodily strength was diminished to a certain degree, and required a greater quant.i.ty of food, and rather oftener, than when upon a mixed diet of animal food (strictly so called) and vegetables.

2. The animal sensations, attending upon the process of digestion, were rather more agreeable than when upon a mixed diet.

3. My mind was more clear, but I could not continue a laborious investigation as long as when I used animal food more plentifully.

4. At this time there were no const.i.tutional infirmities which I was laboring under, except those which more or less accompany the rapid growth of the body; such as a general la.s.situde, impaired digestion, etc., which were neither removed nor aggravated, but kept about so, until I ate just what I pleased, without any regard to my indigestion, etc., when I began to improve in the strength of my whole system.

5. I do not recollect whether I was subject to more or fewer colds; but I can say I was perfectly free from all febrile attacks, although febrile diseases often prevailed in my vicinity. But since that time, a period of six years, I have had three attacks of fever.

6. The length of time I was upon this diet was about two years.

7. Before entering upon this diet, I was in the habit of taking a moderate quant.i.ty of animal food, but without very high seasoning or stimulants.

8. While using this diet, I confined myself entirely and exclusively to cold water as a drink--using neither tea, coffee, nor spirits of any kind whatever.

9. I am inclined to think that a vegetable diet is more aperient than an animal one; indeed, I may say I know it to be a fact.

10. From what I have experienced, I do not think that laborers would be any more healthy by excluding animal food from their diet entirely; but I believe it would be much getter if they would use less. As to students, I believe their health would be promoted if they were to exclude it almost, if not entirely.

11. I never have selected any vegetables which I thought to be more healthy than others: nor indeed do I believe there is any one that is more healthy than another; but believe that all those vegetables which we use in the season of them, are adapted to supply and satisfy the wants of the system.

We are carnivorous, as well as granivorous animals, having systems requiring animal, as well as vegetable food, to keep all the organs of the body in tune; and perhaps we need a greater variety than other animals.

Yours, etc., LYMAN TENNY.

LETTER VIII.--FROM DR. J. M. B. HARDEN.

LIBERTY COUNTY, Georgia, July 15, 1835.

SIR,--Having observed, in the May number of the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences," certain inquiries in relation to diet, proposed by you to the physicians of the United States, I herewith transmit to you an account of a case exactly in point, which I hope may prove interesting to yourself, and in some degree "a.s.sist in the settlement of a question of _great interest_ to the _country_."

The case, to which allusion is made, occurred in the person of a very intelligent and truly scientific gentleman of this county, whose regular habits, both of mind and body, added to his sound and discriminating judgment, will tend to heighten the value and importance of the experiment involved in the case I am about to detail.

Before proceeding to give his answers to your interrogatories, it may be well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he himself declares, to walk seldom less than ten miles a day, and frequently more; and this exercise was continued during the whole period of the experiment. His health for two years previously had been very feeble, arising, as he supposed, from a diseased _spleen_; which organ is at this time enlarged, and somewhat indurated. His digestive powers have _always_ been _good_, and he had been in the habit of making his meals at times entirely of _animal food_. His bowels have always been regular, and rather inclined to looseness, but never disordered. He is five feet eight inches high, of a very thin and spare habit of body, with thin dark hair, inclining to baldness; complexion rather dark than fair; eyes dark hazel; of _very studious_ habits when free from active engagements; with great powers of mental abstraction and attention, and of a temper _remarkably even_.

In answer to your interrogatories, he replies,--

1. That his bodily strength was increased, and general health became better.

2. He perceived no difference.

3. He is a.s.sured of the affirmative.

4. His spleen was diminished in size, and frequent and long-continued attacks of _lumbago_ were rendered _much milder_, and have so continued.

5. Had fewer colds and febrile attacks.

6. Three years.

7. No; with the slight exception mentioned above.

8. No.

9. In his case rather less.

10. Undoubtedly.

11. No; has made his meals of cabbages entirely, and found them as easily digested as any other article of diet. I may remark, that _honey_ to him is a poison, producing, _invariably_, symptoms of cholera.

After three years' trial of this diet, without having any previous apparent disease, but on the contrary as strong as usual, he was taken, somewhat suddenly, in the winter of 1832 and 3, with symptoms of extreme debility, attended with oedematous swellings of the lower extremities, and painful cramps, at night confined to the gastrocnemii of both legs, and some feverishness, indicated more by the beatings of the _carotids_ than by any other symptom. His countenance became very pallid, and indeed he had every appearance of a man in a very low state of health.

Yet, during the whole period of this apparent state of disease, there were no symptoms indicative of disorder in any function, save the general function of innervation, and perhaps that of the lymphatics or absorbents of the lower extremities. Nor was there any manifest disease of any organ, unless it was the spleen, which was not then remarkably enlarged. I was myself disposed to attribute his symptoms to the spleen, and possibly to the want of animal food; but he himself attributes its commencement, if not its continuance, to the inhalation of the vapor of a.r.s.eniuretted and sulphuretted hydrogen gases, to which he was subjected during some chemical experiments on the ores of cobalt, to which he has been for a long time turning his attention; a circ.u.mstance which I had not known until lately.

However it may be, he again returned to a mixed diet (to which however he ascribes no agency in his recovery), and, after six months'

continuance in this state, he rapidly recovered his usual health and strength, which, up to this day--two full years after the expiration of six months--have continued good. In the treatment of his case no medicine of any kind was given, to which any good effect can be attributed; and indeed he may be said to have undergone no medical treatment at all.