Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages. Alcott William Andrus

in a different situation.

      5. We scarcely know what it is to have a cold; my wife in particular. Previously to our change of diet, I was very subject to severe colds, attended with a hard cough, which lasted, sometimes, for several weeks.

      6. As before stated, we exclude animal food from our diet, as well as tea and coffee.

      7. Before we adopted a vegetable diet, we always had meat for dinner, and generally with breakfast; and not unfrequently with tea. Tea and coffee we drank very strong.

      8. We have substituted milk and water sweetened, for tea and coffee.

      9. Most vegetables I find have a tendency (especially when Graham or unbolted wheaten flour is used) to keep the bowels open; to counteract which, we use rice once or twice a week. Potatoes, when eaten freely, are flatulent, but not inconvenient when eaten moderately.

      10. I think the health of students, by the exclusion of animal food from their diet, would be promoted, especially if they excluded tea and coffee also; and I can see no good reason why it should not be beneficial to laboring people. I have conversed with two or three mechanics, who confirm me in this belief.

      11. Graham bread, as we call it, eaten with milk, or baked potatoes and milk, for most people, I think would be healthy; to which should be added such a proportion of rice as may be found necessary.

Thy friend,Joseph Ricketson.

      LETTER X. – FROM JOSEPH CONGDON, ESQ

New Bedford, Sept., 1835.

      Answers to Dr. North's inquiries on diet.

      1. Increase of strength and activity, connected with, and perhaps in some good degree a consequence of, an increase of daily exercise.

      2. Process of digestion more regular and agreeable.

      3. Mental activity greater; no decisive experiments on the ability to continue a laborious investigation.

      4. Dyspepsia of long continuance, and also difficult breathing; inflammation of the eyes.

      5. Fewer colds; febrile attacks very slight; great elasticity in recovering from disease. Some part of the effect should undoubtedly be ascribed to greater attention to the skin by bathing and friction.

      6. Twenty-six months of entire abstinence from all animal substances, excepting butter and milk. Salt is used regularly.

      7. Through life inclined to a vegetable diet, with few stimulants.

      8. Drinks have been milk, milk and water, or cold water.

      9. A well-selected vegetable diet appears to produce a very regular action of the stomach and bowels.

      10. I think the health of laborers and students would be promoted by a great reduction of the usual quantity of animal food, and perhaps by discontinuing its use entirely. I feel no want.

      11. From my experience, I can very highly recommend bread made of coarse wheat flour. Among fruits, the blackberry, as peculiarly adapted to the state of the body, at the time of the year when it is in season. My range of food has been confined. I avoid green vegetables. Age 35.

Joseph Congdon.

      LETTER XI. – FROM GEORGE W. BAKER, ESQ

New Bedford, 9th month, 10, 1835.

      Dr. M. L. North, – Agreeably to request, the following answers are forwarded, which I believe to be correct as far as my experience has tested.

      1. At first it was diminished; but after a few months it was restored, and I think increased.

      2. More.

      3. It could.

      4. Pretty free from constitutional infirmities before the change, and no increase since.

      5. I have had no cold, of any consequence, for the last three years; at which time I substituted cold water for tea and coffee, and commenced using cold water for washing about my head and neck and for shaving, which I continued through the year.

      6. I have not eaten animal food for about eighteen months.

      7. Two years previous to the entire change the quantity was great, but there had been a gradual diminution.

      8. It was. (See fifth answer.)

      9. More so, in my case.

      10. I believe the health of both laborers and students would be improved.

      11. I have generally avoided eating cucumbers; otherwise I have not.

Thy assured friend,Geo. W. Baker.

      LETTER XII – FROM JOHN HOWLAND, JR., ESQ

New Beford, 9th month, 10th day, 1835.

      Friend, – As I have lived nearly three years upon a vegetable diet, I cheerfully comply with thy request.

      1. My bodily strength has been increased; and I can now endure much more exercise than formerly, without fatigue.

      2. They are more agreeable; and I am now free from that dull, heavy feeling, which I used to experience after my meals.

      3. My mind is much clearer; and I am free from that depression of spirits, to which I was formerly subject.

      4. I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed. I had frequent and severe attacks of headache, which I now rarely have; and when they do occur they are very light, compared with what they formerly were.

      5. I have had fewer colds, and those much lighter than formerly.

      6. About three years.

      7. I used to eat animal food for breakfast and dinner, with coffee for drink, at those meals; and tea for my third meal, with bread and butter.

      8. Milk for breakfast, and cold water for the other two meals.

      9. I have found it more so; inasmuch as the use of it, with the substitution of bread, made from coarse, unbolted wheat flour, instead of superfine, has removed my costiveness entirely.

      10. I do.

      11. I consider potatoes and rice as the most healthy, and confine myself principally to the former.

      I would remark that during the season of fruits, I eat freely of them, with milk; and consider them to be healthy.

John Howland, Jr.

      LETTER XIII. – FROM DR. W. H. WEBSTER

Batavia, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835.

      Sir, – Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical Sciences, Philadelphia.

      I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my health, as a kind of key to my answers.

      It is about fifteen years since I was called a dyspeptic; this was while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left college more dead than alive – a confirmed dyspeptic.

      In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my indulgence in the luxuries of the table – especially in animal food, and distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the greatest share of that time, with the most excruciating torture. On getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition indeed – reduced to a skeleton – a voracious appetite, which