Claim 6

That Eskimos thrive on a meat diet.

Captain McMillan who accompanied Peary on his discovery of the North Pole, a year or two ago informed me that the Eskimo is short lived. That he becomes at 50 years very old and useless and at 55 infirm and helpless, and rarely lives to the age of 60 years.

The Arctic traveler Stefansson said to me, "I do not claim to have proven that a man can live better or longer on a flesh diet, but only that he can live. Of course the scientific argument is against such a diet."

Prof. Irving Fisher of Yale University some years ago made a series of endurance tests in which the endurance of the athletes of the Yale gymnasium was compared with that of physicians and men nurses of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. As Prof. Fisher said in his report, which was published in the Yale Scientific Review, the endurance of the Battle Creek flesh-abstainers was found to be not only "greater" in all the tests, but far greater. In the arm holding (arms extended sidewise) tests, the Battle Creek men held their arms out longer than any Yale man and nine times as long as the same number of Yale men.

Vegetarian bicyclists have for many years held all the championships in endurance riding tests from Land's End to John O'Groats.

Through Finland's minister to the United States I have learned that Nurmi, the Finnish runner whose record stands unequalled, was trained on a non-flesh dietary.

The Great War taught the world among many other important lessons, the fact that meat may be dispensed with not only without injury, but with great and very definite benefits.

During the World War, Denmark sold her cattle to Germany and reduced her meat ration to a very low minimum, with the result that her death rate was reduced one-third.

In Germany, where at the beginning of the war the cattle were killed to save food and a practically meatless ration was maintained for more than three years, diabetes, Bright's disease, and many other chronic maladies were reduced in frequency to an extraordinary degree. After the war, as I was informed by the medical director of one of the largest life insurance companies in this country, it was discovered that the death losses among the company's German policy holders, not excepting war casualties, were far below the prewar average.

The Chittenden standard now universally accepted, fixes the protein intake at 10 per cent of the total ration. This leaves little room for meat, and not a few authorities reduce the protein to a still lower level.

For some years, McCollum of Johns Hopkins has been calling attention to the evils of the "meat and bread" diet, which he declares to be about the worst diet one can adopt, and adds, "We could entirely dispense with meats without suffering any ill effects whatever."

Chalmers Watson of Edinburgh found that rats on a lean meat diet deteriorated so rapidly that after two or three generations they became deformed and dwarfed and ceased to reproduce.

The International Scientific Food Commission appointed by the Allies at the time of the Great War and charged with the duty of fixing the minimum ration of different food essentials, declared it to be unnecessary to fix a minimum meat ration, "in view of the fact that no absolute physiological need exists for meat, since the proteins of meat can be replaced by other proteins of animal origin, such as those contained in milk, cheese and eggs, as well as by proteins of vegetable origin."

It is evident from the above facts that an effort to induce the American people to eat less meat and more nuts would do no harm and should prove substantially beneficial.

A leading textbook on "Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics" by Carter, Howe and Mason of Columbia University, calls attention to the encouraging fact that "Of late there has been a distinct reaction in the meat-eating of the wealthier classes, and one sees less meat and more vegetable habits as they progress upward in the scale of civilization. Also, on account of their sedentary habits, people find that the ingestion of considerable quantities of animal protein, with the consequent increase in intestinal putrefaction, gives rise to symptoms of toxemia, which have assumed a very definite place in the pathology of disease."

That meat enormously increases intestinal putrefaction cannot be questioned. It is this fact which makes the difference between the excreta of a dog or lion and that of a cow or horse. All carnivorous animals suffer from autointoxication.

The eminent pathologist of the Philadelphia Zoo states that all dogs over three years of age have hardened arteries, while horses practically never show arterial changes even when very old.

Dr. Charles Mayo states that three out of four dogs over 12 years have cancer.

I quote the following paragraphs from a poster prepared some years ago as a reply to "Meat Is Wholesome" poster distributed by the packers through the post office department which presents ample evidence that meat is by no means always wholesome:

A bacteriological examination made in the laboratory of the Battle Creek Sanitarium of fresh meats purchased at seven different markets, all in apparently fresh condition, showed the following number of bacteria per ounce:

Bacteria Per Ounce
Beefsteak37,500,000-45,000,000
Pork Chops5,100,000-87,000,000
Beef Liver3,000,000-945,000,000
Corned Beef300,000-910,000,000
Hamburger Steak5,100,000-2,250,000,000
Pork Liver3,000,000-2,862,000,000

The above figures agree with the findings of Tissier, Distaso, Weinzirl, Farger, Walpole, and other bacteriological authorities.