Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages / Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

by William A. Alcott

DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

Dr. Franklin, in his younger days, often, for some time together, lived exclusively on a vegetable diet, and that, too, in small quantity. During his after life he also observed seasons of abstinence from animal food, or lents, as he called them, of considerable length. His food and drink were, moreover, especially in early life, exceedingly simple; his meal often consisting of nothing but a biscuit and a slice of bread, with a bunch of raisins, and perhaps a basin of gruel. Now, Dr. F. testifies of himself; that he found his progress in science to be in proportion to that clearness of mind and aptitude of conception which can only be produced by total abstinence from animal food. He also derived many other advantages from his abstinence, both physical and moral.