DR. J. V. C. SMITH, OF BOSTON.
The following remarks are extracted from the Boston Medical Intelligencer, at a period when Dr. J. V. C. Smith was the editor. They have the appearance of being from Dr. Smith's own pen. Dr. S. is at present the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal:
"It is true[13] that animal food contains a greater portion of nutriment, in a given quantity, than vegetables; but the digestive functions of the human system become prematurely exhausted by constant action, and the whole system eventually sinks under great or uninterrupted excitement. If, for the various ragouts with which modern tables are so abundantly furnished, men would substitute wholesome vegetables and pure water, we should see health walking in paths that are now crowded with the bloated victims of voluptuous appetite. Millions of Gentoos have lived to an advanced age without having tasted any thing that ever possessed life, and been wholly free from a chain of maladies which have scourged every civilized nation on the globe. The wandering Arabs, who have traversed the barren desert of Sahara, subsisting on the scanty pittance of milk from the half-famished camel that carried them, have seen two hundred years roll round without a day of sickness."