PROF. MUSSEY, OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.
Prof. R. D. Mussey, of Hanover, New Hampshire, whose science and skill as a surgeon and physician are well known and attested all over New England, has for many years taught, both directly and indirectly, in his public lectures, that man is naturally a fruit and vegetable eater. This he proves, first, from the structure of his teeth and intestines—next from his physiological character, and finally, from various facts and considerations too numerous to detail here.
He thinks the Bible doctrines are in favor of the disuse of flesh and fish; that the Jews were required to abstain from pork, and from all fat and blood, for physiological no less than other reasons. An infant, he says, naturally has a disrelish for animal food. He says that, in all probability, animal food was not permitted, though used, before the flood; and that its use, contrary to the wish of the Creator, was probably one cause of human degeneracy. Animal food, he says, is apt to produce diseases of the skin—makes people passionate and violent—excites the nervous system too much—renders the senses and faculties more dull—and favors the accumulation of what is mired tartar on the teeth, and thus causes their early and certain decay. The blood and breath of carnivorous animals emit an unpleasant odor, while those of vegetable eaters do not. The fact that man does eat flesh no more proves its necessity, than the fact that cows, and sheep, and horses can be taught it, proves its necessity to them. The Africans bear the cold better the first winter after their arrival in a northern climate than afterward. May not this be owing to their simple vegetable living?