“But how does animal food stimulate? It always contains more or less effete materials—the debris of the disintegrated tissues, the ashes of the decayed organism—with more or less of other excrementitious matters. These impurities cannot be used in the organism, and therefore must be expelled; and this expulsive process, amounting to a feverish disturbance, this vital resistance, is precisely the rationale of the stimulating effects of animal food. And thus we prove that animal food is impure precisely in the ratio that it is stimulating, and for this reason objectionable.
“All that can be alleged in favour of flesh-eating because of its stimulating properties can be urged, and for precisely the same reasons, in favour of brandy-drinking or arsenic-eating.”[22]
There is nothing more certain than that the eating of meat, even if the meat be clean and wholesome, and the eating of it be not excessive, will in time produce grave results and diseases of the foulest and worst type. Not invariably, of course, but almost invariably. The rapid increase in uric acid which results from a flesh diet has previously been pointed out, and is now well known. In addition to this, there are numerous other poisons that are formed, or introduced into the body, as the result of flesh-eating—as Bouchard and others have proved conclusively. These poisons and their effects were carefully studied by Bouchard, and the results of his experiments are very interesting and convincing. He succeeded in isolating a number of poisons from the urea of flesh-eaters, and injecting them into animals, and noted the results. “One of the poisons in most minute doses produces death with violent spasms; another causes rapid fall of temperature until death occurs; another influences animal temperature in another direction; still another produces death with most profound coma.”
The basis of the demonstration is this. The urine is really an extract from the tissues; the kidneys do not manufacture poisons de novo, but simply separate from the blood poisons found in solution therein, which have been washed by the blood-current from the tissues which it bathes in passing through the capillary network of systemic circulation. Bearing these facts in mind, Bouchard and his assistants injected into live rabbits certain known quantities of these poisons, and noted the results. Death invariably resulted—frequently in a very short time, and as the result of taking an extremely small dose of the poison. It was also found that, by increasing the amount of meat in the diet, the amount of these toxins could be increased accordingly, and proportionately; the greater the amount of meat consumed, the greater the amount of toxin given off by the animal in its urine, and the more deadly its effects. It was even found that a person living almost exclusively upon a flesh diet increased these toxins to fourfold the normal limit!
Again, it is now well known that in all infectious and contagious diseases there are created within the system certain poisons which play a large part in the disease—they are a factor of immense importance. This being the case, it becomes obvious how important it is to keep out of the system all other and unnecessary poisons—such as might be introduced into the system by foul air, bad water, food containing poisons, etc. Since meat and beef tea contain these poisons in excess, it is certain that they should not only form no part of the diet of invalids, but should be strictly forbidden, just as any other poison is.
Metchnikoff has recently pointed out, with great emphasis, the immense influence upon health of intestinal putrefaction. He insists that it shortens life; is one of the chief causes of premature old age and death, and is the cause of many diseases and much misery during life—in all of which he is doubtless quite right. The method of checking this intestinal putrefaction, however, does not appeal to me as other than a palliative measure. Lactic acid is, for him, the great preventive of putrefaction of this type; but is it not obvious that such a treatment is merely one that aims at results, rather than at causes? one which attempts to patch up existing conditions, instead of trying to find out what gave rise to those conditions, and checking them? M. Metchnikoff has apparently failed to realise the fact that there is no need whatever for the human intestine being in any such diseased and disgusting condition as it is generally; that, in certain cases, it may be rendered absolutely sweet and clean—with virtually no putrefaction going on in the bowel at all. In the case of Mr Horace Fletcher, for instance (and in many of his disciples), no such conditions are present or possible. Mr Fletcher, writing in his “New Glutton or Epicure,” says (pp. 144-145):
“One of the most noticeable and significant results of economic nutrition, gained through careful attention to the mouth treatment of food, or buccal-digestion, is not only the small quantity of waste obtained but its inoffensiveness. Under best test conditions the ashes of economic digestion have been reduced to one-tenth of the average given as normal in the best text-books on physiology. The economic digestion ash forms in pillular shape, and, when released, these are massed together, having become so bunched by considerable retention in the rectum. There is no stench, no evidence of putrid bacterial decomposition, only the odour of warmth, like warm earth or ‘hot biscuit.’ Test samples of excreta, kept for more than five years, remain inoffensive, dry up, gradually disintegrate, and are lost.”
To my mind, it has always been so obvious that, if we supplied no food to decompose, there could be no decomposition, that I hardly thought the question was open to debate at all. It would appear to me to be axiomatic that if we only supplied the body with as much food as it really needed, and of the proper quality, there would be virtually no food left to decompose, or to offer pabulum for germs of any character whatever. Certainly this is the case outside the human intestine, and why not in it? One can quite easily see why it should be—why putrefaction should take place, if the amount of food ingested were excessive in quantity, or poisonous in quality; but not otherwise. The former of these two questions I have discussed at length in my former volume on fasting; the latter aspect of the problem is the one I propose to discuss in this book.
If we compare the decomposition of various articles of food, we find there is a very great difference (both as to the quality and the quantity) in the various food-stuffs. Under the same conditions, and during the same period of time, the extent of the decomposition, and its character, will be very different, in the two cases. Compare the decomposition of a pear, a peach or a plum, e.g., with that of a piece of beef or mutton! Animal tissues and products, when undergoing the process of decay or decomposition are particularly offensive; and this fact is well borne out by a comparative study of the excreta of the various animals. As before pointed out, that of the herbivora and frugivora is comparatively inoffensive, while that of the carnivora is very offensive, and dangerous also. This is particularly the case with man, when he eats meat of any character. His fæces at once assume a characteristic odour and character; and clearly indicate that he has wandered away from his natural diet, and is living upon food altogether foreign and unnatural to him. His tissues also take on the chemical composition of the resulting mass—being coloured and influenced by it. Meat and all animal products easily decomposing, and being in a moist, warm place, where they might easily decompose at once, they assume a most offensive character; and it does not require much imagination to see that the results would be disastrous in a very short time, under such circumstances; and clearly indicate that the individual is living on food unsuited to his needs and his organism.
Even when an animal is perfectly healthy, its tissues begin to decompose as soon as the animal is really dead—as soon as rigor mortis has passed away. Even when meat is kept at a very low temperature, it has been found that it decomposes after the first twenty-four hours; so that the amount of decomposition present in all animals whose carcasses have been hanging up for hours, and even days, in a shop may easily be imagined! In the case of game, the carcasses are frequently green and blue with decomposition, and the chemicals injected into the animal in order to preserve it from such decomposition. For only in this manner can meats be preserved; and it has been proved time and time again that meats are treated and “doctored” with drugs and chemicals of all kinds in order to delay their decomposition. To think that we really eat such stuff, and give it to our children, and even prescribe it for invalids, is too revolting for words! It passes all comprehension! Dr Kellogg, in his excellent little book on this subject, says, when speaking of the deadly effects of the poisons formed within the body: