It would be useless for me to enumerate in full all the numerous diseases that are traceable to meat-eating. That alone would occupy an extensive volume. Typhoid fever has frequently been traced to the eating of oysters. A disease closely related to hog-cholera has been known to be contracted by the human being, as the result of eating pork. Meat-eating is known to be one of the chief and most direct causes of the decay of the teeth—the small fibres of the meat becoming wedged in between them, and, decomposing, cause rapid decay of the teeth. It is probable that this is one of the chief causes of the bad teeth we see about us. Gout and rheumatism are now well known to result from the eating of meat. The reasons for this might perhaps be given. As the result of excessive meat-eating, and eating too much food, the body becomes choked with an excess of mal-assimilated food material, and particularly with uric acid—a product of the meat. The blood, being surfeited with this material, deposits some of it in the vicinity of the joints, and this gives rise to the various symptoms of gout. It is beginning to be realised that this disease, formerly thought to be the direct result of the drinking of wine and other alcoholic beverages, is due to “good old English beef.” Rheumatism is largely due to the same cause. Meat poisoning shows itself in various forms; but the cause is the same. It is now known that meat-eating is the chief cause of Brights disease; and to all unprejudiced minds, it will be obvious that this must be so. The excess of albumen in the system cannot well be due to any other cause: and the mode of cure thus becomes apparent also.
It is certain, to anyone who has studied the facts carefully, that meat-eating predisposes the body to all forms of disease. In pestilences of any character—statistics, so far as they have been kept, conclusively show that the vegetarians escaped the disease, and that the meat-eaters were the chief sufferers. The excess of poisons introduced into the system predispose it to any form of disease to which it may be exposed at the time; the general tone of the system being lowered, owing to the lessened resistance, it becomes a ready prey to any contagious disease which might be prevalent at the time. In further support of this, it has long been known that wounds heal far more rapidly in vegetarian soldiers and in all others who live upon foods of this character, than in those who live largely upon meat. Carnivorous animals are far more subject to blood poisoning than are vegetarian animals. These latter may be very badly wounded, and escape with a scar; but lions and tigers and other carnivorous animals frequently die from blood poisoning, though but slightly wounded. There can be no reason for this, beyond that indicated above. The tissues of the animal’s body are more or less saturated with poison, in the first place; and it required but a small amount in addition, to turn the scale against the animal, and cause its death. It is surely the same, to a great extent, in the case of human beings.
Epilepsy is another disease which has been more or less directly traced to meat-eating. A few years ago, Dr Warner, of the Eastern Illinois Insane Asylum, called attention to the profound influence of flesh dietary upon epileptics. He found that it had a most pernicious influence. By experiment he also ascertained that cats fed upon meat, or allowed to eat the mice they caught, frequently become epileptic.
It has been ascertained, further, that a strictly vegetarian diet is the best possible preparation that can be made for a surgical operation of any kind; and that vegetarians die less frequently, as the result of severe operations, than do meat-eaters. Paget, in his “Lessons on Clinical Surgery,” states that there is a higher death rate from operations in cities than in rural districts; and he considers that this is largely due to the greater amount of meat consumed in the cities.
Of late years much attention has been devoted to the relations of cancer and meat-eating. Several authors have called attention to this fact; Dr Alexander Haig, in his “Uric Acid in the Causation of Disease,” strongly contends that the consumption of flesh is one of the chief causes of cancer, and points out that any irritant to the tissues will invariably be one of the chief factors in the causation of this disease. As he showed that meat-eating created much uric acid in the system, and that this uric acid acts as an irritant upon the tissues, it is obvious that the consumption of flesh-foods is one of the chief causes of this dreaded disease. Lately, the Hon. Rollo Russell, in his book, “The Reduction of Cancer,” has defended this view very strongly, and has gathered together a great deal of evidence bearing upon this problem—showing that there is a definite connection between the amount of flesh consumed and the number of cases of cancer, in any one locality. He has also advanced strong reasons for supposing that the one is directly caused by the other. As a result of comparing the food habits and the mortality tables of a large number of countries and districts, it was found to be the invariable rule that when, in any locality, meat-eating was excessive, the cancer rate was high; and where meat-eating was small, it fell to a comparatively low figure. A number of other authorities could be quoted in this connection. Thus Dr Lambe remarks:
“The effects of animal food, and other noxious matter, in inducing and accelerating fatal disease, are not immediate, but ultimate effects. The immediate effect is to engender a diseased habit or state of constitution; not enough to impede the ordinary occupations of life, but, in many, to render life itself a long-continued sickness; and to make the great mass of society morbidly susceptible to many passing impressions which would have no injurious influence on healthy systems.”
Drs Clarke, Buchan, Abernethy, Sir Edward Berry, Drs Sigmond, Copland, Alphonus Lercy, Graham, Wardell, Trall, and many other of the older writers were of the same opinion; and a number of recent authorities have taken the same stand. It is beginning to be realised that meat-eating is one of the most potent of all the causes of deadly and fatal diseases of many kinds—all more or less directly traceable to it. But, in addition to these varied diseases, there are induced states of the body which must rightly be looked upon as diseased—though they are not actual diseases, in the sense generally understood by that term. Meat-eating is, however, one of the most potent of all factors in inducing that state of the body known as “predisposition” to disease—and in deadening and lowering the vitality, and in enfeebling the senses. I shall now proceed to adduce evidence in support of these various statements, and show that the effects of meat-eating are far more insidious and widespread than is generally believed; and that the effects of this practice, even among the supposedly healthy, are indeed baneful and disease-engendering.
In the first place it must be pointed out and insisted upon that meat is a highly stimulating article of food, and for that reason, innutritious. Stimulation and nutrition invariably exist in inverse ratio—the more the one the less the other, and vice versa. The very fact, then, that meat is a stimulant, as it is now universally conceded to be, shows us that it is more or less an innutritious article of diet, and that the supposed “strength” we receive from the meat is due entirely to the stimulating effects upon the system of the various poisons, or toxic substances, introduced into the system, together with the meat. It is for this reason that those who leave off meat, and become vegetarians, experience a feeling of lassitude and weakness, for the first few days—they lack the stimulation formerly supplied, and now notice the reaction which invariably follows such stimulation. This feeling of weakness, or “all-goneness,” is therefore to be expected, and is in no wise a proof that the diet is weakening the patient. Let him persist in his reformed manner of living for some time, and he will find that this reaction wears off, and that a general and continued feeling of energy and well-being follow.
It is commonly supposed that only by eating large quantities of animal foods can the bodily heat be maintained in cold climates. Such is by no means the case. Although the Esquimaux, and the inhabitants of Greenland and Iceland, do subsist almost entirely upon fats and animal substances, many of the peasants of Northern Russia and other parts of the globe, eat very little meat—for the reason that they cannot secure it. Dr Graham, in his “Lectures,” went so far as to say that: “All other things being precisely equal, the man who is fully accustomed to a pure vegetable diet, can endure severer cold, or bear the same degree of cold much longer than the man who is fully accustomed to a flesh diet.” The truth probably is, as Dr Trall pointed out, that, “the ordinary farinaceous foods and fruits contain all the carbon and hydrogen requisite to sustain the animal heat in all climates, and under all circumstances of temperature; and if ever surplus carbon or hydrogen is taken into the system, it is, of course, thrown off; and when a large amount of surplus carbon and hydrogen is taken, the labour of expelling it is attended with a feverish excitement—which, instead of warming the body permanently, only wastes its energies, and renders it colder in the end.” The body is, in other words, continually in a more or less feverish condition.
In discussing this question in my “Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition” (Book III., ch. 4, “Bodily Heat”) I said: