“He resolved, therefore, finally to execute what he had been contemplating for some time—to abandon animal food altogether, and everything analogous to it, and to confine himself wholly to vegetable food. This determination he put in execution the second week of February, 1806, and he has adhered to it with perfect regularity to the present time. His only subject of repentance with regard to it has been that it had not been adopted much earlier in life. He never found the smallest real ill-consequence from this change. He sank neither in strength, flesh, nor in spirits. He was at all times of a very thin and slender habit, and so he has continued to be, but upon the whole he has rather gained than lost flesh. He has experienced neither indigestion nor flatulence even from the sort of vegetables which are commonly thought to produce flatulence, nor has the stomach suffered from any vegetable matter, though unchanged by culinary art or uncorrected by condiments. The only unpleasant consequence of the change was a sense of emptiness of stomach, which continued many months. In about a year, however, he became fully reconciled to the new habit, and felt as well satisfied with his vegetable meal as he had been formerly with his dinner of flesh. He can truly say that since he has acted upon this resolution no year has passed in which he has not enjoyed better health than in that which preceded it. But he has found that the changes introduced into the body by a vegetable regimen take place with extreme slowness; that it is in vain to expect any considerable amendment in successive weeks or in successive months. We are to look rather to the intervals of half-years or years.”
With extreme candour as well as carefulness, this patient and philosophic experimentalist details every particular circumstance of his own diagnosis. After a minute report of the various symptoms of his maladies and his gradual subjugation of them, he deduces the only just inference:—
“Granting this representation of facts to be correct, and the nature of this case to, be truly determined, I must be permitted to ask, What other method than that which has been adopted would have produced the same benefit? If such methods exist, I confess my ignorance of them.... But though these pains [in the head] still recur in a trifling degree, the relief given to the brain in general has been decided and most essential. It has appeared in an increased sensibility of all the organs, particularly of the senses—the touch, the taste, and the sight, in greater muscular activity, in greater freedom and strength of respiration, greater freedom of all the secretions, and in increased intellectual power. It has been extended to the night as much as to the day. The sleep is more tranquil, less disturbed by dreams, and more refreshing. Less sleep, upon the whole, appears to be required; but the loss of quantity is more than compensated by its being sound and uninterrupted....
“The hypochondriacal symptoms continued to be occasionally very oppressive during the second year, particularly during the earlier part of it, but they afterwards very sensibly declined, and at present he enjoys more uniform and regular spirits than he had done for many years upon the mixed diet. From the whole of these facts it follows that all the organs, and indeed every fibre of the body, are simultaneously affected by the matters habitually conveyed into the stomach, and that it is the incongruity of these matters to the system, which gradually forms that morbid diathesis, which exists alike both in apparent health and in disease. I might illustrate this fact still more minutely by observations on the teeth, on the hair, and on the skin. I might show that by a steady attention to regimen, the skin of the palm of the hand becomes of a firmer and stronger texture, that even an excrescence which had for twenty years and upwards been growing more fixed, firm, and deep, had, first, its habitudes altered, and, finally, was softened and disappeared. But, perhaps, enough has been said already to give a pretty clear idea both of the kind of change introduced into the habit by diet, and of the extent to which it may be carried. I proceed, therefore, to relate some new phenomena which took place during the course of this regimen, which are both curious in themselves and lead to important conclusions.”
The author then goes on to record further gradual diminution of painful symptoms. From long and careful observation of himself, amongst other important deductions, Dr. Lambe infers that:—
“We may conclude that it is the property of this regimen, and, in particular, of the vegetable diet, to transfer diseased action from the viscera to the exterior parts of the body—from the central parts of the system to the periphery. Vegetable diet has often been charged with causing cutaneous diseases; in common language, they are, in these cases, said to proceed from poorness of blood.[218] In some degree the charge is probably just, and the observation I have already made may give us some insight into the causes of it. But this charge, instead of being a just cause of reproach, is a proof of the superior salubrity of vegetable diet. Cutaneous eruptions appear, because disease is translated from the internal organs to the skin.”
For all brain disease abandonment of the gross and stimulating flesh-meats is shown to be of the first importance. At the same time, that it involves any loss of actual bodily strength is a fallacy:—
“We see, then, how ill-founded is the notion that inaction and loss of power are induced by a vegetable diet. In fact, all the observations that have been made have shewn the very reverse to be the truth. Symptoms of plenitude and oppression have continued in considerable force for at least five years; and the consequence of this peculiar regimen has been an increase of strength and power, and not a diminution. In the subject of this case the pulse, which may be deemed, perhaps, the best idea of the condition of all the other functions, is at present much more strong and full than under the use of animal food. It is also perfectly calm and regular.”
His personal experience of satisfaction derivable from vegetables and fruits as affording, for the most part, sufficient liquids in themselves, without use of extraneous drinks, is of importance:—