'The Egyptian cultivators of the soil, who live on coarse wheaten bread, Indian corn, lentils, and other productions of the vegetable kingdom, are among the finest people I have even seen. Latherwood.'
'The Greek boatmen are exceedingly abstemious. Their food consists of a small quantity of black bread, made of unbolted rye or wheatmeal, and a bunch of grapes, or raisins, or some figs. They are astonishingly athletic and powerful; and the most nimble, active, graceful, cheerful, and even merry people in the world. Judge Woodruff, of Connecticut.'
'From the day of his irruption into Europe the Turk has always proved himself to be endowed with singularly strong vitality and energy. As a member of a warlike race, he is without equal in Europe in health and hardiness. His excellent physique, his simple habits, his abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and his normal vegetarian diet, enable him to support the greatest hardships, and to exist on the scantiest and simplest food.'
'The Spaniards of Rio Salada in South America,—who come down from the interior, and are employed in transporting goods overland,—live wholly on vegetable food. They are large, very robust, and strong; and bear prodigious burdens on their backs, travelling over mountains too steep for loaded mules to ascend, and with a speed which few of the generality of men can equal without incumbrance.'
'In the most heroic days of the Grecian army, their food was the plain and simple produce of the soil. The immortal Spartans of Thermopylæ were, from infancy, nourished by the plainest and coarsest vegetable aliment: and the Roman army, in the period of their greatest valour and most gigantic achievements, subsisted on plain and coarse vegetable food. When the public games of Ancient Greece—for the exercise of muscular power and activity in wrestling, boxing, running, etc.,—were first instituted, the athletæ in accordance with the common dietetic habits of the people, were trained entirely on vegetable food.'
Dr. Kellogg, an authority on dietetics, makes the following answer to those who proclaim that those nations who eat a large amount of flesh-food, such as the English, are the strongest and dominant nations: "While it is true that the English nation makes large use of animal food, and is at the same time one of the most powerful on the globe, it is also true that the lowest, most miserable classes of human beings, such as the natives of Australia, and the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, subsist almost wholly upon flesh. It should also be borne in mind that it is only within a single generation that the common people of England have become large consumers of flesh. In former times and when England was laying the foundation of her greatness, her sturdy yeomen ate less meat in a week, than the average Englishman of the present consumes in a single day.... The Persians, the Grecians, and the Romans, became ruling nations while vegetarians."
In Fruits and Farinacea, Professor Lawrence is quoted as follows: 'The inhabitants of Northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, Samoiedes, Ostiacs, Tangooses, Burats, Kamtschatdales, as well as the natives of Terra del Fuego in the Southern extremity of America, are the smallest, weakest, and least brave people on the globe; although they live almost entirely on flesh, and that often raw.'
Many athletic achievements of recent date have been won by vegetarians both in this country and abroad. The following successes are noteworthy:—Walking: Karl Mann, Dresden to Berlin, Championship of Germany; George Allen, Land's End to John-o'-Groats. Running: E. R. Voigt, Olympic Championship, etc.: F. A. Knott, 5,000 metres Belgian record. Cycling: G. A. Olley, Land's End to John-o'-Groats record. Tennis: Eustace Miles, M.A., various championships, etc. Of especial interest at the present moment are a series of tests and experiments recently carried out at Yale University, U.S.A., under Professor Irving Fisher, with the object of discovering the suitability of different dietaries for athletes, and the effect upon the human system in general. The results were surprising. 'One of the most severe tests,' remarks Professor Fisher, 'was in deep knee-bending, or "squatting." Few of the meat-eaters could "squat" more than three to four hundred times. On the other hand a Yale student who had been a flesh-abstainer for two years, did the deep knee-bending eighteen hundred times without exhaustion.... One remarkable difference between the two sets of men was the comparative absence of soreness in the muscles of the meat-abstainers after the tests.'
The question as to climate is often raised; many people labour under the idea that a vegetable diet may be suitable in a hot climate, but not in a cold. That this idea is false is shown by facts, some of which the above quotations supply. That man can live healthily in arctic regions on a vegetable diet has been amply demonstrated. In a cold climate the body requires a considerable quantity of heat-producing food, that is, food containing a good supply of hydrocarbons (fats), and carbohydrates (starches and sugars). Many vegetable foods are rich in these properties, as will be explained in the essay following dealing with dietetics. Strong and enduring vegetable-feeding animals, such as the musk-ox and the reindeer, flourish on the scantiest food in an arctic climate, and there is no evidence to show that man could not equally well subsist on vegetable food under similar conditions.
In an article entitled Vegetarianism in Cold Climates, by Captain Walter Carey, R.N., the author describes his observations during a winter spent in Manchuria. The weather, we are told, was exceedingly cold, the thermometer falling as low as minus 22° F. After speaking of the various arduous labours the natives are engaged in, Captain Carey describes the physique and diet of natives in the vicinity of Niu-Chwang as follows: 'The men accompanying the carts were all very big and of great strength, and it was obvious that none but exceptionally strong and hardy men could withstand the hardships of their long march, the intense cold, frequent blizzards, and the work of forcing their queer team along in spite of everything. One could not help wondering what these men lived on, and I found that the chief article was beans, which, made into a coarse cake, supplied food for both men and animals. I was told by English merchants who travelled in the interior, that everywhere they found the same powerful race of men, living on beans and rice—in fact, vegetarians. Apparently they obtain the needful proteid and fat from the beans; while the coarse once-milled rice furnishes them with starch, gluten, and mineral salts, etc. Spartan fare, indeed, but proving how easy it is to sustain life without consuming flesh-food.'