During the first three years, or while the old system was followed, from four to six children were continually on the sick list, and sometimes more; and one or two assistant nurses were necessary. A physician was needed once, twice, or three times a week, uniformly; and deaths were frequent. During this whole period there were between thirty and forty deaths.
After the new system was fairly adopted, the nursery was soon entirely vacated, and the services of the nurse and physician no longer needed; and for more than two years no case of sickness or death took place. In the succeeding twelve months there were three deaths, but they were new inmates, and were diseased when they were received; and two of them were idiots. The Report of the Managers says, "Under this system of dietetics (though the change ought not to be wholly attributed to the diet) the health of the children has not only been preserved, but those who came to the asylum weakly, have become healthy and strong, and greatly increased in activity, cheerfulness, and happiness." The superintendents also state, that "since the new regimen has been fully adopted, there has been a remarkable increase of health, strength, activity, vivacity, cheerfulness, and contentment among the children. Indeed, they appear to be, uniformly, perfectly healthy and happy; and the strength and activity they exhibit are truly surprising. The change of temper is very great. They have become less turbulent, irritable, peevish, and discontented; and far more manageable, gentle, peaceable, and kind to each other." One of them further observes, "There has been a great increase in their mental activity and power; the quickness and acumen of their perception, the vigor of their apprehension, and the power of their retention daily astonish me."
Such an account hardly needs comment; and I leave it to make its own impression on the candid and unbiassed mind and heart of the reader.
THE MEXICAN INDIANS.
The Indian tribes of Mexico, according to the traveler Humboldt, live on vegetable food. A spot of ground, which, if cultivated with wheat, as in Europe, would sustain only ten persons, and which by its produce, if converted into pork or beef, would little more than support one, will in Mexico, when used for banana, sustain equally well two hundred and fifty.
The reader will do well to take the above fact, and the estimates appended to it, along with him when he comes to examine what I have called the economical argument of the great diet question, in our last chapter, under the head, "The Moral Argument." We shall do well to remember another suggestion of Humboldt, that the habit of eating animals diminishes our natural horror of cannibalism.
SCHOOL IN GERMANY.
There is, in the Annals of Education for August, 1836, an account of a school in which the same simple system which was pursued in the Orphan Asylum at Albany was adopted, and with the same happy results. I say the same system; I believe plain meat was allowed occasionally, but it was seldom. Their food was exceedingly simple, consisting chiefly of bread and other vegetables, fruits and milk. Great attention was also paid to daily cold bathing. The following is the teacher's statement in regard to the results:
"I am at present the foster father of nearly seventy young people, who were born in all the varieties of climate from Lisbon to Moscow, and whose early education was necessarily very different. These young men are all healthy; not a single eruption is visible on their faces; and three years often pass, during which not a single one of them is confined to his bed; and in the twenty-one years that I have been engaged in this institution, not one pupil has died. Yet, I am no physician. During the first ten years of my residence here, no physician entered my house; and, not till the number of my pupils was very much increased, and I grew anxious not to overlook any thing in regard to them, did I begin to seek at all for medical advice.
"It is the mode of treating the young men here, which is the cause of their superior health; and this is the reason why death has not yet entered our doors. Should we ever deviate from our present principles—should we approach nearer the mode of living common in wealthy families—we should soon be obliged to establish, in our institution, as it is in others, medicine closets and nurseries. Instead of the freshness which now adorns the cheeks of our youth, paleness would appear, and our church-yards would contain the tombs of promising young men, who, in the bloom of their years, had fallen victims to disease."