Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages / Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

by William A. Alcott

"The only material and solid objections against a milk, seed, and vegetable diet, are the following:

"First, That it is particular and unsocial, in a country where the common diet is of another nature. But I am sure sickness, lowness, and oppression, are much more so. These difficulties, after all, happen only at first, while the cure is about; for, when good health comes, all these oddnesses and specialities will vanish, and then all the contrary to these will be the case.

"Secondly, That it is weakening, and gives a man less strength and force, than common diet. It is true that this may be the result, at first, while the cure is imperfect. But then the greater activity and gayety which will ensue on the return of health, under a milk and vegetable diet, will liberally supply that defect.

"Thirdly, The most material objection against such a diet is, that it cools, relaxes, softens, and unbends the solids, at first, faster than it corrects and sweetens the juices, and brings on greater degrees of lowness than it is designed to cure; and so sinks, instead of raising. But this objection is not universally true; for there are many I have treated, who, without any such inconvenience, or consequent lowness, have gone into this regimen, and have been free from any oppression, sinking, or any degree of weakness, ever after; and they were not only those who have been generally temperate and clean, free from humors and sharpnesses, but who, on the decline of life, or from a naturally weak constitution or frame, have been oppressed and sunk from their weakness and their incapacity to digest common animal food and fermented liquors.

"I very much question if any diet, either hot or cool, has any great influence on the solids, after the fluids have been entirely sweetened and balmified. Sweeten and thin the juices, and the rest will follow, as a matter of course."

At page 90 of Dr. Cheyne's Natural Method of Curing Diseases, he thus says:

"People think they cannot possibly subsist on a little meat, milk, and vegetables, or on any low diet, and that they must infallibly perish if they should be confined to water only; not considering that nine tenths of the whole mass of mankind are necessarily confined to this diet, or pretty nearly to it, and yet live with the use of their senses, limbs, and faculties, without diseases, or but few, and those from accidents or epidemical causes; and that there have been nations, and now are numbers of tribes, who voluntarily confine themselves to vegetables only; as the Essenes among the Jews, some Hermits and Solitaries among the Christians of the first ages, a great number of monks in the Chartreux now in Europe, Banians among the Indians and Chinese, the Guebres among the Persians, and of old, the Druids among ourselves."

To illustrate the foregoing, I may here introduce the following extracts from the sixth London edition of Dr. Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long Life.

"It is surprising to what a great age the Eastern Christians, who retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, lived healthful on a very little food. We are informed, by Cassian, that the common measure for twenty-four hours was about twelve ounces, with only pure water for drink. St. Anthony lived to one hundred and five years on mere bread and water, adding only a few herbs at last. On a similar diet, James the Hermit lived to one hundred and four years. Arsenius, the tutor of the emperor Arcadius, to one hundred and twenty—sixty-five years in society, and fifty-five in the desert. St. Epiphanius, to one hundred and fifteen; St. Jerome, about one hundred; Simon Stylites, to one hundred and nine; and Romualdus, to one hundred and twenty.

"It is wonderful in what sprightliness, strength, activity, and freedom of spirits, a low diet, even here in England, will preserve those who have habituated themselves to it. Buchanan informs us of one Laurence, who preserved himself to one hundred and forty, by the mere force of temperance and labor. Spotswood mentions one Kentigern (afterward called St. Mongah, or Mungo, from whom the famous well in Wales is named), who lived to one hundred and eighty-five years; and who, after he came to years of understanding, never tasted wine or strong drink, and slept on the cold ground.