“An Englishman would probably be of opinion that wheat-bread, and a large portion of animal food, gives the strongest and most substantial nourishment.
“An Irishman, or a Scotsman, would probably maintain that a small portion of animal food,—with plenty of potatoes and oatmeal, is far better adapted to form a vigorous and hardy race. The Laplanders live almost entirely upon Animal food—the Hindoos, Gentoos, &c. never taste any thing but Vegetables.”—Moore’s Mat. Med. p. 70.
“In the course of a few years, the produce of several acres of land, a number of large oxen, and many tuns of liquor, are consumed by one individual; whilst he continues nearly the same, whether he drinks the pure stream, or beverage the most skilfully compounded; whether he feeds on a variety of articles produced from the animal and vegetable kingdom, or confines himself to one particular substance; and whether his food is prepared in the most simple manner, or by the most refined and artificial modes that luxury has invented.”—Code of Health, vol. i. p. 402.
Facts relative to Diet.—“Dr. B. Franklin, of Philadelphia, informed me that he himself, when a journeyman printer, lived a fortnight on bread and water, at the rate of ten pennyworth of bread per week, and that he found himself stout and hearty with this diet.”
“By Sir John Pringle I was told that he knew a lady now 90 years of age, who eat only the pure fat of meat.”
“Dr. Cirelli says, that the Neapolitan Physicians frequently allow their patients in fevers, nothing but water for forty days together.”—Dr. Stark, on Diet, &c. 4to. 1788, p. 92, a work well worth the purchase of any person curious upon this subject. As is also Dr. Bryan Robinson, on Food and Discharges of Human Bodies.
[95] “A constant adherence to one sort of Diet, may have bad effects on any Constitution. Nature has provided a great Variety of Nourishment for Human Creatures, and furnished us with Appetites to desire, and Organs to digest them.
“An unerring Regularity is almost impracticable, and the swerving from it, when it has grown habitual, dangerous; for every unusual thing in a human body becomes a stimulus, as Wine or Flesh Meat to one not used to them; therefore Celsus’s Rule, with proper moral restrictions, is a good one.”—Arbuthnot on Aliment, pp. 218 and 219.
[96] A Pill is the mildest form of administering Medicine, because of its gradual solution in the Stomach, and the same quantity of the same material, taken in a draught, produces a very different effect.
[97] “He that would have a clear Head, must have a clean Stomach.”—Cheyne on Health, p. 34.