10. I think the health of laborers and students would be promoted by a great reduction of the usual quantity of animal food, and perhaps by discontinuing its use entirely. I feel no want.
11. From my experience, I can very highly recommend bread made of coarse wheat flour. Among fruits, the blackberry, as peculiarly adapted to the state of the body, at the time of the year when it is in season. My range of food has been confined. I avoid green vegetables. Age 35.
Joseph Congdon.
LETTER XI.-FROM GEORGE W. BAKER, ESQ.
New Bedford, 9th month, 10, 1835.
Dr. M. L. North,-Agreeably to request, the following answers are forwarded, which I believe to be correct as far as my experience has tested.
1. At first it was diminished; but after a few months it was restored, and I think increased.
2. More.
3. It could.
4. Pretty free from constitutional infirmities before the change, and no increase since.
5. I have had no cold, of any consequence, for the last three years; at which time I substituted cold water for tea and coffee, and commenced using cold water for washing about my head and neck and for shaving, which I continued through the year.
6. I have not eaten animal food for about eighteen months.
7. Two years previous to the entire change the quantity was great, but there had been a gradual diminution.
8. It was. (See fifth answer.)
9. More so, in my case.
10. I believe the health of both laborers and students would be improved.
11. I have generally avoided eating cucumbers; otherwise I have not.
Thy assured friend,
Geo. W. Baker.
LETTER XII-FROM JOHN HOWLAND, JR., ESQ.
New Beford, 9th month, 10th day, 1835.
Friend,-As I have lived nearly three years upon a vegetable diet, I cheerfully comply with thy request.
1. My bodily strength has been increased; and I can now endure much more exercise than formerly, without fatigue.
2. They are more agreeable; and I am now free from that dull, heavy feeling, which I used to experience after my meals.
3. My mind is much clearer; and I am free from that depression of spirits, to which I was formerly subject.
4. I was of a costive, dyspeptic habit, which has been entirely removed. I had frequent and severe attacks of headache, which I now rarely have; and when they do occur they are very light, compared with what they formerly were.
5. I have had fewer colds, and those much lighter than formerly.
6. About three years.
7. I used to eat animal food for breakfast and dinner, with coffee for drink, at those meals; and tea for my third meal, with bread and butter.
8. Milk for breakfast, and cold water for the other two meals.
9. I have found it more so; inasmuch as the use of it, with the substitution of bread, made from coarse, unbolted wheat flour, instead of superfine, has removed my costiveness entirely.
10. I do.
11. I consider potatoes and rice as the most healthy, and confine myself principally to the former.
I would remark that during the season of fruits, I eat freely of them, with milk; and consider them to be healthy.
John Howland, Jr.
LETTER XIII.-FROM DR. W. H. WEBSTER.
Batavia, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835.
Sir,-Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical Sciences, Philadelphia.
I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my health, as a kind of key to my answers.
It is about fifteen years since I was called a dyspeptic; this was while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left college more dead than alive-a confirmed dyspeptic.
In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my indulgence in the luxuries of the table-especially in animal food, and distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the greatest share of that time, with the most excruciating torture. On getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition indeed-reduced to a skeleton-a voracious appetite, which could not be indulged, and which had scarcely deserted me through the whole eight months. I could not regain my flesh or strength but by almost imperceptible degrees; indeed, loaf-sugar and crackers were almost the only food I could use with impunity for the first year.
It is now nearly four years since I have eaten animal food, unless it be here and there a little, as an experiment, with the sole exception of oysters, in which I can indulge, but with all due deference to the stricter rules of temperance. Still my appetite for animal food seems unabated. I have ever been a man unusually temperate in the use of intoxicating drinks; and by no means intemperate in the luxuries of the table. I take no meat, no alcoholic or fermented drinks, not even cider; and, for a year past, my health has been better than for three years previous; and I think that about one third the amount of nourishment usually taken by men of my age, might subserve the purposes of food for me better than a larger quantity. The more I eat, the more I desire to eat; and abstinence is my best medicine.
But I have already surpassed my limits, and here are my answers.
1. My strength is invariably diminished by animal food, and in almost direct proportion to the quantity, with the exception named above.
2. Pain has been the uniform attendant upon the digestion of an animal diet, with feverish restlessness and constipation.
3. Decidedly more fit for energetic action.
4. An irritation, or subacute inflammation of the digestive apparatus, which is aggravated by animal food.
5. Can endure hardship, exposure, and fatigue, much better without meat.
6. About four years, with the exception stated above.
7. It was not.
8. Partially at the commencement; but not of late, if not taken hot.
9. Much more aperient.
10. Both classes take too much; and students and sedentaries should take little or none.
11. For myself farinaceous articles first, then the succulent sub-acid ripe fruits, then the less oily nuts are most healthful-and animal food, strong coffee and tea, and unripe or hard fruits, in any considerable quantities, are most pernicious.
Yours, etc.,
W. H. Webster.
LETTER XIV.-FROM JOSIAH BENNET, ESQ.
Mount-Joy, Pa., Oct. 27, 1835.
Sir,-I hereby transmit to you, answers to a series of dietetic queries which you have recently submitted.
1. My physical strength was at least equal (I am rather inclined to think greater) after abstaining from animal food. I was, I am certain, not subject to such general debility and lassitude of the system, after considerable bodily exercise.
2. More agreeable-not being subject to a sense of vertigo, which frequently (with me) followed the use of animal food. There is, generally, more cheerfulness and vivacity.
3. The mind is more clear, and is not so liable to be confused when intent upon any intricate subject; and, of course, "can continue a laborious investigation longer." There is at no time such a propensity to incogitancy.
4. I am not aware of being the subject of any "constitutional infirmities;" yet, that the change of diet had a very great effect upon the system, is obvious, from the fact of my having been, formerly, subject to an eruptive disease of the skin, principally on the shoulders and upper part of the back, for a number of years, which is not the case at present, nor do I think will be, as long as I continue my present mode of living.
5. I think I have not had as many colds and febrile attacks as before, nor have they been so severe; yet I cannot be very decisive on this point, on account of the length of time in the trial not being fully sufficient.
6. Between seven and eight months. I must here state that animal food was not entirely excluded. I probably partook, in very moderate quantities, once or twice a week.
7. The quantity of animal food which would be considered "an uncommon proportion," I am unable to determine; but I was accustomed to make use of it, not less than twice, and sometimes three times a day, moderately seasoned. No other stimulants, of any account.
8. Cold water has been the only substitute for tea and coffee, with the exception of an occasional cup; probably as often as once or twice a week. I was, on several occasions, by personal experience, induced to believe that the use of strong coffee retarded the process of digestion.
9. More aperient. Previous to the general exclusion of animal food from my diet, I was subject to inveterate costiveness; cases of which are now neither frequent nor severe.
10. I do firmly believe it would.
11. My diet, principally,...
