Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages Part 21

I believe that L. N. Fowler, the brother and a.s.sociate of the former, is of the same opinion; but my acquaintance with him is very limited. Both the Fowlers, with Mr. Wells, their a.s.sociate in book-selling, seem anxiously engaged in circulating books which involve the discussion of this great question.

REV. MR. JOHNSTON.

Mr. Johnston, who for some fifteen or twenty years has been an American missionary in different foreign places--Trebizond, Smyrna, etc.--is, from conviction, a vegetable eater. The author holds in his possession several letters from this gentleman, on the subject of health, from which, but for want of room, he would be glad to make numerous extracts.

He once sent, or caused to be sent, to him, at Trebizond, a barrel of choice American apples, for which the missionary, amid numerous Eastern luxuries, was almost starving. Happy would it be for many other American and British missionaries, if they had the same simple taste and natural appet.i.te.

JOHN H. CHANDLER.

This young man has been for eight or ten years in the employ of the Baptist Foreign Missionary Board, and is located at Bangkok, in Siam.

For several years before he left this country he was a vegetable eater, sometimes subsisting on mere fruit for one or two of his daily meals.

And yet, as a mechanic, his labor was hard--sometimes severe.

Since he has been in Siam he has continued his reformed habits, as appears from his letters and from reports. The last letter I had from him was dated June 10, 1847. The following are extracts from it:

"I experienced the same trials (that is, from others) on my arrival in Burmah, in regard to vegetable diet, that I did in the United States.

This I did not expect, and was not prepared for it. Through the blessing of G.o.d we were enabled to endure, and have persevered until now.

"Myself and wife are more deeply convinced than ever that vegetable diet is the best adapted to sustain health. I cannot say that we have been much more free from sickness than our a.s.sociates; but one thing we can say--we have been equally well off, and our expenses have been much less."

After going on to say how much his family--himself and wife--saved by their plain living, viz., an average of about one dollar a week, he makes additional remarks, of which I will only quote the following:

"My labors, being mostly mechanical, are far more fatiguing than those of my brethren; and I do not think any of them could endure a greater amount of labor than I do."

It deserves to be noticed, in this connection, that Mr. Chandler has slender muscles, and would by no means be expected to accomplish as much as many men of greater vigor; and yet we have reason to believe that he performs as much labor as any man in the service of the board.

REV. JESSE CASWELL.

Mr. Caswell went out to India about thirteen years ago, a dyspeptic, and yet perhaps somewhat better than while engaged in his studies at Andover. For several years after his arrival he suffered much from sickness, like his fellow-laborers. His station was Bangkok. He was an American missionary, sent out by the American Board, as it is called, of Boston.

About six years ago he wrote me for information on the subject of health. He had read my works, and those of Mr. Graham, and seemed not only convinced of the general importance of studying the science of human life, but of the superiority of a well selected vegetable diet, especially at the East. He was also greatly anxious that missionaries should be early taught what he had himself learned. The following is one of his first paragraphs:

"I feel fully convinced that you are engaged in a work second to few if any of the great enterprises of the day. If there be any cla.s.s of men standing in special need of correct physiological knowledge, that cla.s.s consists of missionaries of the cross. What havoc has disease made with this cla.s.s, and for the most part, as I feel convinced, because, before and after leaving their native land, they live so utterly at variance with the laws of their nature."

He then proceeds to say, that the American missionaries copy the example of the English, and that they all eat too much high-seasoned food, and too much flesh and fish; and argues against the practice by adducing facts. The following is one of them:

"My Siamese teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way.

* * * The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this they generally eat _a very little_, with their rice."

The next year I had another letter from him. He had been sick, but was better, and thought he had learned a great deal, during his sickness, about the best means of preserving health. He had now fully adopted what he chose to call the Graham system, and was rejoicing--he and his wife and children--in its benefits. He says, "If a voice from an obscure corner of the earth can do any thing toward encouraging your heart and staying your hands, that voice you shall have." He suggests the propriety of my sending him a copy of "Vegetable Diet." "I think," says he, "it might do great good." He wished to lend it among his friends.

It must suffice to say, that he continued to write me, once or twice a year, as long as he lived. He also insisted strongly on the importance of physiological information among students preparing for the ministry, and especially for missions. He even wrote once or twice to Rev. Dr.

Anderson, and solicited attention to the subject. But the board would neither hear to him nor to me, except to speak kind words, for nothing effective was ever done. They even refused a well-written communication on the subject, intended for the Missionary Herald. Let me also say, that as early as March, 1845, he told me that Dr. Bradley, his a.s.sociate (now in this country), with his family, were beginning to live on the vegetable system; and added, that one of the sisters of the mission, who was no "Grahamite," had told him she thought there was not one third as much flesh used in all the mission families that there was a year before.

Mr. Caswell became exceedingly efficient, over-exerted himself in completing a vocabulary of the Siamese language, and in other labors, and died in September last. He was, according to the testimony of Dr.

Bradley, a "_n.o.ble man_;" and probably his life and health, and that of his family, were prolonged many years by his improved habits. But his early transgressions--like those of thousands--at length found him out.

I allude to his errors in regard to exercise, eating, drinking, sleeping, taking medicine, etc.

MR. SAMUEL CHINN.

This individual has represented the town of Marblehead, Ma.s.s., in the state legislature, and is a man of respectability. He is now, says the "Lynn Was.h.i.+ngtonian," above forty years of age, a strong, healthy man, and, to use his own language, "has neither ache nor pain." For the ten years next preceding our last account from him he had lived on a simple vegetable diet, condemning to slaughter no flocks or herds that "range the valley free," but leaving them to their native, joyous hill-sides and mountains. But Mr. Chinn, not contented with abstinence from animal food, goes nearly the full length of Dr. Schlemmer and his sect, and abjures cookery. For four years he subsisted--we believe he does so now--on nothing but unground wheat and fruit. His breakfast, it is said, he uniformly makes of fruit; his other two meals of unground wheat; patronizing neither millers nor cooks. A few years since, being appointed a delegate to a convention in Worcester, fifty-eight miles distant, he filled his pocket with wheat, walked there during the day, attended the convention, and the next day walked home again, with comparative ease.

FATHER SEWALL.

This venerable man--Jotham Sewall, of Maine, as he styles himself, one of the fathers of that state--is now about ninety years of age, and yet is, what he has long been, an active home missionary. He is a man of giant size and venerable appearance, of a green old age, and remarkably healthy. He is an early riser, a man of great cheerfulness, and of the most simple habits. He has abstained from tea and coffee--poisonous things, as he calls them--forty-seven years. His only drinks are water and sage tea. These, with bread, milk, and fruits, and perhaps a little salt, are the only things that enter his stomach. How long he has abstained from flesh and fish I have not learned, but I believe some thirty or forty years.

Such is the appearance of this venerable man, that no one is surprised to find in him those gigantic powers of mind, and that readiness to give wise counsel on every important occasion, for which he has so long been distinguished. It has sometimes seemed to me that no one would doubt the efficacy of a well-selected vegetable diet to give strength, mental or bodily, who had known Father Sewall.

MAGLIABECCHI,

An Italian, who died in the beginning of the eighteenth century, abjured cookery at the age of forty years, and confined himself chiefly to fruits, grains, and water. He never allowed himself a bed, but slept on a kind of settee, wrapped in a long morning gown, which served him for blanket and clothing the year round.

I would not be understood as encouraging the anti-cookery system of Dr.

Schlemmer and Magliabecchi; but it is interesting to know _what can be done_. Magliabecchi lived to the age of from eighty to one hundred years.

OBERLIN AND SWARTZ.

These two distinguished men were essentially vegetable eaters. Of the habits of Oberlin, the venerable pastor and father of Waldbach, I am not able to speak, however, with so much certainty as of those of Swartz.

His income, during the early part of his residence in India, was only forty-eight pounds a year, which, being estimated by its ability to procure supplies for his necessities, was only equal to about one hundred dollars. He not only accepted of very narrow quarters, but ate, drank, and dressed, in the plainest manner. "A dish of rice and vegetables," says his biographer, "satisfied his appet.i.te for food."

THE IRISH.

Much has been said of the dietetic habits of the Irish, of late years, especially of their potato. Now, we have abundant facts which go to prove that good potatoes form a wholesome aliment, equal, if not superior, to many forms of European and American diet. Yet it cannot be that a diet consisting wholly of potatoes is as well for the race as one partaking of greater variety.

Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, whom he visited:

"He was upward of eighty years when I had last seen him, and he was now in his ninety-fourth year. He found the old gentleman seated on a kind of rustic seat, in the garden, by the side of some bee-hives. He was asleep. On his waking I was astonished to see the little change time had wrought on him; a little more stoop in his shoulders, a wrinkle more, perhaps, in his forehead, a more perfect whiteness of his hair, was all the difference since I had seen him last. Flesh meat in my venerable friend's house was an article never to be met with. _For sixty years past he had not tasted it_, nor did he by any means like to see it taken by others. His food was vegetables, bread, milk, b.u.t.ter, and honey. His whole life was a series of benevolent actions, and Providence rewarded him, even here, by a peace of mind which pa.s.seth all understanding, by a judgment vigorous and unclouded, and by a length of days beyond the common course of men."

James Haughton, I believe of Dublin--a correspondent of Henry C. Wright, of Philadelphia, who is himself in theory a vegetable eater--has, for some time past, rejected flesh, and pursued a simple course of living, as he says, with great advantage. I have been both amused and instructed by his letters.

I have met with several Irish people of intelligence who were vegetable eaters, but their names are not now recollected. They have not, however, in any instance, confined themselves to potatoes. One of the most distinguished of these was a female laborer in the family of a merchant at Barnstable. She was, from choice, a very rigid vegetable eater; and yet no person in the whole neighborhood was more efficient as a laborer.

Those who know her, and are in the habit of thinking no person can work hard without flesh and fish, often express their astonishment that she should be able to live so simply and yet perform so much labor.

JOHN BAILIES.

John Bailies, of England, who reached the great age of one hundred and twenty-eight, is said to have been a strict vegetarian. His food, for the most part, consisted of brown bread and cheese; and his drink of water and milk. He had survived the whole town of Northampton (as he was wont to say), where he resided, three or four times over; and it was his custom to say that they were all killed by tea and coffee. Flesh meat at that time had not come into suspicion, otherwise he would doubtless have attributed part of the evil to this agency.

FRANCIS HUPAZOLI.

This gentleman was a Sardinian ecclesiastic, at the first; afterward a merchant at Scio; and finally Venetian consul at Smyrna. Much has been said of Lewis Cornaro, who, having broken down his const.i.tution at the age of forty, renewed it by his temperance, and lasted unto nearly the age of a century. His story is interesting and instructive; but little more so than that of Hupazoli.