274 A WORD OR TWO TOUCHING EVERY MAN^S MASTER. 



ancestors, and supporting their arguments by the longevity of that 

 day, whilst others alledge a mixed diet not only necessary but indis- 

 pensable, to the changes which civilization has effected in our animal 

 nature : probably the mistake with both arises from the great atten- 

 tion that is paid to quality, to the neglect of quantity. 



We shall not stop to consider whether man be carnivorous, grami- 

 nivorous, or omnivorous, for a return to the simple regimen of pri- 

 meval life is now not only impracticable but impolitic. The cultiva- 

 tion of society has not only altered the moral and physical nature of 

 man, but has extended its influence to the vegetable kingdom. 

 There is scarcely a vegetable now used as an article of diet found in a 

 state of nature : wheat, Buffon states, is not a natural product, but 

 the result of improved cultivation ; so it is with all our culinary 

 vegetables. The advocates of the vegetable doctrines, whose argu- 

 ments are founded on their effects when in a state of nature, should 

 first reduce vegetables to their original nature, and then, by abstain- 

 ing as well from all animal diet, as well as vegetables, the result of 

 cultivation, bring back the original nature of man : this is so absurd, 

 and so utterly impossible, that we shall not pursue the subject 

 further. 



We now come to the men of the mixed regime. The doctrine of a 

 mixed diet seems more consonant to the present condition of man, yet 

 the limitation which the chemico-physicians assign them appears 

 rather confined. Whether chemistry can ever be made available to 

 the process of digestion is a question of great import. Man, formerly, 

 when chemistry was little known, lived as long, nay, longer than they 

 do now, with all its improvements; and the fanciful speculations of 

 these men shall, like many other theories, pass to the tomb of the 

 Capulets. 



It is curious to look back on the various opinions which, from the 

 earliest ages, have been held on the subject of digestion. The old 

 philosophers supposed that the food became putrified in the stomach. 

 Hippocrates advocated the theory of coction. Galen explained di- 

 gestion by the retentive, attractive, and concoctive faculties of the 

 stomach : this doctrine was overturned by the fermenting chemists, 

 who said that the food was macerated and dissolved by a certain fer- 

 mentation in the stomach. The theory of trituration soon succeeded 

 this. Boerhave's theory rested on a combination of those which 

 existed before his time. Haller considered digestion as a maceration. 

 Spallanzani and Reamur maintained that the gastric juice was the 

 chief agent in digestion, and the " stomach," as Hunter says, " was 

 by some considered as a mill, by others as a fermenting vat ; others 

 again, that it is a stew-pan ; but in my opinion it is neither a mill or 

 fermenting vat, nor a stew-pan, but a stomach, gentlemen, a stomach."* 

 The various experiments which have been made regarding the effect 

 of animal and vegetable diet, have given an air of plausibility to the 

 speculations of some men, but the accuracy of their conclusions 

 cannot be admitted solely on the ground of analogy ; facts, not theo- 

 ries, are what must command our assent. The chemical physician, 



* Manuscript note from Hunter's Lectures. 



