544 DIGESTION. 



Others, again, have depicted a state of ideal innocence, in the infancy 

 of society, when he lived, as they conceive, entirely on vegetables ; 



" His food the fruits ; his drink the crystal well ;" 



unsolicitous for the future in consequence of the abundant subsistence 

 spread before him ; independent ; and always at peace with his fellows, 

 and with animals ; but he gradually sacrificed his liberty to the bonds 

 of society; and cruelty, with an insatiable appetite for flesh and blood, 

 were the first fruits of a depraved nature. Either immediately or 

 remotely, all the physical and moral evil, by which mankind are 

 afflicted, arose from these carnivorous practices. "The principal 

 patrons of this twaddle, in modern times" says Dr. Fletcher "to 

 say nothing of Pythagoras and the ancients have been Gassendi, 

 Rousseau, Wallis, Lamb, and Newton; the last of whom, in the 

 plenitude of his infatuation, asserts that real men have never yet been 

 seen, nor ever will be, till they shall be content to subsist entirely on 

 herbs and fruits and distilled water." 1 In point of fact, we find, that 

 the inhabitants of countries, in which mankind are accustomed to be 

 omnivorous, or to unite animal with vegetable diet, are those most dis- 

 tinguished for both mental and corporeal endowments. The tribes, 

 which feed altogether on animal food, as the Laplanders, Samoiedes, 

 Esquimaux, &c., are far inferior, in both these respects, to the 

 European, or Europeo- American ; and the same may be said, although 

 not to the like extent, of the various tribes in whose diet animal food 

 predominates, as the Indian inhabitants of our own continent. A 

 similar remark is applicable to those, who live almost exclusively on 

 vegetables, as the Hindoos, millions of whom are kept in subjection by 

 a few Europeans. 2 



Attempts have frequently been made to refer the nutrient properties 

 of all articles of diet to a particular principle of a constant character, 

 which, alone, of all the elements, is entirely capable of assimilation. 

 Haller 3 conceived this to be jelly; Dr. Cullen 4 thought it to be oily, 

 or saccharine, or what seemed to be a combination of the two; Becker, 

 Stahl, Fordyce, 5 &c., to be mucilage; M. Dumas, 6 mucus ; and M. 

 Halle, a hydro-carbonous oxide very analogous to gummi-saccharine 

 matter ! 7 It is probable, that there is no such special principle as the 

 one contended for ; and that, in all cases, in the formation of the chyle 

 or reparative fluid, which is separated from it, the food is resolved into 

 its elements. To this conclusion we are necessarily impelled, when we 

 reflect, that chyle can be formed from both animal and vegetable sub- 

 stances. In an early part of this work, occasion was taken to mention, 

 that all organized tissues, animal and vegetable are reducible into 

 nearly the same ultimate elements, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and 



1 Rudiments of Physiology, Part ii., a. p. 121, Edinb., 1836. 

 a Lawrence's Lectures, edit, cit., p. 216. 



3 Elementa Physiologise, Lib. xix., Sect. 3, Bernse, 1764. 



4 Institutions of Medicine, Part i., Physiology, 211, Edinb., 1785. 

 6 Treatise on the Digestion of Food, p. 84, 2d edit., Lond., 1791. 



6 Principes de Physiologic, i. 187, Paris, 1806. 



' Tiedemann, Physiologic des Menschen, in. 95, Darmstadt, 1836. 



