666 VEGETABLE DIET. [Book ii. 



The examination of the diet of an individual living with a 

 fair nitrogenous equilibrium and apparently good health on a 

 modified vegetable diet, that is to say one which included milk 

 and eggs, gave the following: Proteids 74 grm., Fat 58 grm., 

 Carbohydrates 490 grm., a diet which differs from the normal 

 diet almost solely in the lesser amount of proteids, one third of 

 which by the bye was supplied by the animal material, eggs and 

 milk. In another instance, nitrogenous equilibrium and fairly 

 good health were secured, for some weeks at all events, on a 

 vegetable diet yielding Proteids about 100 grm., Fats 70 grm., 

 Carbohydrates 400 grin.; but in this nearly the whole of the 

 fat was furnished by the animal product butter, and Liebig's 

 extract was freely used. 



Confining ourselves however to the more strictly vegetarian 

 diet, we may conclude in the first place that, unless the daily 

 food be very large in amount, the proteid element of such a diet 

 falls considerably below the 100 or more grm. given in the 

 normal diet. But we cannot authoritatively say that such a 

 reduction is necessarily an evil; for as we stated above, § 440, 

 our knowledge will not at present permit us to make an authori- 

 tative exact statement as to the extent to which the proteid may 

 be reduced without disadvantage to the body when accompanied 

 by adequate provision of the other elements of food; and this 

 statement holds good whether the body be undertaking a small 

 or large amount of labour. A second feature of such a diet is 

 the marked reduction of the fat and its replacement by carbo- 

 hydrates. Although here again we cannot make a distinctly 

 authoritative statement, the evidence which we possess bears 

 clearly in the direction that such a reduction is a marked dis- 

 advantage. A third and very characteristic feature of the 

 strictly vegetarian diet is the relatively large amount of undi- 

 gested food lost to the body and discharged as fieces. Even 

 when the diet is scanty, so that the proteid element is low, the 

 amount of fieces relatively to the total food is high; and when 

 a more normal proteid contribution is secured by ample meals 

 the faeces become exceedingly voluminous. Indeed when, leav- 

 ing man, we compare the herbivorous with the carnivorous 

 mammal, we find that the former is almost as clearly distin- 

 guished from the latter by its frequent and abundant fseces as 

 by the anatomical features of its organization. We have already 

 urged that, since the fa3ces serve as a means of excretion of the 

 real waste products of metabolism, a certain amount of vehicle 

 to carry these away is of advantage or even necessary; but there 

 are no facts at present known to us, which shew that the larger 

 intestinal current of the purely vegetable diet effects any such 

 good as can compensate for the obvious waste of labour incurred 

 in its transport and management, to say nothing of the oppor- 

 tunities of mischief offered by a mass of material more subject 



