APPENDIX. 337 



similar state of health often returns : a fact which illustrates 

 the great power of accommodation to circumstances, which 

 the human constitution possesses. 



But though there be persons enjoying health on each diet ; 

 yet, upon the whole, the mixed diet seems to agree best with 

 the majority, and also to produce rather more strength and 

 vigour. But whether health maintained on a mixed diet be 

 equally lasting, or whether it may not eventually lead to 

 disease, is a question to solve which accurate experiments are 

 as yet wanting. It has been said by those who contend for a 

 vegetable diet, that, being natural, it conduces to a more 

 perfect form of body, and greater degree of intellectual power. 

 The assertion, however, seems not to be supported by facts ; 

 for the ancient Greeks, who may be admitted as examples of 

 the more perfect forms of our species, and who possessed a 

 clearness of intellect, and vigour of imagination, superior to 

 their neighbours, appear to have lived on a mixed diet ; 

 whereas the inhabitants of part of India, who subsist wholly 

 on vegetables, are very far from either bodily or mental 

 excellence. 



For the medical advantage of vegetable diet, much more 

 may be said than for its common use. To illustrate the view 

 J have of this subject, I must observe, that the effect of ani- 

 mal food seems to be that of increasing all the vital energies, 

 or actions, of the animal machine : while a person is in health, 

 when these actions are natural, to increase them is to augment 

 the strength and power of the animal : but, in diseases where 

 there are morbid actions, to increase them is to aggravate the 

 disease. It is probably on a similar principle that vegetable 

 diet and distilled water are useful in diseases, where the 

 diseased actions seem as fully established as the natural ones, 

 as in cancer, for instance. Besides this, in common and more 



