230 MY LIFE 



a vegetarian, and believe that, for many reasons, it will 

 certainly be the diet of the future. But for want of adequate 

 knowledge, and even more from the deficiencies of ordinary 

 vegetable cookery, it often produces bad effects. Dr. Salis- 

 bury proved by experiment that it was the consumption of 

 too much starch foods that produces the set of diseases which 

 he especially cures ; and when these diseases have become 

 chronic, the only cure is the almost complete abstention from 

 starchy substances, especially potatoes, bread, and most watery 

 vegetables, and, in place of them, to substitute the most 

 easily digestible well-cooked meat, with fruits and nuts in 

 moderation, and eggs, milk, etc., whenever they can be di- 

 gested. Great sufferers find immediate relief from an exclu- 

 sive diet of the lean of beef. I myself live upon well-cooked 

 beef with a fair proportion of fat (which I can digest easily), a 

 very small proportion of bread or vegetables, fruit, eggs, and 

 light milk puddings. The curious thing is that most English 

 doctors declare that a meat diet is to be avoided in all these 

 diseases, and many order complete abstinence from meat, but, 

 so far as I can learn, on no really scientific grounds. Dr. 

 Salisbury, however, has experimentally proved that this class 

 of ailments are all due to malnutrition, and that this mal- 

 nutrition is most frequently caused by the consumption of 

 too much of starch foods at all meals, which overload the 

 stomach and prevent proper digestion and assimilation. My 

 case and that of Mr. Bruce-Joy certainly show that Dr. 

 Salisbury has found, for the first time in the history of medi- 

 cine, a cure — not merely an alleviation — for these painful and 

 distressing maladies. This personal detail as to my health is, 

 I think, of general interest in view of the large number of 

 sufferers who are pronounced incurable by English doctors, 

 and it was here an essential preliminary to the facts I have 

 now to relate, which would probably not have occurred as 

 they did had my health not been so strikingly renovated. 1 



1 In addition to the foregoing, I have suffered at intervals from dis- 

 eases contracted abroad, which have recurred in acute paroxysms, and 

 sometimes threatened to become serious. For years together they 

 have given me much anxiety and required constant care and attention. 



