ioo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I, too, felt chilled and sleepy "by day and night, so tired that I 

 could hardly walk. The doctor said : " You have no pulse at all, 

 and must give in ; it does not suit you/' The winter was icy cold 

 and depressing, and for the moment I followed Tennyson's ex- 

 ample. Mais je ne reculais que pour mieux sauter, and with the 

 first breath of spring, when all those delightful fruits and leaves 

 and roots which Raphael did not disdain to paint as ornaments 

 in his loggias reappear on our tables, I made my second method- 

 ical and successful attempt, eliminating week by week one kind 

 of animal food only, and replacing it by some equally nutritious 

 vegetable preparation. 



The very strict ascetic sect of vegetarians who only live upon 

 seeds and uncooked food look down upon their weaker brethren 

 who eat eggs and milk and butter, in fact, everything which does 

 not necessitate the taking of life, which appears to me to be the 

 only reasonable standpoint. I will not, therefore, enter into dis- 

 cussions whether our teeth are those of a carnivorous or frugiv- 

 orous animal, though the latter appears to me the most likely 

 theory, as fruits are the only edibles we can eat and digest with- 

 out cooking ; everything else requires the aid of fire to make it 

 palatable and wholesome. It is certain that the giving up of ani- 

 mal food cures many illnesses which no medicines can reach. 

 Everybody knows the bad effects of butcher's meat in gout and 

 rheumatism. In affections of the heart it is often the only 

 remedy, and the wonderful results are not difficult to explain in a 

 case where rest often means cure, if one reflects that while the 

 meat-eater's heart has seventy-two beats in the minute the vege- 

 tarian's only has fifty-eight beats, therefore twenty thousand 

 beats less in the course of the twenty-four hours. Insomnia and 

 nervousness are affected in the same way ; there is less wear and 

 more repose in the constitution. I could enumerate many other 

 illnesses in which vegetable diet does marvels, but will only men- 

 tion those of the skin. Most vegetarians have unusually clear 

 and often beautiful complexions. I need only remind those who 

 know them of the old Carthusian and Trappist monks, who all 

 have smooth white and pink Fra Beato Angelica kind of faces, 

 which are not found among the orders that do not habitually 

 live on Lenten fare. The splendid teeth of the Italian peasantry, 

 who never touch meat, speak for themselves, and it is the same in 

 other countries where the people live under similar conditions. It 

 is foolish to associate vegetable diet with temperance, as so many 

 do : they are quite astonished to see a vegetable-eater drinking 

 wine or beer. One thing, however, is true, viz., that it is far easier 

 to cure a drunkard if you deprive him of meat, because, as Dr. 

 Jackson, head doctor of the Asylum for Dipsomaniacs, Dansville, 

 United States, says : " It is clear that meat contains some not nutri- 



