PROTEIDS. 129 



over in my mind without finding a solution of the enigma. I, 

 however, found the explanation quite accidentally in a work of 

 that excellent physician, Dr. E. Monin, of Paris. The following 

 is the verbal translation of the passage in question : ' In order to 

 continue the criticism of vegetarianism we must not ignore the 

 work of the late lamented Gubler on the influence of a vegetable 

 diet on the chalky degeneration of the arteries. Vegetable food, 

 richer in mineral salts than that of animal origin, introduces more 

 mineral salts into the blood. Raymond has observed numerous 

 cases of atheroma in a monastery of vegetarian friars, amongst 

 others that of the prior, a man scarcely thirty-two years old, whose 

 arteries were already considerably indurated. The naval surgeon, 

 Treille, has seen numerous cases of atheromatous degeneration in 

 Bombay and Calcutta, where many 'people live exclusively on rice. 

 A vegetable diet, therefore, ruins the blood-vessels and makes one 

 prematurely old, if it is true that a man is as old as his arteries. It 

 must produce at the same time tartar, the senile arch of the 

 cornea, and phosphaturia.' Having, unfortunately, seen these 

 newest results of medical investigation confirmed by my own case, 

 I have, as a matter of course, returned to a mixed diet. I can no 

 longer consider purely vegetable food as the normal diet of man, 

 but only as a curative method which is of the greatest service in 

 various morbid states. Some patients may follow this diet for 

 weeks and months, but it is not adapted for everybody's continued 

 use. It is the same as with the starvation cure, which cures some 

 patients, but is not fit to be used continually by the healthy. I have 

 become richer by one experience, which has shown me that a single 

 brutal fact can knock down the most beautiful theoretic structure." 



Dr. Estes, a distinguished American surgeon, gives it as his ex- 

 perience that vegetarians do not stand the loss of blood well. 



In Farmer's Bulletin, No. 121, on " Beans, Peas, and other 

 Legumes as Food," issued by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, the author, Mary Hinman Abel, in comparing vege- 

 table with animal protein, says : " It has been well known that 

 vegetable foods without any help from the animal kingdom will 

 sustain men in health and working power, and careful experiments 

 have shown that protein performs essentially the same part in nu- 

 trition, whether it be from milk, meat, cereal, or legume. Among 

 other experiments may be mentioned that of Rutger, a Dutch 

 physician, and his wife, which lasted ten weeks. Their conclusion 

 was that vegetable food can perfectly well be substituted for animal, 

 provided only that it contain the same amount of nutrients in 

 proper proportions. When living on a purely vegetable diet they 

 relied largely on peas, beans, and lentils, eating them in some form 

 at nearly every meal. From an economic standpoint the average 

 difference in the cost of the two kinds of diet was that less fuel 

 was used to cook the animal foods eaten. It is not improbable, 

 however, that there are differences between animal and vegetable 



