32 ANIMAL FOOD EESOUBCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



found in it. About twenty-two years ago, Dr. Adam 

 Taylor, a distinguished English surgeon, was in charge 

 of the district, and from his lips I heard the following 

 statement : — 



" A fatal epidemic broke out in the district among 

 the cattle. Dr. Taylor, by repeated post-mortem exami- 

 nations, declared that the disease, as far as he could dis- 

 cover, was like a form of typhus often called putrid 

 fever in the human subject. The epidemic raged for 

 months, till forty thousand head of cattle perished ; and 

 all these dead bodies were eaten by law, by legal right, 

 by the Ohumar population. After the epidemic was 

 over, and these forty thousand head of cattle had all 

 been eaten, Dr. Taylor made a careful examination of 

 the Chumar population, and he could find no traces of 

 any disease among them caused by eating the dead 

 cattle, but on the whole they were more healthy than 

 any other class of villagers. 



" During the last twenty-five years I have examined 

 nearly fifty such cases. I will mention one. In the 

 Hindoo village of Kamius there were twenty-two hun- 

 dred head of cattle. An epidemic broke out among 

 them, and in five months about six hundred of them 

 died. In this village there are twenty-two families of 

 Chumars, of about eight persons to a family. These 

 families ate in five months about six hundred head of 

 cattle, all dying of a very fatal disease. I visited these 

 Chumars, saw their baskets of meat, saw in every house 

 large earthen pots, filled with meat, on the fire. I saw 

 little children, eighteen months old, sucking small bones 

 of this meat, as little New England children would suck 

 the leg of a roast turkey on Thanksgiving Day. I 

 visited these families after their generous meat diet, and 

 found them all in as good health as any of the people. 

 I have now lived twenty-five years among the Hindoos, 

 I have been in medical attendance on every class (there' 

 are some thirty-six classes), and I do not think that 

 even among the Brahmins, the strictest vegetarians in 

 the world, there is better health than amono- the 



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