Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages: Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

W. A. ALCOTT. BOSTON, December 19, 1834. DEAR SIR,--I received your communication, and hasten to reply to as many of your inquiries as I can. Allow me to take them up in the very order in which you have presented them. Answer to question 1. I was bred to a very active life, from my earliest childhood. This active course was continued till about the time of my leaving off the use of flesh and fish; since which period my habits have, unfortunately, been more sedentary. I think my muscular strength is somewhat less now than it was before I omitted flesh meat, but in what proportion I am unable to say; for indeed it varies greatly. When more exercise is used, my strength increases--sometimes almost immediately; when less exercise is used, my strength again diminishes, but not so rapidly. These last circumstances indicate a more direct connection between my loss of muscular strength and my neglect of exercise than between the former and my food. 2. Rather more agreeable; unless I use too large a quantity of food; to which however I am rather more inclined than formerly, as my appetite is keener, and food relishes far better. A sedentary life, moreover, as I am well satisfied, tends to bring my moral powers into subjection to the physical. 3. My mind has been clearer, since I commenced the experiment to which you allude, than before; but I doubt whether I can better endure a "laborious investigation." A little rest or exercise, perhaps less than formerly, restores vigor. I am sometimes tempted to _break my day into two_, by sleeping at noon. But I am not so apt to be cloyed with study, or reflection, as formerly. 4. Several. 1. An eruptive complaint, sometimes, at one period of my life, very severe. 2. Irritation of the lungs; probably, indeed most certainly, incipient phthisis. 3. Rheumatic attacks, though they had never been very severe. The eruptive disease, however, and the rheumatic attacks, are not wholly removed; but they are greatly diminished. The irritation at the lungs has nearly left me. This