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

all, two adults, and two children; but this was the extent of mortality among them for about fifteen months. The whole number of those who belonged to the society, with those members of their families who adhered to their principles (estimating families, as is usually done, at five members to each), is believed to have been from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty. The average mortality for the same number of healthy persons, during the same period, in Boston and the adjacent places, was about six or seven; though in some places it was much greater. In a single parish in Roxbury--and without any remarkable sickness--the mortality, for the same number of persons, was equal to ten or twelve. Now, we must not forget, what I have already stated, that this society of vegetable-eaters--the two hundred adults, I mean--were generally invalids, and some of them given over by physicians. Instead, therefore, of only half the usual proportion of deaths among them, we might naturally enough have expected twice or three times the usual number. And this expectation would have appeared still better founded when it was considered that many made the change in their habits, and especially in their diet, very suddenly. But the whole story is not yet told. Not only was the number of deaths very small, as above stated, but there were a great number of remarkable recoveries. Some, who had very obstinate complaints, appeared, for a time, to be entirely well. Others were getting well as fast as could be expected. Some, who were broken down and prematurely old, seemed to renew their youth. Many became free from colds and eruptive complaints, to which they were formerly subject. And those who had acute diseases, of whom, however, the number was very small, did not suffer so much as is usually the case with flesh-eaters in circumstances otherwise apparently similar. But a reverse at length came. They were led into their abstemious course by mere impulse in very many cases, and though a library was formed and meetings held, nobody, hardly, would read, and