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

the inhalation of the vapor of arseniuretted and sulphuretted hydrogen gases, to which he was subjected during some chemical experiments on the ores of cobalt, to which he has been for a long time turning his attention; a circumstance which I had not known until lately. However it may be, he again returned to a mixed diet (to which however he ascribes no agency in his recovery), and, after six months' continuance in this state, he rapidly recovered his usual health and strength, which, up to this day--two full years after the expiration of six months--have continued good. In the treatment of his case no medicine of any kind was given, to which any good effect can be attributed; and indeed he may be said to have undergone no medical treatment at all. Yours, etc., J. M. B. HARDEN. LETTER IX.--FROM JOSEPH RICKETSON, ESQ. NEW BEDFORD, 8th month, 26th, 1835. RESPECTED FRIEND,--Perhaps before giving answers to thy queries in the American Journal of Medical Science, it may not be amiss to give thee some account of my family and manner of living, to enable thee to judge of the effect of a vegetable diet on the constitution. I have a wife, a mother aged eighty-eight, and two female domestics. It is now near three years since we adopted what is called the Graham or vegetable diet, though not in its fullest extent. We exclude animal food from our diet, but sometimes we indulge in shell and other fish. We use no kind of stimulating liquors, either as drink or in cookery, nor any other stimulants except occasionally a little spice. We do not, as Professor Hitchcock would recommend, nor as I believe would be most conducive to good health, live entirely simple; sometimes, however, for an experiment, I have eaten only rice and milk; at other times only potatoes and milk for my dinner; and have uniformly found I could endure as much fatigue, and walk as far without inconvenience, as when I have eaten a greater variety. We, however, endeavor to make our varieties mostly at different meals. For