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

endured with less fatigue than before, and that an increased activity of mind and body was accompanied with increased cheerfulness and animal enjoyment. In nearly every instance, strength of body was actually increased; especially after the first month. A result so uniformly in favor of the vegetable system is certainly more than could have been expected. One physician who made the experiment, indeed, says, that though his mind was clearer than before, he could not endure, so long, a laborious investigation. Another individual says, he perceived no difference in this respect. A third says, she found her bodily strength and powers of investigation somewhat diminished, though her disease was removed. With these exceptions, the testimony on this point is, as I have already said, most decidedly--I might say most overwhelmingly--in favor of the disuse of animal food. To the question, whether any constitutional infirmities were aggravated or removed by the new course of regimen, the replies are almost equally favorable to the vegetable system. It is true that one of the physicians, Dr. Parmly, thinks the beneficial effects which appeared in the circle of his observation were the results of a simultaneous discontinuance of fermented drinks, tea and coffee, and condiments. But I believe every one who reads his letter will be surprised at his conclusions. No matter, however; we have his facts, and we are quite willing they should be carefully considered. The singular case of Dr. Preston, I now leave wholly out of the account. It was, as I have since learned, the story of a _very singular man_. Among the diseases and difficulties which were removed, or supposed to be removed, by the new diet, were dyspepsia, with the constipation which usually attends it, general lassitude, rheumatism, periodical headache, palpitations, irritation of the first passages, eruptive diseases of the skin, scurvy, and consumption. The case of Dr. Bannister, who was, in early life, decidedly consumptive, is one of the most remarkable on record. Though evidently consumptive, and near the borders of the grave, between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine, he so far recovered as to be,