William Alcott - Vegetable Diet - As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages

As to exercise, I take abundance; perform all my practice (except in the winter) on horseback, and find this the very best kind of exercise for me. I seldom eat oftener than at intervals of six hours, and am apt to eat too much – have at various times attempted Don Cornaro's method of weighing food, but have found it rather dry business, probably on account of its conflicting with my appetite; but I actually find that my stomach does not bear watching at all well.

My brother continues to practice nearly total abstinence from animal food. I have seen him but once in two and a half years, but learn his health has greatly improved, so that he was able to take charge of a high school in the fall of 1836, of an academy in the spring of the present year, and also again this fall. During his vacation last July, he took a tour into the interior of Worcester county, Mass., and came home entirely on foot by way of the Notch of the White Hills, traveling nearly three hundred miles. This speaks something in favor of rigid abstinence – as when he commenced this regimen he was extremely low.

Dear Sir, – I stated in my letter to Dr. North, if I recollect correctly, that the use of animal food was resumed in consequence of a protracted indisposition brought on, as was supposed , by the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen gas. The gentleman had begun to recover some time previously; and in a short time after he commenced the use of the animal food, he was restored to his usual health. He has continued the use of it ever since to the same extent as in the former part of his life. He has lately passed his fifty-fifth year, and is now in the enjoyment of as good health as he has ever known.

I know of a gentleman in an adjoining county, who with his lady has been living for some time past on a purely vegetable diet. They have not continued it long enough, however, to make the experiment a fair one.

No case of injury from the inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen has come under my own personal observation, if we except the one above alluded to. I find, however, that Gehlen, a celebrated French chemist, fell a victim to it in the year 1815. His death is thus announced in the "Philosophical Magazine" for that year. "We lament to have to announce the death of Gehlen, many years the editor of an excellent Journal on Chemistry and other sciences, and a profound chemist. He fell a victim to his ardent desire to promote the advancement of chemical knowledge. He was preparing, in company with Mr. Rehland, his colleague, some arsenated hydrogen gas, and while watching for the full development of this air from its acid solution, trying every moment to judge from its particular smell when that operation would be completed, he inhaled the fatal poison which has robbed science of his valuable services." Vide Tillock's Phil. Mag., vol. 46, p. 316. Some further notice is taken of his death in a paper extracted from the "Annales de Chimie et de Physique," and published in a subsequent volume of the same Magazine. Vide vol. 49, p. 280, in which are given his last experiments on that subject, by M. Gay Lussac. I regret that no account is given in the same work of the symptoms arising from the poison in his case. I presume, however, they are on record.

In the subject of the case I mention, the general and prominent symptoms were an immediate and great diminution of muscular strength, with pallor of countenance and constant febricula, the arteries of the head beating with violence, particularly when lying down at night, the pulse always moderately increased in frequency, and full, but not tense; and digestion for the most part good. This state continued for about three months, during which time he was attending to his usual business, although not able to take as much exercise as before. At the end of this time he began to recover slowly, but it was six months before he was restored entirely.

Though I would by no means favor the propensity for book-making, so prevalent in our day, yet I have been long of the opinion that a work on vegetable diet for general readers was greatly needed. I need it in my family; and there are many others in this vicinity who would be materially benefited by such a work.

I have had no means of ascertaining the good or bad effects of a "diet exclusively vegetable in cases of phthisis, scrofula, and dyspepsia," for I have had none of the above diseases to contend with. But, since your letter was received, I have been called to prescribe for a man who has been a flesh eater for more than half a century. He was confined to his house, had been losing strength for several months, still keeping up his old habits. The disease which was preying upon him was chronic inflammation of the right leg; the flesh had been so long swollen and inflamed that it had become hard to the touch. There were ulcers on his thigh, and some had made their appearance on the hip. This disease had been of seven months' standing, though not in so aggravated a form as it now appeared. During this time, all the local applications had been made that could be thought of by the good ladies in the neighborhood; and after every thing of the kind had failed, they concluded to send for "the doctor."

After examining the patient attentively, I became convinced that the disease, which developed itself locally, was of a constitutional origin, and of course could not be cured by local remedies. All local applications were discontinued; the patient was put on a vegetable diet after the alimentary canal was freely evacuated. I saw this man three days afterward. The dark purple appearance of the leg had somewhat subsided; the red and angry appearance about the base of the ulcers was gone, his strength improved, etc. Three days after I called, I found him in his garden at work.

He is now – two weeks since my first prescription – almost well. All the ulcers have healed, with the exception of one or two. This man, who thinks it wicked not to use the good things God has given us – such as meat, cider, tobacco, etc. – is very willing to subsist, for the present, on vegetable food, because he finds it the only remedy for his disease.

Early in the spring of 1830, while a student at Amherst College, I was attacked with dyspepsia, which rendered my life wretched for more than a year, and finally drove me from college; but it had now so completely gained the mastery, that no means I resorted to for relief afforded even a palliation of my sufferings. After I had suffered nearly two years in this way, I was made more wretched, if possible, by frequent attacks of colic, with pains and cramps extending to my back; and so severe had these pains become, that the prescriptions of the most eminent physicians afforded only partial relief.

On the 13th of February, 1833, after suffering from the most violent paroxysm I had ever endured, I left my home for Brunswick, Maine, to attend a course of medical lectures. For several days I boarded at a public house, and ate freely of several substantial dishes that were before me. The consequence was a fresh attack of colic. From some circumstances that came up at this time, I was convinced that flesh meats had much to do with my sufferings, and the resolution was formed at once to change my diet and "starve" out dyspepsia.

I took a room by myself, and made arrangements for receiving a pint of milk per day; this, with coarse rye and Indian bread, constituted my only food. After living in this way a week or two, I had a free and natural evacuation. Thus nature began to effect what medicine alone had done for nearly three years. The skin became moist, and my voracious appetite began to subside. I returned home to my friends at the close of the term well, and have been well ever since – have never had a colic pain or any costiveness since that time. My powers of digestion are good, and though I do not live so rigidly now as when at Brunswick, I always feel best when my food is vegetables and milk. I can endure fatigue and exposure as well as any man. On this mild diet, too, my muscular strength has considerably increased; and every day is adding new vigor to my constitution.