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

11. I never have selected any vegetables which I thought to be more healthy than others: nor indeed do I believe there is any one that is more healthy than another; but believe that all those vegetables which we use in the season of them, are adapted to supply and satisfy the wants of the system.

We are carnivorous, as well as granivorous animals, having systems requiring animal, as well as vegetable food, to keep all the organs of the body in tune; and perhaps we need a greater variety than other animals.

Sir, – Having observed, in the May number of the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences," certain inquiries in relation to diet, proposed by you to the physicians of the United States, I herewith transmit to you an account of a case exactly in point, which I hope may prove interesting to yourself, and in some degree "assist in the settlement of a question of great interest to the country ."

The case, to which allusion is made, occurred in the person of a very intelligent and truly scientific gentleman of this county, whose regular habits, both of mind and body, added to his sound and discriminating judgment, will tend to heighten the value and importance of the experiment involved in the case I am about to detail.

Before proceeding to give his answers to your interrogatories, it may be well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he himself declares, to walk seldom less than ten miles a day, and frequently more; and this exercise was continued during the whole period of the experiment. His health for two years previously had been very feeble, arising, as he supposed, from a diseased spleen ; which organ is at this time enlarged, and somewhat indurated. His digestive powers have always been good , and he had been in the habit of making his meals at times entirely of animal food . His bowels have always been regular, and rather inclined to looseness, but never disordered. He is five feet eight inches high, of a very thin and spare habit of body, with thin dark hair, inclining to baldness; complexion rather dark than fair; eyes dark hazel; of very studious habits when free from active engagements; with great powers of mental abstraction and attention, and of a temper remarkably even .

In answer to your interrogatories, he replies, —

1. That his bodily strength was increased, and general health became better.

2. He perceived no difference.

3. He is assured of the affirmative.

4. His spleen was diminished in size, and frequent and long-continued attacks of lumbago were rendered much milder , and have so continued.

5. Had fewer colds and febrile attacks.

6. Three years.

7. No; with the slight exception mentioned above.

8. No.

9. In his case rather less.

10. Undoubtedly.

11. No; has made his meals of cabbages entirely, and found them as easily digested as any other article of diet. I may remark, that honey to him is a poison, producing, invariably , symptoms of cholera.

After three years' trial of this diet, without having any previous apparent disease, but on the contrary as strong as usual, he was taken, somewhat suddenly, in the winter of 1832 and 3, with symptoms of extreme debility, attended with œdematous swellings of the lower extremities, and painful cramps, at night confined to the gastrocnemii of both legs, and some feverishness, indicated more by the beatings of the carotids than by any other symptom. His countenance became very pallid, and indeed he had every appearance of a man in a very low state of health. Yet, during the whole period of this apparent state of disease, there were no symptoms indicative of disorder in any function, save the general function of innervation, and perhaps that of the lymphatics or absorbents of the lower extremities. Nor was there any manifest disease of any organ, unless it was the spleen, which was not then remarkably enlarged. I was myself disposed to attribute his symptoms to the spleen, and possibly to the want of animal food; but he himself attributes its commencement, if not its continuance, to 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.

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 breakfast and tea we have some hot water poured upon milk, to which we add a little sugar, and cold bread and butter; but in cold weather we toast the bread, and prefer having it so cool as not to melt the butter. We seldom eat a meal without some kind of dried or preserved fruit, such as peaches, plums, quinces, or apples; and in the season, when easily to be procured, we use, freely, baked apples, also berries, particularly blackberries stewed, which, while cooking, are sweetened and thickened a little. Our dinners are nearly the same as our other meals, except that we use cold milk, without any water. We have puddings sometimes made of stale bread, at others of Graham or other flour, or rice, or ground rice, usually baked; we have also hasty puddings, made of Indian meal, or Graham flour, which we eat with milk or melted sugar and cream; occasionally we have other simple puddings, such as tapioca, etc. Custards, with or without a crust, pies made of apple, and other fruits either green or preserved; but we have no more shortening in the crust than just to make it a little tender.

I have two sons; one lived with us about fifteen months after we adapted this mode of living; it agreed remarkably well with him; he grew strong and fleshy. He married since that time, and, in some measure, returned to the usual manner of living; but he is satisfied it does not agree so well with him as the Graham diet. The coarse bread he cannot well do without. My other son was absent when we commenced this way of living; he has been at home about six weeks, and has not eaten any animal food except when he dined out. He has evidently lost flesh, and is not very well; he thinks he shall not be able to live without animal food, but I think his indisposition is more owing to the season of the year than diet. He never drank any tea or coffee until about four years since, when he took some coffee for a while, but no tea. For the last two years he has not drank either, when he could get milk. He is generally healthy, and so is his brother: both were literally brought up on gingerbread and milk, never taking animal food of choice, until they were fifteen or sixteen years of age.