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to this condition. Savage man is almost entirely exempt from their dominion, and he seems to possess a frame, in many points, physically different from that of man in the degree of cultivation, to which he has arrived. In proportion as he emerges from his pri mæval state, do these furies advance upon him, and would seem to scourge him back into the paths of nature and simplicity.-Dr. Lambe on Constitutional Diseases.

Death, is an evil to which the order of providence has subjected every inhabitant of the earth; but to men it has been rendered unspeakably more an evil than it was designed to be. The greatest part of that black catalogue of diseases, which ravage human life, is the offspring of the tenderness, the luxury, and the corruptions introduced by the vices and false refinements of civil society. That delicacy, which is injured by every breath of air; and that rottenness of constitution, which is the effect of indolence, intemperance and debauchery, was never intended by the author of nature; and it is impossible that they should not lay the foundation of numberless sufferings, and terminate in premature and miserable deaths. Price on reversionary Payments, vol. ii, p.

115.

It seems certain that animal food predisposes to disease, and even in those kinds, the immediate ori. gin of which may be traced to other causes.

It has been observed that the labouring negroes of the West Indian Islands are almost wholly exempt from the scourge of the yellow fever, which has cut off numbers of other classes of the residents. For the same reason of living much more on vegetables, and being more sparing of fermented liquors, the French are known to have suffered much less from

the ravages of the yellow fever, than the English, who use the same diet, to which they had been accustomed in northern regions. Something of the same kind has been observed with regard to the plague of Constantinople. Timoni, in his account of this disease, asserts that the Arminians, who live chiefly on vegetable food, were far less disposed to it than other people. I have little doubt, says Doctor Lambe, from what I have observed during the course of my own practice, that the common contagious (or, as it is called, the typhus fever) of this country, is greatly exasperated by full living. This fever rarely attacks persons in the better lines of life, because they are little exposed to the exciting causes of it. But when

they suffer, it is very apt to be fatal. But among paupers, and in the work-houses, the danger is commonly speaking, very little, and they recover readily in circumstances, under which it is probable that those, who are called their betters, would have sunk. It

seems, moreover, highly probable, that the power inherent in the living body, of restoring itself under accidents, or wounds, is strongest in those, who use most a vegetable regimen, and who are very sparing in the use of fermented liquors. This has been observed among the eastern nations. Sir George Stanton says, "It is to be remarked that the Chinese recover from all kinds of accidents more rapidly and with fewer symptoms of any kind of danger, than most people of Enrope. The constant and quick recovery, from considerable and alarming wounds, has likewise been observed among the natives of Hindostan. The european surgeons have been surprised at the easy cure of sepoys in the english service, from accidents, accounted extremely unfavourable. I have received the same account from other quarters. These facts

are enough to induce a suspicion that our diseases are much exasperated by our manner of living, and the full diet of animal food, to which we are habituated. They may serve to shew to what may be ascribed, in some degree, the great difference between the mortali ty, which prevails in great towns, and in the country. Dr. Lambe, in his "Additional Reports on Regimen," has given several instances where constrained abstinence of prisons, and others reduced from affluence to poverty, forced to subsist on hard fare, and to gain their livelihood by daily labbur, have exchanged their useless riches for the inestimable trea sure of health. p. 91.

After some instances of the cure of the gout by a vegetable regimen, Dr. Lambe adds, "It is no reproach to the vegetable regimen, that it cannot effect impossibilities; that it cannot restore a constitution Nor are the evils worn out with age and disease. described to be attributed to the diet, tho' vulgar prejudice might reason so; because the same symptoms are the customary course of the gout. It is equally true, that in London, and perhaps every where, children will become diseased and die, who are confined to vegetable food; other causes of disease being in action. But let observations be made on a scale suf. ficiently large; let an average be fairly taken; and there can be no doubt, that the balance will be in favour of the abstemious, in length of life, in dim. inution of suffering, and in actual enjoyment-Idem, p. 112.

The kind of abstemiousness contended for, does not cure constitutional disease; but it palliates, . British where to cure is obviously impossible. practitioners generally enjoin a rigid abstinence from animal food, in acute diseases, calling it the anti

phlogistic regimen. No material effect, however, can be supposed to arise from a mere temporary adoption of a vegetable regimen. It might be attended with greater effect by the addition of distilled water. The return to health in such cases must be attributable to other causes.-Id. p. 113-130.

In the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for the year 1730, M. Geoffroy has given a method for determining the proportion of nourishment, or true matter of the flesh and blood, contained in any sort of food. He took a pound of flesh, which he freed from the fat, bones, and cartilages, and boiled it for a deter. mined time, in a close vessel, with three pints of water; then pouring off the liquor, he added the same quantity of water, boiling it again for the same time, and this operation he repeated six several times, so that the last liquor appeared, both in smell, trial and taste, to be little different from common water. Then, putting all the liquor together, and filtrating, to separate the gross particles, he evaporated it over a slow fire, till it was brought to an extract of a pretty moderate consistence. This experiment was made on several sorts of food, the result of which is contained in the following table.

A pound of beef

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0 7 8

1 1 48

1 3 16

chicken.

pigeon -
pheasant
partridge
calves-feet

yielded of extract,

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4 1

According to this table the proportion of nourish. ment contained in these foods will be as follow.

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Hence it appears that common household bread has nearly three times the nutritive quantity of food more than any other species.

A COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTS OF ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD.

I. "Whatever be the true, primogenial, and last principle of bodies, beyond which it is impossible to analyse or divide them, these are incontestibly found in all animal and vegetable bodies. 1, Sulphur, oil or material heat, whence arises spirit and activity. 2, Salt, or hard angular particles highly attractive, and dissolvable in water. 3, Air or small elastic particles. 4, Water or phlegm, from whence alone fluidity. 5, Earth, the base and subtratum of these others. Now it is past all doubt that animal substances of most kinds, possess in a much greater proportion the two first of these principles, viz. salts and oils, than vegetables, which partake more of the last, viz. air, water and earth; but from many undeniable experiments, the two first principles are known to be the most active, energetic, and deleterious, and tend more, by their activity, to the division, dissolution and destruction of the subject, than those others, when they enter in any great proportion.

2.

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