Vegetarian Myth

Chapter 19:

On the day of the races at Krasnoe Selo, Vronsky had come earlier
than usual to eat beefsteak in the common messroom of the
regiment. He had no need to be strict with himself, as he had
very quickly been brought down to the required light weight; but
still he had to avoid gaining flesh, and so he eschewed
farinaceous and sweet dishes. He sat with his coat unbuttoned
over a white waistcoat, resting both elbows on the table, and
while waiting for the steak he had ordered he looked at a French
novel that lay open on his plate. He was only looking at the
book to avoid conversation with the officers coming in and out;
he was thinking.

He was thinking of Anna's promise to see him that day after the
races. But he had not seen her for three days, and as her
husband had just returned from abroad, he did not know whether
she would be able to meet him today or not, and he did not know
how to find out. He had had his last interview with her at his
cousin Betsy's summer villa. He visited the Karenins' summer
villa as rarely as possible. Now he wanted to go there, and he
pondered the question how to do it.

"Of course I shall say Betsy has sent me to ask whether she's
coming to the races. Of course, I'll go," he decided, lifting
his head from the book. And as he vividly pictured the happiness
of seeing her, his face lighted up.

"Send to my house, and tell them to have out the carriage and
three horses as quick as they can," he said to the servant, who
handed him the steak on a hot silver dish, and moving the dish up
he began eating.

From the billiard room next door came the sound of balls
knocking, of talk and laughter. Two officers appeared at the
entrance-door: one, a young fellow, with a feeble, delicate
face, who had lately joined the regiment from the Corps of Pages;
the other, a plump, elderly officer, with a bracelet on his
wrist, and little eyes, lost in fat.

Vronsky glanced at them, frowned, and looking down at his book as
though he had not noticed them, he proceeded to eat and read at
the same time.

"What? Fortifying yourself for your work?" said the plump
officer, sitting down beside him.

"As you see," responded Vronsky, knitting his brows, wiping his
mouth, and not looking at the officer.

"So you're not afraid of getting fat?" said the latter, turning a
chair round for the young officer.

"What?" said Vronsky angrily, making a wry face of disgust, and
showing his even teeth.

"You're not afraid of getting fat?"

"Waiter, sherry!" said Vronsky, without replying, and moving the
book to the other side of him, he went on reading.

The plump officer took up the list of wines and turned to the
young officer.

"You choose what we're to drink," he said, handing him the card,
and looking at him.

"Rhine wine, please," said the young officer, stealing a timid
glance at Vronsky, and trying to pull his scarcely visible
mustache. Seeing that Vronsky did not turn round, the young
officer got up.

"Let's go into the billiard room," he said.

The plump officer rose submissively, and they moved towards the
door.

http://www.publicbookshelf.com/romance/anna-two/day-races

After a spiritual crisis around the time of his 50th birthday, the Russian literary giant gave up smoking, drinking, eating meat and even the rights to his own work. He became a staunch advocate of pacifism and a vocal supporter of vegetarianism.

Unfortunately for Tolstoy, 19th-century Russia was short on quinoa and Quorn. Instead he became obsessed with eggs, living off a rotating menu of 12 egg dishes including poached eggs with croutons, eggs with Brussels sprouts and beans, and omelette in soup. Sweet pastries and baked items were off-limits – except on birthdays and special occasions when Mrs Tolstoy would prepare a very sour lemon pie.

As I put the finishing touches to the table, I imagine myself bustling around the kitchen at Yasnaya Polyana, being occasionally interrupted by one of the Tolstoys’s 13 children or Tolstoy wandering in wearing his two hats (in his later years he got very sensitive to cold on his head). The recipe book’s main protagonist is Tolstaya herself who, aside from catering to all of her husband’s vegetarian wishes (she remained a staunch meat-eater until just before her death) and putting up with him turning up late to every meal, also transcribed by hand the entirety of War and Peace in its original form – seven times longer than the multi-tome version we know today.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/06/war-and-no-pieces-of-cake-dining-from-the-tolstoy-family-cookbook

In the morning, I do a little reading on Tolstoy’s dietetics. The benefit of this is twofold: first, I can learn a little bit about why I’m eating what I’m eating, and second, I can fill the time before I’m allowed to have anything at all, which isn’t until mid-afternoon. Here’s what I learn: While most of us know Leo Tolstoy as the writer of books too long to suffer through, few are aware of the contributions the prolific Russian made to the world of dieting. Yes, amid the splendor of nineteenth-century Slavic cuisine — fish eggs, pork jelly, and veal topped with béchamel sauce — Tolstoy had the gall to extoll vegetarianism. Not only did he condemn carnivorous man as inevitably inert and amoral but he said that eating too much at all was a sign of lack of self-discipline and an impious nature.

But what I want to know is: what can rigid beliefs do for one’s waistline? Tolstoy’s manifestos on vegetarianism convinced Gandhi to adopt a plant-based diet, and he eventually got a body so trim he strutted about confidently on the international stage in nothing but a loincloth. Could a staunch belief in the nourishing power of bread, water, and egomania do the same for me?

For a moment, I pine for a few strips of bacon, but then I remember that Tolstoy insisted a man who ate an animal took on its characteristics, and also risked exciting carnal passions. “A man who eats too much,” he wrote in the introduction to The Ethics of Diet, “cannot strive against laziness, while a gluttonous and idle man will never he able to contend with sexual lust.”

Today I am fasting. Tolstoy believed that abstaining from meat eating is a step toward fasting, which is the key to living a Christ-like life and recreating the Kingdom of God here on earth.

https://www.thehairpin.com/2016/09/i-tried-tolstoys-diet/

Anonymous, The Gathering Call, February, 1932, pp. 16-22

"We were very zealous and conscientious believers in the Testimonies and other writings of Mrs. White being given by inspiration of God until one who was very closely associated with her work and in whose integrity we had perfect confidence, told my companion and myself many things connected with that work which showed us it was subject to very much human manipulation, though our informant seemed to be trying to uphold the work as of God. We could not doubt the truth of what we heard, and when later we saw truth in the Bible which these writings contradicted, we had no hesitancy to “maintain the Bible and the Bible only as the standard of all doctrines and the basis of all reforms.”

In 1912, we were in Battle Creek for some weeks. One day while at the home of a friend she called our attention to a lady who was passing and said, “There goes Miss Fannie Bolton. Wouldn’t you like to meet her?” We replied that we should. We had once asked why she had separated from Mrs. White’s work and the answer had been given that she had told some things that she should not have told. We had never before seen Miss Bolton."

When we had opportunity we told her that we would like to have a talk with her regarding her experiences while connected with Mrs. White’s work as one who was of much interest to us was still there and had told us of some things. Miss Bolton said she would meet us that and the following afternoons in a park where we could talk without interruption. The following is a crude report of that interview just as I wrote it with pen and paper as Miss Bolton talked. I could add many items which I heard from her later, but this is all that I ever wrote down just while she told it and I have not changed any of the wording. I am sorry some personal items appear but I do not wish to change it in any way now, and nothing that I heard later discredited anything that is here written.

She [Fannie Bolton] was converted to S. D. Adventism about the year 1885. Was very zealous. Had previously attended Evanston College in Illinois. Experienced in writing essays which girls passed off as their own productions. Thru Elder George B. Starr, who had brot [sic] the “truth” to her she was called to work with Sister White. She was very conscientious in following out all instructions given in the Testimonies and discarded articles of diet condemned by them. It seemed a wonderful thing to her that she should be called upon to help in the work of a prophet of the Lord.

Elder Starr went with her to the station in Chicago where she was to meet Sister White and party and go with them to Healdsburg, California. This was about two years after she had become a Sabbath keeper. Elder Starr was anxious to personally conduct her into the presence of Sister White, but she was not readily found. He asked Eld. W. C. White regarding her whereabouts but he simply replied that she was somewhere about in the company. At last, in a corner of an eating room, rather screened off from others, she was found making a breakfast of raw oysters, with vinegar, pepper and salt in evidence before her. Sister Fannie was a young, inexperienced girl, but surprise, horror and bewilderment took possession of her. She was shocked beyond expression and Eld. Starr took her aside as he noted from the expression of her face how she felt and told her she must not let it trouble her that Sister White did this, that she needed such refreshment to fit her for her long, tiresome trip, and that raw oysters are very easily digested. But Sister White from this time seemed like a Sphinx to Sister Bolton. [See Starr’s comments, p. 118]

There was quite a party of them and they occupied a tourist car to themselves. One day she saw Eld. W. C. White enter the car with an open brown paper spread in his hand on which was a piece of bloody thick beefsteak. This looked horrible to her, but it was handed to Miss Sarah McEnterfer who cooked it an an oil stove and it was passed to the company after being cut up. Marion Davis and Fannie Bolton did not eat of it. Most or all of the others did.

XLV. SOME OF THE DISEASES PRODUCED BY TOO EXCLUSIVE FEEDING UPON AMYLACEOUS AND SACCHARINE FOODS AND FRUITS, WITH THE DIET TO BE USED FOR THEIR CURE. 

Vegetable Dyspepsia, or the first Stage of Consumption. 

This arises from the too exchisive and long-continued use of vegetable or amylaceous and saccharine foods and fruits, or either of them. The stomach is the first organ to suffer. In man this organ is mainly designed for digesting lean meats. It may be called a purely carnivorous organ. It requires lean meats to excite a normal quantity of healthy secretions in its glandular follicles for digestion, and the healthy excitation of these secretions stimulates the muscular fibres to maintain those normal downward peristaltic movements which are necessary for physiological digestion and transmission. The stomach does not digest amylaceous and saccharine foods, fruits and fats. These are digested by the secretions that are poured out into the duodenum by the liver, pancreas, and glands of Lieberkuhn and Bruner. Hence the too exclusive and long-continued use of vegetable, and especially amylaceous and saccharine food, fills the stomach with materials which do not stimulate it even enough to pass them along to where they are digested, in consequence of which they lie so long in this organ that fermentative processes supervene little by little, and we have the stomach filled with carbonic acid gas, sugar, alcohol, acid and alcoholic and acid yeast plants. These products of fermentation soon begin to paralyze the follicles and muscular walls of the stomach, so that it becomes flabby and baggy, and will hold an unusual amount of trashy foods and fluids. The organ has been turned into a veritable sour " yeast pot," and we have the first stage of the disease known as vegetable dyspepsia of the stomach, or the first stage of consumption. 

In this stage of the disease, the stomach is almost constantly distended mth gas, which is only partiafly relieved by the frequent sour eructations. 

Yeast plants are rapidly developed in the organ, and every particle of vegetable food which is taken in immediately begins to ferment, —the stomach being converted into an apparatus for manufacturing beer, alcohol, vinegar and carbonic acid gas. This carbonic acid gas soon begins to paralyze the gastric nerves, and the follicles of the mucous membranes of the organ commence to pour out a stringy viscid mucus, in considerable quantities. This, together with the partial paralysis, produces a relaxed, dilated state of the blood-vessels, so that a congestion (with a low state of vitality) results. The epithelial surfaces and connective tissue layer beneath them, then begin to mcrease in thickness, and if this process and state continue long enough, we have a gastric fibroid which may terminate ni scirrhus of the organ. If, however, the person is fairly active, so as to shake the food out of the stomach into the duodenum and small bowels, or if the pyloric valve becomes sufadently paralyzed to remain open, so that the food and hquids flow into the small bowels soon after being swallowed, then danger of gastric thickening is lessened : the patient feels much more comfortable and thinks he is greatly improved. The disease, however, is no better. It has simply changed its base of action and is transferred from the stomach to the small bowels. This is the second and most dangerous stage, bemg vegetable dyspepsia of the small bowels. 

The exercise, habits of living, eating and dnnkmg may be such as to detain the disease in this stage a long whfle. There is then great danger of the passage of Mycoderma spores (and the products developed by their multipHcation) into the blood stream. Should this occur, we are in the second or transmissive stage of Consumption. In this stage of the disease, the bowels are more or less constipated. Generally speaking, the more constipated they are, the greater the danger. 

An inactive, sedentary life, and a great disturbance of the bowels with carbonic acid gas and other yeasty products, may early paralyze the ileo-csecal valve so far as to let the fermenting products pass readily and freely into the large bowels. The danger of having the yeast spores transmitted is then lessened by the free passage of the spores into the colon, where they go on exciting fermentation in the various fermenting foods used. This soon results in many copious, yeasty evacuations during the night or early every morning and forenoon. Sometimes there are twenty or more passages daily. The passages are light and bulky, and have but little weight. They are sour yeast. This is the third stage of Vegetable Dyspepsia or Chronic Diarrhoea, or more strictly speaking, Consumption of the Bowels. The disease, if left to itself, and if the foods producing it are kept up, may run on for months or even years. I have treated and cured cases that had been running on for from fifteen to twenty years. 

In all cases of this stage of the disease, the large bowel becomes greatly thickened, and often in severe cases is almost entirely closed up. This thickening goes on quite rapidly in the connective tissue layer, and in the epithelial lining of the bowel. The folds of the bowel soon become greatly enlarged and are elongated from a few inches to a foot or more extra in length. If the patient lives long enough, and is on a curative diet, these folds and the thickening gradually disappear by absorption, though sometimes the elongated folds slough away partially decayed. Occasionally, in severe cases, from three to four years are required to remove all traces of the disease and all thickenings of the bowel. As long as the thickenings are present, there will be more or less of a thick, jelly-like, ropy, viscid mucus, coming- away every day . or every few days or weeks, according to the condition and severity of the disease. In consumption of the bowels, the lungs almost invariably become involved before death. Checking the diarrhea with astringents —while the fermenting foods are kept up —only aggravates the disease in the end and endangers lung invasion.

Summer Complaint in Children. 

The summer diarrhoeas in children are of the same character as the so-called Chronic Diarrhoea, previously described. It is essentially a disease of unhealthy or defective feeding, and readily yields to the simplest treatment, by removing the cause and substituting food that will not ferment with yeast. As soon as green vegetables and fruit begin to appear in early summer, children live almost entirely upon this kind of food at the expense of more substantial aliments. The same symptoms and pathological lesions, in the same order, result as has been previously described under the head of chronic diarrhoea, and the disease yields readily to the same treatment. 

Influence of Army Diet in Producing Diseases of Soldiers. 

In the army there is in all the men a peculiar chronic condition of the "alimentary membranes, excited by frequent fermentation of amylaceous matters too long retained, and which condition does not run on to chronic diarrhoea unless some enervating cause — such as over-fatigue, dysentery, typhoid, bilious, remittent or intermittent fever, or other cause —debihtates the system, and further impairs the condition of the alimentary membranes. This is evidenced by the almost universal condition of the alimentary canal in apparently healthy soldiers who are shot dead in battle. (See Eng. Surg, and Med. Hist, of Crimean War.) The follicles of the large intestines are more or less enlarged and frequently disintegrated, leaving ulcers. The amylaceous, army biscuit diet of the common soldiers, besides its fermentative and carbonic acid poisoning effects, does not furnish to the system the proper proportion of ingredients for healthy alimentation and nutrition. Hence a scorbutic condition results, which renders the disease an obstinate one to treat, unless this state is recognized and particularly attended to. This explains the reasons why the vegetable acids, combined with potassa and iron, are so useful in treating this disease. Rochelle salts are admirably adapted for exciting intestinal epithelial activity, and secretion and absorption in the alimentary canal. 

Any one kind of food too long continued has a tendency to produce systemic derangements of a scorbutic type. Amylaceous matters, too exclusively used, tend to excite abnormal actions in the parent epithelial cells of the mucous surfaces and of the glands ; while any one kind of animal food, too long and too exclusively eaten, produces derangements which show themselves more strongly in skin and mouth. A too free use of oils and fatty food, and of alcoholic beverages, produces the red, blotched face, and swollen carbunculated nose, oily surface, and erythematous swelling and redness of the skin generally. 

Salt meats produce a dry, scaly eruption upon the surface, with spongy, swollen and discolored gums ; loosened teeth, and a watery, flabby, often bloody tongue ; pains in the limbs and back resembling those of chronic rheumatism ; leaden-hued features ; offensive breath ; patches of extravasated blood in various parts of the body ; hard, contracted condition of the muscles ; stiffness of the joints ; diarrhoea and hemorrhage from mucous surfaces generally ; mental depression and indisposition to any kind of exertion. From this scorbutic condition —produced in all the men by the want of the necessary variety in their food —arises a long train of the most fatal and most obstniate diseases of the army. Among these may be mentioned chronic diarrhoea ; the so-called muscular rheumatism ; dysentery ; hospital gangrene in wounds ; tuberculosis ; fibrinous depositions iii the heart ; the clogging up of pulmonary vessels with fibrinous clots ; paralytic conditions and tendencies, and many of the diseases of the larynx, ear and eye. This condition of the system also renders it extremely subject (when exposed to the exciting cause) to typhoid, intermittent and remittent fevers. The vital powers are so depressed that the organism on light exposure to cold, is liable to be frostbitten and is strongly inclined to attacks of pneumonia and bronchitis, with diseases of the eye and ear. In short, the long list of army diseases may be traced, in great measure, to an extreme susceptibility to them, which susceptibility is produced by a want of the proper admixture of nutrient ingredients in the food of the soldier in campaigns. All authorities agree that scorbutic states arise from this cause, and no one having any experience in army diseases can fail to detect symptoms of scorbutus in almost every one of them. If they are not plainly visible in the apparently well man, they make themselves manifest in him as soon as he is placed under treatment for any disease, in the surprising benefit his system derives from the vegetable acid salts of potassa and iron, and from the free use of those articles of food of which his system has been deprived. Without this treatment almost all army diseases become obstinate to deal with, much more so than similar ones in private practice. In old cases of chronic diarrhoea, it frequently happens that the diarrhoea somewhat abates, the appetite becomes remarkably good and the patient fattens rapidly. His abdomen becomes hard and distended, it being either dropsical, tympanitic, or distended by enlarged viscera ; the whole surface becomes bloated and presents the appearance of having been affected by an excessive use of alcoholic beverages. The eyes become prominent, red and watery ; the thyroid glands become enlarged ; the heart gives marked evidence of fibrinous depositions internally (1 It has been noticed that in certain cases of heart disease tlie thyroid glands become enlarged, and the eyes prominent, watery and red. Whether there is any analogy between the condition of tlie symptom in this form of heart disease, and that productive of heart disease, chronic diarrhea, paralytic tendencies, etc. in the army, I am unable to say. I merely mention the circumstance here to draw attention in this direction.)

At this point, however, it may be well to mention that the standard amount of proteid matter taken, in the construction of all these tables, was 130 grammes — 4.5 ounces. Moleschott's original diet-table contained only 120 grammes or (4.2 ounces), but as almost all observers agree quite closely as to the amount of proteid material necessary to be used, and also as to the results obtained from its oxidization, the same quantity was used in all instances that a more exact comparison might be established. The chief difference of dispute, however, is in relation to the relative value of the fats and carbohydrates, and particularly in reference to the latter compounds. 

In trying to develop out of a purely vegetable diet, anything like the same amount of working power for the system that is obtainable by the use of Porter's or Moleschott's diet, almost double the amount of proteid had to be taken with the proportionate rise in the fat and starch as is contained in the vegetable chosen. 

To produce the same amount of work by using a vegetable diet necessitates the outlay of a much larger amount of oxygen, and the production and handling by the glandular structures of the body of an excessive amount of the nitrogenous excrementitious elements. These facts illustrate quite conclusively the manner in which the damage to the system is brought about by indulging too freely, or living exclusively upon a cereal or vegetable compound. 

The vegetable proteid in these tables is further given an undue advantage, to which it is not justly entitled, by crediting it with the same atomic formula as that possessed by an animal proteid ; since the nitrogenous element found in plant-life contains a much larger number of nitrogen atoms, and consequently requires more vital force and oxygen to digest and assimilate it. This naturally decreases rather than improves the nutritive value of the proteid compound of vegetable origin. 

An average of a compound fat molecule is taken as the working standard in all these tables. 

Attention is also directed to a probable error in the rating of the heat-producing power of the carbohydrate. It is & commonly stated, that the comparative oxygenating capacity of a carbohydrate and fat is as one to two and one-half, but by their chemical atomicities, it is as one to thirteen, or thirteen and one-half in favor of the fat. 

That such an error exists in the computations in Moleschott's standard is sustained by a comparative study of the atomicities of the food-stuffs used in both Porter's and Moleschott's diet tables, and of the amount of oxygen required for complete oxidization in both instances. In the former, or Porter's proteid and fat diet table, a little more oxygen is needed than is necessary in Moleschott's mixed diet* yet it is claimed that in the latter instance 393,170 kilogramme-metres or 54,358 more foot pounds of work is produced. This, however, is directly opposed by the smaller quantity of oxygen used in the oxidization processes. When this error in work, produced out of the carbohydrates in Moleschott's diet, is corrected in accordance with the difference in atomicity and the amount of oxygen used between the fat molecule and the carbohydrate molecule represented as glucose, and a computation is made in accord with the correction, a slight difference in work produced when living on a Moleschott's or Porter's diet, is found to exist. The increase in work produced, however, is now found to exist in connection with Porter's diet and is in accord with the larger amount of oxygen used, which makes atomicity, oxygen used, and work produced correspond, while the reverse was stated in the calculations formerly made in connection with Moleschott's diet. 

If this error be true, as it appears to be, the profession have been sadly misguided in all their attempts in the construction of diet tables starting with Moleschott as their standard. 

On the other side, if these chemical and physiological laws be true, as based upon the atomicity of the proximate principles, by carefully considering the percentage composition of each food product to be used, exact results can be obtained. Another point to which attention is called by Dr. Porter is this, that the factors 1.812 and 3.841, which are used in computing the kilogramme-metres in Table VIII., are taken from Frankland — Philosophical Magazine XXXII., and are those which are generally quoted in all scientific works upon physiological chemistry and upon diet. 

In studying the proximate principles, however, by the atomicities, and considering the amount of oxygen required to completely transform a fat molecule into its final products of excretion water and carbon dioxide and a proteid molecule into its final products of excretion — urea, uric acid, kreatinine, carbon dioxide, water, etc. — it is found that only eighteen (18) more oxygen elements are used in the complete oxidization of the fat than in that of the proteid molecule. The computed amount of work performed by the oxidization of the fat molecule is found to be 530 foot pounds as compared to 250 foot pounds for the complete oxidization of the proteid molecule. This makes the eighteen (18) more elements of oxygen used in transforming the fat molecule result in the production of 280 more foot pounds of work than is obtained from the eighteen less used in the proteid. 

From this a decided discrepancy is quite evident between the results obtainable by former calculations and those based upon our modern chemical atomicities. 

However, for an illustrative and comparative study of the working power obtainable from the use of the various food-stuffs, this table is still of great value, as the same figures are used in each and all the calculations. 

As these same factors, 1.812 and 3.841, appear in all the modern scientific works, they were retained in the arrangement of this table, but not without appreciating and calling attention to this discrepancy when the computation is based upon the atomicities of the food elements used, the amount of oxygen required, and the results obtained. 

Again, it must be remembered that the proteids are not directly transformed into their final products, but undergo a series of intermediate changes, all of which require the use of oxygen and must of necessity yield more or less heat and energy, so that all our estimates are approximate. 

When upon Moleschott's diet with the proteid substances raised to the common standard of 130 grammes and the carbohydrates rated in accord with the correction previously noted, it requires 36,115 oxygen elements to produce 678,270 kilogramme-metres or 93,773 foot pounds of work. 

When upon Porter's diet of proteid and fat, it requires 38,415 oxygen elements to produce 734,890 kilogrammemetres or 101,602 foot pounds of work. When upon a purely vegetable diet that will yield anything like the requisite amount of work that can be obtained by using Moleschott's or Porter's diet, it requires 47,191 oxygen elements to produce 742,018 kilogramme-metres or 102,587 foot pounds of work. 

To obtain the 63,748 more kilogramme-metres or 8,814 foot pounds of work out of the vegetable diet as compared with Moleschott's diet, it requires the expenditure of 11,076 more oxygen elements. 

To obtain the 7,128 more kilogramme-metres or 985 foot pounds of work out of the vegetable diet as compared with Porter's diet, it requires the expenditure of 8,776 more oxygen elements. The vegetable diet in both instances yielding an excessive amount of nitrogenous excretory matter, carbon dioxide, and water. 

A careful study of Table II. and VII., and Porter's diet in Table VIII., proves beyond a question of doubt that upon an exclusive diet of our ordinary average meat alone very nearly the required proportions of the proteids or CHNOS compounds and of the fat or CHO element can be established. 

The only defect in the perfection of Table VII. and VIII. is found in the saline column, which contains much more mineral matter than perfect physiological laws indicate are required. This excess in saline or inorganic compounds, however, appears to be true in all kinds of food products — that is, if the proportion of salts in the milk is taken as the guide for a working basis. The reason for looking upon the amount of salts in the milk as the guide to the maximum quantity required is based upon the fact that during the infant period of life, where milk forms the only source of food supply, bone formation is most rapidly progressing, and the amount of mineral matter needed by the system is at its height and much larger than at any other period of life. The bones continue to grow and become fully and perfectly developed with the ordinary quantity of mineral matter contained in the milk. 

Physiology also teaches that a little less than one ounce of mineral salts are required daily by the system, but in all the tables given, except the one containing milk alone, the amount of salts is fully up to or more than an ounce. 

The only great objection that can be raised to an exclusive meat diet is the lack of variety, but that is quite easily adjusted by varying the kinds of meat used. The perfection of the proportionate composition of the proximate principles when using a meat diet, the smaller liability to imbibe an excessive quantity of any one kind and the little danger that there is of taking an excess of the CHO or stimulating and non-nutritious compounds, clearly establishes the fact that in meat we approach the nearest to an ideal food. 

If attention is turned for a single moment to the lower orders of the animal kingdom, it is quite apparent that the most supple and intensely powerful organisms are found among the carnivora only. This tends to substantiate the high utility of the meat diet. Another interesting point is the almost universal absence of tuberculosis among meat-eating animals, while the vegetable-feeding class are specially prone to suffer from this fatal malady. 

CHAPTER XVIL THE IMMORALITY OF FLESH-EATING. 

In these days of vegetarianism and theosophy a phy- sician is often met with objection on the part of patients to a diet of flesh, which objection will usually be found to be based on the conviction — a growing one through-out civilization — that it is wrong to slaughter animals, and therefore wrong to use their flesh as food. What- ever may be the ultimate decision of humanity in regard to this question, at the present time it is not infrequently a very serious one to the physician. A patient comes to him much out of health, earnestly desiring to follow the necessary course and practice the necessary self-denial to gain health, and the physician is fully impressed that the patient's digestive apparatus and general system is in such condition that flesh is well-nigh indispensable in a dietary system that will restore the patient to health, — under such circumstances this question will be found of grave importance. 

What constitutes morality in diet ? Manifestly, many animals are intended by nature to live upon other animals. To our apprehension the intention of nature, when it can be ascertained, authoritatively disposes of this matter. If it could be shown, as many physicians believe, that man is by nature omnivorous, and designed to eat flesh among other foods, this would be a conclu- sive demonstration that it was right for him to eat flesh. If, as we believe, nature intended man should subsist upon sweet fruits and nuts, there is not only no license for flesh-eating, but the reverse, — there is presumptive evidence that it is wrong to eat flesh. Physiological law must be the court of last resort in which to try this question. 

Vegetarians and others scruple at the purchase of a beef-steak on the ground that the money so expended encourages the butcher in the slaughter of the animal, and thereby identifies the one who expends the money with the slaughter. If this reason be given in earnest it should be binding, and its logic followed under all circumstances. While it is true that the purchase of a pound of beef identifies the purchaser with the slaughter of the animal, the purchase of a dozen eggs or a quart of milk as clearly identifies the purchaser with the slaughter of animals; for the reason that the laws governing the production of agricultural products are such that the farmer cannot profitably produce milk or eggs except he sell for slaughter some of the cocks and male calves, as well as those animals that have passed the productive period. True, there is no particular animal slain to produce a given quart of milk or a dozen of eggs, as there is in the production of a pound of beef-steak; but the sin is not in the slaughter of a given animal, but in the slaughter of animals, and it must therefore be acknowledged that animals are as surely slaughtered for the production of milk and eggs as for the production of beef-steak. And hence, since this is a question of ethics, we may as well be honest while dealing with it; and if an ethical student honestly refrains from the purchase of flesh because it identifies him with the slaughter of animals, there is no escaping, if he be logical and ethical, from the obligation to refuse also to purchase milk and eggs. This law applies as well to wool and leather, and to everything made from these materials; because, as before shown, agriculture is at present so conducted that the farmer cannot profitably produce wool and leather unless he sells the flesh of animals to be used as food. 

Looking at the matter in this light, almost all of us will be found in a situation demanding compromise. If a delicate patient be allowed eggs, milk, and its products, and the patient is able to digest these foods, so far as physiological needs are concerned there is no serious difficulty in refraining from the use of flesh as food; but if these ethical students hew to the line, have the courage of their convictions, accept the logic of their position, and refrain from the use of animal products altogether, there will be a breakdown very soon. There are a few isolated cases where individuals have lived upon bread and fruit to the exclusion of animal products, but such cases are rare, and usually end in disaster. 

We are, after all, in a practical world, and must bring common sense to bear upon the solution of practical problems. The subject of the natural food of man will be found treated somewhat at length in Part III. In this chapter it is designed only to point out some of the difficulties that inevitably supervene upon an attempt to live a consistent life, and at the same time refuse to use flesh on the ground that such use identifies the eater with the slaughter of animals. There seems to us good ground for the belief that fruit and nuts constituted the food of primitive man, and are the diet intended by nature for him. Remember, primitive man was not engaged in the competitive strife incident to modern life ; the prolonged hours of labour and excessive toil that are necessary to success in competitive pursuits in these times were not incidental to that life. Undoubtedly an individual with robust digestive powers, who is not called upon to expend more vitality than is natural and healthful, will have no difficulty whatever in being adequately nourished on raw fruits and nuts. When, however, a denizen of a modern city, obliged to work long hours and perform excessive toil, can only succeed in such endeavors by a diet that will give him the greatest amount of nourishment for the least amount of digestive strain, it will be found that the flesh of animals usually constitutes a goodly portion of such diet. It may be said to be a pre-digested food, and one that requires the minimum expenditure of vital force for the production of the maximum amount of nutrition. However earnest a student of ethics may be, however such a student may desire to live an ideal life, if he finds himself so circumstanced that a wife and family are dependent upon his exertions for a livelihood, and if it be necessary, in order adequately to sustain him in his work, that he shall have resort to a diet in which the flesh of animals is an important factor, there is no escape, in our opinion, from the inevitable conclusion that it is his duty to adopt that diet which enables him to meet best the obligations resting upon him. 

An invalid with no family to support, and with independent means, may nevertheless find himself in a similar situation with regard to the problem of flesh-eating. We have found many persons whose inherited vitality was small at the outset, and whose course of life had been such as to greatly weaken the digestive powers, and who when they came to us were in such a state of prostration as to require, like the competitive worker, the greatest amount of nourishment for the least amount of digestive strain ; and yet such persons have duties in life to perform, and are not privileged knowingly to pursue any course that necessarily abbreviates their life or diminishes their usefulness. The conviction is clear to us that the plain duty of persons so circumstanced is to use that diet which will best contribute to a restoration of their digestive powers and the development of a fair share of vital energy. When this result has been reached, these persons may easily be able to dispense with flesh food and even animal products, and to obtain satisfactory results from a diet of fruit and nuts. 

A true physician must make every effort to overcome the illness of his patients, and to put them on the road to a recovery of health. To our mind there is, in the solution of this problem, a clear path for the ethical student to follow. We believe that health is man's birthright, and that it becomes his bounden duty to use all efforts within his power to obtain and maintain it. We believe that sickness is a sin; that it unfits the victim for his duties in life ; that through illness our life becomes a misery to ourselves, and a burden to our fellows ; and where this result is voluntarily incurred it becomes a shame and a disgrace. Manifestly the body is intended for the use of the spirit, and its value depends upon its adaptability for such use. In the ratio that the body is liable to be invaded by disease is its usefulness impaired. The old saying, "a sound mind in a sound body," is the outcome of a perception of this truth. The saying that cleanliness is next to godliness is based upon the perception that cleanliness is necessary for the health of the body, and that the health of the body is necessary for the due expression of a godly life. When this truth is adequately understood it will be seen by the vegetarian, the theosophist, and the ethical student that health is the first requisite ; that it becomes a religious duty to create and conserve this condition, and that whatever diet, exercise, vocation, or course in life is calculated to develop the greatest degree of health is the one that our highest duty commands us to follow. In short, the favorite maxim of one of Britain's most famous statesmen might wisely be taken for the guiding principle of all : Sanitas omnia sanitas.