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قراءة كتاب A Vindication of Natural Diet.
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and last convulsions of dying animals. The elderly man whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance, or who has lived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted with a variety of painful maladies, would find his account in a beneficial change, produced without the risk of poisonous medicines.[9]The mother, to whom the perpetual restlessness of disease, and unaccountable deaths incident to her children, are the causes of incurable unhappiness, would on this diet experience the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual health and natural playfulness.
The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by diseases, that it is dangerous to palliate and impossible to cure by medicine. How much longer will man continue to pimp for the gluttony of death, his most insidious, implacable, and eternal foe? The proselyte to a simple and natural diet, who desires health, must from the moment of his conversion attend to these rules—
Never take any substance into the stomach that once had life.
Drink no liquid but water restored to its original purity by distillation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Shelley's pamphlet appeared in 1813. The Vegetarian Society was not founded until 1847. Information as to this Society, with list of its publications, can be had free on application to the Secretary, 75, Princess Street, Manchester.
[2] "Plin. Nat Hist.," Lib. vii, Soc. 57.
[3] "Return to Nature." Cadell, 1811.
[4] Cuvier, Leçons d'Anat. Comp. tom. iii., pages 169, 373, 448, 465, and 480. Rees's Cyclopædia, article Man.
[5] See Dr. Lambe's "Report on Cancer."
[6] Return to Nature, or Defence of Vegetable Regimen. Cadell, 1811.
[7] It has come under the author's experience that some of the workmen on an embankment in North Wales who, in consequence of the inability of the proprietor to pay them, seldom received their wages, have supported large families by cultivating small spots of sterile ground by moonlight. In the notes to Pratt's Poem, "Bread for the Poor," is an account of an industrious labourer, who by working in a small garden, before and after his day's task, attained to an enviable state of independence.
[8] See Trotter on "The Nervous Temperament."
[9] See Mr. Newton's book. His children are the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive; the girls are perfect models for a sculptor; their dispositions are also the most gentle and conciliating; the judicious treatment which they experience in other points, may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of various diseases; and how many more of those that survive are rendered miserable by maladies not immediately mortal? The quality and quantity of a woman's milk are materially injured by the use of dead flesh. In an island, near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the children invariably die of tetanus, before they are three weeks old, and the population is supplied from the mainland.—Sir G. Mackenzie's History of Iceland. See also Emile, chap, i., p. 53, 55, 56.
APPENDIX.
Persons on vegetable diet have been remarkable for longevity. The first Christians practised abstinence from animal flesh, on a principle of self mortification. Other instances are, Old Parr 152; Mary Patten 136; A Shepherd in Hungary 126; Patrick O'Neale 113; Joseph Elkins 103; Elizabeth de Val 101; Aurungzebe 100; St. Anthony 105; James, the Hermit 104; Arsenius 120; St. Epiphanius 115; Simeon 112; and Rombald 120.
Mr. Newton's mode of reasoning on longevity is ingenious and conclusive. "Old Parr, healthy as the wild animals, attained to the age of 152 years. All men might be as healthy as the wild animals. Therefore all men might attain to the age of 152 years." The conclusion is sufficiently modest. Old Parr cannot be supposed to have escaped the inheritance of disease, amassed by the unnatural habits of his ancestors. The term of human life may be expected to be infinitely greater, taking into the consideration all the circumstances that must have contributed to abridge even that of Parr.
It may be here remarked, that the author and his wife have lived on vegetables for eight months. The improvements of health and temper here stated, is the result of his own experience.
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THE ETHICS OF DIET.
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