The philosopher, Franklin, who reached a great
age, for a considerable portion of his life kept entirely to a vegetable
diet; and Abernethy, a name yet more familiar in our ears, has left us
this maxim, that "a vegetable diet and abstinence from fermented liquors
tends more than anything else to tranquillize the system."--(vide the
_Abernethian Code_.) Another popular and scientific writer of the
present day makes a similar confession, which coming from such an
unexpected quarter carries weight: "Although professedly friends to
gastronomy, moderated by a decided aversion to anything like sensuality,
we are of opinion that man is less fit to feed upon carnal than
vegetable substance." (Accum's _Culinary Chemistry_.)
The author of _The Art of Improving Health_, has also a passage in
point: "An animal diet, especially in temperate climates, is more
wasting than a vegetable; because it excites by its stimulating
qualities a fever after every meal, by which the springs of life are
urged into constant and weakening exertions: on the contrary, a
vegetable diet tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, a liveliness of
imagination, and an acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who
live principally on meat." Thus we might go on multiplying authorities
on this subject, but we shall content ourselves with referring briefly
to one or two authors of a more literary stamp, and have done with
quotation.
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