France, under the same circumstances, calculated the population, about the year 1774, to be to that of the latter, nearly as 17 to 1. Dr. LAMBE's Additional Reports on Regimen, p. 231. Note. 74. [Gen. ii. 9.] The plantain alone, says Saint PIERRE, might have proved sufficient to supply the wants of man in a primitive state, for it produces the most healthful food in its mealy and saccharine fruits. No plant deserves so well the name of Adam's fig-tree, its fruit being evidently intended for human consumption; one of its clusters forms no inconsiderable load for a man, while its spreading top presents a magnificent shade, and its long green leaves may be easily adapted as temporary clothing. It is under this delightful shade, and by means of fruits perpetually renewed, that the Hindoo Brahmin leads a life of tranquillity, and, deriving a supply for all his wants from one of those trees situated on the margin of a brook, is said frequently to attain the age of a hundred years. A single fruit of plantain furnishes a meal for a man, and one of the bunches is food for a day. In the Molucca Islands some plantains have a scent of amber and cinnamon, and others of the orange flower. They are to be found throughout the whole torrid zone, in Africa, in Asia, in America, north and south, in the islands belonging to each continent, and even in the most distant islands of the South Sea. The flavor of the plantain is such as to supply the want of butter, sugar, and spices. It supplies what may be called the delicacies of pastry. Dampier observes that a number of families between the tropics derive their support entirely from the plantain, and it is no doubt on account of its aptitude to meet the wants of man in a state of inexperience, that the Hindoos have called it Adam's fig-tree. The taste of sugar, wine, flour, and butter, found separately in other plants, appear to have been united in the plantain with the view of teaching man the propriety of conjoining them. A sheltered spot in the bosom of a valley, and on the bank of a rivulet, is indispensable to the growth of this tree, and to the preservation of its tender leaves from the blasts of the tempests. It appears to be a species of flag. Harmonies of Nature, vol. vi. pp. 9, 10, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61. 75. [Gen. i. 29.] In India, wheat, rice, barley, and other grain proper for making bread, grow in plenty, and are very good; the wheat especially is more white and full than the English. The country equally abounds with the choicest fruits; such as pomegranates, citrons, dates, grapes, almonds, cocoa-nuts, and that most excellent plum called the mirabolan; plantains, which grow in clusters like long slender cucumbers; the mango, in shape and color like an apricot, but much larger; and the anana, which resembles our pine-apple, and has a most exquisitely pleasing taste. In the northern parts they have variety of pears and apples, lemons and oranges. They have also very good musk-melons, and water-melons : some as large as pompions, which they resemble in shape. Modern Univer. Hist. vol. vi. p. 208. 76. [Gen. iii. 19.] The peculiar property of the corn-plant is that of being produced in some shape or other in every part of the world, from the rice of the Ganges to the barley of Finland. It is however, very remarkable that it no where grows spontaneously like other plants, so that Providence appears to have devolved altogether on our species the charge of maintaining and extending its cultivation. Bread is of all vegetable nourishment the most substantial and durable. St. PIERRE'S Harmonies of Nature, vol. i. pp. 22, 24. The living herbs spring up profusely wild, THOMSON. 81. [Gen. i. 29.] The diet of the first race of men differed according to the different productions of their respective countries: the Atheniaus lived on figs; the Argives on pears; and the Arcadians on acorns. (Ælian. Hist. Var. lib. iii. c. 39.)—And we are told by modern Travellers, that in the interior parts of Africa, there are several nations who now live chiefly on dates. 82. The Brahmins among the old Indians, were all of the same race, lived in fields and in woods after the course of their studies was ended, and fed only on rice, milk, or herbs. The Brazilians, when first discovered by the Europeans, lived the most natural original lives of mankind, so frequently described in antient countries, before laws, or property, or arts made entrance among them: they lived without business or labor, further than for their necessary food, by gathering fruits, herbs, and plants; they knew no drink but water; were not tempted to eat or drink beyond common thirst or appetite; were not troubled with either public or domestic cares, nor knew any pleasure but the most simple and natural. Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE.-See Sir JOHN SINCLAIR'S Code of Health, vol. iv. p. 333. 92. [Gen. i. 29.] The nations that subsist on vegetable diet are of all men the handsomest, the most robust, the least exposed to diseases and violent passions; and they attain the greatest longevity. Such are in Europe, a great proportion of the Swiss. The negroes doomed to labor so severe, live entirely on manioc, potatoes and maize. The Brahmins of India, who frequently survive a century, eat nothing but vegetables. From the Pythagorean school, Epaminondas issued forth so renowned for his virtues; Archytas, so celebrated for his skill in mechanics; and Milo of Crotona, for his strength; copying the virtues of their founder, who was allowedly the first rate genius of his day, the most enlightened by science, the father of philosophy among the Greeks.-As vegetable diet has a necessary connexion with many virtues, and excludes none, it must be of importance to accustom young people to it, seeing its influence so powerfully contributes to beauty of person and tranquillity of soul. The children of the Persians, in the time of Cyrus, and by his orders, were fed with bread, water and cresses and Lycurgus introduced a considerable part of the physical and moral regimen of these children into the education of those of Lacedemon. Such diet prolongs infancy, and of consequence the duration of human life. I have seen, says Saint PIERRE, an instance of it in an English youth of fifteen, who had not the appearance of being so much as twelve. He was a most interesting figure, possessed of health the most vigorous, and of a disposition the most gentle he performed the longest journies on foot, and never lost temper whatever befel him: His father, whose name was Pigot, told me he had brought him up entirely under the vegetable regimen, the good effects of which he had learned by his own experience. He had formed the project of employing part of his fortune, which was considerable, in establishing somewhere in British America a society, who should employ themselves in training, under the same regimen, the children of the American colonists, in the practice of all the arts connected with agriculture. May heaven prosper such a plan of education, worthy the most glorious period of antiquity! Studies of Nature, vol. iv, p. 357. 93. With us, says Dr. LAMBE, a parent will correct his child for eating a raw turnip, as if it were poisonous. But the Russians, from the lowest peasant to the highest nobleman, are eating raw turnips all day long. We may be certain then, that there is no harin in the practice. But further, there is every reason to believe, particularly from the observations of the navigators in the Pacific Ocean, that those races of men, who admit into their nutriment a large proportion of fruit, and recent vegetable matter, unchanged by culinary art, have a form of body, the largest, of the most perfect proportion, and the greatest beauty; that they have the greatest strength and activity, and probably that they enjoy the best health.-This fact alone is enough to refute the vulgar error, (for it deserves no other name), that animal food is necessary to support the strength. 94. Additional Reports on Regimen, p. 173. The strongest men, and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British dominions, are to be found in the lower rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with that excellent root (the potato). No food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human constitution. Ibid. p. 220. 95. [Gen. ix. 4.] The Japanese, however divided in other religious principles, agree in the five following laws, as absolutely binding on all: 1. Not to kill, and not to eat any thing that is killed; 2. Not to steal; 3. Not to defile another man's bed; 4. Not to lie; 5. Not to drink wine.-Their chief liquor at their meals is water made a little warm; but, as soon as they have dined or supped, they drink a pretty large quantity of tea, which they use as their common drink or refreshment whenever they are thirsty, weary, or faint. See Modern Part of Univer. Hist. vol. ix. pp. 17, 62 96. [Exod. xx. 13.] Herodotus says, that in India is a set of people, who put no ani.nal to death, sow no grain, have no fixed habitation, and live solely on vegetables. These were no doubt, says FORBES, Yogees, Senassees, and wandering Gymnosophists, who live entirely in the same manner at me present day. Oriental Memoirs, vol. i p. 400. 97. [Gen. ii. 8, 9.] On the banks of the Euphrates, particularly near Bassora, they have plenty of delicious fruits, as pomegranates, peaches, apricots, quinees, olives, apples, pears, nectarines, and grapes whose juice is as sweet as that of the sugar-cane, yet so weak that it will produce neither wine nor vinegar; but the most abundant and useful of all their fruits, are their dates, which support and sustain many millions of people who make them their daily food, and are wonderfully nourished by them. CAPTAIN HAMILTON.-Pinkerton, part xxxii. p. 291. 98. [Gen. iii. 23] The custom of flesh eating, as much as that of covering our persons with clothes, appears to have arisen from the migration of man into the northern climates, where the productions of the earth are not, as in south latitudes, spontaneous. NEWTON'S Defence of Vegetable Regimen, vol. i. p. 81. 99. [Rom. xiv. 4.] The inhabitants of the Atlantic Islands, unacquainted with all animal diet, never eat ought that has been endued with life. Dr. TISSOT. 100. [Lev. xi. 8.] I see, says MICHAELIS, from Russel's Natural History of Aleppo, p. 50. that there the Jews and Turks never taste the flesh of cattle. See his Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, by Smith, vol. ii. p. 406 101. [Lev. xi. 3.] He that feeds on any kind of meats prohibited by the Mosaic law, with the persuasion in his mind that he may be wrong in so doing, is condemned by his conscience for doing that which he has reason to think GOD has forbidden. Dr. A. CLARKE, on Rom. xiv. 23. 102. [Gen. i. 28.] Man, in quitting the nutriment on which if alone Providence had destined him to enjoy a state of perfect health, has debased his physical, and consequently his moral and intellectual faculties, to a degree almost inconceivable. Real men have never been seen that we are aware of; nor has history, nor even poetry, depictured them. It is not man we have before us, but the wreck of man. 103. See NEWTON's Defence, &c., vol. i. p. 66. The unwholesomeness of animal food is more evident, if possible, than its pernicious effects upon morals.—In works which have been some time before the public, says the learned and scientific Dr. Lambe, I have maintained on the authority of adduced facts, that, whilst the predisposition to the various forms of deceased action is congenital, and dependant upon varieties in the radical organization of the frame, the more direct causes are to be looked for in the agency of foreign substances on the body, and principally of those which are used as food and as drink.-In water, for instance, the putrid or putrescent matter, the animal or vegetable sub stances in a state of decomposition, is that which is actively mischievous; it being immediately and directly deleterious. -Fish does not impart the strength of animal food; but it is as oppressive to the stomach as flesh; and it is more putrescent, as may be concluded from the nauseous and hepatic eructations of the stomach, after it has been eaten.—On the contrary, the disuse of fermented liquors, the relinquishment of animal food, and the use of purified (or distilled) water, all increase the appetite, and appear to strengthen the digestion. And as in every period of history it has been known, that (fruit and) vegetables alone are sufficient for the support of life, and that the bulk of mankind live upon them at this hour; the adherence to the use of animal food is no more than a persistence in the gross customs of savage life; and evinces an insensibility to the progress of reason, and to the operation of intellectual improvement. Dr. LAMBE'S Additional Reports on the effects of a peculiar Regimen, pp. 15, 39, 161, 259, 243. 107. [Num. xi. 20.] It is a remarkable fact, that at Heimaey, the only one of the Westmann Islands, which is inhabited, scarcely a single instance has been known during the last twenty years of a child surviving the period of infancy. In consequence, the population, which does not exceed 200 souls, is entirely kept up by emigration from the main land of Iceland. The food of these people consists principally of sea-birds; fulmers and puffins; (procellaria glacialis & alce arctica of Linnæus.) The fulmers they procure in vast abundance, and they use the eggs and flesh of the birds; and salt the latter for their winter food. There are a few cows and sheep on the island, but the inhabitants are said to have no vegetable food. Dr. LAMBE's Additional Reports on Regimen, p. 197. 114. [Lev. xi. 4.] In regard to man's allowed or interdicted food from the animal creation; equally in the laws of MOSES and in those of MENU, eating the milk of a camel, or of any quadruped with the "hoof not cloven," was strictly forbidden. (See BURDER's Oriental Customs, vol. ii. p. 56. And Levit. xi. 4, 7.)—And as the milk of an unclean sow occasioned leprosies: "This was the reason," says Plutarch, "why the Egyptians entertained so great an D aversion for that animal."-Of the ass also, the Jews durst not taste the milk; nor is this indeed usual among ourselves. (SMITH'S Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 389.)—But who, emphatically asks the apostle PAUL, feeds a flock (of clean beasts, he evidently means), and eats not the milk of the flock? 1 Cor. ix. 7.-"Be thou diligent then, to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goats' milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for a maintenance for thy maidens." Prov. xxvii. 23, 26, 27. 115. [Lev. xi. 4, 8.] "Whatsoever parteth the hoof and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud" must necessarily, as a "clean" beast, give pure and wholesome milk in cousequence of well-digesting its food. The ruminants with horns, as the bullock, sheep, &c. have two preparatory stomachs for the food previous to rumination, and one for the food to be received in after rumination, before it is digested in the fourth or true stomach.-The ruminants without horns as the camel, dromedary, and lama, have one preparatory stomach before rumination, and properly speaking, none in which the cud can be afterwards retained before it goes into the digesting stomach.-Those animals that eat the same kind of food with the ruminants yet do not ruminate, as the horse and ass, have only one stomach, but a portion of it is lined with cuticle, in which situation the food is first deposited, and by remaining there sometime is rendered afterwards more easily digestible when received into the other, or digesting portion. Phil. Trans. for 1806, p. 370. on cows' milk.-Sheep, indeed, furnish excellent milk but in small quantities, and only for a short time.-But it is a curious fact, that in all the nations where milk constitutes a chief part of their diet, it is eaten in a state of acidity. The Tartars always ferment their milk. The Russians reckon their butter-milk a specific for consumptions. The Caffres keep their milk in sheep-skins, which they never clean, in order to preserve the substance that ferments it; they expressed the utmost abhorrence, on seeing Europeans drink some fresh milk; and said it was very unwholesome. Even among the poor people of Scotland, and in Ireland particularly, there is more milk eaten in an acescent than in a fresh state. (Ibid. vol. i. pp. 269, 273, 275.)—Leavened or fermented bread, indeed, is lighter in digestion, and passes easily through the body; but unfermented bread does not go off so easily, though it nourishes more, where the stomach can bear it. HIPPOCRATES de Dieta, lib. ii. x.-See also Exod. xii. 15. 119. In Barbary, the sheep and the goats as well as cows contribute to the dairies, particularly in the making of cheese. Instead of rennet, especially in the summer-season, they turn the milk with the flowers of the great headed thistle, or wild artichoke; and putting the curds afterwards into small baskets made with rushes, or with the dwarf palm, they bind them up close, and press them. Prov. xxvii. 27. SHAW's Trav. in Barbary, Pinkerton's Coll. Ixiii. p. 620. 120. Milk is in part vegetable food; and as such is used by all pastoral nations, and serves in a measure as a substitute for it. (Dr. LAMBE's Additional Reports on Regimen, p. 167.)-To prevent indigestion, "milk ought not to be eaten together with flesh." Exod. xxiii. 19. Dr. WILLICH. 121. [Luke xi. 12.] Eggs contain a larger proportion of pure nourishment, than any other food. They are a most valuable article, not only when consumed by themselves, but when mixed with other things. When new laid, they are peculiarly excellent; but when old, or hard boiled, they are too astringent for most habits. The white part is digested with more difficulty than the yolk. Raw, poached, soft boiled, or in any way lightly cooked, they are gently laxative, and sit easy on most stomachs. See Sir JOHN SINCLAIR'S Code of Health, vol. i. p. 414. 122. [Gen. i. 29.] Fruit is that species of food which is most suitable to man: this is evinced by the series of quadrupeds; analogy, wild men; apes; the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and the hands. Dr. LAMBE's Additional Reports on Regimen, p. 176. 123. [Prov. xxiii. 20.] The moral effect of aliment is clearly evinced in the different tempers of the carnivorous |