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CHAP. VIII.

HEALTH, SPIRITS, AND QUICKNESS OF PERCEPTION PROMOTED BY A VEGETABLE DIET.

Ir is furpriseing, fays Goldfmith, to what a great age the primitive christians of the east, who retire'd from perfecution in the defarts of Arabia, continue'd to live in all the bloom of health, and yet all the rigours of abftemious discipline. Their common allowance, as we are told, for four-and-twenty hours, was twelve ounceës of bread, and nothing but water. On this fimple beverage St. Anthony is say'd to have live'd a hundred and five years; James the hermit, a hundred and four; Arfenius, tutor to the emperor Arcadius, a hundred and twenty; St. Epiphanius, a hundred and fifteen; Simeon, a hundred and twelve; and Rombald, a hundred and twenty. In this manner, he ads, did thefe holy temperate men live to an extreme old age,

kept cheerful by strong hopes, and healthful by moderate labour.*

That the orientals live to a great age is chiefly oweing to their abftinence from animal food and strong liquors.†

Jofephus observes that the Esfenes, a fort of Jewish monks, live'd commonly to a hundred years, by reafon of the fimplicity of their diet, and regular life.‡

The Priscillianifts, or followers of Priscillian, the heretical bishop of Avila in Spain, who fuffer'd under Maximus, anno 385, enjoin'd, or recommended, a total abftinence from all animal food.§

"I marvell," fays Stubbes, fpeaking of the variety of meats in his time, "how our forefathers lived, who eat little els but colde meates, groffe, and hard of disgesture? yea, the most of them fead upon graine, corne, rootes, pulfe, hearbes, weedes, and fuch other baggage, and yet lived longer then wee, were healthfuller then. we, of better complection then we, and much ftronger then we in every refpect: wherfore i

History of the earth, II, 132.

+ Niebuhrs Travels, II, 375.
Jofephus, Wars of the Jews.
Gibbon, III, 27.

can not perfwade myself otherwise, but that our niceneffe and curiousneffe in diet hath altered our nature, distempered our bodies, and made us fubject to millions of discrafies and diseafes, more then ever were our forefathers fubject unto, and confequently of fhorter life then they.' "Who is ficklier," he exclaims, "then thei that fare deliciously every day? who is corrupter? who belcheth more? who looketh worfe? who is weaker and feebler then thei? who hath more filthie collor, flegme, and putrifaction (repleat with groffe humours) then thei? and to be breefe, who dyeth fooner then thei? Doe wee not," continues he, "fee the poore man that eateth browne bread (whereof fome is made of rye, barlie, peason, beanes, oates, and fuch other groffe graines), and drinketh small drinke, yea, fome tymes water, feedith upon milke, butter, and cheese, (i faie) doe wee not fee fuche a one healthfuller, ftronger, fairer-complectioned, and longer livyng, then the other that fare daintilie every daie? and how fhould it be otherwife?†

It is wel known, according to Ovington, that nothing contributes fo much, to the fcurvy, as

* Anatomy of abuses, 1583, fig. I. v. b.

† Ibi, fig. I, v. 3. b.

the eating of falted meat, or, to its cure, as the eating of vegetables. Seamen, who have been fo lamentablely overrun with this disease as to be unable either to walk or stand upright, have had their limbs, ftomachs, and loft health restore'd by three days eating of purflain, and other herbs, after they have once got afhore: and were those, he ads, made more frequently the diet of thefe that live on land, the fcorbutick humours, and all that train of diseafeës that follows them, would be less numerous and prevailing than they are.* Nothing else, in doctor Cheynes opinion, than a total abstinence from animal foods can totally extirpate this disease. † A vegetable and milk diet, he fays, is the proper and natural food of thofe afflicted with fcrophulous complaints, as much as feeds are that of fmall birds: ading, that a total milk and feed diet, with frequent interspersed emeticks, wil infalliblely cure hystericks, as well as confumption, if any human

* Voyage to Suratt, p. 519.

Essay on bealth, p. 182. It is evident, fays doctor Buchan, that if vegetables and milk were more use'd in diet, we should have lefs fcurvy, and, likewife fewer putrid inflammatory fevers.

Merbod of cure, &c. p. 168.

means posfibiely can.* Even bread and water wil be found beneficial in very serious disorders; as, in the cafe of doctor Barwick, who, in the civil wars, when under a phthifis, atrophy and dyscrafy, was confine'd in a low room in the Tower, and live'd on bread and water onely, for feveral years; yet came out, at the Restoration, fleek, plump, and gay.†

Indeed, there are fome cafeës, according to doctor Cheyne, wherein a vegetable and milk diet feems abfolutely necesfary, as in fevere and habitual gouts, rheumatifms, cancerous, leprous, and fcrophulous disorders, extreme nervous colicks, epilepfys, violent hysterick fits, melancholy, confumptions, and, toward the last stageës of all chronical distempers; in fuch distempers, he says, i have seldom seen such a diet fail of a good effect.

The prince of Condé, after haveing long fuffer'd, and being quite overcome by the gout, was advife'd by his phyficians, for the relief of his pain, to enter upon A VEGETABLE DIET, and a total abstinence from fish, fiefh, and wine. It

*Ibi, p 187. See more of the cures that may be perform'd by a milk-diet, l'i, p. 263, &c.

+ Ibi, p. 211.

Englifb malady, p. 167.

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