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nations, and now are numbers of tribes, who vo luntaryly confine themselves to vegetables onely... and there are whole villageës in this kingdom who scarce eat animal food, or drink fermented liquors a dozen times a year.....The onely conclufion, he says, i would draw from these historical facts, is, that a low diet, or liveing on vegetables, wil not deftroy life or health, or caufe nervous and cephalick distempers; but, on the contrary, cure them as far as they are cureable..... But this i pretend to demonftrate from thefe facts, that abstinence and a low diet is the great antidote and universal remedy of distempers acquire'd by excefs, intemperance, and a mistakeën regimen of high meats and drinks; that it wil greatly alleviate, and render tolerable, the original distempers derive'd from diseafe'd parents; and that it is abfolutely necessary for the deep-thinking part of mankind, who would preferve their facultys, ripe and pregnant, to a green old age, and to the laft dregs of life; and that it is the true and real antidote and prefervative from wrong-headedness, irregular, and disorderly, intellectual functions, from lofs of the rational facultys, memory, and fenfees, and from all nervous distempers, as far as the ends of pro

vidence, and the condition of mortality, wil allow.*

"Who is there that does not know how

great

a part cacao-beans make of the food of the inhabitants in the country where they grow; and how foon people of wafteëd and reduce'd conftitutions, by means of them, recover their flesh and ftrength? Nay, we have an instance of a ships crew, which, for two months, had nothing but chocolate for their food, and were very hearty and wel with it."†

"The utility of a diet confifting entirely of vegetables in the hypochondriafis, obftinate gouts, and other stubborn and pertinacious disorders, has of late been place'd in a very clear light by doctor W. Grant, in his " Esfay on the atrabilious conftitution," (p. 399, &c.) in which instanceës are giveën of its haveing not onely greatly improve'd the patients health, and giveën them fresh strength and vigour, but made them, as it were, younger than before."+

"The native Javanese derive one advantage, at least, from an atmosphere not subject to the

* Ibi, p. 90.

Sparrinans Voyage, II, 231.
Ibi, 236.

M

vicissitudes of temperature experience'd in the northern parts of Europe, where diseafees of the teeth are chiefly prevalent; as they are at Batavia entirely exempt from fuch complaints. Their habit of liveing chiefly on vegetable food, and of abftaining from fermented liquors, no doubt contributes to this exemption."*

* Sir G. Stauntons Account of an embassy to China, I, 251.

CHAP. IX.

NATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS SUBSISTING ENTIRELY ON VEGETABLE FOOD.

W HEN god, according to the book of Genefis, createëd man, in his own image, male and female, he blessed them and fay'd, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and fubdue (i. e. cultivate it): and have dominion over the fish of the fea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every liveing thing that moveëth upon the earth. Behold, i have giveën you every herb bearing feed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding feed: to you it shal be for meat and to every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life [or, as in the Hebrew, a liveing foul], i have giveën every green herb for meat."* They were

*

I, 27,

&c. The word dominion is every where, in the ld testament, ufe'd for fovereignty.

to be fovereigns, therefor, over the earth, and its terrestrial, marine and aërial inhabitants; not for the purpose of flaughter and food, (for when does a good monarch devour his subjects?) but for the fake of authority, protection, and the gracious officeës of benevolence and humanity. Their food was to be every herb bearing feed, and every tree bearing fruit: the beasts and fowls, allfo, and creeping things were to be confine'd to a vegetable diet. Such, at least, if we credit the Jewish accounts, was the dietetick law establish'd, at the creation, for both man and beaft. It is, indeed, abfolutely impossible that the allmighty creator fhould have defign'd the latter as prey to the former; fince, as there were but two of each species, the whole race must have been speedyly extinguish'd.* It is alledge'd, however, that, after the deluge and new establishment, he gave Noah and his defcendants a licence to eat the flesh of animals,

"It is certain," as doctor Cheyne asferts, at the creation, there could be no fuch thing as an indulgence for animal food, if onely pairs of each animal were createëd at first." Esfay on regimen, p. 75.) It is, at the fame time, difficult to conceive, whatever was the primitive food of man, how the lion, the tiger, and other beafts of prey, could fubfift entirely upon green berbs.

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