Читать книгу Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages - William A. Alcott - Страница 49

Batavia, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1835.

Sir,—Some months since, I read your inquiries on diet in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal; and subsequently in the Journal of Medical Sciences, Philadelphia.

I will answer your questions, numerically, from my knowledge of a case somewhat in point, and with which I am but too familiar, as it is my own. But, first, let me premise a few points in the history of my health, as a kind of key to my answers.

It is about fifteen years since I was called a dyspeptic; this was while engaged in my academical studies. Not being instructed by my medical friend to make any alteration in diet and regimen, I merely swallowed his cathartics for one month, and his anodynes for the next month, as the bowels were constipated or relaxed. In short, I left college more dead than alive—a confirmed dyspeptic.

In 1826, I commenced the practice of physic. From this time, to the winter of 1831-2, I found it necessary gradually to diminish my indulgence in the luxuries of the table—especially in animal food, and distilled and fermented liquors. On one of the most inclement nights of the winter of 1831-2, a fire broke out in our village, at which I became very wet by perspiration, and the ill-directed efforts of some to extinguish it. This was followed by a severe inflammatory attack upon the digestive organs generally, and especially upon the renal region, which confined me to the house for more than eight months; and, for the greatest share of that time, with the most excruciating torture. On getting out again, I found myself in a wretched condition indeed—reduced to a skeleton—a voracious appetite, which could not be indulged, and which had scarcely deserted me through the whole eight months. I could not regain my flesh or strength but by almost imperceptible degrees; indeed, loaf-sugar and crackers were almost the only food I could use with impunity for the first year.

It is now nearly four years since I have eaten animal food, unless it be here and there a little, as an experiment, with the sole exception of oysters, in which I can indulge, but with all due deference to the stricter rules of temperance. Still my appetite for animal food seems unabated. I have ever been a man unusually temperate in the use of intoxicating drinks; and by no means intemperate in the luxuries of the table. I take no meat, no alcoholic or fermented drinks, not even cider; and, for a year past, my health has been better than for three years previous; and I think that about one third the amount of nourishment usually taken by men of my age, might subserve the purposes of food for me better than a larger quantity. The more I eat, the more I desire to eat; and abstinence is my best medicine.

But I have already surpassed my limits, and here are my answers.

1. My strength is invariably diminished by animal food, and in almost direct proportion to the quantity, with the exception named above.

2. Pain has been the uniform attendant upon the digestion of an animal diet, with feverish restlessness and constipation.

3. Decidedly more fit for energetic action.

4. An irritation, or subacute inflammation of the digestive apparatus, which is aggravated by animal food.

5. Can endure hardship, exposure, and fatigue, much better without meat.

6. About four years, with the exception stated above.

7. It was not.

8. Partially at the commencement; but not of late, if not taken hot.

9. Much more aperient.

10. Both classes take too much; and students and sedentaries should take little or none.

11. For myself farinaceous articles first, then the succulent sub-acid ripe fruits, then the less oily nuts are most healthful—and animal food, strong coffee and tea, and unripe or hard fruits, in any considerable quantities, are most pernicious.

Yours, etc.,

W. H. Webster.