BEST FOOD OF MAN. 165
and as the seeds of disease are generally sown long before any serious attack is experienced, few refer their complaints to the real causes, and usually blame any little indiscretion which immediately precedes actual pain. It was well observed by Hippocrates, that " diseases do not fall upon men instantaneously, but, being collected by slow degrees, they explode with accumulated force." Hence it is that none, except those who have paid great attention to the subject, are ever led to suspect that the flesh which they and others are daily in the habit of eating can be in
any way connected with their sufferings.
240. It may be shown — both from the opinions of medical writers, and from numerous well-attested examples — that vegetables are sufficient for maintaining man in a perfectly healthy condition.
241. Haller — a first-rate botanist, an eminent physician, and a profound philosopher — says : " This food, then, which I have hitherto described, and in which flesh has no share, is salutary ; insomuch that it fully nourishes a man, protracts life to an advanced period, and prevents or cures such dis-orders as are attributable to the acrimony or grossness of the blood."* The celebrated Dr. Hufeland taught, that a simple vegetable diet was most conducive to health and long life. Sir William Temple — after noticing the customs and habits of the Patriarchs, the Brahmans, and the Brazilians — says : " From all these examples and customs it may probably be concluded that the common ingredients of health and long life are, great temperance, open air, easy labor, little care, simplicity of diet — rather fruits and plants than flesh, (which easily corrupts,) and water ; which preserves the radical moisture, without too much increasing the radical heat. Whereas sickness, decay, and death, proceed commonly from the one preying too fast upon the other, and at length wholly extinguishing it." 242. Porphyry, (444,) when addressing Firmus Castricius, who had re- linquished Pythagorean abstinence, says : " You owned, when you lived among us, that a vegetable diet was preferable to animal food, both for preserving health and facilitating the study of philosophy ; and now, since you have eaten flesh, your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was true. The use of flesh does not contribute to health, but rather prevents it ; since health is preserved by the same measures by which it is restored : but it is restored by the use of the lightest food, and by abstinence from flesh ; and consequently health is preserved by the same means. A quiet state of mind is of the utmost importance to the maintenance of health, and a light and spare diet contributes greatly to the same end."* Haller, Elem, Phy., vol. vi. p. 199.
