VEGETARIAN NATIONS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 21, 1876

VEGETARIAN NATIONS.

Dr. Adam Smith makes the following remarks in his excellent work entitled, “Wealth of Nations”:—

“The most beautiful women in the British dominions are said to be, the greater part of them, from the lower ranks of the people of Ireland, who are generally fed with potatoes. The peasantry of Lancashire and Cheshire, also, who live principally on potatoes and buttermilk, are celebrated as the handsomest race in England.

“The peasantry of Wales, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Poland, Germany, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and almost every country in Europe, from the most northern part of Russia to the Straits of Gibraltar, subsist principally, and most of them entirely, on vegetable food. The Persians, Hindoos, Burmese, Chinese, Japanese, the inhabitants of East India Archipelago, of the mountains of Himalaya, and, in fact, most of the Asiatics, live upon vegetable productions. The great body of the ancient Egyptians and Persians confined themselves to a vegetable diet; and the Egyptians of the present day, as well as the negroes (whose great bodily powers are well known), live chiefly on vegetable substances. The brave Spartans, who, for muscular power, physical energy, and ability to endure hardships, perhaps stand unequaled in the history of nations, were vegetarians. The departure from their simple diet was soon followed by their decline. The armies of Greece and Rome, in the times of their unparalleled conquests, subsisted on vegetable productions. In the training for the public games in Greece, where muscular strength was to be exhibited in all its various forms, vegetable food was adhered to; but when flesh-meat was adopted afterward, those hitherto athletic men became sluggish and stupid. From two-thirds to three-fourths of the whole human family, from the creation of the species to the present time, have subsisted entirely, or nearly so, on vegetable food; and always, when their alimentary supplies of this kind have been abundant and of good quality, and their habits have been in other respects correct, they have been well nourished and well sustained in all the physiological interests of their nature.”