GOOD HEALTH.
# Proper Diet for Man. MENTAL AND MORAL EFFECTS.
That the use of animal food may affect the mental and moral faculties deleteriously is a fact which a thoughtful man will not deny, at least after a moments reflection. There are at least three distinct reasons which render it thus injurious:— 1. As already shown, flesh food is stimulating, and, like every other stimulant, it impairs the nervous powers, and so injures the moral and mental faculties. 2. Numerous instances are recorded illustrative of the wonderful and mysterious influence which the mental faculties exert over the functions and tissues of the body. A fit of anger has been known to so change the lacteal secretions of a mother as to cause convulsions in an unweaned child. Great fear, the sudden reception of sad news, or intense mental excitement, has been known to change a person's hair from raven black to snowy white in a single night. These illustrations show, 1. That mental emotions may induce sudden and characteristic changes in animal tissues; 2. That tissues thus affected may produce most injurious results when used as food by other animals. How these changes are brought about, we will not attempt to explain; nor is it necessary that we should do so, since we know the fact exists. Who can doubt, then, that the flesh of an animal which is killed when infuriated with rage may not transmit a certain degree of the same element to those who dine upon it? With this view, we can see much significance in the remark which Byron once made to a friend whom he saw eating a piece of rarely cooked meat. Said the great poet, "Are you not afraid you will commit a murder?" He himself declared that he "felt himself grow savage" whenever he partook largely of animal food. 3. Flesh-eating implies, necessarily, the slaying of animals, which bloody act ought to be sufficient argument against the practice. Look at the noble oxen as they daily perform their accustomed labor in implicit obedience to the will of their master. See them kindly bending their broad necks beneath the massive yoke as they willingly do for man what he is unable to do for himself, day after day, with unwearied patience, contributing to his comfort and convenience. Look into the great honest eyes of these noble animals. Can you not see benevolence and kindness beaming forth? and do not their expressive features, taken together with their every-day actions, betoken a degree, at least, of intelligence? Education and prejudice may lead you to recoil at the word, but is it not impossible to account for the many every-day manifestations of reason and education on the grounds of mere instinct? Can we refuse to admit the truth? In claiming for the animal a certain amount of intelligence or reason, we do not in any way detract from man's glory or supremacy, but we merely elevate the beast to its proper sphere. But we will not discuss this question here; in fact, there is little necessity for it, for the ground taken is now quite generally admitted, and the time will probably soon come when it will be universally recognized as fact. Again, notice the little lamb as it gambols on the lawn, joining the children in their sportive games, and manifesting every token of affectionate regard and interest for its youthful playmates. It can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell just as well as they. It is a living, sentient creature, possessed of the same means of enjoyment with which we are blessed. Now, is not the thought of staining our hands with the blood of such creatures a repulsive one? Does it not seem beastly to roughly seize them and deprive them of their happiness, their life, and then to devour them just as would a rapacious beast of prey, and all for the gratification of a perverted appetite? There can be no justification for such a course on the grounds of necessity, for the vegetable kingdom affords an almost endless variety of substances not only more palatable, but more nutritious, besides being free from impurities. Inability to procure other nourishment is the only circumstance which can justify the use of flesh food. Viewed in this light, the practice of flesh-eating cannot do otherwise than to harden the heart, destroy the finer sensibilities, excite the lower passions, and create a thirst for blood and a disregard for life, and all as the incidental effect of the necessity for the slaying of animals to supply the unnatural demand for animal food. Pythagoras, the famous Grecian philosopher, and his followers, religiously abstained from the use of animal food, and considered it sacrilege to take the life of a single living creature. The Essenes, a Jewish sect, who flourished about two thousand years ago, were equally scrupulous with reference to the slaying of animals and the eating of flesh. They were noted for their sobriety and exemplary piety. The Brahmíns of India have long held the same views, and adopted the same practice with reference to the use of animal food. And a new sect has recently sprung up among the natives of India who are strict vegetarians, and adopt the Christian religion, aiming to re-establish the apostolic faith. The poet Ovid graphically pictures the terrible cruelties which are practiced by men in obtaining the flesh of animals for food. In contrast with this barbarous practice he remarks:— “Not so the golden age, who fed on fruit,
Nor durst with bloody meals their mouths pollute.” The poet Thomson also describes the use of herbs in the same period, as follows:— “But who their virtues can declare? who pierce,
With vision pure, into their secret stores
Of health, of life, and joy? the food of man,
While yet he lived in innocence, and told
A length of golden years; unfleshed in blood,
A stranger to the savage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.” But in addition to its indirect moral influence, it has a very important physiological effect in exciting the lower passions, and so leading men to the commission of crimes. In this respect it affects the system just as does alcohol or any other stimulant. The further evidences against the dietetic use of flesh which might be drawn from physiology are both numerous and conclusive, but we forbear to dwell longer upon this part of the subject. Sufficient testimony has been adduced, however, to show in the most conclusive manner that physiology is decidedly in favor of a purely vegetable diet for man. To be sure, there are the modifying effects of long-continued habit which in a measure affect the question, but these will be considered in their proper place.