p. 13 | STARTLING FACTS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 20, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 51.

STARTLING FACTS.

THE well-known American journal Good Health, the editor of which is the veteran hygienist Dr. Kellogg, gives the following significant facts: "It is time to stop a moment for sober thought about where we are and toward what we are drifting. In 1890 a statistician pointed out the fact that in Germany, a pork-eating country of 55,000,000 inhabitants, there were to be found fewer than one hundred persons more than one hundred years old; only seventy-eight, in fact, enjoyed this distinction for longevity. Half a century ago, with a smaller population, the number was six times as great. In Bulgaria, a country of only 4,000,000 people, practically vegetarians, the number of persons more than one hundred years of age was 3,883, or nearly one to the thousand, against one to 700,000 in Germany. In other words, there are in Bulgaria 700 times as many centenarians in proportion to the population as in Germany. In Servia there were 290 persons between the ages of 106 and 115 years, 125 persons between the ages of 115 and 125 years, 18 persons between the ages of 125 and 135 years, and 3 persons more than 135 years old.

"The lesson is that the more civilized a country, and the larger the consumption of flesh food, the shorter the length of life. Why not take a square look at the fact, and think about reforming? It is well known that the longest-lived and the most enduring animals are of vegetarian habits. The dog becomes enduring only by the adoption of a non-flesh diet, a fact well known to hunters, who carefully exclude meat from the diet of their hunting dogs. The study of the habits of centenarians, begun long ago by Hufeland, has always revealed the fact that long-lived men and women are invariably small flesh-eaters, if not exclusively vegetarian in their habits. The Pampas Indians of South America, who subsist almost wholly on flesh food, are perhaps the shortest-lived race in existence. To live long and well one must eat the original meat, described in Gen. 1:29. Fruits, grains, and nuts are man's meat, designed for his sustenance by the Creator, and not to be improved upon. A flesh diet breeds disease and premature decay."—Herald of the Golden Age.