MEAT KILLS MORE PEOPLE THAN ALCOHOL.
Sir James Barr, senior physician of the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, goes behind the Metchnikoff bacillus in his search for the cause of old age. The bacillus may have all the evil effects claimed by Metchnikoff, but it would have no chance if the victim did not provide a basis by habitual excess in nitrogenous foods. It is the meat habit which lies at the root of the arterial degenerations that bring about old age. Uric acid is constantly present in excess, and at last the cells of the arterial walls—which have to be almost as continually alert and active as those of the heart—can not keep up the fight any longer. Dr. Barr thinks that excessive nitrogenous eating kills more people than alcohol. “After witnessing one of the great temperance advocates of the last century dine, I stated that he would not live three years, and he was dead within two.” The arterial degeneration in question makes the arteries rigid instead of elastic. Apart from the fact that they are then liable to rupture, causing apoplexy (deaths from apoplexy were sixty-six in 1900 as compared with forty-nine in 1890) the arteries can not respond to the brain’s incessantly changing demands. The mind therefore becomes rigid at about fifty or sixty years of age. These facts may perhaps do more to induce us to reform than even the recently unveiled Chicago slaughter-house horrors. But probably they will only make the majority take even more of the thousand “uric acid solvents” with which the drugstores are crammed. Instead, why not eat less meat and drink more water. For men or women confined to office or home and taking little exercise the eating of meat three times a day is nothing short of a crime.