4. I am const.i.tutionally healthy and robust.
5. I believe I have more colds, princ.i.p.ally seated on the mucous membranes of the lungs, fauces, and cavities of the head. (I do not, however, attribute it to diet.)
6. The first trial was one year. I am now ten months on the same plan, and shall continue it.
7. I never used a large quant.i.ty of animal food or stimulants, of any description.
8. I have for several years used tea and coffee, usually once a day--believe them healthy.
9. Vegetable diet is less aperient than a mixed diet, if we except _Indian corn_.
10. I do not think that common laborers, in health, could do as well without animal food; but I think students might.
11. I have selected _potatoes_, when _baked_ or _roasted_, and all articles of food usually prepared from _Indian meal_, as the most healthy articles on which I subsist; particularly the latter, whose aperient and nutritive qualities render it, in my estimation, an invaluable article for common use.
Yours, etc., D. S. WRIGHT.
LETTER IV.--FROM DR. H. N. PRESTON.[1]
PLYMOUTH, Ma.s.s., March 26, 1835.
DEAR SIR,--When I observed your questions in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, of the 11th of March, I determined to give you personal experience, in reply to your valuable queries.
In the spring of 1832, while engaged in more than usual professional labor, I began to suffer from indigestion, which gradually increased, unabated by any medicinal or dietetic course, until I was reduced to the very confines of the grave. The disease became complicated, for a time, with chronic bronchitis. I would remark, that, at the time of my commencing a severe course of diet, I was able to attend to my practice daily.
In answer to your inquiries, I would say to the 1st--very much diminished, and rapidly.
2. Rather less; distinct local uneasiness--less disposition to drowsiness; but decidedly more troubled with cardialgia, and eructations.
3. I think not.
4. My disease was decidedly increased; as cough, headache, and emaciation; and being of a scrofulous diathesis, was lessening my prospect of eventual recovery.
5. My febrile attacks increased with my increased debility.
6. Almost four months; when I became convinced death would be the result, unless I altered my course.
7. I had taken animal food moderately, morning and noon--very little high seasoning--no stimulants, except tea and coffee. The latter was my favorite beverage; and I usually drank two cups with my breakfast and dinner, and black tea with my supper.
8. I drank but one cup of weak coffee with my breakfast, none with dinner, and generally a cup of milk and water with supper.
9. With me _much less aperient_; indeed, costiveness became a very serious and distressing accompaniment.
10. From somewhat extensive observation, for the last seven years, I should say, of laborers never; students seldom.
11. Among dyspeptics, potatoes nearly boiled, then mashed together, rolled into b.a.l.l.s, and laid over hot coals, until a second time cooked, as easy as any vegetable. If any of the luxuries of the table have been noticed as particularly injurious, it has been cranberries, prepared in any form, as stewed in sauce, tarts, pies, etc.
Crude as these answers are, they are at your service; and I am prompted to give them from the fact, that very few persons, I presume, have been so far reduced as myself, with dyspepsia and its concomitants. In fact, I was p.r.o.nounced, by some of the most scientific physicians of Boston, as past all prospect of cure, or even much relief, from medicine, diet, or regimen. My attention has naturally been turned with anxious solicitude to the subject of diet, in all its forms. Since my unexpected restoration to health, my opportunities for observation among dyspeptics have been much enlarged; and I most unhesitatingly say, that my success is much more encouraging, in the management of such cases, since pursuing a more liberal diet, than before. Plain animal diet, avoiding condiments and tea, using mucilaginous drink, as the Irish Moss, is preferable to "absolute diet,"--cases of decided chronic gastritis excepted.
Yours, etc., H. N. PRESTON.
LETTER V.--FROM DR. H. A. BARROWS.
PHILLIPS, Somerset Co., Me., April 28, 1835.
DEAR SIR,--I have a brother-in-law, who owes his life to abstinence from animal food, and strict adherence to the simplest vegetable diet. My own existence is prolonged, only (according to human probabilities) by entire abstinence from flesh-meat of every description, and feeding princ.i.p.ally upon the coa.r.s.est farinacea.
Numberless other instances have come under my observation within the last three years, in which a strict adherence to a simple vegetable diet has done for the wretched invalid what the best medical treatment had utterly failed to do; and in no one instance have I known permanently injurious results to follow from this course, but in many instances have had to lament the want of firmness and decision, and a gradual return to the "_flesh-pots of Egypt_."
With these views, I very cheerfully comply with your general invitation, on page 77, volume 12, of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. The answers to your interrogatories will apply to the case first referred to, to my own case, and to nearly every one which has occurred within my notice.
1. Increased, uniformly; and in nearly every instance, without even the usual debility consequent upon withdrawing the stimulus of animal food.
2. More agreeable in every instance.
3. Affirmative, _in toto_.
4. None aggravated, except flatulence in one or two instances. All the horrid train of dyspeptic symptoms uniformly mitigated, and obstinate constipation removed.
5. Fewer colds and febrile attacks.
6. Three years, with my brother; with myself, eighteen months partially, and three months wholly; the others, from one to six months.
7. Negative.
8. Cold water--my brother and myself; others, hot and cold water alternately.
9. More aperient,--no exceptions.
10. I believe the health of _students_ would uniformly be promoted--and the days of the laborer, to say the least, would be lengthened.
11. I have; and that is, simple bread made of wheat meal, ground in corn-stones, and mixed up precisely as it comes from the mill--with the subst.i.tution of fine flour when the bowels become too active.
Yours, etc., HORACE A. BARROWS.
LETTER VI.--FROM DR. CALEB BANNISTER.
PHELPS, N. Y., May 4, 1835.
SIR,--My age is fifty-three. My ancestors had all melted away with hereditary consumption. At the age of twenty, I began to be afflicted with pain in different parts of the thorax, and other premonitory symptoms of phthisis pulmonalis. Soon after this, my mother and eldest sister died with the disease. For myself, having a severe attack of ague and fever, all my consumptive symptoms became greatly aggravated; the pain was shifting--sometimes between the shoulders, sometimes in the side, or breast, etc. System extremely irritable, pulse hard and easily excited, from about ninety to one hundred and fifty, by the stimulus of a very small quant.i.ty of food; and, to be short, I was given up, on all hands, as lost.
From reading "Rush" I was induced to try a milk diet, and succeeded in regaining my health, so that for twenty-four years I have been entirely free from any symptom of phthisis; and although subject, during that time, to many attacks of fever and other epidemics, have steadily followed the business of a country physician.
I would further remark, before proceeding to the direct answer to your questions, that soon perceiving the benefit resulting from the course I had commenced, and finding the irritation to diminish in proportion as I diminished not only the quality, but quant.i.ty of my food, I took less than half a pint at a meal, with a small piece of bread, amounting to about the quant.i.ty of a Boston cracker; and at times, in order to lessen arterial action, added some water to the milk, taking only my usual quant.i.ty in _bulk_.
A seton was worn in the side, and a little exercise on horseback taken three times every day, as strength would allow, during the whole progress. The appet.i.te was, at all times, not only _craving_, it was _voracious_; insomuch that all my sufferings from all other sources, dwindled to a point when compared with it.