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VEGETABLE DIET:

AS SANCTIONED BY

MEDICAL MEN,

AND BY

EXPERIENCE IN ALL AGES.

INCLUDING A

SYSTEM OF VEGETABLE COOKERY.

BY DR. WM. A. ALCOTT,

AUTHOR OF THE YOUNG MAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG WOMAN'S GUIDE, YOUNG MOTHER,
YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER, AND LATE EDITOR OF THE LIBRARY OF HEALTH.

SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.

NEW YORK:
FOWLER AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS,
No. 308 BROADWAY
1859.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849,
BY FOWLERS & WELLS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of
New York.

BANES & PALMER, STEREOTYPERS,
201 William st. corner Frankfort, N. Y.




PREFACE


The following volume embraces the testimony, direct or indirect, of more
than a HUNDRED individuals--besides that of societies and
communities--on the subject of vegetable diet. Most of this one hundred
persons are, or were, persons of considerable distinction in society;
and more than FIFTY of them were either medical men, or such as have
made physiology, hygiene, anatomy, pathology, medicine, or surgery a
leading or favorite study.

As I have written other works besides this--especially the "Young
House-Keeper"--which treat, more or less, of diet, it may possibly be
objected, that I sometimes repeat the same idea. But how is it to be
avoided? In writing for various classes of the community, and presenting
my views in various connections and aspects, it is almost necessary to
do so. Writers on theology, or education, or any other important topic,
do the same--probably to a far greater extent, in many instances, than I
have yet done. I repeat no idea for the _sake_ of repeating it. Not a
word is inserted but what seems to me necessary, in order that I may be
intelligible. Moreover, like the preacher of truth on many other
subjects, it is not so much my object to produce something new in every
paragraph, as to explain, illustrate, and enforce what is already known.

It may also be thought that I make too many books. But, as I do not
claim to be so much an originator of _new_ things as an instrument for
diffusing the _old_, it will not be expected that I should be twenty
years on a volume, like Bishop Butler. I had, however, been collecting
my stock of materials for this and other works--published or
unpublished--more than twenty-five years. Besides, it might be safely
and truly said that the study and reading and writing, in the
preparation of this volume, the "House I Live In," and the "Young
House-Keeper," have consumed at least three of the best years of my
life, at fourteen or fifteen hours a day. Several of my other works, as
the "Young Mother," the "Mother's Medical Guide," and the "Young Wife,"
have also been the fruit of years of toil and investigation and
observation, of which those who think only of the labor of merely
_writing them out_, know nothing. Even the "Mother in her Family"--at
least some parts of it--though in general a lighter work, has been the
result of much care and labor. The circumstance of publishing several
books at the same, or nearly the same time, has little or nothing to do
with their preparation.

When I commenced putting together the materials of this little treatise
on diet--thirteen years ago--it was my intention simply to show the
SAFETY of a vegetable and fruit diet, both for those who are afflicted
with many forms of chronic disease, and for the healthy. But I soon
became convinced that I ought to go farther, and show its SUPERIORITY
over every other. This I have attempted to do--with what success, the
reader must and will judge for himself.

I have said, it was not my original intention to prove a vegetable and
fruit diet to be any thing more than _safe_. But I wish not to be
understood as entertaining, even at that time, any doubts in regard to
the superiority of such a diet: the only questions with me were, Whether
the public mind was ready to hear and weigh the proofs, and whether this
volume was the place in which to present them. Both these questions,
however, as I went on, were settled, in the affirmative. I believed--and
still believe--that the public mind, in this country, is prepared for
the free discussion of all topics--provided they are discussed
candidly--which have a manifest bearing on the well-being of man; and I
have governed myself accordingly.

An apology may be necessary for retaining, unexplained, a few medical
terms. But I