iquors, tea and coffee, opium and
tobacco,--I feel confident in pronouncing them not only useless, but
noxious to the animal machine.

Yours, etc.,
ELEAZER PARMLY

NEW YORK, January 31, 1835.

LETTER II--FROM DR. W. A. ALCOTT.

BOSTON, December 19, 1834.

DEAR SIR,--I received your communication, and hasten to reply to as many
of your inquiries as I can. Allow me to take them up in the very order
in which you have presented them.

Answer to question 1. I was bred to a very active life, from my earliest
childhood. This active course was continued till about the time of my
leaving off the use of flesh and fish; since which period my habits
have, unfortunately, been more sedentary. I think my muscular strength
is somewhat less now than it was before I omitted flesh meat, but in
what proportion I am unable to say; for indeed it varies greatly. When
more exercise is used, my strength increases--sometimes almost
immediately; when less exercise is used, my strength again diminishes,
but not so rapidly. These last circumstances indicate a more direct
connection between my loss of muscular strength and my neglect of
exercise than between the former and my food.

2. Rather more agreeable; unless I use too large a quantity of food; to
which however I am rather more inclined than formerly, as my appetite is
keener, and food relishes far better. A sedentary life, moreover, as I
am well satisfied, tends to bring my moral powers into subjection to the
physical.

3. My mind has been clearer, since I commenced the experiment to which
you allude, than before; but I doubt whether I can better endure a
"laborious investigation." A little rest or exercise, perhaps less than
formerly, restores vigor. I am sometimes tempted to _break my day into
two_, by sleeping at noon. But I am not so apt to be cloyed with study,
or reflection, as formerly.

4. Several. 1. An eruptive complaint, sometimes, at one period of my
life, very severe. 2. Irritation of the lungs; probably, indeed most
certainly, incipient phthisis. 3. Rheumatic attacks, though they had
never been very severe.

The eruptive disease, however, and the rheumatic attacks, are not wholly
removed; but they are greatly diminished. The irritation at the lungs
has nearly left me. This is the more remarkable from the fact that I
have been, during almost the whole period of my experiment, in or about
Boston. I was formerly somewhat subject to palpitation