ny an innocent aliment
injurious, because spices resist the action of the digestive organs, and
produce an irritation of particular parts of the system.

"The kind of aliment influences the health, and even the character of
man. He is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable
aliment; but can live exclusively on either.

"Experience proves that animal food most readily augments the solid
parts of the blood, the fibrine, and therefore the strength of the
muscular system; but disposes the body, at the same time, to
inflammatory, putrid, and scorbutic diseases; and the character to
violence and coarseness. On the contrary, vegetable food renders the
blood lighter and more liquid, but forms weak fibres, disposes the
system to the diseases which spring from feebleness, and tends to
produce a gentle character.

"Something of the same difference of moral effect results from the use
of strong or light wines. But the reader must not infer that meat is
indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of
some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread,
cheese, and butter, are vigorous people.

"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal
aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The
latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when
their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes
in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on
vegetable food."

MR. THOMAS BELL, OF LONDON.

Mr. Thomas Bell, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Royal
College of Surgeons in London, Lecturer on the Anatomy and Diseases of
the Teeth, at Guy's Hospital, and Surgeon Dentist to that institution,
in his physiological observations on the natural food of man, deduced
from the character of the teeth, says, "The opinion which I venture to
give, has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me
sufficient grounds. It is not, I think, going too far to say, that every
fact connected with human organization goes to prove that man was
originally formed a frugiverous (fruit-eating) animal, and therefore,
probably, tropical or nearly so, with regard to his geographical
situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his
teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin
and general structure of his limbs."

LINNAEUS, THE NATURALIST.

Linnae