getable aliment is better--all
other things being equal--than that which is produced from any other
food. For proof of this, we need but the testimony of Oliver and other
physiologists. They tell us, unhesitatingly, that under the same
circumstances, chyle which is formed from vegetables will be preserved
from putrefaction many days longer--the consequence of greater purity
and a more perfect vitality--than that which is formed from any
admixture of animal food. Is it not, then, better for the purposes of
health and longevity? Can it, indeed, be otherwise? I will say nothing
at present, for want of space to devote to it, of the indications which
are afforded by the other sensible properties of the chyle which is
produced from vegetables. The single fact I have presented is enough on
that point.

The best solids and fluids are produced by vegetable eating. On this
single topic a volume might be written, without exhausting it, while I
must confine myself to a page or two.

In the first place, it forms better bones and more solid muscles, and
consequently gives to the frame greater solidity and strength. Compare,
in evidence of the truth of this statement, the vegetable-eating
millions of middle and southern Europe, with the other millions, who,
supposed to be more fortunate, can get a little flesh or fish once a
day. Especially, make this comparison in Ireland, where the vegetable
food selected is far from being of the first or best order; and whose
sight is so obtuse as not to perceive the difference? I do not say,
compare the enervated inhabitant of a hot climate, as Spain or Italy,
with the inhabitant of England, or Scotland, or Russia, for that would
be an unfair comparison, wholly so; but compare Italian with Italian,
Frenchman with Frenchman, German with German, Scotchman with Scotchman,
and Hibernian with Hibernian.

In like manner, compare the millions of Japanese of the interior, who
subsist through life chiefly on rice, with the few millions of the
coasts who eat a little fish with their rice. Make a similar comparison
in China and in Hindostan. Notice, in particular, the puny Chinese, who
live in southern China, on quite a large proportion of shell-fish,
compared with the Chinese of the interior. Extend your observations to
Hindostan. Do not talk of the effeminate habits and weak constitutions
of the rice and curry eaters there--bad as the admixture of rice and
curry may be--for that is to compare the Hindoo