Note 12 — Chapter II · CONSUMPTION.

Were I to summarize the arguments against the saying, that “what is meat for one is poison for another,” I would put it something like this: Its author, and the people, have been deceived in that one person can bear what another can not. Some constitutions have withstood the worst habits—violations of all the known laws of life—gluttony, intemperance to the degree of almost constant drunkenness, the grossest and most constant immorality in departments the most exhausting, until passed what we call old age—and still have rounded out a full century of life. Many, on the other hand, of frailer make, have, by reason of a tithe of such misconduct, been swept into premature graves, at middle-age, early manhood, or even in youth. Others, again, like the last named, and rapidly following them to destruction, have been kept back, put on the mending hand, and have lived fairly long lives, from renouncing their immoral practices, or, perhaps, simply their “unhealthy” practices as to diet, when these have been their only faults. As elsewhere remarked, thousands of lives have been saved and robust health regained, or gained for the first time, from adopting the vegetarian, as against the prevailing “mixed,” diet. I believe that the reverse of this will not be even claimed by any one who has a right to claim expert knowledge. It may be relied upon that no substance that is positively wholesome for one person, is, in and of itself, injurious—speaking with relation to food. To this rule, it must be admitted, there are a few, isolated and, as yet, not fully explained exceptions—but the rule holds good; and it is equally certain that whatever is, in and of itself, harmful for one person to eat or drink, smoke, snuff, or chew, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, food or medicine, is not good, certainly not best, for any other person to eat, drink, absorb, or take into the system in any manner. It is true that there are many things transpiring before our eyes every day which, to the superficial observer—and only the well-informed upon a given subject can see beneath the surface—form apparent exceptions to this rule—even to the degree of seeming to cast it aside as not a rule; nevertheless, no rule holds more uniformly true than this.