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(p. 77)
IT requires rather a course of lectures
than a lecture to treat adequately, and in all its bearings, the subject upon
which you have invited me to address you. For it is one which, being
appropriately plant-like in nature, has many root-fibres, which penetrate into
various strata of knowledge and experience, and the shadow it casts extends over
a vast area of thought, related as well to the future as to the past.
I might, for instance, invite your attention to the consideration of human
dietetics in the light of history. I might point to the opening of the
Kabbalistic Book of Genesis, the origin of which is undoubtedly Indo-Egyptian,
as evidence of the teaching of the sacred mysteries in regard to the nature of
the food proper to man in an unfallen state; or I might cite to you the famous
passages in which Ovid describes the Golden or Arcadian Age, when, "contented
with the food which nature freely gave, men were happy in the fruit of trees,
and herbs of earth, nor stained their lips with blood." And I might point out to
you further, what also Ovid well shews in the speech he puts into the mouth of
the Samian sage; how, with the odious practice of flesh-eating, came likewise
that of bloody sacrifice and aggressive war, – a dismal triad, whose mutual
relations are nowhere so forcibly and graphically portrayed as in the Iliad of Homer. But that I do
not desire to weary you with quotations and references, I might remind you of
the teachings of that purest and noblest school of Greek philosophy to which
Pythagoras gave his name, and which, through the influence of his disciples of a
later age, Porphyry and lamblichus, became the parent of Neo-platonism; I might
cite the letters of Seneca to Lucilius; Plutarch's celebrated Essay on Flesh-Eating,
(p. 78)
and certain passages from the
Republic
of Plato, the chief exponent in which dialogue is Socrates; I might speak of
Tertullian's treatise on abstinence from animal meats, in which he criticises
Paul's observations on the subject; and of works having a similar import from
the pens of Clement of Alexandria and Chrysostom the Golden-mouthed. I might
recall to your minds the innumerable army of prophets, heroes, saints, hermits,
and fathers of both Orient and Occident, whose practice, whether as Magi,
Therapeuts, Brahmans, Buddhists, Nazarites, Essenes, Ebionites, or Gnostics, was
identical with that of the modern
But as my time is brief and my theme long, I must content myself with only a
scant indication of the witness borne to the doctrines of our School by the
great and gifted of bygone and present times, and pass on to touch on a few
points of more practical and immediate interest.
I shall say first a few words in relation to the anatomical, physiological, and
chemical aspects of human dietetics; next I shall speak of the economical,
sanitary, and aesthetic bearings of the question; lastly, I shall give a few
suggestions which may help you to formulate a more complete and satisfactory
code of social and personal ethics than that commonly enunciated from modern
pulpits and platforms.
Whether we adopt the theory of the Evolutionists or that of the Creationists –
and I may as well say at the outset that I hold the former, as containing the
only intelligible and scientific explanation of natural order and phenomena – we
must equally admit the Linnaean classification of animals, by which man is
placed in the same series as the Ape family. All the characteristics of the
human creature are equally those of the higher Primates, and in particular of
the orang-outang, the gorilla, and the chimpanzee. Their cranium, their cerebral
convolutions, their teeth and dental morphology, their jaw action and glandular
appendages, their stomach, liver, and alimentary canal, their hands adapted for
fruit-gathering and tree-climbing – all these, refined and elaborated, are
distinctly human in character, and differ in every particular from the
(p. 79)
carnivorous
attributes of predacious beasts on the one hand, and on the other, from those of
the ruminant herbivora. Now the Ape family, man included, are all naturally
frugivorous. The food of the anthropoids is derived from tree and grain produce,
and though some of the tribe are great egg-suckers and insect-hunters, these
pursuits are incidental only, and are clearly due, especially as regards the
latter, to the curiosity and love of mischief which characterise alike the ape
and the savage man. In no zoological collection that I ever yet heard of is the
ape or the monkey supplied with any flesh food, or even with animal products.
The rations served daily to these creatures in the Jardin des Plantes at
Now, the digestive apparatus of the family to which man belongs, may, broadly
speaking, be divided into three separate receptacles and laboratories, to each
of which a distinct function is appropriated. These three departments are the
stomach, the intestines, and the liver, and to each corresponds a special
chemical division of alimentary substances, known to modern science respectively
as nitrogenous, fatty, and starchy foods. The first-named group, the nitrogenous
foods, are fourfold in constitution, containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen, with traces of sulphur and phosphorus. Nitrogenised compounds are
obtainable from both vegetable and animal sources, and their forms are known as
albumen, fibrine, caseine, gelatine, and chondrine. In vegetables they are
procurable chiefly from seeds; in animals, from muscular tissue. The first three
substances, albumen, fibrine, and caseine, appear primarily in the vegetable
kingdom, and are known to chemists as proteinaceous substances.
By this term it is meant that by the action of heat and an alkali these three
forms of nitrogenised matter furnish a new substance called proteine, produced
in the process by transformation only, and this fact serves to distinguish them
from gelatine and chondrine, products
(p. 80)
of animal origin, which, although nitrogenised, are not capable of
yielding proteine. Albumen, fibrine, and caseine, identical in both organic
kingdoms as regards nature and properties, differ slightly from one another. Albumen contains a
considerable proportion of sulphur and phosphorus, and exists in both the
soluble and the coagulated state, the latter condition being due to the
application of heat above the ordinary temperature. It forms the substance known
as "white of egg," which when raw is fluid, and becomes solid by being subjected
to a process of cooking. It is contained in all the cereals, in all seeds, and
in the juices of most herbaceous vegetables. Fibrine differs from
albumen by its characteristic tenaciousness, and by the fact that it coagulates
without heat. More sulphur is present in fibrine than in albumen. In the animal
system fibrine is the material which forms the basis of muscular tissue and the
thickening substance of the blood. In vegetables it constitutes the basis of
gluten – the firm portion of seeds and grains. Caseine neither coagulates spontaneously, as does
fibrine, nor by heat, as does albumen. It contains sulphur, but no phosphorus.
It is obtainable from milk, and therefore from all milky compounds, and from all
peas, beans, and other leguminous seeds.
Not long ago the view taken by scientific men of the uses of proteinaceous food
was a very different one from that which recent observation and inquiry seem to
have satisfactorily established as correct. In accordance with Liebig's
hypothesis, nitrogenous (or proteine-giving) material used to be regarded as the
only and exclusive source of muscular and nervous power. It was held that nitrogenous matter, after
becoming incorporated with muscular tissue and passing through that condition,
disintegrated in the system into two constituent parts, one of which was
eliminated from the body as waste material, and the other retained for the
production of heat and energy. Thus, it was thought, all food must become organised tissue before it
can contribute to force production; and the tissues of the body being consumed
in the manifestation of functional activity, and exhausted by metamorphosis into
force, nitrogenous matter must be constantly ingested to replace the double loss
and expenditure involved. Although partially true, this hypothesis erred in attributing
to nitrogenised food the work of supply of power as well as of repair of tissue.
In fact, the force evolved by muscular
(p. 81)
action does not, as Liebig supposed, proceed from destruction of muscular
tissue; his assumption to this effect having been abundantly disproved by the
analysis of the effete matters thrown off from the system during muscular
exertion, and by careful research undertaken by numerous investigators, and
based both on experiment and on arithmetical calculation. The truth appears to
be that the property of proteinaceous foods is pre-eminently to serve as
material for the development and for the renovation of the various tissues and
secretions of the economy. As waste is perpetually occurring alike in muscular,
nervous, and glandular tissue, and as a vast quantity of secreted juices is
constantly expended in the work of the vital processes, it is of great
importance that nitrogenous aliment sufficient to compensate these losses, and
to repair the substantial elements of the economy, should be ingested daily.
All the various groups of nitrogenous food are digested in the stomach by means
of the gastric juice, a secretion having an acid reaction, and of which the
active elements are a soluble ferment called pepsine – whereby albuminous foods
are converted into peptones – and an acid, closely resembling in nature and
characteristics the mineral product known as hydrochloric or muriatic acid. The
effects of the gastric juice on the three chief groups of nitrogenous food,
viz., albumen, fibrine, and caseine, differ slightly in detail, but under its
influence all are
liquefied, dissolved, transformed, and rendered fit for assimilation. This
digestive process is greatly aided by animal heat, and by the mechanical action
set up during the operation in the muscular walls of the organ itself, which,
like every other organ of the living body, is intelligent in its functions and
takes an active part in the offices of life. From the stomach, the liquefied
food, or chyme, is passed on into the next digestive department, where, if
necessary, it is further elaborated, and in which the process of absorption
commences.
The nitrogenised foods in ordinary use in this country are more commonly derived
from the animal than from the vegetable kingdom. They comprise milk and cheese,
eggs, lean flesh-meats, poultry, game, and fish; beans, haricots, peas, lentils,
all the cereals, nuts, and some herbs. Of these various materials, the
proportion of nitrogen yielded by flesh, poultry, game, and fish is much less
than that yielded by an
(p. 82)
equal percentage of cheese and vegetable matter. Beef and mutton, for
instance, give an average of 18 %, of nitrogen; pork and ham, 8 %; white fish,
17 %; while cheeses range in nitrogenous value from 25 to 44 %, and the bean
tribe from 25 to 30 %. There is thus,
a priori, a greater advantage in nitrogenous value to be derived
from a given amount of vegetable and milk food than from the same amount of
flesh meat. But there is another consideration, important to the human being who desires
not only that his food should be nutritious but that it should be pure. Comestibles of every
kind, and nitrogenised foods in particular, contain, besides nutritive matter,
elements improper to assimilation, and destined to be rejected by the economy as
waste or "ash." These elements are divisible into two categories: substances
innutritious by their nature but not impure or vitiated in constitution, such as
cellulose, and the woody fibre of plants and all vegetable products; and
substances both innutritious and vitiated, such as are contained in the juices
of flesh meats.
The finest and healthiest animal tissue is always permeated by blood, for it is
impossible, unless by processes which would utterly ruin it as food, to separate
blood from the solid material everywhere pervaded by the circulating vessels.
Flesh and blood are therefore virtually inseparable, and their component
elements are continually interchanging. Now, as the blood is the vehicle of the
sewage of the body, as well as the medium of reconstitution, it contains always
two kinds of materials, of which part represents nutrition and part impurity and
decomposition. In eating animal flesh, we consume, therefore, as well as the
healthy and nutritive matter momentarily fixed in the tissue, certain substances
in course of expulsion, decaying products returning into the blood, and destined
for elimination from the body of the animal by the various channels appropriated
to waste residue. These matters, in process of "retrograde metamorphosis," are
known to chemists by such names as creatine, creatinine, xanthine, protagon,
tyrosine, sarcosine, inosic, formic, and butyric acids, and so forth.
I do not now speak of the innumerable perils and disgusting associations
connected with the eating of diseased
flesh. These will be touched on when we come to the sanitary considerations
of our subject. I desire in this place to point out what impurities and
degenerate products are inevitably
(p. 83)
consumed by every kreophagist, be he never so fastidious, careful, or
delicately served.
As the stomach is physiologically related to the digestion of nitrogenous
compounds, so are the intestine and the liver to that of fatty and starchy
foods. These foods differ from nitrogenous aliments in their constitution,
which, instead of being fourfold, comprise three elements only – carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen. The fatty substances are called by chemists,
hydro-carbons; and the starches and sugars, carbo-hydrates. The first group
contains carbon, hydrogen, and a small
amount of oxygen; the second comprises carbon, with hydrogen and oxygen in
the exact proportion of two volumes of hydrogen to one of oxygen, H20
– the formula of water. To the hydro-carbons belong all the vegetable oils,
yielded by seeds, nuts, stems, etc., and all the animal fats – butter, lard,
suet, and dripping. To the carbo-hydrates belong substances obtainable – with
one single exception – only from the vegetable kingdom – starch, sugar, gum,
fruit-jelly, and cellulose.
Modern experimentation in physics, aided by the application of chemical
analysis, has demonstrated that as nitrogenous food corresponds to the
development and renovation of living material, so carbonaceous food, of both
groups above named, corresponds to the production in the living organism of
heat, and consequently of force, – heat and force being mutually convertible.
And although, from a chemical point of view, it is necessary to distinguish
between the hydro-carbons and the carbo-hydrates – the proportion of oxygen
being uniformly larger in the latter than in the former – the physiological uses
and character of the two groups may be said to be identical. Both pass through
the stomach without change, both are digested in the small intestine, both
appear to be finally assimilated under the same form, and both are charged with
the function of heat and force production.
Fatty substances – hydro-carbons – consist chemically of a principle possessing
acid properties, called fatty acid, in combination with a radical. A "radical" in
chemical language is a composite body forming a molecular group capable of
acting as a simple body in combination, and transferable from one combination to
another in exchange for one or more atoms of hydrogen or its representatives.
Fats, under which head, of course, oils are included, are decomposed by
alkalies, and by certain ferments contained in the juices of the small
(p. 84)
intestine. These juices are three in number, – the intestinal, secreted
by the small glands of the intestine itself; the pancreatic, secreted by the
pancreas; and the bile, secreted by the liver. The last-named secretion,
however, appears to take no active part in digestion; and although physiologists
have long disputed its function, the general tendency now is to regard it as
destined to play the part rather of scullion than of cook in the culinary
department in which it officiates. That is to say, that while the process of
digestion is going on in the intestine, the bile does not arrive on the scene at
all; but when the work of the other juices is pretty nearly finished – when the
endothelium or superficial cells which line the intestine and take part in the
act of absorption, have begun to peel off and decorticate – then the bile flows
in, sweeps away these deteriorated cells, cleans down the whole laboratory,
renews its surface, and puts everything in order for new work. Thus it prevents
putrid fermentation of the intestinal contents, and repairs the mucous lining of
the alimentary canal. But to the intestinal glandular secretion, and especially
to the pancreatic juice, is committed the operation of the digestive process.
The main part of this process, the emulsification of all the fats and oils, is
performed almost exclusively by the pancreatic juice, an alkaline secretion
which flows into the intestine immediately on the arrival of the food, and of
which the active principle is a mixture of three particular ferments. The fat is
thus broken up, and parted into very minute globules, such as are contained in
milk, and in this condition it is sucked up and absorbed by the little cellular
projecting tubes which line the intestine. Upon starch and other amyloid
matters, comprised under the term carbo-hydrates, and belonging therefore to the
second group of non-nitrogenised solid foods, the action of the intestinal
juices is equally strong. Although these are destined to undergo their final
transformation elsewhere, it is in the intestine that they become converted into
sugar, which, passing by virtue of its diffusibility into the circulating
current of the blood-vessels, is thus conveyed by the portal system into the
liver. It is not precisely determined by what physiological process this
saccharine matter eventually becomes absorbable by the organism, but that the
process, whatever its details, takes place in the liver, and that it is
ultimately in the form of fatty matter that all sugary material is utilised in
the human
(p. 85)
body, appear, according to modern writers, to be indubitable facts.
Of hydro-carbons or fats, the most valuable, but unfortunately the least known
and used in this country, are derived from vegetable sources. These are much
more digestible and suitable food than the animal fats, partly on account of the
assured purity and freedom from disease of their origin, and partly on account
of their more sound and wholesome nature, less liable to decomposition and
alteration than fats obtained from beasts. The best-known vegetable oil is that
of the olive, procured from the fruit by pressure. In
The carbo-hydrates, with one single exception only, come to us from the
vegetable kingdom. The exception is lactine, or sugar of milk. True, a substance
analogous to starch is found in the liver, and under certain diseased conditions
in flesh tissue, but for alimentary purposes these sources are not available.
Sugar is of three kinds: milk-sugar (just named),
(p. 86)
cane-sugar – the crystallised variety in common use, extracted from stems
and roots – and grape-sugar, procurable from every kind of fruit. Honey is also
a vegetable product, being collected from flowers by the insects whose food it
is. It appears that in the living human organism sugar is more readily
assimilable than most substances; and if the deductions of physiologists are
trustworthy, it plays so necessary a part in vital processes, that, as Dr.
Edward Smith observes, "it may be doubted whether the loss of any one element of
food would be so keenly felt as that of sugar. It enters universally into the
dietaries of every class of mankind in every place." In fact, physiology has
demonstrated that grape
sugar, under which form cane
sugar and all saccharine compounds are assimilated, performs in the living
body certain indispensable functions beyond that of heat and force production.
It excites and assists the digestive processes, furnishes abundant chyle, and
probably stimulates the secretion of the salivary glands, always more copious
and necessary in fruit and grain-eating animals than in predaceous mammals. Dr.
Playfair, in his dietaries, while allotting to nitrogenous matter a proportion
of four ounces only, and to fatty substances two ounces, considers carbo-hydrates
– starch and sugar – necessary to the extent of seventeen or eighteen ounces
daily.
Starchy substances are usually described as farinaceous foods. The articles of
this nature chiefly in use among us are sago, tapioca, cassava, arrowroot,
potato, semolina, rice, vermicelli, maccaroni, and all the meals and beans
generally. It must be borne in mind that these foods, especially the corn and
bean-meals, represent also the prime sources of nitrogenous food. Dry common
wheat contains on an average 77 % of hydrates of carbon, and from 15 to 20 % of
nitrogenous material. Barley-meal, rye-meal, quinoa-meal, buck-wheat, maize, and
oatmeal give an average of about 70 % of carbo-hydrates and 12 of nitrogen, the
rest being made up of oily matter and salts.
The type of all human foods – bread – comes to us from the vegetable world, and
the fact that this aliment is popularly regarded as the "staff of life," and the
poetical equivalent of all possible forms of nutritive matter, is in perfect
accord with the estimate of science; for as fruit, or grain – which botanically
are identical – is the most highly vitalised, solarised, pure, and essential
product of organic life, so the food which is
(p. 87)
composed of grain is the most precious to the human economy. In the
wheat-grain are contained all the elements necessary for the fulfilment of the
twofold function of alimentation of which I have already spoken. The cells of
the central part of the grain contain starch, whereby are produced force and
heat; the cells underlying the husk contain nitrogenous substance, whereby
tissues are built up; and in the outer sheathings are found the phosphates and
other mineral materials which enter into the constitution of the animal economy.
The wheat-grain is thus a microcosmic epitome of the various classes of food
with which physiological chemistry has made us acquainted.
Thus it is obvious that from the vegetable kingdom are derived the best and
purest forms of human alimentation. This kingdom not only supplies us abundantly
with the agents of heat and labour, the animal sources of which are totally
inadequate to meet our needs, but it yields us also food of a nitrogenous
character, infinitely healthier, more cleanly, and richer in value than the
flesh of any beast or fowl. For these reasons among many others, it seems
evident that in the operations of normal evolution, plant-life must everywhere
precede animal-life; and that the carnivorous groups of the latter are to be
regarded rather as the result of a degradation from, or retrogression in, the
process of natural development – due to incidental disasters – than as the
outcome of its orderly march.
I have not time, in view of the many important
subjects which press for consideration, to enter upon the question of the
relation of food to national resources. It is a question of profound interest
and import to the political economist, the farmer, the landlord, the
peasant-tenant, and the philanthropic reformer, and needs a treatise to expound
its manifold bearings. But, leaving this momentous subject untouched, the
question of food economy is interesting from a social and domestic, as well as
from a national point of view. A great part of the burden of poverty, which in
most of our large centres presses so severely on the labouring classes, would be
removed were a cheaper system of diet introduced into their homes. It has just
been shewn that many inexpensive kinds of vegetable food contain a percentage of
nutritive material, both nitrogenous and carbonaceous, greatly exceeding that
which can be obtained from costly joints of flesh-meat, the
(p. 88)
waste of which in cooking averages from a third to half the
original weight. An outlay of a shilling in oatmeal, peas, lentils, or beans
will purchase as much nutriment as five shillings expended on butcher's meat. An
idea of the immense economy which might be effected by a more judicious use and
distribution of food-stuffs than that at present in vogue, may be gathered from
Mr. Hoyle's computation, that if the six million families of the United Kingdom
were to reduce their consumption of butcher's meat by a pound's weight only a
week, it would give a saving of ten or more million pounds sterling per annum.
If there be a moral lesson to be got out of
statistics relating to domestic expenditure, it is one which pre-eminently
concerns our national school boards. Let the authorities who hold in their hands
the guidance of the rising generation, and therefore the immediate future of the
country, take up the question of food-supply and domestic economy in a practical
form, and teach the boys and girls committed to their care how to make the most
out of the wages they will earn when they grow to be men and women. Let the
children of the people be taught the values of food-stuffs, and the elements of
organic chemistry – a kind of learning which would be of far more practical
service to them than much of that which the "standards" now require, and the
results of which would, in the best sense, be productive of civilisation and
prosperity. And let attention, moreover, be given to the instruction of the
girls in the science and resources of housekeeping, with special reference to
the neglected art of vegetable cookery, and of making savoury and appetising
dishes out of inexpensive materials. As a rule, the poor, and even the middle
classes, in
There is far greater perspicacity and economy
shewn with regard to the choice of foods among the peasant classes on the
Continent. In
(p. 89)
take the place of the indigestible joint of pork, the steak pie, or the
uncleanly tripe, which in this country consume the family earnings and preclude
expenditure upon real necessities. For need of the proper instruction, which
might be given in the national schools, but of which, alas! the instructors
themselves stand in need, the poor are universally impressed with the belief
that the prime source of all nourishment worth the name is to be found in
butcher's meat, and to obtain this desideratum they will sacrifice in one day a
sum which, spent with knowledge, would suffice for a week's comfort.
It is not by taking yearly more of our home lands
from tillage and labour and laying them waste for rearing cattle that we shall
increase either national prosperity or the material welfare of families. Such
means as these carry with them three inevitable and direct evil tendencies, of
which the first is to increase the chances of cattle epidemics by overstocking,
and by the artificial feeding and rearing of farm-beasts for the market, – both
fruitful sources of peril, especially as regards the production of entozoa, or
worm affections, the varieties of which among stall-fed animals are very great.
The second evil tendency is to throw out of work a large number of agricultural
labourers, and to depopulate the country by diminution of the quantity of
available food produced, thus fostering distress and bringing about enforced
emigration. And the third evil consists in the multiplication of
slaughter-houses, meat-markets, depots for offal and hides, tanneries, and many
offensive and unhealthy trades connected with the butcher's avocation in and
near large cities, thereby detracting enormously from the beauties and pleasures
of civilised life, and increasing proportionately its discomforts, and the risks
of infectious fevers, zymotic contagion, and diseases arising from the
decomposition of animal matter.
We thus come to the consideration of a few facts
related to the sanitary aspect of kreophagy.
Dr. Creighton, addressing the Medical Congress of
1881 on the subject of "Diseases
communicated to Man by the Meat and Milk Supply," said: –
"One ground of our alarm on this subject is that tubercle – or, as it is called,
pearl disease – is quite common in the species of animals to which we trust so
implicitly – one might almost say, so blindly – for a large part of our food.
(...) The disease
(p. 90)
is inherited and chronic, and may be present for years in the body of an
animal and give rise to no symptoms. The distinctive formations of the disease
are sometimes found in animals that have been slaughtered in (apparently)
perfect condition. But the disease in its worst form (...) is mostly met with in
milch cows. (...) The cow-houses in or near large towns are said to contain the
largest proportion of diseased animals; the close confinement throughout the
whole year, the artificial food, the want of fresh air and of sunlight, all
tending to bring out the disease. The cows are milked as long as it is
profitable to milk them, and they are then sold out of the herd, probably to the
butcher. (...) Without adopting alarmist estimates (...) there need be no
hesitation in concluding that the milk of cows in a more or less advanced state
of tubercular disease is constantly being consumed both by infants and by
adults. (...) As for the flesh, there are the lymphatic glands and viscera, and
inferior parts of the carcase, such as the diaphragm, or 'skirt,' which are
especially liable to have the actual tubercular nodules adhering to them, or
more or less intimately blended with them. These inferior parts of the animal
are sold at a cheap rate to the poor, and there is neither popular prejudice nor
legislative enactment to hinder the tubercular meat from being sold. (...) Two
days ago I sent a trustworthy person to certain slaughter-houses in
(p. 91)
his children had died of rapid consumption, and the man himself was now
also dying of the same disease."
In the course of the discussion which followed
Dr. Creighton's paper, Dr. A. Carpenter observed that it had been shown by
"evidence given in a court of law that ninety % of the animals which were
slaughtered for the Metropolitan Meat Market were more or less infected with
tubercle. It was shown too that this was almost universally the case in cows
which had become barren. (...) Meat and milk from diseased beasts could not be
healthy; and so long as animals were kept in close, ill-ventilated sheds,
disease would abound among them. The time must come," he thought, "when they
would be kept in the manner which nature designed them to be, viz. in the open
fields of the country only."
This last remark of Dr. A. Carpenter is certainly
sagacious, but it necessarily assumes a vast reduction in the quantity of
flesh-meat and milk consumed. For the "open" pastures of this country would not
support enough cattle in the "natural" condition of which he speaks to meet a
fifth part of the present demand for animal food.
In the same section of the Congress, Mr. F. Vacher presented an address on "The Influence of Various Articles of Food in
spreading Parasitic, Zymotic, Tubercular, and other Diseases." Corroborating
Dr. Creighton, he said: –
"The foods which alone can spread their own
diseases to the subjects by whom they are ingested are necessarily meat and
milk, or their derivatives. There is abundant evidence in support of the view
that foot-and-mouth disease may be spread to the human subject by means of milk,
also tubercle: and as regards meat, there is evidence that a specific disease
may be communicated to man by the ingestion of meat tainted with splenic fever
or anthracoid disease, and erysipelas (a common symptom in many animal diseases)
may spread to man by means of flesh. (...) Other diseases can be spread by means
of meat infected by entozoa." (1)
(p. 92)
Mr. Ernest Hart, in a long and careful paper, fortified by copious statistics,
proved that typhoid fever, scarlatina, and diphteria had been all largely
propagated by the use of milk.
"There is nothing," he said, "in the analogy of
epidemics to limit the list to these three maladies, and already we are seeing
indications of other cognate diseases being spread by the same agency. The
number of epidemics of typhoid fever recorded in the abstract as due to milk is
fifty; of scarlatina, fifteen; and of diphtheria, seven. The total number of
cases during the epidemics traced to the use of infected milk may be reckoned in
round numbers as 3500 of typhoid fever, 800 of scarlet fever, and 500 of
diphtheria. When it is remembered that barely ten years ago we were utterly
ignorant that milk was a carrier of infection, and that all these observations
have been taken within one short decade, it will be seen how vitally important
is the safe-guarding of our milk supplies from contamination. That so common an
article of food as milk should be so readily capable of absorbing infection is a
question of
(p. 93)
greatest moment. The houses invaded during these epidemics were found to
be commonly of the better class, and in healthy situations. The poor, who take
very little milk, and that only in tea or coffee, generally escaped."
Entozoic diseases, due to the presence in various
parts of the body of small parasites – some varieties of which are microscopic –
are largely communicable to man, and the consequence of eating the flesh of
animals so affected is often fatal, especially in the case of the common pork
malady known as trichinosis.
The large tape-worm, or taenia,
which in the intestinal cavity of man often acquires a length of many feet,
is derived from the bullock, the calf, and the pig; fluke, or liver-worm, is
common in the sheep. Usually, in thickly populated districts, the livers of all
sheep supplying the markets are riddled with these small worms.
In connection with this part of my subject, I
should like to offer a few remarks in regard to the new method of "inoculation"
as a preservative against certain forms of cattle and sheep disease. As you are
aware, this method, to which Pasteur has attached his name, consists of the
introduction into the blood of healthy animals of the attenuated or "cultivated"
virus of anthrax, a malignant disease which for some time past has occasionally
attacked districts devoted to the rearing of herds and flocks. Now, Pasteurism
is the means by which modern science seeks to combat Nature's determination to
put down redundant numbers, and to maintain a just equilibrium. Man, for
purposes at once unnatural and immoral, has artificially multiplied to an
enormous extent certain species of animals, and has given up to their support
vast areas of otherwise serviceable land. Whenever any particular kind of
animal, not excepting man himself, increases beyond a certain ratio over a
limited area, Nature provides means to check the increase, and to restore the
balance of species. The flesh-eating propensities of all classes of mankind
have, during the last few decades, been steadily growing, and to minister to
these propensities domesticated eatable animals have been bred all over the
western half of the world in incredible numbers. Cause has brought about effect;
overcrowding, artificial living, the impossibility of maintaining invariable
sanitary conditions, and other inconveniences connected with breeding, have
produced their inevitable nemesis. Pasteur proposes to get the better of Nature
by anticipating
(p. 94)
her hand, and by infecting the yet unsmitten cattle and sheep with a mild
form of disease, which shall prevent them from succumbing to its deadlier type.
This means simply that so long as the animals are under the influence of the
disease, whether mild or malignant, they will not be liable to contract a fresh
bout of it. If a person has small-pox in his economy, he will not be liable to
any fresh contagion from extraneous sources. But there comes a time, perhaps in
seven years or less, perhaps in ten or more – in some persons much sooner – when
the influence of the disease will have wholly passed out of the economy, and
then the body again becomes liable to contagion. So it is with anthrax in
cattle. Pasteur and his followers know this, and they recommend therefore
re-inoculations at certain intervals. All of which means that in order to keep
our flocks and herds from diminishing, and to be able to meet the unnatural
demand for abundance of flesh, and to eat oxen and sheep without stint, we must
keep them in a constant state of splenic infection. For be sure that so long as
they are "protected," as it is called, so long the deadly
bacillus anthracis is somewhere about in the tissues and humours
of the inoculated animal. Were it not, the "protection" would cease. The system
is based on the principle of setting a thief in the house to keep other thieves
out. But when once the house-keeping thief departs and leaves the house clean of
his presence, the gang outside are liable to break in. Nor is the bacillus anthracis, even when fully in possession of
the economy, able to keep out other diseases. On the contrary, an official
report recently made to the Hungarian Department of Public Health on Pasteur's
inoculation declares that "deaths from other complaints, such as catarrh,
pneumonia, pericarditis, etc., occurred
exclusively
amongst the inoculated. It follows from this that a fatal issue from other
severe diseases is accelerated by protective inoculation." Of this fact also
Pasteur and his school are aware, for they now recommend, as Mr. Fleming informs
us in the Nineteenth Century,
the application of the "protective" method to all infectious forms of
disease! All the zymotic diseases are believed to be inoculable by means of
their special bacilli, and it is gravely argued, nay, even urged with all the
pompous air of scientific authority, that henceforth the blood of both man and
beast should be infected by every one of these germs, and thus be maintained in
a continual state of ferment
(p. 95)
and impurity. "Disease is king," cry the scientists; "long live Disease!"
Truly, we may despair of successfully eradicating by means of hygiene and
sanitation the myriad forms of living dirt, while "prophylactic medicine," as it
is sarcastically termed, industriously multiplies, preserves, circulates,
transmits, and sows the fatal germs broadcast over all the earth.
There is, besides, another grave consideration
connected with Pasteurism, and one which is specially related to our subject. We
have seen how transmissible from cattle to man by means of milk and meat are
tubercular disease, foot-and-mouth disease, and other complaints. Why not then
splenic disease in similar fashion? Anthrax is communicable to wool-sorters and
tanners by mere contact with infected hides; what warrant have we that the
secretion and flesh of creatures suffering under the influence of attenuated
virus will prove harmless eating and drinking? Such ingesta may not perhaps set
up true anthrax, but might develop unpleasant blood-symptoms, and predispose to
such diseases as erysipelas, septicaemia, cutaneous eruptions, inflammatory
tendencies, or general ill-defined morbid conditions. On this subject the
Hungarian Report says: –
"When we consider that the inoculative material
contains anthrax microzymes in colossal quantities, although of diminished
virulence, and that the microzymes multiply to a gigantic extent in the organism
of the inoculated animals, we see that the general employment of protective
inoculations would spread these germs in inconceivable quantities through the
whole country. Deaths will occur at all times, even among the inoculated
animals, and the possibility is not excluded that the microzymes which would be
liberated from the dead bodies when they became scattered, might regain their
original virulence, and thus, despite all trouble and cost, attack both men and
animals. This is all the more to be feared, as the carelessness with which
people even now treat the bodies of animals which have died from anthrax would
then be increased by belief in the omnipotence of protective inoculation."
So far, I have briefly placed before you a few
arguments drawn from comparative anatomy, chemistry, physiology, domestic
economy, and hygiene. All these considerations belong to the utilitarian aspects
of the subject, and affect us rather as physical than as spiritual beings. But
the cause of
(p. 96)
akreophagy may be pleaded yet more strongly from a higher and distinctly
human point of view,
intimately related to the arts which beautify life and civilise our race, and,
better and worthier still than these, to those just, compassionate, and gentle
instincts of man, in virtue of which alone he is man, differing from and
surpassing all other creatures. (1) (...)
Ouida, the novelist, who has contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine a
very good article against vivisection, writes thus in regard to the practice of
flesh-eating.
[Here the
lecturer read the passage quoted by her in the first of her Letters on Pure Diet in The Food Reform Magazine.
(2)]
To those of us who have lifted the veil which
polite society in general finds it convenient to draw between the fashionable
dining-room and the slaughter-house, it is no longer possible to sit down with
placid mind and complacent face to a table loaded with carcases, and to bend
piously forward while the stereotyped "grace" is murmured, and the Lord is
thanked for the mercies graciously bestowed on the carnivorous company! "The
mercies!" Heaven save the mark! But
the Vegetarian host and his guests have no cause for shame. Their lentils, their
rice, their fruits, their savoury dishes have been bought at no cost of
suffering, terror, despair, or degradation to man or beast. The gardener, the
agriculturist, the reaper, the fruit-gatherer are all of them in the enjoyment
of healthy, invigorating, and ennobling pursuits. No odours of blood or death
pollute the air they daily breathe, nor do hideous spectacles of pain and
carnage occupy their sight from morn to night, and quench for them all the
manifold loveliness and sweetness of life. The aroma of fields, of vineyards, of
orchards, accompanies the beautiful repast of the man whose meal is such as
Nature prompts; but over the banquet of the eater of dead flesh hangs the filthy
smell of the shambles.
We are
told that great things in the interests of progress, enlightenment, and other
sacred names, are being done for the present generation by means of compulsory
education and the facilities everywhere provided for instruction in science and
literature. We are told that among all classes of the people knowledge is to be
increased, intellect cultivated, and
(p. 97)
civilisation spread. But if, as seems too probable, the chariot of
popular education is to be made a vehicle for the propaganda of flesh-eating and
vivisection, it will prove but a car of Juggernaut, whose wheels will assuredly
crush the heart out of the people. A system of education merely intellectual
tends not to civilise, but to bewilder and to harden. It is idle to speak of "civilising"
the children of the new generation by such means as those provided by the Paul
Berts of the day, and by others of the modern school of materialistic biology.
Education, if it is to be really humanising, refining, and elevating in its
results, must be moral and spiritual as well as intellectual. And such an
education as this will never be given by men who inculcate on human beings the
diet of the tiger, and who teach science by the method of the Spanish
Inquisition. Flesh-eating and vivisection are in principle closely related, and
both are defended by their advocates on common premises, of which the
catch-cries are Utility and the Law of Nature.
As regards the consumption of flesh, it has been
shown that being unsuited to the structure and organs of man, comparatively
innutritious, largely impure and unsafe, and extremely costly, it certainly
cannot be recommended on utilitarian grounds. And in respect to vivisection,
though it would be passing strange if a practice carried on throughout Europe
for the past two thousand years had effected nothing, its scanty uses have been
dearly bought indeed at the cost of the agony involved, and of the rare waste of
time, of talent, industry, and intellect over a method mostly vague and futile
in its results, other infinitely more exact and valuable means of research being
meanwhile neglected. And if such low utilities be veritably of paramount import
in the evolution of the race, why have not the vivisectors the courage of their
opinions, and why should they not claim – what their arguments legitimately
cover – the right to vivisect human creatures? Why, while admitting the
principle of vicarious sacrifice, should they shrink from its logical outcome?
Is it because of the foolish popular notion that man only has a "soul," while
other animals have not? All the more reason then, surely, for sparing these in
their one brief life the infliction of suffering which Nature does not impose.
Man, with eternity before him, may well afford, for the good of his kind, a few
hours or even days of suffering. It is, however, the strange fact that the most
atrocious of
(p. 98)
laboratory tortures are inflicted by men who profess to believe the
nature and destiny of the brute and of man identical, and who hold that for
both, death is the irrevocable finale of being. From the point of view of this
doctrine – a doctrine rapidly gaining power, numbers, and importance in Europe –
it is not less difficult to conceive why the brain of the ape should be deemed a
fitting object for experiment, and that of the human infant or savage should be
spared; why the innocent and serviceable horse or dog should be given over to
the tormentors, and the criminal, lunatic, idiot, or pauper should be respected.
As to the second contention, that Nature's law is
the law of prey, and that therefore man has a priori a natural right to rend and torment, it
should be answered that the term "Nature" implies neither individuality nor
responsibility, but simply condition. All that Nature does is to permit the
manifestation of acquired qualities in
individuals. In such sense we must understand the phrase "habit
is Nature." This fact does not justify responsible humanity in the manifestation
of cruelties which put to shame the worst of the carnivora. It is by dint of
following what Mr. Matthew Arnold calls "the stream of tendency which makes for
righteousness" that man has risen out of the baser elements of his nature to the
recognition of the standard known as the "golden rule." And it is precisely in
proportion as he has set himself, on every plane of his activity, to
"Move upward, working out the beast,
And let the wolf and tiger die"
within him, that he has become higher, nobler, – in a word, more manly.
The modern advocates of flesh-eating and vivisection, on the contrary, would
reverse the sentiment of the lines just quoted, and would have us
"Move down, returning to the beast,
And letting heart and conscience die,"
making thereby the practice of the lowest in the scale of Nature the rule
of the highest, and abasing the moral standard of mankind to the level of the
habits of the most dangerous or noxious orders of brutes.
Our opponents are fond of calling arguments such
as these "sentimental," and seem to imagine that the word completely
(p. 99)
disposes of their value. But that this should be the case serves but to
reveal more clearly their own position. For it shows either that they are
ignorant of what the word "sentiment" means – ignorant that honour is a
sentiment, that courage, truthfulness, love, sympathy, friendship, and every
moral quality, the possession of which constitutes the superiority of civilised
man over the savage and the brute, are sentiments; or else that they
deliberately intend to obliterate these qualities from the curriculum of future
generations of mankind, and to exclude them from their definition of humanity.
The pretence of modern civilisation is to aim only at the acquirement of
intellectual knowledge and physical gratification, with but scant, if any,
regard to moral limits. In the creed of the nineteenth century man is man, not
because he has it in him to love justice and to refrain from doing wrong, but
because, being a pre-eminently clever beast, he is the strongest and most
successful of all beasts.
But the disciple of Buddha and of Pythagoras, the
preacher of the Pure Life and of the
To
appreciate and comprehend fully the spirit of Vegetarianism, to explain the
enthusiasm with which it inspires its professors, a man must be at heart a poet.
By this word "poet" I indicate that order of mind which sees intuitively; which
seeks Beauty and Perfection as the end of all study and organisation; which
formulates a clear Ideal, and makes it everywhere the criterion and guide, as
did the Hebrews the Pillar of Flame in the wilderness. Only one of such mind,
capable of knowing the Ideal, and of sacrificing all lower attractions to the
love of the highest, is able fully to understand the enthusiasm of the
Pythagorean, the Buddhist, the abstainer from flesh; the gratification of being
innocent of blood- guiltiness,
(p. 100)
– of knowing that no corpses strew the way to Paradise; and that when
voice or pen is employed against cruelty, against oppression, against any one of
the many forms of injustice rife among men under the reign of Physical Force, no
mortal adversary, no inward conscience can reproach the reformer himself with
the daily sacrifice of innocent victims to the false gods of bodily appetite.
Long since, one who has been called the king of poets, Shelley – the sweetest,
because the tenderest of singers – in a poem (1) which most of us
know as the sustained and earnest protest of a just soul against all modes of
tyranny, wrote these words, so pregnant with power and wise love that they seem
almost the utterance of a prophetic spirit, foreseeing in a vision the far-off
light of the Perfect Day that shall be when the Kingdom of God shall come:
"My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing
Beneath the stars, and the night winds are flowing
O'er the ripe corn, the birds and beasts are dreaming –
Never again may blood of bird or beast
Stain with its venomous stream a human feast,
To the pure skies in accusation steaming.
Avenging poisons shall have ceased
To feed disease and fear and madness;
The dwellers of the earth and air
Shall throng around our steps in gladness,
Seeking their food or refuge there.
Our toil from thought all glorious forms shall cull,
To make this Earth, our home, more beautiful;
And Science, and her sister Poesy,
Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the free!"
FOOTNOTES
(77:1) This lecture was given
by Anna Kingsford on the 24th April 1882, before the Students of Girton College,
Cambridge; ''And Inscribed to them with Sincere Regard." It was printed as a
pamphlet, a second edition of which was issued in 1884, by the Vegetarian
Society (
(91:1)
"Scarlet Fever and Butcher's Meat.
– The rapidly accumulating evidence as to
the influence of food in spreading infectious disease has recently received a
remarkable addition at the hands of Dr. Robertson, who, in his last annual
report on the health of the Penrith Rural District, includes an account of
several cases of scarlet fever, which he is strongly inclined to believe were
communicated through butcher's meat. In a butcher's family there was an
exceedingly mild case of scarlet fever, so mild that no medical man was called
in, – the disease, in fact, not being recognised; but the free desquamation of
the skin, and the former history of slight fever with sore throat, the leaves no doubt as to the nature of the illness.
The occurrence of such a case in a small house, and where no precautions were
taken, renders it an easy matter to spread the disease in the manner Dr.
Robertson suggests. The number of cases in the neighbourhood continued to
increase, notwithstanding all the precautions that were used, in addition to the
closure of the schools. The meat is the only means by which Dr. Robertson can
imagine the disease was carried in several of the cases; in others, the wanton
carelessness of the public, after being fully warned of the danger of having
public meetings and private gatherings, was a fruitful cause of its spread. In
another village, a large number of cases of scarlet fever occurred, and the
health officer has strong reason for suspecting the butcher's meal as a medium
by which the infection was spread. The circumstances here were almost identical
with those of the first outbreak. The first case was at a butcher's house; it
was a slight one, not recognisable by the parents at first; free desquamation
took place, and the child was allowed to run all over the premises." – From the
British Medical Journal, 15th April 1882.
"Outbreak of Typhoid in an Infirmary.
– Within the past few days Leicester Infirmary has been the scene of an
outbreak of typhoid fever, by which no fewer than ten of the dressers, nurses,
and servants have been prostrated, and two others have died. Dr. Buck, the
Medical Officer of Health, has instituted an investigation, from which it
appears that all the victims had drunk raw milk. As the house-drains appeared to
be in good condition, an inquiry was instituted. It was then found that the
person who supplied the milk had been affected by similar symptoms, and that the
owner of the farm from which it came had also suffered. The farm premises were
next inspected. It was ascertained that the well was situated near an
overflowing and leaky cesspool, and that it stood near the end of the
house-drain. An analysis of three samples was made, and it was shown that the
water used for domestic purposes, and with which the milk-cans were washed, was
quite unfit for use, being polluted with sewage. It was therefore inferred that
the outbreak had arisen from the use of contaminated milk. The patients were, at
the last report, progressing favourably."
(96:1)
Here follows a passage, beginning with the words "The Perfectionist" and ending
with the words "once explicable," similar to that in the first of Anna
Kingsford's Letters on Pure Diet in The Food Reform Magazine (see pp. 65-66, ante).
(96:2)
See pp. 66-67, ante.
(100:1) The
Revolt of Islam, Canto V. (li. 5).
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