No Animal Food | Page 6

and even merry people in the world. Judge Woodruff, of Connecticut.'
'From the day of his irruption into Europe the Turk has always proved
himself to be endowed with singularly strong vitality and energy. As a
member of a warlike race, he is without equal in Europe in health and
hardiness. His excellent physique, his simple habits, his abstinence
from intoxicating liquors, and his normal vegetarian diet, enable him to
support the greatest hardships, and to exist on the scantiest and simplest
food.'
'The Spaniards of Rio Salada in South America,--who come down from
the interior, and are employed in transporting goods overland,--live
wholly on vegetable food. They are large, very robust, and strong; and
bear prodigious burdens on their backs, travelling over mountains too
steep for loaded mules to ascend, and with a speed which few of the
generality of men can equal without incumbrance.'
'In the most heroic days of the Grecian army, their food was the plain
and simple produce of the soil. The immortal Spartans of Thermopylæ
were, from infancy, nourished by the plainest and coarsest vegetable
aliment: and the Roman army, in the period of their greatest valour and
most gigantic achievements, subsisted on plain and coarse vegetable
food. When the public games of Ancient Greece--for the exercise of
muscular power and activity in wrestling, boxing, running, etc.,--were
first instituted, the athletæ in accordance with the common dietetic
habits of the people, were trained entirely on vegetable food.'
Dr. Kellogg, an authority on dietetics, makes the following answer to
those who proclaim that those nations who eat a large amount of
flesh-food, such as the English, are the strongest and dominant nations:
"While it is true that the English nation makes large use of animal food,

and is at the same time one of the most powerful on the globe, it is also
true that the lowest, most miserable classes of human beings, such as
the natives of Australia, and the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, subsist
almost wholly upon flesh. It should also be borne in mind that it is only
within a single generation that the common people of England have
become large consumers of flesh. In former times and when England
was laying the foundation of her greatness, her sturdy yeomen ate less
meat in a week, than the average Englishman of the present consumes
in a single day.... The Persians, the Grecians, and the Romans, became
ruling nations while vegetarians."
In Fruits and Farinacea, Professor Lawrence is quoted as follows: 'The
inhabitants of Northern Europe and Asia, the Laplanders, Samoiedes,
Ostiacs, Tangooses, Burats, Kamtschatdales, as well as the natives of
Terra del Fuego in the Southern extremity of America, are the smallest,
weakest, and least brave people on the globe; although they live almost
entirely on flesh, and that often raw.'
Many athletic achievements of recent date have been won by
vegetarians both in this country and abroad. The following successes
are noteworthy:--Walking: Karl Mann, Dresden to Berlin,
Championship of Germany; George Allen, Land's End to
John-o'-Groats. Running: E. R. Voigt, Olympic Championship, etc.: F.
A. Knott, 5,000 metres Belgian record. Cycling: G. A. Olley, Land's
End to John-o'-Groats record. Tennis: Eustace Miles, M.A., various
championships, etc. Of especial interest at the present moment are a
series of tests and experiments recently carried out at Yale University,
U.S.A., under Professor Irving Fisher, with the object of discovering
the suitability of different dietaries for athletes, and the effect upon the
human system in general. The results were surprising. 'One of the most
severe tests,' remarks Professor Fisher, 'was in deep knee-bending, or
"squatting." Few of the meat-eaters could "squat" more than three to
four hundred times. On the other hand a Yale student who had been a
flesh-abstainer for two years, did the deep knee-bending eighteen
hundred times without exhaustion.... One remarkable difference
between the two sets of men was the comparative absence of soreness
in the muscles of the meat-abstainers after the tests.'

The question as to climate is often raised; many people labour under
the idea that a vegetable diet may be suitable in a hot climate, but not in
a cold. That this idea is false is shown by facts, some of which the
above quotations supply. That man can live healthily in arctic regions
on a vegetable diet has been amply demonstrated. In a cold climate the
body requires a considerable quantity of heat-producing food, that is,
food containing a good supply of hydrocarbons (fats), and
carbohydrates (starches and sugars). Many vegetable foods are rich in
these properties, as will be explained in the essay following dealing
with dietetics. Strong and enduring vegetable-feeding animals, such as
the musk-ox and the reindeer, flourish on the scantiest food in an arctic
climate, and there is no evidence to show that man could