Science Gossip on Vegetarianism.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 341, 9 February 1889, Page 5

Science Gossip on Vegetarianism.

Tin: last number of Dr. Taylors Science Gossip to hand contains an avfcic-le on Vegetable Food, a few extracts from which will be founH of interest. ' Beans and lentils,' it state*, ' load the intestinal tract very much in respect of their solid constituents and of the gases formed from them ; meat and rice have not this disadvantage. This and other contra-indications of a shrilar nature would render an exclusive Vegetable diet undesirable. The acidity of the stomach is also much smaller when the diet is exclusively vegetable than when a nrixed diet is taken. It is now generally known that peas, beans, lentils, etc., are the met nutritious of vegetables as regards flesh-forming, but it is not so generally known that they are far more so than flesh meat. Beef without bone contains an average of 17 per cent., while the common dried pens as sold in the shops contain 24 per cent. But the nitrogenous food which they contain (casein) is more difficult to digest than that in flesh. Besides this, they contain much cellulose (woody fiore), which some people can digest much more readily than others can, this difference apparently depending on the supply of saliva and the other secret' ons that contain animal diastase. My own experiments upon myself, and observations of the experience of vegetarians ha% c convinced me that after a long habit of flesh-feeding a sudden change to a purely vegetable diet is usually attended with deficient nutrition displayed veiy visibly at first, but followed by a gradual improvement even though less food be afterwards taken. The majority of vegetarians escape the trouble of this transition by using milk and egers, and I recommend all who try the experiment to do this at first and proceed gradually to the pure vegetable dietary. The diminished acidity observed by Rutger supports the vegetarian contention that goub, rheumatism and other ailments due to excess of uric or lithic acid arecured by abstinence from animal food. I have met with many examples of this, one very striking case but a few days since, when an old gentleman in his eighty-ninth year called upon me respecting a proposed local effort in connection with the vegetarian movement. Tlnee months ago he was setiously ill, expecting to die, and was induced to tiy the exneriment of changing his customary flesh diet. He found immense benefit, from the change. He rises at six a. m , goes to the oity, does a day's work there, and takes long walks for recreation, and his appearance verifies his statements of vigour, both of mind and body '