In 1834, I accidentally learned that Dr. Milo L. North, a distinguished practitioner of medicine in Hartford, Connecticut, was pursuing a course of inquiry not unlike my own, and collecting facts and materials for a similar purpose. In correspondence with Dr. North, a proposition was made to unite our stock of materials; but nothing for the present was actually done. However, I agreed to furnish Dr. North with a statement of my own experience, and such other important facts as came within the range of my own observations; and a statement of my experience was subsequently intrusted to his care, as will be seen in its place, in the body of this work.
In February, 1835, Dr. North, in the prosecution of his efforts, addressed the following circular, or letter and questions, to the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, which were accordingly inserted in a subsequent number of that work. They were also published in the American Journal of Medical Science, of Philadelphia, and copied into numerous papers, so that they were pretty generally circulated throughout our country.
"To the Editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal"Sir, Reports not unfrequently reach us of certain individuals who have fallen victims to a prescribed course of regimen. Those persons are said, by gentlemen who are entitled to the fullest confidence, to have pertinaciously followed the course, till they reached a point of reduction from which there was no recovery. If these are facts, they ought to be collected and published. And I beg leave, through your Journal, to request my medical brethren, if they have been called to advise in such cases, that they will have the kindness to answer, briefly, the following interrogatories, by mail, as early as convenient.
"Should the substance of their replies ever be embodied in a small volume, they will not only receive a copy and the thanks of the author, but will have the pleasure to know they are assisting in the settlement of a question of great interest to the country. If it should appear probable that their patient was laboring under a decline at the commencement of the change of diet, this ought, in candor, to be fully disclosed.
"It will be perceived, by the tenor of the questions, that they are designed to embrace not only unfortunate results of a change of diet, but such as are favorable. There are, in our community, considerable numbers who have entirely excluded animal food from their diet. It is exceedingly desirable that the results of such experiments, so difficult to be found in this land of plenty, should be ascertained and thrown before the profession and the community. Will physicians, then, have the kindness, if they know of any persons in their vicinity who have excluded animal food from their diet for a year or over, to lend them this number of the Journal, and ask them to forward to Milo L. North, Hartford, Connecticut, as early as convenient, the result of this change of diet on their health and constitution, in accordance with the following inquiries?
"1. Was your bodily strength either increased or diminished by excluding all animal food from your diet?
"2. Were the animal sensations, connected with the process of digestion, more or less agreeable?
"3. Was the mind clearer; and could it continue a laborious investigation longer than when you subsisted on mixed diet?
"4. What constitutional infirmities were aggravated or removed?
"5. Had you fewer colds or other febrile attacks or the reverse?
"6. What length of time, the trial?
"7. Was the change to a vegetable diet, in your case, preceded by the use of an uncommon proportion of animal food, or of high seasoning, or of stimulants?
"8. Was this change accompanied by a substitution of cold water for tea and coffee, during the experiment?
"9. Is a vegetable diet more or less aperient than mixed?
"10. Do you believe, from your experience, that the health of either laborers or students would be promoted by the exclusion of animal food from their diet?
"11. Have you selected, from your own observation, any articles in the vegetable kingdom, as particularly healthy, or otherwise?
"N.B. Short answers to these inquiries are all that is necessary; and as a copy of the latter is retained by the writer, it will be sufficient to refer to them numerically, without the trouble of transcribing each question.
"Hartford, February 25, 1835."This circular, or letter, drew forth numerous replies from various parts of the United States, and chiefly from medical men. In the meantime, the prize of the Boylston Medical Committee was awarded to Luther V. Bell, M.D., of Derry, New Hampshire, and was published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, and elsewhere, and read with considerable interest.
In the year 1836, while many were waiting some with a degree of impatience to hear from Dr. North, his health so far failed him, that he concluded to relinquish, for the present, his inquiries; and, at his particular request, I consented to have the following card inserted in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal:
"Dr. North, of Hartford, Connecticut, tenders his grateful acknowledgments to the numerous individuals, who were so kind as to forward to him a statement of the effects of vegetable diet on their own persons, in reply to some specific inquiries inserted in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of March 11, 1835, and in the Philadelphia Journal of the same year. Although many months elapsed before the answers were all received, yet the writer is fully aware that these communications ought to have been published before this. His apology is a prolonged state of ill health, which has now become so serious as to threaten to drive him to a southern climate for the winter. In this exigency, he has solicited Dr. W. A. Alcott, of Boston, to receive the papers and give them to the public as soon as his numerous engagements will permit. This arrangement will doubtless be fully satisfactory, both to the writers of the communications and to the public.
"Hartford, November 4, 1836."Various circumstances, beyond my control, united to defer the publication of the contemplated work to the year 1838. It is hoped, however, that nothing was lost by delay. It gave further opportunity for reflection, as well as for observation and experiment; and if the work is of any value at all to the community, it owes much of that value to the fact that what the public may be disposed to regard as unnecessary, afforded another year for investigation. Not that any new discoveries were made in that time, but I was, at least, enabled to verify and confirm my former conclusions, and to review, more carefully than ever, the whole argument. It is hoped that the work will at least serve as a pioneer to a more extensive as well as more scientific volume, by some individual who is better able to do the subject justice.
It will be my object to present the facts and arguments of the following volume, not in a distorted or one-sided manner, but according to truth. I have no private interests to subserve, which would lead me to suppress, or falsely color, or exaggerate. If vegetable food is not preferable to animal, I certainly do not wish to have it so regarded. This profession of a sincere desire to know and teach the truth may be an apology for placing the letters in the order in which they appear which certainly is such as to give no unfair advantages to those who believe in the superiority of the vegetable system and for the faithfulness with which their whole contents, whether favoring one side or other of the argument, have been transcribed.
The title of the work requires a word of explanation. It is not intended, or even intimated, that there are no facts here but what rest on medical authority; but rather, that the work originated with the medical profession, and contains, for the most part, testimony which is exclusively medical either given by medical men, or under their sanction. In fact, though designed chiefly for popular reading, it is in a good degree a medical work; and will probably stand or fall, according to the sentence of approbation or disapprobation which shall be pronounced by the medical profession.