ch and
cream, during four days of which time the very small quantity of three
ounces of meat was taken daily, and he found his mental and muscular
power unchanged.

A remarkable experiment on the effect of a potato diet has been
reported by Hindhede. An individual partook of a diet of between four
and one-half and nine pounds of potatoes daily, with some vegetable
margarine, during a period of nearly three hundred days. The rule was to
eat only when hungry and then the potatoes could be taken at the rate of
an ounce a minute. During the last three months (ninety-five days) of
the experiment severe mechanical work was performed and the total food
intake for the latter period amounted to 770 pounds of potatoes and 48
pounds of margarine. What could be more simple than stocking the cellar
with coal, potatoes, and a tub of margarine! Who then would worry about
the complexities of modern life?

Of course, vegetarianism is no new thing. Its principal exponent was
Sylvester Graham. It so happens that he was the brother of my great
grandmother, and of him my father wrote in 1861, "long lanky Sylvester
Vegetable Graham, leanest of men." Graham in 1829 began the advocacy of
moderation in the use of a diet consisting of vegetables, Graham bread,
fruits, nuts, salts and pure water, and excluding meat, sauces, salads,
tea, coffee, alcohol, pepper, and mustard. The first effect of this
diet, which largely eliminated the flavors, was to reduce the weight
through lowering the intake of food, but the health of many followers of
the diet appears to have been benefited. The "Graham System" of dieting
suffered from withering criticism at the time. He published in 1837 a
little book entitled, "Bread and Bread Making," bearing on its cover the
scriptural quotation "Bread strengtheneth man's heart." He says in this
volume:

But while the people of our country are entirely given up as
they are at present, to gross and promiscuous feeding on the
dead carcasses of animals and to the untiring pursuit of
wealth, it is perhaps wholly vain for a single individual to
raise his voice on a subject of this kind.

The well-known work of Chittenden has shown that when the protein
intake is reduced by one half or less of that which the average American
appetite suggests, professional men, soldiers and athletes may be
maintained in the best physical condition. One of Yale's champion
intercollegiate athletes won all the events of the year