suffer from nervous breakdowns. So you see exercise
out of doors alone will not cure such cases. Sometimes a farmer will
tell me he fears to give up eating meat because he will grow weak as a
result. But just here I wish to call your attention to the fact that
there are nations that have for ages lived on this lacto-vegetarian
diet. I myself have not eaten meat or eggs for ten years. At least I
have not eaten them except the few times mentioned. And every time I did
break the rule I was harmed far more than I was benefited. I am very
sure the farmer who chooses this lacto-vegetarian diet will thrive on
it.

Members of our profession discovered not very long ago that at an
advanced age the peasants of Bulgaria are a wonderfully preserved people
both mentally and physically. Foolishly a great number of the profession
immediately jumped to the conclusion that buttermilk alone did the
miracle for these people. The drinking of buttermilk became such a fad
that some of the largest of our physicians' supply houses began and are
still making "buttermilk tablets." And physicians, many of them, are
credulous enough to prescribe them. They might just as well prescribe
chalk. While buttermilk tablets are harmless, they are of no benefit
whatever. How easily fooled people--physicians included--may be!
Bulgarian peasants are strong and rugged and live to a great age not
because they drink buttermilk, but because they live on milk and fruits
and vegetables and stay out of doors. Buttermilk is a good healthful
drink, but it is only a minor reason for the health and strength of the
Bulgarian peasant. Now, really, could you think of anything more absurd
than to prescribe buttermilk or buttermilk tablets as the fountain of
youth when the patient is breaking all the laws of health, as most
buttermilk laymen and physicians are doing? It seems almost impossible
that people--physicians in particular--should for a moment believe such
things. But they do. Barnum said there was a "sucker" born every minute,
and this certainly seems to be true.

No, there is no royal road to health. The buttermilk-tablet route will
not take you there. If you will live out of doors as Bulgarian peasants
do, and if you will eat as they do,--as man is expected to eat,--you
will live just as long as they do, and you will get a great deal more
out of life and be much more helpful to others. When the "time" comes
round for your next buttermilk tablet, do not take it.