st, with the least pain and fewest
diseases, and without the loss of his senses, I think Pythagoras and
Cornaro by far the two greatest men that ever were:--the first, by
vegetable food and unfermented liquors; the latter, by the lightest and
least of animal food, and naturally fermented liquors. Both lived to a
great age. But, what is chiefly to be regarded in their conduct and
example, both preserved their senses, cheerfulness, and serenity to the
last; and, which is still more to be regarded, both, at least the last,
dissolved without pain or struggle; the first having lost his life in a
tumult, as it is said by some, after a great age of perfect health.

"A plain, natural, and philosophical reason why vegetable food is
preferable to all other food is, that abounding with few or no salts,
being soft and cool, and consisting of parts that are easily divided and
formed into chyle without giving any labor to the digestive powers, it
has not that force to open the lacteals, to distend their orifices and
excite them to an unnatural activity, to let them pass too great a
quantity of hot and rank chyle into the blood, and so overcharge and
inflame the lymphatics and capillaries, which is the natural and
ordinary effect of animal food; and therefore cannot so readily produce
diseases. There is not a sufficient stimulus in the salts and spirits of
vegetable food to create an unnatural appetite, or violent cramming; at
least, not sufficient to force open and extend the mouths of the
lacteals, more than naturally they are or ought to be. Such food
requires little or no force of digestion, a little gentle heat and
motion being sufficient to dissolve it into its integral particles: so
that, in a vegetable diet, though the sharp humors, in the first
passages, are extended, relaxed stomach, and sometimes a delightful
piquancy in the food, may tempt one to exceed in quantity; yet rarely,
if spices and sauces--as too much butter, oil, and sugar--are not joined
to seeds[9] and vegetables, can the mischief go farther than the stomach
and bowels, to create a pressed load, sickness, vomiting, or purging,
by its acquiring an acrimony from its not being received into the
lacteals;--so that on more being admitted into the blood than the
expenses of living require, life and health can never be endangered by a
vegetable diet. But all the contrary happens under a high animal diet."

Now I will not undertake to vouch--as indeed I cannot, consci