children. Till they are three years
old, he says, their diet should consist of plain milk, panada, good
bread, barley meal porridge, and rice. He also complains of pampering
them with animal food. The same arguments which are good for forming
them to the habits of vegetable food exclusively for the first three
years of life, would be equally good for its continuance.

DR. CULLEN, OF EDINBURGH.

The name of Dr. Cullen is well known, and he has long been regarded as
high authority. Yet this distinguished writer and teacher expressly
says, that a very temperate and _sparing_ use of animal food is the
surest means of preserving health and obtaining long life. But I will
quote his own language, in various parts of his writings. And first,
from his Materia Medica:

"Vegetable aliment, as never over-distending the vessels or loading the
system, never interrupts the stronger emotions of the mind, while the
heat, fullness, and weight of animal food, is an enemy to its vigorous
efforts. Temperance, then, does not consist so much in the quantity, for
that will always be regulated by our appetite, as in the _quality_,
viz., a large proportion of vegetable aliment."

I will not stop here to oppose Dr. C.'s views in regard to the quantity
of our food; for this is not the place. It is sufficient to show that he
admits the importance of _quality_, and gives the preference to a diet
of vegetables.

He seems in favor, in another place in his works, of sleeping after
eating--perhaps a heresy, too--and inclines to the opinion that the
practice would be hardly hurtful if we ate less animal food.

But his "First Lines of the Practice of Physic," abounds in testimonies
in favor of vegetable food. In speaking, for example, of the cure of
rheumatic affections, he has the following language:

"The cure, therefore, requires, in the first place, an antiphlogistic
regimen, and particularly, a total abstinence from animal food, and from
all fermented or spirituous liquors."

"Antiphlogistic regimen," in medical language, means that food and drink
which is most cooling and quieting to the stomach and to the general
system.

In the treatment of gout, Dr. Cullen recommends a course like that which
has been stated, except that instead of proposing vegetable food as a
means of cure, he recommends it as _preventive_. He says--

"The gout may be entirely prevented by constant bodily exercise, and by
a low diet; and I am of opinion that this