t the editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal:

"It is true[13] that animal food contains a greater portion of
nutriment, in a given quantity, than vegetables; but the digestive
functions of the human system become prematurely exhausted by constant
action, and the whole system eventually sinks under great or
uninterrupted excitement. If, for the various ragouts with which modern
tables are so abundantly furnished, men would substitute _wholesome
vegetables and pure water_, we should see health walking in paths that
are now crowded with the bloated victims of voluptuous appetite.
Millions of Gentoos have lived to an advanced age without having tasted
any thing that ever possessed life, and been wholly free from a chain of
maladies which have scourged every civilized nation on the globe. The
wandering Arabs, who have traversed the barren desert of Sahara,
subsisting on the scanty pittance of milk from the half-famished camel
that carried them, have seen two hundred years roll round without a day
of sickness."

SYLVESTER GRAHAM.

Although Mr. Graham does not, so far as I know, lay claim to the
"honors" of any medical institution, it cannot be doubted that his
knowledge of physiology, to say nothing of anatomy, pathology, and
medicine, is such as to entitle him to a high rank among medical men;
and I have, therefore, without hesitation, concluded to insert his
testimony in this place.

Of his views, however, on the subject before us, it seems almost
superfluous to speak, as they are set forth, and have been set forth for
many years, so conspicuously, not only in his public lectures, but in
his writings, that the bare mention of his name, in almost any part of
the country, is to awaken the prejudices, if not the hostilities, of
every foe, and of some friends (supposed friends, I mean), of
"temperance in all things." It is sufficient, perhaps, for my present
purpose, to say of him, that, after the most rigid and profound
examination of the subject which he is capable of making--and his
capabilities are by no means very limited--it is his unhesitating
belief, that in every climate, and in all circumstances in which it is
proper for man to be placed, an exclusively farinaceous and fruit diet
is the best adapted to the development and improvement of all his powers
of body, mind, and soul; provided, however, he were trained to it from
the first. And even at any period of life, unless in the case of certain
forms