e moderate use
of alcoholic liquors, to weaken and disturb the balance of action
between the secerning and excerning systems of vessels, by which some
persons become leaner and others fleshier than they should be.

"Position IV.--With about equal potency alcohol and flesh meats weaken
the force of the capillaries of the system, on which healthy action so
much depends.

"Position V.--A flesh diet, in common with the use of strong drink,
impairs the tone of the nutritive apparatus, by which its ability to
work up raw material and manufacture it into sound, well finished vital
fabric, is diminished, and of course the appetite or call for food is
satisfied with a less quantity of the raw material. This fact has given
rise to the opinion that animal food contains more nutriment than
vegetable.

"Position VI.--The total abandonment of an habitual use of animal food
is attended with all the perplexing, uncomfortable, and distressing
difficulties that follow the giving up of an habitual use of strong
drink. A change from one kind of simple nutriment to another has no
such effect. It is only when the constant use of some stimulating
substance is abandoned that such difficulties are experienced."

DR. JARVIS.

This gentleman, in his "Practical Physiology," at page 86, has the
following thoughts:

"Some have contended that man was designed to eat only of the fruits and
vegetables of the earth; while others maintain, with equal confidence,
that he should add to these the flesh of beasts. There are many
individuals, both in this and other countries, who confine themselves to
vegetable diet. They believe they enjoy better health, and maintain
greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet.
The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to
determine its value. It has not proved a failure, nor has it
demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that flesh is injurious."[14]

DR. TICKNOR.

"From the fact," says this author, "that animal food is proper and
necessary for health in polar regions, and that a vegetable diet is
equally proper and necessary in the torrid zone, we may conclude that in
winter, in our own climate, an animal diet is the best; while vegetables
are more conducive to health in the summer season."

It would not be difficult to prove, from the very concessions of Dr. T.,
that vegetable food is better adapted to health, in _general_, than
animal; but I forbear to