of
their families, abstained for a time from animal food. Some of them even
adopted the vegetable system a year or so earlier. And there were a few
who adopted it much sooner--one or two of them eight years earlier.

Of the individuals belonging to the Physiological Society or to their
families, and adhering to the same principles, two adults only died,
and one child, during the first two years. I will not be quite positive,
but there were four in all, two adults, and two children; but this was
the extent of mortality among them for about fifteen months.

The whole number of those who belonged to the society, with those
members of their families who adhered to their principles (estimating
families, as is usually done, at five members to each), is believed to
have been from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty. The
average mortality for the same number of healthy persons, during the
same period, in Boston and the adjacent places, was about six or seven;
though in some places it was much greater. In a single parish in
Roxbury--and without any remarkable sickness--the mortality, for the
same number of persons, was equal to ten or twelve.

Now, we must not forget, what I have already stated, that this society
of vegetable-eaters--the two hundred adults, I mean--were generally
invalids, and some of them given over by physicians. Instead, therefore,
of only half the usual proportion of deaths among them, we might
naturally enough have expected twice or three times the usual number.
And this expectation would have appeared still better founded when it
was considered that many made the change in their habits, and especially
in their diet, very suddenly.

But the whole story is not yet told. Not only was the number of deaths
very small, as above stated, but there were a great number of remarkable
recoveries. Some, who had very obstinate complaints, appeared, for a
time, to be entirely well. Others were getting well as fast as could be
expected. Some, who were broken down and prematurely old, seemed to
renew their youth. Many became free from colds and eruptive complaints,
to which they were formerly subject. And those who had acute diseases,
of whom, however, the number was very small, did not suffer so much as
is usually the case with flesh-eaters in circumstances otherwise
apparently similar.

But a reverse at length came. They were led into their abstemious course
by mere impulse in very many cases, and t