Chapter XLVII: Graham. 1794-1851

As an exponent of the physiological basis of the Vegetarian theory of diet, in the most elaborate minuteness, the author of _Lectures on the Science of Human Life_ has always had great repute amongst food reformers both in the United States and in this country. Collaterally connected with the ducal house of Montrose, his father, a graduate of Oxford, emigrated to Boston, U.S., in the year 1718. He must have attained an advanced age when his seventeenth child, Sylvester, was born at Suffield, in Connecticut. Yet he seems to have been of a naturally dyspeptic and somewhat feeble constitution, which was inherited by his son, whose life, in fact, was preserved only by the method recommended by Locke--free exposure in the open air. During several years he lived with an uncle, on whose farm he was made to work with the labourers. In his twelfth year he was sent to a school in New York, and at fourteen he was set for a short time to learn the trade of paper-making. “He is described as handsome, clever, and imaginative. ‘I had heard,’ he says, ‘of noble deeds, and longed to follow in the field of fame.’ Ill health soon obliged his return to the country, and at sixteen symptoms of consumption appeared. Various occupations were tried until the time, when about twenty years of age, he commenced as a teacher of youth, proving highly successful with his pupils. Again ill-health obliged the abandonment of this pursuit.”[265]

At the age of thirty-two he married, and soon after became a preacher in the Presbyterian Church. Deeply interested in the question of “Temperance,” he was invited to lecture for that cause by the Pennsylvania Society (1830). He now began the study of physiology and comparative anatomy, in which his interest was unremitting. These important sciences were used to good effect in his future dietetic crusade. At this time he came in contact with Metcalfe, by whom he was confirmed in, if not in the first instance converted to, the principles of radical dietary reform. “He was soon led to believe that no permanent cure for intemperance could be found, except in such change of personal and social customs as would relieve the human being from all desire for stimulants. This idea he soon applied to medicine, so that the prevention and cure of disease, as well as the remedy for intemperance, were seen to consist mainly in the adoption of correct habits of living, and the judicious adaptation of hygienic agencies. These ideas were elaborated in an _Essay on the Cholera_ (1832), and a course of lectures which were delivered in various parts of the country, and subsequently published under the title of _Lectures on the Science of Human Life_ (2 vols., Boston, 1839). This has been the leading text-book of all the dietetic and nearly all the health reformers since.”[266]

_The Science of Human Life_ is one of the most comprehensive as well as minute text books on scientific dietetics ever put forth. If it errs at all, it errs on the side of redundancy--a feature which it owes to the fact that it was published to the world as it was orally given. It therefore well bears condensation, and this has been judiciously done by Mr. Baker, whose useful edition is probably in the hands of most of our readers. Graham was also the author of a treatise on _Bread and Bread-Making_, and “Graham bread” is now universally known as one of the most wholesome kinds of the “staff of life.” Besides these more practical writings, for some time before his death he occupied his leisure in the production of a _Philosophy of Sacred History_, the characteristic idea of which seems to have been to harmonise the dogmas of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures with his published views on physiology and dietetics. He lived to complete one volume only (12mo.), which appeared after his death.

Tracing the history of Medicine from the earlier times, and its more or less of empiricism in all its stages, Graham discovers the cause of a vast proportion of all the egregious failure of its professors in the blind prejudice which induces them to apply to the _temporary cure_, rather than to the _prevention_, of disease. As it was in its first barbarous beginning, so it has continued, with little really essential change, to the present moment:--

“Everything is done with a view to _cure_ the disease, without
any regard to its cause, and the disease is considered as
the infliction of some supernatural being. Therefore, in the
progress of the healing art thus far, not a step is taken towards
investigating the laws of health and the philosophy of disease.

“Nor, after Medicine had received a more systematic form, did
it apply to those researches which were most essential to its
success, but, like religion, it became blended with superstitions
and absurdities. Hence, the history of Medicine, with very limited
exceptions, is a tissue of ignorance and error, and only serves
to demonstrate the absence of that knowledge upon which alone an
enlightened system of Medicine can be founded, and to show to
what extent a noble art can be perverted from its capabilities of
good to almost unmixed evil by the ignorance, superstition, and
cupidity of men. In modern times, anatomy and surgery have been
carried nearly to perfection, and great advance has been made
in physiology. The science of human life has been studied with
interest and success, but this has been confined to the few, while
even in our day, and in the medical profession itself, the general
tendency is adverse to the diffusion of scientific knowledge.

* * * * *

“The result is, that men prodigally waste the resources as if the
energies of life were inexhaustible; and when they have brought on
disease which destroys their comforts, they fly to the physician,
_not to learn by what violation of the laws of life_ they have
drawn the evil upon themselves, and by what means they can avoid
the same; but, considering themselves visited with afflictions
which they have in no manner been concerned in causing, they
require the physician’s remedies, by which their sufferings may be
alleviated. In doing this, the more the practice of the physician
conforms to the _appetites_ of the patient, the greater is his
popularity and the more generously is he rewarded.

“Everything, therefore, in society tends to confine the practising
physician to the department of therapeutics, and make him a
mere curer of disease; and the consequence is, that the medical
fraternity have little inducement to apply themselves to the
study of the _science of life_, while almost everything, by which
men can be corrupted, is presented to induce them to become the
mere panderers of human ignorance and folly; and, if they do not
sink into the merest empiricism, it is owing to their own moral
sensibility rather than to the encouragement they receive to pursue
an elevated scientific professional career.

“Thus the natural and acquired habits of man concur to divert
his attention from the study of human life, and hence he is left
to _feel_ his way to, or gather from what he calls experience,
all the conclusions which he embraces. It has been observed
that men, in their (so-called) inductive reasonings deceive
themselves continually, and think that they are reasoning from
facts and experience, when they are only reasoning _from a mixture
of truth and falsehood_. The only end answered by facts so
incorrectly apprehended is that of making error more incorrigible.
Nothing, indeed, is so hostile to the interests of Truth as
facts incorrectly observed. On no subjects are men so liable to
misapprehend facts, and _mistake the relation between cause and
effect_, as on that of human life, health, and disease.”

By the opponents of dietetic reform it has been pretended that climate, or individual constitution, must determine the food proper for nations or individuals:--

“We have been told that some enjoy health in warm, and others
in cold climates some on one kind of diet, and under one set of
circumstances, and some under another; that, therefore, what is
best for one is not for another; that what agrees _well_ with one
disagrees with another; that what is one man’s meat is another
man’s poison; that different constitutions require different
treatment; and that, consequently, no rules can be laid down
adapted to all circumstances which can be made a basis of regimen
to all.

“Without taking pains to examine circumstances, people consider the
bare fact that some intemperate individuals reach old age evidence
that such habits are not unfavourable to life. With the same loose
reasoning, people arrive at conclusions equally erroneous in regard
to nations. If a tribe, subsisting on vegetable food, is weak,
sluggish, and destitute of courage and enterprise, it is concluded
that vegetable food is the cause. Yet examination might have shown
that causes fully adequate to these effects existed, which not only
exonerated the diet, _but made it appear that the vegetable diet
had a redeeming effect, and was the means by which the nation was
saved from a worse condition_.

“The fact that individuals have attained a great age in certain
habits of living is no evidence that those habits are favourable to
longevity. The only use which we can make of cases of extraordinary
old age, is to show how the human constitution is capable of
sustaining the vital economy, _and resisting the causes which
induce death_.

“If we ask _how_ we must live to secure the best health and longest
life, the answer must be drawn from physiological knowledge; but
if we ask _how long_ the best mode of living will preserve life,
the reply is, Physiology cannot teach you that. Probably each
aged individual has a mixture of good and bad habits, and has
lived in a mixture of favourable and unfavourable circumstances.
Notwithstanding apparent diversity, there is a pretty equal amount
of what is salutary in the habits and circumstances of each. Some
have been ‘correct’ in one thing, some in another. All that is
proved by instances of longevity in connexion with bad habits is,
that such individuals are able to resist causes that have, in the
same time, sent thousands of their fellow-beings to an untimely
grave; and, under a proper regimen, they would have sustained life,
perhaps, a hundred and fifty years.

“Some have more constitutional [or inherited] powers to resist the
causes of disease than others, and, therefore, what will destroy
the life of one may be borne by another a long time without any
manifestations of immediate injury. There are, also, constitutional
peculiarities, but these are far more rare than is generally
supposed. Indeed, such may, in almost every case, be overcome by
a correct regimen. So far as the general laws of life and the
application of general principles of regimen are considered,
the human constitution is _one_: there are no constitutional
differences which will not yield to a correct regimen, and thus
improve the individual. Consequently, what is best for one is best
for all.... Some are born without any tendency to disease while
others have the predisposition to particular diseases of some kind.
But _differences result from causes which man has the power to
control_, and it is certain that all can be removed by conformity
to the laws of life for generations, and that the human species can
be brought to as great uniformity, as to health and life, as the
lower animals.”

With Hufeland, Flourens, and other scientific authorities, he maintains that:--

“Physiological science affords no evidence that the human
constitution is not capable of gradually returning to the
primitive longevity of the species. The highest interests of our
nature require that _youthfulness_ should be prolonged. And it
is as capable of being preserved as life itself, both depending
on the same conditions. If there ever was a state of the human
constitution which enabled it to sustain life [much beyond the
present period], that state involved a harmony of relative
conditions. The vital processes were less rapid and more complete
than at present, development was slower, organisation more perfect,
childhood protracted, and the change from youth to manhood took
place at a greater remove from birth. Hence, if we now aim at long
life, we can secure our object only by conformity to those laws by
which youthfulness is prolonged.”

As for the _omnivorousness_ of the human animal:--

The ourang-outang, on being domesticated, readily learns to eat
animal food. But if this proves that animal to be _omnivorous_,
then the Horse, Cow, Sheep, and others are all omnivorous, for
everyone of them is easily trained to eat animal food. Horses
have frequently been trained to eat animal food,[267] and Sheep
have been so accustomed to it as to refuse grass. All carnivorous
animals can be trained to a vegetable diet, and brought to subsist
upon it, with less inconvenience and deterioration than herbivorous
or frugivorous animals can be brought to live on animal food.
Comparative anatomy, therefore, proves that Man is naturally a
frugivorous animal, formed to subsist upon fruits, seeds, and
farinaceous vegetables.[268]

The _stimulating_, or alcoholic, property of flesh produces the delusion that it is, therefore, the most _nourishing_:--

“Yet by so much as the stimulation exceeds that which is necessary
for the performance of the functions of the organs, the more does
the expenditure of vital powers exceed the renovating economy; and
the exhaustion which succeeds is commensurate with the excess.
Hence, though food which contains the greatest proportion of
stimulating power causes a _feeling_ of the greatest strength, it
also produces the greatest exhaustion, which is commensurately
importunate for relief; and, as the same food affords such by
supplying the requisite stimulation, their _feelings_ lead the
consumers to believe that it is most strengthening.... Those
substances, the stimulating power of which is barely sufficient to
excite the digestive organs in the appropriation of nourishment,
are most conducive to vital welfare, causing all the processes to
be most perfectly performed, without any unnecessary expenditure,
thus contributing to health and longevity.

“Flesh-meats average about _thirty-five per cent_ of nutritious
matter, while rice, wheat, and several kinds of pulse (such as
lentils, peas, and beans), afford from _eighty to ninety-five per
cent_; potatoes afford twenty-five per cent of nutritious matter.
So that one pound of rice contains more nutritious matter than two
pounds and a half of flesh meat; three pounds of whole meal bread
contain more than six pounds of flesh, and three pounds of potatoes
more than two pounds of flesh.”

That the human species, _taken in its entirety_, is no more carnivorous _de facto_ than it could be _de jure_, is apparent on the plain evidence of facts. In all countries of our Globe, with the exception of the most barbarous tribes, it is, in reality, only the ruling and rich classes who are kreophagist. The Poor have, almost everywhere, but the barest sufficiency even of vegetable foods:--

“The peasantry of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Turkey, Greece,
Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland, a
considerable portion of Prussia, and other parts of Europe subsist
mainly on non-flesh foods. The peasantry of modern Greece [like
those of the days of Perikles] subsist on coarse brown bread and
fruits. The peasantry in many parts of Russia live on very coarse
bread, with garlic and other vegetables, and, like the same class
in Greece, Italy, &c., they are obliged to be extremely frugal even
in this kind of food. Yet they are [for the most part] healthy,
vigorous, and active. Many of the inhabitants of Germany live
mainly on rye and barley, in the form of coarse bread. The potato
is the principal food of the Irish peasantry, and few portions
of the human family are more healthy, athletic, and active, when
uncorrupted by intoxicating substances [and, it may be added, when
under favourable political and social conditions]. But alcohol,
opium, &c. [equally with bad laws] have extended their blighting
influence over the greater portion of the world, and nowhere do
these scourges so cruelly afflict the self-devoted race as in the
cottages of the poor, and when, by these evils and neglect of
sanitation, &c., diseases are generated, sometimes epidemics, we
are told that these things arise from their poor, meagre, low,
_vegetable_ diet. Wherever the various sorts of intoxicating
substances are absent, and a decent degree of cleanliness is
observed, the vegetable diet is not thus calumniated.

“That portion of the peasantry of England and Scotland who subsist
on their barley and oatmeal bread, porridge, potatoes, and other
vegetables, with temperate, cleanly habits [and surroundings],
are able to endure more fatigue and exposure than any other class
of people in the same countries. _Three-fourths of the whole
human family_, in all periods of time [excepting, perhaps, in the
primitive wholly predatory ages] have subsisted on non-flesh foods,
and when their supplies have been abundant, and their habits in
other respects correct, they have been well nourished.”

That the sanguinary diet and savagery go hand in hand, and that in proportion to the degree of carnivorousness is the barbarous or militant character of the people, all History, past and present, too clearly testifies. Nor are the carnivorous tribes conspicuous by their cruel habits only:--

“Taking all flesh-eating nations together, though some, whose
other habits are favourable, are, comparatively, well-formed, as
a general average they are small, ill-formed races; and taking
all vegetable-eating nations, though many, from excessive use
of narcotics, and from other unfavourable circumstances, are
comparatively small and ill-formed, as a general average they are
much better formed races than the flesh-eaters.[269] It is only
among those tribes whose habits are temperate, and who subsist on
the non-flesh diet, that the more perfect specimens of symmetry are
found.

“Not one human being in many thousands dies a _natural_ death.
If a man be shot or poisoned we say he dies a violent death, but
if he is ill, attended by physicians, and dies, we say he dies a
‘natural’ death. This is an abuse of language--the death in the
latter case being as truly violent as if he had been shot. Whether
a man takes arsenic and kills himself, or by small doses or other
means, however common, gradually destroys life, he equally dies a
violent death. He only dies a natural death who so obeys the laws
of his nature as by neither irritation nor intensity to waste his
energies, but slowly passes through the changes of his system to
old age, and falls asleep in the exhaustion of vitality.”[269]

With Flourens he adduces a number of instances both of individuals and of communities who have attained to protracted ages by reason of a pure diet. He afterwards proceeds to prove from comparative physiology and anatomy, and, in particular, from the conformation of the human teeth and stomach (which, by an astounding perversion of fact, are sometimes alleged to be formed carnivorously, in spite of often-repeated scientific authority, as well as of common observation), the natural frugivorous character of the human species, and he quotes Linné, Cuvier, Lawrence, Bell, and many others in support of this truth.[270]