This article has been translated from the French of Prof. H. LabbÉ, the head of the laboratoire À la FacultÉ de MÉdecine, in Paris. It reflects a rather characteristic aloofness to any considerations other than scientific or economic. But it will well repay careful study.—[Eds.]

I

Vegetarianism has been the object of many attacks, and has also been warmly defended. Most of its adepts have sought to give the value of a dogma to its practice.

For quite a number of people “vegetarianism” is a kind of religion, requiring of its votaries a sort of baptism, and the sacrifice of many pleasures. It is this which justifies the infatuation of some, and the systematic disparagement of others.

“Vegetalism”[12] cannot pretend to play a similar part, or to lend itself to ambiguity. To be a “vegetalist” is to choose in the vegetable kingdom, with a justified preference, foods susceptible of filling the energy-producing needs, and the needs of the reparation of the human system.

“Vegetalism” is a chapter of dietetic physiology which must utilise the precise methods and recent discoveries of the science of nutrition.

[12] The word “Vegetarianism” implies a judgment of the qualities which such a diet entails. This word is derived, in fact, from the Latin adjective “Vegetus” (strong). The word “Vegetalism,” which we oppose to the preceding one, admits only the establishing of a fact, that of the choice—exclusive or preferred—of the nutritious matters in the vegetable kingdom.

II

Before putting “vegetalism” into practice the first point is to know whether the foods of “vegetal” origin contain, and are susceptible of producing regularly, the divers nutritive principles indispensable to the organisation of an alimentary diet. The principles are the following:—Proteid or albuminoid substances; hydrocarbonated and sweet substances fatty substances; mineral matters, alkalis, lime, magnesia, phosphates and chlorides, etc. In most compound foods, no matter of what origin, mineral materials almost always exist in sufficient quantities. The most important amongst them, at all events, are found combined in liberal, even superabundant, portions in dishes of vegetal origin. The analysis of the ashes of our most common table vegetables fixes us immediately to this subject: Leguminous plants supply from about three to six per cent. of ashes, rich in alkalis, lime and phosphates. Potatoes, green vegetables and fruit as a whole absorbing considerable quantities of mineral elements. These are the elements of a nature to allow a precise reply to this question which we propose to expound briefly.

III

In order to examine a food thoroughly, for the purpose of ascertaining if it can be advantageously introduced for consumption, whether albumins, fats, hydrate of carbon, or sugar, etc., or again an association of these principles in a composite article of food are in question, divers researches must be carried out before giving a final judgment.

If a more or less complex article of food is in question, before considering it as a good nutriment, its centesimal composition, or its immediate composition, should be established; its theoretic calorific power should be known, and it should be measured if this has not yet been done.

Besides the calorific yield thus estimated in vitro, the real utilisation in the human organism of articles of food alone or mixed with other foods should be determined, taking simultaneously into account their effects, whether tonic, stimulating or depressing.

From a different point of view it is no longer allowable to neglect before judging whether such and such a nutritive substance is advantageous, the valuation of what we have called, with Prof. Landouzy, the economic yield—that is to say, the price of the energy, provided by the unity of weight of the article of food.

It is only in reviewing “vegetal” substances, taking these divers titles into consideration, that we shall be justified in attributing to the practice of “vegetalism,” integral or mitigated, its definite value.

IV

Only a few years ago, when SchÜtzenberger, emulator and forerunner of Fischer, Armand Gautier, Kossel, first disjointed the albuminoid molecule, to examine one by one its divers parts, the composition of the various albumins was very little known. Whether, therefore, albumins of the blood, or those of meat or eggs, were in question, these bodies were hardly ever separated, except through physical circumstances, amongst others by constant quantities of different coagulation. As to the centesimal formula and the intimate structure of the different protoid substances, they could be considered as closely brought together.

From this fact, the physiological problem of the utilisation of albumin was simpler. No matter which article of food contained this albumin, its nutritive power by unity of weight remained the same. At the present time the number of albumins is no longer limited. It is not now physical characteristics founded difficult separations which arbitrarily distinguish those bodies from each other. The individuality of each of the albumins results from its formula of deterioration, under the influence of digestive ferments, or of chemical bodies acting in a similar way, as do mineral acids and alkalis. For want of constituary formula this methodical deterioration makes known the number of molecules (acids or other bodies) which are responsible for the structure of each albumin. These deleterious formula of proteid matter are not less suggestive than composition ones. They reveal notable differences between “vegetal” and animal albumins.

To be sure, animal albumins (beef, veal, mutton, pork, etc.) which we are offered in an alimentary flesh diet, resemble more nearly the structure of our own bodily albumins than do the gluten of bread or the albumin of vegetables. This fact seems actually the best support of the theory which affirms the superiority of the flesh over the vegetable diet. Such a remark is therefore well worth discussing by showing that the consequences which can be deduced from it are paradoxical, and rest upon hypothesis which, not very acceptable in theory, are hardly verified in practice.

Admitting that albumin plays in alimentary diet only the plastic part of reconstruction of used-up corporal matter, it might be advantageous to ingest but one albumin the composition of which is very similar to our own. By virtue of the law of least effort such a one in equal weights ought to be of more service than a foreign albumin, as it requires less organic work. For man, albumin of animal origin ought to be more profitable in equal weight than vegetable albumin. In the organism, indeed, albumin passes through a double labour. After the intestinal deterioration, followed by a passage through the digestive mucus membrane, a re-welding of the liberated acids takes place, with a formation of new albumin.

If, therefore, alimentary albumin's mission is, not to be definitely burnt up in the organism, but to help in the plastication of the individual, the more its initial formula approaches the definite one to which it must attain, the more profitable it becomes, giving out less useless fragments and waste. Animal albumin approaching more nearly to human albumin, is also the one whose introduction into the daily alimentary diet is most rational. This statement seems to be the defeat of vegetal albumin. But let there be no mistake. It consecrates at the same time the triumph of anthropophagy, for there could not be for man a more profitable albumin than his own, or that of his fellow-man! This should make us pause and reflect, before allowing this deduction to be accepted.

Besides, these arguments ad hominem do not appear to us necessary for repelling such an interpretation of facts. Modern works have shown us that the greater proportion of ingested albumin played, in fact, a calorific, and not a plastic, part. Under these conditions one is justified in doubting whether there takes place with regard to the total albumins ingested a work of reconstruction thus complicated in the organism, after their first deterioration. Evidently one may come to believe that this complicated labour applies only to the more or less feeble portion of albumin really integrated.

Practically speaking, the best criterion for judging the utilisation of an ingested albumin lies in the persistence of the corporal weight, allied to the ascertained fact of a stable equilibrium in the total azotized balance-sheet which is provided by the comparison of the “Ingesta” with the “Excreta.” From this point of view there exists the closest similitude between the albumins of animal and those of vegetable origin; both, in fact, are capable of assuring good health and corporal and cellular equilibrium.

However, the digestibility of vegetable albumins seems to remain slightly inferior to that of animal albumins. 97 per cent. of the animal fibrine given in a meal are digested, where 88 to 90 per cent. only of vegetable albumins are absorbed and utilised. It is a small difference, but not one to be overlooked. We must say, however, that the method one employs in determining these digestibilities takes from them a part of their value, and renders difficult the comparison of results obtained. Sensibly pure albumins are too often compared in an artificial diet. One deviates thus from the conditions of practical physiology. In fact, in ordinary meals, all varieties of foods are mixed together, acting and reacting upon each other, reciprocally modifying their digestibility. If one conforms to this way of acting towards alimentary albumins, the results change sensibly. In the presence of an excess of starch, under the shape of bread, for example, vegetable albumin seems to be absorbed in about the same proportions as animal albumin.

If, in a flesh diet, animal albumins are always consumed nearly pure (lean meat containing hardly anything but albumin, besides a little fat, and an inferior quantity of glycogen) vegetable albumin is always, on the contrary, mixed with a number of other substances. This is doubtless one of the reasons which causes the digestibility of vegetable albumins to vary, the foreign nutritive matters being able to bring about, under certain circumstances, and in cases of superabundant ingestions, a real albuminous “saving” in the newest sense of the word.

Besides, a prejudicial question makes the debate almost vain. When it was admitted by such physiologists as Voit, Rubner and their school that from 140 to 150 grammes of albumin in the minimum were daily necessaries in the human diet, a variation of a few units in the digestive power presented some importance. Nowadays the real utility of albumins is differently appreciated. The need of them seems to have been singularly exaggerated; first lowered to about 75 gr. by A. Gautier, it has dropped successively with Lapicque, Chittenden, Landergreen, Morchoisne and LabbÉ, by virtue of considerations both ethnological and physiological, to 50 grs., 30 grs. and even to 25 or 20 grammes. The “nutritive relation”—that is to say, the yield from albuminoid matters to the total nutritive matters of diet—is thus brought down from 1/3 its primitive value to 1/15 or 1/20 at most. It follows that the slight inferiority found in the digestive powers of vegetable albumin appears unimportant. It is sufficient to add 2 or 3 more grammes of albumin to a ration already superabundant of from 40 to 50 grammes of vegetable proteins to bring back a complete equilibrium in the use of vegetable and animal varieties. The theoretical inferiority of vegetable albumin thus almost completely disappears.

H. LabbÉ.

(To be continued.)

If your system has become clogged, go slow—and fast.