The humane and the Æsthetic aspects of vegetarianism are constantly described by the advocates of flesh-eating as "sentimental," and if it be sentimental to have regard for the sufferings of animals and the beauty of our own surroundings, the charge will be gladly admitted; but there is also, independent of all considerations of humanity, a distinctly hygienic movement towards the disuse of flesh food, on the ground that such diet is not only barbarous but unwholesome. It is held that flesh food is in itself a stimulant, and that incidentally it is very liable to transmit disease, while vegetarianism, on the contrary, is a simple, natural, less inflammatory diet, which from the earliest times has been known and practised by a few wise persons as containing the secret of health. In Germany, especially, the system of "natural living" has attracted much attention, and the propaganda of food reform is there mainly on those lines; in England less so, but here, too, there are a number of vegetarians who are hygienists first and humanitarians afterwards, and all humanitarians are to some extent hygienists, so that it is ridiculous, in any serious criticism of vegetarianism, to leave out of sight, as some of our opponents do, this essential part of the system.

There is, in fact, a considerable scientific literature on the subject, a train of thought and experience handed down from Cornaro and Gassendi, through their successors Cheyne, Hartley, Lambe, Abernethy, and others, to such modern authorities as Sir Benjamin Richardson and Dr. Alexander Haig; yet so little known is this testimony that it might be imagined, from the nervous apprehension with which the abandonment of flesh flood is regarded, that vegetarianism were some new and hazardous experiment, whereon he who enters carries his life in his hands. This ignorance of the long-standing claims of vegetarianism to a scientific basis is the result of the indifference and prejudice that have always made dietetics the most unpopular of studies, those who are in health not caring to give more than a passing thought to the hygienic quality of their food, while those who are sick are naturally suspicious of change or over-ruled by medical advisers.

Yet the moment impartial inquiry is made into the comparative benefits and perils of the two modes of living, certain undeniable facts begin to appear, of which the first and most obvious, though not the most important, perhaps, are the incidental dangers of flesh-eating. Many, indeed, and unsuspected by the ordinary man who takes a "good meat dinner," are the ills that flesh is heir to, especially in the diet of the poor; for, as Professor F. W. Newman pointed out, "where the population is dense, the poorer classes, if they eat flesh-meat at all, are sure to get a sensible portion of their supply in an unwholesome state." This assertion is no mere piece of vegetarian polemics; it rests on the authority of more than one Royal Commission, the latest of which has insisted, in the Tuberculosis Report of 1898, that "so long as private slaughter-houses are permitted to exist, so long must inspection be carried out under conditions incompatible with efficiency." There is, in fact, no genuine inspection of the meat killed in private slaughter-houses, nor is the case (at present) much better in public ones, and it is notorious that a large amount of tuberculous flesh, examined and rejected under their more careful scrutiny by the Jews, is thought good enough to be sold for the use of the "Gentiles." It would be easy to quote official figures to show the prevalence of the mischief, but it is not necessary here to do so, because the facts are not denied.^[22] The cause of the disease thus prevalent among cattle must be sought partly in the excessive demand for flesh food, and the consequent high price of meat, which is a great temptation to graziers to breed from immature stock; partly, too, in the unhealthy system of stall-feeding and cramming, and last, but not least, in the rough treatment to which animals are exposed during their transit by sea and rail—an evil which is recognised by butchers no less than by humanitarians.

Moreover, in addition to the dangers which flesh-eaters incur of diseases contagious and parasitic, there is the risk of eating decomposed meat under the title of "table delicacies." Here, as one instance out of many, is an extract from a London daily paper.

Some exemplary fines were inflicted when summonses connected with the seizure of 13 tons of rotten pigs' livers came on for hearing. A company promoter, trading as manufacturer of table delicacies, was fined £100, including costs, for the possession of forty-four barrels of the livers, which were deposited for the purpose of being converted into human food in the shape of meat-extracts, soups, and other table delicacies. The magistrate characterised the condemned goods as "absolute filth."

The bearing of such facts on the public health is obvious. "The shocking revelations," it has been said, "as to the potted meat trade of London, clearly give us the key-note to the terrible weekly statistics of fevers and other diseases in the poorer districts of London and big towns generally. Putrid sheep's hearts—putrid meat of unknown origin—anything from horse to pug dog—slimy livers, reeking lights that would poison even a Fleet Street cat, and moribund hams from diseased pigs are the foundation of our table delicacies. Ugh! it is enough to make a man forswear anything 'potted' for ever."^[23]

But, though these and similar facts are indisputable, and though so great an authority as Sir B. W. Richardson has stated that, "in respect to the propagation of disease, it seems just to declare that the danger is much less and much more easily preventable on the vegetarian than on the animal diet," the flesh-eaters, strong or weak as they may happen to be, even to the sickliest valetudinarian that ever sipped his Liebig, are much more afraid of being infected with vegetarian principles than with the poisons of the murdered ox, and would venture on every drug in the Pharmacopoeia rather than on a pure and simple diet. Yet more than a hundred and fifty years ago so eminent a physician as Dr. George Cheyne, then in a hale old age, had written as follows:

"My regimen at present is milk, with tea, coffee, bread-and-butter, mild cheese, salads, fruits and seeds of all kinds, with tender roots (as potatoes, turnips, carrots), and, in short, everything that has not life, dressed or not, as I like, in which there is as much or a greater variety than in animal foods, so that the stomach need never be cloyed. I drink no wine nor any fermented liquors, and am rarely dry, most of my food being liquid, moist, or juicy. Only after dinner I drink either coffee or green tea, but seldom both in the same day, and sometimes a glass of soft small cider. The thinner my diet, the easier, more cheerful and lightsome I find myself; my sleep is also the sounder, though perhaps somewhat shorter than formerly under my full animal diet; but, then, I am more alive than ever I was."^[24]

The close connection of vegetarianism with temperance, simplicity, and general hardihood has been discovered by many thousands of persons since Dr. Cheyne recorded it, and has had its latest illustration in the doings of vegetarian athletes, whose remarkable achievements in cycling matches and long-distance walks have shown once more that flesh-eating is not by any means a necessary condition of physical prowess. It cannot be mere accident that vegetarians are almost invariably abstainers from alcohol and tobacco, that, man for man, they eat more sparingly, dress more lightly, live more naturally, and work harder than flesh-eaters, and are far less subject to illnesses and ailments. It is notorious that in quite a number of diseases, especially those of the gouty class, a vegetarian diet is prescribed by medical men, who use for cure what they scorn to use for prevention. In the works of Dr. Alexander Haig,^[25] the most distinguished recent exponent of reformed diet, a close study has been made of the comparative wholesomeness and unwholesomeness of vegetable and animal foods, and to these writings, together with those of the other authorities above-mentioned, I would refer any of my readers who may be under the idea that vegetarianism has no medical support. The doctors, of course, or those of them who study the history of their own profession, are well aware of the hollowness of this common superstition, but they still continue to let an ignorant public fondly hug the belief that vegetarianism is a mere "fad," a mushroom growth born of the follies and sentimentalities of a decadent and hypercivilised age.

It is impossible in the limit of these pages, which are concerned with the logical, not the medical view of vegetarianism, to discuss with any fulness the argument based on hygiene; but it may be stated as a matter, not of opinion, but of knowledge, that quite apart from all humane bias, there is a strong case for the reformed regimen on the ground of its healthfulness alone, and that a scientific statement of this case may be found, by those who care to become acquainted with the facts, in the published writings of a small, but not inconsiderable succession of medical authorities. Humanity and hygiene are the twin deities of food reform, and their paths, though separate for the time, converge eventually to the same vegetarian goal.