PREFACE.
THIS booklet is not intended as an exhaustive treatise upon the subject with which it deals, but rather as a popular summary of a question which has been prominently before the people for more than half a century, and which is now being more generally discussed and with greater interest by the intelligent public than at any other period in recent times.
The question of the non-use of flesh food as an article of diet is not a new one, however, but is a question which has before been most earnestly discussed, as is evidenced by the steadfast enthusiasm of millions of non-flesh-eating Buddhists of India, China, and Japan during more than three thousand years.
The question of diet is just at the present time receiving more attention than ever, not only in scientific discussion by physicians, but by inquiries on the part of the general public, thousands of whom are learning by dearly
bought experience the truth of the old German adage, "As a man eateth, so is he." Within the last ten years, especially, there has been an increased interest in that articular phase of the diet question which is considered in this little work. It is this interest and the numerous inquiries growing out of it that have led the writer to present in this form a sort of epitome of facts and observations relating to this subject which he has gathered during nearly thirty-five years' practical observation in his own individual experience, and for the last twenty-five years as a practitioner with more than usually wide opportunities for the study of dietetic habits and their
relation to health and disease.
