The author thinks it proper to state that while he considers this question one of the most important in dietetics, it does not in his opinion overshadow all others; nor will the disuse of flesh, in his opinion, atone for dietetic errors, of other sorts. There are, without doubt, other faults in diet which produce more apparent and immediately harmful effects than are ordinarily observed in connection with the use of flesh food.
As this work is chiefly addressed to non-medical readers, the writer, while attempting to deal with the question in a thoroughly scientific way and to present only scientific facts, has sought to avoid such technicalities as seemed to him unnecessary, or likely to be confusing to the mind of the ordinary reader. He has sought to present plain, unvarnished facts without exaggeration, trusting to the power of simple truth to win its own recognition.
While not unconscious of the fact that in championing a cause which to-day is in little esteem because not in harmony with prevalent custom, and opposed to popular prejudices, the writer feels that his feet are planted
upon a truth which, as Sir John Herschel said of all truth, is capable of "enduring the test of universal experience," and which, when the false theories which now oppose it have crumbled into the sand of which they are
composed, will be found standing like a rock of adamant "among the wrecks of time."
