For example; I travel into a distant country, and observe the natives inflicted with endemic disorders; wisdom counsels me to quit that country, though my constitution has given no symptoms of disorder. I see also the effects of gluttony in my fellow-citizens, the vigor of whose youth resisted the poison of debauchery, and whose animal functions, unimpeded, gave them no alarm, but they are now dragging on life in all the misery of disease, to a premature caducity and death.

This miserable old age, which distinguishes the European from the Asiatic nations, whose age is but the decline of strength, or the sleep of apathy, ending in peaceful dissolution, excites my wonder and curiosity, and interest compels me to the investigation of this melancholy truth.

Upon a comparative view of the constitutions and climates, I find them reciprocally adapted, and offering no difference of good or evil. I then consider the aliment, and though upon a superficial observation, the difference might be supposed wisely adapted to the difference of climate; yet upon more critical investigation, I am disposed to believe the aliment of flesh and fermented liquors to be heterogeneous to the nature of man in every climate. [Distilled liquors are not even aliment.]

I have observed among nations, whose aliment is vegetables and water, that disease and medicine are equally unknown, while those, whose aliment is flesh and fermented liquor, are constantly afflicted with disease, and with medicine more dangerous than disease itself, and not only those guilty of excess, but others, who lead lives of temperance.

These observations show the great importance of the congeniality of aliment, on the discovery and continuance of which depends the inestimable blessing of health, or basis of well-being or happiness.

As my own discoveries in this important subject may be of some use to mankind, I shall relate the state of my own health and aliment.

At a very early period I left my native climate, before

excess, debauchery, or diet had done the least injury to my body. I found many of my countrymen in the country of India, suffering under a variety of distempers; for though they had changed their country, they would by no means change their aliment; and to this ignorant obstinacy I attributed the cause of their disorders. To prove this by my own experience, I followed the diet of the natives, and found no change in my health, nor was I affected by the greatest contrariety of climate, to which I exposed myself more than any of my countrymen dared to do.

This led me to consider the nature of aliment upon the human body abstractedly.

Anatomy which discovers the nature and connection of the solids, or material organization of the human body, can give no adequate knowledge of the fluids, or matter in circulation; for these recede from, and are changed or destroyed by all chirurgical operations.

These can only be discovered in our own living bodies, not their cause or nature, but their effect, either latent or manifested in the change or disorder of the functions of life, or the excrement of the body. The ducts or ves> sels which convey the circulation of the fluids, are certainly affected by the quality of the latter, as the banks of a river are broken down or preserved by the regularity of the current.

As I possess from care and nature a perfectly sound constitution, my body may serve as an example which may generalize the affect of aliment upon most other bodies.

I observed in travelling, if my body was wet, and must continue any time in that state, I ab stained from all nourishment till it was dry, and always escaped the usual disorders of cold, rheumatism, and fever. When I was in the frigid zone, I lived upon a nutricious aliment, and eat much butter with beans, peas, and other pulse. In the torrid zone I diminished the nutritious quality of my food, and eat but little butter, and even then found it necessary to eat spices to absorb the humours, whose

redundancy are caused by heat, and are noxious in hot climates. In cold climates Nature seems to demand that redundancy, as necessary to strength and health.

The above is an account of the circulation of the fluids in a healthy body. In proportion as bodies have the least duct or vessel foul from morbid habits and peccant humours, they cannot follow the above example; but still it is in the power of wisdom and observation to form a congenial diet, that may be sufficient, though not to procure perfect health, yet may guard against painful sickness, or dangerous disorder; and Nature, treated with constant care, may possibly reform all the injured or befouled ducts and vessels, and return to a state of perfect health.

The present practice of mankind, both of the doctor and patient, proves how distant the mind is from the acme of its powers or intellectual existence.

The doctor applies his theoretic pharmacy, to every disease, as an ignorant bombadier does his mathematical calculations to every kind of gunpowder, by which means the former as rarely hits the point of remedy, as the latter the object of his projectile. Happy would it be for mankind, if their disappointment had the same result!

The doctor acquires the knowledge of his patient's constitution in a period of time that is measured by the drawing and opening of the purse to pay the fee, while the proverb allows the patient forty years to obtain it. The sagacious doctor comprehends the whole in two minutes, and the fee makes up the supplement of all necessary communication.

The study of the catholic remedy of Nature, aliment, infinite as it is in variety, is confined, by most doctors, to broth and boiled meat; and the prescription the most innocent, though ultimately letiferous is, "purges and vomits," which by opening the two doors of the fortress, force the enemy to a partial or momentary retreat, though the auxiliary troops have caused much devastation in their passage.

When drugs of latent operation are applied, all is uncertainty, except debility, premature caducity, and death. There may be some few instances where the ducts or vessels of the body are so foul, from disease brought on by excess, that Nature requires the assistance of art or efforts of medicine; but I believe these are as five to one hundred, and aliment [dieting] must be allowed to have this great advantage over medicine, that if it does not cure it does not kill.

I believe, if the question, "Whether medicine did more good or harm to mankind?" was put to a conscientious physician, he would determine against his own profession. [This actually has been done.]

Remediary aliment, as it requires great sagacity, attention and patience, is neglected, and medicine is preferred, as it favors the natural indolence and ignorance of mankind, and the moment the glorious sun of wisdom shall appear on the moral horizon, learned error, which forms the blackest clouds in the atmosphere, will be first dispelled, that simple ignorance may find its way with ease to the road of happiness and reason. The learned error of medicine poisons the body, as the learned error of morality does the mind, and when these shall give place to sympathy and wisdom, man will acquire the result of all his researches and labors, a sound mind in a sound body. He will also discover, that moral and physical motion have the same double force, centripetal and centrifugal, and that, as the celestial bodies are detained in tranquil orbits, by the diurnal motion upon their own axis, and their annual motion round the sun or systematic centre, so moral bodies conjoined with intellectualized minds, move upon the axis self, in the orbit of society, and the moment this discovery presents itself to human capacity, man will so regulate the centripetal and centrifugal force of self, as to preserve universal harmony in the Moral System of Nature.

Till the knowledge of self, corporeally and intellectually, is discovered, ethics, as well as physic will never procure either happiness or health to mankind; for if the

mind is averse to the close attention, through the medium of temperance, which procures a knowledge of the bedily functions, how infinitely more averse must it be to the more difficult attention through the medium of virtue, to procure a knowledge of the mental functions, or self.

Te present false systems of ethics and medicine ac cord in recommending their greatest enemies, ethics in dustry, and medicine physic.

Let us examine the present effects of industry among mankind. The English are by far the most industrious nation upon the globe; but what is the consequence? Nationally, they are the most powerful and the richest people. From calculation formed on an average of the whole, it would appear that every individual should wear upon his back the value of five days labor; inhabit a house, whose rent is equal to the daily value of four days labor; his daily food equal the value of three days labor; and these calculations are formed upon an average (remember,) of the whole; so that the support of each subject of England may, on the average, require twelve days labor. We will suppose his own superior industry to equal four days labor of a stranger, and his skill or product of his ingenuity is exported and procures him the value of eight days labor from foreign countries. What is ultimately its utility or effect upon his happiness? [under the existing system of property?]

The poor man upon whom the unequal division of labor falls, must be reduced thereby to a piece of mechanism, or mere animal state of existence. His life must be spent in the alternate occupations of toil and sleep, which must deprive his essence of all consciousness, and depress him to a very low state upon the scale of existence, even if bodily health should render him absent from pain, but sickness must render it miserable and deplorable.

Let us now inquire whether the misery of the poor promotes the happiness of the rich. The latter escape from bodily toil, which leaves them in such a vacuum of indolence, that the body loses all its vigor and health, the