Graham pointed out in reply that in America, where animal food is almost universally consumed in excess, and where children are trained to the use of it, even before they are weaned, scrofulous affections are exceedingly common, and lead to that fearful prevalence of pulmonary consumption, which has rendered that complaint emphatically the American Disease." In addition to this, Graham pointed to "well-fed vegetable-eating children of other countries in all periods of time" and to examples of "feeble and cachectic children, and even those who are born with a scrofulous diathesis," who had been "brought into vigorous health on a well ordered vegetable diet, under a correct general regimen" as proof that the "very best health can be preserved in childhood without the use of flesh-meat."

Graham was an educated man and the same can not be said of most physicians of the period. It were folly to say to a man who knew the history of Sparta, that health and strength cannot be built and maintained on a vegetable diet.

The people were not all fools and the colleges and universities were not then, as now, dominated by big business interests. The teaching profession gave strong support to the movement for diet reform. Professor Reubin Mussey of Dartmouth College openly advocated vegetarianism and invited Graham to address the students of Bowdoin College and also to speak in Hanover. Professor Edward Hitchcock delivered a series of lectures on diet and regimen in Amherst College and these were enthusiastically received by the students. Even the unexpected happened: The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, a conservative and established periodical, endorsed his cause in its issue of Oct. 21, 1835 and declared that Graham's introductory lecture in Boston would have reflected honor upon the first medical men in America. No doubt the Journal later repented of this serious breach of medical ethics, for its editors missed few opportunities to lampoon Graham, although accepting an occasional article from his pen.

The fear of the produce of garden and orchard lingered on for many years after Graham's work began. Indeed, the author recalls many stories of how water melons, cantaloupes, cucumbers and a few other fruits and vegetables cause malaria, which he heard when a boy.

During the cholera year of 1849 the Chicago Journal strongly condemned the city council of that city, for not prohibiting the sale of fruits and vegetables as had been done in other cities, since, as the Journal said, the "sad effects," of using such foods were "so apparent." The Democrat carried the story of two boys who ate freely of oranges and cocoanuts and then went to the circus. "In a short time one was a corpse and the other reduced to the last stage of cholera." Even as late as 1867 it was reported by the press that someone by merely passing a fruit stand laden with spoiled peaches had suffered an 'attack" of the gripes, a not impossible psychic reaction. But they reached the conclusion that "if bare proximity to those peaches caused him so much pain, the eating of them would have been certain death." Today we witness a similarly asinine procedure in the prohibition of the sale of raw milk in the cities.

Certain of the old physio-medical physicians condemned the eating of tomatoes because these contained calomel; lettuce was long said to contain opium; acid fruits were held responsible for rheumatism, arthritis and other "acid diseases." Apples were condemned by many physicians because they "derange digestion." I recall hearing one aged physician (this was over thirty years ago) telling of the evils of apples and say: "I would rather give my patients a dose of poison than to give them apples." He was daily dosing them with poisons, though withholding apples.

"Medicine" does not easily give up; it does not readily admit its mistakes. If Graham and his co-workers and successors had demonstrated that fruits and vegetables were not dangerous and they did not produce cholera and other "diseases," the profession of medicine would find other reasons for rejecting these foods and sticking to their meats and meat soups. They invented the idea that while these things may be pleasing to the sense of taste they have no food value.

As late as 1916 we find Dr. Richard C. Cabot of Harvard writing: "Lettuce for instance, is a food practically without value--nice and pleasant to look at, and valuable so far as it has dressing (made with oil). But the dressing is the only thing that has any food value." Also: "Tomatoes are ninety-four percent water; there is hardly any nutrition in them." These statements are typical of the medical view of fruits and vegetables in general.

In their efforts to discourage the eating of uncooked fruits and vegetables the regular profession pictured these as reeking with typhoid germs and the germs of other diseases. Cooking was necessary in order to destroy these germs. Lettuce, now shipped all over the country and eaten raw by everybody, was especially covered with hidden dangers in the form of disease germs. Not until the discovery of vitamins did the medical profession lose its fear of germs on vegetables and fruits sufficiently to enable it to sanction the use of uncooked foods. Even so, they never mention Graham, except to ridicule him.

But it was too late to stop the civilized world from eating fruits and vegetables. Graham and the other food reformers had done their work too well. The annual per capita consumption of plant foods was then, and still is, increasing. The medical profession still opposes vegetarianism and continues to insist upon the use of meat and meat soups, but they have lost on all fronts and have been forced to acknowledge the value of the fruits and vegetables, even if they do continue to ignore Graham.

When the discovery of vitamins was first announced, the physiologist, Professor Percy G. Styles, stated that the theory is a restatement of Graham's views. Professor Styles was probably duly penalized for this breach of scientific ethics; for, apparently, neither he nor anyone else has dared reaffirm such a scientific heresy. The medical and so-called scientific crowd have long since decreed that "nothing good can come out of Nazareth" and with derisive scorn they point to Graham, when they condescend to notice him at all, and ask: "is not this the carpenter's son?" It is agreed that no discovery is a discovery unless it is made by one of the boys in the inner circle of ''science." If they have not educated him; if he teaches not their doctrines; he is unworthy of a place in the Hall of Fame; or, is it the Hall of Infamy in which the "scientists" sit?

Graham made the "mistake" of offending the bakers, millers, brewers, distillers, saloon keepers, tobacco growers and sellers, butchers, packers, etc. There was no dairy industry then, but had there been one the members of this would have joined in the effort to mob him as they now join in the conspiracy of silence against him. Despite professional opposition and the opposition of the vested interests who saw their interests threatened, Graham's work prospered and grew. Soon he had many helpers, among them, Dr. Trall.