"The authors have become convinced," says Professor Fisher, " that the vegetarian regime is for the most part a more rational one than the highly nitrogenous diet ordinarily prevailing in Western Europe and America. The authors quote, in behalf of their conclusions, the eminent French diet-ician, Armand Gautier, 'who without himself being a vegetarian, praises the good effects of the vegetarian regime.' The authors quote Gautier as follows:

"'The vegetarian regime, modified by the addition of milk, of fat, of butter, of eggs, has great advantages. It adds to the alkalinity of the blood, accelerates oxidation, diminishes organic wastes and toxins; it exposes one much less than the ordinary regime to skin maladies, to arthritis, to congestions of internal organs. This regime tends to make us pacific beings and not aggressive and violent. It is practical and rational.'

"The authors, while apparently classifying themselves as advocates of vegetarianism, admit that in certain cases it is necessary to prescribe meat as a 'medicament' - ' just as one prescribes sometimes alcohol and other poisons.' The authors also observe that the transition to a vegetarian diet should be gradual.

"The personal history is traced of forty-three vegetarians of Brussels. Among other interesting observations is the follow-ing:f

" 'For the most part the vegetarians appear younger than their age; notably the ladies are distinguished by their clear and fresh complexion.'

"The experiments conducted by Mlles. Ioteyko and Kipiani are restricted to vegetarians who have been such for several years. The experiments were, for the most part, comparisons of strength and endurance. So far as strength is concerned very little difference was discovered between vegetarians and 'carnivores.' In endurance, on the other hand, a very remarkable difference was found, the vegetarians surpassing the carnivores from 50 to 200 per cent., according to the method of measurement.

"This result agrees with the " (Professor Fisher's) "experiment on nine Yale students described in Science. These subjects, by dint of thorough mastication, gradually lost their taste for flesh foods. At the end of five months, while not becoming vegetarians, they had reduced their consumption of flesh foods to one-sixth of the amount to which they had originally been accustomed. Their strength remained practically station-ary, but their endurance, according to the gymnasium tests, was increased on an average by over 90 per cent.

"The authors compared the endurance of seventeen vegetarians, six men and eleven women, with that of twenty-five carnivores, students of the University of Brussels. Comparing the two sets of subjects on the basis of mechanical work, it is found that the vegetarians surpassed the carnivores on the average by 53 per cent. Comparing the two groups on the basis of the number of contractions - or, what amounts to the same thing, the length of time during which the ergograph could be continuously operated - it was found that the vegetarians could work on the ergograph two or three times as long as the carnivores before reaching the exhaustion point.

"This last result corresponds to conclusions of the present writer in an experiment in which forty-nine subjects, about half of whom were flesh-eaters and half flesh-abstainers, were compared. It was found that the flesh-abstainers had more endurance as measured by gymnasium tests than the flesh-eaters, to the extent of from two to three fold.

"The Brussels investigators found also that the vegetarians recuperated from fatigue far more quickly than the meat-eaters, a result also found in the Yale experiment.

"The authors conclude by advocating a vegetarian regime as a proper system for workingmen, and believe that its use would reduce the accidents on railways and in industry which come from over-fatigue, increase the productivity of labor, as well as have other economic benefits.

"These investigations, with those of Combe of Laussanne, Metchnikoff and Tis-sier of Paris, as well as Herter and others in the United States, seem gradually to be demonstrating that the fancied strength from meat is, like the fancied strength from alcohol, an illusion. The 'beef and ale of England' are largely sources of weakness, not strength. Whether in moderation they are harmful may still be a matter of conjecture. While the trend of recent experiments is distinctly against the excessive use of flesh foods, there are still needed many more experiments - medical, athletic, and industrial - before the economics of diet can be established on a secure basis."7

7 Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: "Diet and Endurance at Brussels," Science, N. S., vol xxvi, No. 669, pp. 561-563, October 95, 1907.

In another place, Professor Fisher concludes:

"The users of low-proteid and non-flesh dietaries have far greater endurance than those who are accustomed to the ordinary American diet. . . . It may be said that, whatever the explanation, there is strong evidence that a low-proteid non-flesh or nearly non-flesh dietary is conducive to endurance. • • •

"The question of the extent to which flesh foods can be used advantageously is still open, but there can now be little question, in view of the facts which have come to light during the last few years, that the ordinary consumption of those foods is excessive." 8

The endurance-giving qualities of a non-flesh dietary are, however, attributed by Miles, Ioteyko and Kipiani, not to its low proteid values, but to toxins present in animal tissue. The chemical processes that go on in the bodies of all living creatures generate substances which, in character and effect, are true poisons. These poisons serve their own good purposes in the bodily economy, and, in the healthy organism, are readily transformed into harmless substances or excreted. There is no moment in the life of a creature, however, when its tissues are wholly free from them. Therefore, when an animal is slaughtered for food and the chemical processes which would otherwise have disposed of its toxins are suddenly arrested, the poisons remain in the tissues and are devoured by the consumer along with the meat.

8 Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: "The Influence of Flesh-eating on Endurance," Tale Medical Journal, March, 1907.