The more valid arguments concerning the use of meat as contrasted with the fleshless dietary regimen, are based upon the view that meat is unwholesome and that it contains waste products, which, because of their poisonous properties, tend to do damage to the body tissues. This view is upheld by experimental results. Professor Irving Fisher of Yale conducted extensive experiments with flesh abstainers and flesh eaters, and found the former possessed of much greater endurance than the latter. The tests involved holding the arms outstretched, knee bending, and exercises of similar nature. The flesh abstainers were three to six times as capable of endurance as were the flesh eaters (2). Similar results have been reported by Kellogg (3).

It would be unprofitable to review further the old debate concerning the relative merits of meat eating and meat abstinence. There was no evidence of a conclusive nature upon which the question could be decided. Those who were not convinced by the results of Fisher's endurance tests and those of others could argue that the vegetarians were enthusiastic exponents of a fad in order to defend which they exerted themselves to the utmost, whereas the meat eaters were not so determined to justify a practice which is all but universal, and which seems to them satisfactory. Hence they did not have the same psychological attitude toward the contest as did their antagonists. There were factors not then appreciated, which are of vital importance in the discussion of the vegetarian diet. These can best be made clear by describing certain experimental work which has a direct bearing on the subject.