the region of the stomach, for which he was obliged to take an active cathartic. For a few months before he adopted the vegetable system, he had decided symptoms of congestion in the head, such as precede apoplexy. I questioned him as to his appetite. He informed me, that when he ate meat he had such an unconquerable desire for food about eleven o'clock, that he could not wait till noon. This he calls "meat hunger," for it disappeared soon after he came to the present style of living. He has no craving now; but when he begins to eat, the zest is exquisite.

Yours,

Joshua Porter.

LETTER IV.—FROM DR. N. J. KNIGHT, OF TRURO.

Dated at Truro, October, 1837.

Dr. Alcott: Sir,—I hasten to comply so far with your request as to show my decided approbation of a fruit and farinaceous diet, both in health and sickness. The manner in which nutritious vegetables are presented to us for our consumption and support, evince to a demonstration the simplicity of our corporeal systems.[Pg 75] Through every medium of correct information, we learn that the most distinguished men, both in ancient and modern times, were pre-eminently distinguished for their abstemiousness, and the simplicity of their diet.

It was not, however, a consideration of this kind that first induced me to relinquish flesh meat and fish. Some three years previous to my forming a determination to subsist upon farinacea, I had been laboring under an aggravated case of dyspepsia; and about six months previous, also, an attack of acute rheumatism.

I was harassed with constant constipation of the bowels, and ejection of food after eating, together with occasional pain in the head.

Under all these circumstances, I came to this