I propose more particularly to investigate:
I.—The profession and practice of Vegetarians in regard to the consumption of animal products, i.e., milk with butter and cheese; eggs, honey.
II.—The profession of a Greek and a Roman—Pythagoras and Musonius—to whom no one denies the name Vegetarians.
III.—The physical distinction between flesh and animal products, as attested by the low or antiphlogistic regimen of the medical faculty.
IV.—The moral distinction between the same, as attested by church rules of fasting.
V.—The origin and meaning of the word Vegetarian, considered philologically.
Before adducing my authorities, I cite the string of Sir Henry Thompson's censure (p. 780):—
As happens in nineteen cases out of twenty,[1] my young and blooming Vegetarian replied that she took an egg and milk in quantity, besides butter, not only at breakfast, but again in the form of pastry, fritter, or cake, &c., to say nothing of cheese at each of the two subsequent meals of the day—animal food, it is unnecessary to say, of a choice, and some of it in a concentrated form. To call a person thus fed a Vegetarian is a palpable error; to proclaim oneself so almost requires a stronger term to denote the departure from accuracy involved. Yet so attractive to some possessing a moral sense not too punctilious is the small distinction attained by becoming sectarian and partisans of a quasi novel and somewhat questioned doctrine, that an equivocal position is accepted in order to retain, if possible, the term Vegetarian as the ensign of a party, the members of which consume abundantly strong animal food, abjuring it only in its grosser forms of flesh and fish. And hence it happens, as I have lately learned, that milk, butter, eggs, and cheese, are now designated in the language of Vegetarianism by the term animal products, an ingenious but evasive expedient to avoid the necessity for speaking of them as animal food!
If Sir Henry Thompson had ever glanced at the title-page of the Dietetic Reformer, he would have learnt that the aim of the Vegetarian Society is "to induce habits of abstinence from the Flesh of Animals (fish, flesh, fowl) as Food."
If he thinks by a change of name to shield us from cavil, I refer him to a master of English, writing near thirty years before the prevalence of the word Vegetarian:—
- ↑ These statistics are evolved out of the inner consciousness of our "irresponsible, indolent reviewer." I, for one, have not been examined as to my consumption of milk and eggs by Sir H. Thompson, or on his behalf. We resign ourselves to being unknown even to the most eminent of doctors. Who would aspire to be known to the police?
