56 ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE DIET, «fee.

ty, yet the quality of food merits a farther consideration. Thereare many ways by which provisions may be rendered unwhole-some. Bad seasons may either prevent the ripening of grain, ordamage it afterwards. These, indeed, are the acts of Providence,and we must submit to them; but surely no punishment can be toosevere for those who suffer provisions to spoil by hoarding them,on purpose to raise the price, or who promote their own interestby adulterating the necessaries of life.*

Animal as well as vegetable food may be rendered unwholesome, bybeing kept too long. All animal substances have a constant tendencyto putrefaction; and when that has proceeded too far, they notonly become offensive to the senses, but hurtful to health. Dis-eased animals, and such as die of themselves, ought never to beeaten.

Animals which feed grossly, as tame ducks, hogs, Sfc. arc neither soeasily digested, nor afford such wholesome nourishment as others. Noanimal can be wholesome which does not take sufficient exercise.Most of our stalled cattle are crammed with gross food, but notallowed exercise nor free air ; by which means they indeed growfat, but their juices, not being properly prepared or assimilated,remain crude, and occasion indigestions, gross humours, and op-pression of the spirits, in those who feed upon them.

Animals are often rendered unwholesome by being over-heated.Excessive heat causes a fever, exalts the animal salts, and mixesthe blood so intimately with the flesh, that it cannot be separated.For this reason, butchers should be severely punished who over-drive their cattle. No person would choose to eat the flesh of ananimal which had died in a high fever ; yet that is the case withall over-drove cattle ; and the fever is often raised even to thedegree of madness.

But this is not the only way by which batchers render meatunwholesome. The abominable custom of filling the cellularmembrane of animals with air, in order to make them appear fat,is every day practised. This not only spoils the meat, and rendersit unfit for keeping, but is such a dirty trick, that the very idea ofit is sufficient to disgust a person of any delicacy at every thingwhich comes from the shambles. Who can bear the thought ofeating meat which has been blown up with air from the lungs of adirty fellow, perhaps labouring under the very worst of diseases 1

Salted animal food. — No people in the world eat such quanti-ses of salted animal food as the English, which is one reason whythey are so generally tainted with the scurvy, and its numeroustrain of consequences, indigestion, low spirits, hypochondriacism,&c. Animal food was surely designed for man, and, with a propermixture of vegetables, it will be found the most wholesome; but togorge beef, mutton, pork, fish, and fowl, twice or thrice a-day, iscertainly too much. All who value health ought to be contentedwith making one meal of animal food in twenty-four hours, andthis ought to consist of one kind only.

* The poor, Indeed, are generally the first who suffer by unsound provisions • butthe lives of the labouring poor are of great importance to tile state : besides, diseasesoccasioned by unwholesome food often prove infectious, by which means they reachpeople in every station. It is, therefore, the interest of all to take care that no spoiledprovisions of any kind be exi 'iscd to sale.