Consumption (1862)

AUTHOR: Jackson, James Caleb

KEYWORDS: disease, dress reform, food, health, morality, Temperance, veg*nism

SUMMARY (Aïcha Bouchelaghem & Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

While, as the title suggests, this book focuses on the prevention and treatment of consumption. It includes a range of recommendations for what Jackson considers healthy living, from Temperance to veganism to dress reform. His starting point is the diagnosis of the unhealthy status quo, which the book is meant to cure:

Where one drunkard is saved, a thousand die fools. Where one tobacco-chewer, snuff-taker, or opium-eater, abandons the habit, tens of thousands proclaim either their inability or their unwillingness to do so. Where one woman gives up tea, or one student his coffee, thousands yearly increase their indulgence to the day of death. Where one beef or pork eater gives up being carnivorous, and becomes simply human, thousands eat until their very souls become slaves to their desire for flesh (15).

While the contrast between “carnivorous” and “human” alludes to ethical values, in this text Jackson promotes veganism primarily for health reasons, emphasizing what makes animal food unhealthy and “[i]n the front rank among causes predisposing to consumption” (102):

Now, without entering very largely into a discussion of the question, whether, on the whole, our people would be healthier under a moderate daily use of the flesh of our domesticated animals, or under entire abstinence from it, I wish to impress upon the reader the liability to which any person is exposed who indulges in their use in such conditions as they generally are when prepared for food. There is as much difference between the flesh of an animal which is healthy and that of an animal which is unhealthy, as between the conditions of a person when in health and when out of health; and the conditions in which we place almost all the domesticated animals, before, in general opinion, they are considered fit to be killed and used for food, is as violative of their laws of health as the ways in which men generally live are violative of their laws of health. The flesh of the animals we eat is generally fattened flesh; that is, it consists of an accumulation of fibrous and adipose tissues in a quantity greater than that which can exist, and the animal remain in natural conditions. Where fatness takes place, adipose tissue increases in undue proportion to the muscular or fibrous tissue; and, where this exists, the flesh itself is not healthy (102-103).

Thus, veganism primarily a preventive measure: “To avoid the liability to eat diseased meat, and to have one's blood rendered impure by so doing, forms, to my mind, a full justification for abstinence from the use of flesh of any kind” (107). Generally, an unstimulating, simple diet results in a higher chance of controlling disease or “inflamed conditions”: “by abstinence from food, or by the use of food which is of an unstimulating nature, the disease is more readily brought within the range of the vital energies than it otherwise would be likely to be” (243).

Jackson also notes the bad effects of meat on the nervous and reproductive systems:

The truth is, that the habits of living of parents essentially determine the constitutional habits of their offspring; and the use of unhealthy foods, and particularly of flesh-meats, is one great provoking cause of the establishment of unhealthy conditions. In this direction, if in no other, the disuse of flesh-meats will be found of great importance; and were I at liberty, in my own mind, to use them habitually as food, I should most certainly abstain from them for a period so far anterior to the exercise of the sexual function with a view to propagation, as to relieve my blood and nervous system from any immediate connection with the influence which this kind of food might exercise upon them. I would as soon go into the act of begetting my kind under the direct and positive use of alcoholic stimulants, as I would if wrought up to sexual desire by the stimulating effects of beefsteak or swine's flesh; for in no way could I hope or expect to avoid the influence of such stimulants upon the constitutional conditions of the child that might call me its father (104).

Meat-eating leads to idisease, as is the case with consumption: “it is not only by the depravation of the blood of parents by animal food that predispositions to consumption are created in their children: it is quite as much through the effects produced, under its use, upon their nervous systems” (110).

For Jackson, meat is also problematic because, in contrast to fruits and vegetables, it can be difficult for the consumer to tell whether it is diseased: “The flesh of an animal may be in a very unhealthy state; and he who eats it, not know it, and not be able to know it: but the pulp of an apple or the fibre of a potato cannot be in an unhealthy condition, without the fact at once becoming readily apprehensible by any one who will take the trouble to examine” (106). Due to the practice of fattening, meat is diseased by default: “Now, take a man who eats habitually of the flesh of animals, making it a staple of his food: and when it is considered that the usual habit of fattening such animals, so as to have them what is called fit for food, is to deprive them in large measure of opportunities for following out their natural instincts for the preservation of their own health, and thus to induce morbid conditions of their bodies, actually making them diseased” (109). Jackson thus recommends a simple, unstimulating, “farinaceous and fruit diet” (164, 280, 359), both for those suffering from consumption and the general population.