SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen):

Most relevant are lectures 7, 8, and 9, all entitled “Dietetics.”

Nichols begins Lecture VII with some general remarks on how appetite regulates the “materials” to the stomach when necessary, but that humans have “so long erred physically, mentally, and morally, that they can place little confidence in themselves” (108). Also, she argues that there is too much contemporary reliance on drugs and medicine to solve physical problems. Nichols finds that many people in her day, especially women, do nearly no exercise, and therefore have little appetite; instead of doing something physical to improve appetite, they rely on “tonics, spices, wine, and other stimuli,” which make digestion worse (111). Nichols explains in detail how digestive fluids and the overall digestive system work together best when not inundated with superfluous food (113-114).

We here see how Providence has adapted the food of man to the structure of man. But when we separate the purely nutritious parts of food from those parts the Creator has designed to be used with the nutritive, we do ourselves great injury. Magendie found that a dog fed at discretion on pure wheaten bread and water does not live beyond fifty days; while one fed on the coarse military bread seems in no respect to suffer (118).

Lecture VIII: explores the relation between human anatomy and proper food. “Various opinions have been entertained and advanced, by different physiologists, with regard to what was intended as the food of man. Some consider that his organization indicates that he should feed on vegetables alone. Others consider that a mixed diet is indicated by his organization. We know that life can be sustained on grain, fruits, or flesh” (121). “We have reason to believe, as I shall show hereafter, that the health of flesh-eaters is not as perfect as that of vegetable eaters, nor their lives as long” (121). However, she notes that it is perfectly possible to eat unhealthily on the Graham system: “Some people seem to think that they may neglect their habits, and eat anything and every thing, if they eat no flesh. ‘Why,’ say they, ‘I am very temperate. I live on the ‘Graham system’ I don’t eat any meat.’ It is vain, it is useless, and worse than useless, for people to leave animal food, and run into far greater abuses than the moderate use of plain, healthy flesh meat” (122). She immediately qualifies this claim: “I am far from pleasing for the use of animal food – by animal food I mean what has had animal life – but I would have people rational” (122). Quoting Dr. Cullen: “‘I am firmly persuaded that any man who early in life will enter upon the constant practice of bodily labor, and of abstinence from animal food, will be preserved entirely from disease’” (122). The greatest of the ill effects of eating meat is that it is overly stimulating (123).

In answer to the question, “What is Temperance?” she replies: “I answer, that I consider temperance is plain food in moderate quantities. A person may be strictly temperate, and yet eat animal food. But no person can, in my estimation, be considered temperate who indulges in large quantities of animal food, with the usual accompaniments of such food. It is surely a much greater waste of life to take animal than vegetable food, because animal food is more exciting, more stimulating; it increases vascular action” (126). Citing Dr. Hitchcock, Nichols argues that condiments and spices should be avoided, but that milk is healthy only for those who can take milk without digestive issues (127-128).

Nichols relates the story of Alexis St. Martin and Dr. William Beaumont. St. Martin (1802-1880) had stomach surgery following a near-fatal gunshot wound. Dr. Beaumont helped the man to recover but the wound never fully closed, and Dr. Beaumont had St. Martin sign a contract, ostensibly to become his servant, but Beaumont also conducted digestive experiments by dangling food on a string into St. Martin’s stomach and watching the digestive processes before retracting the food. Beaumont notes that when St. Martin would eat cooked meats, his stomach would “present diseased appearances of a formidable character” but St. Martin would not feel any pain (129).

Nichols’ advice for good health is similar  to contemporary vegan household manuals: “Let this sufferer take such a breakfast at six or seven o’clock (six is the best hour for summer, and seven for winter), and let her take nothing except good cold water into her stomach till noon; then let her take a plain dinner. She may eat boiled vegetables, pease or beans, but she must not eat ‘pork’ with these vegetables, for the oil is so difficult of digestion … Good bread is the main article, then boiled vegetables … Oh! the world is full of good things without eating the dead!” (131). The “sufferer” is advised to avoid coffee and tea, to exercise moderately, to rise early, to take daily baths, and to rub the skin well (131).

Lecture IX begins with the story of a family whose child had been sick nearly its entire life, who was allowed to eat whatever she wanted (because the family had not been told otherwise), and who was drugged continuously by the doctor to make her “well.” Nichols prescribed a daily warm bath and no oil in the girl’s diet and she improved in 3 weeks (135-136). Instead of taking pills and “quack medicines,” Nichols advocates for a change in diet (137, 138): “Many people seem to have no idea that they lay themselves open to disease, and invite it by a rich, stimulating, and oily diet” (139). Nichols argues that she has seen two children – one raised on a rich, stimulating diet, the other “had been kept in a good degree of temperance” – struck down with scarlet fever. The intemperate child died while the other never missed a day outside, playing (139). To cure scarlet fever, Nichols says that one only needs “abstinence from food, pure air, cleanliness, and bathing” (139-140).

She argues that meat is as stimulating, and in the same way, as alcohol (141). “A vegetable aliment, I am satisfied from experience, from observing the testimony of the great and good in different ages, is far better suited to sustain man in health, and enable him to be fully what he was intended to be, than animal food or a mixed diet” (142). As evidence, she points to Dr. Charles Lambe, an English physician who lived for 40 years on a vegetable diet (142), the Bible Christians of Philadelphia (142-143), Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, and Pythagorus who followed the vegetable diet (143). Nichols believes that a vegetable diet is suitable, if nothing else, for those suffering from tuberculosis (consumption) (143). She stresses the moral argument, that killing animals to eat them will “blunt the fine feelings of our natures” (144).