Year: 1878

From an Appeal Correspondent.


ELKLAND, TIoGA Co., Pa, August
I9.-The members OF the Howard
Association who are doing so much
noble work at present among the
afflicted in Memphis should know
something of the character and hab


its of the celebrated philanthropist
whose name their association bears;
besides, in time like this, it will
be an incalculable benefit to those
who read it. He proved, beyond
doubt, that a simple diet of grains,
fruit and vegetables not alone pre-
serve health, but gives an immunity
from diseases of all kinds, no mat
ter how malignant nor how pesti-
lential the climate one may live in.
He probably was more exposed to
the influence of pestilential causes
than any other human that ever
lived. "In the period of sixteen
years." says his biographer, she
travelled between fifty and seventy
five thousand miles for the sole
purpose Of relieving the distresses
of the most wretched of the human
race. The fatigues, the dangers,
the privations he underwent or en-
countered for the good Of Others,
were such as no one else was ever
exposed to in such a cause, and
such as few could have endured.
He often travelled several nights
and days without stopping, over
roads almost impossible, in weather
the most inclement, with accommo.
dations the meanest and most
wretched. Summer and winter,
heat and cold, rain and snow, in all
their extremes, failed alike to stay
him for a moment in his course,
while plague and pestilence, and
famine, instead of being evils that
ne summed, were those with which
he was most familiar, and to many
Of their horrors he voluntarily ex-
posed himself, visiting the foulest
dungeons filled with malignant in


fection; spending forty days in
filthy and infected lazeretto; plung-
ing into military encampments,
when the plague was committing its
most horrid ravages, and visiting
where none of his conductors dared
to accompany him" Through all
this he subsisted entirely on most
rigidly abstemious vegetable diet,
carefully avoiding the use of wine
and ali other alcoholic drinks; and
such was the result of this mans
experience and observation, that
he earnestly advised all others who
we're exposed to the plague TO alb
stain entirely from the use of ami
NAL food. This II cannot be sup
posed he would have done had he not
been FULLY confident of the correct
ness of such advice, both from what
he had experienced in himself, and
from what he had seen in others.
And it must be remembered that
Howard's opportunity to test the
correctness of this opinion was mel
ther brief nor limited, but the
most extensive, varied and long
during ever experienced by any one
man; and such was the accuracy of
his observations, and the sound


ness of his judgement, that. al.
though not himself q physician, he
was more successful in treating the
plaugue than any of the physicians
whom he met. Howard's opinion
on such a Subject is, therefore, Of
the highest value. His biographer
further says: "The abstemious
diet which at an earlier period Of
his life he adopted from a regard to
his health, he afterward continued
and increased in its rigor from prin-
ciple and from choice, as well as
from a conviction of the great ad-
vantages which he derived from it. b"
And, after all his experience, near
the close Of his life he made the fol
lowing record in his diary: II am
fully persuaded. as to the health OF
our bodies, that herbs and fruits
will sustain nature in every respect
far beyond the best flesh" Such
was this noble mans experience,
and / trust that all who read it will
lay it TO heart and ponder well over
II j. s. MENKFN.