Human Science, or, Phrenology (1873)

AUTHOR: Fowler, Orson Squire

This compendium explains the principles, practices, and vocabulary of phrenology. In doing so, Fowler also touches on the importance of nutrition and diet, discussing the benefits and disadvantages of different kinds of food. Contrary to earlier publications, Fowler, while meticulously describing both the health-related and moral benefits of a veg*an diet, no longer promotes it. He now decidedly advocates for a mixed regime.

In the Preface to this 1200-page compendium, Fowler declares it a much needed “STANDARD WORK” on phrenology, that elucidates “its principles, classifies its facts, gives its history, and recent discoveries and improvements, embodies the gist of its previous writings, and is a repository of whatever is known concerning it” (3). The work is divided into six parts: I. The Organism, II. Health, III. The Animal Propensities and Selfish Sentiments, IV. Man's Moral Nature, V. Intellect, Memory, and Reason, and VI. A Right Life. Fowler makes clear that these sections contain revised versions of much of his earlier writings (8).

It is primarily in the section on “Health” that Fowler discusses the issues of diet and nutrition (335-626). The second chapter of this section is entirely devoted to “Food” (399-487), particularly questions about the kind of food that is best suited for humans, its proper preparation, how much to eat, how to eat properly, and the relations between food and both disease and morals. The third chapter on “Fluids” includes an extended discussion of the detrimental effects of alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco, and other “stimulants” (488-521). The volume treats such a diverse range of issues such as prayer, education, octagon house architecture, the water cure, sexuality, the senses, violence, and perspiration, so the question of diet and food is addressed intermittently throughout.

In the Introduction to the volume, Fowler declares health “man's highest good” and its preservation the “first prerequisite of all workmen, money-makers, scholars, Christians, philanthropists, even voluptuaries, and all in all conditions,” simply because “impairing or improving it promotes or impedes every single end and pleasure of life” (13). As they are central components in “obtaining and maintaining perfect health” (13), diet and nutrition also assume a central role in (the good) life in general. Generally, Fowler warns of eating too much, and of eating food that is too stimulating. But he also notes that “human teeth were not made to eat meat. What proof can more conclusively attest anything, than this establishes the natural diet of man to be herbivorous? Nearly every sound physiologist has been impelled to this conclusion by this dental, and other kindred arguments” (421). The same holds of the “alimentary canal” (421). These two facts alone “prove that the dietetic character of man is mainly vegetable” (422). Fowler rehearses the sustainability argument in favor of veg*ism: since nature “can sustain ten times as many exclusively vegetable eaters as exclusively flesh-eaters, therefore a mainly flesh diet is in opposition to Nature's general economy” (422). Ultimately, however, Fowler argues in favor of a “mixed diet,” with “some meat, but not much” as well as “products of the dairy, poultry and eggs,”  and he also recommends fish (423). This is a notable deviation from his earlier writings, which  unambiguously advocated for veg*ism.

Fowler still believes that plant-based foods, particularly grains and fruits, are the most palatable (423). They are much more economical as they “can be raised far more easily and cheaply than meat” (426). What also speaks against meat is that, in contrast to a vegetable diet, it “stimulates animal propensity” (427). In other words, “a flesh diet is constitutionally promotive of ferocity, and a vegetable of docility” (428). Similarly, he believes that the “savage disposition” of Native Americans comes from living “mostly on meat” (428). “Hindoos,” the “Chinese” and “Japanese,” in contrast, compare favorably due to their predominantly plant-based eating habits. Because “meat animalizes and depraves” (431) it is also detrimental to morality. This is particularly true in the context of the slaughterhouse:

ACTIVE KINDNESS shudders to see calves, sheep, and fowls, tied by their feet, and tumbled together into carts, on top of each other, banged about as if only boxes, kept for days without food, and, after all this living death, hung up by their hind legs in excruciating torture, their veins punctured, faint from loss of blood, struggling for life, yet enduring all the agonies of a lingering death for hours; meanwhile pelted, so as to render their meat white and tender, every blow extorting a horrible groan, till tardy death finally ends their sufferings! (431)

The slaughterhouse is “a perfect outrage on every feeling of humanity” (431). For Fowler, one option to counteract the' rampant immorality of humans is “to feed them more on a vegetable diet” (432). But more does not mean exclusively: At this point in his life, Fowler promotes moderation, but not abstention with respect to eating meat.

He recounts his own experiences with veg*ism, crediting Asenath Nicholson with convincing him to live a meatless life in 1835. He reports that he took up eating meat regularly again in 1855 and has been living on a mixed diet ever since (436). This is because he believes that “as a general thing, vegetarians become extremely irritable, and often die suddenly” (436): he cites the premature deaths of Sylvester Graham and Joel Shew, and Russell Thacher Trall's alleged irritability and nervousness  as notable examples. Fowler thus “frankly admit[s] an error” regarding his earlier conviction, as he puts it (438).

 

Last updated on September 6th, 2024

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