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時間過得快，二十多年的素食生涯很快就過去了，每日三餐都吃得津津有味，當然也要感謝太太，每天有煮三餐。這段期間我減少殺害了太多的生靈，心境也平靜很多。日子由灰暗變彩色，也才漸漸體會出甚麼才是真正真善美的人生。
佛家常說淨土，淨土那兒找。我認為當下不吃肉，臭皮囊變淨土。當下不抽煙、不喝酒、不吸毒、不吃五葷，智慧頓大開，臭皮囊變淨土．．．。
蓋心淨則佛土淨。欲得心淨者，必先淨身、還要淨口及淨意。淨身者不食眾生肉為入門，即不殺生為首要、次不偷盜及不邪淫，守身如玉；再者，口不造惡業－不妄言、不綺語、不兩舌、不惡口。因為有時你輕輕一句話會重重傷害他人的心，不好的話說出口，也是一種的殺。俗云口蜜腹劍，殺人不見血，小心講出口的每一句話的後果。淨意者，不慳貪、不嗔恚、不愚癡，這些不好的惡種子，要依真理自我淨化鏟除，別人幫不了忙的。可知改吃素食不吃肉多重要，才是步向真善美人生之入門而已。
記得當我還是葷食時，我們常由傳統市場買回豬、牛、羊、雞、鴨等肉或其內臟，回家烹煮，豬大骨、排骨配中藥以熬湯；偶而也買活生生的吳郭魚、泥鰍、鰻魚、青蛙、明蝦等，回家處理。常常弄得滿手血腥，廚房器具處處油膩不堪，肉味魚腥洋溢每個房間，還以為這是最享受、最健康、最幸福的人生。現在想起來，那是最大的愚癡，佛家說造業如山，一點都不假。我們都有家，我們都愛自己的家及自己的身體，我們都沒有權力去吃誰的家人。
看到很多最文明富有的國家，反而殺害生靈吃肉最多，消費量最大，實在可悲。例如日本捕殺鯨魚很出名、加拿大捕殺海豚也很出名，個人覺得很不可思議，還有寶島最近新聞報導有長期大量殺狗的人．．．等，這麼可愛的動物，怎麼人類下得了手殺害它們以圖利。人類科技文明越進步，道德卻是大退步。尤其先進國家的人，其聰明才華一流，良心卻不知那兒去了。說來話長，長話短說，不說也罷！
自從改吃素食以後，我的身體也逐漸有起色改善，如今胃口一直都很好，甚至比一般年青人食量還大，而且怎麼吃也吃不胖，太有口福了。
正因為自己親身經歷吃葷吃肉食與改吃素食的兩個世界之體驗，心得與感觸實在太多，也常深深覺得全人類目前之處境與面對，如土石流、洪水、天氣反常酷熱酷寒籠罩全世界，看到這些天垂之象，人人要儘速自我覺醒以自救，馬上停止或大大降低屠殺生靈之暴行，一起來學習不吃肉，該是最有效的方法。
我想，如果一個身體還健康，事業正輝煌騰達，天天需要應酬享樂者，叫他們突然放下口腹之享受，恐怕一下子有困難，但是您身體假如出現狀況，看醫生吃藥都沒改善的人，這時您可要儆醒自己，只還有一個生機、轉機，當下勇敢改吃素食將是最智慧的選擇。當您一個人改變得救，一家人就會改變得救。
我們都知道，奧雲柏列博士美籍，醫學深湛，飲譽全球。素食五十年，深知素食不特促進健康，駐延壽命；且因肉食而引起一切惡毒難治之病，亦可由此避免。正因素食之故，對於吾人工作效率，顯然增進；而治業方面，退休年齡，亦因之不至過早矣。
柏列博士提倡吃素食之出發點，純以人類健康為前提。彼鑒於世人對於吃素食之營養價值，或有未詳，或者忽視，因此唯肉是求；而對於肉類危害之處，未予注意，此適與養生之理背道而馳；於是提出吃素食價值，以其實效示人。他憑其數十年來臨床經驗，暨探討病源所在，並以其五十年來素食研究所得，復綜合當今著名營養學專家之素食評論，著述此文。故其提倡素食之結論，真知灼見為前人所未道；該文對世界人類健康問題，實為一極大貢獻。
茲將其中英全文轉載於下，感謝翻譯者與原作者真是功德無量：
醫學博士為什麼要素食 奧雲柏列博士等著
一個素食者在你心目中，是有怪癖之人，還是聰明之人呢？或者是一位善人，不忍吃弱者的肉！
我的母親告訴我：在我幼小的時候，人家把肉類放入我的口裏，我就立刻吐出來。當時她有一種見解，以為食肉可以幫助我的發育——許多母親都是如此想法——因此，她設法使我養成歡喜食肉的習慣；但是這五十年來，我總是素食，所有禽獸魚肉等類，概不沾口，以免口中有腥臊氣。
在我執行醫生業務時，我必對病人說出他患病的原由和怎麼樣來醫治，並且要他們如何如何的合作，這樣他們就會安心去做了。我想許多人做事也是如此。現在我將自己所以成為素食者的理由和讀者談一談；我相信諸位一經明白素食的道理，必定像我一樣歡喜素食的，務請實習才可得利益。
素食可以延長壽命，這是我素食第一個理由。因為現今世界正是多事之年，我很希望我能活得長壽，可以親眼見到將來的日子；雖然我現在已屆古稀之年，但我願多活一天，我就可以替病人多服務一天。我這種觀念，你認為老者是人間寶嗎？
有些病人與我同年齡的，多數早已退休了，這班病人所以早退休的原因，就是不懂得養生之道；一旦覺得精力不夠時，就不得不早退休了。因此，我很想告訴他們這個養生方法，增進他們的健康，就不會有過早退休這一回事，豈不快樂。
我對於養生之道的闡發是根據科學研究，加上我幾十年來臨床經驗，深信一定無誤。假使我以前一向是食肉的話，到今天要想繼續我的醫務，一定不可能；因為一個醫生要思想清楚、體力耐勞、神經健全才可以勝任愉快，沒有健康能做什麼？
肉食很容易引起「疲倦」及「促進衰老」兩種病態，此種衰老的狀態，因人而異。上週我去一間旅館檢查十個人的體格，有一人年約四十，其餘皆五十歲左右，他們同在一福利機關任事，皆因身體衰老而不堪任職！以彼之年未老先衰，無疑地，好吃煙酒是其中一個原因，但食肉的影響也很大，這點是不容忽視的。誰忽視就是自殘害！
身體是由千千萬萬細胞所構成，每個細胞都有吸收營養物、氧氣與排洩廢物的功能；如果這種機能遭受傷害，細胞就會退化衰弱，同時靠著細胞所構造的各種器官，亦會隨之退化衰弱。
一九一二年諾貝爾獎金得獎人——亞力士卡理羅博士（Dr. Alexis Carrel）早已認識到：如要檢驗體內細胞各器官是否衰老，只須查驗細胞供給營養與排洩廢物的功能，就可了然。於是他把一片雞肝浸在有營養的液體裏，該液體是可以供給營養又可以排除廢物的，卡博士做此試驗的目的，是企圖將雞肝的生命延長多些日子；果然他獲得很大的成功，該物由一九一三年起，一直保持至一九四七年，共三十四年之久，絲毫不壞。那時卡博士業已逝世，後該物竟被人丟棄於溝中，遂成腐朽；其實該物若不丟棄，它的生命尚可延長更多時日。蓋生命的長短，全賴細胞的功用如何而定，這個道理卡博士早已給我們證實了！所以我們如果常常把細胞的廢物排去，又將細胞的營養補充無缺，我們的壽命就可以達到很長的年齡。反過來說，如果細胞裏的液體常是充滿廢物，壽命當然減短！你怕嗎？
讓我們在歷史中找一點證明吧！洪水之前十代，人民平均壽命是九百一十二歲；洪水之後，人們開始肉食；十代以後，人民的壽命平均只有三百一十七歲。現在呢？最高壽不過百歲而已。
我們有一個很普通的觀念，以為今日要做一件辛苦的工作、要耐勞的，非食大塊牛排不可。我現在略舉數事證明這個思想是錯誤的：
數年前耶魯大學教授——歐文菲沙博士（ Dr. Irving Fisher ）指出，素食的新運動員與校內精選的運動員對抗，雖然前者未經訓練，但其耐久力勝過後者兩倍有餘。這是事實證明，不為強辯。
在影壇上，綽號「人猿泰山」的約翰威斯慕拉（Johnney Weismuller ），是一個馳名世界的游泳冠軍，迭獲世界新紀錄五十六次，隨後五年，因年事稍長未能再創新紀錄。從此以後他開始奉行素食，有一次他參加一間療養院游泳池開幕典禮，這時他在新池表演身手，竟獲六個新紀錄的偉大成績；他之所以有此驚人之舉，是因他在練習時間戒絕肉食，所有食物都是他自己選擇營養豐富的蔬菜，所以他精力充沛遠勝昔日肉食的時候。
近年來，奧林匹克世運游泳冠軍——茂林羅斯（ Murray Rose ）也是素食的游泳家，不但泳術名震寰球，而其素食習慣亦為世所共知。羅氏自兩歲開始素食從未間斷，據體育界人言：「羅氏游泳不但速度驚人，耐力特強，而且每次比賽時最後關頭速度加倍。」羅氏具此體力，苟非素食何能致此！
如果我們知道食肉的危險！對於素食的利益就可更加清楚了：畜生活著的時候，自然會將體內的廢物排洩出來；但一經宰割，廢物就積存體內；所以在不知不覺中，人食其肉，就等於把畜類的廢物加入自己體內。尿酸是最明顯的肉類廢物，每磅牛排含有十四格蘭姆尿酸；細胞浸在廢物裏，新陳代謝的功能就會退化變成衰弱，使人感到疲倦，有未老先衰的病態。如此我們對飲食敢不注意嗎？
美國安亞波大學教授——紐柏博士（Dr. L. H. Newburg ），在一個試驗中指出：吃肉佔食品中百分之二十五的一隻老鼠，會比吃普通食品的老鼠生長得肥大活潑，但經過數月之後，牠的腎部會遭受很嚴重的損壞！聰明的人，不可學吃肉的老鼠吧？
畜類常患著如人類普通遭遇的疾病，這又是食肉一個很可怕的危險！我的女秘書對我說過一件事實：她的丈夫在一牛奶公司做管工，去年有四頭牛疑患白血病，其中一頭牛經獸醫檢查證實後，四小時內即斃命；當時該獸醫提議，即將患病未死之三隻牛送到市場宰殺出售其肉。以我所知，市場賤售的牛，都是不會生產牛奶的牛；若不售去，只有丟棄或留作肥料而已。又眼患癌病的牛仍然給人擠奶，直至眼盲為止。按政府規例，這些患癌疾的牛，身體別的地方尚未見到染著癌症的跡象時，得以在市場出售。若買到有癌症的肉，豈不是該倒楣！
從這些事實看來，無怪克羅博士有一次在素餐席上這樣說：「我們進素食時，無須顧慮所食的東西因何病而死，這是多麼快樂的事呢！」
畜類會患種種疾病，所以市場出售的肉類，也會帶著種種病菌！這點沒有人會比肉類檢查員知道得更清楚。最近有位朋友告訴我，他的妻子有一次赴宴會，她因素食只叫一盤蔬菜，座旁一位陌生男子，面前亦一盤蔬菜。這位男子問她道：「請問太太是素食家嗎？」婦人答道：「正是！先生亦是嗎？」那人回答：「不是，我是肉類檢查員，明白肉類或有病菌，因此不敢吃肉。」
談到家禽情形，也是非常可怕的！有次我應中央政府的邀請，搭飛機到密芝根州蘭生東部（East LansingMichegan ）視察一項計劃；此計劃是政府在二十一年前發動的，由二十五間省立大學代表一起研究如何防止雞瘟，因為這個問題非常嚴重，此病給予全國禽業很大的威脅。
據我所知：禽類所染的癌疾，最普通的是癌性腫瘤，還有一種是傳染癌病；凡染著這種癌病的家禽，在外表是看不出來的，並會活到很正常的壽命，牠隨時會將癌疾傳染給同類。對這一類患癌疾的家禽檢查很不容易；以雞來說，唯一的方法就是把可疑的雞所孵的蛋，在第十五天時，細心將蛋的外殼消毒，移去胚胎，磨成粉末，然後將少許粉末注射入另一隻雞的胸肌內，如果在注射的地方發現癌性腫瘤，才可知道孵生這蛋的雞，患有這種癌疾了。所以一般來說，檢查員很少會將每隻患病的家禽挑揀出來禁止售賣。大家在感恩節能夠買到一隻健康的火雞，實在是很幸運的！你有幸運嗎？
說到人食魚，有位內行人告誡我：「魚身有蟲不可食。」我將幾條魚一驗，果然不錯！當煎大比目魚時，細蟲成群蠕蠕而動，令人作嘔。
兔是很不清潔的動物，最易傳染疾病。幼時我常隨一位善獵的朋友打獵，每次他獵得野兔，在未售與顧客之前，我跟他將兔洗淨；這些兔週身都帶蟲，想找蟲較少的兔真不易得。有次我送一隻兔給鄰人，他謝我說：「你有這樣美味的東西不吃，口福損失不少啊！」我應他說：「我只知道我的肚裏不會有許多蟲！」
「不食肉」這個問題大家以為很難，其實很容易辦到，只要把穀類及硬殼果配合起來，便能製成味道很好的素菜，大可滿足那些愛好肉味的人。
現代的營養學權威——哈佛大學佛德烈史博士（Dr. Fredrick Stare）給我的信說道：「硬殼果、穀類、豆類、蔬菜等，營養豐富並不少於肉類，有此素食何復他求！」福音大學醫學院有一個食品試驗，證明上述的素食品營養充足，作為肉類的替代品，有過之而無不及。那應該要選植物為食了。
我用餐時常準備好幾種美味可口的素食，所以我從來沒想到要食肉。事實上，由於多年來在實驗室研究畜類的種種疾病，和臨床見到病人的疾病很多是因食肉而引起，使我素食的心更為堅決！深信終此餘生再不會葷食了。請讀者為我作見證。
約翰哈金醫科大學——麥柯林博士（Dr. E.V.McCollum），為當代營養學最高權威，他曾說過：「任何人願意廢去肉食，獲益甚大。」我非常同意麥柯林博士的意見，所以盡力提倡素食，減少人們的病苦，可惜一般人不聽話，受苦怪誰呢？
——本文摘自美國「人生與健康」雜誌
Why I Am A Vegetarian By Owens S. Parrett, M.D.
By Owen Parrett MD on Cleveland.IndyMedia.org
Is a person who does not eat meat peculiar or wise?
My mother told me that when I was a baby I refused to eat any kind of meat. She thought - as many mothers do - that I needed meat to make me grow, so she persisted in giving it to me until I acquired a liking for it. For the past fifty years I have chosen diet that does not include flesh, fish or fowl.
In my practice of medicine I have always told my patients the reason for what I asked them to do. I myself do not like to do anything without knowing why I am doing it, and most other people feel the same way. I am going to tell you why I am a vegetarian and why I believe you should be one to.
I love life and want to live as long as I can. These stirring and eventful days, and I want to know what is going to happen next. I have passed the Biblical three score years and ten, and am thankful to God that I still find the days too short for all I want to do. I still carry a full practice and like to dip into several outside activities, even if for only a few minutes a day.
Most of my patients at my age are retired, but I have no desire to retire so soon. I would rather spend the day helping the sick, many of whom have been forced to retire early because they lacked the knowledge I possess. I don't want to hold back this knowledge from anyone.
After studying scientifically and observing sickness and its causes through many years, I have the conviction that If I had eaten largely of flesh foods during my life, I would now be too decrepit to carry on the practice of medicine. A doctor must be able to think clearly and have endurance and nervous energy to spare.
Aging and fatigue are hastened by flesh foods. Ages is the wearing out of the body. The process varies in different people. Within the past week I paid a professional call on two men, one in his late forties and the other in his early fifties. Both were on country welfare, and they certainly look unable to work. Although young in years, they were both old. Tobacco and liquor had played a part, but the part meat played cannot be overlooked.
The cells of the body are little units. Each must take on nourishment, give off waste, and breathe oxygen. When something interferes with this process, the cells and the organs they make up deteriorate.
The late Dr. Alexis Carrel, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1912, recognized that the cell's efficiency in providing nutrition and eliminating waste was what determined the aging of tissue. He extended the life of a bit of chicken heart by bathing it in a nutritive fluid that also removed the waste. So successful was he that the bit of chicken heart was kept alive from 1913 to 1947. After 34 years it was thrown into a sink, where it died. Dr. Carrel proved that length of life depends largely on eliminating waste and adding nutrition to the cells.
If we could regularly remove all waste from our body cells apply adequate nutrition, we might easily reach great length of life. If the body fluid that bathes our cells is overloaded with waste, life is shortened.
The Bible indicates that for ten generations before the flood people lived an average of 912 years. After the Flood they began eating flesh. The life of the next ten generations was shortened to an average of 317 years.
A great many people think that if you are going to work hard and need a lot of endurance, you must eat a large beefsteak. The facts are the opposite.
Some years ago a well known Yale professor, Dr Irving Fisher, showed that when vegetarian rookie athletes were pitted against the best athletes of Yale, the untrained men had more than twice the endurance of meat-eating athletes.
Johnny Weissmuller, the Tarzan of the movies and world swimming champion, was invited to the dedication of a new swimming pool in the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Weissmuller had made 56 world records, but for five years had made no new ones. After several weeks on a well selected vegetarian diet, he was able to hang up six more world records in the swimming pool.
The vegetarian swimmer Murray Rose of Australia, world champion and a winner in the Olympic games, and his diet practice have become widely known. He has been a vegetarian since two years old. Not only does he swim fast but his ability to spurt ahead at the finish demonstrates that superior endurance accompanies fleshless diet.
Why should this be true? Meat contains waste products that the animal would have eliminated. A person who eats flesh loads himself with wastes of the meat. When these wastes reach the body cells, they bring on fatigue and aging.
Prominent among body waste products are urea and uric acid. Beefsteak contains about 14 grains of uric acid per pound. When steak is boiled, waste appears as a soluble extract in the form of beef tea, which closely resembles urine when analyzed. The uric acid accounts for the quick pickup a steak seems to give, much as a cup of coffee gives. Uric acid, or trioxypurin, closely resembles caffeine, or dioxypurin, both in chemical name and effect on the body. The solid meat takes several hours to digest, by which time the stimulant has worn off. A lowering of energy results.
The late Dr. L. H. Newburg, of the University of Michigan, called attention to the fact that when meat formed 25 percent of a rat's diet the rat became bigger and more active than rats on a normal diet. But after a few months the kidney's of the meat eating rat became badly damaged. Dairymen tell me that a high -protein diet for cows will bring up production of milk but will "burn them out" with eventually lowered production.
Another danger facing the meat eater is the disease in animals common to man. My secretary told me that the dairy where her husband is foreman had four cases of leukemia in one year among its 124 cows. One cow diagnosed as having leukemia died four hours after the veterinarian made the diagnosis. He suggested the cow be sent to the market, but she died before the truck that made regular trips through the dairies picking up nonproducing cows came along.
Many cows no longer able to produce milk are sent to the market, and the price paid for them indicates that they are not discarded or used for fertilizer. The wife of a foreman of a large ranch told me that they had a heifer with pneumonia. Fearing they might lose her, they quickly took her to the slaughterhouse and sold her for meat.
Gordon H Theilen, D.V.M., of the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine Agricultural Experiment Station, said, "We have found that this disease [leukemia in cattle] is seen more frequently on certain farms, and therefore it appears to be infectious or enzootic on these farms. The disease has doubled in incidence, as related by slaughterhouse condemnation reports over the past ten years, but what the real incidence may be is only problematical; however, I guess it will prove to be much higher as the disease is studied. It is easy for meat inspectors to identify the terminal clinical form, but the microscopic leukemic stage will be missed every time if there is no gross enlargement, since blood studies are not conducted before slaughter."
The rapid rise of leukemia in cattle is of special interest when you remember that blood cancer, or leukemia, is now a major disease among children in the United States. Perhaps we will soon require blood testing for leukemia in dairy herds.
Cows with eye cancer may kept until both eyes are blind, then they may be sold for meat if the head is cut off and there is no gross evidence of disease spread to other organs.
The late Dr. John Harvey Kellogg said when he sat down to a vegetarian dinner, "It is nice to eat a meal and not have to worry about what your food may have died from."
No one knows better than meat inspectors how much disease there is among animals slaughtered for food. A friend calling my office to sell audiometers (instruments to determine the degree of deafness) told me his wife attended a banquet and ordered a vegetable plate. At her side sat a stranger who also chose a vegetable plate.
The man said, "Pardon me, but are you a vegetarian?"
"Yes," she replied. "Are you?"
"No," he answered, "I am a meat inspector."
When I was a medical student we were give glass test tubes to be used for growing bacteria that cause human disease such as typhoid, staphylococci, and bubonic plague. The professor had us make up some beef tea, pour a little into each test tube, and place a cotton cork on top. We sterilized the tubes and inoculated them with these dangerous bacteria. The germs all thrived on beef tea. It was a perfect medium for them.
I read in my pediatrics text book by the distinguished Dr. Emmett L Holt of New York City that if two dogs were put on a leash and one fed water and the other beef tea, the dog getting water would live longer, for beef tea does not contain any nourishment whatsoever if the fat is skimmed off, but does contain urinary wastes, which would quickly poison the dog.
Meat is the most putrefactive of all foods. When it "spoils" in the intestines it can make the person more violently ill than any other kind of food. This fact helps us to understand why the members of some African tribes in native life seldom have appendicitis or cancer, for they seldom eat meat until they move into the cities, where these disease are frequent among them as among Europeans.
When it comes to poultry, we face an alarming situation. Recently I flew to East Lansing, Michigan, and spent a day visiting a special research project started more than twenty years ago by the Federal Government in collaboration with 25 state universities to try to control malignancy in chickens. The problem has become so serious that it threatens the poultry industry of the United States.
We have learned that cancer in fowl has several forms. Besides the usual form in which cancerous tumors are found, there is a carrier form in which a chicken may live out its natural life with no sign of cancer but at the same time be infecting other fowls.
This form of cancer is so difficult to detect that the only way the research men can finally determine whether a chicken has the disease is to incubate an egg from the suspected fowl for 14 days. The egg is then sterilized on the surface, carefully broken, and the embryo removed. From it the liver is taken, and a small portion injected into the breast muscle of another chicken. If a cancerous tumour develops at inoculation, it is known then and only that the hen that laid the egg has the disease.
There is small chance that an inspector will cull out every diseased fowl, and still less chance that dad will be able to pick a healthy bird for Thanksgiving. So widespread is the disease among chickens that one of the scientists studying the project, Dr. Eugene F Oakberg, wrote in a poultry journal:
"The conclusions drawn must consider the possibility that all chickens show the basic microscopic lesions of lymphomatosis. Poultry Science.
Since the virus, or germ, cause of cancer has now been quite well established, the possibility or even probability that in eating meat, fish, or fowl a person is going to eat some of them laden with malignancy virus poses a problem. Dr. Wendell Stanley, eminent virus scientist who received the Nobel prize for this work in 1957, has pretty well convinced the medical world at long last that, like all other granulomatous diseases, cancer is no exception and has a germ cause.
This agrees with a statement by Mrs Ellen White recently discovered by the Cornell biologist Dr Clive M McCay to have been written fifty years in advance of medical science, in which she says:
"People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculosis and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal disease are thus communicated." The Ministry of Healing, page 313
Because it is now know that leukemia is rapidly increasing among cattle and a cow may have the disease in her blood long before the appearance of tumors, I predict that erelong both milk cows and laws compelling this practice will be enacted as a public health measure to protect the consumers of milk and meat.
Once I was fishing in the cold waters of Yellowstone Lake. A man warned me not to eat the fish.
"They have worms in them," he said.
I examined several and found it to be true. When halibut is fried, worms often crawl out.
Each winter in Florida a friend takes us twenty miles out into the Gulf in a fast boat. On the last trip out, as we returned to the dock our captain picked up a fish, split it with a sharp knife held the thin section up to the light, and pointed out worms embedded in the flesh. Although with its fins and scales it is classed as edible, or clean, fish according to the Mosaic law, those worms certainly didn't look inviting.
On the desk in front of me is a clipping form a recent Lost Angeles Times entitled "Disease Causes Halt of Some Trout Imports." The article tells of California Fish and Game Department turning back six tank cars of rainbow trout fingerling that were shipped into California to stock our lakes and streams but were found to be infected with liver cancer. The article says:
"Great numbers of trout are imported into the state by private interests, who sell the fish to owners of private ponds?Fish and game experts are trying to find the cause of the disease."
Rabbits are susceptible to disease of many kinds. As a lad I had a friend who used to hunt rabbits and sell them. I often helped him clean them and noticed that nearly all cottontails were infested with tapeworm. One day I killed one and offered it to a neighbour, who remarked as he thanked me, "You don't know what you're missing."
I said, "I am missing a lot of tapeworms."
Since President Eisenhower had his heart attack, the medical world has discovered the relation between diet and diseases of the heart and blood vessels. Now we are told to avoid saturated fatty acids, found largely in animals fats, Recent discoveries brought to light the fact that rimming off the fat of meats will gain little advantage, for even of the lean meats we know 75 percent to be in the saturated-fatty-acid column.
Dr. Newburg of the University of Michigan, who was called to Washington as an expert on nutrition during the last war, told me that he was very critical of the diet of the American soldiers. He said they were being fed too much meat and too many calories. This diet, he said, tended to make them too heavy, and it hardened their arteries. Autopsies performed in Korea showed 75 percent of American soldiers had hardened arteries regardless of their age. Korean soldiers, on a simple diet of vegetables, cereals, and very little meat, showed essentially no hardening of the arteries.
Without meat, how can people get enough protein? W.C. Rose of the University of Illinois, an authority in the field of protein, says that "less than 23 grams a day is all one needs."
If a man were to eat meat, eggs, or milk he would still get on the average 83 grams of protein a day. A woman would get 61 grams a day. This fact was discovered by Dr. Mervyn Hardinge of the College of Medical Evangelists under Dr Fredrick J Stare of Harvard, well known authority on nutrition.
Dr. U.D. Registe, leading biochemist, and Dr Hardinge both active in the field of human nutrition, said to me that fruit alone, if amply supplied in sufficient variety, would provide people with enough protein to meet the actual body demand.
Probably neither scientist would recommend such a drastic program, but it serves to emphasize that the meat interests have oversold Americans on the high protein idea. It is well known that people may go for a number of days without protein, yet suffer no bad results.
Of course, a balanced diet is best, but the evidence goes to show that meat is an unnecessary factor in the eating program, and it may introduce substances tending to increase the chronic diseases, the degenerative diseases, the acute disease, and infections.
We have the example of a whole nation being forced by war onto a vegetarian program - Denmark during the first world war in 1918. Blockaded by sea and land, the nation was faced with a food shortage.
To fee a cow, kill the cow, and eat the meat meant a loss of 90 percent of the food fed the cow.
Dr. Hindehede, a notable authority on nutrition, was called to the emergency by the King of Denmark.
He put the nation on a meatless program for a year. Many thought it would be disastrous; instead, it established a world record for lowered death rate - 34 percent among the male population and nearly as much lowering among the female population, with a marked decrease in the illness rate. Eating meat the next year sent the death rate back to its prewar level.
Careful observation of the effects of meat eating on thousands of my patients for 45 years has led me to agree with the leading writer on health, Mrs. Ellen G White, who wrote in the book Medical Ministry, pages 266, 267.
"Meat is the greatest disease breeder that can be introduced into the human system."
For those who like the flavor of meat, some very tasty foods made from grains and nuts are available. Dr Stare of Harvard wrote me that a diet which included mixed grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes (peas, beans, soybeans, lentils) with some nuts was adequate when meat was left out.
Research carried out at the College of Medical Evangelists has demonstrated that a meatless diet can be adequate when it includes meat-like dishes made from nuts, grains, and vegetables. These vegetable "meat" dishes help to make the changeover to a non-flesh program easier.
I keep my table supplied with a variety of delicious foods, and the lack of meat never bothers my mind. After studying animal disease in the laboratory and observing the effect of a flesh diet on my patients these many years, I would find it difficult indeed to eat flesh again.
I quite agree with the leading nutritionist of John Hopkins University, Dr. E. V. McCollum who gave it as his opinion that anyone who chooses to eliminate flesh food from his diet is better off.
真理就是真理，經久不會變。奧雲柏列博士大力提倡之素食觀，如今更是盛行，普為人們所認同、共識。我相信不久的將來，素食是人類必走、唯一的路。感謝奧雲柏列博士及翻譯者的用心，真是功德無量。
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最後我們恭讀妙蓮老和尚法語開示，來作為本文之結語。
妙蓮老和尚法語：
人說命第一，我說身第一；身若不健康，命長苦痛多。
要想壽命長，健康為第一；實說身命康，素食最第一。
誰不想長命？肉食最大敵；誰不想命長？素食是秘方。
牛馬全素食，身高力壯大；為人群服務，不嫌工作苦。
若想身體好，素食最為寶；素食營養良，身心皆健康。
素食脂肪微，身肉不會肥；身肥不健康，素食精神爽。
肉食易疲勞，衰老苦病多；肉食有病菌，萬苦由此生。
虎狼食欲強，牛羊豬遭殃；奈何大人們，怎可學虎狼？
祝福大家在新的一年當中－國泰民安，風調雨順。
